Also 5 brout. [= M.Welsh brut, mod.W. brud, in the names of the Welsh chronicles of British history, as in the Brut Gruffudd ab Arthur of Geoffrey of Monmouth, Brut Tysilio, Brut y Tywysogion, etc. Salesbury, Dict. Eng. & Welsh (1547) has ‘Brut, Walshe prophecies’; Davies 1632, ‘Brud, brut, historia, chronica; sumitur et pro vaticinio.’ The Welsh Bible has (Dan. ii. 27) brudwyr ‘brut-men’ = soothsayers. Brut ‘chronicle’ was a transferred use of Brut = Brutus, as in Le Roman de Brut of Wace, and the Brut of Layamon, a chronicle or genealogy of the legendary Brutus and his descendants in Britain. Whether the transferred sense arose in Welsh, or was taken from a French title, as the Brut of Wace, or the later Petit Brut of Raoul de Bohon (c. 1350), is doubtful; but the latter is more likely. For the Brutus legend, see BRUTE2.]
A chronicle of British history from the mythical Brutus downward. (The ME. instance may refer to Wace, Layamon, or some Welsh Brut.)
c. 1450. Arth. & Merl. (Mätz.), 2740. So ich in the brout yfinde.
1845. Athenæum, 4 Jan., 9. A Greek version of our brute-epos.
1847. Yeowell, Anc. Brit. Church, Pref. 7. The only other remains still extant of Ancient Welsh literature consist of Bruts, or Chronicles.
1883. H. M. Kennedy, trans. Ten Brink’s E. E. Lit., 188. A history of those who first had possession of England ‘after the flood,’ or as a Norman would, perhaps, even then have called it, a Brut.
