Handlyng Synne, a poem of nearly 13,000 lines, is a free translation, with many additions and amplifications, from William of Waddington’s Manuel des Pechiez. It is a series of metrical homilies on the Ten Commandments, the Seven Deadly Sins and the Seven Sacraments, illustrated by a number of amusing stories from various sources. The Cursor Mundi had turned religious history into something not very different from a romance of chivalry, and in the stories of Handlyng Synne the influence of the fabliaux is not far to seek. Mannyng wrote in the English tongue not for learned but for “lewd” men, “that talys and ryme wyl blethly here,” to occupy the leisure hours during which they might otherwise fall into “vylanye, dedly synne or other folye.” Each of his twenty-four topics has its complement of stories. He tells of the English observance of Saturday afternoon as holy to the Virgin, and has much to say of popular amusements, which become sins when they keep people away from church. Tournaments in particular are fertile occasions of all the deadly sins; and mystery plays, except those of the birth and resurrection of Christ performed in the churches, also lead men into transgression. He inveighs against the oppression of the poor by the rich, reproves those who, weary of matins or mass, spend their time in church “jangling,” telling tales, and wondering where they will get the best ale, and revives the legend of the dancers at the church door during mass who were cursed by the priest and went on dancing for a twelvemonth without cessation. He loved music himself, and justified this profane pleasure by the example of Bishop Grosseteste, who lodged his harper in the chamber next his own; but he holds up as a warning to gleemen the fate of the minstrel who sang loud while the bishop said grace, and was miserably killed by a falling stone in consequence. The old monk’s keen observation makes the book a far more valuable contribution to history than his professed chronicle. It is a storehouse of quaint stories and out-of-the-way information on manners and customs.
His chronicle, The Story of Inglande, was also written for the solace and amusement of the unlearned when they sit together in fellowship (11. 6-10). The earlier half is written in octosyllabic verse, and begins with the story of the Deluge. The genealogy of Locrine, king of Britain, is traced back to Noah, through Aeneas, and the chronicler relates the incidents of the Trojan war as told by Dares the Phrygian. From this point he follows closely the Brut of Wace. He loved stories for their own sake, and found fault with Wace for questioning the miraculous elements in the legend of Arthur. In the second half of his chronicle, which is less simple in style, he translates from the French of Pierre de Langtoft. He writes in rhyming alexandrines, and in the latter part of the work uses middle rhymes. Mannyng’s Chronicle marks a change in national sentiment. Though he regards the Norman domination as a “bondage,” he is loud in his praises of Edward I., “Edward of Inglond.”
The linguistic importance of Mannyng’s work is very great. He used very few of those Teutonic words which, though still in use, were eventually to drop out of the language, and he introduced a great number of French words destined to be permanently adopted in English. Moreover, he employed comparatively few obsolete inflexions, and his work no doubt furthered the adoption of the Midland dialect as the acknowledged literary instrument. T. L. Kington-Oliphant (Old and Middle English, 1878) regards his work as the definite starting point of the New English which with slight changes was to form the language of the Book of Common Prayer.
A third work, usually ascribed to Mannyng, chiefly on the ground of its existing side by side with the Handlyng Synne in the Harleian and Bodleian MSS., is the Medytacyuns of the Soper of oure lorde Jhesu, And also of hys passyun And eke of the peynes of hys swete modyr, Mayden marye, a free translation of St Bonaventura’s De coena et passione Domini....
Robert of Brunne’s Chronicle exists in two MSS.: Petyt MS. 511, written in the Northern dialect, in the Inner Temple library; and Lambeth MS. 131 in a Midland dialect. The first part was edited The Story of England ... (1887) for the Rolls Series, with an introductory essay by F. J. Furnivall; the second part was published by Thomas Hearne as Peter Langtoft’s Chronicle ... (1725). Peter Langtoft’s French version was edited by Thomas Wright for the “Rolls Series” in 1866. Of Handlyng Synne there are complete MSS. in the Bodleian library (MS. 415) and in the British Museum (Harleian MS. 1701), and a fragment in the library of Dulwich College (MS. 24). It was edited, with Waddington’s text in parallel columns, by F. J. Furnivall for the Roxburghe Club (1862), and for the Early English Text Society (1901-1903). The Meditacyun was edited from the Bodleian and Harleian MSS. by J. Meadow Cooper for the same society (1875). See also Gerhard Hellmers, Ueber die Sprache Robert Mannyngs of Brunne und über die Autorschaft der ihm zugeschriebenen Meditations ... (Göttingen, 1885), which contains an analysis of the dialectic peculiarities of Mannyng’s work; O. Boerner, “Die Sprache Robert Mannyngs” ... in Studien zur engl. Philologie (vol. xii., Halle, 1904) and Oskar Preussner, Robert Mannyng of Brunne’s Übersetzung von Pierre de Langtofts Chronicle (Breslau, 1891). All accounts of his life are based on his own work. For the Sempringham priory see Dugdale, Monasticon vi. 947 seq., and Miss Rose Graham’s S. Gilbert of Sempringham and the Gilbertines (1901).
MANŒUVRES, MILITARY. Manœuvres may be defined as the higher training for war of troops of all arms in large bodies, and have been carried out in most countries ever since the first formation of standing armies. In England no manœuvres or camps of exercise appear to have been held till the beginning of the 19th century, when Sir John Moore trained the famous Light Brigade at Shorncliffe camp. In France, however, under Louis XIV., large camps of instruction were frequently held, the earliest recorded being that of 18,000 troops at Compiègne in 1666; and these were continued at intervals under his successor. At these French camps much time was devoted to ceremonial, and the manœuvres performed were of an elementary description. Still their effect upon the training of the army for war was far-reaching, and bore fruit in the numerous wars in the first half of the 18th century. Moreover, experiments were made with proposed tactical systems and technical improvements, as in the case of the contest between l’ordre mince and l’ordre profonde (see [Infantry]) between 1785 and 1790. Other countries followed suit, but it was reserved for Frederick the Great to inaugurate a system of real manœuvres and to develop on the training-ground the system of tactics which bore such good fruit in his various campaigns. The numbers of troops assembled were large; for example, at Spandau in 1753, when 36,000 men carried out manœuvres for twelve days. The king laid the greatest stress on these exercises, and took immense pains to turn to account the experience gained in his campaigns. Great secrecy was observed, and before the Seven Years’ War no stranger was allowed to be present. The result of all this careful training was shown in the Seven Years’ War, and after it the Prussian manœuvres gained a reputation which they have maintained to this day. But with the passing away of the great king they became more and more pedantic, and the fatal results were shown in 1806. After the Napoleonic wars yearly manœuvres became the custom in every large Continental army. Great Britain alone thought she could dispense with them, perhaps because of the constant practical training her troops and officers received in the various Indian and colonial wars; and it was not till 1853 that, by the advice of the Prince Consort, a body of troops were gathered together for a camp of exercise on Chobham Common, and that eventually a standing camp of exercise was evolved out of the temporary camp formed during the Crimean War at Aldershot.
Most continental armies have, since the great successes of the Germans in 1870, copied more or less their system of military training; hence it is appropriate to consider their methods first. The whole training of the army is based on a yearly programme of gradual progression, from the joining of the recruits in October to the training by squads, companies, battalions and regiments, the latter finishing their field training about the middle of August, when the manœuvre period begins. First of all, the brigades go through five working days of drills on flat ground, to get them under the hand of their commanders and prepare them for manœuvres. Then follow ten working days of manœuvres in new and varied ground, of which four are “brigade,” four “divisional” and two “corps” manœuvres, in each case the unit named being divided into two portions of all arms, which manœuvre against one another. Each year two or more army corps carry out manœuvres before the emperor, working against one another. The chief feature of the German manœuvres is the free hand allowed to leaders of sides. Of course, for reasons of supply and transport, it is necessary to keep the troops within a certain area, but the general and special ideas[1] are so framed that, while retaining their own initiative, the leaders of sides have to give such orders as will suit the arrangements made by the director of manœuvres for supply. The faculty of quartering troops on private individuals to any extent, and the fact of the troops being provided with portable tent equipment, give great latitude to the German leaders in their choice of quarters for troops, and so increase the similitude of manœuvres to war. The Austrian and Italian manœuvres are a close copy of the German, but those of the French present the peculiarity of a certain amount of prearrangement, especially at grand manœuvres, when it is frequently laid down beforehand which side is to be victorious. Thus a series of pictures of war is presented, but the manœuvres are hardly a test of the skill of the rival leaders. But, just as in recent years in France this practice has been modified, so also the entire liberty given to commanders in the German manœuvres in 1906-7 had to be curtailed in the following years owing to the strain of forced marches which it entailed on the troops.
In Russia the climatic and social conditions, and the distribution of the army, necessitate a quite peculiar system. The troops leave their barracks and move into standing camps, generally in May, and in these for about three months their training up to that in battalions is carried out on the drill ground. Camps of mixed units are then formed for a month, and from them, but always over the same ground, the manœuvres of regiments, brigades and divisions are performed. Then follow the so-called mobile manœuvres, which last for ten days or a fortnight. Of all European manœuvres these are perhaps the nearest approach to war, for the sides start a great distance apart, and ample time is allowed for cavalry reconnaissance. Besides, the Russian soldier does not require elaborate arrangements for supply; hence the director is not so tied down by consideration of this matter as in other armies. A political colour is sometimes given to such large assemblages of troops, especially when the manœuvres take place in frontier districts.
In England the military authorities have long been hampered in the organization of manœuvres by the necessity of carrying them out on very limited portions of government land or on areas lent as a favour by, or hired from, private individuals. There has been no want of recognition by the military authorities of the necessity for, and value of, manœuvres, and the training at the camps of instruction has been supplemented as far as possible by small manœuvres on such portions of country as could be made available. But, with the exception of spasmodic efforts in 1871 and 1872, it was not until 1897 that the government allowed itself to be convinced by its military advisers, and passed a Military Manœuvres Act, by which certain districts could be “proclaimed” for purposes of manœuvres, and troops in consequence could traverse all ground. In 1898 the first manœuvres under this Act were held in Wilts and Dorset, and were intended to be repeated at fixed intervals in future years. In addition, every effort was made to add to the existing permanent training grounds for troops, and ground was acquired on Salisbury Plain with the intention of developing it into a second Aldershot. But the training on those well-known grounds, excellent as it is in itself as a preparation, is not “manœuvres,” and never can do away with the necessity for them, with a more or less free hand given to the leaders over fresh country.