Middle English Prose

A vast amount of literature written in Middle English from the 14 th century, a great number of translations
as well as new genres emerge using the vernacular. Real best-sellers with 400-250 manuscript copies.

RELIGIOUS LITERATURE
The most important section of literary activity. New forms of religiosity, new fervour from the part of laity,
new demands of sharing the spiritual, theological knowledge and experiences with the monastic-clerical
milieu. New movements, ideas: lay piety, Lollardy, mysticism, etc.

VERNACULAR THEOLOGY:
John Wyclif (1331 –1384). Theologian in Oxford, reformer. The Lollard movement: pre-Reformation.
John Wycliff’s works: mainly in Latin, but some works also in Middle English. Lollards created new vocabulary
to express spiritual truth and mainly doctrinal theology in the vernacular.
 Sermons
 Translations:
The Wycliffite Bible (from approximately 1382 to 1395)
The work of Wycliffe himself, and the work of several hands: Nicholas of Hereford, John Purvey and
perhaps John Trevisa. The translators worked from the Vulgate, the Latin Bible. Very popular: more
than 250 manuscripts of the Wycliffite Bible survive.
Reading the Scriptures in many ways:
meditation: Nicholas Love, The Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ (from the Pseudo-Bonaventuran
Meditationes Vitae Christi)

MYSTICISM
Richard Rolle (1290/1300–1349) hermit, mystic, and religious writer, nearly 400 English and at least 70
Continental manuscripts, both Latin and English.
 Incendium Amoris (The Fire of Love), an account of his mystical experiences: physical warmth in his
body, a sense of wonderful sweetness, and heavenly music.
The Cloud of Unknowing: (anonymous, letter half of the fourteenth century) Pseudo-Dionysian negative
theology. Elitist, very intellectual approach, - critical awareness of the limits of language and of metaphors.
The images are hindrances: the contemplative experience has to take place in the imagelessness: in
the “cloud of unknowing”.
Walter Hilton (b. 1340–45, d. 24 March 1396) English Augustinian mystic.
The Scale of Perfection (II Books), written for an anchoress, manual of contemplation, about the
reformation of the soul. 62 manuscripts, including fourteen of a Latin translation made around 1400 by the
Carmelite friar Thomas Fishlake
Mixed Life –for a lay person, how to meditate and contemplate.

WOMEN MYSTICS:
Julian of Norwich (around 1342 -1416), anchoress of the Church of St Julian in Norwich.
A series of intense visions of Jesus Christ: Revelations of Divine Love, the Short Text and the Long Text.
The earliest surviving book written in the English language by a woman.
Tone of loving intimacy between her and her Saviour, in a prose of powerful affective intensity as
well as a conceptual precision. Optimistic theology: God's love in terms of joy and compassion, as opposed
to law and duty, God is both our mother and our father.
Margery Kempe (c. 1373 – after 1438), from Bishop's Lynn (now King's Lynn), Norfolk, England. Married lay
woman, had at least fourteen children.
 Illiterate, but dictating The Book of Margery Kempe, the first autobiography in the English language.
Her domestic tribulations, her extensive pilgrimages to holy sites in Europe and the Holy Land, as well as her
mystical conversations with God.
A calling to a “greater intimacy with Christ” through multiple visions and experiences.
Had visions of Jesus Christ in the form of a man, these physically affected her bodily senses: heavenly
melody that made her weep, remembering Christ’s passion. Her Book: “a carefully constructed spiritual and
social commentary.”
Excerpts published by Wynkyn de Worde in around 1501.

SECULAR LITERATURE
LETTERS, WILLS, COURTLY LITERATURE (etc. The Paston Letters: the largest surviving archive of private
correspondence in English from the ME period. Mandeville’s Travels
TRANSLATIONS: John Trevisa: Polychronicon
ROMANCE IN PROSE: Thomas Malory: Morte Darthur.