The Imitation of Christ in late Medieval England. (<i>The Alexander Prize</i>.)

Abstract

In a well-known passage at the conclusion of his preface to the Confutation of Tyndale's Answer Thomas More expressed his fears about the possible effects of the public controversy in which he was then engaged. ‘I would advise any man’, he wrote, ‘neither to rede these heretikes bookes nor myne, but occupye theire mindes better, and standing firmely bi the catholike faithe of thys .xv.C. yere, never ones muse upon these new fangled heresies.’ It was inappropriate, More suggested, for ‘the people unlearned’ to be concerned with ‘what may well be aunswered unto heretiques’; rather they should occupy themselves ‘beside their other busines in praier good meditacion, and reading of suche englishe bookes as moste may noryshe and encreace devocion. Of which kind is Bonaventure of the lyfe of Christe, Gerson of the folowing of Christ and the devoute contemplative booke of Scala perfectionis wyth such other lyke.’