There was no fixed spelling at this time. Orm generally doubled the
consonant after a short vowel, and insisted that any one who copied
his work should be careful to do the same. We shall find on counting
the syllables in the two lines quoted from him that the first line has
eight; the second, seven. 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_. Three young ladies who had secluded
themselves from the world in Dorsetshire, wished rules for guidance in
their seclusion. An unknown author, to oblige them, wrote the _Ancren
Riwle_ (Rule of Anchoresses). This book not only lays down rules for
their future conduct in all the affairs of life, but also offers much
religious consolation.

The following selection shows some of the curious rules for the
guidance of the anchoresses, and furnishes a specimen of the Southern
dialect of transitional English prose in the early part of the
thirteenth century:--

"ße, mine leoue sustren,
ne schulen habben no best
bute kat one... ße schulen
beon i-dodded four siðen,
iðe ßere, uorto lihten ower
heaued... Of idelnesse awakeneð