Jacobus de Voragine (ca 1229–1298), trans. William Caxton (ca 1422–1491)
The golden legend
Westminster: William Caxton, between 20 November 1483 and March 1484
The medieval Legenda aurea was a bestseller in both manuscript and print forms, and this translation by Caxton, running to nearly 900 pages, was one of the largest books he ever produced. Moore owned three copies, all imperfect in different ways. His attempt to obtain the complete text of this enormous book is a great benefit to the modern scholar: comparisons of the differing uses of copies of early printed books, which survive in relatively small numbers, can tell researchers a great deal about the reception of texts.
Inc.2.J.1.1[3511], fol. CCLXXXIIIv (Royal Library)
The lives of saints have long held a fascination for readers both as inspiration and entertainment. Caxton’s mammoth work includes seventy woodcuts of events in the lives of the Saints and Biblical figures, to give visual context for those who were unable to read the text for themselves. Interestingly this work managed to bypass the rules restricting vernacular access to the Bible, by presenting certain episodes within the context of saints’s lives when they were in fact little more than translations of Bible verses. The opening shown here gives the prologue to the life of St Katherine of Alexandria. one of the most popular of all the saints in medieval England, she is frequently presented as a devotional figure for scholars as a result of her powers of debate which ultimately led to her martyrdom.
