Sanctae Margaretae, virginis et martyris: Latin texts of the later Middle Ages and their derivatives

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliana Dresvina
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Medieval England ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
English Translations ◽  
Golden Legend ◽  
Legenda Aurea ◽  
The One

Chapter 3 focuses on the Latin versions of St Margaret’s vita, circulating in medieval England. These include the one from the Golden Legend (Legenda Aurea), which became a base for many other versions, both Latin and vernacular. Its influence is also found in some of the English breviaries, discussed in the second section of the chapter. The chapter proceeds with an overview of Latin verses and hymns to St Margaret and finally discusses the vernacular texts influenced by the Legenda Aurea: the two Middle English translations, the Gilte Legende and Caxton’s Golden Legend; Nicholas Bozon’s Anglo-Norman verse life, and St Margaret’s legend from the Scottish Legendary.

The Middle English Life of Saint Dorothy in Trinity College, Dublin MS 319: Origins, Parallels, and Its Relationship to Osbern Bokenham's Legendys of Hooly Wummen

Traditio ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 62 ◽  
pp. 259-284
Author(s):  
Larissa Tracy
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Middle English ◽  
Young Women ◽  
Trinity College ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
The West ◽  
Trinity College Dublin ◽  
Greek Tradition ◽  
History Of ◽  
Legenda Aurea

During the Middle Ages, collections of hagiography were among the most widely circulated texts, serving as both inspirational and instructional stories. The legends of virgin martyrs were some of the most popular. These young women were venerated for their ability to withstand torture in defiance of tyranny and served as models for medieval piety. One of these accounts, the legend of Saint Dorothy, is extant in at least three different Middle English versions, including select manuscripts of the 1438 Gilte Legende and Osbern Bokenham's 1447 Legendys of Hooly Wummen. The earlier history of the legend of Saint Dorothy, unknown in Greek tradition and venerated in the West since the seventh century, has been well described by Kirsten Wolf in her edition of the Icelandic redaction. Despite its relationship to many of the other fictitious hagiographical legends that came into existence in the fourth and fifth centuries based on the various calendars and martyrologies, and its development as a virgin martyr legend, Jacobus de Voragine (ca. 1230–1298) did not include the legend of Saint Dorothy in his Legenda aurea, compiled between 1252 and 1260.

Miracles of the Virgin in Middle English, ed. and trans. by Adrienne Williams Boyarin. A Broadview Anthology of British Literature. Peterborough, Ont., 2015, 164 pp., 12 b/w ill.

Mediaevistik ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 291-291
Author(s):  
Albrecht Classen
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Middle English ◽  
British Literature ◽  
Virgin Mary ◽  
Present Book ◽  
Medieval Europe ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
South English Legendary ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Miracles Of The Virgin

The admiration and worship of the Virgin Mary in the Middle Ages was simply paramount, both in clerical and in secular literature, in the visual arts, and in music. Mary <?page nr="292"?>appears countless times in legendary literature, and so also in Middle English. She might produce miracles and help miserable people in need if they pray hard enough. Those stories were ubiquitous all over medieval Europe, as Williams Boyarin comments, referring to Latin, French, Anglo-Norman, Provençal, Italian, Spanish, Castilian, Arabic, and Ethiopean (10). I wonder, however, what the difference between Spanish and Castilian might be, and why German, French (Gautier de Coincy) or Swedish, Polish or Czech texts are missing entirely in this list. Nevertheless, the focus of the present book rests on Middle English examples, such as those contained in The South English Legendary, in the Vernon Manuscript, and in the collection produced by the printer Wynken de Worde in 1496.

Caxton and the Synfulle Wretche

Traditio ◽  
1946 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 423-428 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Jeremy
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Stained Glass ◽  
Henry Adams ◽  
Golden Legend ◽  
William Caxton ◽  
Legenda Aurea ◽  
Stone Carvings ◽  
The Middle Ages

Sometime after November 20, 1483, William Caxton published his English translation of Jacobus de Varagine's Legenda Aurea. This is the famous medieval compilation of saints' lives which Emile Mâle names among the ten books most useful to one seeking a just appreciation of the Middle Ages and which Henry Adams ranks with the Roman breviary as a guide to the stone carvings and stained glass of medieval cathedrals. Caxton's publication, augmenting by about one-third the original treatise, was his most ambitious work as translator, editor, and printer.In preparing his Golden Legend the English printer asserts that he has used the original Latin and two translations, one French and one English. This last work is extant in nine manuscripts, more or less complete, all copies, and all representing one version. Although several critics have declared that this translation surpasses Caxton's in accuracy and beauty, some of its special peculiarities have not hitherto been considered. Who was its author? Apparently he remembered the warning of the Imitation: ‘For all man's glory, all temporal honor, and all worldly highness, to thine eternal glory compared is but as foolishness and vanity.’ His version of the Legenda is declared to be the work of ‘a synfulle wretche’ by whom it was ‘drawen out of Frensshe into Englisshe, the yere of our lorde a.M.CCCC. and. XXXVIII.’ The motive for this anonymity is revealed by the words which follow his humble self-designation: ‘whos name I beseche Jhesu Criste bi his mentis of his passioune and of alle these holis seintes afore written, that hit mai be written in the boke of everlastinge life.’

The Life of St Margaret of Antioch in Late Medieval England: a Gendered Reading

1998 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 129-142
Author(s):  
Katherine J. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Role Model ◽  
Medieval England ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
General Picture ◽  
Late Medieval England ◽  
Legenda Aurea

This paper explores the possibilities of a feminist reading of the Middle English life of St Margaret of Antioch, whose status as a virgin-martyr is sometimes held to have made her an unattainable role model, suitable only for virgins who had dedicated themselves to God. Using both written and painted English narratives of St Margaret’s life dating mainly from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, it shows that many elements of these could have been interpreted by all women as a validation of themselves and their experiences. The paper uncovers certain common themes and similarities of presentation, to see how far a general picture of Margaret emerges from them and what they say about the construction of femininity and the female. Although the narrative of the legend takes a variety of forms, both written and painted, it is sufficiently stable (largely ‘controlled’ by the Legenda Aurea) to allow different versions to be drawn on in this way.

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