The UC Berkeley Brut Fragment A new transcription and assessment

Among the fragmentary versions of Wace’s Roman de Brut, only one has remained unedited: A short fragment transcribed at the very end of the 13^th century or very beginning of the 14^th. Specialists have argued on linguistic grounds that the manuscript was probably a continental copy of an insular original. The present discussion, which is accompanied by an edition of the text and color photographs of it, offers a new look at various scribal and decorative aspects of the fragment, along with a reexamination of several of the more unusual dialectic features. Taken together, these physical and linguistic features suggest that the fragment may well have been an insular copy of a continental original.