v. Cotton Cleopatra C 6, British Museum (C), on vellum, 196 × 140 mm.; 196 folios of 19 to 26 lines to a page in a peculiar angular hand, written about 1240 A.D. The scribe, after finishing the book, had access to another manuscript, either A or one closely resembling it, and interlined or put on the margin passages from it which were not in the first exemplar. C was presented to Legh Abbey, Co. Devon, by Matilda de Clare, by whom the Abbey was converted into a Nunnery about 1285 A.D. (Dugdale, vi. 333).
vi. The Vernon MS. of the Bodleian Library (V), a very large book, written in two columns of eighty lines to the column, has a fourteenth-century version of the AR, which begins at folio 371 v2. It contains our first extract, but only a fragment of the second.
vii. Another version of portions of the AR, written at the end of the fourteenth century, discovered by Miss Paues, exists under the title of the Recluse in the Magdalene College MS., Cambridge, Pepys 2498 (P).
viii. A fragment in a hand of 1330-40, corresponding to p. 138, l. 25 &c. of Morton’s edition, was described by Napier in the Journal of Germanic Philology, ii. 199-202.
ix. Magdalen College, Oxford, 67 (M). A Latin version in writing of the end of the thirteenth century; on f. 1 r it begins, Hic incipit prohemium venerabilis patris Magistri Simo|nis de Gandauo episcopi sarum in librum de uita solitaria | quem scripsit sororibus suis Anachoritis apu`d´ tarente. It ends on f. 95 r, Explicit liber septimus de uita solitaria: Octauus omnino taceatur:—with the addition in a later hand, eterna taciturnitate. The second extract is therefore not represented in this version.
x. Cotton Vitellius E 7 (L): fragments of a Latin version rescued from the fire of 1731, said by Macaulay to be the same as the Magdalen MS. version, but with the addition of the eighth part. In Smith’s Catalogue (1696) it is said to have had the note, Regulae vitae Anachoretarum utriusque sexus scriptae per Simonem de Gandavo, Episcopum Sarum in usum suarum sororum. Hunc librum Frater Robertus de Thorneton, quondam prior, dedit claustralibus de Bardenay. Bardney Abbey is in Lincolnshire (Dugdale, i. 623).
xi. Cotton Vitellius F 7 (F). A French version, written about 1300 A.D., but retaining many forms of the considerably older manuscript from which it was copied. This manuscript also suffered in the fire; the top half of the folios is scorched and shrunken, and a line or two is lost on each page: it consists of 164 folios in double columns. In Smith’s Catalogue it is described as, La Reule de femmes Religieuses et Recluses; sive de vita solitaria & anachoretica per Simonem de Gandavo, Episcopum Sarisburiensium in usum sororum ipsius.
[Facsimiles:] Of T. Palaeographical Society; Second Series, plate 75. Of C. Ibid., plate 76. Of P. The Recluse, ed. J. Påhlsson. Lund, 1911.
[Editions:] The Ancren Riwle, edited and translated by James Morton, B.D. Camden Society, no. lvii, London, 1853. Mätzner, E., Altenglische Sprachproben, ii. 8-41 (the second part of AR with introduction and notes). Shorter extracts in Sweet’s First Middle English Primer, 19-41, Emerson and Kluge. The text of all the preceding is from MS. N. Heuser, W., Anglia, xxx. 108-10 (passage from MS. A). Påhlsson, Joel, The Recluse, Lund, 1911.
[Literature:] Bramlette, E. E., Anglia, xv. 478-98 (the original language of AR); Brock, E., Philological Society, 1865, 150-67 (Accidence in N); Dahlstedt, A., The Word-Order of the AR, Sundsvall, 1903; Heuser, W., Anglia, xxx. 103-22; Kölbing, E., ES iii. 535, 6; ix. 115-17; xxiii. 306; Lemcke’s Jahrbuch, xv. 179-97 (collations and dialect); Landwehr, M., Das grammatische Geschlecht in der AR, Heidelberg, 1911; *Macaulay, G. C., The ‘Ancren Riwle’, Modern Language Review, ix. 63-78, 145-60, 324-31, 463-74 (collation of A and general discussion); Mühe, T., Über den im MS. Cotton Titus D. xviii enthaltenen Text der AR, Göttingen, 1901; Anglia, xxxi. 399-404; Napier, A. S., Modern Language Review, iv. 433-6; Ostermann, H., Lautlehre des germanischen Wortschatzes in der von Morton herausgegebenen Handschrift der Ancren Riwle. Bonner Beiträge, xix, Bonn, 1905; Påhlsson, J., ES xxxviii. 453, 4; Paues, A. C., ES xxx. 344-6; Redepenning, H., Syntaktische Kapitel aus der ‘Ancren Riwle’, Berlin, 1906; Williams, Irene F., Anglia, xxviii. 300-4 (language of C); Wülker, R., Paul-Braune, Beiträge, i. 209-39; Zupitza, J., Anglia, iii. 34.