INTRODUCTION: DATES AND CONTEXT

Wace's earliest extant works are three religious poems, all in octosyllabic couplets: a Life of Saint Margaret (La Vie de sainte Marguerite, 746 lines), an account of the Conception and Life of Our Lady (La Conception Nostre Dame, 1810 lines), and a Life of Saint Nicholas (La Vie de saint Nicolas, 1563 lines). They have not attracted the critical attention one might have expected, partly because of a scholarly bias against religious literature in general throughout the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century, and partly, one suspects, because these early poems do not correspond to the image of courtly poet prevalent among admirers of Wace's later work. Predictably, perhaps, both their authorship and literary value were questioned. The issue of authorship has now been settled, though there remains a lingering sense that these poems date back to a time when the poet was not yet in full command of his literary technique, and had not yet achieved sufficient recognition to secure commissions from prestigious patrons. Neither of these assumptions is necessarily borne out by the evidence of the texts. Like most writers of his period, Wace was first and foremost a cleric, and it is fitting that he should have made his name with pious works, the status of which, particularly in the case of hagiography, would have been no less authoritative and respectable than that of any other scholarly text. Moreover, it would be anachronistic to assume that a religious community (such as one of the Caen abbeys) or an ecclesiastical grandee would have been less desirable, prestigious or influential a patron than a lay aristocrat. Indeed, during the troubled years between the death of Henry I and the accession to the throne of England of Henry II, ecclesiastical patronage may well have been preferable on all counts. All three of Wace's surviving religious pieces appear to have been commissioned, though in one case only (Nicolas) are we given the name of the patron; and in all three cases it is possible to discern an underlying agenda which the poet was entrusted with advancing.