The Manere of Good Lyvyng: A Middle English Translation of Pseudo-Bernard’s ‘Liber de modo bene vivendi ad sororem’ ed. by Anne E. Mouron (review)

The Liber de modo bene vivendi ad sororem, an anonymous Latin treatise from the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, is an important work of religious advice for nuns, but it has received relatively little scholarly attention. Surviving in at least nine manuscripts – Anne Mouron has unearthed some previously unknown ones – it appears to have become particularly popular in the fifteenth century, when at least five manuscript copies and a number of printed editions were made. Already in the fourteenth century, though, it was a favourite text of Birgitta of Sweden, who owned a copy that she carried around with her. She may have been responsible for making it known outside Spain, from where the earliest manuscripts come. The first English translation, the basis of the present edition, was made in the mid-fifteenth century and survives in a single manuscript (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud misc. 517) that was probably made for the nuns of the Birgittine house of Syon.

Mouron brings together the history of the Latin source and its translation into English in a succinct Introduction, providing the most complete and recent summary of what is known about this text. Although the Liber has long been associated with the Cistercian order, Mouron finds evidence that it was written by an Augustinian. The Introduction places the Liber within the tradition of religious advice to women going back to Jerome, but is less forthcoming about where it fits among twelfth- and thirteenth-century advice. There is a brief comparison with the Middle English Ancrene Wisse, but no reference to other Latin texts, such as the substantial Speculum Virginum, with which it shares some features. The Introduction also devotes some space to the translator’s techniques (treated in detail by Mouron in an earlier publication), comparing them with those of three later English translators. The Middle English version emerges from this comparison as highly accomplished, remaining faithful to the sense of the Latin without slavishly following the wording.

The reader who is interested primarily in the content of the English text will find it provided in a handsome continuous layout. The reading text is followed by an extensive commentary, which occupies almost twice as many pages as the text (258 pages, while the text is 142), mostly indicating differences between the Middle English and the Latin source. In addition to providing many examples of the translator’s techniques, it also identifies sources acknowledged by the Latin original and unacknowledged quotations. There are also comparisons with the later English translations.

A number of appendices enhance the usefulness of this edition. Particularly helpful in contextualising the way in which the Manere of Good Lyvyng was received, a transcription of the three short religious texts that accompany it in MS Laud misc. 517 is provided. Mouron outlines in the Introduction the ways in which these three texts resonate with and complement the Manere. Making them available also contributes to the continuing study of the circulation of short works by religious across the Channel, since from their titles at least two of them (The Twelve Degrees of Mekenes and Seynt Albert the Byschop Seyth Thes Words) may well be translations of French texts that circulated from the thirteenth century onwards. Other appendices include a glossary of Middle English, an index of proper names, and an index of biblical quotations. Together with an extensive bibliography, these tools make the edition an extremely useful reference work for students both of Middle English prose and of religious advice for women.