The active life, the contemplative life and the mixed life : a study of the three lives, with special reference to Walter Hilton

The writings of Walter Hilton, an Austin Canon, were widely
disseminated during the late fourteenth century and" after. His ideas
are therefore of importance in matters of late mediaeval spirituality,
and an area of his beliefs, which is of considerable interest, concerns
the type of religious experience which is available to lay people.
In order to understand these beliefs, it is necessary to examine the
history of the concepts of the active life, the contemplative life and
the mixed life, because it is through the concept of the mixed life that
much mediaeval thought on this subject is articulated. This study does
not attempt a comprehensive examination of every writer who deals with
these concepts, but makes a careful selection of those who are either
representative of an attitude 0= a period, or who are important in their
own right. S. Augustine of Hippo, S. Gregory the Great and S.Bernard of
C1airvaux are major figures in this survey, as well as a number of other
twelfth, thirteenth end fourteenth century writers.