Besides the Ancrene Wisse, other source texts are the Planctus Mariae (usually ascribed to Bernard of Clairvaux) and the Hours of the Cross from the Meditations on the Life of Christ.
[3] Like the Ancrene Wisse, its religious advice is written for the purpose of aristocratic women (one specific but unknown woman is addressed).
Central to both texts is a discussion of "four loves"—that between good friends, men and women, mother and child, and body and soul (in the order of the Ancrene Wisse).
"[6] The Virgin Mary is likewise presented as a passionate woman, grieving over her dead son in the Passion:Then she rose up on her feet and with very great pain faced the Cross, where she might best embrace the blessed body of Jesus Christ, whom she had formerly suckled with her own sweet breasts....And she was all splattered with the precious blood of her sweet son, the blood that fell on the earth in great quantities, which she kissed fervently with her holy mouth.
[12] The copy used for the edition published by the Early English Text Society is from the Pierpont Morgan Library—it was previously owned by the Earl of Aylesford and Lord Amherst of Hackney.