“ He inveighs against the oppression of the poor by the rich, reproves those who, weary of matins or mass, spend their time in church “jangling,” telling tales, and wondering where they will get the best ale, and revives the legend of the dancers at the church door during mass who were cursed by the priest and went on dancing for a twelvemonth without cessation. ”

“ See also Gerhard Hellmers, Ueber die Sprache Robert Mannyngs of Brunne und über die Autorschaft der ihm zugeschriebenen Meditations . . . (Göttingen, 1885) , which contains an analysis of the dialectic peculiarities of Mannyng’s work; O. Boerner, “Die Sprache Robert Mannyngs” . . . in Studien zur engl. Philologie (vol. xii., Halle, 1904) and Oskar Preussner, Robert Mannyng of Brunne’s Übersetzung von Pierre de Langtofts Chronicle (Breslau, 1891) . All accounts of his life are based on his own work. ”

“ A third work, usually ascribed to Mannyng, chiefly on the ground of its existing side by side with the Handlyng Synne in the Harleian and Bodleian MSS., is the Medytacyuns of the Soper of oure lorde Jhesu, And also of hys passyun And eke of the peynes of hys swete modyr, Mayden marye, a free translation of St Bonaventura’s De coena et passione Domini. . . .
Robert of Brunne’s Chronicle exists in two MSS.: Petyt MS. 511, written in the Northern dialect, in the Inner Temple library; and Lambeth MS. 131 in a Midland dialect. The first part was edited The Story of England . . . ”