Supplementary Lives in Some Manuscripts of the Gilte Legende

Twenty-six Lives of Saints, mainly from the British Isles, or with British connections. Almost all previously unpublished, the Lives were added as supplementary material to the Gilte Legende deriving from the enormously influential Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine.

Gilte Legende is mostly a close translation `drawen out of Frensshe into Englisshe'' in 1438, of Jean de Vignay''s Légende Dorée of about 1333-40, itself a close translation of Jacobus de Voragine''s Legenda Aurea, completed about 1267. Of its eight surviving manuscripts, three contain additions, mostly of Lives of saints from or related to Britain, many of them deversified from the South English Legendary, but with some use of other sources. The twenty-six lives include Thomas Becket, Edmund of Abingdon, Frideswide, Edward the Confessor, Erkenwald, Augustine of Canterbury, Brendan, and Winifred, and from further afield Faith, Barbara, and Jerome. Almost all the texts were previously unpublished. Also edited are an incomplete tract on `What the church betokenith'', explaining some of the symbolism of the church and its services; and another detailing what indulgences were available to pilgrims in each of the churches in Rome.