Cursor Mundi

CURSOR MUNDI (c1275 - 1300)

The prologue declares:

This is the best book of all,
'The Course of the World' men do it call.

The anonymous author refers to Alexander, Caesar, Troy and King Arthur, and says that he proposes to honour the best lady of all, the Virgin Mary. Cursor Mundi is a religious epic of 24,000 lines in rhyming couplets in the Northumbrian dialect, and, according to one authority, was probably written near Durham. The author makes it clear that by now southern texts have to be translated for northern audiences:

In southerin englis was it draun,
And turnd it have I till our aun
Langage o northrin lede [people]
Þat can nan oiþer englis rede.

The work purports to be a spiritual history of the world from the creation to Doomsday, divided into Seven Ages. It includes the principal biblical events together with much diverting and apocryphal material taken from mediaeval legend. The author's humanity and plain language finds expression in fluent, readable verse.

Much mediaeval work of this kind belongs to the North and includes the Northern Homily Cycle of c. 1300, a collection of sermons for Sundays and certain festivals during the year. Of the accounts of the passion, the Northern Passion is considered superior to the southern version and exists in southern and midland manuscripts. The Pricke of Conscience was the most popular poem of the 14th century, far more so than the Canterbury Tales or Piers Plowman. It is written in the Yorkshire dialect and was long thought to be among the works of Richard Rolle (d. 1349) who was born in North Yorkshire and spent part of his life near Richmond. Rolle had a great influence on his own and the next generation in his exaltation of the spiritual content of religion above its mere forms.

Myers Literary Guide:	The North-East
CURSOR MUNDI (c1275 - 1300) The prologue declares: This is the best book of all, 'The Course of the World' men do it call. The anonymous author refers to Alexander, Caesar, Troy and King Arthur, and says that he proposes to honour the best lady of all, the Virgin Mary. Cursor Mundi is a religious epic of 24,000 lines in rhyming couplets in the Northumbrian dialect, and, according to one authority, was probably written near Durham. The author makes it clear that by now southern texts have to be translated for northern audiences: In southerin englis was it draun, And turnd it have I till our aun Langage o northrin lede [people] Þat can nan oiþer englis rede. The work purports to be a spiritual history of the world from the creation to Doomsday, divided into Seven Ages. It includes the principal biblical events together with much diverting and apocryphal material taken from mediaeval legend. The author's humanity and plain language finds expression in fluent, readable verse. Much mediaeval work of this kind belongs to the North and includes the Northern Homily Cycle of c. 1300, a collection of sermons for Sundays and certain festivals during the year. Of the accounts of the passion, the Northern Passion is considered superior to the southern version and exists in southern and midland manuscripts. The Pricke of Conscience was the most popular poem of the 14th century, far more so than the Canterbury Tales or Piers Plowman. It is written in the Yorkshire dialect and was long thought to be among the works of Richard Rolle (d. 1349) who was born in North Yorkshire and spent part of his life near Richmond. Rolle had a great influence on his own and the next generation in his exaltation of the spiritual content of religion above its mere forms.
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