ANCREN RIWLE, a Middle English prose treatise written for a small community of three religious women and their serv ants. It is generally supposed to date from the first quarter of the 13th century, but E. Kolbing is inclined to place the Corpus Christi ms. about the middle of the I2th century. There are ex tant eight English mss. of the work (two fragmentary), four in Latin and one in French. One Latin ms., Regula Anachoritarum sive de vita solitaria (Magdalen college, Oxford, No. 67, fol. 5o) has a prefatory note :—Hic incipit prohemium venerabilis patris magistri Simonis de Gandavo, episcopi Sarum, in librum de vita solitaria, quern scripsit sororibus suis anachoritis aped Tarente. But Bishop Simon of Ghent, who died in 1315, could not have written the book, though he may have been responsible for the Latin recension. It has been tentatively attributed to Richard Poor, bishop successively of Chichester, Salisbury and Durham; but the claim rests on slight foundation.
What was the original language of the Ancren Riwle? Morton held that it was English, but his view was challenged by E. E. Bramlette in Anglia (XV. 478-498), who argued in favour of a Latin original. Bramlette was, in his turn, challenged by G. C. Macaulay (Modern Language Review, IX, 7o-78) who showed conclusively that the Latin was translated from English, and not vice versa; but after study of the French ms. (Cotton Vitellius F. vii) Macaulay argued that the English was translated from the French. But the evidence in favour of English cannot really be resisted. What is important, however, about the Ancren Riwle, is not the quantity of dispute it occasions, but the fact that it is a genuine contribution to English literature—almost the earliest English prose work that the ordinary person can read with pleas ure. It combines religious sincerity with simple, affectionate charm in a singularly high degree.
Ancren Riwle was edited for the Camden Society by the Rev. James Morton in 1853 from the Cotton ms. (Nero A xiv.) . A collation of this text with the ms. by E. Kolbing is printed in the Jahrbuch fur romanische u. engl. Spr. and Lit. xv. i8o seq. (1876). The Ancren Riwle (ed. F. A. Gasquet, i9o5) is available for the ordinary reader in The King's Classics. For specimens of texts and discussions of de tails see, in addition to works quoted, Kolbing in Englische Studien, iii. 535 ; Panes in Englische Studien, xxx. 344-346 ; McNabb in Mod ern Language Review, xi. i-8, claiming a Dominican, Friar Robert Bacon, as author ; Miss Hope Allen in Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, xxxiii., suggesting that the work was written for three ladies of Kilburn; Miss Dorothy Dymes in Essays and Studies by Members of the English Association, Vol. ix.; R. W. Chambers and others in Review of English Studies, Jan. 1025, Jan. 1926, April 1926; and Joseph Hall, Selections from Early Middle English.