Nicholas Love's Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ: A Reading Text

by Michael G. Sargent (editor)

Nicholas Love's Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ is an important work of late medieval English vernacular theology, and is made available here in a modern paperback "Reading Text" edition, complete with a short Introduction, explanatory notes and glossary, followed by a longer hardback: the "Full Critical Edition".

The critical edition is not merely a revision of Michael Sargent's 1992 Garland best-text edition, now out of print, but a new and completely critical edition that uses the Garland volume only as its starting-point. Although based on the same manuscript, and containing much of the same introductory material, this edition includes the results of a complete collation of the 71 known surviving manuscripts and early prints. This collation demonstrates that the text exists in two separate authorial versions, of which the first, which incorporated a separate, independent translation of the Passion section, may not in the first instance have included the "Treatise on the Sacrament". The second version, on which the edition is based, is an authorial revision, undertaken, perhaps, after Love had met with Archbishop Arundel for approval of his text.

The Introduction discusses the evidence for the process of composition of the text, and places Love's Mirror, properly, at the centre of current scholarly discussion of the development of vernacular theology in late medieval England and the consequences of Arundel's anti-Lollard Lambeth Constitutions.

Genres: Theology

336 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1961

Reviews

[Bronte Madeleine]

i do like this despite it being anti-lollard propaganda 😡

[Ethan Campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nicholas Love's Mirror is the most important work of Middle English literature you've never heard of. It's a devotional text that summarizes and comments on the Gospels, based on a earlier Latin devotional ... so it's not exactly a direct translation of Scripture, but close enough that Love felt the need to get special permission from Archbishop Arundel, who had outlawed English Bible translation in the wake of John Wyclif's heresy trials (at least according to Love himself, whose account of Arundel's enthusiastic response is debated). Only the Wycliffite Bible itself, the Canterbury Tales, and another devotional called The Prick of Conscience have more extant copies in Middle English. Clearly this was an important work of literature in England in the early 15th century. And this edition is an incredible achievement. Michael Sargent collated all 64 extant manuscripts, located in libraries around the world, to produce this definitive text.

[Rob Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful. An excellent work. I’ll be reading it again soon.