SOURCE: Watson, Nicholas. “The Methods and Objectives of Thirteenth-Century Anchoritic Devotion.” In The Medieval Mystical Tradition in England: Exeter Symposium IV, pp. 132-53. Cambridge, England: D. S. Brewer, 1987.

In the following essay, Watson contrasts Ancrene Wisse to works of devotional writing from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

I cannot pretend to detail for you the sundry stages of the Christian mystical life. Our time would not suffice, for one thing; and moreover, I confess that the subdivisions and names which we find in the Catholic books seem to me to represent nothing objective or distinct. So many men, so many minds: I imagine that these experiences can be as infinitely varied as are the idiosyncracies of individuals.¹

1

A number of works intended for anchoresses survive in six important early thirteenth-century manuscripts. Four of the manuscripts—Corpus Christi Cambridge 402 and three Cotton manuscripts, Cleopatra C.VI, Nero A.XIV...