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The Biblical Additions in Caxton's ‘Golden Legend’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

N. F. Blake
N. F. Blake*
Affiliation:
University of Liverpool
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Extract

Although we still lack a critical edition of Caxton's Golden Legend or any modern edition of the Gilte Legende, several scholars have contributed notable studies on the English versions of the Legenda Aurea. As far as Caxton is concerned, these studies have been confined to assessing his personal contributions, to deciding which French and English versions he used, and to discussing how he may have adapted the French, English and Latin texts of the Golden Legend which he had in front of him. It has of course also been recognised that a large section of Caxton's printed edition (corresponding to pp. 105–244 of Ellis's edition) was taken from a non-Legenda source and that much of this section is based ultimately on the Bible. But nothing has been done to examine this section in detail to determine where Caxton got his material and how he arranged it. This paper is devoted to an investigation of some of the problems involved in this part of the Golden Legend in order to provide a basis for further study and also to contribute to our understanding of Caxton's method as editor.

Type
Articles
Information
Traditio , Volume 25 , 1969 , pp. 231 - 247
Copyright
Copyright © Fordham University Press 

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References

1 Gilte Legende is the name used to refer to the earlier English translation of Legenda Aurea. For work on Gilte Legende see Kurvinen, A., ‘Caxton's Golden Legend and the Manuscripts of the Gilte Legende,’ Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 60 (1959) 353–75. For work on the Golden Legend, see particularly Sister Jeremy, Mary, ‘Caxton's Golden Legend and De Vignai's Légende Dorée,’ Medieval Studies 8 (1946) 97–106, and ‘Caxton's Golden Legend and Varagine's Legenda Aurea,’ Speculum 21 (1946) 212–21.Google Scholar

2 Ellis, F. S., The Golden Legend (London 1892). Page numbers in parentheses throughout this paper refer to this edition.Google Scholar

3 It is not always possible to be certain that Caxton added the interpolations; the matter is discussed later in the paper.Google Scholar

4 This information has been taken from Ellis's edition, but I have modernized the punctuation.Google Scholar

5 Only a selection of these features is included, but I have tried to choose the more striking ones.Google Scholar

6 Not given in full here because it is so well known; see Crotch, W. J. B., The Prologues and Epilogues of William Caxton (EETS 176; London 1928) 74.Google Scholar

7 For example, Butterworth, C. C., The Literary Lineage of the King James Bible (Philadelphia 1941) 52.Google Scholar

8 See Blake, N. F., ‘William Caxton: His Choice of Texts,’ Anglia 83 (1965) 289–307.Google Scholar

9 See particularly the articles referred to in n. 1 above.Google Scholar

10 Wells, J. E., A Manual of the Writings in Middle English, 1050–1400 (New Haven 1916) 320.Google Scholar

11 Butler, P., Legenda Aurea, Légende dorée, Golden Legend (Baltimore 1899) 80.Google Scholar

12 Cf. Caxton's account of Nembroth (p. 117) with that in the Polychronicon (ed. Babington, , 1869, Vol. II, pp. 249–50).Google Scholar

13 Butler 81.Google Scholar

14 See Blake, N. F., ‘Caxton's Language,’ Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 67 (1966) 122–32.Google Scholar

15 The form confedersy is not recorded at all in OED, which records only confederacy and confederey; but MED records it as an alternative spelling coming from Anglo-Norman.Google Scholar

16 Commise is recorded in MED from 1450, and OED refers to some Caxtonian examples which occur in texts translated from French. The word entered English in the late fifteenth century as a result of translations from French, but it never became common.Google Scholar

17 Adderbolt. The example from the Golden Legend is the earliest quoted in OED; no form is recorded in MED.Google Scholar

18 For an example see Butterworth, (cit. supra n. 7) 255–68.Google Scholar

19 Fowler, D. C., ‘New Light on John Trevisa,’ Traditio 18 (1962) 289–317, and ‘John Trevisa and the English Bible,’ Modern Philology 58 (1960–61) 81–98.Google Scholar

20 Crotch (supra, n. 6) 72–3: ‘which I have ordryd otherwyse than the sayd Englysshe legende is, which was so to fore made.’ Google Scholar

21 Crotch 72: ‘ageynst me here myght somme persones saye that thys legende hath be translated tofore, and trouthe it is.’ Google Scholar

22 Blake, N. F., ‘Investigations into the Prologues and Epilogues by William Caxton,’ Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 49 (1966–67) 36 ff. Google Scholar

23 Kurvinen (cit. supra n. 1), and Dunn, T. F., The Manuscript Study of Caxton's Second Edition of the Canterbury Tales (Chicago 1940).Google Scholar

24 As for example in his account of the death of Richard II in the ‘Liber Ultimus’ of the Polychronicon. Google Scholar