The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints

by Jacobus de Voragine, William Granger Ryan (Translator), Eamon Duffy (Introduction)

Depicting the lives of the saints in an array of factual and fictional stories, The Golden Legend was perhaps the most widely read book, after the Bible, during the late Middle Ages. It was compiled around 1260 by Jacobus de Voragine, a scholarly friar and later archbishop of Genoa, whose purpose was to captivate, encourage, and edify the faithful, while preserving a vast store of information pertaining to the legends and traditions of the church.

In this translation, the first in English of the complete text, William Granger Ryan captures the immediacy of this rich work, which offers an important guide for readers interested in medieval art and literature and, more generally, in popular religious culture.

Arranged according to the order of saints' feast days, these fascinating stories are now combined into one volume. This edition also features an introduction by Eamon Duffy contextualizing the work.

Genres: Religion, History, Medieval, Christianity, Classics, Nonfiction, Biography

800 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1260

About the author

Blessed Jacobus de Varagine or Voragine was an Italian chronicler and archbishop of Genoa. He was the author, or more accurately the compiler, of Legenda Sanctorum, also known as the Golden Legend, a collection of the legendary lives of the greater saints of the medieval church that was one of the most popular religious works of the Middle Ages.

Reviews

[Nathanimal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like when your young nephew corners you and jabbers on and on breathlessly about his favorite Ninja Turtle and how strong and unbeatable he was and how all the bad men tried so hard to beat him up but just couldn't do it because the Ninja Turtle was so powerful and brave. And it seems kind of like a mania, this feeling your panting little nephew has for his Ninja Turtle, and you wonder if something might be a little wrong with the kid, because he's getting really into the gory details about the bad men and how they tried to impale and crush and tear to pieces the Ninja Turtle, and boil him in oil and drown him in the sea and cut him open and stuff him with salt. But your nephew is very proud to tell you, like this is the big clever ending he's been working towards, that in the end the bad men were so tired and outmatched they just gave up and stabbed the Ninja Turtle in the neck, and for some reason it worked that time, but only because it was supposed to. Because it was supposed to!

[Graychin · Rating 4 out of 5]

St Martin of Tours was born in the year 316 in the Roman province of Pannonia, quite far from Tours, where he eventually served as bishop. He first came to Gaul as a young soldier. The most famous story about St Martin describes how, on a winter evening, he passed a half-naked man begging alms at the gates of Ambianum (Amiens). Martin cut his cloak in two with his sword, giving half to the man. That night in a dream Martin saw Christ conversing with the angels, wearing the same half cloak he had given the beggar. Jesus said, “Look! Though he is only a catechumen, Martin has covered me with his cloak.” In the morning Martin ran to the church and asked to be baptized immediately.

You won’t find a “Life of St Martin of Tours” without that story. It’s central to his biography in even the most sober-minded presentations. In The Golden Legend, a compilation of saints’ lives by thirteenth-century Dominican friar Jacobus de Voragine, however, you will find much, much more. Some of the most amusing tales about St Martin involve animals. Once, for example, St Martin passed by a sheep that had recently been shorn. “That sheep has obeyed the Gospel mandate,” he said. “She had two tunics and gave one of them to someone who had none.” Another time, he was bathing in a river when a venomous snake came swimming toward him. In Christ’s name he commanded it away. “At the saint’s word the reptile turned around and crossed back to the opposite bank,” de Voragine says, and then adds with a wink: “Martin groaned, ‘Serpents listen to me, and men do not!’”

An even more delightful tale involves a demon-possessed cow:

“There was a cow that was possessed by the devil, and she roared and raged and gored many people. Once this cow rushed in a fury at Martin and his company as they passed on the road. Martin raised his hand and ordered the cow to halt. Halt she did, and he saw a demon sitting astride her. Martin rebuked the demon, saying: ‘Get off her back, O evil one, and stop tormenting this harmless animal.’ The spirit departed immediately. The cow then fell to her knees at the bishop’s feet and then, at his behest, ambled peaceably back to the herd.”

In Christian art there are thousands of depictions of St Martin cutting his cloak in two for the naked beggar. I’ve never seen a single one of the grateful cow bowing to him in thanks.

It would be foolish, of course, to insist on the strict historicity of every tale that comes down to us about the saints or (for that matter) most any other historical figure. After the material fact of a person passes out of tangible experience, accretions may cling to his memory like snow compacted around a stone as it tumbles downhill. And yet in a certain sense all these things really did happen, even the most absurd, the most outlandish. What I mean is explained, perhaps, by this passage from Paul Valéry’s Dialogue of the Tree:

“Don’t you think, O wise man that you are, that our knowledge of anything whatsoever is imperfect if it is confined to the exact notion of that thing, if it is limited to the truth? …I certainly think, for my part, that reality, always infinitely more rich than the true, comprises, on every subject and in every matter, the quantity of misunderstandings, of myths, of childish stories and beliefs which the minds of men necessarily produce.…I have noticed that there is not a thing in the world that has not been adorned with dreams, held for a sign, explained by some miracle, and this all the more as the concern with knowing the origins and first circumstances is more naively potent. And that is doubtless why a philosopher whose name I have forgotten coined the maxim: IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE FABLE.”

Valéry gets a little carried away at the end, but who can deny that reality is always more comprehensive than the merely true? This is not to say that we should neglect, or cease to insist, on facts. Some facts we cannot do without. The Christian faith itself is based on facts which, if they were not facts, would put us pretty high up the list of the most deluded fools ever to have lived. But a life made only of facts would be rather poor. If we were always trimming off bits of fabric here and there in the interest of strict historicity, we might end up with something less than half a cloak – and the world can get chilly.

One thing is certain: if by God’s grace I’m ever granted a personal introduction to St Martin, I’ll definitely ask him about the cow.

-
Note: If you’re looking for a copy of this book, get the Princeton edition translated by William Granger Ryan and with an introduction by Eamon Duffy. It’s not cheap but it’s worth it.

[denudatio_pulpae]

„Byłoby pożałowania godnym nieporozumieniem, gdyby ktoś brał tę książkę do ręki z myślą, że znajdzie w niej żywoty świętych. Zdziwiłby się bowiem w takim razie bardzo, widząc w niej »życiorysy« osobistości takich, jak Herod, Piłat, Judasz czy Mahomet. A nawet tam, gdzie chodzi o autentycznych świętych, przykro zaskoczyć by do musiał brak wszelkiej chronologii i tła historycznego, bezgraniczna często naiwność opowiadanych z całą powagą scen, jaskrawe anachronizmy i szereg podobnych usterek. Jednym słowem Złota legenda nie jest bynajmniej wiarogodnym źródłem wiadomości o tych wszystkich osobach, o których jest w niej mowa.

Czymże jest zatem? Wieńcem legend w starym, średniowiecznym znaczeniu tego wyrazu, wielkim skarbcem, w którym fantazja stuleci złożyła swoje najpopularniejsze wytwory, a z którego pokolenia czerpały następne wątki dla swego piśmiennictwa, malarstwa, rzeźby i architektury”.

Przeczytałam „Złotą legendę” Jakuba de Voragine z czystej ciekawości, hagiografia raczej nie należy do kręgu moich zainteresowań. Mimo to muszę przyznać, że nie było to aż tak nudne, jak się spodziewałam.

Autor żył w drugiej połowie XIII wieku i jego praca polegała głównie na odtworzeniu i spisaniu najpopularniejszych wyobrażeń i podań o poszczególnych świętych. Mimo iż legendy te są pełne naiwności i momentami wręcz elementów fantastycznych, odzwierciedlają realia swojej epoki.

Kult świętych i męczenników pojawił się w chrześcijaństwie bardzo wcześnie. Wierni byli zainteresowani kim byli ci ludzie, jak żyli, w jaki sposób dawali swoje świadectwa cnót chrześcijańskich. Oraz jakie wyczyniali cuda – chyba najbardziej fascynujący element historii, no może poza opisami przeróżnych okrucieństw, jakim byli poddawani:

„Opisy te, zawsze bardzo jednostajne w doborze i kolejności mąk, są równocześnie niesłychanie krwawe i dla dzisiejszego czytelnika przykre. Średniowiecze jednak było przyzwyczajone do widoku publicznych egzekucji […] i ówczesnemu człowiekowi nie byle co w tej mierze potrafiło zaimponować. Jeśli więc stałość męczennika miała wzbudzić podziw, to musiał on cierpieć jakieś bardziej wyszukane męki niż zwykły przestępca, którego ćwiartowano czy łamano kołem”.

A na koniec moja mała zagwozdka:
„Opat Makary szedł raz pustynią, a na noc wszedł do grobowca, w którym pochowani byli poganie, wyciągnął ciało jednego z nich i położył na nim głowę jak na puchowej poduszce. Tymczasem diabły, chcąc go przestraszyć, udawały, że wołają jakąś kobietę, i mówiły: Wstań i chodź z nami do kąpieli! Z ciała zmarłego zaś, na którym leżał święty, wydobywał się głos innego diabła: Jakiś obcy leży na mnie i nie mogę przyjść. Lecz on nie przestraszył się wcale, tylko uderzył owe ciało i rzekł: Wstań i idź, jeśli potrafisz. Słysząc to diabły uciekły, krzycząc głośno: Zwyciężyłeś nas, panie!”.

Jestem w stanie przyjąć bez większej szkody na umyśle informacje o cudach wszelakich, ozdrowieniach, wskrzeszeniach i tym podobnych, ale dlaczego Opat Makary chciał użyć zwłok jako poduszki – to już przekracza moje możliwości :) Czy jest jakieś wyjaśnienie tej zagadki?

[Oleksandr Fediienko · Rating 4 out of 5]

Книжка містить саме те, що від неї очікуєш - побожність і смиренність, спокуси і дива. Латинський оригінал був перекладений Вільямом Кекстоном на англійську мову, а на початку 20 століття виданий у скороченому вигляді. Тут подані життя і діяння деяких біблійних персонажів, ранніх християнських святих, найвідоміших святих Середньовіччя і святих із Британських островів (бо для британського видання це актуально).

[othryswhisper · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book after it was noted in Mont St.Michele and Chartres as further reading option. Like mentioned in the book it really is a must read to understand medieval thought and art.
What else could I say Saints are always cool.
The ones i likes the most are St.Elisabeth of Hungary and St.Martin of tours.
Elisabeth was particularly interesting because I visited the places where she lived like the Wartburg or Magdeburg myself.
Very enjoyable however sadly this version is incomplete...that’s why I only gave 3 stars

[Raúl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Compendio de apenas trescientas páginas que escoge solo treinta y cinco de entre las ciento ochenta biografías originales, y está destinado no tanto a la consulta del estudioso como a la lectura de principio a fin. Esto le aporta, por un lado, una virtud en cuanto que acerca al lector actual un texto medieval que de ningún modo se pensó para ser leído en silencio, sino interpretado en viva voz. Por otro lado, debido a las limitaciones de su propio formato, he echado en falta un aparato crítico que apuntale el material y sirva para completar la información en él contenida, así como para explicar la razón de esta selección escogida por Alberto Manguel, pues el libro solo posee un brevísimo prólogo, ofreciendo a continuación el texto original, traducido al castellano, sin un solo pie de página.

Lo que nos puede interesar hoy de la 'Leyenda dorada', pese al estilo anquilosado, es que su lectura supone viajar en el tiempo hasta una de las principales fuentes de la inspiración artística e iconográfica de la tradición cristiana. Cada cual tenemos nuestras debilidades a este respecto, y en mi caso, mi entrada a este libro llegó a través de mi interés particular por el Bosco y sus Tentaciones de san Antonio.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Objective opinion: academically interesting. Definitely weird and wildly influential.
Subjective opinion: if I have to read one more story glorifying and praising martyrdom and suffering as if it’s the best thing in the world, I may puke. I’m sick and tired of the glorification of martyrdom and suffering in certain religious texts. Also honestly some of the descriptions of the martyrs deaths were far too gruesome and grotesque for me.

[Jeff Bursey · Rating 3 out of 5]

My own copy a arrived yesterday. Read a hardcover version in the mid-1990s for one particular part of Mirrors on which dust has fallen, so time to put it in the Read column.

A religio-historical curiosity. To be consulted, and dipped into, as the spirit moves you.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not recommended to read from cover-to-cover. This is at best a reference book. Even if you want to read through it along with the church calendar (as I did), I wouldn't recommend that you force yourself to read the details of say, the greater and the lesser litanies.

I decided to read this book because I read in The Gothic Image that it was the most popular book in Europe in the thirteenth century after the Bible. It does help to provide a lot of details about the saints. The saints' stories are pretty repetitive though. In many cases, the stories about the lives of the saints are short, and the legend is instead documentation about the miracles that happened after the saint's life to show that the saint was indeed a saint. To me, this is no more spiritually inspiring than reciting the rosary, which is not my preferred way of practicing the faith.

Other stories are more interesting. After a while, reading the stories of the saints makes you notice what stands about one of them instead of another. Often, it sounds like monks or priests added in lurid details to make the stories more exciting for their audience. E.g., it wasn't enough to have these martyrs thrown into the coliseums to be eaten by leopards like so many other saints that you've already read about. These particular saints had their buttocks bared and were dragged through the streets before they were thrown to the leopards... after reading so many hagiographies, these are the unfortunate details that you are drawn towards and wonder why they were included.

My understanding is that the Catholic Church stepped away from The Golden Legend sometime around the Renaissance. It's understandable. There's a lot of implausible stuff here (dragons, for one, but also absurd stories like the legend of St James the Dismembered). Even beyond the implausible, there are plenty of anti-Jewish sentiments throughout. There's also a tacked on history of Islam at the end of the book that's anti-Islam, of course (but not nearly as bad as I would have thought). It's really hard to recommend this book. You'd have to be pretty deep into Catholicism or the European Middle Ages to have the stomach for it. My understanding is that Butler's Lives of Saints is a better contemporary way to walk through the holy calendar. Even without having read Butler, I'd suggest starting there before going to the Golden Legend unless you really like the Middle Ages.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Penguin translation is BAD. No footnotes, they omitted some very important saints in lieu of lesser-known ones (St. Anne is missing from their translation).

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

I know one shouldn't expect psychological realism from mediaeval saints' tales, but these are both fascinating (in the way they express quite how different the mediaeval mind is from the modern mind) and utterly ludicrous.

There are a few lessons we can get from this:

1) It is a lot easier to be a saint if you come from an upper-class family (none of the saints in these stories are in any way working- or middle-class): all of them start with ..... came from a noble family. Even Judas Iscariot appears to be the child of Kings, but then his story is the retelling of the Oedipus myth.

2) There is a lot of torture porn in these narratives: the torture of these people is told in loving, not to say erotic, detail. It's pretty horrific: like a twelfth century "Hostel".

3) It is astonishing that the whole world isn't Christian automatically: a lot of these narratives have phrases such as "The whole of Antioch was converted that day", immediately followed by "But there were some people in Antioch who hated the Saint". Erm , eh?

4) God is vindictive: anyone who tries to arrest, imprison, accuse or anything the saints meets a horrible, violent end, engulfed in a fireball, eaten by wolves or lions, innards bursting out etc. He comes across as an abusive husband: now look what you made me do!

5) None of these saints are nice or even good people. Occasionally, one will open a hospital, but mostly that's just to show how superior they are to people who don't open hospitals. They grab people who visit hospitals and shave their head, or traumatise them in other ways.

6) Some of the saints or their mentors are essentially running cruelty cults, whipping anyone who departs from their very specific teachings, or starving them, or imprisoning them.

7) If you changed the saints' names, a lot of these stories would not be out of place in Grimms' Fairy Tales. they are folk tales pure and simple. One of the stories, St Eustace, is basically the story of Shakespeare's Pericles.

8) Women saints had to be virgins (or if they were wives, had to submit toi their husbands' lusts without enjoying it), whereas men didn't have to be.

To be fair to Jacobus, occasionally he does say "This story seems unlikely" and comes up with a reason why he doesn't trust the story, but mostly he gives the version he read from previous versions.

Nonetheless, these stories are phenomenally readable, and you can quite see why they lasted (apparently, this was the most copied manuscript from the thirteenth century). They are great fun, provided you can stand the bizarre worldview.

[Patrick Santino · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was the tome-y-ist tome I’ve ever read. One of the largest & most successful “live of the saints” books in history, written/compiled around the 1260s by the bishop of Genoa, it is a massive window into the medieval mind. It was a massive hit at the time (the “golden” title comes from it being worth its weight in gold) despite that it was only written for priests to have material for homilies. Hence the interminable encyclopedic length & especially at times dry-outline lists & sub-lists of point after point on theology. Then there is the “legend” part of the title, apparently before this book “legend” only meant “reading (aloud?)”, but by the Renaissance it’s popularity was sharply declining because this book had drawn the “tall tale” connotations we interpret from “legend” today. This book is filled with medieval tall tale stories, some were excellent or fun or teachable, but some were too ridiculous to take seriously, and a handful I thought straight up bad. Eamon Duffy’s Introduction to the book is a rightful official word on the topic, and essential reading. I read it twice, at the beginning & towards when I was finishing up & I vouch that it has the best pulse on the book, it said what I knew but I couldn’t articulate. In my opinion, the book was at its best describing the epically brave heroic virtue of the martyrs who were unflinchingly prepared to give their lives for Christ. But I agree with Duffy that much of their characters were “static” or one-to-two dimensional & difficult to relate to despite being inspiring. Then at points I was offput by their radical rejection of this world & physical self-inflicted corporal penances. Finally, for such a big book, some stuff felt missing (St Joe for example) or I questioned often what sources he didn’t have that are now common (St Patrick story was strange).

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

Muchos etiquetan este libro como un libro religioso, no obstante si bien es cierto que lo es yo prefiero calificarlo como un libro didáctico.
La Leyenda Dorada nos narra la vida y obras de un gran número de santos que a través de sus buenas acciones consiguieron entrar en contacto con Dios, y a mi parecer si los santos son tan relevantes en la religión cristiana católica, es precisamente porque nacen como hombres y mujeres corrientes, nacen con el pecado original al igual que todos nosotros, pero por medio de su grandísima fe y de sus obras consiguen alcanzar un puesto privilegiado en el Paraíso.
Todos -sin importar la religión a la que pertenezcamos- debemos aspirar a alcanzar la santidad, todos debemos intentar dar lo máximo de nosotros con el objetivo primordial de hacer del mundo en el que vivimos un mundo mejor lleno de paz y amor genuinos.
Recomiendo esta lectura no sólo a los cristianos, sino a todo tipo de lectores independientemente de su credo. La bondad es una de las características mejores que se nos otorgó a la raza humana y debemos potenciarla y anhelarla.

[Leone Mattheus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oké, aangezien ik vastzit in mijn andere boeken (de blok doodt vrije tijd) en ik Goodreads mis, heb ik besloten om gewoon recensies te schrijven over de boeken die ik voor mijn examen op maandag moet lezen.
Misschien komt het omdat ik dit boek al meerdere keren gelezen heb, maar ik blijf het – in vergelijking met de rest – toch echt een toppertje vinden. (cringe) Ik bedoel, wie houdt er nu niet van sprookjes met eenhoorns en pratende nachtegaaltjes?
Avenir is werkelijkwaar de meest hypocriete persoon die ik ooit ben tegengekomen. Hoe kun je je eigen zoon achtervolgen om uiteindelijk zelf later je tot het christendom te bekeren? (Oeps, spoiler – mijn excuses.)
Daarnaast ben ik een groot voorstander van boeken geschreven in de mise-en-abymestijl. Wie houdt er nu niet van een goed raamverhaal hier en daar?

[Ebookwormy1]

This book came to my attention through two separate experiences in teaching middle ages history and literature. The first was reading Cervantes classic Don Quixote, which created an entirely new historical fiction genre. Cervantes alludes to the devotion of the masses to this work, which was second to the Bible in popularity. Secondly, in researching books for Valentine's Day, it turns out The Golden Legend is primary source material on this saint.

When I'm ready for this text, I would like to read this translation.

Don Quixote, Cervantes, 1605
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

The Story of Saint Valentine, Odden, 2007
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Stacy Croushorn · Rating 1 out of 5]

The version I have is absolutely horrible! It is riddled with typos, misspellings, incomprehensible nonsense, and is a piece of crap. I just read the first story (up to Solomon and the Queen of Sheba) and I gave up. Do not order books from the publisher General Books. There is a disclaimer with the copyright information that states that the books are scanned in and converted into readable text, but that it doesn’t always make sense and causes misspellings and they don’t have time to check for these errors. None of it makes sense. This is a shoddy piece of garbage that should not be sold to anyone.

[Ron Me]

I see the beginnings of the revival of written history in this book, written in the 1200's in Europe. On several occasions the author comments that such-and-such a source says this, while the other source says that, and that they are obviously incompatible, and that this throws doubt on the sources. While the legends themselves are often fantastic, as you would expect from the genre, this is a refreshing nugget of common sense in an ignorant world.

[Fred Kohn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a really interesting compilation of stories about the saints written in the 12th century. Some stories were reoccurring, such as various saints who caused pagan idols to crumble or beheaded saints who picked up their heads and walked some distance. Some of the stories are historical and it sometimes takes some digging to distinguish these from the fiction.

[Alper Yılmaz · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the quintessential resources for those looking for a window into the medieval European mind, whether psychologically, philosophically or (of course) religiously. The sheer amount of teachings on Christian dogma is overwhelming, and the stories of the saints are deeply insightful in terms of both the aforementioned mentality and for getting an idea of how much classical/pagan views and narratives seem to have bled into Christian culture in the centuries following the death of Christ.

[Caomhghain · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Golden Legend, as a collection from disparate sources, presents some interesting approaches to narrative. The straight through story from birth to death and the 'stained glass window' approach is commoner - ie selected significant scenes from a 'life' with the rest passed over. Earlier martyrologies tend to pile on the horrors with a final beheding being the coup de grace. The number of saints declines as we approach 'modern' times and consist to a great extent of generic miracles.

[James Violand · Rating 4 out of 5]

Other than the hyperbole inherent in this genre, this work can be inspiring. In the post-modern era of self satisfaction and situational ethics, it is refreshing to read about a time when the Good was appreciated and Evil was recognized for what it is. Demons prevail where God is ignored.

[Dave Chisholm]

After reading a dozen stories of the saints, my poor opinion of the church is unmoved, nay, it is diminished. I am however very glad to have this tome on my shelf as a reference for many wonderful works of art these stories have inspired.

[Jackson Cyril · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun reading.

[Robert Muir · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's not enough of the 'golden'and too much of the 'legend' in this book for me to give more than 3 stars.

[Chet Taranowski · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not for everybody. I read it because I was curious about saints as they appear in fine art. I think it fulfilled my purpose well.

[Lauren Shively]

didn't read the entire thing, but did read the accounts of about 2 dozen saints

[Lunabee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interessante e conciso. Lo consiglio a tutti coloro che vogliano avere qualche idea in più in merito alle vite dei santi

[Cara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Illuminating, particularly for those with an interest in the medieval church.

[Wojtek Konieczny · Rating 4 out of 5]

7/10

[natalka · Rating 3 out of 5]

[przeczytane na studia: wstep, legendy na dzien sw. Macieja Apostola, sw. Jerzego, sw. Wojciecha, sw. Stanislawa, sw. Aleksego, sw. Krzysztofa]