 Legenda Aurea,c. 1290,Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence | |
| Author | Jacobus de Voragine |
|---|---|
| Original title | Legenda aurea |
| Translator | William Caxton Frederick Startridge Ellis |
| Language | Latin |
| Genre | hagiography |
Publication date | 1265 |
| Publication place | Genoa |
Published in English | 1483 |
| Media type | Manuscript |
| OCLC | 821918415 |
| 270.0922 | |
| LC Class | BX4654 .J334 |
Original text | Legenda aurea at LatinWikisource |
| Translation | Golden Legend at Wikisource |
TheGolden Legend (Latin:Legenda aurea orLegenda sanctorum) is a collection of 153hagiographies byJacobus de Voragine that was widely read in Europe during theLate Middle Ages. More than a thousand manuscripts of the text have survived.[1] It was probably compiled around 1259 to 1266, although the text was added to over the centuries.[2][3]
Initially entitledLegenda sanctorum (Readings of the Saints), it gained its popularity under the title by which it is best known. It overtook and eclipsed earlier compilations of abridged legendaria, theAbbreviatio in gestis et miraculis sanctorum attributed to the Dominican chroniclerJean de Mailly and theEpilogus in gestis sanctorum of the Dominican preacherBartholomew of Trent. When printing was invented in the 1450s, editions appeared quickly, not only in Latin, but also in almost every major European language.[4] Amongincunabula, printed before 1501,Legenda aurea was printed in more editions than theBible[5] and was one of the most widely published books of the Middle Ages.[6] During the height of its popularity the book was so well known that the term "Golden Legend" was sometimes used generally to refer to any collection of stories about the saints.[7] It was one of the first booksWilliam Caxton printed in theEnglish language; Caxton's version appeared in 1483 and his translation was reprinted, reaching a ninth edition in 1527.[8]
Written in simple, readable Latin, the book was read in its day for its stories. Each chapter is about a different saint orChristian festival. The book is considered the closest thing to an encyclopaedia of medieval saint lore that survives today; as such, it is invaluable toart historians and medievalists who seek to identify saints depicted in art by their deeds and attributes. Its repetitious nature is explained if Jacobus meant to write a compendium of saintly lore forsermons andpreaching, not a work of popular entertainment.
The book sought to compile traditional lore about saintsvenerated at the time of its compilation, ordered according to theirfeast days. Jacobus de Voragine for the most part follows a template for each chapter: etymology of the saint's name, a narrative about their life, a list of miracles performed, and finally a list of citations where the information was found.[9]
Each chapter typically begins with anetymology for the saint's name, "often entirely fanciful".[10] An example (in Caxton's translation) shows his method:
Silvester is said ofsile orsol which is light, and ofterra the earth, as who saith the light of the earth, that is of the church. Or Silvester is said ofsilvas and oftrahens, that is to say he was drawing wild men and hard unto the faith. Or as it is saidin glossario, Silvester is to say green, that is to wit, green in contemplation of heavenly things, and a toiler in labouring himself; he was umbrous or shadowous. That is to say he was cold and refrigate from all concupiscence of the flesh, full of boughs among the trees of heaven.[11]
As a Latin author, Jacobus de Voragine must have known thatSilvester, a relatively common Latin name, simply meant "from the forest". The correct derivation is alluded to in the text, but set out in parallel to fanciful ones thatlexicographers would consider quite wide of the mark. Even the "correct" explanations (silvas, "forest", and the mention of green boughs) are used as the basis for anallegorical interpretation. Jacobus de Voragine's etymologies had different goals from modern etymologies, and cannot be judged by the same standards. Jacobus' etymologies have parallels inIsidore of Seville'sEtymologiae, in which linguistically accurate derivations are set out beside allegorical and figurative explanations.
Jacobus de Voragine then moves on to the saint's life, compiled with reference to the readings from theRoman Catholic Church'sliturgy commemorating that saint; then embellishes the biography withsupernatural tales of incidents involving the saint's life.
The chapter "St Pelagius, Pope and the History of the Lombards" begins with the story of St Pelagius, then proceeds to touch upon events surrounding the origin and history of theLombards in Europe leading up to the 7th century when the story ofMuhammad begins.[12] The story then goes on to describe "Magumeth (Mahomet, Muhammad)" as "afalse prophet and sorcerer", detailing his early life and travels as a merchant through his marriage to the widow Khadija, and goes on to suggest that his religious visions came as a result of epileptic seizures and the interventions of a renegadeNestorian monk namedSergius.[13] The chapter conveys the medieval Christian understanding of the beliefs ofSaracens and otherMuslims. It may be because of this long history that early copies of the entire work were sometimes referred to asHistoria Lombardica.[14]
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Many of the stories also conclude withmiracle tales and similar wonderlore from accounts of those who called upon that saint for aid or used the saint'srelics. Such a tale is told of SaintAgatha; Jacobus da Varagine haspagans inCatania repairing to the relics of St. Agatha tosupernaturally repel aneruption ofMount Etna:
And for to prove that she had prayed for the salvation of the country, at the beginning of February, the year after her martyrdom, there arose a great fire, and came from the mountain toward the city of Catania and burnt the earth and stones, it was so fervent. Then ran the paynims to the sepulchre of S. Agatha and took the cloth that lay upon her tomb, and held it abroad against the fire, and anon on the ninth day after, which was the day of her feast, ceased the fire as soon as it came to the cloth that they brought from her tomb, showing that our Lord kept the city from the said fire by the merits of S. Agatha.[16]
Jacobus carefully lists many of the sources he used to collect his stories, with more than 120 total sources listed; among the three most important areHistoria Ecclesiastica byEusebius,Tripartite History byCassiodorus, andHistoria scholastica byPetrus Comestor.[18]
However, scholars have also identified other sources which Jacobus did not himself credit. A substantial portion of Jacobus' text was drawn from twoepitomes of collected lives of the saints, both also arranged in the order of the liturgical year, written by members of hisDominican order: one isJean de Mailly's lengthyAbbreviatio in gestis et miraculis sanctorum (Summary of the Deeds and Miracles of the Saints) and the other isBartholomew of Trent'sEpilogum in gesta sanctorum (Afterword on the Deeds of the Saints).[19] The many extended parallels to text found inVincent de Beauvais'Speculum historiale, the main encyclopedia that was used in the Middle Ages, are attributed by modern scholars to the two authors' common compilation of identical sources, rather than to Jacobus' reading Vincent's encyclopedia.[20] More than 130 more distant sources have been identified for the tales related of the saints in theGolden Legend, few of which have a nucleus in theNew Testament itself; thesehagiographic sources includeapocryphal texts such as theGospel of Nicodemus, and the histories ofGregory of Tours andJohn Cassian. Many of his stories have no other known source. A typical example of the sort of story related, also involving St. Silvester, shows the saint receiving miraculous instruction fromSaint Peter in avision that enables him toexorcise adragon:
In this time it happed that there was at Rome a dragon in a pit, which every day slew with his breath more than three hundred men. Then came the bishops of the idols unto the emperor and said unto him: O thou most holy emperor, sith the time that thou hast received Christian faith the dragon which is in yonder fosse or pit slayeth every day with his breath more than three hundred men. Then sent the emperor for S. Silvester and asked counsel of him of this matter. S. Silvester answered that by the might of God he promised to make him cease of his hurt and blessure of this people. Then S. Silvester put himself to prayer, and S. Peter appeared to him and said: "Go surely to the dragon and the two priests that be with thee take in thy company, and when thou shalt come to him thou shalt say to him in this manner: Our Lord Jesus Christ which was born of the Virgin Mary, crucified, buried and arose, and now sitteth on the right side of the Father, this is he that shall come to deem and judge the living and the dead, I commend thee Sathanas that thou abide him in this place till he come. Then thou shalt bind his mouth with a thread, and seal it with thy seal, wherein is the imprint of the cross. Then thou and the two priests shall come to me whole and safe, and such bread as I shall make ready for you ye shall eat.
Thus as S. Peter had said, S. Silvester did. And when he came to the pit, he descended down one hundred and fifty steps, bearing with him two lanterns, and found the dragon, and said the words that S. Peter had said to him, and bound his mouth with the thread, and sealed it, and after returned, and as he came upward again he met with two enchanters which followed him for to see if he descended, which were almost dead of the stench of the dragon, whom he brought with him whole and sound, which anon were baptized, with a great multitude of people with them. Thus was the city of Rome delivered from double death, that was from the culture and worshiping of false idols, and from the venom of the dragon.[21]
Jacobus describes the story ofSaint Margaret of Antioch surviving being swallowed by a dragon as "apocryphal and not to be taken seriously" (trans. Ryan, 1.369).
The book was highly successful in its time, despite many other similar books that compiled legends of the saints. The reason it stood out against competing saint collections probably is that it offered the average reader the perfect balance of information. For example, compared toJean de Mailly's workSummary of the Deeds and Miracles of the Saints, whichThe Golden Legend largely borrowed from, Jacobus added chapters about the major feast days and removed some of the saints' chapters, which might have been more useful to the medieval reader.[22]
Many different versions of the text exist, mostly due to copiers and printers adding additional content to it. Each time a new copy was made, it was common for that institution to add a chapter or two about their own local saints.[23] Today more than 1,000 original manuscripts have been found,[1] the earliest of which dates back to 1265.[24]
The Golden Legend had a big influence on scholarship and literature of the Middle Ages. According to research by Manfred Görlach, it influenced theSouth English Legendary, which was still being written when Jacobus' text came out.[25] It was also a major source forJohn Mirk'sFestial,Osbern Bokenam'sLegends of Hooly Wummen, and theScottish Legendary.[26]
By the end of the Middle Ages,The Golden Legend had been translated into almost every major European language.[27] The earliest surviving English translation is from 1438, and is cryptically signed by "a synfulle wrecche".[28] In 1483, the work was re-translated and printed byWilliam Caxton under the nameThe Golden Legende, and subsequently reprinted many times due to the demand.[29]
The adverse reaction toLegenda aurea under critical scrutiny in the 16th century was led by scholars who reexamined the criteria for judging hagiographic sources and foundLegenda aurea wanting; prominent among thehumanists were two disciples ofErasmus,Georg Witzel, in the preface to hisHagiologium, andJuan Luis Vives inDe disciplinis. Criticism of Jacobus's text was muted within theDominican Order by the increasing reverence towards him as a Dominican and archbishop, which culminated in his beatification in 1815. The rehabilitation ofLegenda aurea in the 20th century, now interpreted as a mirror of the heartfelt pieties of the 13th century, is attributed[30] toTéodor de Wyzewa, whose 1901 retranslation into French, and its preface, have been often reprinted.
Sherry Reames argues[31] that Jacobus' interpretation of his source material emphasized purity, detachment, great erudition and other rarified attributes of the saints; she contrasts this to the same saints as described in de Mailly'sAbbreviatio, whose virtues are more relatable, such as charity, humility and trust in God.
The critical edition of the Latin text has been edited by Giovanni Paolo Maggioni (Florence: SISMEL 1998). In 1900, the Caxton version was updated into more modern English byFrederick Startridge Ellis, and published in seven volumes. Jacobus de Voragine's original was translated into French around the same time byTéodor de Wyzewa. A modern English translation of theGolden Legend has been published by William Granger Ryan,ISBN 0-691-00153-7 andISBN 0-691-00154-5 (2 volumes).
A modern translation of theGolden Legend is available fromFordham University's Medieval Sourcebook.[32]
Works related toThe Golden Legend at Wikisource, William Caxton's text with missing page from St. Paul supplied.