John Gother and the English Way of Spirituality

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Abstract
English devotional literature appears to me to be stamped as distincdy with its national origin as with each writer's individuality. The same sturdy independence, down-to-earth commonsense, quiet humour and unostentatious tenderness recur in Aelfric and Bede, Rolle and Dame Julian, More and Baker, Newman and Knox. Even Chrysostom and Bernard, à Kempis and Luis of Granada speak with unmistakably English voices in the popular manuals compiled from continental sources. Post-Reformation English spirituality too, whether Catholic or Protestant, retains continuity with that of the Middle Ages. Solidly rooted in this native tradition is the work of John Gother (d.1704). His sixteen volumes of instructions, meditations and prayers justify study, not only for their intrinsic merit but also as samplings from which to trace the ‘English Way’ of devotion in much the same manner in which, some years ago, an ‘English Way’ of sanctity was analyzed through biographies of Mary Ward and other saintly English men and women, canonized and uncanonized.

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