¹ The work apparently received this title when it was printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1519. The only manuscript bearing a title is the Cambridge MS (St. John's College Library 98) and this title is The Life and Revelations of St. Katharina in large, awkward capitals of a much later date than the handwriting of the text. The suggestion for the title, however, comes directly from the translator in his Prologue: ‘ϸis boke of reuelaciones as for 3oure gostli confort to 3ou I clepe it a froitful orchard.’ Google Scholar

² St. Catharine called it simply ‘Il Libro.’ Traditio Google Scholar

³ Libro de la divina providentia composto in volgare de la seraphica vergine Chaterina da Siena (Bologna c.1475). I am indebted to the authorities at the Pierpont Morgan Library for permission to consult this First Edition.Google Scholar

⁴ Gardner, E. G., ‘Catherine of Siena,’. The Catholic Encyclopedia (New York 1908) 3.448.Google Scholar

⁵ ‘Whoever the maidens were for whom the [Ancrene] Riwle was written, they were the cause of great things in English prose. They were the first known to us of a long list of devoted women, for whose consolation so many of the greatest books of Middle English prose were composed.’ Chambers, R. W., On the Continuity of English Prose from Alfred to More and His School (EETS, o.s.186; London 1932) c.Google Scholar

⁶ According to the Short Title Catalog there is one copy each in the British Museum, the Cambridge Univ. and the Bodleian Libraries, and in the collection of Harmsworth, Sir R. L. Bishop, W. W. has located copies in the Folger Shakespeare Library and in the New York Public Library. A Checklist of American Copies of STC Books (2nd ed. University of Michigan 1950). Mr. Doyle, A. I. of the University Library, Durham, England, informs me in a letter that Longleat House (the Marquess of Bath) has a copy, on vellum with illuminated borders, including the arms of the Passion, in a red velvet binding, and that Sion College in London also has a copy on paper in a contemporary blind-stamped binding.Google Scholar

⁷ A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum (London 1808) III 25. The Orchard of SyonGoogle Scholar

⁸ Montague Rhodes James, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of St. Johns College, Cambridge (Cambridge 1913) 102. Google Scholar

⁹ This refers to the ‘Kalender’ which precedes the text. Google Scholar

¹⁰ Catalogue of Manuscripts and Early Printed Books from the Libraries of William Morris, Richard Bennett, Bertram, Fourth Earl of Ashburnham, and Other Sources, Now Forming Portion of the Library of J. Pierpont Morgan (London 1906) No. 98.Google Scholar

¹¹ If this is the bibliographer and antiquarian who authored works on early English printing and was notorious for tearing title pages from rare books (DNB s.v.), either there is an error in the date given for his death (1759) or, possibly, the manuscript was not purchased by him but was added as an accession to the collection which he left. Google Scholar

¹² This study has no conclusive evidence that any of the three manuscripts was the printer's copy. Google Scholar

¹³ Mr. Doyle, A. I., who has been at work on the Rylands MS lat. 395. calls my attention to the fact that this manuscript has a passage on fol. 90^b entitled De revelacione Katerine de Senis, ij parte, capitulo iij. This short passage of 122 words, in Middle English, is a direct quotation from Part I, chapter xii, in the Morgan MS. The same correspondent also mentioned that the extract in Oxford Univ. Coll. MS 14, fols. 58^a-59^a, comes from the Dialogo, chap. 106, tract III, and Part V, chap. ii of The Orchard. Finally, in Harl. MS 2409 the third of five items is entitled ‘How ϸe holy mayden Kateryne of Seen first began to sette hyr hert fully to Godwarde.’ It occupies only five leaves. Miss Hope Emily Allen says that it is concerned with the revelations of St. Catharine. Writings Ascribed to Richard Rolle, Hermit of Hampole (Oxford 1931) 343 n. It is altogether likely that there are other numerous instances of excerpts translated from the Italian or Latin versions of the Revelations and existing in Middle English manuscripts.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Plomer, H. R., Wynkyn de Worde and His Contemporaries (London 1925) 83.Google Scholar

¹⁵ With William Smyth, Bishop of Lincoln, Sir Richard Sutton was the co-founder of Brasenose College, Oxford. In 1513 he became steward of Syon Monastery, a valuable preferment. In this capacity he displayed his love for literature by bearing the expense of the publication of The Orchard of Syon, ‘a most superb and curious specimen of ancient English typography.’ DNB s.v. For a detailed biography, see Ralph Churton, The Lives of William Smyth, Bishop of Lincoln and Sir Richard Sutton, Knight, Founders of Brasen Nose College (Oxford 1800). Google Scholar

¹⁶ fol. 176. Google Scholar

¹⁷ Notes on the provenance of this copy prove that it was the very one which Ralph Churton, on the report of ‘Mr. Warton,’ described in 1800. Lives of Smyth and Sutton 417. I wish here to express my thanks to Mr. Karl Kup, curator of the Spencer Collection in the New York Public Library, for allowing me the use of this rare book; and also to Miss Elisabeth Roth for her courtesy on several occasions. Google Scholar

¹⁸ Churton believed that this cut represented St. Catharine. Google Scholar

¹⁹ Plomer reports that ‘the outstanding feature of de Worde's work was his love for pictures’ and that he seldom let a book go without one, whether it was suitable to the text or not. Wynkyn de Worde, 61. In his edition of Ames’ Typographical Antiquities (London 1812) II 243, the Rev. Dibdin, Thomas F. describes them as ‘well-printed, but in regard to composition, nearly as rude as can be imagined, with the exception of that which represents the faithful portrait of St. Katherine.’Google Scholar

²⁰ Wynkyn de Worde 83. In another part of the same work, Plomer writes: ‘All that can be said of Wynkyn de Worde as a printer is that, when he liked, he could turn out good work. He possessed some well-cut and well-cast founts of Black Letter of all sizes, and towards the end of his life several founts of roman and italic. His “blacks” are seen to the best advantage in such folios as The Golden Legend, The Chronicles of England, and The Orchard of Syon.’ Op. cit. 101.Google Scholar

²¹ Catalogue, Sotheby & Co., Auctioneers (London 1933). Google Scholar

²² Op. cit. 417.Google Scholar

²³ Dibdin, , op. cit. 242. Dibdin's admiration of The Orchard of Syon, however, stops at the book's external appearance. He quotes several passages to show that the ‘language and argument [are] of obscure nature.’Google Scholar

²⁴ Op. cit. 421.Google Scholar

²⁵ This religious was already professed in August, 1518, and died January 5, 1540. At the Suppression she was granted eight pounds per annum as a pension, but she is not in any other pension list. The Stricklands were seated at Sizberg Castle, Westmoreland, since the time of Edward III. [For this information I am indebted to Sister Mary Dominic, O. SS. S., of the present Syon community, who copied it from the work of the late Canon Fletcher, which gives the history of Syon and the ‘Who's Who’ of the benefactors and members of the community. This unpublished work is in the library at Syon Abbey, South Brent, Devon.] It is probable that Sister Elizabeth was a descendant of William Strickland (d. 1419), whose descendants have the same arms as the Sizberg family. DNB s.v. Google Scholar

²⁶ This Richard Assheton may be a descendant of Sir Ralph Ashton (1460–1482), who married an heiress of the Bartons of Middleton and founded the family that held the lordship there until the eighteenth century. DNB s.v. Google Scholar

²⁷ Was he the Lionel Tolomach, third bart. of Helmingham (d. 1668), Suffolk? His son, Lionel, was born in 1649. Another son, Thomas, distinguished himself in the British army and died of wounds June 12, 1694. The portrait of this Tolomach is in the collection of Lord Dysart of Ham House. DNB s.v. It was in this house that the copy of The Orchard of Syon which is now in New York had its former home. Google Scholar

²⁸ Subsequent references to this MS will be to Morgan. Google Scholar

²⁹ The full title of this convent, founded in 1415 by King Henry V, is ‘The Monastery of St. Saviour, St. Mary the Virgin and St. Bridget of Syon.’ A branch of the Bridgettines, founded at Vadstena around 1373 by St. Bridget of Sweden, it included brothers as well as sisters, over whom an abbess ruled in all matters temporal. A Confessor-General cared for the spiritual needs of both communities. The monks have long since died out, but the nuns, after the Suppression by Henry VIII, had an adventurous career on the Continent, and in the late nineteenth century their direct descendants were able to make a successful refoundation on British soil. They are at present located in South Brent, Devon. Google Scholar

³⁰ It is related that the Saviour dictated the Rule to St. Bridget. Google Scholar

³¹ A native of Brescia, where the first Latin edition of the Dialogo was published in 1496. Google Scholar

³² Fol. 32^a Google Scholar

³³ A manuscript which Gigli, who edited the saint's works in 1707, believed to be by one of her secretaries, and which seems at least contemporary with them, runs on continuously, with the division into chapters noted in the margin. Drane, Augusta T., The History of St. Catherine of Siena (London 1899) II 122. This is the order of the Morgan MS.Google Scholar

³⁵ Fol. 3^a. ³⁷ Fol. 7b. ³⁹ Fol. 23b. Google Scholar

³⁴ Fol. 6b. ³⁶ Fol. 9^a. ³⁸ Fol. 25b. Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Fol. 27^a. Google Scholar

⁴¹ Fol. 26^a. Google Scholar

⁴² Op. cit. 44. ⁴³ N. 20 supra. Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Le lettere di Caterina S. da Siena ridotte a miglior lezione, e in ordine nuovo disposte con note di Niccolo Tommaseo a cura di Piero Misciatelli (terza edizione Siena 1922) No. 373. Google Scholar

⁴⁵ S. Catharinae Senensis Vita auctore Fr. Raimundo Capuano [Legenda major]. AS April III 945.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ The last of the saint's secretaries, he was a young Florentine who joined her in 1378 and was her only regular secretary in Rome during the last months of her life. Gardner, E. G., Saint Catherine of Siena: A Study in the Religion, Literature, and History of the Fourteenth Century in Italy (London 1907) 373.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Born in the same year as St. Catharine, he was a Sienese nobleman who became an enthusiastic caterinato c. 1376. For a time he was the chief of the saint's secretaries. Gardner 169. Google Scholar

⁴⁸ A vernacular poet and by rank a nobleman of one of the lesser Sienese houses, ‘he is the first of a little group of youths of birth and learning who left their families to cleave to her [St. Catharine] and serve her as her secretaries.’ Gardner 85. Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Hurtand, R. J. P., O.P., trans., Le Dialogue de Sainte Catherine de Sienne, traduction nouvelle de l'italien (19^e édit. Paris 1913) I xxxv.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Libellus de supplemento legendae prolixae virginis beatae Catharinae de Senis by Fra Tommaso Caffarini. Biblioteca comunale di Siena, MS T.i.2; Biblioteca Casanatense (Rome) MS 2360. Unpub. Quoted by Drane, op. cit. II 121.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Michael de la Bedoyère, The Greatest Catherine: The Life of Catherine Benincasa, Saint of Siena (Milwaukee 1947) 197. Google Scholar

⁵² La Spiritualité chrétienne II (Paris 1924) 314 n.1.Google Scholar

⁵³ Legenda major, AS April III 949.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Ibid. 945.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Cited by Gillet, Martin S., La mission de sainte Catherine de Sienne (Paris 1948) 92.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Processus contestationum super sanctitatem et doctrinam Catharinae de Senis, ed. only iⁿ part by Martène and Durand in the sixth vol. of their Amplissima collectio (Paris 1729). Cited by Gillet 254.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Saint Catharine of Siena 354.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ History of St. Catherine of Siena II 120.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Cited by Gillet 254; Drane 120 n. 1. Google Scholar

⁶⁰ ‘It was in Avignon that Catherine collected material for the terrible chapters in the Dialogue about the sinful lives of the clergy, and her … description … of the “bad servants of God” is based on memories of the papal court.’ Johannes Jorgensen, St. Catherine of Siena, trans. Ingeborg Lund (London and New York 1938) 230. Google Scholar

⁶¹ Underhill, Evelyn, The Mystics of the Church (New York 1926) 160.Google Scholar

⁶² Pourrat finds Raymund's statement that Catherine dictated during ecstasy ‘extraordinaire, puisque l'extatique ne peut ni parler ni se mouvoir pendant l'extase.’ Op. cit. 314. Google Scholar

⁶³ Gardner adopts this arrangement as a compromise between that of the manuscripts and early editions of the Italian texts and that given by Fra Raymund in his Latin version. Op. cit. 354 n. Google Scholar

⁶⁴ The Dialogue of the Seraphic Virgin, St. Catherine of Siena, trans. by Algar Thorold (London 1896) 19. Further citations from this translation will be to The Dialogue.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Lettere V No. 272.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ The Dialogue 20.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Ibid. 32. ⁶⁸ Ibid. 38.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ The figure is introduced in chapter xxi. Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Ibid. 66ff. ⁷¹ Ibid. 163.Google Scholar

⁷² Cf. Tanquerey, A., The Spiritual Life: A Treatise on Ascetical and Mystical Theology, trans. Herman Branderis (Tournai, Belgium 1930) Part II.Google Scholar

⁷³ Sermo in Cantica Canticorum 1.1 (PL 183. 795).Google Scholar

⁷⁴ The Dialogue 356.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Ibid. 360.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ Pourrat, P., op. cit. 314.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ ‘ Dicendum quod incipientes, proficientes et perfecti, secundum quod per hoc status diversi distinguuntur, dicuntur homines non secundum quodcumque studium, sed secundum studium eorum quae pertinent ad spiritualem libertatem vel servitutem.’ Thomas, S. de Aquino, Summae Theologiae 11–11 q. 183 art. 4 ad 2.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Noted by Pourrat 318. ⁷⁹ Gillet, , op. cit. 94.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ Lettere IV No. 272. ⁸¹ The Dialogue 253.Google Scholar

⁸² Op. cit. 1. ⁸³ Ibid. 356.Google Scholar

⁸⁴ Gardner is also the author of Dante (New York 1932), Dante and the Mystics (London 1913), and other studies of the Italian poet. Google Scholar

⁸⁵ Cited by Jorgensen, op. cit. 35. Google Scholar

⁸⁶ Gardner, , St. Catharine 367.Google Scholar

⁸⁷ Jorgensen, 301. Google Scholar

⁸⁸ Purg. 17. 91–93.Google Scholar

⁸⁹ Cap. 146 Morgan MS 162 [Chapters 137–156 are not included in Thorold's English version]. Google Scholar

⁹⁰ The Dialogue 114.Google Scholar

⁹¹ P. 326. Google Scholar

⁹² Saint Catharine of Siena 366.Google Scholar

⁹³ Note 4 supra. Google Scholar

⁹⁴ Lettere V No. 373.Google Scholar

⁹⁵ Libro de la divina providentia composto in volgare de la seraphica vergine Chaterina da Siena (Bologna c. 1475). El libro de la divina doctrina revellata a quella gloriosa et sanctissima vergine sancta Caterina da Siena (Naples 1478). Dialogo de la seraphica virgine sancta Catherina de la divina providentia (Venice 1494). [These titles and facts of publication are supplied by Gardner, E. G. in his Saint Catherine of Siena 424–35. Gardner gives 1472 as the date of the Bologna edition. The catalogue of the bookseller from whom the Morgan Library purchased its copy of this edition gives the date as 1475.]Google Scholar

⁹⁶ Dialogus Seraphice ac dive Catharine de Senis cum nonnullis aliis orationibus, translated by Raimundus de Vineis (Brescia 1496). Through the courtesy of the Pierpont Morgan Library staff, I was able to consult this First Edition and to quote from it.Google Scholar

⁹⁷ Another of Catharine's fellowship, he also wrote a life of Giovanni Columbini and had an Italian version of the Revelations of St. Bridget copied for the Confraternity of Our Lady. Gardner 89–90. Google Scholar

⁹⁸ The tradition goes back at least as far as the eighth century, when Benedict Biscop, on his numerous journeys to the Continent, returned with manuscripts for the libraries at Wearmouth and Jarrow. These were the treasures which enriched the scholarship of St. Bede. Google Scholar

⁹⁹ Catalogue of the Library of Syon Monastery. Isleworthy ed. Mary Bateson (Cambridge 1898). Mr. Doyle, A. I. has reexamined the Catalogue under violet ray and is planning a supplementary volume to Miss Bateson's edition.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁰ Harl. MS 3432 fol. 192^a. Google Scholar

¹⁰¹ Johanna Sewell, a nun of Syon, inscribed her monogram on a copy of Richard Rolle's Incendium Amoris. With this monogram is that of the Carthusian James Greenhalgh of Sheen, who seems to have been Johanna's friend and, perhaps, her tutor in the writings of Rolle. Greenhalgh had given this sister a copy of the black-letter Scale of Perfection, which likewise shows the two monograms. The Incendium Amoris of Richard Rolle of Hampole, ed. Margaret Deanesly (Manchester 1915) 79–83. Google Scholar

¹⁰² Churton, R., Lives of Smith and Sutton 412.Google Scholar

¹⁰³ Morgan MS fol. 1^a. I wish to express my sincere appreciation to the Director of the Pierpont Morgan Library for granting me permission to quote from this manuscript. Google Scholar

¹⁰⁴ Ibid. The context would seem to require ‘hole’ instead of ‘holi,’ but the scribe has distinctly written the latter word.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁵ fol. 7^b. Google Scholar