feels as true what one had previously known only by
faith), culminating with the allegory of the journey to the
heavenly Jerusalem and a discussion of contemplative
prayer and the special gifts of God.
Hilton’s works were infl uential in the century im-
mediately preceding the Reformation, surviving in nu-
merous manuscripts, transmitted in Latin to continental
Europe, and printed several times at the end of the 15th
century and the beginning of the 16th.
See alo Rolle, Richard, of Hampole
Further Reading
Primary Sources
There is no critical edition of The Scale of Perfection, but an
EETS edition is in preparation.
Clark, John P.H., and Rosemary Dorward, trans. The Scale of
Perfection. New York: Paulist Press, 1991.
Clark, J.P.H., and Cheryl Taylor, eds. Walter Hilton’s Latin
Writings. Salzburg: Institut fur Anglistik und Amerikanistik,
1987.
Jones, Dorothy, ed. Minor Works of Walter Hilton, London: Burns,
Oates, & Washbourne, 1929 [modernized text].
Kane, Harold, ed. The Prickynge of Love. Salzburg: Institut für
Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 1983.
Ogilvie-Thomson, S.J., ed. Walter Hilton’s Mixed Life. Salzburg:
Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 1986.
Wallner, Björn, ed. An Exposition Of “Qui Habitat” and “Bonum
Est” in English. Lund: Gleerup, 1954.
Secondary Sources
Manual 9:3074–82, 3430–38.
Clark, J.P.H. “Walter Hilton in Defense of the Religious Life and
of the Veneration of Images.” DownR 102 (1985): 1–25 [the
latest in an important series of studies of Hilton’s works].
Milosh, Joseph E. The Scale of Perfection and the English
Mystical Tradition. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
1966.
Minnis, Alastair. “The Cloud of Unknowing and Walter Hilton’s
Scale of Perfection.” In Middle English Prose: A Critical
Guide to Major Authors and Genres, ed. A.S.G. Edwards. New
Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1984, pp. 61–81.
Sargent, Michael G. “Walter Hilton’s Scale of Perfection: The
London Manuscript Group Reconsidered.” MÆ52 (1983):
189–216.
Michael G. Sargent
HOCCLEVE, THOMAS (ca. 1366–1426)
Poet, scribe, and minor bureaucrat; author of The Letter
of Cupid (1402), La Male Regle (1405–06), The Rege-
ment of Princes (1411), a compilation in verse and prose
now known as the Series (including the Complaint, the
Dialogue with a Friend, and Learn to Die; 1419–21),
and many shorter religious and political poems.
Hoccleve’s biography looms large in any account
of him as a poet, since his supposedly autobiographi-
cal passages constitute the main attraction for modern
readers, treating as they do Hoccleve’s poverty and
mental breakdown in an often subtly comic or moving
manner. At the same time caution must be exercised in
accepting these passages as historical. What is certain
is that from 1387 Hoccleve was a clerk at the offi ce of
the privy seal in London, where he remained for the rest
of his working life. The last payment to him is made in
1426, where he is described as “lately” a clerk of the
privy seal. In his Complaint he describes the result of
a mental breakdown he had fi ve years earlier; his pay-
ment for 1416 was paid to him through friends. Most
of his poetry is addressed to powerful patrons, often in
the explicit hope of reward.
The Letter of Cupid, a translation of Christine de
Pizan’s Epistre au dieu d’amours, praises the virtues
of women. It survives in ten manuscripts, two of which
are autographs (Durham University Cosin V.ii.13 and
Huntington HM 744). La Male Regle, written in the
form of a confession for a misspent youth, is really a
well-shaped begging poem; it is found in Huntington
HM 111, another autograph, which contains many other
short occasional and religious pieces by Hoccleve.
Hoccleve’s largest work, The Regement of Princes, is
in the “mirror for princes” genre and is largely indebted
to Latin works in the genre; 45 manuscripts contain the
text, of which BL Arundel 38 and Harley 4866 are the
most authoritative. The complete Series appears in fi ve
manuscripts, of which Durham University Cosin V.iii.9
is an autograph, except for the Complaint.
Hoccleve claims Chaucer as his master and friend
(e.g., Regement 2077–2107, 4982–98). From Chaucer
Hoccleve certainly learns much, in particular, perhaps,
the presentation of the author’s own persona in his
work as a self-deprecating and naive character. But in
Hoccleve’s case this topos domi nates the poetry (see
especially La Male Regle, the Prologue to the Regement,
and the Series), and discussion of it has domi nated recent
critical studies. Some critics take Hoccleve’s self-pre-
sentation as purely conventional, whereas others have
tried to defi ne the ways in which Hoccleve draws on
conventional topoi to negotiate his way out of the crises
of poverty and mental instability.
See also Chaucer, Geoffrey; Christine de PizanFurther ReadingPrimary Sources
Furnivall, Frederick J., ed. Hoccleve’s Regement of Princes and
Fourteen Minor Poems. EETS e.s. 72. London: Hum phrey
Milford, 1897.
Furnivall, Frederick J., and Israel Gollancz, eds. Hoccleve’s
Wo r k s: The Minor Poems. Rev. Jerome Mitchell and A.I.
Doyle. 2 vols. in 1. EETS e.s. 61, 73. London: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1970.HILTON, WALTER