This work is a verse homily on the necessity of repentance and confession before death and Doomsday arrive — the terror-inducing theme found in much poetry in Jesus 29. The lesson comes tempered and sweetened, however, with another theological tiding: God’s abundant love. The opening line affirms the message: “Theo sothe love among us beo wythuten euch endynge” (True love is among us without any limit). If we are virtuous, worshipful, and serviceable, the preacher says, then we need not be frightened — we will shine brightly in paradise! The poet preaches submissive meekness, using Christ as the example, in a way that echoes the preceding poem, An Orison to Our Lord (art. 25). It might well be that the prayer-poem stands as introit to this homily.

The homily’s first half rehearses the usual gloomy lessons of inevitable death and final judgment. The middle stanza (lines 29–32) models the confession demanded of listeners: they need to cry for mercy and acknowledge their foul sins. The second half stresses God’s love: he desires souls to be drawn to heaven; he wants them to discover joy and bliss and see Christ’s face (line 33–36). There then follows a description of the “riche wunynge” (rich dwelling; line 45) of paradise, and how it is we who must have and show true love so that we can obtain this reward. The poem closes with Pauline definitions of love (from 1 Corinthians), and a prayer that God show his love by freeing the prayerful from bondage and taking them to heaven.

A Homily on Sooth Love is composed in the same meter (long lines with internal rhymes) as Will and Wit (from Cotton), The Five Joys of Our Lady Saint Mary, Thomas of Hales’s Love Rune, and Fire and Ice (arts. 9, 11, 19, 21). It is conceivably another English poem written by Thomas, but one cannot determine authorship with any degree of certainty. The balanced style and love-centered content are compatible with Love Rune, yet Homily is undeniably a slighter work. As with the other lyrics in this meter, Morris sets Homily in 8-line stanzas despite the fact that the scribe lays it out in long lines. He names it The Duty of Christians, but the title provided here reflects the comforting message offered in the first line: “sothe luve.” In Love Rune, the layout is a critical element of its numerological structure, which the scribe maintains. The layout in long lines is therefore preserved for A Homily on Sooth Love as well.

[Fols. 193r–194r. NIMEV 3474. DIMEV 5479. Quire: 5. Meter: 60 septenary lines with internal rhymes, aaaa7 (or (ab)(ab)(ab)(ab)7), in fifteen 4-line stanzas. Layout: Long lines with strong caesuras and medial and end punctuation. A colored initial opens each 4-line stanza. The item begins with a Latin incipit in red, written on two lines. Edition: Morris, pp. 141–44. Other MSS: None. Translation: Adamson, trans., A Treasury of Middle English Verse, pp. 8–11. Seventeenth-century transcription: Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, MS Peniarth 120, pp. 601–17, by Welsh antiquary Edward Lluyd, Assistant Keeper (1683–1689) and Keeper (1691–1709) of the Ashmoleian Museum, Oxford (Hill-History, p. 203n1; and Hill-Part2, p. 276).]