VOLUME ONE
PROLOGUE
AMONG the books which
afford us an insight into he popular religious thought of the middle ages, none
holds a more important place than the Legenda Aurea or Golden Legend. The book
was compiled and put into form about the year 1275 by Jacobus de Voragine, Archbishop
of Genoa, who laid under contribution for his purpose the Lives of the Fathers
by S. Jerome, the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius, and other books of a like
kind; while for the lives of the saints more nearly approaching his own age he
appears to have industriously collected such legends as he could meet with,
whether in manuscript or handed down by oral tradition. All persons living in
later times have been deeply indebted to the man who thus embodied for their
benefit and instruction a picture of the mental attitude of the age in which he
lived. If the study of it be not absolutely essential, it may safely be averred
that it will be most helpful and profitable, to all those who care to realise
to themselves the faith of their forefathers, and in no small degree will it
enable them more fully to understand the inspiration of the men whose faith
found its expression in the glories and mysteries of Gothic ecclesiastical
architecture. To those who can pace the aisles of a great cathedral or priory or
abbey church, or even tread the humbler stones of an ancient parish church,
without being touched with a sense of reverent wonder, the pages of The Golden
Legend will appeal in vain. Its perusal will strike no responsive chord in
their hearts. But to those who, whatever may be their creed, never set foot in
those stone-written records of the past without a feeling of awe and
veneration, mingled with an earnest longing to understand something of the
spirit which breathes forth from them, and a desire to know what it was that so
wrought in the minds of their makers as to produce the Music Gallery at Exeter,
the South Porch at Lincoln, the Galilee at Durham, the stained glass at York,
the East Window at Wells, and a thousand other marvels, to say nothing of the
greater glories that await us in the magnificent churches of France, which even
after centuries of destruction, neglect, and ill-usage still impress us with
wonder and admiration,-the histories of The Golden Legend will be a new
revelation of inestimable value. The corbels of roof and cloister vaulting
which look down on us with quaint and tender beauty, and the strange and
sometimes monstrous or demoniacal gargoyles of the exteriors, will have a newer
and fuller meaning if we allow ourselves thoroughly to enter into the spirit of
the book before us.
We shall seem to hear the
majestic roll of the solemn chants of Advent and the rejoicings of Christmas,
the penitential pleadings of the Lenten season and the triumphal songs of
Easter, as we read the eloquent passages devoted to those sacred seasons, even
though the style be such as modern ears are little accustomed to, and therefore
may sometimes appear, especially on a first reading, as more or less rugged and
obscure.
Lovers of the picturesque
can scarcely fail to be charmed with such wonderful tales as those of the
childhood of Moses and the history of Pontius Pilate, which the author frankly
sets down as 'apocriphum'; while the folk-lorist will find a rich field to
interest him in a territory hitherto but little explored.
In such histories as that
of S. Brandon we dwell for a while in a
veritable wonderland. The lives of S. Jerome, S. Macarius, S. Anthony, and S.
Mary of Egypt, and other saints of the desert, read like the echoes of another
world, so far removed are they from modern habits of thought, faith, and
practice; while those of S. Francis, S. Dominic, and S. Thomas of Canterbury
bring before our eyes the life of the middle ages hardly less vividly than the
tales of the Gesta Romanorum or the everliving creations of Geoffrey Chaucer.
Verily there is a plentiful harvest for those who care to reap. Having read
every page very carefully six times, with unabated interest, in the course of
editing two editions, I can testify to the attraction the book has for one who
loves the wondrous records of old days.
Though it does not appear
to have been among the earliest of printed books, the Legenda Aturea was no
sooner in type than edition after edition appeared with surprising rapidity. Probably
no other book was more frequently reprinted between the years 1470 and 1530
than the compilation of Jacobus de Voragine. And while almost innumerable
editions appeared in Latin, it was also translated into the vulgar tongue of
most of the nations of Europe, usually with alterations and additions in
accordance with the hagiological preferences of the different nationalities. It
is with an early French translation that we are chiefly concerned, of which
Caxton's version is a close rendering. The French book in question is a large
folio volume of four hundred and forty-three leaves, printed in double columns,
with forty-four lines to the page. Two copies of it only are known in this
country, one in the British Museum, and the other in Cambridge University
Library. There may of course be copies lurking in foreign libraries, but I have
not been able to hear of any. It is without any indication of place of
printing, date, or printer, and until quite lately these particulars had
baffled the researches and conjectures of bibliographers; but latterly Mr. R.
Proctor of the British Museum has succeeded in identifying the type as
proceeding from the press of Peter Keyser, a rival of Anthony Vernard at Paris.
It contains the lives of many French saints who are not included in the work of
Voragine, notably those of S. Genevieve and S. Louis.
Convincing proof that this
is the book referred to by Caxton in his preface as 'a legende in frensshe,' is
afforded by the fact that where the printer has left gross misprints uncorrected
in his text, the translator has blindly followed him without any attempt to
make sense of them. The most curious instance of this occurs in the explanation
of the supposed etymology of the name of S. Stephen. The French printer has
turned the Old French which should have read 'fames venues,' (femmes veuves)
into 'seine venues,' which Caxton attempts to translate by 'hole comen' (whole
come), regardless of the fact that it has no meaning whatever. It has rarely
been attempted to clear the present text of obscurities by any alteration, on
principle; but in this instance, for the meaningless words 'hole comen,' those
of 'widow women' have been substituted in accordance with the Latin, which
Caxton seems never to have troubled himself to refer to. Again, in the life of
S. Genevieve the French version has the typographical error of "a name'
for 'a navire,' which the translator simply renders 'at name,' and this in
later editions becomes 'at none' without making any better sense. This has been
altered to 'by ship' as being the obvious meaning. The text has been amended in
one or two other instances where a slight alteration made a passage
intelligible; but, as I have said, there has been no attempt to clear
obscurities generally or to interfere with the translator's language.
The observant reader can
scarcely fail to note the difference between the style of the Bible histories,
which I take it come from the 'Legend in English,' which Caxton mentions in his
preface, and that of the translator's work, greatly to the advantage of the
former. The summary is in truth done with a master's hand. The life of S.
Thomas of Canterbury is again a specimen of vigorous English clearly written,
and is probably also taken from the 'Legend in English.'
Though Caxton speaks of
himself as the translator, and we have personal glimpses of him in the
anecdotes he relates in 'The Circumcision of our Lord, 'The History of David,'
and 'The Life of S. Austin,' it is hardly to be supposed that he could have
been at the labour of translating the whole book. He appears indeed to have
employed some one whose knowledge of French must have been considerably less
than that we are willing to credit him with, considering his long residence in
French Flanders. Colour is also given to the suggestion that he availed himself
of extraneous help in the work of translation by his special assertion at the
end of the life of S. Roch: 'which lyfe is translated oute of latyn into
Englysshe by me, William Caxton.'
It may be remarked as a
curious bibliographical and historical coincidence, that while Wynken de Worde
was engaged in printing the last of the Old English editions of The Golden
Legend in London, William Tyndale was busily occupied at Cologne trying to get
into type the first of the unnumbered editions of the English New Testament.
The old order giveth place to the new.
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