SOURCE: Sayers. William. “Rummaret de Wenelande: A Geographical Note to Wace's Brut.” Romance Philology XVIII, no. 1 (August 1964): 46-53.

In the following essay, Sayers speculates on the existence and geographical location of Wenelande, a place Wace describes in the Roman de Brut.

While Wace develops the scenic, picturesque, and psychological possibilities of Geoffrey's Historia Regum Britanniae, students of the Roman de Brut are agreed that he remains in general faithful to his source as regards the events recounted and the names of places and people. The few innovations in the latter domain are of special interest in view of Wace's recognized conscientiousness as translator-historian.

The Brut introduces two figures absent in Geoffrey: the prophet Taliessin, who announces the birth of Christ,¹ and King Rummaret of Wenelande. Taliessin has been the object of numerous commentaries;² Wace's debt to “Nennius” or to Geoffrey's Vita Merlini for the name and the parallel...