§ 37. English Mystics.
§ 37. English Mystics.
England, in the fourteenth century, produced devotional writings which have been classed in the literature of mysticism. They are wanting in the transcendental flights of the German mystics, and are, for the most part, marked by a decided practical tendency.
The Ancren Riwle was written for three sisters who lived as anchoresses at Tarrant Kaines, Dorsetshire.529 It was the custom in their day in England for women living a recluse life to build a room against the wall of some church or a small structure in a churchyard and in such a way that it had windows, but no doors of egress. This little book of religious counsels was written at the request of the sisters, and is usually ascribed to Simon of Ghent, bishop of Salisbury, d. 1315. The author gives two general directions, namely, to keep the heart "smooth and without any scar of evil," and to practise bodily discipline, which "serveth the first end, and of which Paul said that it profiteth little." The first is the lady, the second the handmaid. If asked to what order they belonged, the sisters were instructed to say to the Order of St. James, for James said, "Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep one’s self unspotted from the world." It is interesting to note that they are bidden to have warm clothes for bed and back, and to wash "as often as they please." They were forbidden to lash themselves with a leathern thong, or one loaded with lead except at the advice of their confessor. Richard Rolle, d. 1349, the author of a number of devotional treatises, and also translations or paraphrases of the Psalms, Job, the Canticles and Jeremiah, suddenly left Oxford, where he was pursuing his studies, discontented with the scholastic method in vogue at the university, and finally settled down as a hermit at Hampole, near Doncaster. Here he attained a high fame for piety and as a worker of miracles. He wrote in Latin and English, his chief works being the Latin treatises, The Emendation of Life and The Fervor of Love. They were translated in 1434, 1435, by Rich Misyn. His works are extant in many manuscript copies. Rolle exalted the contemplative life, indulged in much dreamy religious speculation, but also denounced the vice and worldliness of his time. In the last state of the contemplative life he represents man as "seeing into heaven with his ghostly eye."530
Juliana of Norwich, who died 1443, as it is said, at the age of 100, was also an anchoress, having her cell in the churchyard of St. Julian’s church, Norwich. She received 16 revelations, the first in 1373, when she was 30 years old. At that time, she saw "God in a point." She laid stress upon love, and presented the joyful aspect of religion. God revealed Himself to her in three properties, life, light and love. Her account of her revelations is pronounced by Inge "a fragrant little book."531
The Ladder of Perfection, written by Walter Hylton, an Augustinian canon of Thurgarton, Nottinghamshire, who died 1396,532 depicts the different stages of spiritual attainment from the simple knowledge of the facts of religion, which is likened to the water of Cana which must be turned into wine, to the last stages of contemplation and divine union. There is no great excellency, Hylton says, "in watching and fasting till thy head aches, nor in running to Rome or Jerusalem with bare feet, nor in building churches and hospitals." But it is a sign of excellency if a man can love a sinner, while hating the sin. Those who are not content with merely saving their souls, but go on to the higher degrees of contemplation, are overcome by "a good darkness," a state in which the soul is free and not distracted by anything earthly. The light then arises little by little. Flashes come through the chinks in the walls of Jerusalem, but Jerusalem is not reached by a bound. There must be transformation, and the power that transforms is the love of God shed abroad in the soul. Love proceeds from knowledge, and the more God is known, the more is He loved. Hylton’s wide reputation is proved by the ascription of Thomas à Kempis’ Imitation to him and its identification in manuscripts with his De musica ecclesiastica.533
These writings, if we except Rolle, betray much of that sobriety of temper which characterizes the English religious thought. They contain no flights of hazy mystification and no rapturous outbursts of passionate feeling. They emphasize features common to all the mystics of the later Middle Ages, the gradual transformation through the power of love into the image of God, and ascent through inward contemplation to full fellowship with Him. They show that the principles of the imitation of Christ were understood on the English side of the channel as well as by the mystics of the Lowlands, and that true godliness is to be reached in another way than by the mere practice of sacramental rites.
These English pietists are to be regarded, however, as isolated figures who, so far as we know, had no influence in preparing the soil for the seed of the Reformation that was to come, as had the Pietists who lived along the Rhine.534
See Inge, Engl. Mystics, p. 37. This author, in his Christian Mysticism, p. 5, gives the definition that mysticism is "the attempt to realize in the thought and feeling the immanence of the temporal in the eternal and of the eternal in the temporal." His statements in another place, The Inner Way, pp. xx-xxii, are more simple and illuminating. The mystical theology is that knowledge of God and of divine things which is derived not from observation or from argument but from conscious experience. The difficulty of giving a precise definition of mysticism is seen in the definitions Inge cites, Christian Mysticism, Appendix A. Comp. Deutsch, p. 632 sq
It is quite in keeping with this contrast that Pfleiderer, in his Religionsphilosophie, excludes the German mystics from a place in the history of German philosophy on the ground that their thinking was not distinctly systematic. He, however, gives a brief statement to Eckart, but excludes Jacob Boehme.
Dogmengesch., p. 631.
Nicoll, Garden of Nuts, p. 31, says, "We study the mystics to learn from them. It need not be disguised that there are great difficulties in the way. The mystics are the most individual of writers," etc.
See Preger, I. 8, and Ullmann, Reformatoren, II. 203. Harnack goes far when he denies all originality to the German mystics. Of Eckart he says, Dogmengesch. III. 378, "I give no extracts from his writings because I do not wish to seem to countenance the error that the German mystics expressed anything we cannot read in Origen, Plotinus, the Areopagite, Augustine, Erigena, Bernard and Thomas Aquinas, or that they represented a stage of religious progress." The message they announced was certainly a fresh one to their generation, even if all they said bad been said before. They spoke from the living sources of their own spiritual experience. They were not imitators. Harnack, however, goes on to give credit to the German mystics for fulfilling a mission when he says they are of invaluable worth for the history of doctrine and the church history of Germany. In the same connection he denies the distinction between mysticism and scholastic theology." Mysticism," he asserts, "cannot exist in the Protestant Church, and the Protestant who is a mystic and does not become a Roman Catholic is a dilettante." This condemnation is based upon the untenable premise that mysticism is essentially conventual, excluding sane intellectual criticism and a practical out-of-doors Christianity.
Eckart’s name is written in almost every conceivable way in the documents. See Büttner, p. xxii, as Eckardus, Eccardus, Egghardus; Deutsch and Delacroix, Eckart; Pfeiffer, Preger, Inge and Langenberg, Eckhart; Denifle and Büttner, Eckehart. His writings give us scarcely a single clew to his fortunes. Quiétif-Echard was the first to lift the veil from portions of his career. See Preger, I. 325.
Deutsch, Herzog, V. 149, says that parts of Eckart’s sermons might serve as models of German style to-day.
Flacius Illyricus includes the second Mechthild in his Catal. veritatis. For the lives of these women and the editions of their works, see Preger, I. 71-132, and the artt. of Deutsch and Zöckler in Herzog. Some of the elder Mechthild’s predictions and descriptions seem to have been used by Dante. See Preger, p. 103 sq. Mechthild v. Magdeburg: D. fliessende Licht der Gottheit, Berlin, 1907.
Die sieben Vorregeln der Tugend andder Spiegel der Tugend, both given by Pfeiffer, together with other tracts, the genuineness of some of which is doubted. See Preger, I. 268-283, and Lempp in Herzog, IV. 503 sq.
Denifle, Archiv, etc., II. 240, 529.
Till the investigations of Denifle, his place of birth was usually given as Strassburg. See Denifle, p. 355.
Ego magister Ekardus, doctor sac. theol., protestor ante omnia, quod omnem errorem in fide et omnem deformitatem in moribus semper in quantum mihi possibile fuit, sum detestatus, etc. Preger, I. 475-478. Preger, I. 471 sqq., gives the Latin text of Eckart’s statement of Jan. 24, 1327, before the archiepiscopal court, his public statement of innocence in the Dominican church and the document containing the court’s refusal to allow his appeal to Rome.
The 26 articles, as Denifle has shown, were based upon Eckart’s Latin writings. John’s bull is given by Preger, I. 479-482, and by Denifle, Archiv, II. 636-640. Preger, I. 365 sqq., Delacroix, p. 238 and Deutsch, V. 145, insist that Eckart made no specific recantation. The pope’s reference must have been to the statement Eckart made in the Dominican church, which contained the words, "I will amend and revoke in general and in detail, as often as may be found opportune, whatever is discovered to have a less wholesome sense, intellectum minus sane.
Büttner, p. 14; Pfeiffer, p. 192, etc.
Pfeiffer, 216.
p. 384.
Denifle lays down the proposition that Eckart is above all a Schoolman, and that whatever there is of good in him is drawn from Thomas Aquinas. These conclusions are based upon Eckart’s Latin writings. Deutsch, V. 15, says that the form of Eckart’s thought in the Latin writings is scholastic, but the heart is mystical. Delacroix, p. 277 sqq., denies that Eckart was a scholastic and followed Thomas. Wetzer-Welte, IV. 11, deplores as Eckart’s defect that he departed from "the solid theology of Scholasticism" and took up Neo-Platonic vagaries. If Eckart had been a servile follower of Thomas, it is hard to understand how he should have laid himself open in 28 propositions to condemnation for heresy.
Harnack and, in a modified way, Delacroix and Loofs, regard Eckart’s theology as a reproduction of Erigena, Dionysius and Plotinus. Delacroix, p. 240, says, sur tous les points essentiels, il est d’accord avec Plotin et Proclus. But, in another place, p. 260, he says Eckart took from Neo-Platonism certain leading conceptions and "elaborated, transformed and transmuted them." Loofs, p. 630, somewhat ambiguously says, Die ganze Eckehartsche Mystik ist verständlich als eine Erfassung der thomistischen und augustinischen Tradition unter dem Gesichtswinkel des Areopagiten.
Pfeiffer, pp. 254, 540.
Pfeiffer, p. 268. The following page is an instance of Eckart’s abstruseness in definition. He says God’s einveltigin Natur ist von Formen formelos, von Werdenen werdelos, von Wesenen weselos und ist von Sachen sachelos. Pfeiffer, p. 497.
Pfeiffer, pp. 282, 311, 579.
In dem Vater sind Bilde allerCreaturen, Pfeiffer, pp. 269, 285, etc.
Die Seele in ihrem Grunde ist so unsprechlich als Gott unsprechlich ist. Pfeiffer, p. 89.
pp. 39, 113, 193, 286, etc. Pfleiderer, p. 6, calls this the soul’s spirit,—der Geist der Seele,—and Deutsch, p. 152, der innerst Seelengrund.
pp. 113, 152, 286 487, 530.
Die Edelkeit der Seele, Von der Würdgkeit der Seele, Von dem Adel der Seele. Pfeiffer, pp. 382-448.
p. 540.
pp. 158, 207, 285, 345.
pp. 44, 478-488.
Pfeiffer, p. 139.
Hier ist Gottes Grund mein Grund und mein Grund Gottes Grund. Hier lebe ich aus meinem Eigenen, wie Gott aus seinem Eigenen lebt. Büttner, p. 100
Lautere, alles Erschaffenen ledige Abgeschiedenheit. For the sermon, see Büttner, p 9 sqq.
Pfeiffer, II. 484.
Pfeiffer, pp. 27, 32, 479 sq., 547 sq.
Pfeiffer, II. 546, 564, 633, Niht endienent unserin were dar zuo dass uns Got iht gebe oder tuo.
Es geht ein Geist evangelischer Freiheit durch Eckart’s Sittenlehre welcher zugleich ein Geist der Freudigkeit ist, Preger, I. 452. See the sermon on Mary, Pfeiffer, pp. 47-53. Also pp. 18-21, 607.
Das Auge das da inne ich Gott sehe, das ist selbe Auge da inne mich Gott sieht. Mein Auge und Gottes Auge, das ist ein Auge, und ein Erkennen und ein Gesicht und ein Minnen, Pfeiffer, p. 312.
This is well expressed by Lasson in Ueberweg, I. 471. Inge says, p. 150, Eckart’s transparent honesty and his great power of thought, combined with deep devoutness and purity of soul, make him one of the most interesting figures in the history of Christian philosophy.
Pfeiffer, II. 155, 390.
p. 7. Preger concludes his treatment of Eckart by saying, I. 458, that it was he who really laid the foundations of Christian philosophy. Er erst hat die christliche Philosophie eigentlich begründet.
Preger, III. 131. The oldest Strassburg MS. entitles Tauler erluhtete begnodete Lerer. See Schmidt, p. 159. Preger, III. 93, gives the names of a number of persons by the name of Taweler, or Tawler, living in Strassburg.
Christina wrote a book entitled Von der Gnaden Ueberlast, giving an account of the tense life led by the sisters in her convent. She declared that the Holy Spirit played on Tauler’s heart as upon a lute, and that it had been revealed to her in a vision that his fervid tongue would set the earth on fire. See Strauch’s art. in Herzog, V. 129 sq. Also Preger, II. 247-251, 277 sqq.
Specklin, the Strassburg chronicler, says Tauler spoke "in clear tones, with real fervor. His aim was to bring men to feel the nothingness of the world. He condemned clerics as well as laymen."
A translation of the book is given by Miss Winkworth, pp. 1-73. It calls Tattler’s monitor der grosse Gottesfreund im Oberlande. See § 32.
One of the sermons, bringing out the influence of the Spirit, based on John 16:7-11, is quoted at length by Archdeacon Hare in his Mission of the Comforter. See also Miss Winkworth, pp. 350 358.
Inner Way, pp. 81, 113, 128, 130.
Miss Winkworth, pp. 353, 475, etc.
Inner Way, p. 200. Miss Winkworth, pp. 345, 360 sqq.
Preger, III. 132; Miss Winkworth, p. 348.
Preger, III. 131; Miss Winkworth, p. 355.
Köstlin, Life of M. Luther, I. 117 sq., 126. Melanchthon, in the Preface to the Franf. ed. of Tauler said: "Among the moderns, Tauler is easily the first. I hear, however, that there are some who dare to deny the Christian teaching of this, highly esteemed man." Beza was of a different mind, and called Tauler a visionary. See Schmidt, p. 160. Preger, III. 194, goes so far as to say that Tauler clearly taught the evangelical doctrine of justification.
The Inner Way, p. 57 sqq. 77 sqq.
Bihlmeyer, p. 65, decides for 1295 as the probable date of Suso’s birth. Other writers put it forward to 1300.
It contains 53 chapters. Diepenbrock’s ed., pp. 137-306; Bihlmeyer’s ed., pp. 1-195. Diepenbrock’s edition has the advantage for the modern reader of being transmuted into modern German.
A translation of these definitions is given by Inge, in Light,Life and Love, pp. 66-82..
Suso made a revision of his work in Latin under the title Horologium eternoe sapientiae, a copy of which Tauler seems to have had in his possession. Preger, II. 324
Bihlmeyer’s ed., p. 13.
Autobiog., ch. XIV, Bihlmeyer’s, ed., p. 38
Von der ewigen Weisheit, Bihlmeyer’s ed., p. 296 sq.
Preger, III. 370; Strauch, p. 205.
See Rulman Merswin’s condemnation of the Beguines and Beghards in the Nine Rocks, chs. XIII., XIV.
As printed by Preger, III. 417 sq.
See the last chapter of R. Merswin’s Nine Rocks.
The two leading writings are Das Buch ron den zwei Mannen, an account of the first five years immediately succeeding the author’s conversion, and given in Schmidt’s Nic. von Basel, pp. 205-277, and Das Buch von den fünf Mannen, in which the Oberlander gives an account of his own life and the lives of his friends. For the full list of the writings, see Preger, III. 270 sqq., and Strauch, p. 209 sqq.
See Preger, III. 349 sqq. C. Schmidt gives the test, as does also Diepenbrock, H Suso, pp. 505-572
l Strauch, p. 208, and others regard Merswin’s works as in large part compilations from Tauler and other writers. Strauch pronounces their contents garrulous—geschwätzig. The Nine Rocks used to be printed with Suso’s works. Merswin’s authorship was established by Schmidt.
Rulman hat den Gottesfreund einfach erfunden. Strauch, p. 217.
Preger and Schmidt are the chief spokesmen for the historic personality of the man from the Oberland. Rieder has recently relieved Rulman from the stain of forgery, and placed the responsibility upon Nicolas of Löwen, who entered das grüne Wört in 1366. The palaeographic consideration is emphasized, that is, the resemblance between Nicolas’ handwriting and the script of the reputed Oberlander.
The extent to which Eckart influenced the mystics of the Lowlands is a matter of dispute. The clergy strove to keep his works from circulation. Langenberg, p. 181, quotes Gerherd Zerbold von Zütphen’s, d. 1398, tract, De libris Teutonicalibus which takes the position that, while wholesome books might be read in the vulgar tongue, Eckart’s works and sermons were exceedingly pernicious, and not to be read by the laity. Langenberg, pp. 184-204, gives descriptions and excerpts from four MSS. of Eckart’s writings in Low German, copied in the convent of Nazareth, near Bredevoorde, and now preserved in the royal library of Berlin, but they do not give Eckart as the author.
Engelhardt, pp. 265-297, gives a full statement of the controversy. For Gerson’s letters to Bartholomew and Schoenhofen and Schoenhofen’s letter, see Du Pin, Works of Gerson, pp. 29-82. Maeterlinck, p. 4, refers to the difficulty certain passages in Ruysbroeck’s writings offer to the interpreter.
I have followed the German text given by Lambert, pp. 3-160. Selections, well translated into English, are given in Light, Life and Love.
See Lambert, pp. 62, 63, etc.
Quoted by Galle, pp. 184-224.
See Grube, Gerh. Groot, p. 9; Langenberg, p. ix; Pastor, I. 150. The Latin titles of the brotherhood were fratres vitae communis, fratres modernae devotionis, fratres bonae voluntatis, with reference to Luke 11:14, and fratres collationari with reference to their habit of preaching. Groote’s name is spelled Geert de Groote, Gherd de Groet (Langenberg, p. 3), Gerhard Groot (Grube), etc.
The title, hammer of the heretics,—malleus hereticorum,—was applied to him for his defence of the orthodox teaching. For the application of this expression, see Hansen, Gesch. des Hexenwahns, p. 361. On Groote’s fame as a preacher, see Grube, p. 14 sqq., 23. Thomas à Kempis vouches for Groote’s popularity as a preacher. See Kettlewell, I. 130-134. Among his published sermons is one against the concubinage of the clergy—de focaristis. For a list of his printed discourses, see Herzog, VII., 692 sqq., and Langenberg, p. 35 sqq.
See Grube, p. 88, and Schulze, p. 492 sqq., who gives a succinct history of 18 German houses and 20 houses in the Lowlands. The last to be established was at Cambray, 1505.
Writing of Radewyn, Thomas à Kempis, Vita Florentii, ch. XIV., says that work was most profitable to spiritual advancement, and adapted to hold in check the lusts of the flesh. One brother who was found after his death to be in possession of some money, was denied prayer at his burial.
Uhlhorn, p. 373, gives the case of such an objector, a certain man by the name of Ketel of Deventer. Also Langenberg, p. x.
See Schmid, Gesch. d. Erziehung vom Anfang his auf unsere Zeit, Stuttgart, 1892, II. 164-167; Hirsche in Herzog, II 759; Pastor’s high tribute, I. 152; and Langenberg, p. ix.
Kettlewell, I. 111.
Thos. à Kempis, Vita Gerard. XVIII. 11; Kettlewell I. 166. A life of a cleric he declared to be the people’s Gospel—vita clerici evangelium populi.
See Langenberg, p. 51.
See Ullman, II. 82, 115 sq. Schulze, p. 190, is not so clear on this point. Kettlewell, II. 440 says that the Brothers were "the chief agents in pioneering the way for the Reformation."
See Langenberg. The poem he gives on the dance, 68 sqq., begins—
Hyr na volget eyn lere schone
Teghen dantzen unde van den meybome.
Here follows a nice teaching against dancing and the May tree. One reason given against dancing was that the dancers stretched out their arms, and so showed disrespect to Christ, who stretched out his arms on the cross. One of the documents is a letter in which a monk warns his niece, who had gone astray, against displays of dress and bold gestures, intended to attract the attention of young men, especially on the Cathedral Square. With the letter he sent his niece a book of devotional literature.
Van der Hardt, Conc. Const., III. 107-121, gives Grabon’s charges, the judgments of D’Ailly and Gerson and the text of Grabon’s retraction.
De Wette, Luther’s Letters, Nos. 1448, 1449, vol. IV., pp. 358 sqq.
Art. The Worldly Wisdom of Thos. à Kempis, in Dublin Review, 1908, pp. 262-287.
System. Theol., I. 79. For Gladstone’s judgment, see Morley, II. 186. Butler, p. 191, gives a list of 33 English translations from 1502-1900. De Quincey said: "The book came forward in answer to the sighing of Christian Europe for light from heaven. Excepting the Bible in Protestant lands, no book known to man has had the same distinction. It is the most marvellous biblical fact on record." Quoted by Kettlewell, I.
Backer, in his Essai bibliogr., enumerates 545 Latin editions, and about 900 editions in French. There are more than 50 editions belonging to the fifteenth century. See Funk, p. 426. The Bullingen collection, donated to the city library of Cologne, 1838, contained at the time of the gift 400 different edd. Montmorenci, p. xxii sq., gives the dates of 29 edd., 1471-1503, with places of issue.
Corneille produced a poetical translation in French, 1651. A polyglot edition appeared at Sulzbach, 1837, comprising the Latin text and translations in Italian, French, German, Greek and English.
Hirsche discovered the rhythm and made it known, 1874.
This is Milman’s judgment. Hist. of Lat. Christ., Bk. XIV., 3, Milman said, "The book’s sole, single, exclusive object is the purification, the elevation of the individual soul, of the man absolutely isolated from his kind, of the man dwelling alone in the heritage of his thoughts."
Mirum est, si non lugeat
Experimento qui probat
Quod vivere in soeculo
Labor, dolor, afflictio.
Blume and Dreves: Analecta hymnica, XLVIII. 503. Thomas à Kempis’ hymns are given Blume and Dreves, XLVIII. 475-514.
In omnibus requiem quaesivi et non inveni nisi in een huechsken met een buexken. Franciscus Tolensis is the first to ascribe the portrait to à Kempis. Kettlewell’s statements about à Kempis’ active religious services are imaginary, I. 31, 322, etc. See Lindsay’s statement, Enc. Brit., XIV. 32.
Pohl’s ed., II. 1-59; V. 1-363.
De disciplina claustralium, Pohl’s ed., II. 313. For prayers to Mary III. 355-368 and sermons on Mary, VI. 218-238.
Pohl, III. 357; VI. 219, 235 sq.
III. 317-322.
The best German ed., Stuttgart, 1858. The text is taken from Pfeiffer’s ed., Strassburg, 1851, 3d ed. unchanged; Gütersloh, 1875, containing Luther’s Preface of 1518 and the Preface of Joh. Arndt, 1632. Pfeiffer used the MS. dated 1497, the oldest in existence. The best Engl. trans., by Susannah Winkworth, from Pfeiffer’s text, London, 1854, Andover, 1856. The Andover ed. contains an Introd. by Miss Winkworth, a Letter from Chevalier Bunsen and Prefaces by Canon Kingsley and Prof. Calvin E. Stowe.
Luther’s full title in the edition. of 1518 is Ein Deutsch Theologia, das ist ein edles Büchlein vom rechten Verstande was Adam und Christus sei und wie Adam in uns sterben und Christus in uns erstehen soll. A German theology, that is, a right noble little book about the right comprehension of what Adam and Christ are, and how Adam is to die in us and Christ is to arise. Cohrs in Herzog, XIX. 626, mentions 28 editions as having appeared in High German previous to 1742. Luther’s Prefaces are given in the Weimar ed. of his Works, pp. 153, 376-378.
Dr. Calvin E. Stowe said "the book sets forth the essential principle of the Gospel in its naked simplicity," Winkworth’s ed., p. v.
Stöckl and other Catholics, though not all, are bitter against the Theologia and charge it with pantheism. Bunsen ranked it next to the Bible. Winkworth’s ed., p. liv.
529 The Ancren Riwle, ed. by J. Morton, Camden series, London, 1853. See W. R. Inge, Studies in Engl. Mystics, London. 1906. p. 38 sqq.
530 C. Horstman, Richard Rolle of Hampole, 2 vols. The Early Engl. Text Soc. publ. the Engl. versions of Misyn, 1896. G. G. Perry edited his liturgy in the vol. giving the York Breviary, Surtees Soc. The poem, Pricke of Conscience, was issued by H. B. Bramley, Oxford, 1884. See Stephen, Dict. Natl. Biog. XLIX. 164-165.
531 The Revelations of Divine Love has been ed. by R. F. S. Cressy, London, 1670, reprinted 1843; by H. Collins, London, 1817, and by Grace Warrack. 3d ed. Lond., 1909. See Inge and Dict. of Natl. Biog.
532 Written in English, the Ladder was translated by the Carmelite friar, Thomas Fyslawe, into Latin. Hylton’s death is also put in 1433.
533 The Ladder of Perfection was printed 1494, 1506, and has been recently ed. by R. E. Guy, London, 1869, and J. B. Dalgairns, London, 1870. See Inge, pp. 81-124; Montmorency, Thomas à Kempis, etc., pp. 138-174; and Dict. of Natl. Biog., XXVI. 435 sqq.
534 Montmorency, p. 69, makes a remark for which, so far as I know, there is no corroborative testimony in the writings of the English Reformers, that "in this English mystical movement—of which a vast unprinted literature survives—is to be found the origin of Lollardism and of the Reformation in England."