Robert Holcot, Conuertimini

Although it was a frequently mined treasure-trove for Middle English authors (some eighty MSS with extracts have currently been identified), Robert Holcot's tract Convertimini has attracted little scholarly attention. The text, its 43 chapters a rhetorically diverse call to penance, ranges from isolated anecdotes, some repeated in the author's widely disseminated Moralitates, to complete sermons. However, all copies descend from a badly damaged and often ambiguous archetype, and the text regularly attracted user-friendly additions of materials, the scribes of individual copies attracted by Holcot's engaging anecdotalism. The edition thus presents a 'representative text', with abundant notice of some prominent deviations of presentation. These offer ample testimony both to difficulties in the text received and the inspirational quality of Holcot's work. Although ignored, the work offers ample evidence of the outreach of a supposedly closeted Oxford don active c. 1320-50.