Rolle's ‘Form of Living’ and ‘The Pore Caitif’

Abstract

The compiler of the fourteenth-century Middle English manual of popular religious instruction known as The Pore Caitif was somewhat erratic in his acknowledgment of the sources from which he drew the various sections of his fourteen tracts. Although he excerpted passages from Rolle's Encomium nominis Jesu, Emendatio vitae, and Form of Living, he never mentioned Rolle by name or recorded the titles of the books. In one tract, only, ‘Of Vertuous Patience,’ did he state: ‘Al ϸis sentence seiϸ a seynt in his boke’ (fol. 85r). I have dealt elsewhere with the four Pore Caitif tracts which draw on Rolle's Emendatio vitae. In this paper, I will examine the nature and extent of the indebtedness to The Form of Living.