Dan Michel of Northgate (

fl. ''Floruit'' (; abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for "they flourished") denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indicatin ...

1340) was an English writer, the author of the ''

Ayenbite of Inwyt The ''Ayenbite of Inwyt'' —also () ; literally, the "again-biting of inner wit," or the ''Remorse'' (''Prick'') ''of Conscience'' is the title of a confessional prose work written in a Kentish dialect (Old English), Kentish dialect of Middle ...

''.

Biography

Nothing is known of Dan Michael except what can be gathered from his work and from the fact that Northgate is still the name of an area of the city of

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. ...

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, England. His only known work is a literal translation in the Kentish dialect of a French treatise entitled ''La Somme des Vices et des Vertus'' (also known as ''Le Miroir du monde'' or ''Le Livre des commandemens'', &c.), which was written in 1279 by Laurentius Gallus, a Dominican friar and confessor to Philip III of France. This work was translated into Flemish, Catalan, Spanish and Italian, and appears in no less than six English translations. Dan Michel's autograph manuscript is preserved in the

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and is one of the largest libraries in the world. It is estimated to contain between 170 and 200 million items from many countries. As a legal deposit library, the British ...

as Arundel MS 57, which states that the work was completed in the year 1340 on the eve of the apostles Simon and Jude by Dan Michel of Northgate, a brother of the cloister of St Augustine of Canterbury. The value of the book is chiefly philological as an authenticated and dated example of the southern dialect. The ''Ayenbite of Inwyt'' was edited for the

Roxburghe Club The Roxburghe Club is a bibliophilic and publishing society based in the United Kingdom. Origins The spur to the Club's foundation was the sale of the enormous library of the Duke of Roxburghe (who had died in 1804), which took place over 46 days ...

by the Rev. Joseph Stevenson in 1855, and for the

Early English Text Society The Early English Text Society (EETS) is a text publication society founded in 1864 which is dedicated to the editing and publication of early English texts, especially those only available in manuscript. Most of its volumes contain editions of ...

by Richard Morris in 1876.

References

English non-fiction writers Middle English literature 14th-century English writers Writers from Canterbury English translators Translators from French English male non-fiction writers English Christian monks 14th-century Christian monks {{England-writer-stub