Pore Caitif: A Middle English Manual of Religion and Devotion (Textes Vernaculaires Du Moyen Age) (Textes Vernaculaires Du Moyen Age, 24)

The first critical edition of a well-known text of considerable importance, eagerly awaited. Karine Moreau-Guibert was senior lecturer in English, University of Poitiers and CESCM (Poitiers) "The Pore Caitif is an anonymous late fourteenth-century manual of devotion and religious instruction destined for a lay readership. The text, in its various forms, circulated widely and was evidently very popular, as the fifty or so extant manuscripts and fragments readily attest. Of them, no fewer than twenty-eight transmit a full text showing remarkable fidelity to the now presumably lost archetype. As such, the Pore Caitif invites comparison with the considerable production and diffusion of religious texts in English which figure prominently in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. In this respect, it is to note that some critics have argued for the presence of Lollard interpolations or commentators in a number of the extant manuscripts, including the influence of the Wycliffite Bible translation." -- Publisher, page four of cover