Hilton, Walter

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Hilton, Walter, d. 1396, English religious writer, an Austin canon of Thurgarton, Nottinghamshire. His spiritual treatise The Scale of Perfection (ed. by Evelyn Underhill, 1923) is a general manual for holy living. Although it was addressed to a Carthusian recluse, it became popular among English laymen before the Reformation. Hilton also composed a shorter Treatise Written to a Devout Man. His mysticism, typically English, resembles that of Richard Rolle of Hampole.

See studies by J. E. Milosh (1966) and P. Hodgson (rev. ed. 1967).