Value To Students of Medieval Culture
Written in simple, readable Latin, the book was read in its day for its stories. Each of these is well told, but in mass they tend to become monotonous and blur together, with their repetitious accounts of martyrdoms and miracles. The book is considered the closest to an encyclopaedia of medieval saint lore that survives today; as such it is invaluable to art historians and medievalists who seek to identify saints depicted in art by their deeds and attributes. Its repetitious nature is explained if Jacobus de Voragine meant to write a compendium of saintly lore for sermons and preaching, not a work of popular entertainment.
The critical edition of the Latin text has been edited by Giovanni Paolo Maggioni (Florence: SISMEL 1998).
A modern English translation of the Golden Legend has been published by William Granger Ryan, ISBN 0-691-00153-7 and ISBN 0-691-00154-5 (2 volumes).
A modern translation of the Golden Legend is available from Fordham University's Medieval Sourcebook.
Read more about this topic: Golden Legend
Famous quotes containing the words students, medieval and/or culture:
“We must continually remind students in the classroom that expression of different opinions and dissenting ideas affirms the intellectual process. We should forcefully explain that our role is not to teach them to think as we do but rather to teach them, by example, the importance of taking a stance that is rooted in rigorous engagement with the full range of ideas about a topic.”
—bell hooks (b. 1955)
“Our medieval historians who prefer to rely as much as possible on official documents because the chronicles are unreliable, fall thereby into an occasionally dangerous error. The documents tell us little about the difference in tone which separates us from those times; they let us forget the fervent pathos of medieval life.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“Insolent youth rides, now, in the whirlwind. For those modern iconoclasts who are without culture possess, apparently, all the courage.”
—Ellen Glasgow (1873–1945)