Editing Ormulum (section)

==Significance==
Orrm's book has a number of innovations that make it valuable. As Bennett points out, Orrm's adaptation of a classical metre with fixed stress patterns anticipates future English poets, who would do much the same when encountering foreign language prosodies.<ref>[[#Bennett1986|Bennett 1986]], p.&nbsp;31</ref> The ''Ormulum'' is also the only specimen of the homiletic tradition in England between Ælfric and the fourteenth century, as well as the last example of the Old English verse homily. It also demonstrates what would become [[Modern English|Received Standard English]] two centuries before [[Geoffrey Chaucer]].<ref>[[#Burchfield1987|Burchfield 1987]], p.&nbsp;280</ref> Further, Orrm was concerned with the laity. He sought to make the Gospel comprehensible to the congregation, and he did this perhaps forty years before the [[Fourth Council of the Lateran]] of 1215 "spurred the clergy as a whole into action".<ref>[[#Bennett1986|Bennett 1986]], p.&nbsp;33</ref> At the same time, Orrm's idiosyncrasies and attempted orthographic reform make his work vital for understanding Middle English. The ''Ormulum'' is, with the {{lang|enm|[[Ancrene Wisse]]}} and the {{lang|enm|[[Ayenbite of Inwyt]]}}, one of the three crucial texts that have enabled philologists to document the transition from Old English to Middle English.<ref>[[#Burchfield1987|Burchfield 1987]], p.&nbsp;280</ref>