The Middle English prose 'Pepysian Meditations on the Passion of Christ' (PMPC) survives
uniquely in Cambridge Magdalene College MS Pepys 2125 and has not previously been published.
It is one of several Middle English translations of the Passion sequence of the
pseudo-Bonaventuran Latin 'Meditationes Vitae Christi' (MVC). This part of the MVC circulated
independently and in this form is known in modern scholarship as the 'Meditationes de Passione
Christi' (MPC). The editors argue that although the Middle English version in Pepys 2125
followed the model of the MPC it is probable that the translation derives directly from a
recension of the MPC. Although the translator handles the original with a degree of freedom
the text is not indebted to other sources. The Introduction includes an extensive description
of the manuscript which is a late medieval devotional miscellany and a detailed account of the
language of the PMPC. It also addresses the textual tradition out of which the PMPC grew and
the work of the translator. The edited text is followed by a commentary glossary and
bibliography.
