Ancrén Riwe ('The Rule of the Anchoresses') is the name of a famous Middle English religious work dating from the first quarter of the 13th century. It was a prose treatise written for the spiritual guidance of a little community of three religious women, Cistercian nuns, living at Tarente or Tarrant-Keynston on the Stour in Dorsetshire; and is interesting not merely as a monument of the current English of the period, but for its homely eloquence, its devoutness, its sensible hostility to needless austerities, and its sense of humour. The work, which consists of eight books, has been ascribed to Richard Poor (died in 1237 bishop of Durham), who was perhaps born at Tarrant, and certainly caused his heart to be buried here. Another account is that it was written by Simon of Ghent, bishop of Salisbury, for his own sisters, nuns at Tarrant.
The Ancrén Riwe was edited for the Camden Society in 1853 by the Rev. J. Morton. A Latin Version also exists with the title Regulae Inclusarum.