| The first Christian hagiographic
works were likely calendar-oriented abbreviated saints' lives or
martyrologies. "Legendarium" is the term used for a manuscript
containing more substantial hagiographic biographies. Perhaps the most
famous of these collections is Italian chronicler and archbishop,
Jacobus de Voragine's (1230-1298) Legenda aurea (Legenda sanctorum),
ca. 1260, compiled in Latin. Sources were numerous, and may well
have included Bartholomew of Trent's Epilogum in gesta
sanctorum, as well as Jean de Mailly's Abbreviatio in gestis
et miraculis sanctorum.
This collection included all the saints venerated at the time in
liturgical calendar order, and additional material about
religious celebrations of different events in the life of Christ and
the Virgin Mary). This work, very much in the spirit of an age of
encyclopedias, was not a static text, and most sources indicate
that Voragine actively expanded it until his death in 1298. This
has been a popular work, with nearly 1000 surviving manuscripts The best-known medieval translation into French vernacular was that of Jean de Vignay (1283-1340+), La Légende dorée, completed in 1348. There were other medieval translations attributed to Jean Belet, Wauchier de Denain, and several others, that remain anonymous. The Légende dorée is said to be the first work printed in French (Lyon, [Guillaume Le Roy] pour Barthélémy Buyer 1476). This translation is the work of Jean Bataillier. Other collections of saints' lives, whose authors are not identified may well be stories taken from the légende dorée, or simply small groups of saints' lives, collected out of a particular interest The page below consists of links to all the medieval documents (whole and partial manuscripts, fragments, and incunables) for which I could locate online facsimiles. Manuscripts are listed by city and collection location, and incunables by date of publication. These are followed by other relevant resources, like editions, translations, bibliographies, dadabases, comentaries, etc. Most entries are made from catalog descriptions. This page is part of the Andy Holt Virtual Library's "Manuscripts of Medieval France with Vernacular Texts", a collection of over 1200 links to manuscript facsimiles, which will include nearly all of the French medieval literarary canon, and much more. A related link in this collection is Textual Sources of Gallo-Romance Vernacular Bibles. |
| La légende dorée
[Robert Paul] La légende dorée [Diane de Selliers] MS Codex 434, Legenda Aurea (Golden Legend) |