An edition of 'Speculum Devotorum' a fifteenth century English Meditation on the life and Passion of Jesus Christ

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to present the Cambridge text of Speculum Devotorum, a Meditation which has not been edited before. Two lines of enquiry have been followed in the Introduction: the first to establish the contemporary setting of the Meditation, and the second to trace the formative ideas and sentiments which influenced the book. The results of these enquiries have been three-fold. The relation of the Meditation to its own historical setting helps to make more clear the object for which it was written, the intellectual resources open to the writer and the kind of influence the book may have had. The exploration of the ideas and teaching lying behind the book reveals both the writer's indebtedness to tradition and also the interest the Meditation has today as a microcosm of contemporary orthodoxy. The first section is concerned with the historical background of the two manuscripts of the Meditation and their connections with the Charterhouse of Shene and the family of Scrope. The second examines the internal evidence in the text to determine whether or not the writer's orthodoxy shows awareness of the Lollard agitations of the period. The third section discusses the kind of sources chosen by the writer, the use made of them and the practical and intellectual considerations affecting their choice. The fourth demonstrates the nature of the writer's indebtedness to the Meditative tradition in Europe by a comparison of his work with that of two most influential writers, St. Bonaventura and Ludolphus of Saxony. The fifth section examines the writer's individual use of his traditional materials and the emotional overtones of his book, while the sixth considers its literary merits.