Continuing Where I Left Off
Yes, I'm still excited by all the marvelous new additions to the Medieval English online texts. What is particularly nice is the addition of Walter Hilton, who along with Richard Rolle of Rumpole, Margery Kempe, Julian of Norwich, and the Author of The Cloud of Unknowing represent the finest flowering of the English Mystical school. His insights, despite the language are surprising fresh and useful to people today. In addition there is a certain beauty and music in Medieval English that tends to be lacking in modernizations of his texts. For some online versions of the modernizations check Blackmask. Meanwhile, please enjoy this marvelous excerpt from Book I.
from The Scale of Perfection Book I--Chapter 4 Walter HiltonContemplatif liyf hath three parties. The first is in knowynge of God and goosteli thynges geten by resoun, bi techynge of man and bi studie of Hooly Writ, withouten goostli affeccion and inward savour feelid bi the special gift of the Hooli Goost. This party han speciali summe lettred men and grete clerkes whiche bi longe studé and travaile in Hooli Writ comen to this knowynge, more or lesse, after the sutelté of kyndeli wit and contynuance of studie after the general gift that God gyveth to everi man that hath use of reson. This knowyng is good, and it may be called a partie of contemplacioun in as mykil as it is a sight of soothfastnesse and knowynge of goostli thynges.
