Cursor Mundi

The Cursor Mundi (or ‘Over-runner of the World’) is an early 14th-century religious poem written in Northumbrian Middle English that presents an extensive retelling of the history of Christianity from the creation to the doomsday.

[7] The first modern edition of the Cursor Mundi was published in six volumes by the Reverend Richard Morris between 1874 and 1892 in the Early English Text Society series.

[1] The Cursor Mundi (or ‘Over-runner of the World’) is an early 14th-century religious poem written in Northumbrian Middle English that presents an extensive retelling of Christian history from the Creation to Doomsday.

[9] The Cursor Mundi occupies a unique place, because of its length, its scope, and its author's broad and eclectic knowledge of the traditions of exegesis in his time.

[11] Heinrich Hupe's theory, that his name was John of Lindebergh, which place he identifies with Limber Magna in Lincolnshire, is based on a misreading of an insertion in one of the manuscripts by the scribe who copied it.

The short verse form is generally that of the eight-syllabled couplet, but when writing of the passion and death of Christ, the poet uses alternately rhyming lines of eight and six syllables.

[5] A total of nine complete or fragmentary manuscripts of the poem are extant although none of them is the original composition attributed to the unknown poet:[10] The first modern edition of the Cursor Mundi was published in six volumes by the Reverend Richard Morris between 1874 and 1892 under the auspices of the Early English Text Society series.

[c] According to Horrall, a new edition of the Cursor Mundi was needed because the transcriptions in Morris' Northern version "were accompanied by a sketchy, inaccurate critical apparatus which is now out of date".

Horrall disagreed with Morris' assumptions and argued that someone in the south central Midlands came across a copy of the Cursor Mundi similar to the extant G manuscript.