Contemplations of the Dread and Love of God

Contemplations of the Dread and Love of God (also known as Fervor Amoris) is a late Middle English devotional prose text--a manual of guidance for the spiritual and ethical life directed at the lay population of both sexes, rather than at a monastic audience. It is a useful index of English popular spirituality since its circulation seems to have been extensive: it survives in sixteen manuscripts dating from the first half of the fifteenth century, and two early sixteenth-century printed editions. This first critical edition of the text is based on one manuscript, with variant readings cited from the other witnesses where necessary. The volume has a full critical apparatus and an introduction which discusses manuscript relations, matters of textual criticism, editorial technique, language, and dating.