All translations, unless otherwise stated, are my own.

Prologue, Paragraph 1

in as mechil as ye have desirid. Following Innes-Parker’s discussion (“Anchoritic Elements,” pp. 172–73), these opening lines might be compared to the preface of the Ancrene Wisse [Instructions for Anchoresses], which similarly stresses that “ye, mine leove sustren, habbeth moni dei i-cravet on me efter riwle” [you, my beloved sisters, have many a day begged me for a rule] and emphasizes that the author “chulle speoken . . . with Godes grace” [shall speak . . . with God’s grace] (ed. Hasenfratz, Ancrene Wisse, p. 59). Another point of reference might be the advisory handbook Aelred of Rievaulx composed for his enclosed sister in ca. 1160–1162. One of its two English versions begins by stating “suster, thou hast ofte axed of me a forme of lyvyng accordyng to thyn estat” and specifically mentions the importance of “Goddes servaunts” involving themselves “in meditacion and praier and contemplacion” (Aelred of Rievaulx, De Institutione Inclusarum, ed. Ayto and Barratt, pp. 1–2).↩back to note source

I make it but schortli. An echo of vernacular mystical tradition, which often attaches special efficacy to brevity in prayer. The group of texts associated with The Cloud of Unknowing repeatedly emphasize that “perfeccion” should “makith thi preier ful schorte” (ed. Windeatt, Book of Privy Counselling, p. 93). The issue is considered at greatest length in the Cloud itself, where the author recommends that prayers be expressed “in ful fewe wordes; ye, and in ever the fewer the betir,” also arguing that “the werk of the spiryte” will supply the rest (ed. Gallacher, Cloud of Unknowing, p. 65).↩back to note source

Pater noster. The primacy of the Lord’s Prayer in medieval devotion reflects its institution by Christ himself during the Sermon of the Mount, where it is preceded by the directive “thus therefore shall you pray” (Matthew 6:9). The gospels preserve two versions: a longer, more widely used text in Matthew 6:9–13, and a slightly shorter petition in Luke 11:2–4. In the Middle Ages the prayer was commonly known as the “pater noster,” Latin for “our father,” after the first two words of the Vulgate translation.↩back to note source

abcé. The ABC is not merely the alphabet, but the first “text” medieval children were likely to encounter during elementary instruction; the point is made clear by surviving educational materials, such as school primers and hornbooks. The Lord’s Prayer often had a similar function, providing the first piece of Latin pupils might memorize (Orme, Medieval Schools, pp. 56–59). Julian of Norwich is also fond of this metaphor, including it twice in the longer text of her revelations to explain how God imparts divine truths through worldly experience: “of which gret things He will we have knowing here as it were in one ABC; that is to seyn, that we have a litill knoweing, whereof we shall have fullhede in Hevyn” (Julian of Norwich, Shewings, ed. Crampton, pp. 149; see also p. 108 for a further instance of the simile).↩back to note source

Fiat voluntas tua. Taken from the longer version of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:10.↩back to note source

putte yowr wil in Godes wil. This imperative, which recurs in the “general confession” with which the author closes her Prologue, resembles other vernacular theories of prayer; for instance, it recalls Julian of Norwich’s remarks on “how we should usen our prayors . . . that our wil be turnyd into the will of our Lord, enjoyand” (Shewings, ed. Crampton pp. 89–90).↩back to note source

alle thing that wretin and seide. Compare Romans 15:4: “For what things soever were written, were written for our learning.”↩back to note source

Prologue, Paragraph 2

Trinité. The triad of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one of the author’s favorite ways of evoking God and godhood; it recurs in nineteen out of fifty-four prayers, typically in her closing petitions. She is probably led here by the broader intellectual tradition of English mysticism, which often sets similar store in the Trinity as an object for contemplation and veneration, using the paradox of three persons in one to reflect on the divine mystery more generally: as Riehle notes, both Richard Rolle and Julian of Norwich regard “the Trinity as the true goal of the mystical search for God” and lay “unmistakable emphasis on the motif” in their meditations (Middle English Mystics, p. 88).↩back to note source

Prologue, Paragraph 3

first the hous muste be swepid. While confession is regularly compared to house-cleaning in medieval culture, the author is probably drawing on the thirteenth-century Liber de doctrina cordis [Book on the teaching of the heart]. At various points the Doctrina commands “now, prepare your heart just like a house, according to the great welcome Christ as your lord should receive” [prepara ergo cor tuus tanquam domum ad magnum hospitem christum in dominum tuum recipiendum] and stresses that “you must clean if you wish Christ to have harbor in the lodging of your heart, because through fear one expels and drives out sins, much like dirt from the lodging of the heart” [munda ergo hospitius cordis tui si vis christem hospitem habitare, quod fit per timorem qui expelit et eicit peccata tanquam immundicias hospitii cordis]; it also repeatedly likens confession to the “broom of conscience” [scoba conscientie] that sweeps out “the dirt of the house through the doorway of the mouth” [immundicias hospitii sui per ostium oris] (Liber de doctrina cordis, fols. 12v–13r). The idea of the soul being “honestli arraied” also resembles the Doctrina, which insists that the heart should “be equipped just as a house is equipped with necessary utensils” [ornatus ut sicut domus ornetur utensilibus necessariis] (fols. 22v–23r). The Doctrina was widely read, surviving in over two hundred manuscripts. It found a particularly avid audience in England: it was translated into Middle English as the Doctrine of the Hert (ca. 1400) (see eds. Whitehead et al., Doctrine of the Hert), and appears twice in the catalogues of Syon abbey (ed. Gillespie and Doyle, Syon Abbey, pp. 236, 253–54).↩back to note source

general confession. In the late medieval period, the term was applied to any emergency, informal, or provisional act of contrition made when formal confession was impossible or a confessor unavailable; a layman hearing the confession of a dying person would be one example. The particular type the author has in mind is “a ‘generic’ (‘complete’) sacramental confession, which lists all possible sins . . . to stimulate awareness of sins and help the penitent recall sins” (Sluhovsky, “General Confession,” pp. 27–28); as she makes clear, this can only be a reflective, preparatory exercise and not a substitute for full auricular confession before a priest. See Pollard “Bodleian MS Holkham Misc. 41,” p. 47.↩back to note source

sweping awey the filthe of oure sinnes. The imagery again recalls Liber de doctrina cordis, where “interrogating yourself, examining and judging yourself” [te ipsum interroges te ipsum examines] is compared to “cleaning house, where first the dust and other dirt of the household is gathered into one heap, before being thrown outside the house” [ad similitudinem mundaturi domum qui primus pulvere et ceteras immunditias hospitum in unum cumulum congregat quod eas eiciat extra domum] (Liber de doctrina cordis, fol. 13r). The importance of making full confession to an appointed confessor is also stressed by other fifteenth-century works intended for a female or lay audience, sometimes in response to Wycliffite hostility to the sacrament. Pollard (“Bodleian MS Holkham Misc. 41,” p. 47) compares this prayer to Nicholas Love’s account of Mary Magdalene, which includes a lengthy attack on “the fals opinyon of lollardes that schrift of mouthe is not nedeful” (Mirror, p. 90).↩back to note source

at the beginning of these meditaciones. The necessity of confession before any act of contemplation or prayer is repeatedly stressed in vernacular mysticism. The author of The Cloud of Unknowing, for instance, assigns an important preparatory function to confession, stating that no one should undertake meditation “er thei have clensid theire concience of alle theire special dedis of sinne done bifore, after the comoun ordinaunce of Holi Chirche” (ed. Gallacher, p. 58). Comparable stipulations are also made in the related texts, An Epistle on Prayer and Book of Privy Counselling, which also make clear that the contemplative must be “lawfulich amended . . . after the comoun ordinaunce of Holy Chirche in confession” (ed. Hodgson, Deonise Hid Diuinite, p. 49), and “beforetymes . . . ben lawefuly amendid of alle thi sinnes in special and in general, after the trewe conseil of holi chirche” (ed. Windeatt, Book of Privy Counselling, p. 81).↩back to note source

Prologue, Paragraph 4

I have fallen and sinnyd. The list of “defautes” follows recommended confessional procedure. Many of the earliest witnesses to “a more or less standard way for the penitent to begin a confession” move through a similar sequence of provisions (Elich, “Communal Reconciliation,” p. 143). Hence an early-sixteenth-century “forme of confessyon” organizes penitence under an identical series of headings, asking the penitent to admit how they “have offended my lord god grevously and specyally in the seven deedly synnes,” “in brekynge of the ten commaundementes,” in “mysspendynge of my five wyttes,” and by “not fulfyllynge of the seven werkes of mercy bodely” or “werkes of mercy spyrytuall” (Hore Beatissime Virginis Marie, fols. 198r–199v).↩back to note source

in pride . . . and in lecherie. The author’s list of seven deadly (or cardinal) sins is largely conventional, following one of the major organizing frameworks of confessional and pastoral discourse (Bloomfield, Seven Deadly Sins, pp. 43–67; Wenzel, Of Sins and Sermons, pp. 63–116). However, the order in which she places them is slightly unusual, awarding greater prominence to anger than it generally possesses. Most authorities, among them Aquinas and Laurent d’Orleans, tend to follow the sequence sketched out by St. Gregory, whose Moralia in Job (ca. 595) was the first text to identify “septem . . . principalia vitia” [seven principal vices]; here ira [anger] comes after “inanis gloria, invidia” [empty pride, envy] and before “tristitia, avaritia, ventris ingluvies, luxuria” [torpor, greed, gorging of the belly, lust] (Moralium libri, PL, 76.621). Nevertheless, some writers did tweak the running order to match the priorities of their intended readerships, and it may be that the author has followed suit (see Tupper, “Chaucer and the Seven Deadly Sins,” p. 94; McDonald, “Singing Sin,” pp. 290–91). It is certainly true that wrath is often thought to represent a special peril to the good works of a meditator. The Cloud of Unknowing gives the sin similar precedence, ranking “teenful [vexatious] passion and an appetite of vengaunce, the whiche is clepid Wrath” even higher than pride (ed. Gallacher, p. 42), and the dangers of anger give rise to the famous allegory of the pelican in book 3 of the Ancrene Wisse (ed. Hasenfratz, pp. 156–57). Compare also the appeal for help against “angres, and rancour” in prayer 5.↩back to note source

five wittis. The need to shield the senses against external intrusion and temptation is a frequent concern in advisory literature for enclosed women. The Ancrene Wisse dedicates the entirety of its second book to “heorte warde thurh the fif wittes” [guardianship of the heart through the five wits] (ed. Hasenfratz, p. 95), while Sawles Warde (ca. 1230) pictures “monnes fif wittes” as unruly servants who will fall into “nurhth” [riot] without the strict control of Wit, “the huse lauerd” [the lord of the house] (ed. Huber and Robertson, Katherine Group, p. 249).↩back to note source

yowre mercy whiche hath noon ende. An English approximation of “quoniam in aeternum misericordia ejus” [for his mercy endureth forever] or “quia in omnia saecula misericordia ejus” [for his mercy endureth in all times], a repeated refrain in Psalms 117 and 135 (or 118 and 136 in post-medieval bibles), and echoed in embedded prayers throughout the books of the Old Testament. See, for example, Jeremiah 33:11 and the prayer of Azarias in Daniel 3:89–90.↩back to note source

the woman of Caninee. In Matthew 15:22–28 the woman of Canaan (or “Syrophenicia” in Mark 7:26) begs Christ to aid her daughter. Although the gathered disciples tell Jesus “to send her away,” her request is granted after she demonstrates her “great faith” in Christ. Prayer 30 tells her story in fuller detail.↩back to note source

Ave Maria. Based on Luke 1:28, which describes the angel Gabriel notifying Mary that she will carry the Messiah, this salutation is one of the central prayers in medieval devotion; it takes its name from the first two words of its opening lines in Latin, “Ave Maria gratia plena: Dominus tecum, benedicta tu in mulieribus” [Hail Mary, full of grace: the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women]. Apparently originating in eleventh-century monasticism, it gained increasing prominence during the thirteenth century as the cult of the Virgin grew in popularity, and by the late Middle Ages was second only to the Lord’s Prayer in importance and efficacy: for instance, it appears immediately after the pater noster in a digest of fundamental Christian knowledge compiled by Archbishop Thoresby of York in the mid fourteenth century (ed. Simmons and Nolloth, Lay Folk’s Catechism, pp. 7–12). It is appended to all but four of the author’s prayers, and its occasional omission is probably due to space constraints in the manuscript; its absence from prayer 41 is suggestive of this fact, since this passage deals with Christ’s words on the cross, which are addressed in part to Mary (see John 19:26).↩back to note source

Prayer 1, Paragraph 1

alle yowre worthi names. The names of Christ are a popular theme for contemplation, owing to increased reverence of the Holy Name in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (see Renevey, “Anglo-Norman and Middle-English Translations,” pp. 265–76). A key example in England is Richard Rolle’s Encomium nominis Jhesu [Praise of the name Jesus] (ca. 1340): one of its vernacular versions attaches special redemptive power to the name, instructing the “contemplatif man” to “thynke on this name Jhesu contynuly” since “it destruys all vices and vanytes. It sawes charyté and vertus in the saul and yettes [pours] in savour of heevene and fulnes of goddis grace” (ed. Horstman, Yorkshire Writers, 1:106). See also Hilton’s The Scale of Perfection, which bids “thynke sum tyme on the blissid name Jhesu, which is maad confortable and delitable to hem, that they bi the mynde of it” (ed. Bestul, p. 37).↩back to note source

reverence and remembraunce. The phrase recurs in prayers 14 and 45 with much the same significance.↩back to note source

Prayer 2, Paragraph 1

yowre gracious message. See Luke 1:26–38 and Matthew 1:18–22.↩back to note source

grete joye. The phrase used here, and again in prayers 3 and 14, evokes the widespread schema of the “joys of the Virgin,” a model used in a variety of contemplative, devotional, and literary contexts throughout the late Middle Ages; perhaps its most famous appearance in English is among the “fyve poyntez” of Gawain’s pentangle in Sir Gawain and Green Knight (ed. Silverstein, p. 52). While the “joys” were flexible, with different sources fixing their number at five, seven, nine, or more, the Annunciation and Nativity invariably stand at the head of the list. See Woolf, English Religious Lyric, pp. 114–58; Sticca, Planctus Mariae, pp. 60–61; ed. Saupe, Middle English Marian Lyrics, pp. 137–46.↩back to note source

make me to lovyn . . . al that he hatith. Although perhaps suggested by Amos 15:5, Romans 12:9, or Psalm 96:10, the formula probably comes from medieval penitential literature. A markedly similar phrase appears in Chaucer’s Parson’s Tale as a gloss on Psalm 96: the Parson explains that “to love God is for to love that he loveth, and hate that he hateth” (CT X[I]307). The origin of the phrase is unclear. It does not appear in the source Chaucer is adapting, Raymond of Pennafort’s Summa de causibus poenitentia (ca. 1225) (Newhauser, “Parson’s Tale,” pp. 551–52; Petersen, Sources of the Parson’s Tale, p. 15; Raymundus de Pennafort, Summa, pp. 420–21). However, a comparable statement occurs in the work of Raymond’s contemporary and fellow Dominican, Humbert of Romans, who urges “love what God loves, and hate only what he hates” [diligite, quod diligit Deus, et odite tantummodo, quod odit] (Humbertus Burgundus, Commentaria in regulam, p. 37). Another source might be Augustine’s reflections on Psalm 44:8, which advise “you are a friend to God indeed, if you hate what he hates; yes, and love what he loves” [eris enim Deo amicus, si odisti quod odit. Ita et amabis quod amat] (Enarrationes in psalmos, PL 36.504).↩back to note source

Prayer 3, Paragraph 1

toke flesche and blod. See John 1:14.↩back to note source

felt hym stere in yowre precious wombe. Aelred of Rievaulx also recommends contemplating on the sensations Mary felt when carrying Christ in her womb, arguing that these feelings provide a particularly suitable object for “maydens meditacion”: hence he directs the reader to ask Mary “what swetnesse myght that be that thou were fulfilled with . . . when a blessed lord chees a bodily substaunce, verray blode and flesshe of thy body, and whan thou felist the presence of his gostly majeste in thy blessed wombe?” (De Institutione Inclusarum, ed. Ayto and Barratt, p. 18).↩back to note source

Prayer 4, Paragraph 1

quene of hevene and erthe, and empresse of helle. Both are standard epithets for Mary in the late fourteenth century, occurring widely in English sources, often in close conjunction. Hence John Mirk describes Mary receiving the titles “quene of heven and emperryse of helle and lady of alle the worlde” (Festial, ed. Powell, 1:96), and a meditation attributed to the hermit John Whiterig also calls her “the terror of demons, queen of heaven, mistress of the world and empress of hell” (Christ Crucified, ed. Farmer, p. 119). See further Oakes, Ora Pro Nobis, pp. 169–73.↩back to note source

cosine. The Middle English term carries broader significance than the modern “cousin.” It is applicable to any relative, either by blood or marriage, rather than the child of an uncle or aunt (MED, cosin(e), (n.1), sense a). Here it is equivalent to the Vulgate’s similarly expansive term cognata, or “kinswoman” (Luke 1:36).↩back to note source

tolde yow here joye. See Luke 1:39–56.↩back to note source

Magnificat. The Magnificat is one of most important canticles in medieval liturgy, based on Luke 1:46–55. See the Holkham Introduction, pp. 12–13, for a fuller discussion.↩back to note source

comunicacion. The vocabulary may be influenced by Pseudo-Bonaventure here, who follows Ambrose in emphasizing that the Holy Spirit “suffused” the assembled company during the Visitation (MLC, p. 19).↩back to note source

Prayer 5, Paragraph 1

yowre gloriouse birthe. See Luke 2:6–7; Matthew 1:25.↩back to note source

Putte awey fro myn herte alle angres. Compare Ephesians 4:31: “let all bitterness, and anger, and indignation, and clamor, and blasphemy, be put away from you.”↩back to note source

Prayer 6, Paragraph 1

Gloria . . . in terra pax. Although the prayer is referring to the celebratory song sung by “a multitude of the heavenly army, praising God” in Luke 2:14, its terminology looks to hymnology rather than scripture. The use of excelsis [“on high”] in place of the Vulgate’s altissimis [“most high”] shows that the author is referring to the widely-used hymn known as the Greater Doxology, traditionally attributed to Hilary of Poitiers or the second-century pope Telesphorus, and translated from Greek rather than adapted from the Vulgate (Myers, Hymns of Saint Hilary, pp. 70–71; Taylor, “Capitula Extranea,” p. 267). The hymn was incorporated into the mass by the ninth century in some regions, and by the late eleventh century was widely used on every feast day except Advent, Septuagesima, and the Feast of the Holy Innocents (A. King, Liturgy of the Roman Church, pp. 237–40; T. Kelly, Beneventan Chant, p. 86).↩back to note source

Prayer 7, Paragraph 1

schepherdes wentin and worchepidin yow. See Luke 2:15–20.↩back to note source

Prayer 8, Paragraph 1

yowre holy circumcision. See Luke 2:21.↩back to note source

ye schadden first yowre precious blod. Several details are drawn from Pseudo-Bonaventure, especially the emphasis on Christ’s pain and his youth. In his own meditation on the Circumcision, Pseudo-Bonaventure notes that this event marks the point at which “our Lord Jesus began shedding his most sacred blood for us,” adding that he did so “very early” and having “committed no sin himself” (MLC, p. 30). Jacobus de Voragine also sees the Circumcision as a portent of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, making it “the beginning of our redemption” and “first time he shed his blood for us” (Golden Legend, trans. Ryan, p. 74).↩back to note source

Prayer 9, Paragraph 1

the thre kynges presentid yow. See Matthew 2:11.↩back to note source

signifiaunce. Allegorical significance was attached to the Magis’ gifts from the earliest days of the church. The most widely accepted interpretation, that “gold is the sign of kingdom, incense of God, myrrh of burial,” stretches back to Iraneus in the second century, and is reiterated by Ambrose, Juvencus, and Peter of Alexandria, among other patristic authorities (Ambrose, On the Christian Faith, trans. De Romestin, p. 205).↩back to note source

oure kyng. The identity of this monarch is difficult to infer from context. Not only is the prayer itself conventional and impersonal in tone, but its pleas for the king’s “good lif and longe” and protection against “his gostli and bodily enemys” could be applicable to more or less any late medieval English monarch. The unusually long-lived Edward III (reigned 1327–1377) is the only possible exception; the reference to “temys” [heirs] might also rule out Richard II (reigned 1377–1399), who died without issue in the early months of 1400, but the evidence is hardly conclusive. See the Holkham Introduction, p. 20, for further discussion.↩back to note source

Prayer 10, Paragraph 1

Candelmasse day. Candlemas is the feast day commemorating Christ’s Presentation in the Temple, also known as the Feast of the Purification. Although observed some time earlier at Jerusalem, it seems to have gained popularity in the west around the seventh century (Connell, Eternity Today, 1:218–19). It falls on February 2, exactly forty days after Christmas; the date was computed from Leviticus 12:2–4, which requires that a woman who has given birth to a boy shall remain “in the blood of her purification” for forty days and cannot “enter into the sanctuary” during that time. Candlemas itself was an important feast in medieval English observance, since it often marked the end of the larger Yuletide season: see the final stanza of the fifteenth-century carol, “The first day of Yule” (NIMEV 3343), which declares “On the fourtieth day cam Mary mild / Unto the temple with her child . . . And therwith endeth Christmes” (ed. Davies, Medieval English Lyrics, p. 168).↩back to note source

in the temple. See Luke 2:25–35.↩back to note source

Nunc dimittis. The author refers here to the Song of Simeon, taken from Luke 2:29–32, which begins with the verse “nunc dimittis servum tuum, Domine, secundum verbum tuum in pace” [now you dismiss your servant, Lord, after your will in peace]. The Nunc dimittis forms, along with the Magnificat and Benedictus, one of the three major canticles of the canonical hours and is traditionally recited at compline, the final daily hour of prayer (Hughes, Medieval Manuscripts for Mass, p. 24).↩back to note source

Prayer 11, Paragraph 1

flemid in to Egypte. See Matthew 2:13–14.↩back to note source

be his aungel. See Matthew 2:19–20.↩back to note source

Prayer 12, Paragraph 1

ye were alwey to hym buxum. Jesus’s respect for Joseph is a common topic in contemplative literature. Pseudo-Bonaventure calls attention to the way in which Jesus treated “the holy elder, Saint Joseph, with deference” and directs the reader to “pay careful attention to it, because this meditation is exceedingly lovely” (MLC, pp. 49–50). In his rule for recluses, Aelred of Rievaulx likewise asks, “were it not, trowist thou, a faire meditacyon to beholde hym, hou he obeyed to his moder, helping his norisshe [foster parent] Joseph?” (De Institutione inclusarum, ed. Ayto and Barratt, p. 19). These sources in turn draw on apocryphal traditions of Christ’s childhood. While the four canonical gospels are silent about any sort of relationship between Jesus and Joseph, many of the pseudepigraphic infancy gospels show Jesus yielding to the admonishments of Joseph, or venerating him after his death: examples include the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, the closely related Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, and the seventh-century History of Joseph the Carpenter (ed. Elliott, Apocryphal New Testament, pp. 68–99, 111–17). Although denounced by early church fathers such as Hippolytus, these accounts were absorbed into tradition and freely mined by later writers. See Dzon, “Joseph and the Amazing Christ-Child,” pp. 143–46; Kauffman, Biblical Imagery, p. 237.↩back to note source

Prayer 13, Paragraph 1

the yeres of yowre vertuous levinge. Compare perhaps Luke 2:40 (“the child grew, and waxed strong, full of wisdom”), a verse which immediately precedes the Finding in the Temple, in which Mary and Joseph lose sight of the infant Jesus during a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and discover him debating with the temple elders some days later. The text may also echo Pseudo-Bonventure, whose loose speculation on Jesus’s life “between the ages of twelve and thirty” concludes that “the greatest teacher, destined to teach virtues and a way of life, began from his youth to perform virtuous deeds” (MLC, p. 56).↩back to note source

Prayer 14, Paragraph 1

mayde and modir. This oxymoron is a favorite epithet for Mary in Middle English religious culture, and occurs in a wide variety of devotional contexts. It forms a repeated refrain in the Wooing Group treatise Ureisun of God Almihti (ed. Thompson, Wohunge of Ure Lauerd, pp. 4, 9) and in its fourteenth-century adaptation Talkyng of the Loue of God (ed. Westra, pp. 42–43). See also Cursor Mundi, lines 10861 and 24720, and lyrics 10 (NIMEV 534), 11 (NIMEV 1059), 13 (NIMEV 1367), 16 (NIMEV 2366), and 83 (NIMEV 2645) in ed. Saupe, Middle English Marian Lyrics.↩back to note source

grete joyes. See prayer 2.↩back to note source

Prayer 15, Paragraph 1

ye tauhte in the temple the maystres. See Luke 2:41–52.↩back to note source

Prayer 16, Paragraph 1

whan ye hadde lost youre dere swete sone. See Luke 2:43–46.↩back to note source

grete sorwis. The sorrows of Mary are a traditional schema corresponding to her joys, and prove just as variable in number and content. Generally, they begin with Simeon’s prophecy that “this child is set for the fall . . . and thy own soul a sword shall pierce” (Luke 2:34–35), although they sometimes start with Joseph’s suspicions over Mary’s pregnancy (Matthew 1:19); the Flight into Egypt and Finding are also frequent components. Scott-Stokes notes that English sources show relatively little interest in the sorrows, although she finds a few examples in books of hours intended for female use (Women’s Books of Hours, pp. 102–03).↩back to note source

Prayer 17, Paragraph 1

turnid watir to wyn. See John 2:1–11. The miracle is important not only as the traditional beginning of Christ’s ministry but as a cornerstone of medieval Mariology. The story was often used to demonstrate the special power of Mary’s petitions to Jesus: hence as far back as the commentaries of Cyril of Alexandria (fifth century CE), the episode shows Jesus’s “reverence for his mother” and Mary’s “great influence . . . persuading the Lord with an appeal to propriety” (Commentary on John, trans. Maxwell, 1:90). When Mary’s role as intercessor was formalized during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the miracle was accepted as evidence of Mary’s unique influence over Christ. For Thomas Aquinas, it signals Mary’s ability “to superintend the miracle,” placing her in “the role of a mediatrix” who “intercedes with her son” (Commentary on the Gospel of John, trans. Larcher and Weisheipl, p. 135). The author’s vocabulary clearly reflects this thinking, drawing a direct line between the appeal for wine and appeals on behalf of souls, pointedly referring to “the preiers of youre gloriouse modir.”↩back to note source

Prayer 18, Paragraph 1

holy bapteme. Innes-Parker points out that the sequencing of prayers here is designed to “cement the sacramental overtones of turning water into wine,” i.e., by alluding to the transformative power of water in baptism, and the comparable transformation of wine into blood during celebration of the mass (“Modelling of Women’s Devotion,” p. 250).↩back to note source

Holi Gost . . . alihted on yow. See Matthew 3:16; Mark 1:10; Luke 3:22; John 1:32. The fact that all four evangelists portray the Spirit descending “as a dove” might account for the use of “aliht” here, since the term can describe both the action of a landing bird and spiritual illumination (see MED alighten (v.1), senses 2a and 3).↩back to note source

God the fadir seide to yow. The text follows Mark 1:11 and Luke 3:22 in having the “voys” address Jesus directly [tu es Filius meus]; alternatively, Matthew 3:17 describes God the Father addressing the crowd and speaking of Jesus in third person, declaring “this is my son” [hic est Filius meus].↩back to note source

Prayer 19, Paragraph 1

fourti daies fastid. See Matthew 4:2; Mark 1:13; Luke 4:2.↩back to note source

solitarie in desert. See Matthew 4:3–10; Mark 1:13; Luke 4:2–14.↩back to note source

of the flesch, of the world, and of the feend. An anglicized version of the Latin tag “mundus, caro, et diabolus” (or “demonia”), often used to describe the three principal enemies of humankind. Perhaps coined by Bernard of Clairvaux, the phrase is a pervasive one in moral and polemic literature, appearing in the sermons of Innocent III, Albertus Magnus, and Caesar of Heisterbach, and in works by Pierre Bersuire, Richard Rolle, John Wyclif, and Jordan of Quedlinburg amongst others (see, for instance, Bernardus Claraevallensis, Sententiae, ed. Leclercq and Rochais, p. 23; Rolle, Incendium Amoris, ed. Deanesly, p. 193; Wyclif, De civili dominio, ed. Poole, p. 108; von Quedlinburg, Exposition of the Lord’s Prayer, ed. Saak, pp. 164–67, 359–60). By the fourteenth century, it had been firmly absorbed into the stock of sayings used in preaching and confessional discourse (ed. Wenzel, Fasciculus Morum, pp. 556–57; ed. Oesterley, Gesta Romanorum, p. 344).↩back to note source

Prayer 20, Paragraph 1

bare foot goinges. The text probably takes a lead here from Pseudo-Bonaventure, whose meditation on the Baptism similarly (and repeatedly) portrays Christ enduring the hardships of a medieval pilgrim or Franciscan, “trudging along barefooted and alone” and begging “for alms along the way on account of his love of poverty” (MLC, p. 63; compare also p. 78).↩back to note source

wepyng valeie. The text alludes to Psalm 83:6, which refers to the valle lacrimarum, literally “vale of tears.” The phrase is also incorporated into the eleventh-century Marian hymn “Salve Regina,” where its sense is expanded to describe the general pain of worldly being: “we sigh to you, moaning and crying in this vale of tears” [te suspiramus, gementes et flentes in hac lacrimarum valle]. The hymn was used in a wide variety of liturgical and devotional contexts from at least the 1130s (Miller, Beads and Prayers, pp. 233–41; MED valeie (n.), sense 3a). Compare the similar phrasing in prayer 35.↩back to note source

Prayer 20, Paragraph 2

hevene aprochith to the penitentis. See Luke 15:10. Innes-Parker places this discussion of Christ’s hardships “in the tradition of Ancrene Wisse” (“Anchoritic Elements,” p. 175).↩back to note source

ledere. The text might simply mean “leader,” or it may be evoking the conventional image, derived from Genesis 28:12–13, of the journey towards God as the gradual ascent of a ladder or stairway. This figure is widespread in the period, appearing as the central metaphor in Hilton’s The Scale of Perfection and Johannes Gobius’s Scala Coeli (ca. 1325), and in more incidental form in the Ancrene Wisse (ed. Hasenfratz, p. 351) and the English translation of Catherine of Siena, which insists that one might reach “the heithe of hevene by the laddir of vertu” (ed. Hodgson and Liegey, Orcherd of Syon, pp. 173–74).↩back to note source

purgatorie. The author follows the orthodox position on purgatory. Her language, with its emphasis on cleansing posthumous penance, not only chimes with her prologue but directly mirrors the official definition set down at the Second Council of Lyon (1274): “if the truly repentant should die in charity, before they might satisfy with proper fruits of penance all they have committed and omitted to do, their souls will be made clean by a cleansing or purging after death” [si vere paenitentes in caritate decesserint, antequam dignis paenitentiae fructibus de commissis satisfecerint et omissis, eorum animas paenis purgatoriis seu catharteriis . . . post mortem purgari] (ed. Cavallera, Thesaurus doctrinae, pp. 710–11). On the history and development of this doctrine, the authoritative discussion remains Le Goff, Birth of Purgatory, pp. 130–208.↩back to note source

Prayer 22, Paragraph 1

woman Samaritan that come to the welle. See John 4:13–14.↩back to note source

told here her privé secrees. The prophecies Jesus shares with the woman are detailed in John 4:21–26, and culminate in the declaration that he is Messiah.↩back to note source

Prayer 23, Paragraph 1

ye baptised the pepil. The New Testament gives no detailed accounts of Christ performing baptism; the author may be thinking of John 3:22: “Jesus and his disciples came into the land of Judea: and there he abode with them, and baptized.”↩back to note source

ye chese youre twelve aposteles. The calling of the first disciples is outlined in Matthew 4:19–22, Mark 1:16–20, Luke 5:8–11, and John 1:35–50. The author departs from the chronology set out by John, and by Pseudo-Bonaventure after him, since she places this prayer after rather than before the encounter at the well. Her modification may be intended to stress the Samaritan woman’s role in recruiting followers for Christ (see John 4:28–30).↩back to note source

newe lawe. The distinction between the “old law” of Judaism and the “new law” of Christianity was one of the major points of debate in the early church. Major discussions include: Matthew 5:17, in which Christ speaks of his ministry as fulfillment of “the law, or the prophets”; Matthew 9:17, in which he answers questions on the necessity of fasting by stating that “new wine” is not put “into old bottles”; Hebrews 8:13, where the author speaks of a new covenant “which hath made the former old”; and Romans 8:2 and Galatians 3:24–25, in which St. Paul contrasts the “law of the spirit of life, in Christ Jesus” against “the law of sin and of death” and describes traditional Jewish law as a schoolmaster whose regimen ended “after the faith is come.”↩back to note source

Blissid be the pouere spirituels . . . for the reume of God is heris. The text closely follows Matthew 5:3–10 throughout this passage.↩back to note source

Prayer 24, Paragraph 1

receyvid the seventi and two disciples. See Luke 10:17.↩back to note source

ye healede the pepile. See Luke 14:2–4.↩back to note source

palsies. The New Testament gives two examples of Jesus curing men stricken by palsy (paralytica in the Vulgate), one at Capernaum (Matthew 9:2–7, Mark 2:3–5, Luke 5:18–25), and one at Bethesda (John 5:5–9).↩back to note source

rennyng blod. See Matthew 9:20–22, Mark 5:25–34, Luke 8:43–48. The Gospels do not specify the woman’s condition. Matthew and Luke simply state that she suffered with “sanguinis fluxum” [discharge of blood] for twelve years, while Mark has “profluvio sanguinis” [blood flowing forth]. The author’s language suggests that she understands the illness as a form of menorrhagia, or excessive or prolonged menstruation. Near-identical phrasing is found in a number of Middle English medical treatises on gynecology: for instance, an anonymous version of Trotula treats “rennyng of blood” as a synonym for “bleedynge of the matrice [womb]” (ed. Barratt, Knowing of Woman’s Kind, p. 107), while Trevisa’s translation of Bartholomew of England refers to “rennynge blode and of menstruallis” in its chapters on the curative effects of herbs (Bartholomaeus, Properties of Things, 2:1023). This might explain why the author has chosen to single out this miracle, which after all shows Christ treating not merely a woman but an exclusively female disorder with care and sympathy. Less clear is why she does not identify the bleeding woman with St. Veronica, the subject of prayer 38, since this episode was the entire basis of Veronica’s legend (ed. Elliott, Apocryphal New Testament, pp. 214–15).↩back to note source

seven fendis withinne here. See Mark 16:9, Luke 8:2.↩back to note source

wessch youre feet. See Luke 7:37–39; John 11:2. Luke’s account does not name the woman who anoints Christ’s feet, merely describing her as a “civitate peccatrix” [a sinful woman of the city]; while John seems to identify her as Mary, he is in fact referring to Mary of Bethany rather than the Magdalene, and may be describing a different event altogether (see John 12:3). It is not clear when these three figures came to be folded into a single disciple, and when Mary Magdalene gained her “so sinful” reputation as a result, but both were accepted facts throughout the medieval period and beyond. There is some suggestion that the three women were merged as early as the second century, with Tertullian, Hippolytus, and Origen assuming that they were identical; however, the conflation is particularly associated with the sixth-century Pope Gregory, whose homilies on Luke did much to cement the idea. For overviews of the Magdalene’s complex history, see Schaberg, Resurrection of Mary Magdalene, pp. 82–87; Cerrato, Hippolytus Between East and West, pp. 176–85.↩back to note source

Prayer 25, Paragraph 1

excused Marie Maudeleyne thries. See Luke 7:39–50.↩back to note source

Marie hadde chosin the betir partye. See Luke 10:38–42, especially 10:42, which the text is directly translating. Again, the identification of Mary Magdalene with Martha’s sister Mary of Bethany is a common idea derived from patristic tradition.↩back to note source

ye excusid here. See John 12:3–6.↩back to note source

Prayer 25, Paragraph 2

even Cristen. Although it occurs elsewhere in Middle English, the term is used with particular frequency by Hilton when discussing how one should treat the Christian community at large; it occurs over thirty times throughout the two books of The Scale of Perfection.↩back to note source

love the persones and hate the sinne. A variant of the famous Augustinian maxim “diligite homines, interficite errores” [love the men; denounce the sins] (Contra litteras Petiliani Donastiae, PL 43.259). Augustine’s directive is a common refrain in vernacular mysticism, where it often features as an antidote to self-love: compare the English version of Richard of St. Victor’s Benjamin Minor, which urges that “as anemste [regarding] oure evyn-Cristen, us auyt to hate synne in hem, and to love hem” (ed. Hodgson, Deonise Hid Diuinite, p. 34). The text might also echo Hilton’s The Scale of Perfection (ed. Bestul, p. 104): “Thou schalt love the man, be he nevere so synful, and thou schalt hate synne in everi man what that he bee.” The same phrase recurs in the epilogue.↩back to note source

Prayer 25, Paragraph 3

sinful worm. Compare Psalm 21:7: “but I am a worm, and no man: the reproach of men, and the outcast of the people.”↩back to note source

not fair in a sinful mouth. An allusion to Ecclesiasticus 15:9: “praise is not seemly in the mouth of a sinner.”↩back to note source

alle that have forsake the world for yow. The idea that Martha represents the active life, i.e., that concerned with pastoral work and active ministry, while Mary represents dedication to monastic or eremitic contemplation, is a truism in the period. Its roots probably lie with the early Christian ascetics known as the Desert Fathers: in the early fifth century, John Cassian attributes a similar position to the Egyptian monk Abba Moses, who supposedly argued that Christ’s commendation of Mary “establishes as the prime good contemplation, that is, the gaze turned in the direction of the things of God,” and shows that “the other virtues, however useful and good we may say they are, must nevertheless be put on a secondary level”; a few decades earlier, one of Jerome’s letters to Eustochium makes a similar point, advising “be then like Mary; prefer the food of the soul to that of the body. Leave it to your sisters to run to and fro” (Cassian, Conferences, trans. Luibheid, p. 43; Jerome, Select Letters, trans. Wright, pp. 107–09). By the later Middle Ages, the identification of each sister with a distinct via was widely accepted and discussed: in his Summa Theologica [Summary of Theologies] (2.2.182), Aquinas looks at the episode closely when considering “the active life in comparison with the contemplative life,” and Pseudo-Bonaventure uses it as the basis of a thirteen-chapter disquisition on the two forms of living (MLC, pp. 158–204).↩back to note source

Prayer 26, Paragraph 1

foure thouzande peple. See Matthew 14:19–21; Mark 6:31–44; Luke 9:13–17; John 6:10–13. The text seems confused here. All four gospels agree that “five thousand men, besides women and children” were fed with five loaves and two fish, leaving twelve baskets of “fragments.” The figure four thousand is associated with the second feeding mentioned later in this prayer, when Jesus fed a multitude of followers with seven loaves.↩back to note source

seven looves and with lityl fissch. See Matthew 15:36–38; Mark 8:6–9.↩back to note source

Prayer 26, Paragraph 2

gostli fruytes. A translation of the fructus Spiritus of Galatians 5:22. The phrase recurs in prayer 53.↩back to note source

I, that am a wikkid worm . . . I am al filthe. This passage contains several verbal echoes of The Cloud of Unknowing, and might well be putting the Cloud’s advice on prayer into action. In his thirty-second chapter, the Cloud-author advocates total meekness before God, advising that the reader consider themselves “as a cheitif and a coward overcomen in batayle” and adding that such a position “is not elles bot a trewe knowyng and a felyng of thiself as thou arte, a wrecche and a filthe, fer wers then nought” (ed. Gallacher, p. 61).↩back to note source

Prayer 27, Paragraph 1

windes and tempestes. See Matthew 8:26; Mark 4:39; Luke 8:24.↩back to note source

Noli timere. The phrase (and its variant Nolite timere) is used at several points in the New Testament, most conspicuously during the raising of the daughter of Jairus (Mark 5:36; Luke 8:50). However, the author probably intends to recall Luke 5:10, when Jesus instructs Peter that he will become a catcher of men after the miraculous draught of fish. The phrase is a common one in medieval liturgy: in the Use of Sarum it appears in the offertory during Advent, for example (ed. Legg, Sarum Missal, p. 24).↩back to note source

Prayer 28, Paragraph 1

alle the skornis, despites, schames. The language here parallels one of Rolle’s Passion meditations (known as Meditation B), which opens with a comparable formulation: “swete Ihesu, I yelde thee thankingis as I can of alle yuel wordis, sclaundris, scornis, mowis, and schames, that the Jewis seiden to thee” (ed. Horstman, Yorkshire Writers, 1:95).↩back to note source

thei tokin the eeres of the whete. See Matthew 12:1–2. The author might follow Pseudo-Bonaventure, who awards special prominence to this episode; in his cycle, it triggers a lengthy meditation on spiritual nourishment (MLC, pp. 144–55).↩back to note source

unwasshin handes. See Matthew 15:2; Mark 7:2–5.↩back to note source

enemys, accusers and deniers. Barratt (Women’s Writing, p. 217) sees a potential allusion to Lollardy here. This popular fifteenth-century religious movement was inspired by the writings of John Wyclif and, despite some regional variation, tended to endorse the use of the vernacular in worship and reject the redemptive value of baptism, auricular confession, pilgrimage, and cults of saints. Accordingly, it was often understood by its opponents as an assault on the authority of the priesthood above all, most visibly in Bishop Pecock’s Repressor of Overmuch Blaming of the Clergy (ca. 1455). Similar judgments sometimes find their way into contemplative literature: the Cloud-author, for instance, repeatedly inveighs against “heretykes” and their “sclaundre of alle Holy Chirche” (ed. Gallacher, Cloud of Unknowing, p. 50), while Hilton argues that the “heretike synneth deedli in pride” by showing undue “delite in his owen opynyoun and in his owen seiynge . . . though it be opynli agens ordenaunce of Hooli Chirche” (Scale of Perfection, ed. Bestul, p. 96). The sentiments expressed here may be more conventional than topical, however, especially since the passage does not identify its “accusers and deniers” with heretics of any type.↩back to note source

Prayer 29, Paragraph 1

woman that was foundin in avowtrie. See John 8:3–11.↩back to note source

Moises hadde comoundid. The penalty for the crime of adultery is set out in Leviticus 20:10.↩back to note source

Prayer 29, Paragraph 2

everich of hem saw there here owin sinnes. John merely records that Jesus wrote on the ground twice (see John 8:6 and 8:8) without stipulating exactly what was written. The idea that the accusers all saw their own sins in the dust no doubt comes from Pseudo-Bonaventure, who pictures Christ “writing down their sins” and insists that his “writing was so tellingly factual that each and every one of them recognised his own sins” (MLC, p. 219). Other English sources also pick up on this detail, such as Play 24 in the York cycle: although incomplete, it features one of the assembled Jews declaring “he shewes my mysdedis” before bolting offstage (ed. Davidson, York Corpus Christi Plays, p. 164). Pseudo-Bonaventure’s stated source for this information, the colossal twelfth-century biblical commentary Glossa ordinaria [Standard gloss], may also have been known to the author of the prayers: the Glossa holds that the Pharisees “were struck by awareness of their evils” [illi conscii malorum, percussi sunt] when Jesus wrote in the earth a second time (PL 114.389). The basic idea might stem from Augustine, who holds that the gesture of writing itself revealed the deficiencies of the Pharisees, showing them “transgressors of the Law” before the divine lawmaker (Augustine, Tractates on the Gospel of John, 3.55).↩back to note source

writ in the ground of here hertis. Writing on the heart is a central metaphor in medieval devotion and mysticism. For a detailed history of its development from Augustine to the later Middle Ages, see Jager, Book of the Heart, pp. 44–64. The particular use to which the author puts this image occurs elsewhere in Middle English contemplative writing; compare for instance a late fourteenth-century orison on the passion, which asks “love, that art so mykel [plentiful] of myyt, / Writ in myn herte that reuful syyt” (ed. D’Evelyn, Meditations on the Life and Passion of Christ, p. 36).↩back to note source

Prayer 30, Paragraph 1

legions of fendes. The phrase refers to the exorcism of the Gerasene demoniac, in which the “unclean spirits” gave their name as “Legion, for we are many” when Christ expelled them (Mark 5:9; Luke 8:30).↩back to note source

womanes douyter of Cananee. See Matthew 15:22–28.↩back to note source

not leful . . . as thow witt. This passage is a direct and close translation of Matthew 15:26–28.↩back to note source

Prayer 31, Paragraph 1

gloriouse Transfiguracion. See Matthew 17:2–7; Mark 9:2–8; Luke 9:29–36.↩back to note source

wiht as the sunne . . . whit as snow. The two similes are taken from Matthew 17:2.↩back to note source

A! Petir. This is one of the few times that the text addresses a figure other than Jesus or Mary. Its choice to evoke Peter at this point is entirely logical: not only is Peter chief among the witnesses who saw Christ’s face “shine as the sun” and his clothing grow “white as snow” during his Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1–2), but the episode is later mentioned in one of the epistles that carries his name (1 Peter 1:16–18). It is also worth noting, as Innes-Parker observes, that even here Peter functions as “a negative model for the soul” whose “desire to remain on the mountain is seen as an attempt to avoid tribulation” (“Modelling of Women’s Devotion,” p. 252).↩back to note source

This is my dere sone. The text translates Matthew 17:7, rather than the slightly shorter version of this statement found in Luke 9:35.↩back to note source

merthe and meledie. A stock phrase for the delights of heaven in Middle English. Compare the Stanzaic Life of Katherine which states that its subject’s “soule com to Jhesu evene / With moche merthe and melody” (ed. Reames, Middle English Legends of Women Saints, p. 198).↩back to note source

Prayer 32, Paragraph 1

foure dayes hadde leyen. See John 11:1–44, especially verse 39, where Lazarus’s “foure dayes” of burial cause Martha to doubt Jesus’s power: she objects, “Lord, by this time he stinketh, for he is now of four days.” The inclusion of this detail may look back to prayer 25, reminding the reader that Martha represents the inferiority of the active life over the contemplative.↩back to note source

princes dowter Jayre. See Mark 5:22–23; Matthew 9:18–19; Luke 8:41–42. Although Jairus was the overseer of a synagogue rather than a political ruler, “prince” had become the standard term for a Jewish religious official by the fourteenth century (see MED, prince (n.), sense 3a). The word reflects the terminology used in Matthew and Luke, who describe Jairus as “princeps” and “principem synagogae” [leader of the synagogue] respectively.↩back to note source

wedewis sone. See Luke 7:11–17.↩back to note source

schilde me from evil. Compare Matthew 6:13.↩back to note source

Prayer 33, Paragraph 1

Noli timere filia Syon ecce rex tuus venit super pullum asinii. The verse is from John 12:13, itself adapted from Zacharias 9:9, whose prophecy was supposedly fulfilled by Christ’s entry into Jerusalem. The Use of Sarum incorporates the Johannine verse into the antiphons recited during Holy Week (ed. Legg, Sarum Missal, pp. 94–99). Following Pollard’s hypothesis, this quotation might have added resonance for the author or reader, since it can be taken as an allusion to Syon and its community (“Bodleian MS Holkham Misc. 41”).↩back to note source

yif thei hadden don so the stones schulden have cried. A close translation of Luke 19:40.↩back to note source

tendreli ye weptin. See Luke 19:41–44.↩back to note source

destroid speciali for sinne that schulde cause that destruccion. The text alludes here to the common belief that Rome destroyed Jerusalem in 70 CE as divine punishment for the Crucifixion. The convention was popularized by the seventh-century apocryphon The Avenging of the Savior, and gave rise to numerous narrative and religious works in the later Middle Ages. On the Avenging and its dissemination in England, see Hall, “Nathan the Jew”; for examples and discussions of the literary tradition it spawned, see ed. Livingston, Siege of Jerusalem, pp. 5–8, 21–24; ed. McShane and Wright, Destruction of Jerusalem, pp. 17–26.↩back to note source

Prayer 34, Paragraph 1

divers times chacid out of the temple. See Matthew 21:12–13; Mark 11:15–17; Luke 19:45–46; John 2:15–16. When taken collectively, the gospels do seem to describe Christ expelling the money-changers “divers times,” since John places the event at the beginning of Christ’s ministry while the three synoptic gospels set it towards the end. It is the later event that concerns the prayer “principalli,” since Palm Sunday commemorates the entry into Jerusalem on the first Sunday before Easter. Much like Candlemass, it probably started life as a local celebration at Jerusalem, expanding into the west at some point in the eighth or ninth century (Bedingfield, Dramatic Liturgy, pp. 90–91).↩back to note source

jelosie. A verbal echo of John 2:17, in which the disciples recall the words of Psalm 68:10: “the zeal [zelus] of thy house hath eaten me up.”↩back to note source

fadris hows. In John 2:16, Jesus describes the Temple as “domus patris mei.”↩back to note source

Osanna . . . rex israel. The text is quoting the antiphon that traditionally begins Palm Sunday processions; this in turn conflates Matthew 21:9 (“Hosanna to the son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord”) and John 12:13 (“Hosanna, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, the king of Israel”). See Hughes, Medieval Manuscripts for Mass, p. 256; ed. Legg, Sarum Missal, p. 94.↩back to note source

Ex ore . . . perfecisti. In Matthew 21:16, Jesus quotes this verse from Psalm 8:3 to silence the criticisms of the temple scribes. In medieval liturgy, the same verse forms part of the mass recited on the Feast of Holy Innocents.↩back to note source

Prayer 35, Paragraph 1

alle the teres. See Hebrews 5:7.↩back to note source

steppis of youre holi feet. Compare 1 Peter 2:21, with its directive to follow in Christ’s vestigia [footprints]. See also one of Rolle’s meditations, which calls on the reader to offer “thanke . . . for alle the steppis and pacis that thou yedist hidirward and thidirward” (ed. Horstman, Yorkshire Writers, 1:95).↩back to note source

Prayer 36, Paragraph 1

Scher Thorusday. Or Sheer Thursday, an alternative name for Maundy Thursday, celebrating Christ’s foot-washing during Holy Week.↩back to note source

whesch here feet. See John 13:5.↩back to note source

Prayer 37, Paragraph 1

ye baar the hevy cros. See John 19:17. Although all four gospels use the term crucem, whether or not they describe Jesus carrying it personally, they probably intend the crossbar [patibulum or patibulatum] alone. At least, the archaeological and literary record (i.e., Miles Gloriosus 3:360, Mostellaria 3:56, and the fragmentary Carbonaria 5:50 in Plautus, ed. de Melo) suggests that only the horizontal part of a cross would be carried by condemned men and fixed on a semi-permanent upright pole (see Zias and Sekeles, “The Crucified Man,” p. 26). Nonetheless, the image of Jesus carrying a fully-made cross to the site of his Crucifixion is long-established in Christian iconography by this point.↩back to note source

that I may helpe. See Matthew 10:38; Matthew 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23; Luke 14:27.↩back to note source

Prayer 38, Paragraph 1

the woman Veronica. The story of St. Veronica, and how she received a miraculous imprint of Christ’s face, has a complex history. She is first attested in a group of early medieval apocryphal texts, the Death of Pilate, Cure of Tiberius, and Avenging of the Saviour, where she is identified with the bleeding woman healed by touching Christ’s garment (Mark 5:25; Luke 8:44). In all three texts she owns a portrait of Christ (the vernicle) that cures the emperor Tiberius of chronic illness (ed. Elliott, Apocryphal New Testament, pp. 213–17). By the twelfth century, her picture had become an image transferred directly on to fabric by Christ wiping his face (Kuryluk, Veronica and Her Cloth, pp. 115–23). Her cult was firmly established by the late fourteenth century, and reinforced by a relic at Rome that purported to be her picture of Jesus: Chaucer’s Pardoner famously carries a “vernycle . . . sowed upon his cappe” to show that he has “comen from Rome al hoot” (CT I[A]685–87). The version of her story summarized here, in which Veronica’s cloth is offered to Christ on the way to Calvary, is probably taken from Pseudo-Bonaventure, who did much to promote Veronica’s role in the Passion; an alternative account by Jacobus de Voragine does not stipulate exactly when Veronica obtained her image (Jacobus de Voragine, Golden Legend, trans. Ryan, p. 212). Veronica’s story features periodically in other contemplative texts, no doubt because its focus on the visual record of Jesus meshes well with imaginative recreation of the Passion: in Julian of Norwich’s second revelation, for instance, she specifically mentions “the holy vernacle of Rome which He hath portrayed with His owne blissid face” (Shewings, ed. Crampton, p. 51).↩back to note source

Simon of Siren. Simon of Cyrene appears in Matthew 27:32; Mark 15:21–22; Luke 23:26.↩back to note source

love tokene. The idea of the vernicle as “love token” is a common one in medieval English. In Siege of Jerusalem (ca. 1370–1390), for instance, Christ’s image is “peynted prively and playn . . . for love” (ed. Livingston, p. 46). The image probably stems from the eleventh-century hymn “Salve sacra facies,” otherwise known as “Oratoria ad sanctam Veronicam,” and attributed variously to Giles of Rome or John XXII: this states that Christ’s “whiteness of purity was impressed on a cloth, and given to Veronica as proof of love” [impressa panniculo nivea candoris, / Dataque Veronice signum ob amoris] (see H. Brown, “On Veronica and Josquin”). In medieval books of hours, lines from the hymn often accompany illustrations of the vernicle to stimulate contemplation of the divine presence (Kessler, “Veronica’s Textile,” pp. 126–28).↩back to note source

Prayer 39, Paragraph 1

youre clothis clevid. For the next few prayers, the author draws freely on the cluster of commonplace images that had built up around the Passion narrative by the late Middle Ages. The detail of Christ’s blood-soaked garments clinging to his flesh is one such example. While the image is mentioned briefly by Pseudo-Bonaventure, it gains particular force in vernacular accounts. Richard Rolle, for instance, gives a graphic account of how the robe “clemyd faste with the blood of that harde scowrgynge to the flesch of thi body . . . and rent thi sely [blessed] skyn . . . that thei drow it of thi body pytously” (ed. Horstman, Yorkshire Writers, 1:84). See further Bestul, Texts of the Passion, pp. 27, 50; Dent, “A Window for the Pain,” p. 224.↩back to note source

with cordes thei drowen youre hondes. The use of “cordes” or ropes to bind Christ to the cross is a late but fairly common addition to Crucifixion iconography, perhaps growing out of metaphors that first appear in the fourth century (Pickering, Literature and Art, pp. 244, 281, 300). The idea that Christ’s body had to be stretched to fit the dimensions of the cross, however, is a separate invention. Again, it proves a potent component in vernacular Passion texts, taking especially vivid form in the York and Towneley Plays of the Crucifixion; it is also included in the second of the Fifteen Oes, and in a second meditation assigned to Rolle, which reports that “he was strekid on the croice that was laid on the erth, and drawyn oute with rapis: til make handes and fete acorde til the holes that ware made in the tree” (ed. Horstman, Yorkshire Writers, 1:112–13). The detail probably proved attractive because it represents the central function of the Passion in miniature, as the executioners make Christ pay for their own errors in miscalculating the size of the cross. It may owe something to the legends that circulated around the wood of the cross itself, gathered together in the Post peccatum Adae [After Adam’s sin] (thirteenth century); in some versions the tree proves extremely stubborn and uncooperative, resisting the efforts of the three hundred men to chop it down and craft it into suitable shape (ed. Napier, History of the Holy Rood-tree, pp. 30–33; Baert, Heritage of Holy Wood, pp. 289–349).↩back to note source

ruggid nailes. The dullness of the nails used in the Crucifixion is also a popular theme in English Passion literature. Hence the Rolle meditations state that “the nailis, lord, weren blunte, for thei schulden tere thi skyn and bruse thi fleisch” (ed. Horstman, Yorkshire Writers, 1:100). Analogous phrases, such as “rugged nayles thi handes rent” and “with rugged nayles the wrecches wode / Nailed him harde to the rode,” occur widely in other vernacular Passion narratives (ed. Day, Wheatley Manuscript, p. 2; ed. D’Evelyn, Meditations on the Life and Passion of Christ, p. 30). The detail also makes its way into the second of the Fifteen Oes, where “blunt nayles” are specifically employed for “the more encrease of thy peyne” (ed. Barratt, Women’s Writing, p. 177).↩back to note source

love knotte. As Pollard observes (“Mystical Elements,” pp. 51–54), the reference to a love-knot looks back to the image of the vernicle as a love token, while the vocabulary looks forward to Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. The love-knot is itself a recurring symbol of devotion in vernacular literature. This prayer might be compared, for instance, to the thirteenth-century life of St. Katherine to which the Katherine Group owes its name, where the saint describes her union with Christ as being “the cnotte . . . icnut bituhhen unc tweien” [the knot . . . knotted between we two] (ed. Einenkel, Life of Saint Katherine, p. 71). The C-text of Piers Plowman likewise refers to the community of believers as “a love-knotte of leutee and of lele byleve” [a love-knot of faithfulness and steadfast belief] (Langland, Piers Plowman, p. 284). A closer analogue, however, is found in The Cloud of Unknowing, where the author repeatedly uses the image of the knot knitting together Christ and the reader “in goostly onheed” [in spiritual union], asking that they should “knit the goostly knot of brennyng love bitwix thee and thi God,” or “knyt thee therfore to Him bi love and by beleve” (ed. Gallacher, pp. 74, 33).↩back to note source

Prayer 40, Paragraph 1

the cros fel with youre blissid body. The inclusion of this detail represents one of the sharpest departures from Pseudo-Bonaventure, who depicts Christ being forced to mount a fully erected cross by means of a stepladder (MLC, p. 253). Nevertheless, the idea that Christ received greater pain from the cross being forced into an ill-fitting mortise is extremely popular in English sources. It is cited, for instance, by Margery Kempe, John Audelay, Nicholas Love, the Northern Passion, in the Passion meditations attributed to Rolle, and in a versified tractatus associated with William of Nassyngton (NIMEV 245). The description here is not unusual in emphasizing that Christ’s wounds were re-opened by the jolting motion: the last two examples also state that “at this smytyng in to the erthe all his vaynes brast” and “thi body, thurghe weghte al to-schoke / Than raue thy wondes thurghe fute and hande” (ed. Horstman, Yorkshire Writers, 1:113; ed. Perry, Religious Pieces, p. 70). Again, this theme receives its most vivid treatment in the drama, as the mortise is a central element in the York and Towneley plays of the Crucifixion. The origin of this particular motif is not clear. Bestul finds no examples of the “mortise-drop” earlier than the mid-fourteenth century, and notes that its usage is almost entirely confined to English sources (“Passion Meditations of Richard Rolle,” pp. 53–54).↩back to note source

my herte is more hard than is the hard ston. See Matthew 27:51. The text might also be alluding to Ezechiel 36:26, in which God promises to “give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh.”↩back to note source

Prayer 40, Paragraph 2

thurst and drinesse. The dryness of Christ’s body prior to death, owing to heavy blood loss, is another staple detail in medieval Passion narratives. Compare the Fifteen Oes: “thy tendre flesshe chaunged his coloure bycause the lycoure of thy bowelles and the mary of thy bones was dryed up” (ed. Barratt, Women’s Writing, p. 180).↩back to note source

Prayer 41, Paragraph 1

wordes that ye . . . on the cros: The utterances on the cross described in the canonical gospels are traditionally numbered as seven: “Father, forgive them” (Luke 23:34); “this day thou shalt be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43); “woman, behold thy son” (John 19:26); “my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:45); “I thirst” (John 19:28); “it is consummated” (John 19:30); “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46). The author addresses the fifth and sixth in subsequent prayers. For some medieval authorities these statements offered particular insight into the mysteries of the Passion; they form an important core in Bonaventure’s Vitis mystica [Mystical Vine], for instance, and in the Fifteen Oes. Something of their importance can be judged from the Speculum ecclesie [Mirror of the church] by the thirteenth-century Archbishop of Canterbury, Edmund of Abingdon. Edmund urges careful study “of the words Jesus Christ spoke hanging on the cross, and the signs that occurred after his death” [de verbis que locutus est in cruce pendens Christus Jesus, et de signis que contigerunt in morte ipsius] in order to comprehend how “the author of eternal life suffered death for our love and the affection that he held for us, in order that we might live again” [qualiter illa hora mortem passus est auctor vite eterne, pro amore nostro et caritate qua dilexit nos, ut per ipsum viveremus] (Speculum religiosorum and Speculum ecclesie, ed. Forshaw, p. 92).↩back to note source

the eysel and the galle. See Matthew 27:34.↩back to note source

Prayer 42, Paragraph 1

Sicio. See John 19:28. The text might follow Pseudo-Bonaventure here, who also stresses that Christ thirsted for the cure of souls as well as thirsting in actuality (MLC, p. 255). One of Bonaventure’s authentic works, the Vitis Mystica, also builds a similar reading around the utterance sitio, treating it as an expression of “ardent desire for the cure of souls” [desiderium ardentissimum salutis nostrae] (PL 184.662). The Fifteen Oes might be another line of influence, especially since the chosen wording is similar: “O blessed Jhesu, welle of endeles pyte, that saydest on the cros of thy passion by inwardly affection of love: ‘I thirst,’ that is to saye, the helthe of mannys soule” (ed. Barratt, Women’s Writing, p. 179). While the spelling sitio is more common, the scribe’s variant is an acceptable one, since ci and ti are often used interchangeably in Latin orthography.↩back to note source

Prayer 43, Paragraph 1

Consummatum est. See John 19.30.↩back to note source

the godhed descendid to helle. The source of this information is the second part of the fourth-century Gospel of Nicodemus, a pseudepigraphic work assigned to the Pharisee who “came to Jesus by night” and acknowledged him as “teacher from God” (John 3:2). The body of the text purports to be a document given to the Pharisee by two dead men, describing Christ’s descent into Hell, and his liberation of the prophets there. While never officially accepted as scripture, it exerted considerable influence throughout the medieval period; it was well-known in England from the time of Bede and translated into English multiple times between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries (Marx, “The Gospel of Nicodemus”).↩back to note source

Prayer 44, Paragraph 1

Longeus. Although unnamed in the gospels, the Roman soldier who “opened” the side of Christ (John 19:34) had acquired the name Longinus by the early fourth century: at this point, he becomes “Longinus the believing centurion” in the Acts of Pilate, an apocryphal “report” on the Crucifixion later absorbed into the Gospel of Nicodemus (ed. Elliott, Apocryphal New Testament, p. 223). During the Middle Ages, various narratives grew up around him, as he was conflated with the soldier who attests “indeed this was the son of God” (Matthew 27:54; Mark 15:39) and turned into a Christian convert and martyr. The story alluded to here is among the most popular, appearing at the beginning of Jacobus da Voragine’s life of Longinus. Jacobus records that the saint suffered from blindness owing to his “age and infirmity,” although adds that he was restored to full sight by contact with the blood “that ran down the shaft of the spear” (Golden Legend, trans. Ryan, p. 184). The story also appears in Langland’s Piers Plowman (p. 323) and the York Corpus Christi Cycle (ed. Davidson, York Corpus Christi Plays, p. 309), among other English sources.↩back to note source

Prayer 46, Paragraph 1

also seint John . . . and Nichodeme. This long list of names reflects significant variation across the canonical and apocryphal gospels when describing the “holi cumpanie” present at the entombment. All four gospels agree that Joseph of Arimathea embalmed and interred the body after requesting it from Pilate (Matthew 27:59–60; Mark 15:46; Luke 23:53; John 19:38); Mary Magdalene is mentioned in Mark 15:47 and Matthew 27:61; Nicodemus appears in John 19:39; John and the Virgin Mary are placed at the tomb in the Gospel of Nicodemus. See Sadler, Stone, Flesh, Spirit, pp. 7–24.↩back to note source

as his blissid body was beried. The idea is another commonplace drawn from anchoritic thought, or taken from vernacular religious culture more widely. It appears earlier in the Ancrene Wisse: “ye beoth with Jesu Crist bitund as i sepulcre” [you are enclosed with Jesus Christ as in a sepulchre] (ed. Hasenfratz, p. 197). For further analogues, see Price, “‘Inner’ and ‘Outer,’” pp. 196–97.↩back to note source

Prayer 47, Paragraph 1

aperid to youre dere modir. There is no biblical account of the risen Christ appearing to Mary, although the possibility is raised intermittently by patristic and medieval sources; the idea is alluded to, with varying levels of detail, by Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, John Chrysostom, Hesychius of Jerusalem, Severus of Antioch, Eadmer of Canterbury, and numerous others (Breckenridge, “Et Prima Vidit;” Warner, Alone of All Her Sex, pp. 234–35; McMichael, “Theme of Resurrection,” pp. 276–83). However, it is Pseudo-Bonventure who first turns this hypothetical event into a cohesive narrative, defending his recourse to “pious belief” rather than the gospel record on the grounds that “it is likely that our considerate Lord visited his mother” (MLC, pp. 316, 280). The prayer seems to follow Pseudo-Bonaventure, but the unusual popularity of this particular meditation makes it difficult to say whether or not he is its immediate source (see Gibson, Theater of Devotion, p. 49).↩back to note source

Salve sancta parens. In full, “salve sancta parens enixa puerpera regem” [“Hail, holy mother, who brought forth in childbirth the king”]. The quotation ultimately derives from Sedulius’s biblical paraphrase Carmen paschale [Easter song] (fifth-century); however, it is best known as the opening of the Mass of the Holy Virgin, a function it has performed from at least the thirteenth century. On Sedulius’s poem and its medieval adaptations, see Putter, “Prudentius and the Late Classical Biblical Epics,” pp. 358–61.↩back to note source

goodli daliaunce. Pseudo-Bonaventure also directs the contemplator to visualize how mother and son “stayed and conversed together, mutually rejoicing” (MLC, pp. 280–81).↩back to note source

Prayer 48, Paragraph 1

ye apperid . . . to Marie Maudeleyne. See Matthew 28:8–10; Mark 16:9; John 20:11–17.↩back to note source

the gret joye that ye hadde. Again, these details are taken from Pseudo-Bonventure, whose meditation on the Magdalene pictures lengthy conversation between “these two loving souls . . . enveloped in sweet gladness and the greatest joy” (MLC, p. 284).↩back to note source

Prayer 49, Paragraph 1

ye apperid to Cleophas. See Luke 24:13–31.↩back to note source

Castell of Emaus. The Vulgate describes the destination of Cleopas and his companion as a “castellum . . . nomine Emmaus” (Luke 24:13). While castellum has a broad meaning in classical Latin, signifying a settlement or small town as well as a fortified complex, medieval sources unsurprisingly tend to interpret it as a castle in the contemporary style (see “castellum” n. 1, OLD). Hence Emmaus appears as a walled stronghold — complete with towers, battlements, and gatehouse — in a ninth-century Francian ivory at the Met Cloisters, New York (https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/471970(Opens in a new tab or window)), and in a tempera painting by Duccio di Buoninsegna from ca. 1310, now held at the Museo dell’Opera Metropolitana del Duomo in Siena.↩back to note source

Prayer 50, Paragraph 1

appering to seynt Thomas. See John 20:24–29. Thomas gained the descriptor “of India” during the first few centuries of the church, owing to an early tradition that he was sent there to proselytize when the apostles divided up the known world between them. The story makes an early and extravagant appearance in the third-century Acts of Thomas (ed. Elliott, Apocryphal New Testament, pp. 439–511), and is accepted by Ephrem of Edessa, Gregory of Nazianus, Ambrose, and Jerome, amongst other church fathers (Medlycott, India and the Apostle Thomas, pp. 19–38, 42–48).↩back to note source

Prayer 51, Paragraph 1

merveilous Ascension. See Acts 1:9.↩back to note source

the quike and the dede. See 2 Timothy 4:1. Although now associated with the Tyndale and King James versions, this idiomatic rendering of “vivos et mortuos” occurs elsewhere in Middle English, most notably in Richard Rolle’s vernacular commentary on Psalm 71:1: “God the fadere, gif thi dome of qwike and ded” (see Rolle, Psalter, ed. Bramley, p. 252).↩back to note source

Venite benedicti Patris mei, possidete paratum vobis regnum a constitutione mundi. See Matthew 25:34. The verse is also used in the opening of the Mass for Holy Wednesday (Jungmann, Mass of the Roman Rite, 1:330).↩back to note source

Prayer 52, Paragraph 1

sending doun of the Holi Gost. See Acts 2:1–11.↩back to note source

wit and wisdom. Innes-Parker detects an echo here of prayer 15 (“Modelling of Women’s Devotion,” p. 252). The parallel is an important one, since it equates “alle . . . that prechin and thechin” (15.1) with the apostles receiving the gift of tongues.↩back to note source

Prayer 53, Paragraph 1

precious merciful herte. The cor Jesu [heart of Jesus] gained increasing importance as an object of veneration during the late Middle Ages. It received major impetus from the spiritual collaboration between the mystics Mechthild of Madgeburg, Mechthild of Hackeborn, and Gertrude of Helfta in the late thirteenth century (see Harrison, “‘I Am Wholly Your Own’”). The prayer draws heavily on the symbolic vocabulary developed by the three women, especially their conception of Christ’s heart as a source of light and a nourishing stream. The harmonizing of the Sacred Heart with that of the contemplative is also a key element in their thought (see Gertrude of Helfta, Herald of Divine Love, trans. Winkworth, pp. 188–91).↩back to note source

gostli oynementis. See perhaps Canticles (or Song of Songs) 1:2: “smelling sweet of the best ointments. Thy name is as oil poured out.” The text also echoes one of the closing images used by Pseudo-Bonaventure, who compares “the example of his human life” to “an ointment . . . the likes of which no pharmacist can possibly make” (MLC, p. 334).↩back to note source

wownde myn herte . . . and ravissche it. The image of the wounded heart is derived from Canticles (or Song of Songs) 4:9, and is a relatively common means of visualizing union with Christ in the period: a similar plea appears in one of the devotional lyrics attributed to Richard Rolle (NIMEV 1715), which asks “wounde my hert with-in, and welde it at thi wille” (Uncollected Verse and Prose, ed. Hanna, p. 24). Pollard (“Bodleian MS Holkham Misc. 41,” p. 51) also compares these two sentences to the last of the Fifteen Oes, which bids “swete Jhesu, wounde my herte and that my soule may be fedde swetely with water of penaunce and teres of love” (ed. Barratt, Women’s Writing, p. 182). The use of Canticles to express these meanings follows the lead of Bernard of Clairvaux, whose influential series of sermons treated the book’s intensely erotic imagery as an allegory of the “desperate yearning of the fathers for the presence of Christ in the flesh” [desiderii patrum suspirantium Christi in carne praesentiam] (Sermones super Cantica cantorum, ed. Leclercq, Talbot, and Rochais, 1:8). Bernard provided an important model for a number of female mystics, among them Gertrude of Helfta and Mechthild of Madgeburg, who found his sexually charged language a useful means of contemplating communion with the divine (see McAvoy, Authority and the Female Body, pp. 64–95). The author’s plea for ravishment obviously looks back to this thinking, as well as forward to the strikingly similar phrasing found in the fourteenth of John Donne’s Holy Sonnets, “Batter my heart, three-personed God” (Major Works, ed. Carey, p. 177).↩back to note source

streme me youre watres. Compare Psalm 64:11.↩back to note source

Epilogue, Paragraph 1

king Ezechie. Hezekiah (or Ezechias in Latinized form) is the thirteenth king of Judah, whose reign is detailed in 4 Kings 18–20, 2 Chronicles 29–32, and Isaias 36–39. The text alludes here to a tradition in scriptural commentary that explains why he succumbed to illness despite triumphing over Assyria with divine assistance. The infirmity itself is described in the Vulgate as “sickening unto death,” although the original Hebrew refers to some form of boil or tumor [sheḥin]; it and Hezekiah’s treatment by Isaiah are outlined in 4 Kings 20:1, 2 Chronicles 32:24, and at greatest length in Isaias 38:1–21. The biblical accounts make no reference to the sickness as a penalty for ingratitude or impiety, however. The idea first seems to be voiced in the seventh century by a shadowy figure known as Augustine of Ireland: Augustine tentatively suggests that Hezekiah “perhaps, owing to a meagre act of gratitude, fell into a disease of most painful feebleness” [forsitan etiam gratiarum actione exiguus, in gravissimi languoris morbum incidit] (Augustinus Hibernicus, De mirabilibus sacrae scripturae, PL 35.2187). The author of the Prayers could well be following Augustine here, especially since his remarks were paraphrased in the Glossa ordinaria, which similarly claims “he deserved to die, who in his elation, did not yield thanks to the Lord for unexpected victory” [mori merebatur, qui elatus, Domino gratias pro inopinata victoria non reddidit] (PL 113.624); her term “victorie” seems to mirror his victoria, and Augustine also adds, as here, that “the prophet Isaiah, coming to visit him in that same weakness, told Hezekiah . . . you shall not live any longer, but die the death” [ad quem in ipso languore visitandum Isaias propheta veniens dixit . . . non vives ultra, sed morte morieris] (PL 35.2187). Another possible source is the fourteenth-century biblical commentary of Nicholas of Lyra which, like the Glossa, also appears in the catalogues of Syon library (ed. Gillespie and Doyle, Syon Abbey, pp. 116, 170). Drawing perhaps on Rabbinic tradition, Nicholas also stresses that infirmity befell Ezechias “because he did not return sufficient thanks to God for smiting the army of Sennacherib” [quod hoc contigit ex eo quod non reddiderat gratias Deo sufficienter de percussione exercitus Sennacherib] (Nicholaus Lyranus, Postillae maiores, fol. 19r). See Bunte, Rabbinische Traditionen, pp. 161, 169.↩back to note source

his prophete. Isaiah, who advises Hezekiah to prepare for death, and cures him of his sickness with a poultice of figs.↩back to note source

Epilogue, Paragraph 2

religious persone. It is difficult to establish the precise source the author has in mind. One obvious candidate is Pseudo-Bonaventure, given the text’s frequent dependence on MLC; Pollard suggests St. Bridget, as presumed composer of the Fifteen Oes (“Bodleian MS Holkham Misc. 41,” p. 52). In either case, the author’s reticence might suggest some doubt over received attribution. Rolle could be a further possibility. See the Holkham Introduction, p. 15, for further discussion.↩back to note source

Alle the evangelistes witnessin. A reference to John 20:30 and 21:25, and perhaps to 2 Thessalonians 2:14. Pseudo-Bonaventure makes the same point at several junctures, arguing in his introduction that “you should not think that all his words and deeds that we can meditate on were actually written down” (MLC, p.4). He later evokes Augustine’s letter to Januarius (see Augustine, Letters, 1:252–53) to remind the reader further that “not everything . . . was written down” (MLC, p. 316).↩back to note source

Epilogue, Paragraph 4

pride and veinglorie. The choice of language recalls catalogues of sin found in contemporary confessional manuals, where vana gloria often features as a subspecies of pride [superbia]. One example the author may have known is Peraldus’s Summa de virtutibus et vitiis, the main source of Chaucer’s Parson’s Tale; the Summa occurs several times in the Syon Abbey booklists (ed. Gillespie and Doyle, Syon Abbey, pp. 288, 301, 480). Here “vainglory” is also defined as an effect of pride’s parasitic and deceptive relationship to virtue: “that pride falsifies good things is shown by the fact that things that are like goodness in kind, when they proceed from pride, when they are done because of vainglory, are not meritworthy but indeed demeaning” [quod autem superbia bona falsificet paret per hoc quod ea quae sunt de genere bonorum, si ex superbia procedant, ut si fiant propter vanam gloriam, non sunt meritoria, imo demeritoria]. Peraldus likewise describes the corrosive effect pride has on virtue, and sets up humility as an antidote. He notes that “if virtues already exist in a person, the vice of pride expels them; if they do not, it does not allow them to enter; if they remain, it falsifies or debases them. Just as humility weakens all vices, and amasses and strengthens all virtues, so pride destroys and weakens all virtues” [vitium superbie quod bona si iam sunt in aliquo, expellit: si non sunt, etiam intrare non permittit; si qua remanent ei falsificat vel inquinate . . . Sicut humilitas omnia vitia enervat: omnesque virtutes colligit et roborat; sic superbia omnes virtutes destruit et enervat] (Peraldus, Summa, fol. 270v). Another likely source is Hilton, who draws on confessional taxonomies of sin, and also warns that “whanne thei han felid a litil grace thei wenen that it is so mykil, passand othere, that thei fallen in veynglorie and so thei leesen it” (Scale of Perfection, ed. Bestul, p. 61).↩back to note source

the Pharisé that oure lord spekith of. The author is paraphrasing Luke 18:9–14, a parable that describes a haughty Pharisee and humble tax collector entering a temple to pray, and concludes with the lesson “every one that exalteth himself, shall be humbled: and he that humbleth himself, shall be exalted.” The story appears in a similar context in Hilton’s The Scale of Perfection, which adds that the Pharisee “yede hoom agen withouten grace as he com, and gaat right nought” (ed. Bestul, p. 52).↩back to note source

Lucifer. The connection between Lucifer and pride was cemented in antiquity, when a “majority view” emerged among the early fathers that superbia was responsible for his downfall, largely on the authority of Isaias 14:12 (see P. King, “Augustine and Anselm on Angelic Sin,” pp. 262–63). By the later Middle Ages, homiletic and penitential discourse had made Lucifer into the “prototype of pride,” and he inevitably features in discussions of the sin (Bloomfield, Seven Deadly Sins, p. 109). The treatment here again parallels that of Peraldus, whose tractate on superbia emphasizes that this “prime example . . . was expelled on account of his pride: he that was an angel became a devil; he that was the noblest of creatures became a horse-leech, forever sucking up the blood of sin” [primum exemplum est in Lucifero . . . deiectus est Lucifer propter superbiam suam ut cum esset angelus factus sit diabolus; cum esset nobilissima creatura factus est sanguisuga sanguinem peccati semper sugens] (Peraldus, Summa, fol. 273v).↩back to note source

it fadith al gostli beuté. The danger of taking excessive pride in one’s good works is a recurring concern in contemplative literature. It is stressed particularly heavily by Hilton, who dedicates several chapters to avoiding the pitfalls of self-love. At one point, Hilton even posits that combating pride is the entire point of meditation on the humanity of Christ, arguing that “thorugh devoute biholdynge on His manhede and His mekenesse schalt thu mykil abate the stirynge of pride” (Scale of Perfection, ed. Bestul, p. 51).↩back to note source

hate the sinnes and love the persones. See prayer 25, where the same phrase also appears.↩back to note source

Epilogue, Paragraph 5

bindith not yow self. This passage seems to be a muted rejection of the tightly programmatic and regulated approach set out by Pseudo-Bonaventure. In its concluding chapter, MLC urges the reader to “organize your meditative cycle in terms of a week at a time,” working from the Incarnation to the Flight to Egypt on Monday, up to the Finding in the Temple on Tuesday, to Mary and Martha on Wednesday, to the Passion on Thursday, and to the Resurrection on Friday and Saturday; finally, on Sunday, the reader should “meditate on the resurrection itself up to the end of his earthy life” (MLC, p. 332).↩back to note source

seie it be scripture. Similar guidance is given by other advisory texts on prayer. Hilton, for instance, holds that prayer “oonli in herte without speche” is the third and highest “maner of praier”; evoking 1 Corinthians 14:15, he argues that those who practice “more inward” prayer, rather than praying by “tunge oonli,” manage to “neer contynueli praie in here herte, and love and praise God withoutyn grete lettynge of temptacions or of vanitees” (Scale of Perfection, ed. Bestul, pp. 63–64).↩back to note source

Epilogue, Paragraph 6

Syke and sorwe deeply. While the use of lyrics in meditation is not unusual (see Woolf, English Religious Lyric, pp. 134–35, 158–61; Brantley, Reading in the Wilderness, pp. 121–66), this brief quatrain provides an interesting link to the wider culture of female devotion. It appears in six further witnesses (NIMEV 3102), half of which embed it in works of meditative prose for women, often as a sort of summative postscript. It features, for instance, in British Library Addit. MS 37790 and Cambridge, St. John’s College C.21, where it precedes the epilogue of The Myrroure of Symple Saules, a Middle English translation of Marguerite Porète’s Miroer des Simples Ames (Cré, Vernacular Mysticism, pp. 192–93; C. Brown, Register, 1:420; M.R. James, Descriptive Catalogue, p. 95); it is also appended to the copy of the Doctrine of the Hert in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 330 (ed. Whitehead et al., Doctrine of the Hert, pp. xxi–xxii). However, the quatrain’s exact function here is uncertain. It is plainly intended to guide the reader in her devotions; it was also most likely added by the copyist rather than the author, given that the text makes no reference to it. But its placement in the manuscript makes it difficult to know whether it should be read alongside the Prayers, Flete’s Remediis, or the miscellany as a whole. Innes-Parker speculates that it might serve as a “bridge between the two texts” (“Modelling of Women’s Devotion,” p. 264); nonetheless, the fact that it is copied in red ink suggests that it was deliberately set apart from the material around it (Koster, “Gender, Text, Critic,” pp. 232, 236), so it was perhaps designed to be read as a condensed, standalone formula for meditation.↩back to note source