The Form and Function of Friendship in The Treytse of Loue

This essay examines the treatment of friendship in the late-fifteenth-century Tretyse of Loue. It argues that the text employs the Hours of the Cross not only as a device to structure the devotional practices of lay readers, but also to foster the development of a spiritual friendship with Christ. It suggests that the Hours of the Cross meditation occupies a central place in the compilation and informs the way in which readers should respond to the texts that accompany it. It briefly situates The Tretyse in the broader context of vernacular devotion based on the Hours, with reference to works such as The Mirror of St Edmund, and then considers how friendship, figured through a series of textual models, in particular the Virgin Mary, was fostered through meditation on the Hours. Finally, it explores Mary’s role as a model of spiritual friendship, Judas’s role as an exemplar of betrayal, and how each of these models is governed by the framework of the Hours so that a close personal relationship with the divine becomes accessible to lay readers.