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The English Manuscripts of Walter Hilton's _Scala perfectionis_: An Assessment of Reception

  • Author / Creator
    Bargen, Darrel W.

  • Abstract This thesis investigates the reception of the forty full-text English medieval manuscripts of Walter Hilton's Scala perfectionis in order better to understand their cultural influence in late medieval England. It presents evidence for and assesses the reception of the manuscripts individually in the first instance, and then bases the main argument on the results arising from this individual assessment. The overall argument is presented first followed by the individual assessments of manuscripts in the form of a catalogue. This study argues that a thorough assessment of the evidence will not sustain the narrative which has gained a general scholarly consensus that the Carthusians are primarily responsible for the dissemination of full-text English Scala manuscripts. The main discussion first presents the evidence for the production and distribution of these manuscripts. Secondly, it evaluates the arguments put forward hitherto for Carthusian involvement in this distribution. And, finally, it proposes that the evidence indicates the involvement of the Austin canons to some degree and weighs the current state of that evidence in a consideration of the possible extent of their engagement in this effort. The primary conclusions reached are, first, that the Cambridgeshire region is the main centre for the early production and distribution of Scala perfectionis manuscripts. Secondly, the Carthusians came late to the work of making and disseminating Scala and, partly for this reason and partly because they had no houses in Cambridgeshire, cannot have played the dominant role. Thirdly, despite the earlier scholarly dismissal of the role of Walter Hilton's order, that of the Austin canons, in circulating Scala, at least as much evidence exists for their earlier involvement as exists for the later involvement of the Carthusians, and, moreover, there are significant indicators that their efforts may have been dominant. The evidence for the role of the Austin canons is more difficult to excavate because its medieval traces appear to have been more thoroughly decimated at the dissolution of the monasteries; consequently, the evidence that does exist must be weighed accordingly.

  • Subjects / Keywords
  • Graduation date
    Fall 2017
  • Type of Item
    Thesis
  • Degree
    Doctor of Philosophy
  • DOI
    https://doi.org/10.7939/R3DN40B9G
  • License
    This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.