Copying and Reading The Prick of Conscience in Late Medieval England

Abstract

It has often been remarked that The Prick of Conscience (hereafter, PoC) was among the most popular of all Middle English texts. 1 Indeed, to judge by the number of surviving manuscripts, it was the most popular piece of Middle English verse, and among all extant Middle English writings, it is surpassed only by two prose texts: the Brut and the Wycliffite Bible. 2 External references to PoC, both in wills and in literary allusions, show us that this was a poem of some influence, as well. It spurred numerous manuscript compilers to extract short snippets into miscellanies, and it inspired several redactions and a translation into Latin, as well as the stained glass window in All Saints' North Street, York-the only surviving medieval stained glass to cite Middle English verse. 3 Yet recent scholarship has paid surprisingly I wish to thank Jean-Pascal Pouzet and Jaakko Tahkokallio for generously reading this essay in draft, and