![]() 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 Latin Wikisource |
Translation | Golden Legend at Wikisource |
The Golden Legend (Latin : Legenda aurea or Legenda sanctorum) is a collection of 153 hagiographies by Jacobus de Voragine that was widely read in Europe during the Late 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 entitled Legenda 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, the Abbreviatio in gestis et miraculis sanctorum attributed to the Dominican chronicler Jean de Mailly and the Epilogus in gestis sanctorum of the Dominican preacher Bartholomew 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] Among incunabula , printed before 1501, Legenda aurea was printed in more editions than the Bible [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 books William Caxton printed in the English 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 or Christian festival. The book is considered the closest thing to an encyclopaedia of medieval saint lore that survives today; as such, it is invaluable to art 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 for sermons and preaching, not a work of popular entertainment.
The book sought to compile traditional lore about saints venerated at the time of its compilation, ordered according to their feast 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 an etymology for the saint's name, "often entirely fanciful". [10] An example (in Caxton's translation) shows his method:
Silvester is said of sile or sol which is light, and of terra the earth, as who saith the light of the earth, that is of the church. Or Silvester is said of silvas and of trahens, that is to say he was drawing wild men and hard unto the faith. Or as it is said in 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 that Silvester, 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 that lexicographers 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 an allegorical interpretation. Jacobus de Voragine's etymologies had different goals from modern etymologies, and cannot be judged by the same standards. Jacobus' etymologies have parallels in Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae , 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 the Roman Catholic Church's liturgy commemorating that saint; then embellishes the biography with supernatural 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 the Lombards in Europe leading up to the 7th century when the story of Muhammad begins. [12] The story then goes on to describe "Magumeth (Mahomet, Muhammad)" as "a false 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 "visions" came as a result of epileptic seizures and the interventions of a renegade Nestorian monk named Sergius. [13] The chapter conveys the medieval Christian understanding of the beliefs of Saracens and other Muslims. It may be because of this long history that early copies of the entire work were sometimes referred to as Historia Lombardica. [14]
Many of the stories also conclude with miracle tales and similar wonderlore from accounts of those who called upon that saint for aid or used the saint's relics. Such a tale is told of Saint Agatha; Jacobus da Varagine has pagans in Catania repairing to the relics of St. Agatha to supernaturally repel an eruption of Mount 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 are Historia Ecclesiastica by Eusebius, Tripartite History by Cassiodorus, and Historia scholastica by Petrus Comestor. [18]
However, scholars have also identified other sources which Jacobus did not himself credit. A substantial portion of Jacobus' text was drawn from two epitomes of collected lives of the saints, both also arranged in the order of the liturgical year, written by members of his Dominican order: one is Jean de Mailly's lengthy Abbreviatio in gestis et miraculis sanctorum (Summary of the Deeds and Miracles of the Saints) and the other is Bartholomew of Trent's Epilogum in gesta sanctorum (Afterword on the Deeds of the Saints). [19] The many extended parallels to text found in Vincent 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 the Golden Legend, few of which have a nucleus in the New Testament itself; these hagiographic sources include apocryphal texts such as the Gospel of Nicodemus , and the histories of Gregory of Tours and John 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 from Saint Peter in a vision that enables him to exorcise a dragon:
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 of Saint 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 to Jean de Mailly's work Summary of the Deeds and Miracles of the Saints, which The 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 the South English Legendary , which was still being written when Jacobus' text came out. [25] It was also a major source for John Mirk's Festial, Osbern Bokenam's Legends of Hooly Wummen, and the Scottish 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 by William Caxton under the name The Golden Legende, and subsequently reprinted many times due to the demand. [29]
The adverse reaction to Legenda aurea under critical scrutiny in the 16th century was led by scholars who reexamined the criteria for judging hagiographic sources and found Legenda aurea wanting; prominent among the humanists were two disciples of Erasmus, Georg Witzel, in the preface to his Hagiologium, and Juan Luis Vives in De disciplinis. Criticism of Jacobus's text was muted within the Dominican Order by the increasing reverence towards him as a Dominican and archbishop, which culminated in his beatification in 1815. The rehabilitation of Legenda aurea in the 20th century, now interpreted as a mirror of the heartfelt pieties of the 13th century, is attributed [30] to Téodor 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's Abbreviatio, 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 by Frederick Startridge Ellis, and published in seven volumes. Jacobus de Voragine's original was translated into French around the same time by Téodor de Wyzewa. A modern English translation of the Golden Legend has been published by William Granger Ryan, ISBN 0-691-00153-7 and ISBN 0-691-00154-5 (2 volumes).
A modern translation of the Golden Legend is available from Fordham University's Medieval Sourcebook. [32]
Pope Sylvester I was the bishop of Rome from 31 January 314 until his death on 31 December 335. He filled the See of Rome at an important era in the history of the Western Church, though very little is known of his life.
Saint George, also George of Lydda, was an early Christian martyr who is venerated as a saint in Christianity. According to tradition, he was a soldier in the Roman army. Of Cappadocian Greek origin, he became a member of the Praetorian Guard for Roman emperor Diocletian, but was sentenced to death for refusing to recant his Christian faith. He became one of the most venerated saints, heroes, and megalomartyrs in Christianity, and he has been especially venerated as a military saint since the Crusades. He is respected by Christians, Druze, as well as some Muslims as a martyr of monotheistic faith.
Jacobus de Voragine was an Italian chronicler and archbishop of Genoa. He was the author, or more accurately the compiler, of the Golden Legend, a collection of the legendary lives of the greater saints of the medieval church that was one of the most popular religious works of the Middle Ages.
Margaret, known as Margaret of Antioch in the West, and as Saint Marina the Great Martyr in the East, is celebrated as a saint on 20 July in Western Christianity, on 30th of July by the Eastern Orthodox Church, and on Epip 23 and Hathor 23 in the Coptic Orthodox Church.
In a legend, Saint George—a soldier venerated in Christianity—defeats a dragon. The story goes that the dragon originally extorted tribute from villagers. When they ran out of livestock and trinkets for the dragon, they started giving up a human tribute once a year. This was acceptable to the villagers until a princess was chosen as the next offering. The saint thereupon rescues the princess and kills the dragon. The narrative was first set in Cappadocia in the earliest sources of the 11th and 12th centuries, but transferred to Libya in the 13th-century Golden Legend.
The Tarasque is a creature from French mythology. According to the Golden Legend, the beast had a lion-like head, a body protected by turtle-like carapace(s), six feet with bear-like claws, a serpent's tail, and could expel a poisonous breath.
Saint Giles, also known as Giles the Hermit, was a hermit or monk active in the lower Rhône most likely in the 7th century. Revered as a saint, his cult became widely diffused but his hagiography is mostly legendary. A town that bears his name grew up around the monastery he purportedly founded, which became a pilgrimage centre and a stop on the Way of Saint James. He is traditionally one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers.
Agathaof Sicily is a Christian saint. Her feast is on 5 February. Agatha was born in Catania, part of the Roman Province of Sicily, and was martyred c. 251. She is one of several virgin martyrs who are commemorated by name in the Canon of the Mass.
The Acts of Peter and Paul is a pseudepigraphical 5th century Christian text of the genre Acts of the Apostles. An alternate version exists, known as the Passion of Peter and Paul, with variances in the introductory part of the text. Some versions have been written by a certain Marcellus, thus the anonymous author, of whom nothing further is known and is sometimes referred to as pseudo-Marcellus. The intended Marcellus is doubtless he who after the martyrdom takes the lead in burying St. Peter "near the Naumachia in the place called the Vatican."
Osbern Bokenam was an English Augustinian (Austin) friar and poet. He was a follower of Geoffrey Chaucer.
Nazarius and Celsus were two martyrs of whom little is known beyond the discovery of their bodies by Ambrose of Milan.
Anton Koberger was the German goldsmith, printer and publisher who printed and published the Nuremberg Chronicle, a landmark of incunabula, and was a successful bookseller of works from other printers. In 1470 he established the first printing house in Nuremberg. Koberger was the godfather of Albrecht Dürer, whose family lived on the same street.
The Holy Kinship was the extended family of Jesus descended from his maternal grandmother Saint Anne from her trinubium or three marriages. The group were a popular subject in religious art throughout Germany and the Low Countries, especially during the late 15th and early 16th centuries, but rarely after the Council of Trent. According to medieval tradition, Saint Anne, the mother of the Virgin Mary, was grandmother not just to Jesus but also to five of the twelve apostles: John the Evangelist, James the Greater, James the Less, Simon and Jude. These apostles, together with John the Baptist, were all cousins of Jesus.
The Legend of the Rood is a complex of medieval tales loosely derived from the Old Testament.
Saint Ephigenia of Ethiopia or Iphigenia of Ethiopia, also called Iphigenia of Abyssinia, is a Western folk saint whose life is told in the Golden Legend as a virgin converted to Christianity and then consecrated to God by Matthew the Apostle, who was spreading the Gospel to the region of "Ethiopia," which in this case is understood to be located in the regions south of the Caspian Sea, either in one of the provinces of Mesopotamia, or in Ancient Armenia (Colchis).
A legendary is a collection of saints' lives. The word derives from the Latin word legenda, meaning 'things to be read'. The first legendaries were manuscripts written in the Middle Ages, including collections such as the South English legendaries or the Golden Legend.
Bartholomew of Trent was a Dominican hagiographer and papal diplomat. His Epilogum in gesta sanctorum, which set a new style in hagiography designed for practical use by preachers, specifically to inspire a lay audience with marvels and moral admonitions, was one of two main sources for Jacobus de Voragine's compendium, Golden Legend.
Aurea, golden in Latin, may refer to:
The Liber de apparitione Sancti Michaelis in Monte Gargano is a composite 9th century hagiographical text by an anonymous author containing the foundation myth of the Sanctuary of Monte Sant'Angelo, also known as Mont Gargano, on Mount Gargano, Italy, in northern Apulia. It contains record of the first known appearance of Saint Michael the Archangel in western Europe after the transmission of his cult from the Greek East.
The Martyrdom of Saint Thomas is an oil on canvas painting, painted by Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens in the years 1637-1638. It depicts St. Thomas the Apostle's martyrdom in Chennai, India on 3 July in 72 CE and was painted for the altar of the Barefoot Augustinian church in Prague, St. Thomas's Church. The Martyrdom of Thomas is notable for Rubens's erroneous use of classical architecture to depict an Indian building in the background of the image and his fantastical depiction of a Hindu god. This painting is now in the collection of the Národní Gallery in Prague.