Ancrene Wisse

The work consists of eight parts: divine service, keeping the heart, moral lessons and examples, temptation, confession, penance, love, and domestic matters.

The hermit vocation permitted a change of location, whereas the anchorites were bound to one place of enclosure, generally a cell connected to a church.

In 1935 the Early English Text Society which was led by Sir Israel Gollancz and managed by Mabel Day decided to publish editions of the Ancrene Wisse.

Shepherd linked the author's interests with those of a generation of late twelfth-century English and French scholars at the University of Paris, including Peter the Chanter and Stephen Langton.

Shepherd suggested that the author was a scholarly man, though writing in English in the provinces, who was kept up to date with what was said and being written in the centres of learning.

[citation needed] The revision of the work contained in the manuscript held at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (used by most modern translations) can be dated between 1224 and 1235.

[7] The word Ancrene itself still exhibits a feminine plural genitive inflection descended from the old Germanic weak noun declension; this was practically unknown by the time of Chaucer.

[11] Recent editors have favoured Corpus Christi College, Cambridge MS 402 of which Bella Millett has written: "Its linguistic consistency and general high textual quality have made it increasingly the preferred base manuscript for editions, translations, and studies of Ancrene Wisse.