Mirk, John

(ca. 1355–after 1414)

   John Mirk was an English Augustinian canon and the author of three devotional texts, two in English and one in Latin.His anthology of sermons in English, the Festial (ca. 1382–90), was one of the earliest printed books in England, and became one of the most widely read texts of the late 15th century. Mirk was probably born and raised in Yorkshire. It is unknown whether or not he attended one of the universities, but he was well educated in Latin and in theology.He became a canon of the Lilleshall Abbey, near Shrewsbury close to the Welsh border, and apparently regularly preached at the nearby church of Saint Alkmund’s in Shrewsbury. Ultimately he was appointed prior of his monastery.

   Mirk’s Festial, his most popular text, was an anthology of a full year’s worth of sermons, filled with entertaining and vivid exempla for each homily. The Festial comes out of Mirk’s early years of preaching and a direct knowledge of the state of parish ministry in the years following the BLACK DEATH. Augustinian monasteries like Lilleshall often had to supply their own pastors to parish churches that they controlled. But the plague, which had hit the clergy at a proportionally higher rate than the laity, had wiped out a generation of parish priests. New priests pressed into service after the Black Death were often untrained, and had no formal education. Thus Mirk’s intent in the Festial was to provide these new underprepared clergy with help and support—in English, since the new priests knew no Latin.

   The same impulse was doubtlessly behind Mirk’s other major work in English, the Instructions for Parish Priests, probably also written during those unsettled years between 1382 and 1390. Possibly intended as a companion volume to the Festial, the Instructions provide details to priests on how they might deal with a variety of practical situations (what to do about mice chewing communion wafers, for instance), as well as advice on proper conduct for priests and parishioners. Its arrangement follows the seven sacraments, beginning with a discussion of baptism and ending with extreme unction. This is followed by translations and explanations of the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the creed, and articles of faith. The text is loosely based on an earlier Latin text by William of Pagula called Oculus sacerdotis (ca. 1320–28). Pagula is also the source for much of Mirk’s Latin work, the Manuale sacerdotis (ca. 1414). This, too, is a handbook for priests, but Mirk’s purpose is different. Intended for a more learned audience of priests and probably written after Mirk’s promotion to prior, the Manuale gives modern readers a firsthand look at the life of a priest in rural England. Like the Instructions, much of the Manuale is concerned with the proper moral conduct of priests, but in this case Mirk is probably reacting to the challenge to the church posed by the LOLLARD faction in England. As Fredel points out (1994), Mirk’s way of fighting Lollardy was not to directly attack the Lollard heretics, but rather to point out the common abuses among the clergy in England that fed the heresy in the first place—and to do it in Latin, so that his chastisement was kept within the circle of priests themselves, rather than spread among the laity and the heretics. Details of Mirk’s death are unknown, but undoubtedly he died not many years after 1414 at the abbey of Lilleshall, where he had spend most of his life. Late in the 15th century, his Festial, originally intended for a clerical audience, became popular among middle-class and noble readers, whose preferences ran toward devotional texts in English, especially ones illustrated with vivid and interesting tales like Mirk’s exempla. Caxton printed the text in 1483, and it was reprinted several times well into the next century.

   Bibliography

   ■ Fletcher, Alan J. “John Mirk and the Lollards,” Medium Aevum 56 (1987): 217–224.

   ■ ———.“Unnoticed Sermons from John Mirk’s Festial,” Speculum 55 (1980): 514–522.

   ■ Powell, Susan. “John Mirk’s Festial and the Pastoral Programme,” Leeds Studies in English, n.s., 25 (1991): 85–102.