“The Tract <i>Convertimini</i>”: Author, Manuscripts, Dating, Text

This essay introduces Robert Holcot’s unduly ignored text for preachers, the Convertimini. After a demonstration that the text is indeed Holcot’s, in spite of demurrer on this score in the most recent study (thirty-odd years ago), the author provides a revised list of manuscripts. The early dates of several examples – these imply that the text existed in some form in the 1320s – suggest that received accounts of the author’s career require substantial revision. Having earlier indicated the erratic forms of transmission that typify manuscripts of praedicabilia, including frequent interpolation, the discussion turns toward the question of how much of what has been transmitted might actually be associated with the author. Removal of a variety of interpolated materials reveals a text cohering about the topics of confession and temptation, predicated upon an evocative response to biblical diction.