Robert Mannyng of Brunne lived during the late thirteenth, early fourteenth
centuries. He was an Englishman who took holy orders with the minor Gilbertines, a
Puritan religious order.
He wrote two major works: Handlyng Synne (first printed about 1303) and The
Chronicle of England, produced in his old age in 1338. Brunne translated
both Handlyng Synne and Chronicle from French or Latin works, altering them considerably
in the process. Like many translators of this era, Brunne took many liberties with the
works he translated. He adopted for his audience (the ordinary people of England), often
adding in large tracts of his own material and using simplified language that they were
likely to understand. Brunne's style is sometimes cumbersome and repetitive, sometimes
full of snap and punch, and often epistolary. But he always writes a good story, meant
to entertain and instruct the ordinary English man or woman. Although Handlyng Synne and
Chronicle are `translations' of other works, they are just as much Brunne's work as
anyone else's.
Handlyng Synne is a collection of moralistic tales, also known as epiphanies, meant to
show the English the errors of their sinful life. Its intimate descriptions of daily
life provides a fine social history of fourteenth-century England - it is far more
history than literature. On the other hand, The Chronicle of England is an epic
bildungsroman largely based on fiction and myth, and uses the works of Geoffrey Crayon,
Franklin of Avalon, Geoffrey Monmouth, Wace, Shakespeare,Pierre Langtoft and Bede as its
bases. Both Handlyng Synne and The Chronicle of England are massive works, many
thousandsof lines long.
Sources
Frederick Furnivall, ed. The Chronicle of England,2 volumes. London, 1887
Ethan Brand, ed. Handlyng Synne, London and New York, Chadwick, 1955
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