Walter Hilton

Walter Hilton, Can. Reg. (c. 1340/1345 – 24 March 1396) was an English Augustinian mystic, whose works gained influence in 15th-century England and Wales. He is commemorated by the Church of England and by the Episcopal Church in the United States.

Life Walter Hilton was born about 1340–1345. Writing centuries later, an early 16th-century Carthusian, James Grenehalgh of Lancashire, referred to Hilton as a mystic coming "from the same region".

There is presumptive evidence that Hilton attended the University of Cambridge, some time between about 1360 and 1382.

In his final years from about 1390 to about 1396, Hilton probably wrote his Latin letter Epistola ad Quemdam Seculo Renunciare Volentem (To Someone Wanting to Renounce the World) and a brief piece on scruples entitled Firmissime crede. He also produced an English version of Eight Chapters on Perfection, which translates a now lost Latin work by the Franciscan Lluis de Font (or Luis de Fontibus), an Aragonese Franciscan who had a regency in theology at Cambridge in either 1391–1393 or 1393–1394. is addressed to a woman recently enclosed as an anchoress, offering her appropriate spiritual exercises. Most of its 93 chapters deal with extirpation of the "foul image of sin" in the soul – perversion of the image of the Trinity in the three spiritual powers of Mind, Reason and Will (reflecting the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, after a tradition drawn from St Augustine) – through a series of meditations on the seven deadly sins. The second book, which addresses itself to Hilton's former reader, who he says has further questions, seems from its style and content rather to address a larger, perhaps more sophisticated audience. Its main theme is reformation of the soul, in faith alone and in both faith and feeling. The latter is presented in an extended metaphor as a spiritual journey to Jerusalem, which is "contemplation in perfect love of God". The first book of the Scale was apparently written some time before the second and circulated separately.

The Mixed Life occasionally appears with the Scale in 15th-century manuscripts and was printed by De Worde in 1494 as a third book of the Scale, possibly at the desire of Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby, mother of King Henry VII. It occurs in only half the surviving copies of that printing, but all later printings of the Scale included it.

Hilton wrote three other Latin letters of spiritual guidance – the Epistola de Leccione, Intencione, Oracione, Meditacione et Allis, the Epistola ad Quemdam Seculo Renunciare Volentem and Firmissime crede – and a scholastic quodlibet defending images in churches, a practice criticised by Lollards. He also wrote commentaries on the Psalm texts Qui Habitat and Bonum Est (Psalms 90.1 and 91.2), and perhaps on the Canticle Benedictus (Luke 1.68).

Later influence Hilton's mystical system is, in the main, a simplification of that of Richard of Saint Victor . His spiritual writings were influential in 15th-century England.

Veneration While never canonized by the Catholic Church, Hilton was honoured with a commemoration in the Church of England on 24 March and in the American Episcopal Church on 9 November, along with Richard Rolle and Margery Kempe.

Modern editions Walter Hilton: The Scale of Perfection, ed. Thomas H. Bestul, TEAMS Middle English Texts Series, (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 2000). The only modern edition of the original Middle English text The Scale of Perfection, ed. Halcyon Backhouse, (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1992). A translation based on Underhill's 1923 text Walter Hilton, The Scale of Perfection, translated by John P. H. Clark and Rosemary Dorward, (New York: Paulist Press, 1991). The most recent modern translation Walter Hilton's Latin Writings, ed. J. P. H. Clark and C. Taylor, (Salzburg: Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 1987) Walter Hilton's Mixed Life: edited from Lambeth Palace MS 472, ed. S. J. Ogilvie-Thomson, (Salzburg: Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 1986) The Prickynge of Love, ed. Harold Kane. 2 vols., (Salzburg: Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 1983). Middle English edition of The Goad of Love Two Minor Works of Walter Hilton, ed. Fumio Kuriyagawa and Toshiyuki Takamiya, (Tokyo: T. Takamiya, 1980). Editions of Of Angels' Song and Eight Chapters on Perfection The Scale of Perfection, abridged and presented by Illtyd Trethowan, (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1975). A translation based on Underhill's 1923 text The Ladder of Perfection, translated and introduced by Leo Sherley-Price, (Penguin Classics, 1957). A translation based on Underhill's 1923 text An Exposition of "Qui habitat" and "Bonum est" in English, ed. Björn Wallner, (Lund: C. W. K. Gleerup, 1954) The Goad of Love: An Unpublished Translation [by] Walter Hilton, of the Stimulus Amoris formerly attributed to St. Bonaventura, edited and translated by Clare Kirchberger, (London: Faber and Faber, 1952). A work previously attributed to Hilton The Scale of Perfection, ed. Evelyn Underhill, (London: J. M. Watkins, 1923) C. Horstman, ed., Yorkshire Writers: Richard Rolle of Hampole, an English Father of the Church and His Followers, 2 vols, (London: S. Sonnenschein & Co.), 1895–1896. Includes editions of Hilton's Of Angels' Song (1:175–82) and On the Mixed Life (1:264–92)