's printing, describing the
Percy-Neville feud of 1454 Originally a
legendary chronicle written in Anglo-Norman in the thirteenth century (identified by the fact that some existing copies finish in 1272), the
Brut described the settling of Britain by
Brutus of Troy, son of
Aeneas, and the reign of the
Welsh Cadwalader. Early versions describe the country as being divided, both culturally and politically, by the
River Humber, with the southern half described as "this side of the Humber" and "the better part". Having been written at a time of
division between crown and nobility, it was "baronial in its sympathies". It was probably originally composed "at least in part" by
clerks in the
Royal chancery, It later became a source for monastic chronicles. Popular already in its early incarnations, it may even have limited the circulation of rival contemporary histories. The
Brut underwent various revisions over the centuries, and from 1333 material inflected from a mid-thirteenth century poem,
Des Grantz Geanz, describing the settlement of England (as
Albion), had entered the main versions. Eventually, along with the
Polychronicon, it was one of the most popular political and secular histories of fourteenth-century England, with the latest-known version ending with events from 1479. English editions appeared from the early 15th century, particularly the so-called Long version and its various continuations. This has become known as the "Common" version, and was probably transcribed in
Herefordshire. A later fifteenth-century version consists of the Common versions with "a major one" concluding in 1419, occasionally with the addition of
prologues and
epilogues. The 16th century also saw an abridged version, created from the major fifteenth-century copies. Similarly, there are vast differences in the quality of the surviving manuscripts, and Julia Marvin has suggested that this reflects their "diverse ownership and readership". It has been described as "a tremendous success", and one of the most-copied chronicles of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The post-1399 versions are notable by their clear pro-
Lancastrian bias and focus on
King Henry V's victories in France, for example at
Rouen, for the purposes of
propaganda. However, even these later versions still contained much of the earlier legendary material, such as that of Albina; indeed, the prose versions have been described as being "enthusiastic" in its rendition of these aspects of English history. It has also been described as "one of the best records of rumours and propaganda, if not of the event themselves." == Medieval publication history ==