SOURCE: Windeatt, Barry. Introduction to English Mystics of the Middle Ages, pp. 1-13. Cambridge, U. K.: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

In the following essay, Windeatt provides an introduction to Hilton's ideas in the context of medieval mysticism in England.

For sith in the first biginnyng of holy chirche in the tyme of persecucion, dyverse soules and many weren so merveylously touchid in sodeynte of grace that sodenly, withoutyn menes of other werkes comyng before, thei kasten here instruments, men of craftes, of here hondes, children here tables in the scole, and ronnen withoutyn ransakyng of reson to the martirdom with seintes: whi schul men not trowe now, in the tyme of pees, that God may, kan and wile and doth—ye! touche diverse soules as sodenly with the grace of contemplacion?

(The Book of Privy Counselling, p. 90¹)

The later Middle Ages in England were indeed to prove such an...