Complete vernacular Bibles did not exist until the fifteenth century; yet, the spiritual needs of the German populace had to be met much earlier. Devotional materials in German were indeed available as early as 1150, and, above all, edifying narratives of exemplary holy figures (c.1300), based on the Legenda aurea (c.1265 — legenda, a gerund meaning saints’ lives to be read). Legendaries, circulated orally and in written form (first in verse, then in prose), became popular among the laity, monks, and cloistered women, especially the legends of the Virgin, Anne, Catherine, Barbara, Dorothy, and Margaret. The present essay intends to showcase a German legendary, study its authorship, sources, and influences, as well as give a description of four saints’ legends. Our tentative stemma follows this article's text.

“Der Maget Krone”: General Observations

The title of this verse legendary, The Crown of the Virgin (or Virgins), refers to the Virgin Mary's and the Virgin Martyrs’ each receiving a martyr and virginity crown from God in the form of a Marienpreis (laudatory poem to Mary), and a Marienleben (life of Mary); the legendary contains twelve “Legends of the Virgin Martyrs.” These saints are Katharina, Barbara, Dorothea, Margareta, Ursula, Agathe, Agnes, Lucia, Caecilia, Cristina, Anastasia, and Juliana. Intended as a monograph for the daily Tischlesung (reading at mealtime to nuns in a cloister), these approximately 8,400 verses were composed by a Cistercian nun soon after the first printing of the South German Heiligenleben (147l/1472) in Augsburg (manuscript from c.1405–20). The legends borrowed partially from Latin sources (such as the Ave Maria and the Legenda aurea) and from legends already in verse, for example, Barbara — which by 1425 had been preserved as a single legend in Konstanz — as well as from a manuscript of the Alsatian Legenda aurea (c.1450) as a major source, together with the Heiligenleben (c.1420; published 1996, vol. 1; 2003, vol. 2). Catherine is now lost, Barbara has some 650 verses, Dorothy c.450, and Margaret c. 280 verses.