Richard
Hamer & Vida Russell, eds.
Supplementary Lives in Some
Manuscripts
of the Gilte Legende.
Oxford University
Press for the Early
English
Text Society, 2000.
Original Series no. 315.
xxxiv,566pp.
Hardback,
ISBN
0197223184.
Free to
members, subscription for 2000, £15.00.
The Gilte
Legende
was translated into English in 1438 from Jean de Vignay's Légende
dorée (composed ca. 1333-40), itself a close
translation
of Jacobus de Voragine's Legende aurea, completed about 1267
and
one of the central texts of the Middle Ages. The Gilte Legende survives
in eight manuscripts, three of which contain additional material,
mostly
consisting of Lives of saints from, or related to, Britain. Many of
these
derive from the South English Legendary (with some use of other
sources), but have been converted into prose from verse. The twenty-six
supplementary Lives include Thomas Becket, Edmund of Abingdon,
Frideswide,
Edward the Confessor, Erkenwald, Augustine of Canterbury, Brendan and
Winifred,
and from further afield, Faith, Barbara and Jerome. Almost all of the
texts
have not previously been published. Also edited are a tract on 'What
the
Church betokeneth', explaining some of the Church's symbolism and its
services,
together with a treatise setting out the indulgences available to
pilgrims
in each of the churches in Rome.
|
|