What was the name of J.R.R. Tolkien's first published academic work on the Middle English poem Ancrene Wisse?

J.R.R. Tolkien's first published academic work on Ancrene Wisse was titled Ancrene Wisse and Hali Meiðhad.

The work appeared in 1929 and concerned Middle English religious prose and related texts. It reflects Tolkien’s professional focus on philology: the study of languages, manuscripts, textual history, and the development of words. His scholarship was not limited to the legends that later inspired Middle-earth.

Ancrene Wisse is a medieval guide for anchoresses, women who chose enclosed religious lives. Hali Meiðhad, also known as Holy Maidenhood, is another Middle English religious text. Tolkien’s study examined linguistic and textual relationships rather than treating the works simply as devotional literature.

This title is easy to confuse with Tolkien’s better-known essays and scholarly books. “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics” was his famous 1936 lecture, while Finn and Hengest and The Battle of Maldon concern other Old English subjects. The Ancrene Wisse study belongs to Tolkien’s early academic bibliography.