Text name Ayenbite of Inwyt File name cmayenbi-m2 Manuscript Arundel 57, British Library, London Date 1340 Dialect Kentish (Canterbury) Genre Religious treatise Edition Morris, Richard. 1979. Dan Michel's Ayenbite of inwyt. EETS O.S. 278. London: Oxford University Press. Originally published by Trübner (London, 1866) as EETS O.S. 23. Sample Pp. 5-118, 249-271 Remarks The manuscript is a holograph written by Dan Michel, a monk at St. Anselm's, Canterbury, in 1340 when he was about 70, so the language may be representative of the late 13th century. The Ayenbite is a fairly literal translation of the French work Somme le Roi (also known as Le Somme des Vices et des Virtues, Li Libres Roiaux de Vices et de Vertues, Le Livre des Commandmens, Le Miroir du Monde). There is no complete translation in modern English, but the 15c Book of Vices and Virtues is very similar and more readable.
Following the Ayenbite are some short works also written by Dan Michel, which are included in the corpus:
- Pater Noster, Ave Maria and Creed (pp. 262-263.10)
- A translation of Pseudo-Anselm (pp. 263.11-269)
- A treatise on the difference between men and beasts (pp. 270-271.6)
- Two more versions of the Ave Maria (pp. 271.6-end)
Other, later translations of the Somme le Roi are The Book of Vices and Virtues, c1450 (c1400) (a sample of which is included in the corpus as cmvices4-m34) and Caxton's Royal Book, 1486.
File name CMAYENBI Text identifier M2 IR RELT AYENB Text name AYENB Author DAN MICHEL Period M2 Date of original 1250-1350 Date of manuscript 1250-1350 Contemporaneity SAME Dialect KL Verse or prose PROSE Text type REL TREAT Relationship to foreign original TRANSL Foreign original FRENCH Relationship to spoken language WRITTEN Sex of author MALE Age of author 60- Social rank of author X Audience description X Participant relationship X Interaction X Setting X Prototypical text category INSTR REL Sample SAMPLE X