² Thomas, More, Works (1557 edn.), pp. 356–57.Google Scholar Part of this passageis quoted in Chambers, R. W., Thomas More (London, 1953), p. 255,Google Scholar and also in Reynolds, E. E., St Thomas More (London, 1953), p. 241, where it is erroneously glossed.Google Scholar

¹ For a recent discussion of the problem of the authorship of the Meditationes see Petrocchi, G., Ascesi e mistica trecentesca (Florence, 1957), pp. 41–83.Google Scholar

² Edited by L. F. Powell (Oxford, 1908); also see Zeeman, E., ‘Nicholas Love—A Fifteenth-Century Translator’, Review of English Studies, new series, vi (1955), pp. 113–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³ Cambridge University Library, Syn. 8.53.70, A.i. This is the translation often attributed, perhaps mistakenly, to Richard Whitford, the ‘wretch of Syon’ and a friend of More. See Williams, G., ‘Two Neglected London- Welsh Clerics: Richard Whitford and Richard Gwent’, Trans, of the Honourable Soc. of Cymmrodorion, i (1961), pp. 23–32.Google Scholar

⁴ Huijben, J. and Debongnie, P., L'Auteur ou les Auteurs de ‘L'Imitation (Louvain, 1957), pp. 3–7.Google Scholar

⁵ For an account of this complex problem see The Medieval Mystics of England, ed. Colledge, E. (London, 1962), pp. 60–70.Google Scholar

¹ In the absence of scholarly editions of Love's Mirror and of the Scale the best account of their manuscript circulation is to be found in Doyle, A. I., A Survey of the Origins and Circulation of Theological Writings in English in the 14th, 15th and Early 16th Centuries (Cambridge Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1953), Pt. II, section 4, and Pt. III, section 5.1 am indebted to Dr Doyle for allowing me to make use of his thesis and also for sharing his great know ledge of late medieval manuscripts with me.Google Scholar

² For the early editions of Love's Mirror and the Scale see Pollard, A. W. and Redgrave, G. R., A Short-Title Catalogue, etc. (London, 1926), pp. 70, 312;Google Scholar also Bennett, H. S., English Books and Readers, 1475 to 1557 (Cambridge, 1952), pp. 244, 254.Google Scholar It ought to be added that the dating of these editions is often tentative, and in some cases it is likely that separate editions have been conflated.

³ Pollard, and Redgrave, , op. cit., p. 558, nos. 23955–61;Google ScholarBennett, , op. cit., p. 268.Google Scholar

¹ See below, pp. 111–12.

² Delaissé, L. M. J., Le Manuscrit Autographe de Thomas a Kempis (2 vols., Brussels, 1956);Google Scholar for the following paragraph, see i, ch. 3. Huijben, and Debongnie, , op. cit., pp. 1–14.Google Scholar Some of M. Delaissé's conclusions have been questioned, unconvincingly to my mind, by Spaapen, B., ‘Kanttekeningen Bij de Diplomatische Uitgave van Hs. Brussel 5855–61’, Ons Geestelijk Erf, xxxii (1958).Google Scholar

¹ For an account of the Musica Ecclesiastica recension, Delaissé, , op. cit., i, pp. 90, 112, 137–38;Google ScholarHuijben, and Debongnie, , op. cit., pp. 6,200.Google Scholar Delaissé is mistaken in suggesting that the Musica Ecclesiastica recension invariably includes Bks. I-III; see Brussels, Bibl. Roy., MS. 1705–10 and Bodley MS. 632. Also, Puyol, P. E., Descriptions Bibliographiques des Manuscrits et des Principales Editions du Livre De Imitatione Christi (Paris, 1898), pp. 120, 260.Google Scholar

² The chronological significance of this MS. was realized more than eighty years ago by W. A. B. Coolidge in ‘The Magdalen MS. of the “Imitation”, 1438’, Notes and Queries, 6th series, iii (1881), pp. 181, 202, 222. Coolidge was apparently not aware of the place of this MS. in the development of the English textual tradition.

¹ Magdalen Coll. MS. 93, fo. 275^v.

² Ibid., fos. 295^v-96^v. The missing last chapter has been added by a later hand, apparently of the mid-sixteenth century. The Magdalen College MS. exhibits the ‘English' numeration of chapters in Book III, as described below, and I have followed this distinctive numeration in my account of the text.

³ The discontinuity between Bk. I and Bks. II-III is emphasized by various other features of the MS. The quire numbering of Bk. I is separate from that of Bks. II-III; similarly, while Dygoun has heavily annotated Bk. I he has made very few comments on the other two Books.

⁴ The date of Dygoun's death is unknown; he was born in 1383–84, but was still alive in January 1444/5. Ibid., fo. 226^r. Maiden, A. R., The Canonisation of Saint Osmund (Salisbury, 1901), pp. 68–69.Google Scholar

¹ Bodley MS. 632, fos. III^v-120^v; Digby MS. 37, fos. 56^r-71^r. A third MS., Trinity Coll., Cambridge, MS. 365, may also have been of this type; it contains an imperfect version of Bk. I which ends in the middle of Chapter 13.

² Magdalen Coll. MS. 93, fo. 295^r. That is, using the ‘English’ numeration of chapters in Bk. Ill which is explained in the next few sentences.

¹ In the Laud MS., for example, chs. 38 and 39 of Bk. III have changed places but the Lambeth text preserves the correct order; Laud misc. MS. 215, fos. 59^v-60^r. It is worth noting that in both MSS. the Musica Ecclesiastica is accompanied by aManuale and aLiberSoliloguiorum attributed to Augustine.

¹ Brussels, Bibl. Roy. MS. 15138 contains English annotations dating from the late fifteenth century; its provenance is discussed below, p. 110.

² The Hague, Kon. Bibl. MS. 128.G.17 was in the Phillipps Library (No. 9408) before its sale in 1898, and was bought by Phillipps in 1836 from the bookseller Thorpe.

³ It is just possible that the Emmanuel College MS. should be included in the first group. It belonged to a Roger Ched, c. 1500, see fo. 139^v.

⁴ The illuminations of Royal MS. 7.B.VIII are certainly Flemish and it is inscribed on fo. 1 ‘Johannes Guillebert me ligavit’. For the Bruges book binder of this name see Weale, W. H. J., Bookbindings and Rubbings of Bindings in the National Art Library (2 vols., London, 1894-1898), i, pp. liv-lv.Google Scholar

⁵ Scofield, C. L., The Life and Reign of Edward IV (London, 1923), ii, pp. 451 et seq.Google Scholar For other manuscripts of the same sort see Pächt, O. and Alexander, J. J. G., Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford (Oxford, 1966), i, pp. 25–29.Google Scholar

¹ Royal MS. 8.C.VII, fos. 149^r-160^v. On fo. 149^r Bk. I is described as ‘Liber primus’ but the text now ends in the middle of Bk. I, ch. 25.

² Emmanuel Coll. MS. 94, fo. 108^v. For Godsalve see the entry in the D.N.B., and for Abbot Huddlestone see V.C.H. Essex, ii, pp. 132–3.Google Scholar

¹ Thompson, E. M., The Carthusian Order in England (London, 1930), pp. 249, 267.Google ScholarSt John Hope, W., The History of the London Charterhouse (London, 1925), p. 50.Google Scholar

² Le Couteulx, , Annales Ordinis Cartusiensis (8 vols., Monstreuil, 1887-1891), vii, p. 348.Google Scholar For these foreign visitors see Doyle, A. I., ‘A Text Attributed to Ruusbroec Circulating in England’, Dr L. Reypens-Album (Antwerp, 1964), ed. Ampe, A., p. 157 and note.Google Scholar

³ Thompson, , op. cit., pp. 284, 308.Google ScholarIdem, A History of the Somerset Carthusians (London, 1895), p. 306. Many other examples could be given but I have concentrated on traffic with the Low Countries.Google Scholar

¹ Thompson, , Carthusian Order, p. 313.Google Scholar

² Allen, H. E., Writings Ascribed to Richard Rolle (London, 1927), pp. 219–23. To this list of continental MSS. can be added Laud misc. MS. 202 which belonged to the Mainz Charterhouse.Google Scholar

³ Ibid., pp. 239–40 and Laud misc. MS. 202. For French texts of the Scale see Bibl. de Marseille, MS. 729, fo. 126 and Paris, Bibl. Nat., fonds latin MS. 3610.

⁴ Hodgson, P., ‘“The Orcherd of Syon” and the English Mystical Tradition’, Proc. of the British Academy, 1 (1964), pp. 230–32.Google Scholar

⁵ Colledge, E., ‘The Treatise of Perfection of the Sons of God’, English Studies, xxxiii (1952), pp. 49–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹ One of the two extant English texts of the De Adhaerendo Deo, Bodley MS. Lat. th. d. 27 was written in the Coventry Charterhouse, and the other, Bodley MS. 856, could well be Carthusian in origin. Another copy of this work was owned c. 1470 by the Carthusian John Blacman; Thompson, , Carthusian Order, pp. 320–21.Google Scholar Two out of the three English MSS. of the Mirror, St John's Coll., Cambridge, MS. 71 and Bodley MS. 505, belonged to the London Charterhouse, and the third, B.M. Add. MS. 37790, also has Carthusian connexions. The Mirror was also translated into Latin by a monk of the Mountgrace Charterhouse; see Pembroke Coll., Cambridge, MS. 221, fo. 107^r.

² Hendriks, L., The London Charterhouse (London, 1889), pp. 366–68.Google Scholar

³ This transcript was finished on 9 January 1439/40; Magdalen Coll. MS. 93, fo. 268r.

⁴ The one other English MS. is in the library of All Saints' Church, Bristol; it does not contain any conclusive indication of its provenance.

¹ One further slight indication that Dygoun was copying from a conti nental MS. of Carthusian origin is given by the fact that he has listed the chapters of the Imitatio alphabetically rather than numerically. This is an unusual variant but it was also present in a text which once belonged to the Erfurt Charterhouse: Mittelalterliche Bibliothekskataloge Deutschlands und der Schweiz, ed. Lehmann, P. (4 vols., Munich, 1918-1962), ii, p. 405.Google Scholar

² Huijben, and Debongnie, , op. cit., p. 261 n;Google Scholar also Puyol, , op. cit., pp. 120, 260.Google Scholar

³ Thompson, , Carthusian Order, pp. 496–99.Google Scholar Most of these exiles came from the London Charterhouse, so the MS. may have originally belonged to the London monastery, but this suggestion cannot be proved.

¹ Ibid., p. 321. This second list of Blacman's books is dated 1474, but its contents must have been acquired since 1463 because the first list includes a MS. known to have been written in that year; see Laud misc. MS. 152, fo. 286^v.

² Thompson, , Carthusian Order, p. 329. Whetham's journey cannot be precisely dated; he was a monk at London by 1492 and still there in 1534. Cambridge Univ. Library MS. Ff.i.19, fo. 136^v.Google ScholarHendriks, , op. cit., p. 369.Google Scholar

³ Ibid., p. 367.

⁴ It can be dated c. 1440–82. The fuller recension was probably not available in England until c. 1440, and one MS. of the translation, Trinity Coll., Dublin, MS. 678, was written by a scribe who died in 1481/2. See Appendix B below.

⁵ The translation was edited, from only two MSS., by Ingram, J. K. in Early English Text Society, Extra Series, lxiii (1893).Google Scholar

¹ Dr Doyle first recognized the hand of this MS.; for another book written by Doddesham see Hunterian MS. 77. Doddesham was a monk at Witham before moving to Sheen but, as this MS. was in London in die mid-sixteenth century, it seems fairly certain that it was written while he was at Sheen. Trinity Coll., Dublin, MS. 678, fo. 1.

² Hunterian MS. 136, flyleaf. Darker also wrote B.M. Add. MS. 22121.

³ A study of this translation has been made by Rosenberg, B., Die älteste mittelenglische Übersetzung der Imitatio Christi (Leipzig, 1905),Google Scholar but Rosen berg's interests were mainly linguistic and his work throws little light on the circumstances of the translation's origin.

⁴ Catalogue of the Library of Syon Monastery, ed. Bateson, M. (Cambridge, 1898), Nos. M 26, M 86, M 112 and N 37.Google Scholar

¹ For the careers of these two men see Emden, A. B., A Biographical Register of the University of Cambridge to 1500 (Cambridge, 1963), pp. 357, 466.Google Scholar

² Cambridge Univ. Library Add. MS. 6855, fo. 1^r; St John's Coll., Cambridge, MS. 56, fo. 9^v; Selden MS. supra 93, fo. I38V. For Bale, Robert see Six Town Chronicles of England, ed. Flenley, R. (Oxford, 1911), pp. 66–74, and also Appendix A below.Google Scholar

¹ This discrepancy between the English circulation of the Imitatio and that of Suso's Horologium Sapientiae is more revealing than might initially appear. Both works enjoyed great popularity throughout late medieval Europe and in England both seem to have appealed primarily to a restricted spiritual aristocracy, consisting of Carthusian monks, Bridgettine brethren and a small activist group of learned secular clergy. Yet, while the Imitatio remained unexploited as a source, the Horologium Sapientiae was extensively quoted in a number of English religious writings, including The Chastising of God's Children, the Speculum Spiritualium and even the Morality Play, Wisdom, which appears amongst the Macro Plays. Similarly, separate chapters from the Horologium Sapientiae frequently occur in devotional florilegia compiled by Englishmen during the later Middle Ages; but, as far as I am aware, the Imitatio was not exploited in this way. I hope to publish soon an account of the reception in England of the Horologium Sapientiae; a preliminary survey of the material can be found in my thesis, The Influence of the Religious Literature of Germany and the Low Countries on English Spirituality, 1350–1475 (Oxford Univ. D.Phil, thesis, 1965).Google Scholar

² The Paston Letters, ed. Gairdner, J. (6 vols., London, 1904), iii, p. 196.Google ScholarGascoigne, T., Loci e Libro Veritatum, ed. Thorold Rogers, J. (Oxford, 1881), pp. 212–14.Google Scholar

³ Emden, , Cambridge, pp. 670–71.Google Scholar The details of Blacman's career are a little confused; for a recent discussion of the problem see Gray, A., ‘A Carthusian Carta Visitationis of the Fifteenth Century’, Bulletin of the Inst. of Historical Research, xl (1967), p. 92 n.Google Scholar

¹ Emden, A. B., A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to 1500 (3 vols., Oxford, 1957-1959), i, pp. 615–16.Google Scholar

² Thompson, , Carthusian Order, pp. 316–22.Google Scholar

³ Most of Dygoun's books are listed by Emden, , Oxford, i, pp. 615–16.Google Scholar

⁴ Catalogue, ed. Bateson, M., pp. xxv-xxvi.Google Scholar

⁵ Medieval Libraries of Great Britain, ed. Ker, N. R. (2nd ed., London, 1964), pp. 180–81.Google Scholar

¹ Trinity Coll., Cambridge, MS. 365 and Bodley MS. 632 have Durham connexions and may possibly have belonged to the Benedictine Cathedral Priory, but the evidence is not conclusive and it is more likely that the Bodley MS., at least, comes from the episcopal entourage. In any case both MSS., like the Stratford Langthorne MS., are removed from the central English manuscript tradition; this suggests that the owners of these texts, unlike the Carthusians, were not sufficiently interested in the Imitatio to wish to further its circulation. A De Imitatione Christi, attributed to Gerson, appears in a list of books owned in 1558 by William Brown, sometime Prior of the Cluniac house of Monk Bretton; but the context makes it fairly certain that these books had been bought by Brown since the Dissolution. See Hunter, J., English Monastic Libraries (London, 1831), pp. 1–2.Google Scholar

² Compare the efforts made by William Atkynson, in the second English translation, to widen the appeal of the Imitatio; they are described in De Imitatione Christi, ed. Ingram, J. K., E. E. T. S., Extra Series, lxiii (1893), pp. xxiv-xxvii.Google Scholar Similarly, the Horologium Sapientiae was drastically simplified and re-shaped in the process of being translated into English. See the edition by Horstmann, C. in Anglia, x (1888), pp. 323–89.Google Scholar

¹ Catalogue, ed. Bateson, M., No. N 37.Google Scholar

¹ For Godsalve see the entry in the D.N.B.; he also owned Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MSS. 166 and, probably, 316, and frequently appears in Bale's Catalogus as an owner of books. V.C.H. Essex, ii, pp. 132–33.Google Scholar

² For other MSS. written by Stiphel see Medieval Libraries, ed. Ker, N. R. (2nd ed.), p. 258.Google Scholar

¹ For Wanley see the entry in the D.N.B. The MS. also bears the name of G. Greenway (fo. 22^v) who was Headmaster of Coventry Grammar School from 1700 to 1717. V.C.H. Warwicks., ii, pp. 327–28.Google ScholarBernard, E., Catalogi Librorum Manuscriptorum Angliae et Hiberniae (Oxford, 1697), ii, p. 33.Google Scholar

² I am grateful to Mr Rodney Dennys, Rouge Croix Pursuivant, for his assistance in attempting to identify these Arms and those on the St John's College MS.

³ John Barkham owned a number of other MSS., including Laud misc. MSS. 30, 178, 264 and 600, but none of them gives any clear indication of provenance.

⁴ Bernard Quaritch Ltd., Sale Catalogue No. 617, 1944, No. 217. A Hugh Barker, who may be identifiable with the owner of this MS., was Rector of Gimmingham, Norfolk, from 1496 to 1531. Blomefield, F., An Essay towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk, edd. F. B., and Parkin, C. (11 vols., London, 1805-1810), viii, p. 125.Google Scholar

¹ Kingsford, C. L., English Historical Literature in the Fifteenth Century (Oxford, 1913), pp. 95–96.Google ScholarBale's Chronicle is printed in Six Town Chronicles of England, ed. Flenley, R. (Oxford, 1911), pp. 114–53,Google Scholar and see also pp. 66–74. For another MS. possibly written by Bale see A devout treatyse called the tree and xii. frutes of the holy goost, ed. Vaissier, J. J. (Groningen, 1960), pp. xiv-xvii.Google Scholar

¹ For Gilbert Bourne see Notes and Queries, 10th Series, vi (1906), p. 165. Bourne had connexions with the English College at Douai and it is possible that he acquired the MS. from this source.

² Thompson, , Carthusian Order, pp. 306–07.Google Scholar The MSS. written by Doddesham are listed in Medieval Libraries, ed. Ker, N. R. (2nd ed.), pp. 305, 317.Google Scholar