HILTON, WALTER (d. 1396)
Mystical writer; a hermit probably until the mid-1380s,
then an Augustinian canon at Thurgarton in Notting-
hamshire. Probably to be identifi ed with the bachelor
of civil law recorded in Lincoln and Ely in the early
1370s; inceptor in canon law in the early 1380s. If he
was an M.A. before proceeding to the study of law
(which is not necessary), he would have been born in
the early 1340s.
The chronology of Hilton’s works is uncertain.
Clark and Taylor have suggested that the Latin tract
De imagine peccati was Hilton’s earliest extant work,
written soon after 1381–82. The letter De utilitate et
prerogativis religionis (or Epistola aurea), written to
encourage Adam Horsley in his decision to lay down
civil offi ce and enter the Carthusian order, was prob ably
written shortly before 1387. The idea of the perversion
of the human soul from an image of the divine Trinity
into an image of sin is important particularly in the fi rst
of these pieces and in the fi rst book of Hilton’s most
important work, the English Scale of Perfection; there
are also similarities between Scale I and the De utilitate
and his English letter On the Mixed Life that suggest that
all four of these works were written in the mid-1380s.
Hilton probably wrote his De adoracione imaginum, an
anti-Wycliffi te defense of the use of images (painting,
sculpture, etc.) in worship, in the late 1380s.
The dating of Hilton’s other writings is even less
certain. These works include the English translations
of Eight Chap ters on Perfection by Lluis de Font, an
Aragonese Franciscan contemporary of Hilton’s at
Cambridge, and the Pseudo-Bonaventuran Stimulus
amoris (The Pricking of Love or Goad of Love); com-
mentaries on the texts “Qui Habitat” (Ps. 90:1) and
“BonumEst” (Ps. 91:1); and On Angels’ Song, a work on
the dangers of seeking physical expression of mystical
expe rience. The attribution to Hilton of a further Eng-
lish com mentary on the “Benedictus” is unsure. Three
other Latin treatises survive: the Epistola de leccione,
intencione, oracione, meditacione et aliis, the Epistola
ad quemdam seculo renunciare volentem, and Quantum
ad futura (also known as “Firmissima crede”). Finally
we should note that the second book of Hilton’s Scale
of Perfection probably marks the culmination of his
thought and experience.
Because the two books of The Scale of Perfection
were written as many as ten years apart, their rela-
tionship to each other has been a major focus of the
discussion of Hilton’s works. Prospective editors of
the Scale have noted the presence of a long expository
passage on the devotion to the name of Jesus (and two
other similar passages) apparently added to the text of
Scale I after it was already in circulation, as well as
a number of smaller additions and rewordings, many
of which appear to focus on devotion to the person of
Christ, rather than the Trinity or the Godhead itself. All
of these christocentric additions and alterations were
added in the margins and on inserted scraps of paper in
BL Harley 6579, on which all modern editions of the
Scale to date have been based. Despite this widespread
editorial practice the current consensus of scholars and
textual critics is that the “Holy Name” passage and the
passages similar to it were probably added by Hilton
himself, whereas the “christocentric” additions were
made by later scribes. The forthcoming EETS edition
of the Scale will therefore base Scale I on a manuscript
whose text predates both the “Holy Name” and the
“christocentric” additions, as well as the writing of
Scale II. The importance of this textual deci sion is that
it renders invalid a good deal of earlier discussion of the
“christocentricity” of Hilton’s mysticism.
Probably the most important idea in Hilton’s works
is that of the human soul as an image of the divine
Trinity, per verted into an image of sin: an idea that
originates in Augustine’s De Trinitate and is expanded
upon by the Victorines and the early Franciscan writ-
ers. According to this trinitarian psychology the soul
comprises the faculties of Memory (or Mind, as it was
usually translated into ME), correspond ing to the Father;
Understanding (or Reason), corresponding to the Son;
and Will, corresponding to the Holy Spirit. Through
original sin, however, the soul has been perverted into
the image of the seven deadly sins. Because the recently
enclosed anchoress for whom Hilton wrote Scale I could
not read and meditate on the Latin text of scripture,
Hilton pro poses for her an exercise of introspection
aimed at discovering and extirpating each of these sins
in herself.
Hilton’s contemplative exercises for his anchoress
corre spondent go signifi cantly beyond the meditation
on the Pas sion of Christ that was normally enjoined
upon women at that time, though he does briefl y discuss
such Passion meditations, immediately before propos-
ing his more introspective exercises. This same concern
with providing alternative modes of con templation for
nonmonastic or nonclerical audiences also in forms his
letter On the Mixed Life, whose opening sections echo
those of Scale I. In this innovative treatise Hilton pro-
poses a life of both action and contemplation to a man
whose worldly activities and responsibilities do not al-
low him to retire from the world as a monk or hermit but
who feels the same stirrings of devotion that they do.
In Scale II Hilton covers much of the same ground
as in Scale I, with greater psychological and theologi-
cal precision. Clark has suggested that at one point, at
least, his intention was to express more carefully an idea
for which he had been criticized (anonymously) in The
Cloud of Unknowing. Scale II describes particularly the
progress from “reformation in faith” to “reformation
in faith and feeling” (i.e., the point where one actuallyHILTON, WALTER