Clothing and adornment imagery in the English works of Walter Hilton, fourteenth-century mystic

Like most medieval mystics, Walter Hilton turned to symbolic and metaphorical language to articulate his mystical experience and to guide those under his spiritual care. This study examines Hilton's prominent use of clothing and adornment imagery in his English works, and demonstrates how it operates as a vehicle of expression for his mystical theology.;The works are examined in three sections: the short works, The Prickynge of Love, and The Scale of Perfection. Each work is analyzed internally and in comparison with Hilton's other works. Metaphorical, theological, and structural patterns are compared, and the relationship between language and chronology of works are examined.;Hilton uses clothing imagery systematically to trace the incremental progress of the mystical life or to address a particular spiritual problem. This technique is most evident in The Scale, where the soul's struggle for perfection is pictured as stripping off old clothing and putting on new. The mystical levels--calling, correcting, magnifying, and glorifying--are represented by corresponding clothing images: the nun's habit and knitting to Christ; the beast-hide of sin and Christ's livery of humility and charity; the clothing of the incarnation and the sindon of scripture; and the bride's adornment and the lifted veil. The mystical stages and their respective clothing images also reflect the Trinity and the aspects of memory, reason, and will which shape the soul's reformation.;The study confirms Hilton's authorship of The Prickynge of Love and demonstrates that it was a pivotal work, preceding and influencing The Scale and The Medeled Life. It concludes that James of Milan's ornamentum was the probable source for Hilton's livery image in both The Prickynge and The Scale, but that Hilton expanded and developed it far beyond James' original intention. It traces The Medeled Life's theology and imagery to The Prickynge's metaphorical treatment of the seven deeds of mercy and its description of the mixed life. Hilton's clothing imagery also describes the progress of his own theological and spiritual development, and, in a broader sense, offers a new way of understanding the language of medieval mysticism.