Ancrene Wisse

The early thirteenth-century guide for women recluses, Ancrene Wisse, is not only the major surviving work in early Middle English prose, and one which was influential throughout the medieval period; it was an important document in the history of European pastoral literature. This edition is the first to draw upon the evidence of all surviving manuscripts, using a corrected version of the Corpus text as a "point of entry" to the text's history, as it was revised and adapted by its author and successors for the needs of the changing audiences. Volume I contains the text and full critical apparatus; volume II concludes the edition and contains the General Introduction, settingthe work in its broad cultural and institutional context, Notes to the Text, and Glossary. Bella Millett is Reader in English at the University of Southampton.