A Check-list of Middle English Prose Writings of Spiritual Guidance

Critical editions of The Cloud of Unknowing and the treatises associated with it have been published'; the various texts of the Ancrene Riwle are being edited for the Early English Text Society2; and editions of the treatises attributed to Walter Hilton3 and of Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine Love4 are being prepared. [...] The most important work in this field is Dr A. I. Doyle's thesis, A survey of the origins and cir- culation of theological writings in English in the i4th, i^th, and early i6th centuries with special consideration of the part of the clergy therein.26 He discusses the provenance of many of the tracts in this check- list, but is not concerned with their teaching or literary quality. [...] The Revelations of Divine Love has been held by many to contain the fruit of genuine mystical ex- perience, but it is not written to teach readers the way to con- templation.30 On the other hand, both The Scale of Perfection and The Cloud of Unknowing are treatises on contemplation, written to guide others in contemplative prayer, although they differ in that the Cloud deals with one aspect of the [...] The "spiritual life", as it is used in this book, means much more than the practice of saying prayers, making meditations, or "experiencing" a sense of God's presence: it refers to the whole of a Christian's life in so far as it 43 For a discussion of the relationship between Hilton's writings and the Cloud and its treatises, v. the following, which are the most important contributions to the prob [...] The Christian use of the word is due to the writer now known as pseudo-Dionysius, probably of the fif th cen- tury, who gave the title 'Mystical Theology' to the little treatise that was the first formulation of a doctrine on the subject.