Author Description

"Ancrene Riwle (also known as Ancrene Wisse), a guide for anchoresses composed in the thirteenth century, served as a popular guide to spirituality and the religious life until the sixteenth century. This version was included in the large compendium of religious literature in English, now known as the 'Vernon' manuscript (Oxford, Bodleian Library Ms Eng. poet. a. I), copied in the second half of the fourteenth century in the West Midlands. The different versions of Ancrene Riwle are of particular interest to students of the way in which a text evolves to meet changing readers' needs. The 'Vernon' text is the last in the Society's series of diplomatic editions of Ancrene Riwle, begun in 1944. The editorial method follows the conventions established for the previous volumes in the series: the text of the manuscripts is reproduced as it stands, without emendations. Scribal 'errors' and significant variant readings from other major versions (principally the Corpus and Nero texts) are given to the Apparatus."--Jacket.