Walter Hilton was born about 1340 and studied law at Cambridge. Drawn to a life of prayer, he turned away from a career in canon law and lived for a time as a solitary. In the 1380s he joined the Augustinian canons at Thurgarton Priory in Nottinghamshire, where he spent the rest of his life and where he died on 24 March 1396.
His great work, The Scale of Perfection, was written in two books, the first for an anchoress and the second for a wider circle of readers. It describes the soul as an image of God defaced by sin and shows how it is reformed, first in faith through the sacraments of the Church, then in feeling through humility, prayer and the love of Jesus. His Epistle on the Mixed Life counsels a layman with a household and duties how to join prayer to active work.
Walter Hilton in the library (1 work)
- Walter Hilton: The Scale (or Ladder) of Perfection — c. 1390; Cressy's text of 1659, later reprint
The English Augustinian canon's guide to the contemplative life: reforming the image of God in the soul by faith and feeling.