Annotations to James Joyce's Ulysses/Telemachus/016

Annotations

Agenbite of inwit     (Middle English) Remorse of conscience. Stephen has modernized the Middle English spelling Ayenbite of Inwyt. This is the title of a translation of a French moral treatise Le Somme de Vices et de Virtues (The Book of Vices and Vertues), written in 1279 by the Dominican monk Frère Lorens (Laurentius Gallus). Lorens was confessor to Philip III of France and it was for the king that he wrote the treatise. It is a layman's manual of sins and virtues, similar in content and style to The Parson's Tale in Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The English translation was made in 1340 by Dan Michel of Northgate, and is highly valued today by scholars of Middle English, being one of the few surviving works in the Kentish dialect.

See also 017.03, 058.11, 066.15, 160.33, 175.12, 14, 181.33, 189.26, 198.11-12, 233.32, 36, 268.21, 364.26, 373.34, 394.04, 440.04-05, 467.23, 469.01-02, 659.23-24 and 670.30.