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John Mirk’s Instructions for Parish Priests
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
Little is known of John Mirk. When he wrote Instructions, he was, its colophon informs us, a canon regular of Lilleshall priory, Shropshire. Lilleshall was a house of Arroasian canons, a branch of the Augustinian order, so named because its first house was that of St Nicholas, Arras. Lilleshall was founded in 1144–8, and contained some ten canons in 1400.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1989
References
1 Knowles, D. and Hadcock, R. N., Medieval Religious Houses in Englandand Wales (London, 1971). Lilleshall, S.V. Google Scholar.
2 BL MS Cotton Claudius A. II, fol. 123
3 BL MS Harleian 5306 and Jesus College, Oxford, MS 1. HarI. gives its author as John Mireus, evidently a scribal error for Mirciu; Jes. Coll. I as John Marcus, prior of ‘Lilyshel’.
4 Runn,, M. J.. ‘John Mirk’s “Festial”: a Study of the Medieval English Sermon’ (unpublished Leeds M.A. thesis, 1954), p. 3.Google Scholar
5 By Wakelin, M. F. in ‘An Edition of John Mirk’s “Festial” as it is contained in the Brotherton Collection Manuscript’ (unpublished Leeds MA thesis, 1960)Google Scholar; by Kristensson, Gillis in Instructions for Parish Priests (Lund, 1974)Google Scholar; and by Horstmann in 1881—see ed. Powell, Susan, The Advent and Nativity Sermons from a Fifteenth Century Revision of John Mirk’s ‘Festial’ (Heidelberg, 1981), pp. 18–19.Google Scholar
6 Printed in Witkins, 2, pp. 54–7
7 Smith, H. Maynard, Pre-Reformation England (London, 1938), p. 125.Google Scholar
8 Pantin, W.A, The English Church in the Fourteenth Century (Cambridge, 1955), p. 215 Google Scholar. The manuscripts are: BL MS Had. 5306; Bodleian Library, Oxford, MSS 549, 632, Digby MS 75; Jesus College, Oxford, 1.
9 For a fuller discussion, see Pantin, pp. 215–17.
10 Ed. Peacock,, Edward Mirk’s Instructions for Parish Priests (EETS1868, revised 1902), lines 623–32.Google Scholar
11 Owst, G. R., Preaching in Medieval England (Cambridge, 1926), p. 47 Google Scholar, and Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England (Cambridge, 1933), pp. 275—7. Owst refers to the Kirkstall MS of Manuale Sacerdotum (York Minster MS 0.11, especially fols 39v-40r), and wonders about a link between the Shropshire canons and the Yorkshire Cistercians.
12 Heath, Peter, The English Parish Clergy on the Eve of the Reformation (London, 1969), pp. 94–5 Google Scholar, 100. See Heath’s useful discussion of the Festial’s Passiontide and Easter sermons in these pages. See also Pantin, , The English Church, p. 217 Google Scholar; Owst, , Preaching, p. 245 passimGoogle Scholar; and Dugmore, C. W., The Mass and the English Reformers (London, 1958), pp. 67—8 Google Scholar, for discussion of the important Corpus Chrisri sermon.
13 O’Mara, V. M., ‘A Middle English Sermon preached by a Sixteenth Century “Athiest”: A Preliminary Account’, Nous and Queries, 232 (1987), pp. 183–4 Google Scholar. (I am grateful to Dr W.J. Sheils for this reference.)
14 Boyle, L. E, ‘The Oculus Sacerdotis and Some Other Works of William of Pagula’, TRHS 5th series, 5(1955).Google Scholar
15 Descriptions of all the MSS are given by Kristensson, Gillis, Instructions for Parish Priests (Lund, 1974)Google Scholar, Introduction. They are found in BL Cotton MS Claudius AH; MS Royal 17 C XVII: Cambridge University Library, MS Ff 5.48: Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Tanner 196; MS Greaves 57; MSS Douce 60, 103.
16 Kristensson, referring to Adolf Pothmann, Zur Textkritik von John Myrk’s ‘Pars Oculi' (1914).
17 Quotations and references are from Peacock’s edition.
18 Foss, D. B., ‘Mirk’s “Instructions”: Baptismal Discipline in the Age of Faith’, Living Stones, 1 (1987).Google Scholar
19 Dugmore, , The Mass and the English Reformers, p. 70 Google Scholar. Bibliothèque Mazarine MS 993, fol. 72 specifies De Cimiate Dei as the source, a claim already refuted by Jean Gerson (d. 1429).
20 Foss, ‘Baptismal Discipline'.
21 Peacock, Introduction.