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from Part I - The Collections
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
Though this work was written in English, it warrants inclusion in this study because it contains several unusual features whose importance for the history of preaching in the later Middle Ages has so far not been sufficiently appreciated. Like Repingdon, John Mirk was an Augustinian canon, living at Lilleshall Abbey, Shropshire. Little else is known about him, but from manuscript attributions it emerges that he composed three important aids for parish priests: the Manuale sacerdotis in Latin, a handbook called Instructions for Parish Priests in English verse, and the Festial or Liber festivalis in English prose. It is the last which calls for attention here.
Like Felton's cycle of sermons on the Sunday gospels, Mirk's Festial begins with a preface that states his intention to help simple priests who lack books and education in their task of teaching their parishioners:
On account of my insufficient learning I understand how it goes with others of the same rank who have the cure of souls and are required to teach their parishioners all the main feasts that occur in the year, showing them what the saints suffered and did for God's love, so that the people should have greater devotion to God's saints and come to the church more willingly to serve God and pray to the holy saints for their help.[…]
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