The Ayenbite of Inwyt —also Aȝenbite (Agenbite) of Inwit; literally, the "again-biting of inner wit," or the Remorse (Prick) of Conscience is the title of a confessional prose work written in a Kentish dialect of Middle English.
The Ayenbite is a translation of the French Somme le Roi (also known as the Book of Vices and Virtues), a late 13th century treatise on Christian morality; the popularity of this latter text is demonstrated by the large number of surviving copies.
This can be stated with rare certainty, for the author specifies all these details himself, writing in the preface, And in a postscript, It is usually assumed that Michael of Northgate was himself the translator, not merely a copyist; the library of St Augustine's contained two copies of the French work at this time.
In this aim it can be compared to Robert Mannyng's contemporary Handlyng Synne, but unlike that work, the Ayenbite appears not to have gained any popularity; only one copy has survived, in the British Library Arundel MS 57, and that is almost certainly the original.
In the 20th century, the work gained some recognition when its title was adopted by James Joyce, who used it numerous times in his novel Ulysses as a trope for conscience, especially in referencing Hamlet and Walt Whitman.