] The ''Prick of Conscience'' is a

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English ...

poem dating from the first half of the fourteenth century promoting penitential reflection. It is, in terms of the number of surviving manuscripts, the most popular poem written in English before print, with over 130 known copies. The text is divided into seven sections: man's sinfulness, the transient nature of the world, death, purgatory, Doomsday and its tokens, Hell, and Heaven.

Date and authorship

The ''Prick of Conscience'' itself says nothing to identify its date, but it can be roughly dated from works which refer to it, showing that it existed when they were written, and from works on which it draws, showing that those works existed when it was written. On this basis its editors place it "in the second quarter of the fourteenth century", i.e. roughly 1325–1350. The poem also contains no identifying information about its author. Five manuscripts attribute it to

Richard Rolle Richard Rolle ( – 30 September 1349) was an English hermit, mystic, and religious writer. He is also known as Richard Rolle of Hampole or de Hampole, since at the end of his life he lived near a Cistercian nunnery in Hampole, now in Sou ...

, three attribute it to

Robert Grosseteste Robert Grosseteste, ', ', or ') or the gallicised Robert Grosstête ( ; la, Robertus Grossetesta or '). Also known as Robert of Lincoln ( la, Robertus Lincolniensis, ', &c.) or Rupert of Lincoln ( la, Rubertus Lincolniensis, &c.). ( ; la, Rob ...

, and one attributes it to

Alcuin of York Alcuin of York (; la, Flaccus Albinus Alcuinus; 735 – 19 May 804) – also called Ealhwine, Alhwin, or Alchoin – was a scholar, clergyman, poet, and teacher from York, Northumbria. He was born around 735 and became the student ...

. The latter two attributions are chronologically impossible, and the attribution to Rolle was considered highly implausible by

Hope Emily Allen Hope Emily Allen (1883–1960), was an American scholar of medieval history who is best known for her research on the 14th-century English mystic Richard Rolle and for her discovery of a manuscript of the Book of Margery Kempe. Early life and e ...

, a leading authority on his work. Contemporary scholars therefore consider the poem anonymous.

Influence

The ''Prick of Consciences popularity can be judged from the fact that it survives in about 130 manuscripts – more than any other Old or Middle English poem. A wide range of churchmen and lay men and women owned or accessed manuscripts of the poem; Agnes Paston, a member of the family who produced the

Paston Letters The ''Paston Letters'' is a collection of correspondence between members of the Paston family of Norfolk gentry and others connected with them in England between the years 1422 and 1509. The collection also includes state papers and other impor ...

, is known to have borrowed a copy, from a burgess of Great Yarmouth.

John Lydgate John Lydgate of Bury (c. 1370 – c. 1451) was an English monk and poet, born in Lidgate, near Haverhill, Suffolk, England. Lydgate's poetic output is prodigious, amounting, at a conservative count, to about 145,000 lines. He explored and estab ...

mentions the poem in his '' Fall of Princes'', and

Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for '' The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He w ...

might allude to it at the beginning of the Parson's Tale, the last of his ''

Canterbury Tales ''The Canterbury Tales'' ( enm, Tales of Caunterbury) is a collection of twenty-four stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. It is widely regarded as Chaucer's ''magnum opus ...

''.

Appearance in stained glass

Prick of Conscience Window All Saints Church North Street York bottom central panel second sign of doom

Unusually, passages from and illustrations of the account of the Fifteen Signs of Doom in the ''Prick of Conscience'' appear in stained glass form in the "Prick of Conscience Window" in

All Saints' Church, North Street, York All Saints' Church is a Church of England parish church on North Street, York, North Yorkshire. The church is a Grade I listed building. History The earliest part of the church is the nave dating from the 12th century. The arcades date from ...

. The window is thought to have been constructed around 1410–1420.Roger Rosewell
'The Pricke of Conscience or the Fifteen Signs of Doom Window in the Church of All Saints, North Street, York'
''Vidimus'', 45 (n.d.)

Editions

* Richard Morris, ed.
''The 'Pricke of Conscience' ('Stimulus Conscientiae'), A Northumbrian Poem by Richard Rolle de Hampole''
(Berlin: A. Asher & Co., 1863) * James H. Morey, ed.
''Prik of Conscience''
TEAMS Middle English Texts Series (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2012) * Ralph Hanna and Sarah Wood, eds., ''Richard Morris's 'Prick of Conscience': A Corrected and Amplified Reading Text'', Early English Text Society, O.S. 342 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013) * Jean E. Jost, ed., ''The 'Pricke of Conscience': An Annotated Edition of the Southern Recension'' (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2020)

References

{{reflist 14th-century poems Christian poetry Middle English poems Middle English literature Works of unknown authorship