Laud Troy Book
The Laud Troy Book is an anonymous Middle English poem dealing with the background and events of the Trojan War. Dating from around 1400 and consisting of 18,664 lines of rhyming tetrameter couplets, the untitled poem has been given a name reflecting the former ownership, by Archbishop William Laud, of the unique manuscript in which it is found.
Based on the prose Historia destructionis Troiae of Guido delle Colonne, the Laud Troy Book recasts the tale of the fall of Troy as a chivalric romance, with Hector as the principal heroic figure. According to,
Bennett also notes, "he speeches are energetic and dramatic.... The language is homely, the similes are unhackneyed...". Helen Phillips attributes the energetic quality of the poem to the oral, minstrel-like style of the poet, calling it "literature very much conducted as speech, in narrative as much as in dialogue, a style which both conveys and naturalizes its ancient history for an English lay, non-scholarly audience".
Although it has been characterized as "quite untouched by any breath of true poesy" and "rough, often deficient in grammar", it has also been called "the most interesting of the Troy romances". offers the following judicious assessment of the poem: