Composed from 1425–1431, MS Douce 32 is otherwise known as the Audelay manuscript after its author John the Blind Audelay, a chaplain who served Lord Richard Lestrange in Shropshire. Nearly all of what is known of Audelay comes from this Middle English witness, which is unusually insistent in naming its author. Audelay repeatedly describes himself as "deaf, sick, and blind," and thus reliant on his two scribes, probably monks at Haughmond Abbey. This codex edition, the first to present Audeley's complete corpus, is organized into four sections: a miscellany of texts titled The Counsel of Conscience which thematizes the practice of penance; Salutations, which directs worship to holy women; Carols, which impart orthodox doctrine in Audelay's distinctive seven-line stanza; and the Meditative Close, which confronts mankind's mortality. Included are well-known titles like Solomon and Marcolf, the carol Dread of Death, and excerpts from Richard Rolle's Form of Living.



Susanna Fein is Professor of English and Coordinator of the A&S Minor in Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance Studies (AMRS). She has served terms as English Department Chair, Undergraduate Studies Coordinator, and Chair of the Ph.D. Program in Literature. She was 2010 Bloomfield Fellow in Medieval English Studies at Harvard University and 2014 Visiting Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame. Professor Fein's research focuses on the literatures, languages, and manuscripts of medieval England, ca. 1100-1500.



Acknowledgments



Introduction



The Counsel of Conscience



[X.] True Living



XI. Marcolf and Solomon



[XV.] The Remedy of Nine Virtues



XVI. Seven Bleedings of Christ



XVII. Prayer on Christ's Passion



XVIII. The Psalter of the Passion



XIX. Seven Words of Christ on the Cross



XX. Devotions at the Levation of Christ's Body



XXI. Virtues of the Mass



XXII. For Remission of Sins



XXIII. Visiting the Sick and Consoling the Needy



Blind Audelay's English Passion



XXIIII. Pope John's Passion of Our Lord



XXV. Our Lord's Epistle on Sunday



XXVI. The Vision of Saint Paul



XXVII. The Lord's Mercy



Salutations



XXVIII. Devotions to Jesus and Mary His Mother



XXIX. Other Devotions to Mary



XXX. Song of the Magnificat



XXXI. Salutation to Saint Bridget



XXXII. Devotions to Saint Winifred



XXXIII. Devotions to Saint Anne



XXXIIII. Meditation on the Holy Face



Carols



XXXV. Carol Sequence



Meditative Close



XXXVI. Devotional Prose



XXXVII. Paternoster



XXXVIII. Three Dead Kings



Latin Poem Cur Mundus Miletat sub vana Gloria



Audelay's Conclusion



Explanatory Notes



Textual Notes



Index of Biblical References



Line Indices



Bibliography



Glossary