The Oldest Anglo-Norman Prose Brut Chronicle: An edition and Translation. By Julia Marvin. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2006. Pp. x + 442. $80.

Julia Marvin's edition of an Anglo-Norman Brut, probably dating from the end of the thirteenth century, is witness to a renewed interest in medieval vernacular chronicle and pseudo-chronicle literature. Following the pattern established by Geoffrey of Monmouth, and beginning with the arrival of Brutus, the text extends its account of British history to 1272 and the death of Henry III. This fourth volume of the Medieval Chronicles series is extremely thorough. The introduction of 71 pages contains an overview of the text, a review of earlier scholarship, traditional sections on sources, dating and authorship, reception, the manuscripts and their relations, as well as justification of editorial methods and the nature of the facing-page translation. Exhaustive might be a more accurate description of the introduction, the generous footnotes of which leave little to chance or the imagination.

Keith Busby
University of Wisconsin-Madison