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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 July 2016
In the whole field of mediaeval hagiography, one of our most urgent needs is the establishment of trustworthy critical texts of James of Voragine's Legenda aurea, and of the Latin's various vernacular translations. Very soon after its first publication, the Legenda began to be copied throughout Western Christendom at a great rate, very often by professional scribes working for stationers who would expect them to write at speed while reproducing this encyclopaedia of the saints' deeds and marvels. Thus, from the beginnings of its manuscript tradition, corruptions and errors were introduced; and we still lack the means to correct them. For want of anything better, scholars must still refer to the edition of the Latin by Johann G. T. Graesse; but this cannot be used with any confidence. As Jacobus J. A. Zuidweg has observed in a summary of his findings, ‘Force nous était donc de nous servir de l’édition … quelque défectueuse qu'elle fût. Le texte de cette édition, qui fourmille de fautes se rapportant tant au texte même qu'à la ponctuation, est basé sur un exemplaire imprimé, datant du 15e siècle.’ Elsewhere, Zuidweg points out that Graesse's edition is incomplete, without, for example, James's chapter 73, dealing with Bede. The preparation and presentation of such critical texts would be a vast undertaking, more, probably, than could be achieved by any one person. Several gifted and zealous scholars have announced preliminary studies towards it, but have in the end found themselves defeated by the scope of the task and by its complexities. Not long ago, Konrad Kunze announced the inauguration of a card-index catalogue at Freiburg, which is to comprise all the Latin and vernacular manuscripts and printed texts of the Legenda aurea. This would now be indispensable for any proposed critical editions; but it does not seem that such editorial work is intended (Analecta Bollandiana 95 [1977] 168).
1 Separate acknowledgment will be made of the help and information which we have received from numerous generous friends and colleagues; but at the outset we wish to record our gratitude for the continuing support of the Humanities Research Council of Canada for Edmund Colledge's researches, which has made possible the investigation of the many unpublished mediaeval manuscripts which are reported here.Google Scholar
2 Jacobi a Voragine Legenda aurea (Dresden-Leipzig 1846).Google Scholar
3 De werkwijze van Jacobus de Voragine in de Legenda aurea (Diss. Amsterdam 1941) 148.Google Scholar
4 Ibid. 7.Google Scholar
5 ‘Caxton and the Synfulle Wretche,’ Traditio 4 (1946) 423–28.Google Scholar
6 Legenda aurea–Legende dorée–Golden Legend (Baltimore 1899).Google Scholar
7 Saints' Legends (Boston–New York 1916).Google Scholar
8 ‘The South English Legendary, Gilte Legende and Golden Legend,’ Braunschweiger anglistische Arbeiten 3 (1972).Google Scholar
9 ‘A Second Version of the Huntington Prose Legend of St. Ursula,’ Review of English Studies ns 29 (1973) 450–51.Google Scholar
10 ‘Caxton's Golden Legend and the Manuscripts of the Gilte Legende,’ Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 60 (1959) 353–75.Google Scholar
11 This information is found on the vellum labels, in a contemporary hand, now inside the front and back boards of the nineteenth-century binding.Google Scholar
12 The most recent (by no means enthusiastic) notice of this thirteenth-century translator is that by Knowles, Christine: ‘Jean de Vignay,’ in Pichard, Louis, ed., Dictionnaire des lettres français–Le Moyen Age (Paris 1964).Google Scholar
13 et (oura): om. P2.Google Scholar
14 a dieu: om. P2.Google Scholar
15 P1: Pancille; R: Pantille.Google Scholar
16 P2 R: par vc. foiz.Google Scholar
17 Masai, F. and Wittek, M.: Manuscrits datés conservés en Belgique 1 (Brussels–Ghent 1968) no. 21.Google Scholar
18 ‘Summer half,’ ‘winter half,’ used of Legenda aurea manuscripts, are very general terms. Usually they will guarantee in which of a pair of volumes a legend will occur, but not, of course, what may have been omitted from it.Google Scholar
19 ei: OP: eam.Google Scholar
20 paterna: OP: patria.Google Scholar
21 hec: OP: hoc.Google Scholar
22 Plautille: OP: Plantille.Google Scholar
23 terram: OP: terra.Google Scholar
24 quod: OP: qui.Google Scholar
25 uel utrumque: om. O. Google Scholar
26 ‘De oudste dietsche vertaling der Gulden Legende,’ Verslagen en Mededeelingen der Koninklijke Academie voor Taal- en Letterkunde (1923) 183–89.Google Scholar
27 ‘De middelnederlandse vertalingen van de Legenda aurea van Jacobus de Voragine,’ Handelingen van het 22ste Philologencongres (Groningen 1952) 21–22.Google Scholar
28 ‘Studien zur Legende der heiligen Maria Aegyptiaca im deutschen Sprachgebiet,’ Philologische Studien und Quellen 49 (1969).Google Scholar
29 Middelnederlandse handschriften uit Europese en Amerikaanse bibliotheken 2 (Leiden 1972) 200.Google Scholar
30 Catalogus codicum manuscriptorum Bibliothecae Regiae: I: Libri theologici (The Hague 1922) 267.Google Scholar
31 BHL 6671.Google Scholar
32 Thirteenth-century, second half, formerly owned by Corpus Christi College, Oxford (f.1r), where it was bound. This information was kindly supplied by Professor M. L. Colker of the University of Virginia.Google Scholar
33 Ff. 151v–156v; called ‘13/14th cent., Italian’ by Mynors, R. A. B.: Catalogue of the Manuscripts of Balliol College Oxford (Oxford 1963) 226–30.Google Scholar
34 See the Bollandists' Catalogus codicum hagiographicorum latinorum I (Brussels 1889) 237; they have a text in their Catalogus codicum hagiographicorum Bibliothecae Regiae Bruxellensis (Brussels 1889) I 309–13.Google Scholar
35 add. Pa: enim.Google Scholar
36 autem: om. Pa.Google Scholar
37 Pa: ad Paulum.Google Scholar
38 Ba: parare.Google Scholar
39 apostolus: Ba Pa: Paulus.Google Scholar
40 add. Ba Pa: suum.Google Scholar
41 add. Ba Pa: mi.Google Scholar
42 eos: om. Pa.Google Scholar
43 sic: om. Ba.Google Scholar
44 recens: Ba: sercen; Pa: sertem.Google Scholar
45 Ba: fuerat.Google Scholar
46 conduceretur: Ba: cum ducentur; Pa: cum duceretur.Google Scholar
47 egrederetur: Du Ba: egredetur.Google Scholar
48 illa: Ba: iam deum.Google Scholar
49 Pauli: om. Ba.Google Scholar
50 in ipso ictu: Du: ipso.Google Scholar
51 Ba Pa: explicuit; Du: explicauit.Google Scholar
52 in: ex Pa; om. Du.Google Scholar
53 et collegit … ligauit: om. Ba; Pa: ligauitque.Google Scholar
54 uelum: ex Pa; om. Du Ba.Google Scholar
55 et: add. Ba: conuerso.Google Scholar
56 militi: om. Ba Pa.Google Scholar
57 meum: Pa: nostrum.Google Scholar
58 Paulum: om. Ba Pa.Google Scholar
59 add. Ba Pa: ibi.Google Scholar
60 extra urbem: om. Pa.Google Scholar
61 uelata: Pa: ligata.Google Scholar
62 add. Ba Pa: autem.Google Scholar
63 non: Ba Pa: nunc.Google Scholar
64 et: om. Ba.Google Scholar
65 sanguine: om. Ba.Google Scholar
66 quamplures: Ba Pa: multi.Google Scholar
67 domino: om. Ba.Google Scholar
68 ‘A propos des légendiers latins’ AB 97 (1979) 57–68.Google Scholar
69 Dubois, Especially Jacques, Les martyrologes du moyen âge latin (Turnhout 1977) in Genicot, Léopold, ed., Typologie des sources du moyen âge occidental. Google Scholar
70 BHL 2178.Google Scholar
71 BHG 556.Google Scholar
72 Devos, Paul and Meyvaert, Paul, ‘La date de la première rédaction de la “Légende Italique,’” Cyrillo-Methodiana, Görresgesellschaft (1965) 57–71.Google Scholar
73 BHL 1851.Google Scholar
74 ‘Der heilige Dionysius, die Universität Paris und der französische Staat,’ Innsbrucker historische Studien 1 (1978) 9–31. We have only until now seen the abstract of this in Deutsches Archiv für Forschung des Mittelalters 35.2 (1979) 576–77, kindly communicated to us by Professor Julian Plante and Fr. Wilfred Theisen of the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library.Google Scholar
75 ‘Le panégyrique de S. Denys l'Aréopagite par S. Michel le Synchelle,’ Mélanges Paul Peelers 2 Analecta Bollandiana 68 (1950) 94–107.Google Scholar
76 Michael's chief biographical source is his Greek Life, BHG 1296.Google Scholar
77 The earliest printed text is that of Adolf van Meetkercke or Merkerke, by Hubert Goltzius (Bruges 1565). We had hoped to use the text in MS Leiden University Library Vossii graecus 59, f. 179, an anthology of Greek fragments written in Italy c. a.d. 1500, and at one time owned by Christina of Sweden; but it proved to be too defective to serve our purposes. We are grateful to the Oxford University Press for permission to quote from the edition by Powell, J. U., Collectanea Alexandrina (Oxford 1925).Google Scholar
78 See Classical Heritage, catalogue of an exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum (Cambridge 1978) no. 44. We aknowledge the permission of the Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, and the help of the Librarian and his staff, in obtaining and using this photograph.Google Scholar
79 Conybeare, F. C., Philostratus: The Life of Apollonius of Tyana (Cambridge, Mass.–London 1919) 1.375.Google Scholar
80 Ed. Powell, , 106–107.Google Scholar
81 Metamorphoses, ed. Anderson, W. S. (Leipzig 1877; repr. Norman, Oklahoma 1972) 252.Google Scholar
82 ‘Orphée et l'oracle de la tête coupée,’ Revue des études grecques 38 (1925) 44–69.Google Scholar
83 ‘Nouvelles recherches sur un thème hagiographique: la céphalophorie,’ Analecta Bollandiana, Subsidia hagiographica 37 (Brussels 1963).Google Scholar
84 Williams, Ifor, ed., Pedeir Keinc y Mabinogi (Cardiff 1930); and see also the excellent translation by Jones, Gwyn and Jones, Thomas, The Mabinogion (London 1949, 1974).Google Scholar
85 Loomis, R. S., The Grail: From Celtic Myth to Christian Symbol (Cardiff–New York 1963) 141.Google Scholar
86 Branwen Daughter of Llyr (Cardiff 1958) 91–98.Google Scholar
87 We use what is still the most reliable text: Tolkien, J. R. R. and Gordon, E. V., Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 2 rev. ed. Davis, Norman (Oxford 1967).Google Scholar
88 Edd. Tolkien, and Gordon, 20.Google Scholar
89 A Reading of ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’ (London 1965) 190.Google Scholar
90 The analogies with the San Miniato legend were kindly pointed out to us by Mrs. Margaret McGrath.Google Scholar
91 G. Melville Richards, in The Names of Towns and Cities in Britain, comp. Margaret Gelling, W. F. H. Nicolaisen and Melville Richards (London 1970). The writers are indebted, for information on Flintshire place-names, to Hywel Wyn Owen, and, through him, to the invaluable collection of Welsh place-name material formed by Melville Richards, and preserved through the generosity of Ethyn Melville Richards at the University College of North Wales as a memorial to this Celtic philologist, the foremost of our generation.Google Scholar
92 MS Munich Staatsbibliothek Clm 13029, f. 250c, collated with Bodley 336 and BN latin 14648.Google Scholar
93 See M. D. Knowles's account of Papebroch in Great Historical Enterprises (London 1963): ‘The Bollandists,’ 11–12.Google Scholar
94 Francis Oppenheimer gives a lucid and convincing account of this process in The Legend of the Ste. Ampoule (London 1953).Google Scholar
95 Martin Lechner in his article ‘Paulus’ in the Lexicon der christlichen Ikonographie reports the conventions, but does not know the relevant literature, and thinks that such representations show Paul, though decapitated, still at prayer as though death had not intervened.Google Scholar
96 We are much in the debt of Dr. Isa Ragusa of the Princeton Index of Christian Art for the learned and exhaustive account with which she supplied us of ‘severed, speaking heads’ in mediaeval art, and especially for directing us to the Keble College miniature.Google Scholar
97 See Parkes, M. B., The Medieval Manuscripts of Keble College Oxford (London 1979) xii–xiii, 227–42.Google Scholar
98 Ibid., xiii.Google Scholar
99 Die Malerschule von St. Florian: Forschungen zur Geschichte Oberösterreichs (Graz–Cologne 1962) 193–204. The miniature is also reproduced as fig. 362 by Hanns Swarzenski, Die lateinischen illuminierten Handschriften des XIII. Jahrhunderts in den Ländern an Rhein, Main und Donau (Berlin 1936) II; but the poor quality does no justice to the original.Google Scholar
100 Plate 2. For permission to consult their MS 49, to have the minature photographed, and to reproduce it here, we are grateful to the Librarian, his staff, and the authorities of Keble College.Google Scholar
101 For this iconographical convention, see Colledge, Edmund and Walsh, James, edd., A Book of Showings to the Anchoress Julian of Norwich (2 vols.; Toronto 1978) 2.623 n. 33.Google Scholar
102 Von Abgeschiedenheit, ed. Quint, Josef, Meister Eckhart, Die deutschen Werke 5 (Stuttgart 1963) 416–18.Google Scholar
