Ancrene Riwle: Introduction and Part I ed. by Robert W. Ackerman, Roger Dahood

Abstract

REVIEWS ROBERT W ACKERMAN and ROGER DAHOOD, ed. and trans. Ancrene Riwle: Introduction andPart I. Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, vol. 31. Binghamton, N.Y.: University Center at Bingham­ ton, 1984. Pp. x, 110. $12.00. The ReverendJames Morton first edited and translated the Nero manu­ script ofAncrene Riwle in 1853. It took a number of years before the full linguistic, textual, literary, and religious significance of the work was recognized, but the past fifty years have seen a great number of important studies and articles on all aspects ofAncreneRiwle, either under this title or under the title Ancrene Wisse (found in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, 402). It istheaimandjustification ofthepresentedition ofthe Introduction and part 1 to present "an often neglected portion ofAncrene Riwle in a form demonstrably close to that which was actually known and used in the thirteenth century" (p. 3). These sections ofthe text lay out in detail the prescribed regimen ofworshipthat governed the daily lives ofthe three noble anchoresses for whom the rule was written, and its relative severity dispels the notion fostered by anthologized extracts that its writer was "a kindly old cleric, mildly concerned lest his anchoresses keep more than one cat or indulge in gossip or painful mortification ofthe flesh." The General Introduction to the edition and the bulk ofthe explanatory notes were the work of the late Robert W Ackerman; the edited text and the translation are the work of Roger Dahood, who has also, with appropriate personal identification, added to and revised the notes for publication. The General Introduction begins with a brief section entitled "The Manuscripts and Early Scholarship" (pp. 4-6). This section could, perhaps, have been strengthened, for the remarks on previous (not just early) scholarship tend to note rather than discuss the results ofscholarly investi­ gation. Relevant references are given in the endnotes, and the editors express themselves skeptical ofE.J. Dobson's suggestion that corrector B of British Library Cotton Cleopatra C.VI is the original author of Ancrene Riwle. Further critical discussion of Dobson's proposed identification in The Origins ofAncrene Wisse of the author as Brian of Lingen and the location of his sisters' anchorhold at Limebrook Priory would have been welcome. The individual manuscripts, especially Cleopatra, have been well de­ scribed in the respective EETS editions; the present editors content them109 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER selves, therefore, with characterizing the original scribe and the correctors of Cleopatra, largely on the basis of the analysis in Dobson's painstaking edition. Dobson considered the text in Corpus to be a fair copy of the rule as corrected by B; the present editors note correctly that Cleopatra never­ theless preserves some better readings in the text and sensible marginal emendations by B that are not found in Corpus. Partly for these reasons, partly because of probable primacy of date of writing, and partly because Cleopatra was clearly in use over a considerable period of time, the editors have chosen Cleopatra as their base text. The three succeeding sections that form the bulk of the General Intro­ duction set the text in context. "The Medieval Anchorite" is a succinct yet informative essay on the anchoritic life and the various rules that governed it from the Desert Fathers to the thirteenth century. The concluding paragraphs of this section focus particularly on England and on the physical surroundings and living conditions of the anchoresses for whom Ancrene Riwle was written. It is a measure of the success of this unpedantic account that one wishes for more examples drawn from medieval descriptions and from surviving architectural remains, such as those noted on p. 14. The "Abstract of Ancrene Riwle," useful in itself, demonstrates the importance of the Introduction and part 1 of the work in relation to the whole and in relation to other rules that assume previous familiarity with the nuts-and-bolts elements of daily devotional life. The editors point out the innovations present in Ancrene Riwle, such as "the inclusion ofmore or less popular discourses on the sins and confession" that anticipate later doctrinal treatises but warn us salutarily that the original features, the author's skill, and "the note of personal warmth he was...