New words, new phrases and new ways of saying things surface almost daily because ours is a living language used for day to day communication that changes with the times, as it has over the centuries, a continuing development of interaction with our fellow man which first began with signs and symbols and slowly progressed from the spoken to the written word.

In earlier times, only a few educated people such as the monks could read and write and so the majority of the population depended on what they were told but slowly this situation changed and one of Bourne’s most noteworthy citizens from past centuries became instrumental in putting the ordinary speech of the English people into a form that is still recognisable today.

Robert Manning, or Mannyng, (1264-1338 or 1340), poet and English chronicler, is best known as Robert de Brunne from his long residence in Bourne Abbey, founded in 1138 for Arroasian canons, a branch of the Augustinians, becoming their most distinguished member. He was the first man to write English as we read it now, thus giving the language its present shape, by popularising religious and historical material in an early Middle English dialect of great importance in linguistic history.

Nothing he wrote, however, was ever quite original for he translated the writings of other men into English rhyme from the French, often adding his own words to illustrate a point with the result that his judicious omissions and additions made his version far more entertaining than the original.

Manning was particularly noteworthy as a history writer although later scholars have regarded his verse as rather pedestrian. His first and best known work was called Handlyng Synne, written between 1303 and 1317 while a canon at the Gilbertine priory of Sempringham. It comprises 12,600 lines in a narrative form of rhyming couplets and containing 65 stories dealing with pride, envy, anger, idleness and other sins, and three of these tales and a prologue have recently been translated.

Until now, much of what he wrote may appear rather dense to the average reader but thanks to the two translators, John Haines from Warrington, Cheshire, and L A Hood from Oklahoma City, USA, who worked together for several years, the first modern English version of his Three Mediaeval Tales and a Prologue was published in 2008, a work they described as: “Porn, paganism and the Prince of Darkness in rhyming couplets as the author himself presented it during the 14th century.”

The translation has made these verses more accessible to the modern reader and so we are able to make a better judgment of Manning’s literary worth. Until now, his work was known to many but understood by few but thanks to Haines and Hood we know exactly what is being said and these tales turn out to be the re-telling of fables and folklore, some bawdy, others funny and many religiously admonitory, because, after all, the intention was to warn against the perils of sinning.

This is what Manning intended. The language he used was his own native tongue and as he knew that rhyme was the most easily remembered form of literary output, he used it to give simple, uneducated people knowledge, advice and above all, amusement and hoped that his writings would provide "solace in their fellowship as they sat together".

The three tales translated are The Sacrilegious Husband and Wife that Stuck Together, a joke revealed in the title after the story has been read, The Tale of the Sacrilegious Carollers, telling of a time when carolling was anything but Christian and the carol a dancing song with strong pagan fertility rite association, and lastly The Tale of How the Devil Came to be Shriven, an account of Satan going to confession to receive forgiveness for his sins.

Here is an example of Manning’s style with one of his verses:

karolles, wrastlynges, or somour games,
who-so euer haunteth any swyche shames
Yn cherche, other yn chercheyerd,
Of sacrylage he may be a-ferd.

And this is the translation into modern idiom:

Carols, wrestlings, or summer games,
Whoever takes part in such shameful things
in the church or churchyard,
Of sacrilege, he should be afraid.

This translation will be a revelation to those with little knowledge of Manning’s work and who may expect to find his writings full of deep philosophical meanings. Instead, they are what he intended, fireside tales illustrating right and wrong in a society ruled by the church and presented in a simple style easily understood by everyone.

Since his death, Bourne has become linked with Manning by association, even gaining a reputation as "the cradle of the English language". The Old Grammar School built in the grounds of the Abbey Church in 1636 is believed to have replaced an earlier school dating back to the days when the monastery existed and may have been the building where Robert de Brunne taught when magister or teacher at the abbey at the beginning of the 14th century.

Yet, remarkably, there is no memorial to Robert Manning in the Abbey Church although in the town he was remembered briefly as the Robert Manning College, former name of Bourne Academy until 2011, and with a street named Manning Road. There was also a statue of him in Bourne Wood erected in 1991 (pictured above) as part of a woodland sculpture project by the Forestry Commission, the work of the artist John Fortnum and consisting of a vertical cone of pine logs 30 feet high with a cast concrete head gazing over ponds and trees towards Sempringham Abbey, home of the Gilbertine monks. An internal ladder and viewing platform made it one of the largest exhibits completed by a British sculptor working alone but the structure deteriorated badly over the years and eventually became so unsafe that it was dismantled in 2003.

In view of his reputation and acknowledged connection with Bourne, Manning surely deserves better and perhaps now is the time for those who run our church, civic and community affairs to consider a more suitable and lasting memorial.