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ORM, or ORMIN

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Originally appearing in Volume V20, Page 294 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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ORM, or ORMIN , the author of an See also:English See also:book, called by himself Ormulum (" because Orm made it "), consisting of metrical homilies on the gospels read at See also:mass. The unique MS., now in the Bodleian Library, is certainly Orm's autograph, and contains abundant corrections by his own See also:hand. On palaeographical grounds it is referred to about A.D. 1200, and this date is supported by the linguistic See also:evidence. The See also:dialect is midland, with some See also:northern features. It is marked in an unparalleled degree by the abundance of Scandinavian words, while the See also:French See also:element in its vocabulary is extraordinarily small. The precise determination of the locality is not See also:free from difficulty, as it is now recognized that the criteria formerly relied on for distinguishing between the eastern and the western varieties of the midland dialect are not valid, at least for this See also:early See also:period. The Ormulum certainly contains a surprisingly large number of words that are otherwise nearly See also:peculiar to western texts; but the inference that might be See also:drawn from this fact appears to be untenable in See also:face of the remarkable lexical See also:affinities between this See also:work and Havelok, which is certainly of See also:north-See also:east midland origin. On the whole, the See also:language of the Ormulum seems to point to north See also:Lincolnshire as the author's native See also:district. The work is dedicated to a certain See also:Walter, at whose See also:request it was composed, and whom Orm addresses as his See also:brother in a threefold sense—" according to the flesh," as his See also:fellow-See also:Christian, and as being a member of the same religious fraternity, that of the Augustinian Canons. The See also:present writer has suggested (See also:Athenaeum, 19th May 1906) that Orm and Walter may have been inmates of the Augustinian priory of Elsham, near the See also:Humber, which was established about the See also:middle of the 12th See also:century by Walter de Amundeville. In his See also:foundation See also:charter (See also:Dugdale's Monasticon, ed.

Caley and Bandinel, vi. 56o) Walter endows the priory with lands, and also grants to it the services of certain villeins, among whom are his steward (praepositus) See also:

William, son of Leofwine, and his wife and See also:family. As this William is said to have had an See also:uncle named Orm, and probably owed his See also:Norman name to a godfather belonging to the Arnundeville family, it seems not unlikely that the author of the Ormulum and his brother Walter were his sons, named respectively after their See also:father's uncle and his See also:lord, and that they entered the religious See also:house of which they had been made subjects. The name Orm is Scandinavian (Old Norse Ormr, literally " See also:serpent," corresponding to the Old Eng. wyrm, " See also:worm "), and was not uncommon in the Danish parts of See also:England. It occurs once in the book. The Gallicized See also:form Ormin is found only in one passage, where the author gives it as the name by which he was christened. If this statement be meant literally (i.e. if the writer was not merely treating the two names as See also:equivalent), it shows that he must, like his brother, have had a Norman godfather. The ending -in was frequently appended to names in Old French, e.g. in Johannin for Johan, See also:John. The See also:title Ormulum for the book which Orm made was probably an See also:imitation of See also:Speculum, a See also:common See also:medieval name for books of devotion or religious edification. The Ormulum is written in lines alternately of eight and seven syllables, without either See also:rhyme or See also:alliteration. The See also:rhythm may be seen from the opening See also:couplet: Nu, broferr Wallter, broperr See also:min Affterr flwshess kinde. The extant portion of the work, not including the See also:dedication and introduction, consists of about 20,000 lines.

But the table of contents refers to 242 homilies, of which only 31 are preserved; and as the dedication implies that the book had been completed, and that it included homilies on the gospels for nearly all the See also:

year, it would seem that the huge fragment which we possess is not much more than one-eighth of this extraordinary See also:monument of pious See also:industry. The Ormulum is entirely destitute of poetic merit, though the author's visible enjoyment of his task renders it not uninteresting See also:reading. To the See also:history of biblical See also:interpretation and of theological ideas it probably contributes little or nothing that is not well-known from other See also:sources. For the philologist, however, the work is of immense value, partly as a unique specimen of the north-midland dialect of the period, and partly because the author had invented an See also:original See also:system of phonetic spelling, which throws See also:great See also:light on the contemporary See also:pronunciation of English. In closed syllables the shortness of a vowel is indicated by the doubling of the following consonant. In open syllables this method would have been misleading, as it would have suggested a phonetic doubling of the consonant. In such See also:ORMEROD cases Orm had recourse to the See also:device of placing the See also:mark over the vowel. Frequently, but apparently not according to any discoverable See also:rule, he distinguishes See also:long vowels by one, two or three accents over the See also:letter. Like some earlier writers, he retained the Old English form of the letter g ($) where it expressed a spirant See also:sound (not, however, distinguishing between the guttural and the palatal spirant), and used the See also:continental g for the guttural stop and the sound dzh. He was, however, original in distinguishing the two latter sounds by using slightly different forms of the letter. This fact was unfortunately not perceived by the editors, so that the printed See also:text confounds the two symbols throughout. The See also:discovery was made by See also:Professor A.

S. See also:

Napier in 1890. It must be confessed that Orm often forgets his own rules of spelling, and although hundreds of oversights are corrected by interlineation, many inconsistencies still remain. Nevertheless, the See also:orthography of the Ormulum is the most valuable existing source of See also:information on the development of sounds in Middle English. The Ormulum was edited for the first See also:time by R. M. See also:White in 1854. A revised edition, by R. See also:Holt, was published in 1878. Many important corrections of the text were given by E. Kolbing in the first See also:volume of Englische Studien. With reference to the three forms of the letter g, see A.

S. Napier, Notes on the Orthography of the Ormulum, printed with A History of the See also:

Holy See also:Rood See also:Tree (Early English Text Society, 1894). (H.

End of Article: ORM, or ORMIN

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