'Hie vor do was diu welt so schöne,
Nu ist si worden also höne,'
The world was once so beautiful,
And now so desolate and dull.'
See notice of his life and works in Lays of the Minnesingers, London, 1825. At the conclusion of his Chronicle, Wace mentions Maistre Beneit (de Sainte-More) as commissioned to undertake a similar task, and expresses himself by no means satisfied with his patron, Henry II.
Mult me duna, plus me pramist:
E se il tot duné m'eust
Ço k'il me pramist, mielx me fut.
[4] The names and values of the forty-nine prebends of Bayeux appear in the Mémoires des Antiq. Norm. viii. 458-467. Seven of them were created by Bishop Odo, out of the forfeited lands of Grimoult du Plessis after mentioned.
[5] These three Henrys were Henry I. and Henry II. of England, and Henry the latter's son, who died in 1182, in his father's lifetime, but was living when Wace wrote. He was expectant heir of England and Normandy, and was then in the possession or government of the latter, so as in some measure to justify Wace's epithets.
[6] Roul is of course the personage usually called Rollo. The sentence in brackets comprises a few words, added by the translator; condensing the intervening part of the Chronicle, so as to introduce that portion of the work which he proceeds to translate.
