361. ... in Bartsch & Horning
Hornung
385. alle &c.: to alle derlinges J.
printed as shown, with bold “&c.”
[IX. ANCRENE WISSE]
[Manuscripts:] i. Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, 402 (A); on vellum, 215 × 150 mm. The fly-leaf fastened down has the mark S. 15, then follow three leaves with writing in a seventeenth-century hand (? Joscelin), mostly a translation of the piece beginning in Morton, p. 6, ‘Nan ancre bi mi read,’ then 117 folios, on the first of which is a marginal rubric, J þe feaderes ⁊ i þe sunes | ⁊ i þe hali gastes nome | her biginneð ancrene | wisse, as at the beginning of SJ (139/1) and SM in MS. Bodley 34. On the lower margin of f. 1 r in a fourteenth-century hand is Liber ecclesie sancti Jacobi de Wygemore: quem Johannes Purcel dedit | eidem ecclesie ad instanciam fratris Walteri de Lodelawe senioris tunc precentoris. The Abbey of Wigmore was dedicated to S. James (Dugdale, vi. 344). There are glosses in red pencil and words underlined in red. The revival of Anglo-Saxon studies under Archbishop Parker, partly prompted by the desire to use in defence of the Reformation the evidences as to the tenets of the early Church in England, caused such books as this to be carefully read. William L’isle extracted from it some of the prayers (in Morton, 26, 28, 30) and, treating them as debased Anglo-Saxon, turned them into the latter speech as he understood it. His efforts are recorded in MS. Laud Misc. 201; they have led Dr. Heuser (Anglia, xxx. 103) to conclude that the Ancren Riwle is not a ME. but an OE. document.
The MS. belongs to the second quarter of the thirteenth century. It cannot be earlier than 1225 A.D., for it mentions the Dominicans and Franciscans, and it is probably later than 1230. It is the most correct, but it has additions to the original, such as 62/46-64/62, 64/73-78. See further A Descriptive Catalogue of the MSS. in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, by M. R. James, vol. ii, pp. 267, 8.
ii. Caius College, Cambridge, 234 (B); on vellum, 124 × 93 mm.; 368 pages; late thirteenth century. Pages 1-185 consist of extracts from the AR, but not in the order of the other manuscripts (ES iii. 536). It is addressed to ‘friends’ 55/1, not sisters, and the second passage printed here is not in this MS. The contents of the manuscript are given in A Descriptive Catalogue of the MSS. in the Library of Gonville and Caius College, by M. R. James, vol. i, p. 298.
iii. Cotton Nero A 14, British Museum (N); on vellum, 146 × 114 mm.; written in the second quarter of the thirteenth century. Its contents are ff. 1-120 r, the Ancren Riwle; 120 v-123 v, The Orison, printed at pp. 132-7 of this book; 123 v-131 v, the pieces printed in OEH i, pp. 200-17. It forms the text of Morton’s edition.
[iv. Cotton Titus D 18], British Museum (T); on vellum, 158 × 120 mm.; 148 folios in double columns, written from f. 14, where AR begins, to the end, about 1220 A.D. Its relationship to two other manuscripts in respect to their contents is shown by the following table:
| Manuscripts. | SK | SJ | SM | Sawles Warde | HM | Wohunge | AR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Royal 17 A 27 | — | — | — | — | |||
| Bodley 34 . | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| Titus D 18 . | — | — | — | — | — |
For the Royal and Bodleian MSS. see the introduction to No. xvi.