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Abstract
Two manuscripts, Cambridge University Library MS Dd.2.33 and Queens' College Library MS 31, contain complete Middle English translations, of ambiguous relationship to each other, of the twelfth-century Franciscan David of Augsburg's treatise De Exterioris et Interioris Hominis Compositione, a long work of rational and progressive mysticism attributed throughout the Middle Ages to St. Bonaventura. The dissertation presents the first edition of the Middle English Profectus Religiosorum, corresponding to the third and longest of the three books of De Exterioris, and therefore the first edition of any portion of either of the two translations. This edition is based on the translation in the University Library MS, copied--and likely translated--specifically for the Brigittine nuns of Syon Abbey in the early sixteenth century. The introduction describes the manuscripts and the style of the translation for Syon Abbey. Explanatory notes document a full collation of the two translations against the Latin source text and against one another.
