Richard Hamer – författare

One of the central texts of the Middle Ages, The Golden Legend deeply influenced the imagery of poetry, painting and stained glass with its fascinating descriptions of saints' lives and religious festivals. By creating a single-volume sourcebook of core Christian stories, Jacobus de Voragine (c. 1229-98) attracted a huge audience across Europe. This selection of over seventy biographies ranges from the first Apostles and Roman martyrs to near-contemporaries such as St Dominic, St Francis of Assissi and St Elizabeth of Hungary. Here, witnesses to the true faith endure horrific tortures; reformed prostitutes win divine forgiveness; while other women live disguised as monks or nobly resist lustful tyrants. Lucid and compelling, The Golden Legend offers an enthralling insight into the medieval mind.

The first of a projected set of three volume, volumes I and II will contain the text, while volume III will contain the general introduction, explanatory notes, and glossary. Gilte Legende is, for the most part, a close translation (1438) of Jean de Vignay's Legende Dorée (ca. 1333-40), itself a close translation of Jacobus de Voragine's Legenda Aurea (ca. 1267). The importance of Legenda Aurea as a source book for students of the late Middle Ages interested in literature, church history, and visual art, can hardly be overestimated.

The second of a projected set of three volumes, Volume II concludes the text; Volume III will contain the general introduction, explanatory notes, and glossary. Gilte Legende is, for the most part, a close translation (1438) of Jean de Vignay's Legende Dorée (ca. 1333-40), itself a close translation of Jacobus de Voragine's immensely influential Legenda Aurea (ca. 1267). The importance of Legenda Aurea as a source book for students of late medieval literature, church history, and visual art, can hardly be overestimated.

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.