Robert Mannyng
in full Robert Mannyng of Brunne
flourished c. 1330
early English poet and author of Handlyng
Synne, a confessional manual, and of the
chronicle Story of England. The works are
preserved independently in several manuscripts,
none of certain provenance.
The author is probably to be identified with
a Sir Robert de Brunne, chaplain, named as
executor in a Lincoln will of 1327; apart from
this mention, his biography can be reconstructed
only from his writings. He was at the University
of Cambridge around 1300. For 15 years (c.
1302–c. 1317) Mannyng was a Gilbertine canon at
Sempringham priory, Lincolnshire, where in 1303
he began Handlyng Synne and was still working at
it after 1307. For many years he was engaged on
the Story of England, which, he relates, was
finished between 3 and 4 o’clock, on Friday, May
15, 1338.
Handlyng Synne is an adaptation in about
13,000 lines, in short couplets poorly
versified, of the Manuel des Péchés (“Handbook
of Sins”), which is usually ascribed to William
of Waddington (or Widdington), an Englishman,
probably a Yorkshireman, writing in Anglo-Norman
between 1250 and 1270. Like Waddington, Mannyng
aimed to provide a handbook intended to
stimulate careful self-examination as
preparation for confession.
Mannyng deals in turn with the Ten
Commandments, the seven deadly sins and the sin
of sacrilege, the seven sacraments, the 12
requisites of confession, and the 12 graces of
confession. There is much direct instruction,
exhortation, and didactic comment; each of the
topics is illustrated by one or more tales.
These exempla have sometimes been considered to
provide the particular interest of the work. The
whole work is designed for oral delivery.
Mannyng’s merit as a storyteller lies in his apt
management of material and in his lucid, direct
narration. Otherwise the literary merits of
Handlyng Synne are negligible, although its
documentary value for social history is great.
It illustrates clearly the attitudes and values
of the English minor clergy and peasantry in the
early 14th century; throughout there is much
comment on the social, domestic, parochial, and
commercial scene.
Of similar literary quality is Mannyng’s
later work, the Story of England, but the basis
of the Story of England is fiction. As history
it is almost worthless. The work falls into two
parts. The first tells the story from the
biblical Noah to the death of the British king
Caedwalla in 689. In the second part, he takes
the story to the death of Edward I (1307).
Of particular interest is his incorporation
of elements of popular romance, such as the
story of Guy of Warwick’s encounter with the
giant Colbrand, which he inserts into his
account of Athelstan. He works into his
narrative several topical songs, mainly on the
Scottish wars of Edward I’s time.
