ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to undertake a comparison of three late medieval English versions of the Elucidarium alongside the Latin text, in order to try and understand their specific contributions to the nature of fifteenth-century English pastoral care. The Elucidarium occupies a place of unique importance in the religious instruction of the laity in the Middle Ages. Although the author of the Latin text deliberately chose to remain anonymous, he is now widely accepted to be one Honorius Augustodunensis. The Elucidarium may be his earliest work and appears to be the product of his years at Canterbury, displaying clear signs of the influence of Anselm’s thought, including, it has been suggested, evidence of access to his teaching in its earliest oral manifestations. The conduct of priests and the duty of obedience owed to them by the laity are matters of concern to Honorius, and they recur in the fifteenth-century English versions.
