These series of authoritative instructions are open to the criticism that they are dry and formal, lacking evangelical tone and unction, manuals of theology are apt to be dry and formal; the treatment of sins and virtues is perhaps pedantic and fanciful, but it proves a searching analysis of the human heart and conduct, and contains much which is striking and true.
But there was another class of English books, like “The Prick of Conscience” and other works of Richard the Hermit of Hampole[216] (died in 1349), and the “Speculum” of Archbishop St. Edmund Rich, in which we find a vein of pious meditation, intended in the first instance for the use of the clergy; but the pious thoughts of the clergy are not long in finding their way to their tongues, and so to the ears and hearts of their people. The religious poem of William of Massington, an advocate of the Court of York, “On the Works of God and the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ,” etc., and a number of short poems, which have been printed in various collections, give examples of the existence of the emotional element in the popular religion in strains of considerable poetical and religious merit.
It is a very curious circumstance that many of these books are cast into a poetical mould—Dom Johan Graytrigg’s work is in the alliterative poetry of Saxon and early English literature, and John Myrk’s “Instructions” and the “Lay Folks’ Mass-book” are in rhyme, no doubt with the twofold purpose of making them more attractive and more easily remembered.
A remarkable feature of the moral teaching of the Middle Ages was its minute analysis of sin. It divided sin into the Seven Deadly Sins: Pride, Envy, Anger, Sloth, Covetousness, Gluttony, Luxury; the list of them is sometimes slightly varied. Then it divided each sin into its various branches. It will be enough to quote from the “Argenbite of Inwit” the analysis of the first of them—Pride.
Pride has seven boughs: Untruth, Contempt, Presumption, Ambition, Vainglory, Hypocrisy, Wicked Dread.
Untruth has three twigs: Ingratitude, Foolishness, Apostasy.
Contempt is of three sorts: not praising others as they deserve; not giving reverence where one ought; not obeying those who are over us.
Presumption has six twigs: Singularity, Extravagance, and also Strife, Boasting, Scorn, Opposition.
Vainglory has three small twigs: God’s gifts of Nature, Fortune, and Grace.
Hypocrisy is of three kinds: Foul, Foolish, Subtle.