Tuesday, March 24, 2026

It is the 24th of March 2026. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

Today’s show takes us into Robin Hood territory- and so you know I’m pleased. It’s Nottinghamshire and the surrounding area in the 1300s. It’s a fascinating time in the history of England and the Church. We have the Black Death in the mid-century, we get the works of Chaucer, who will revolutionize English as Shakespeare does later, and we have Wycliffe and his band of Lollards making pre-Reformation waves with their translations of Scripture into Middle English for those living in the English Midlands.

And it was in that Midlands context, Middle English, the 1300s, and its milieu that we find Walter Hilton. He was from the East Midlands- born around 1340- he attended Cambridge and then had posts in Durham and Ely before taking up with the Augustinians in Thurgarton in Nottinghamshire. It was there that he would write one of the most important practical mystical theologies in English.

The text is the Ladder of Perfection- a very medieval title and part of what we call “Speculum literature”, a speculum is a kind of mirror, and so this was literature you could read to help “reflect” how you are doing as a Christian. And so scales and ladders and other weights of measuring are popular devotional tools. Of course, the tool is just the tool- how does Hilton use it and why did it get so popular?

The Ladder of Perfection comes in two books- the first book is an extended devotion on destroying the image of sin and conforming to the image of Christ. Critics have pointed out that the “ladder” or “scale” is not something that one ascends as much as one is drawn up as they are united to Christ. It’s perhaps a less rigorous piece of spiritual formation than some of the Medieval extremes, many of which didn’t have the same lasting power. It seems to have been written as a piece of spiritual guidance for an Anchoress- a woman devoted to private piety in a designated place. He calls her his “ghostly sister in Christ” and writes to her in that same Middle English vernacular used by Wycliffe and Chaucer- and so it becomes a work of popular piety written in the common tongue. The second book is an extended meditation on mystical experiences, and its rather muted tone as opposed to the more ecstatic mystics made it popular. He warns against self-delusion and chasing experiences- his piety is rooted in the church and sacraments- physical things.

It was widely copied and transmitted through the Middle Ages, such that by the time of the printing press, but before the Reformation, in 1494, it became one of the first tracts published on Gutenberg’s invention in English. It was commissioned by Lady Margaret Beaufort- the Lady Margaret of the chairs at both Oxford and Cambridge- she was the mother of Henry VII, the first monarch of the house of Tudor. This puts this kind of popular and vernacular piety into the bloodstream of the monarchy that will rule into the 16th century, as the English Reformation took place and retained an element of this kind of simple, but mystical, piety that will be a hallmark of the English church.

And so Walter Hilton comes to us as one in the longer tradition of writing practical spiritual works in the vernacular- shaping the popular piety of the people in a way that seems to be more effective than tomes of theology in Latin attempting to reform the church from without.

Walter Hilton would die on this, the 24th of March in 1396- likely about 55 years old and some 600 years ago but his Ladder of Perfection is still in print and available in critical editions both in Middle English with the Medieval English Text Series and in modern English from OUP.

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary and hot dog- it’s Ephesians 2:1-10:

As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh[a] and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 24th of March 2026, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by my Ghost brother in Christ- though I’m told he does exist in the flesh- he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who might be moving back into the CHA studios today… Ooh de lally- I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.