The structure of Ancrene Wisse

Bella Millett

University of Southampton

Elizabeth Salter (1988)

The silences which seem to surround and isolate many English writings of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries are, to the attentive ear, filled with the sounds of an active world which is only partly English, partly literary.

Preface lines 157–8, 163–4

Nv, mine leoue sustren, this boc Ich todeale on eahte ‘destinctiuns’, thet 3e cleopieth dalen . . . [in the second] aren chapitres fiue, as fif stuchen efter the fif wittes . . .

Now, my dear sisters, I am dividing this book into eight ‘distinctions’, which you call parts; [in the second] there are five chapters, as it were five sections corresponding to the five senses . . .

Part 8 lines 8–10

Nu is this leaste dale, as Ich bihet on earst, todealet ant isundret o lutle seoue stucchen.

Now this last part, as I promised at the beginning, is divided and separated into seven sub-sections.

medieval senses of distinctio

an alternative term for divisio (division or subdivision)

a means of dividing longer works, intermediate between book and chapter

a method of Scholastic argument a list of the different senses of a word in

Scripture (the ‘biblical distinctio’)

Gratian’s DecretumCologne, Dombibliothek MS 127 (c. 1170)

topic-based division

structures topics rather than works Rouses on later C12 sermons: ‘a sequence of lists,

rather than an overall division subdivided internally’

may be dynamic rather than static e.g. ‘conditions of confession’:

Bernard of Clairvaux 3 late C12 5–6 early C13 15–16 mid-C13 28

Thomas of ChobhamSumma de arte praedicandi (1215 x 1222)

Quandoque enim diuiditur tota predicatio in simul accepta in plures partes, sicut aliquis auctor diuidit opus suum per plura capitula uel per plures libros . . .

For sometimes the sermon as a whole is divided into several parts, as an author divides his work into several chapters or several books . . .

types of division

work-based division (horizontal axis)

ciuitas =Church BVMhuman soulBabylon

topic-based division (vertical axis)

Thomas of Chobham Summa de arte praedicandi

Secundo modo fit diuisio quando non totum negotium sed unicum uerbum diuiditur.

The second kind of division takes place when a single word is divided rather than the whole thing.

7 methods: inc. per species (e.g. 7 deadly sins) and cum diuiditur uox in significationes (the ‘biblical distinctio’).

stuc(c)hen / chapitres

Part 2 divided into 5 chapitres / stuchen, corresponding

to 5 senses

Part 5 16 conditions of confession are described as

stucchen

Part 8 divided o lutle seoue stucchen on separate topics

Part 5 Confession

powers of confession 6 points

conditions of confession 16 points

3 against the Devil

3 for ourselves

2 main points ‘ase twa limen, ant either is todealet’

and a postscript for the anchoresses...

unstructured elements because of . . .

influence from monastic tradition less structured aspects of ‘scholastic’

sermon no ready-made structural model, or . . . use of more than one structural model

simultaneously digression, shifts in argument, or uneven

distribution of content between headings

explicit

Bella MillettUniversity of Southamptonenm@soton.ac.ukhttp://www.soton.ac.uk/~enm