South English legendaries are compilations of versified
saints' lives
A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian hagiographies might ...
written in southern dialects of
Middle English
Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English p ...
from the late 13th to 15th centuries. At least fifty of these manuscripts survive, preserving nearly three hundred hagiographic works.
Manuscripts
A
legendary
Legendary may refer to:
* Legend, a folklore genre
* Legendary (hagiography)
** Anjou Legendarium
* J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium
Film and television
* ''Legendary'' (film), a 2010 American sports drama film
* ''Legendary'', a 2013 film fea ...
is any hagiographic collection. Earlier scholarship attempted to identify a unitary work known as the ''South English Legendary'' (''SEL'') that varied between different copies but still had an identifiable point of origin, similar to ''
The Canterbury Tales
''The Canterbury Tales'' ( enm, Tales of Caunterbury) is a collection of twenty-four stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. It is widely regarded as Chaucer's ''Masterpiece, ...
'' or ''
Piers Plowman
''Piers Plowman'' (written 1370–86; possibly ) or ''Visio Willelmi de Petro Ploughman'' (''William's Vision of Piers Plowman'') is a Middle English allegorical narrative poem by William Langland. It is written in un-rhymed, alliterative v ...
''. More recent work understands 'South English legendaries' as a category of manuscripts that flourished in the later Middle Ages.
The
Bodleian Library
The Bodleian Library () is the main research library of the University of Oxford, and is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. It derives its name from its founder, Sir Thomas Bodley. With over 13 million printed items, it is the second- ...
houses the oldest manuscript (MS. Laud Misc. 108), written in the late thirteenth century. It is likely that the texts this manuscripts contains predate the compilation.
Manuscripts containing versified saints' lives in Middle English include:
* Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Laud Misc. 108
* London, British Library, Harley MS 2277
* Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Ashmole 43
* London, British Library, Egerton MS 1993
* Cambridge, Magdalene College, Pepys MS 2344
* London, British Library, Stowe MS 949
* Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Eng. poet. a.1 (
Vernon MS)
* London, Lambeth Palace Library, Lambeth 223
* Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Bodl. 779
Compilation and audience
Manfred Görlach concluded that the first collection of versified saints' lives identifiable as a legendary written in southern Middle English was created c. 1270-85. This has largely been supported by subsequent scholarship. Dialectal evidence suggests that most of the texts were composed in the South-West or West Midlands of England.
[Anne B. Thompson, ''Everyday Saints and the Art of Narrative in the South English Legendary'' (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), p. 193.]
Editions
*Acker, Paul, "Saint Mildred in the ''South English Legendary''", in ''The South English Legendary: A Critical Assessment'', ed. Klaus Jankofsky (Tübingen: Francke, 1992), 140-153.
*Braswell, Laurel, "Saint Edburga of Winchester: A Study of her Cult, a.d. 950-1500, with an edition of the fourteenth-century Middle English and Latin lives", ''Mediaeval Studies'' 33 (1971), 292-333.
*D'Evelyn and Mill, ''The South English Legendary, edited from Corpus Christi College Cambridge MS. 145 and British Museum MS. Harley 2277'' (1956), review: Dorothy Bethurum,
Speculum (1959).
*Horstmann, Carl, "''The Early South English Legendary or Lives of Saints'' London: 1887. Early English Text Society 87.
*Major, Tristan, "Saint Etheldreda in the ''South English Legendary''," ''Anglia'' 128.1 (2010), 83-101.
*Nagy, Michael, "Saint Æþelberht of East Anglia in the ''South English Legendary''", ''The Chaucer Review'' 37 (2002), 159-72.
*Yeager, Stephen, "The ''South English Legendary'' "Life of St. Edwine": An Edition," ''Traditio'' 66 (2011), 170-87.
Scholarship
* Blurton, Heather and Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, ed., ''Rethinking the 'South English Legendaries (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012).
*Görlach, Manfred. ''The Textual Tradition of the South English Legendary'', Leeds Texts and Monographs, n. s. 6 (Leeds: University of Leeds, 1974).
*Jankofsky, Klaus P, ed. ''The South English Legendary: A Critical Assessment'' (Tübingen: Francke, 1992).
*Pearsall, Derek, ed. ''Studies in The Vernon Manuscript'' (Cambridge: DS Brewer, 1990).
*Samson, Annie. 'The South English Legendary: Constructing a Context', in ''Thirteenth Century England I'', ed. by P. R. Coss and S. D. Lloyd (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1985).
*Thompson, Anne. ''Everyday Saints and the Art of Narrative in the South English Legendary.'' (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003).
References
{{Reflist
Middle English literature
Christian hagiography
Harleian Collection