Gilte Legende is, for the most part a close translation 'drawen out of Frensshe into Englisshe' made in 1438 from Jean de Vignay's Légende dorée, a French version, made c. 1433, of Jacobus de Voragine's enormously influential collection of saints' lives, Legenda aurea (c. 1267). Legenda aurea, a source book for all the major Christian stories of holy men and women, was a standard work throughout the later Middle ages, read throughout Western Europe, and is essential reading for anyone interested in the ecclesiastical history, literature, and art history of the period. This Middle English translation is the first of two independent versions that were made in the fifteenth century, the second by Caxton. The editor proposes that the translator of this version may have been Dame Eleanor Hull, the first woman translator into English whose name is known, and whose Commentary on the Penitential Psalms was published by EETS as O.S. 307 (1995).The present volume, containing the Introduction, Explanatory Notes, Glossary and Index, completes the EETS's three-volume edition Gilte Legende, which begun with O.S. 327 and 328.
