Orm, OSA, also known as Ormin (fl. 1150s–80s), was an

Augustinian canon Canons regular are priests who live in community under a rule ( and canon in greek) and are generally organised into religious orders, differing from both secular canons and other forms of religious life, such as clerics regular, designated by a ...

from south

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-west, Leicestershire ...

who wrote the ''

Ormulum The ''Ormulum'' or ''Orrmulum'' is a twelfth-century work of biblical exegesis, written by an Augustinian canon named Orm (or Ormin) and consisting of just under 19,000 lines of early Middle English verse. Because of the unique phonemic orth ...

'', a collection of verse homilies that is the oldest English

autograph An autograph is a person's own handwriting or signature. The word ''autograph'' comes from Ancient Greek (, ''autós'', "self" and , ''gráphō'', "write"), and can mean more specifically: Gove, Philip B. (ed.), 1981. ''Webster's Third New Inter ...

and one of the most significant records of

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English p ...

. His work is a successful example of

homiletics In religious studies, homiletics ( grc, ὁμιλητικός ''homilētikós'', from ''homilos'', "assembled crowd, throng") is the application of the general principles of rhetoric to the specific art of public preaching. One who practices or ...

translating

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

learning to balance the needs of his fellow canons, who likely spoke

Anglo-Norman French Anglo-Norman, also known as Anglo-Norman French ( nrf, Anglo-Normaund) (French: ), was a dialect of Old Norman French that was used in England and, to a lesser extent, elsewhere in Great Britain and Ireland during the Anglo-Norman period. When ...

, with those of lay English-speaking audiences.

Name

Orm names himself at the end of the work's prologue: (Ded. 323–24: 'Where I was christened, I was named Ormin by name'). This name derives from

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

, meaning ''worm'', ''serpent'' or ''dragon''. With the suffix of "myn" for "man" (hence "Ormin"), it was a common name throughout the

Danelaw The Danelaw (, also known as the Danelagh; ang, Dena lagu; da, Danelagen) was the part of England in which the laws of the Danes held sway and dominated those of the Anglo-Saxons. The Danelaw contrasts with the West Saxon law and the Mercian ...

area of England. The metre dictated the choice between each of the two forms of the name. The title of the collection, "Ormulum", is modelled after the

word ("mirror"), so popular in the title of medieval Latin non-fiction works that the term

speculum literature The medieval genre of speculum literature, popular from the twelfth through the sixteenth centuries, was inspired by the urge to encompass encyclopedic knowledge within a single work. However, some of these works have a restricted scope and func ...

is used for the genre. The Danish name is not unexpected, as the language of the ''Ormulum'', an East Midlands dialect, is of the Danelaw. It includes numerous Old Norse phrases (particularly doublets, where an English and Old Norse term are co-joined), but there are very few French influences on Orm's language.

Place and dates of activity

According to the work's dedication, Orm wrote the ''Ormulum'' at the behest of Brother Walter, who was his brother both (biologically, "after the flesh's kind") and as a fellow Augustinian canon. With this information, and the evidence of the dialect of the text, it is possible to propose a place of origin with reasonable certainty. Some scholars, from a suggestion by Henry Bradley, have regarded the likely origin as Elsham Priory in north Lincolnshire. In the mid-1990s, it became widely accepted that Orm wrote in the Bourne Abbey in

Bourne, Lincolnshire Bourne is a market town and civil parish in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England. It lies on the eastern slopes of the limestone Kesteven Uplands and the western edge of the Fens, 11 miles (18 km) north-east of Stamford, 12 mil ...

. Two additional pieces of evidence support this conjecture: firstly, Arrouaisian canons established the abbey in 1138, and secondly, the work includes dedicatory prayers to

Peter Peter may refer to: People * List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Peter (given name) ** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church * Peter (surname), a sur ...

and

Paul Paul may refer to: *Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) * Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity *Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chri ...

, the patrons of Bourne Abbey. The Arrouaisian rule was largely that of Augustine; its houses often are loosely referred to as Augustinian. Orm's dates of activity are not known. From palaeographic evidence, Orm may have begun the work as early as 1150 and worked on it until the 1180s.

References

{{authority control 12th-century English Roman Catholic theologians 12th-century Latin writers Canonical Augustinian theologians Canonical Augustinian scholars Middle English poets 12th-century English writers 12th-century English people English male poets Latin–English translators 12th-century births