Prick of Conscience (original) (raw)

The Prick of Conscience is a Middle English poem dating from the first half of the fourteenth century promoting penitential reflection. It is, in terms of the number of surviving manuscripts, the most popular poem written in English before print, with over 130 known copies. The text is divided into seven sections: man's sinfulness, the transient nature of the world, death, purgatory, Doomsday and its tokens, Hell, and Heaven.