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At the Bodleian Library, at Oxford, there is a manuscript of nearly twenty thousand lines, the metrical version of the Gospel and the Acts, done near 1250 by an Augustinian monk named Orm, and so called the Ormulum. There were other metrical versions of various parts of the Bible.
It is a kind of mediæval Christian Year, containing a metrical portion of the Gospel for each day, followed by a metrical homily, largely borrowed from Ælfric and Bede. Its title is thus accounted for, "This boc iss nemmed the Ormulum, forthi that Orm it wrohhte." Historian, s. of an Indian army doctor, b. at Travancore, and after being at Harrow, entered the service of the East India Company.
The Brut shows little trace of French influences, not more than a hundred French words being found in it. Orm's Ormulum. A monk named Orm wrote in the Midland dialect a metrical paraphrase of those parts of the Gospels used in the church on each service day throughout the year. After the paraphrase comes his metrical explanation and application of the Scripture.
Those from the seventh to the thirteenth are invaluable as giving a trustworthy, though not very clear, record of contemporary events in England and Normandy. It was translated into English in 1853-55. Was an Augustinian canon of Mercia, who wrote the Ormulum in transition English.
I didn't mean to do so then, but I chimed in before I thought, when they sang: He set a star up in the sky Full broad and bright and fair. "That song was taken from the Ormulum," said the Judge; "a poem of the thirteenth century " "Nelly! Was that you?" cried Aunt Frank, interrupting.
This scheme is followed with great precision throughout the poem, which employs neither rime nor regular alliteration. Orm used even fewer French words than Layamon. The date of the Ormulum is probably somewhere between 1200 and 1215. The Ancren Riwle. About 1225 appeared the most notable prose work in the native tongue since the time of Alfred, if we except the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
Orm's Ormulum, written soon after the Brut, is a paraphrase of the gospel lessons for the year, somewhat after the manner of Cædmon's Paraphrase, but without any of Cædmon's poetic fire and originality. It is interesting as showing a parallel to the cycles of miracle plays, which attempt to cover the same vast ground.
One among our earliest calls the newborn Lord of Glory Himself, 'this harmless silly babe, But 'silly' has travelled on the same lines as 'simple, 'innocent, and so many other words. The same moral phenomenon repeats itself continually. Thus 'sheepish' in the Ormulum is an epithet of honour: it is used of one who has the mind of Him who was led as a sheep to the slaughter.
SELECTIONS FOR READING. For advanced students, and as a study of language, a few selections as given in Manly's English Poetry and in Manly's English Prose; or selections from the Ormulum, Brut, Ancren Riwle, and King Horn, etc., in Morris and Skeat's Specimens of Early English. HISTORY. Text-book, Montgomery, pp. 58-86, or Cheyney, pp. 88-144.
Point out a likeness between the Brut and the work of a Victorian poet. Ormulum, Lyrics, and Robert Manning of Brunne. Among the lyrics, read specially, "Sumer is i-cumen in," "Alysoun," "Lenten ys come with love to toune," and "Blow, Northern Wind." What was the purpose of the Ormulum? What is its subject matter? Does it show much French influence?
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