The Brut, a history of Britain, beginning with the settlement of the island by Brutus, was produced in several languages over several centuries. Strictly speaking, Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae is a Brut, as is Caxton's Chronicles of England. Other notable texts in between are Wace's Roman de Brut, Lawman's Brut, The Anglo-Norman Prose Brut, and the Middle English Prose Brut. Even Sir Gawain and the Green Knight has occasionally been referred to as a Brut because of the reference to Brutus and the history of Britain in its introduction.

The diversity of settings of production for this history creates a unique opportunity to consider the impact of the cultural milieu on each individual text by examining it in comparison with other Bruts. The enormous differences between the histories should lead to informative considerations about the multiple purposes for which they were employed.

Therefore, we are seeking papers that make comparisons between two or more Brut texts, and make some claim about the source of differences and similarities between them.

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Received on Wed Jul 13 2005 - 07:38:25 EDT