Anonymous, Prik of Conscience

Nancy Haijing Jiang (Northwestern University)

Ed. by Rory Critten, Université de Lausanne
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.02: English Writing and Culture: High and Late Medieval, 1066-1485.
Vol. editors: Kate Ash-Irisarri (University of Edinburgh), Rory Critten (Université de Lausanne), David Fuller (University of Durham), Natalie Hanna (University of Liverpool), Hugh Magennis (Queen's University Belfast), Jamie McKinstry (University of Durham), Sarah Peverley (University of Liverpool), Sebastian Sobecki (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen)

Dates

First circulation or publication c. 1400

Places

England (Country of Origin; Publication/ performance)

Genres and Modes

Poetry (any)

Resources

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The Prick of Conscience

is a Middle English poem of nearly 10,000 lines that divides into seven sections, with each section detailing, in turn, the wretchedness of humanity, the world’s fallibility, death, purgatory, God’s judgement, hell, and heaven. Its original dialect locates the poem’s composition in the northern Vale of York around the second quarter of the fourteenth century. While considered to be a fairly obscure text today, the

Prick

, at 118 complete manuscripts, boasts of more manuscript witnesses than any other work of Middle English verse. Copies of this Northern poem can be traced to locations in Sussex, Devonshire, and Dublin—a geographical spread which suggest not only a vast but also a varied readership. Out of its numerous manuscript witnesses, five attribute the…

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2491 words

Citation: Jiang, Nancy Haijing. "Prik of Conscience". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 28 March 2023 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=39417, accessed 18 April 2024.]

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