Wace, or Eustace, who has been christened Robert on mistaken authority, was born at Jersey, probably about the year 1124, was taught at Caen, and was in after life resident in Normandy. For a long time he was at Caen, where he was a clerc lisant, reading clerk or teacher. He employed himself with writing in romance rhymes, for the people, of St. Nicolas and other saints and martyrs; afterwards King Henry II. gave him a prebend at Bayeux…. His translation of Geoffrey of Monmouth into French verse as “Li Romans de Brut” was completed in the year 1155, immediately after the accession of Henry II., and presented to Queen Eleanor His other great poem, the Romance of Rou or Rollo, giving the story of the Norman Conquest—the “Roman de Rou”—was produced by him some years later.

  Neither the poetical form adopted by Wace, [“Roman de Rou”] or the designation of Roman, given to his work, can be fairly held in any degree to invalidate the claims of this production to be looked upon as a true account of the events which it records. Wace wrote at the period when the desire for more accessible sources of information, than those afforded by the Monkish Chroniclers, began to be felt, but while the habit of listening to the Troubadour was still prevalent. His work is then to be considered as a remarkable monument;—marking as it does a period of literary transition;—produced by a Clerk or Churchman, but in the vulgar tongue, and, in reality, a tribute or concession to the growing spirit of inquiry of his age.

  The name of Wace I can never utter without thankfulness, as that of one who has preserved to us the most minute, and, as I fully believe, next to the contemporary stitchwork, the most trustworthy narrative of the central scene of my history.

  Wace’s poem is indeed no more than a metrical expansion of the “History” of Geoffrey of Monmouth; but the touches which he has added, recording the institution by Arthur of the Round Table, and of feasts and tourneys, introduce into the growing myth the first glimpse of the spirit of chivalry. He is, however, far from yielding to the wild and romantic impulse of Celtic superstition, and, whether from the scepticism of the scholar, or from a certain Northern robustness of mind, he seeks to test the marvels reported to him by the experience of his senses.

  Wace is no “romance-writer” in the modern sense. He indulges in no rhetorical embellishments; in the historical parts of his greatest work he refuses to set down anything for which he has not authority; and when his authorities differ, he frequently gives two alternative versions. He is less credulous than many of his contemporaries, and he is transparently honest. In intention, as well as in fact, he is always an historian first and a poet afterwards.