The Legenda sanctorum (‘Reading of the Saints’), most commonly referred to as ‘The Golden Legend’ (Legenda aurea), is a collection of hagiographies—lives of the saints—compiled between 1259 and 1266 by the Italian chronicler, Jacobus de Voragine (c. 1230–98). It was one of the most popular texts of the Middle Ages and survives in over 1,000 manuscripts. The text is structured by the medieval calendar year, telling the stories of the saints in the order of their feast days.

The manuscript starts with an alphabetical list of saints (fols 1r–2r), followed by an index. The prologue begins on fol. 17r, which is marked by a gilded initial and a bas-de-page of two dogs chasing a rabbit. This decoration is very similar to the bas-de-page at the beginning of another manuscript of the Golden Legend, now in Hereford Cathedral (O.V.13). The text contains red and blue initials throughout, with many later annotations and manicules indicating important parts of the text. Two later busts are sketched in margins: a curly haired figure (fol. 82r) and a king (fol. 111r).

 

Literature: Edward Bernard, Catalogi librorum manuscriptorum Angliae et Hiberniae in unum collecti, Vol. 2 (Oxford, 1697), p. 31, no. 1345; Neil R. Ker and Alan J. Piper, Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, Volume IV: Paisley–York (Oxford, 1969), p. 608; Paul Yeats-Edwards, Winchester College (Warden and Fellows’ Library) Medieval Manuscript Collection: Brief History and Catalogue (London, 1978), p. 4.

Provenance: Given to Winchester College by Henry Jorden (Fellow, 1609–16), 11 May 1612.

Location: Fellows’ Library