Rome et l’histoire romaine dans les chroniques de Wace

Many historiographers have attempted to establish a continuity or a comparison between the Roman past and the past of the people whose history they are narrating, by claiming a link with classical or late Antiquity. Wace, the author of Roman de Brut (finished in 1155), and of the Roman de Rou (started in 1160), followed this path. The purpose of this article is to evaluate how and why Wace, walking in the footsteps of the sources to which he refers, integrates Rome and Roman history in his two chronicles, how he uses the very name of Rome, the reference to the Universal City, in order to better celebrate the Breton and Norman sovereigns.