English Readers of Catholic Saints: The Printing History of William Caxton’s Golden Legend 2019059023, 2019059024, 9780367276126, 9780429296895

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English Readers of Catholic Saints

In 1484, William Caxton, the first publisher of English-language books, issued The Golden Legend, a translation of the most well-known collection of saints’ lives in Europe. This study analyzes the molding of the Legenda aurea into a book that powerfully attracted the English market. Modifications included not only illustrations and changes in the arrangement of chapters, but also the addition of lives of British saints and translated excerpts from the Bible, showing an appetite for vernacular scripture and stories about England’s past. The publication history of Caxton’s Golden Legend reveals attitudes towards national identity and piety within the context of English print culture during the half century prior to the Henrician Reformation. Judy Ann Ford is Professor of History at Texas A&M University–Commerce, US. Her research interests include Medieval Europe, European Reformations, Popular Religion, and J. R. R. Tolkien.

Studies in Medieval History and Culture

Recent titles include The Sense of Smell in the Middle Ages A Source of Certainty Katelynn Robinson Travel, Pilgrimage and Social Interaction from Antiquity to the Middle Ages Edited by Jenni Kuuliala and Jussi Rantala Christians and Muslims in Early Medieval Italy Perceptions, Encounters, and Clashes Luigi Andrea Berto Margaret’s Monsters Women, Identity, and the Life of St. Margaret in Medieval England Michael E. Heyes Supernatural Encounters Demons and the Restless Dead in Medieval England, c.1050–1450 Stephen Gordon Ancestor Worship and the Elite in Late Iron Age Scandinavia A Grave Matter Triin Laidoner Warfare and the Making of Early Medieval Italy (568–652) Eduardo Fabbro Rethinking Medieval Margins and Marginality Edited by Ann E. Zimo, Tiffany D. Vann Sprecher, Kathryn Reyerson and Debra Blumenthal For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ Studies-in-Medieval-History-and-Culture/book-series/SMHC

English Readers of Catholic Saints The Printing History of William Caxton’s Golden Legend Judy Ann Ford

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Judy Ann Ford The right of Judy Ann Ford to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Ford, Judy Ann, author. Title: English readers of Catholic saints : the printing history of William Caxton’s Golden legend / Judy Ann Ford. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2020. | Series: Studies in medieval history and culture | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019059023 (print) | LCCN 2019059024 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367276126 (hardback) | ISBN 9780429296895 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Jacobus, de Voragine, approximately 1229–1298. Legenda aurea. | Printing–History. | Caxton, William, approximately 1422–1491 or 1492. | Christian saints–Legends–History and criticism. | Christian hagiography–History–To 1500. Classification: LCC BX4654.J4 F67 2020 (print) | LCC BX4654.J4 (ebook) | DDC 270.092/2–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019059023 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019059024 ISBN: 978-0-367-27612-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-29689-5 (ebk) Typeset in Times by Swales & Willis, Exeter, Devon, UK

Contents

List of illustrations Acknowledgments List of abbreviations for EEBO copies List of abbreviations for physical copies

vi vii viii x

1

William Caxton and devotional literature

1

2

Caxton’s Golden Legend: the first edition

18

3

Caxton’s sources: the Legenda aurea, La Légende dorée, and the Gilte Legende

51

4

The Bible as hagiography in Caxton’s Golden Legend

68

5

England and the British Isles in Caxton’s Golden Legend

86

6

The late fifteenth-century editions

105

7

Sixteenth-century editions

134

8

The afterlife of The Golden Legend

166

Bibliography Index

187 209

Illustrations

Figures 2.1 2.2 7.1 7.2

Frontispiece, Caxton’s Golden Legend (1484) Edmund King and Martyr, Caxton’s Golden Legend (1484) Frontispiece, Caxton’s Golden Legend (1504) Frontispiece, Caxton’s Golden Legend (1507)

20 24 137 145

Tables 2.1 Illustrated chapters in Caxton’s Golden Legend (1484) 3.1 Chapters in Caxton’s Golden Legend (1484/87) and in its main source texts 6.1 Chapters in all full editions of Caxton’s Golden Legend, 1484–1527, showing size of woodcuts 7.1 Sixteenth-century editions of William Caxton’s Golden Legend, 1504–1527 7.2 Illustrated chapters in Caxton’s Golden Legend in 1st edition (1484) and the 7th edition (1512)

34 54 107 135 154

Acknowledgments

English Readers of Catholic Saints began as my project for the 2014 National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar “Tudor Books and Readers.” The project would not have been possible without the help and encouragement of my fellow participants, Jason Baxter, Alex Brooks, Julie Brown, Jay Curlin, Kenneth Hodges, Nedda Mehdizadeh, Allison Meyer, Ann Pleiss Morris, Su Fang Ng, Garth Reese, J. Asia Rowe, Katy Stavreva, Evan Thomas, Hope Johnston, and Joel M. Dodson, and especially our co-directors, John King and Mark Rankin. I am indebted to the archivists and librarians of the rare book collections I visited for their generous assistance, including those at the John Rylands Library; the Bridwell Library of the Perkins School of Theology; the Harry Ranson Center of the University of Texas at Austin; the Bodleian Library, Trinity College Old Library, Magdalen College Old Library, Brasnose College Library, and Christ Church Library of Oxford University; the Huntington Library and Museum; the Morgan Library and Museum; the Folger Shakespeare Library; and the New York Public Library. My thanks also go to the archivists and librarians who assisted me long-distance from Lambeth Palace Library and the University of Glasgow Library, Archives & Special Collections. I am also grateful for the helpful assistance of my colleagues who read and commented on portions of the text, including Mylynka Cardona, Kathryn Jacobs, Mark Moreno, Cynthia Ross, John H. Smith, and especially Robin Anne Reid.

Abbreviations for EEBO copies

Early English Books Online, ProQuest LLC, 2003–2010, http://eebo.chadwyck.com/ home. Abbreviation EEBO Copy GL EEBO 1484

GL EEBO 1487

GL EEBO 1493

GL EEBO 1498

GL EEBO 1504

GL EEBO 1507

GL EEBO 1510

Jacobus de Voragine. The Golden Legend. Trans. William Caxton. Westminster: William Caxton, 1483. Accessed through the Early English Books Online (EEBO) facsimile of an original in Cambridge University Library [STC (2nd ed.), 24873], UMI Collection/reel number: STC/ 1760:01. Jacobus de Voragine. The Golden Legend. Trans. William Caxton. Westminster: William Caxton, 1483 (i.e. 1487?). Accessed through the EEBO facsimile of an original in University of Glasgow Library, Sp Coll Hunterian Bg.1.1 [STC (2nd ed.), 24874], UMI Collection/reel number: STC/2213:03. Jacobus de Voragine. The Golden Legend. Trans. William Caxton. Westminster: Wynkyn de Worde, 1493. Accessed through the EEBO reproduction of an original in the Henry E. Huntington Library [STC (2nd ed.) 24875], UMI Collection/reel number: STC/301:03. Jacobus de Voragine. The Golden Legend. Trans. William Caxton. Westminster: Wynkyn de Worde, 1498. Accessed through the EEBO reproduction of an original in the British Library [STC (2nd ed.) 24876], UMI Collection/reel number: STC/1613:08. Jacobus de Voragine. The Golden Legend. Trans. William Caxton. London: J. Notarye, 1504. Accessed through the EEBO reproduction of an original in the British Library [STC (2nd ed.) 24877], UMI Collection/reel number: STC/15:05. Jacobus de Voragine. The Golden Legend. Trans. William Caxton. London: Wynkyn de Worde for Richard Pynson, 1507. Accessed through the EEBO reproduction of an original in Harvard University Library [STC (2nd ed.) 24878.3 & 24878.8], UMI Collection/reel number: STC/1859:36. Jacobus de Voragine. The Golden Legend. Trans. William Caxton. London: Wynkyn de Worde, 1510. Accessed through the EEBO (Continued )

Abbreviations for EEBO copies

ix

(Cont.) Abbreviation EEBO Copy

GL EEBO 1512

GL EEBO 1521

GL EEBO 1527

reproduction of an original in the British Library [STC (2nd ed.) 24880.5], UMI Collection/reel number: STC/15:06. Jacobus de Voragine. The Golden Legend. Trans. William Caxton. London: Wynkyn de Worde, 1512. Accessed through the EEBO reproduction of an original in the British Library [STC (2nd ed.) 24879], UMI Collection/reel number: STC/15:07. Jacobus de Voragine. The Golden Legend. Trans. William Caxton. London: Wynkyn de Worde, 1521. Accessed through the EEBO reproduction of an original in the Henry E. Huntington Library [STC (2nd ed.) 24879.5], UMI Collection/reel number: STC/1645:10, STC/1860:01. Jacobus de Voragine. The Golden Legend. Trans. William Caxton. London: Wynkyn de Worde, 1527. Accessed through the EEBO reproduction of an original in the British Library [STC (2nd ed.) 24880], UMI Collection/reel number: STC/16:01.

Abbreviations for physical copies

Jacobus de Voragine. The Golden Legend. Trans. William Caxton. Westminster: William Caxton, 1483 [As the 1483 edition, actually released in 1484, and its 1487 reissue are frequently mixed together in “perfected” copies, both issues are grouped here.] Abbreviation

Reference

GL Bridwell Library 1484 GL Bodleian 1484 GL Huntington 1484 GL Huntington 1487 GL John Rylands 1484 GL NYPL 1484

Bridwell Library, Special Collections 06401, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University Bodleian Libraries, Arch. G b.2. 1483, University of Oxford The Huntington Library, Rare Books 69796, San Marino, CA The Huntington Library, Rare Books 69797, San Marino, CA The John Rylands Library, Incunable Collection R4591, The University of Manchester Library The New York Public Library, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building (SASB), *K+ 1484, New York, NY The Morgan Library & Museum, PML 697, ChL 1788, New York, NY The Morgan Library & Museum, PML 780, ChL 1788, formerly ChL 1788a, New York, NY

GL Morgan Library 1484 (1) GL Morgan Library 1484 (2)

Jacobus de Voragine. The Golden Legend. Trans. William Caxton. Westminster: Wynkyn de Worde, 1493 Abbreviation

Reference

GL Folger Library 1493 GL Trinity Oxford 1493 GL Morgan Library 1493 (1) GL Morgan Library 1493 (2) GL Morgan Library 1493 (3)

The Folger Shakespeare Library, STC 24875 (folio), Washington, DC Trinity College Library, Old Library: I.16.14, Trinity College, University of Oxford The Morgan Library & Museum, PML 723, ChL 1800, New York, NY The Morgan Library & Museum, PML 724, ChL 1800a, New York, NY The Morgan Library & Museum, PML 785, ChL 1800c, New York, NY

Abbreviations for physical copies

xi

Jacobus de Voragine. The Golden Legend. Trans. William Caxton. Westminster: Wynkyn de Worde, 1498 Abbreviation

Reference

GL Magdalen Oxford 1498

Magdalen College Library, Old Library, Arch. C.I.4.1, Magdalen College, University of Oxford The John Rylands Library, Special Collections 15111, The University of Manchester Library The Morgan Library & Museum, PML 739, ChL 1813, New York, NY

GL John Rylands 1498 GL Morgan Library 1498

Jacobus de Voragine. The Golden Legend. Trans. William Caxton. London: J. Notarye, 1504 Abbreviation

Reference

GL Folger Library 1504

The Folger Shakespeare Library, STC 24877, Washington, DC Brasenose College Library, UB/S II 96, Rare N13312009, Brasenose College, University of Oxford The John Rylands Library, Special Collections 15406, The University of Manchester Library The Morgan Library & Museum, PML 767, BGOS1 00767, Printed Books, New York, NY

GL Brasenose Oxford 1504 GL John Rylands 1504 GL Morgan Library 1504

Jacobus de Voragine. The Golden Legend. Trans. William Caxton. London: Wynkyn de Worde/Richard Pynson, 1507 Abbreviation

Reference

GL Folger Library 1507

The Folger Shakespeare Library, STC 24878.3, Washington, DC

Jacobus de Voragine. The Golden Legend. Trans. William Caxton. London: Wynkyn de Worde, 1512 Abbreviation

Reference

GL Harry Ranson 1512

The Harry Ranson Center, BX4654 J33 1512, University of Texas at Austin The John Rylands Library, Special Collections 13418, The University of Manchester Library

GL John Rylands 1512

xii

Abbreviations for physical copies

Jacobus de Voragine. The Golden Legend. Trans. William Caxton. London: Wynkyn de Worde, 1521 Abbreviation

Reference

GL Folger Library 1521

The Folger Shakespeare Library, STC 24879.2, Washington, DC The John Rylands Library, Special Collections R4577, The University of Manchester Library The Morgan Library & Museum, PML 61333, New York, NY

GL John Rylands 1521 GL Morgan Library 1521

Jacobus de Voragine. The Golden Legend. Trans. William Caxton. London: Wynkyn de Worde, 1527 Abbreviation

Reference

GL Folger Library 1527

The Folger Shakespeare Library, STC 24880, Washington, DC The Huntington Library, Rare Books 69790, San Marino, CA The Huntington Library, Rare Books 69791, San Marino, CA Christ Church Library, Special Collections WN.4.12, Christ Church College, University of Oxford The New York Public Library, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building (SASB), Spencer Collection, Eng. 1527, New York, NY

GL Huntington 1527 (1) GL Huntington 1527 (2) GL Christ Church Oxford 1527 GL NYPL 1527

1

William Caxton and devotional literature

William Caxton (c.1415/24–c.1492) was the first person to print books in the English language.1 Often remembered only as a printer, that is, as someone who sets into type materials ordered by others, Caxton also functioned as a publisher.2 While his firm printed some materials to order, especially shorter tracts such as indulgences, Caxton acted as a publisher in that he selected texts to produce as books and risked his own capital in the hope that his investment would be rewarded through sales. Some texts he published in their original language and others he translated into English, implying that he thought the latter would appeal to book buyers who preferred to read in that language or who might be able to read only English. He guided the appearance of every book he produced through organization, paratext, typeface, and illustration, producing a format designed to be attractive to customers. As William Kuskin observes, a printing firm in Caxton’s day remained solvent only if its books sold in sufficiently high numbers to repay the production costs of type, labor, ink, and paper.3 Caxton was the first publisher in England whose business was financially successful.4 Many of the first generation of European printing firms were commercial failures: even Johannes Gutenberg (1400–1468), in the words of Andrew Pettegree, “died bankrupt and disappointed.”5 Caxton’s firm prospered, demonstrating that he knew his market well. An analysis of the internal logic of one of Caxton’s books to reconstruct his choices offers an outstanding opportunity to perceive in greater depth the interests and inclinations of English book buyers as imagined by a publisher whose commercial success reveals his astute understanding of his market. Some of Caxton’s texts were reissued or produced in more than one edition, either by Caxton or other early printing firms.6 Reprints and subsequent editions of the same title indicate that the sales of the first edition were deemed satisfactory. Titles from Caxton’s list picked up by other early printers very likely were reliable sellers, if not exceptional ones.7 Every edition of every title represents the culmination of a series of judgments. In addition to modifications that might be made in the text, new editions could introduce changes in the size of pages, the division of the text into columns, and the incorporation of tables of contents and illustrations, and other paratextual elements. Changes made in subsequent editions of a text indicate refinements

2

William Caxton and devotional literature

in the publishers’ attempt to market a product, as well as developments in the reading public’s tastes. Caxton’s firm was located in Westminster, but the reading public served by publishers in and around London was national. As Peter Blayney explains, success for those who made their living from the printing press was largely a matter of being able to sell books as fast as they were made. Neither Caxton nor his colleagues could have sold enough books from their own retail shops to have recovered production costs. They needed to sell books to other shopkeepers, that is, to sell multiple copies of each title at discounted prices to as many booksellers as possible, who would sell them in turn to individual buyers at a higher price.8 So in addition to a retail bookshop, Caxton would have sold books wholesale.9 Latin-language books could be sold anywhere in Europe, but those in the English language would find their market almost exclusively in England. Caxton’s English-language titles would have been sold not only in his shop in Westminster but by booksellers all over England; therefore, his catalog reveals his attempts to appeal to the tastes not only of London, but of book buyers throughout the country. Among Caxton’s titles, one was distinguished not only by a heavy initial investment in both materials and time, as it was long and required translation, but also by proving sufficiently successful to merit multiple editions issued by his shop and those of other publishers: The Golden Legend. In March of 1484, Caxton released his first edition of this massive collection of saints’ lives.10 A colossal project, this edition comprised 449 folio leaves, and was decorated throughout with woodcuts.11 It was printed on paper larger than Caxton used for any other book.12 The Golden Legend was both the largest book that Caxton translated and the largest he printed.13 He reissued it in 1487, and then a second edition was published in 1493, posthumously, by his assistant and successor in the business, Wynkyn de Worde (1455–1534).14 Worde published five additional editions by himself, the last in 1527, of which one was highly abbreviated.15 Worde also published an edition collaboratively with the London publisher Richard Pynson in 1507, and yet another London publisher, Julian Notary, produced his own edition in 1504.16 Altogether, there were ten issues released in forty-four years. The printing history of Caxton’s Golden Legend tells a story about English book buyers during a pivotal period when medieval England gave way to the English Renaissance, when the Wars of the Roses resolved into the reign of the Tudor dynasty, and when new theologies introduced by Martin Luther and his followers began to percolate into English religious thought. Caxton’s initial decision to translate and publish a massive, lavishly illustrated collection of saints’ lives, a very traditional genre of popular devotional literature, argues for his expectation that affluent customers would be found to purchase copies, a group that probably included not only ecclesiastical institutions such as parish churches, but also landed gentry, government bureaucrats, members of Parliament, lawyers, and prosperous urban merchants.17 His selection of material for that edition reveals what he believed would enhance the appeal of

William Caxton and devotional literature

3

this conventional work of popular piety, selections that include a large amount of text on British saints as well as vernacular translations of scripture. The choices made by the publishers who crafted each of the subsequent editions of Caxton’s Golden Legend over the course of nearly half a century are evidence of continuities and changes in the taste and preferences of readers in late medieval and early Tudor England. Born in Kent in the early 1420s, William Caxton had a long career trading in fine fabrics and luxury items before reinventing himself as a publisher who used the new technology of the printing press.18 Caxton was a successful businessman who belonged to the most prosperous commercial associations of his day.19 He was a member of the Mercers, the company to which the greatest number of wealthy English merchants belonged, and which, in consequence, played a prominent role in London politics.20 Mercers were merchants who traded in expensive fabrics such as silk and linen as well as small luxury goods such as manuscript books.21 Caxton joined the Mercers as an apprentice in London in 1438 and worked as a member of their company for much of his adulthood.22 In addition, Caxton belonged to the Merchant Adventurers who, like the Mercers, traded in luxury goods. They controlled the import/export trade between England and the Low Countries, with the exception of wool, which was under the authority of the Merchants of the Staple of Calais.23 The Mercers and the Merchant Adventurers were closely connected: when the Merchant Adventurers of London held meetings, they did so in the Mercers’ Hall.24 As a member of these organizations, Caxton exported manuscript books among other items from the Low Countries into England.25 His career trained him to consider books from a commercial perspective rather than a literary one.26 After his apprenticeship, Caxton lived and worked in the Low Countries from 1446 to 1476, mostly in Bruges.27 Located in the Duchy of Burgundy, one the wealthiest parts of Europe, Bruges, like Paris, was a prominent center of the trade in fine manuscripts.28 Bruges’s “golden age,” a period of extraordinary investment in literature and the arts, coincided with Caxton’s residence there.29 Although the English trade was important to its economy, the wealth of fifteenth-century Bruges attracted merchants from other states, including those of Italy. Florence, Genoa, and Venice were active in the importation of luxury goods to Bruges to meet the market created by the growing prosperity of the area. As an exporter of fine goods, Caxton had ample opportunity to encounter the products of the Italian Renaissance. As well as the fine arts, humanist culture flourished in the fifteenth-century Italian city-states, and both scholars and merchants carried that culture into Bruges.30 The municipal government of Bruges and its wealthy citizens served as patrons for the production of writing, painting, music, and architecture. The availability of patronage encouraged Italian humanist scholars as well as Renaissance artists to pursue careers there.31 Caxton knew clerics and ambassadors interested in humanism in Bruges, such as John Gunthorpe, John Russell, and John Morton.32

4

William Caxton and devotional literature

Bruges was not only a wealthy commercial center; it was also the site of the Burgundian court during the fifteenth century. Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy (r. 1419–1467) established a court in Bruges that earned a reputation for wealth, elegance, and courtliness unequalled in Europe at the time. The Burgundian court had a magnificent library containing some of the most lavish manuscript books ever made.33 Philip was a celebrated patron of literature and the arts.34 He promoted a tradition in which the dukes of Burgundy were believed to be descended from the Greek heroes of the Trojan War, particularly Hercules, who in Greek mythology was pivotal in the events that led to the war with Troy. The chivalric order Philip founded in the 1430s, partly in imitation of the Order of the Garter established by King Edward III of England (r. 1327–1377), was called the Order of the Golden Fleece. Unlike Edward’s obscurely named order, the Golden Fleece was an unambiguous reference to the classical Greek story of Jason and the Argonauts.35 While the Order of the Golden Fleece celebrated ideals of medieval knighthood, it did so through the symbolism and imagery of the Greek classical past. The practice of claiming improbable ancestors in order to associate oneself with a brilliant past era was hardly new: even the ancient Romans had done so.36 Duke Philip found value in promoting a tradition connecting his family to the ancient Greeks; his court must have respected that connection as well, participating to some degree in the Renaissance cult of the classical world. Once established in his career, Caxton became involved in courtly circles. In the 1450s he was engaged by the English Crown on diplomatic missions: a charter of 1458 details a grant of safe conduct for Caxton and Anthony de la Tour to travel to Bruges as ambassadors for Anglo-Burgundian negotiations.37 In 1462 Caxton was chosen by his colleagues to hold the prestigious position of Governor of the Merchant Adventurers in the Low Countries.38 This administrative post drew him into closer contact with both the Burgundian court and the English government.39 While governor, Caxton served King Edward IV of England (r. 1461–1470; 1471–1483) as a diplomat in negotiations with the dukes of Burgundy and the with Hanseatic League.40 Caxton’s term as governor ended in 1470, shortly before the visit Edward IV made to Burgundy while in exile from England.41 Caxton almost certainly met with Edward during his residence in the court of Burgundy with his younger sister, Margaret of York (1446–1503), who was the wife of Duke Charles the Bold of Burgundy (r. 1467–1477), Philip’s son.42 Around this time, Caxton agreed to carry out a literary commission on behalf of Margaret of York. As the duke’s wife, she was expected to participate in the sophisticated, chivalric, literate culture of her husband’s court.43 Margaret appears to have asked Caxton to complete a project that he had begun earlier, namely, translating into English a French prose version of the legend of Troy that was popular in the Burgundian court.44 The French text, Raoul Lefèvre’s Recueil des histories de Troies (1464), flatters the dukes of Burgundy by crediting the tradition that they

William Caxton and devotional literature 45

5

descended from the heroes of classical Greece. Caxton’s translation, the Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, was completed in 1472 and dedicated to Margaret of York.46 It marked the transition between Caxton’s career as a Mercer and Merchant Adventurer and his career in book production. In 1471, Caxton moved to Cologne for about a year and a half to learn the art and business of printing, probably from Johannes Veldener.47 Printing had come to Cologne in 1465, about a decade after the first book was printed in Europe.48 Returning to Bruges in 1473, Caxton printed his translation of the Troy legend, thus making the Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye the first English-language book produced on a printing press.49 He published another English translation the same year: The Game of Chess.50 The lucrative traffic in literary texts in Bruges had attracted the new technology: a printing press was established there during Caxton’s residence.51 While in Bruges, Caxton is believed to have worked in book production with Colard Mansion, a Flemish bookseller, scribe, and printer of courtly vernacular texts, usually in French.52 Relocating to England in late 1475 or early 1476, Caxton set up shop as a publisher and book dealer at a firm called the Red Pale in Westminster, near London.53 Westminster was a central location for those who followed literate professions: it was the site of a great abbey, the king’s palace, government departments, law courts, and parliament. It also hosted an annual fair.54 While the exact location of the Red Pale is unknown, Caxton’s shop was located somewhere on the route between Westminster Abbey and the Palace of Westminster, and so was well placed to be noticed by nobles and courtiers.55 But his customers were not all courtiers: Barbara Belyea notes, the city patronized his firm even more than the court did.56 The first book Caxton printed in Westminster was Geoffrey Chaucer’s (1343–1400) distinctively English The Canterbury Tales. It was followed by Caxton’s publication of more than a hundred titles, including many of his own English translations of French texts.57 Caxton maintained his court associations after returning to England, drawing upon noble connections to further his new business. Anthony Woodville, 2nd Earl Rivers (c. 1440–1483), brother-in-law of Edward IV, was one of Caxton’s most important patrons.58 Rivers and Caxton had met one another in Bruges, and one of Caxton’s earliest publications upon his return to England was a translation by Rivers: the Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers.59 Although only a minority of Caxton’s titles contain dedications or were published for a specific customer, most of those were made on behalf of members of the aristocracy or the royal family.60 Despite Caxton’s connections to the royal court, he was not named as official printer to the crown: that title was not created until after his death.61 Nevertheless, dedications to members of the royal family might have helped in marketing his list, as royal sponsorship was generally considered to be an effective advertisement.62 The usefulness of Caxton’s court connections seems to have had less to do with selling to noble

6

William Caxton and devotional literature

customers and more to do with impressing ordinary book buyers with aristocratic patronage.63 The printing press differed from manuscript book production in its ability to make many copies of the same text in a very short time, which demanded a different selling structure. As David Carlson explains, the manuscript book trade created merchandise on demand as patrons would order individual texts copied to their specifications, but the technology of the printing press introduced the mass market into the book trade. Consequently publishers were obliged to predict whether copies of a particular title would sell.64 Most of Caxton’s titles would have been made to sell to such members of the public as decided to purchase them.65 Throughout his career as a publisher, Caxton operated with the commercial shrewdness one would expect from a former Governor of the Merchant Adventurers. His success as a publisher demonstrates the advantages Caxton had in knowing both the English merchant classes and its elites well: he could anticipate what they might want to read.66 Caxton’s firm focused on the production of vernacular books, an unusual strategy in the late fifteenth century when most European publishers concentrated on Latin titles.67 Seventy-one of the 111 titles that Caxton published were either entirely or mostly written in English. He translated twenty-four of those books into English himself, mostly from French.68 At the time when Caxton set up shop in England, no one was printing books for customers who wanted to read in English. The few printers in England, all of whom were of nationalities other than English, focused on either Latin texts or Anglo-French titles for customers professionally engaged with the law.69 Caxton’s business experience led him to conclude that the local market for Latin and French books was saturated, and to realize that books in English would not need to compete against overseas competition.70 A market for material in English existed: by the fifteenth century, the literacy rate of prosperous artisans, husbandmen, and yeomen farmers was increasing, and they were more likely to read in English.71 Caxton’s decision to focus on vernacular titles shaped the early book industry in England. As Atkin and Edwards have observed, about 59 percent of all book titles printed in England before 1501were in the English language, while the comparable figure for other European vernaculars was less than 30 percent.72 Caxton’s titles appealed to his market in respect to genre as well as language. His importance is widely acknowledged for the seminal role he played in shaping the early English literary canon, particularly through being the first publisher of Geoffrey Chaucer and Thomas Malory (1415–1471). In contrast, little attention has been paid to Caxton’s work as a publisher of devotional literature, a genre described by Mary Erler as both manifesting popular devotion and guiding it.73 Yet about 35 percent of Caxton’s titles were works of devotional literature and hagiography.74 As David Carlson argues, devotional titles promised to be more remunerative for Caxton than chivalric and gentry romances because of their wider appeal.75

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7

Devotional literature might attract an ecclesiastical market, as medieval religious institutions and their clerical personnel had a long history of both producing and consuming the written word. Ecclesiastical markets established prior to the introduction of the printing press were an obvious source of customers for early publishers.76 Printing may not have survived as an economically viable technology without the demand for books and indulgences from diocesan offices and monastic houses.77 However, there was also a market of lay readers who wanted devotional literature. As Margaret Connolly notes, in England the demand for religious texts seems to have been extremely strong by the fourteenth century, and it continued so into the fifteenth.78 While much of the ecclesiastical market was Latinate, lay readers of devotional literature were more likely to choose vernacular texts and thus provided prospective customers for Caxton’s English-language titles. Some clergy, particularly parish priests, probably preferred reading in English as well. It is not surprising that, despite the many works of romance and chivalry aimed at the court and its imitators in Caxton’s catalog, the largest book he ever published, The Golden Legend, was a work of devotional literature.79 The original source of The Golden Legend was the immensely popular Latin hagiographic collection called the Legenda aurea which had been compiled in about 1260 by the Dominican friar Jacobus Voragine (c.1230–c.1299), later Bishop of Genoa, from a variety of sources including Biblical apocrypha, theological texts, and historical accounts.80 The Legenda seems to have been written for a largely clerical and mendicant audience to serve as a reference work for sermon composition. Through its incorporation into sermons and its illustration in paintings, stained glass, and other art that decorated churches, its contents undoubtedly were widely recognized among the general population.81 In addition, secular literature drew from the Legenda; for example, Geoffrey Chaucer’s Second Nun’s Tale.82 The Legenda is described by JoAnn Cruz as “probably the most influential book of its time,” and Sherry Reames writes that it “was not just a popular book in our sense; it was almost a cultural institution.”83 Not only was the Legenda known because its contents were incorporated into sermons, art, and literature, it also existed as a text in a great number of copies. In manuscript form, the Legenda has a claim to having been the most widely copied collection of saints’ lives in medieval Europe; approximately a thousand fairly complete Latin manuscript copies are extant, and it was translated into all the major European languages.84 During the first fifty years after the introduction of the printing press in Europe, editions both in the original Latin and in vernacular translations outnumbered those of the Bible.85 The Incunabula Short Title Catalogue [ITSC] lists seventy-four entries for Latin editions of the Legenda aurea published before 1501, all over Europe, including Paris, Toulouse, Cologne, Lyons, and Basel.86 A bookseller in Caxton’s England would have no difficulty importing copies for a Latin-reading market. The ITSC lists nineteen editions in French, titled La Légende dorée, during the same period, published in Paris, Lyons, and the southern Netherlands, so an English

8

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bookseller who wished to offer this book of saints’ lives to a French-reading market would have several choices as well.87 Copies of the Legenda were far from standardized. All texts copied by hand show variations because copyists not only make errors but also correct them, sometimes changing correct text perceived to be in error. In addition to undergoing that process, the manuscript Legenda was subject to very considerable intentional variation. As each chapter contained the history of a saint, or occasionally a group of affiliated saints, copyists could easily leave out chapters and add chapters without damaging any overarching narrative. Copyists did so, frequently adding the lives of saints of local interest and those of saints canonized after the manuscript they chose to copy had been written. By Caxton’s day, there were dozens of variant manuscript versions of the Legenda which differed in content as well as language. This tradition continued into the printing history of the Legenda, as publishers wanted to sell books and were willing to enhance and adapt their texts in order to do so.88 Caxton claimed, in the prologue of the first edition, to have made his Golden Legend from the Latin, French, and English books he had in front of him. Scholars believe that he relied on one or more versions of the mid-fourteenth century French La Légende dorée translated from Latin by Jean de Vignay (c.1282–c.1348), and also used in a supplementary way one or more versions of the Latin Legenda aurea and the Middle English Gilte Legende, while also incorporating material found in none of those sources.89 Vignay’s La Légende dorée enjoyed considerable popularity and was published as a printed text in several editions in France.90 The Gilte Legende was an anonymous Middle English translation of La Légende dorée made in about 1438. It seems to have enjoyed only a limited circulation, probably around London.91 Even though Caxton’s Golden Legend was also created in the fifteenth century, English readers of the 1480s might have found the language of the Gilte Legende to be somewhat dated. It was not selected for publication during the period of early printing in Europe. Caxton followed the tradition of modifying the Legenda aurea not only through translation but also through the addition of individual saints’ lives, shaping this malleable text into a collection that he imagined would be attractive to the English book-buying public. The two most significant additions he made to the contents were the incorporation of the lives of a number of British saints and the insertion of loose translations of sections of the Bible. The British material reveals an unusual emphasis on political history, particularly on the monarchy, and expresses national pride. The text in these chapters traces the development of England from a mythical past in which the Britons were the finest knights of the Roman Empire, through conflicts with Viking and Norman rulers, the quarrel between King Henry II (r. 1154–1189) and Thomas Becket (c.1119–1170), and England’s involvement in the Sixth Crusade (1228–1229). The biblical material consists of fifteen consecutive chapters in which the lives of figures from the

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9 92

Old Testament are presented in a format similar to that of lives of saints. The majority of the text of these chapters was paraphrased from the Vulgate, the standard medieval version of the Latin Bible.93 The biblical chapters cover roughly forty-six leaves, or about 10 percent of the book measured by length. These chapters were unique: there is no tradition of adding scriptural translation to the Legenda aurea, and no other known, extant version or translation of it contains chapters of biblical paraphrase.94 Considering the innovative modifications that Caxton made to The Golden Legend and in light of its popularity, it has been the subject of surprisingly little academic attention.95 No critical edition exists. The only modern edition was made by Frederick Startridge Ellis (1830–1901) in 1892 at the request of William Morris (1834–1896) for his Kelmscott Press.96 Not a scholarly enterprise, the Kelmscott Press was fundamentally an exercise in graphic arts, supporting the Arts and Crafts aesthetic which Morris promoted.97 The editor, F. S. Ellis, was neither a literary critic nor a scholar: he was a dealer in rare books and a cataloguer who worked for a time as a buyer for the British Museum and had connections to the pre-Raphaelite circle. The aesthetic aims of the richly illustrated Kelmscott edition of Caxton’s Golden Legend are clear in Ellis’s promise in the introduction that “lovers of the picturesque can scarcely fail to be charmed with such wonderful tales.”98 The Kelmscott edition is based on Caxton’s first edition: it offers no insight into Caxton’s sources, and no information about changes made in the subsequent editions of Caxton’s translation that were published between 1484 and 1527. Indeed, there is nothing in this version to alert the reader that the editions of Caxton’s Golden Legend changed over time. In 1900, J. M. Dent reprinted Ellis’s version in a plain, and more affordable, seven-volume edition without the Edward Burne-Jones illustrations.99 There have been no other modern editions of Caxton’s text. There are, of course, several modern English-language books titled The Golden Legend, but these are not editions of Caxton’s own, unique version. Modern English translations titled “The Golden Legend” usually represent attempts to recover the text as written by Jacobus Voragine in thirteenthcentury Italy, not Caxton’s Golden Legend of fifteenth-century England. For example, the popular modern English translation of The Golden Legend made by William Granger Ryan, published in 1993 and reissued in 2012 with an introduction by the well-known historian of the English Reformation, Eamon Duffy, is Ryan’s translation of Theodore Grasse’s nineteenth-century critical edition of the Latin Legenda.100 Ryan’s Golden Legend has little to do with William Caxton’s Golden Legend, and does not claim any connection. Some of the chapters are the same in both, some are similar, and others simply appear in only one or the other. The two books are variations on a theme, not editions of the same book, despite carrying the same title. The assumption that Ryan’s Golden Legend, or other modern books titled “The Golden Legend,” are the same as Caxton’s Golden Legend is very much mistaken. Similarly, the assumption that the Kelmscott Press or J. M. Dent edition accurately reflects

10 William Caxton and devotional literature the version of Caxton’s Golden Legend that a late medieval or early modern reader might have encountered is also problematic because Ellis based his work on the first edition and did not indicate the many changes that were made in the editions issued after Caxton’s death. After a successful career in the book trade lasting about fifteen years, Caxton died in 1491 or 1492, survived by his daughter Elizabeth, and his business was taken up by his long-time assistant, Wynkyn de Worde.101 With the shop, Worde received a publisher’s list that included a number of texts embodying elements rejected by the English church beginning with the religious reforms of Henry VIII (r. 1509–1547). Worde continued to publish traditional devotional texts into a period during which they may have been viewed by some as polemic, producing his last edition of The Golden Legend just as Henry VIII requested that the pope annul Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon (1485–1536). The tide turned against this book to such an extent that after Worde’s death Caxton’s Golden Legend was not reprinted for more than 350 years. Clearly, by the 1530s, the days in which English publishers could hope to make a profit from texts such as The Golden Legend had come to an end. Yet for nearly half a century prior to the 1530s, Caxton, Worde, and their competitors chose to print edition after edition of this collections of saints’ lives. Its printing history permits the reconstruction of the book-buying public in late medieval and early Tudor England through the eyes of publishers: consumers enthusiastic about the lives of saints, interested in British history, eager for vernacular scriptures, yet untroubled by the idea of transmuting either history or scripture into the genre of hagiography. Caxton’s Golden Legend represents a moment in which England could be conceptualized in a Catholic devotional context, and in which that conception could be promulgated through the medium of print. Studies of English national identity often exclude the late medieval and early modern periods, while those that consider this era typically look to the reign of Elizabeth I (r. 1558–1603) as a point of origin. Unquestionably the reign of Elizabeth marked a significant starting point for the Protestant national identity that came to characterize early modern England. Yet this historiography often assumes, implicitly or explicitly, that Protestantism was an essential element; in other words, that without the English Reformation, a national identity would not have emerged or would have done so much later. Significant in this historiography is the well-known work by Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, which in 1983 argued for a close connection among print culture, high-status vernacular languages, and the Protestant Reformation.102 Anderson locates the origin of nationalism in the nineteenth century, a late starting point that has since been contested. Even if one accepts a nineteenth-century origin for European nationalism, nevertheless, as scholars such as Cathy Shrank have emphasized, a strong sense of national identity is not synonymous with nationalism but a prerequisite for it.103 Shrank and others who argue for a strong sense of English national identity in the Tudor

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period still tend to assume its position within the context of a Protestant ecclesiology.104 For example, Shrank claims that “the split from Rome, effected by a series of parliamentary acts between 1533 and 1536, had arguably the greatest influence on the construction of English national identity.”105 Caxton’s Golden Legend offers evidence to counter that assumption. The publishing history of this book is a reminder that both print culture and high-status vernacularity significantly predated Protestantism in England. It demonstrates the existence of an audience of late medieval and early Tudor readers who were drawn to narratives portraying England as a widely admired unit within the universal church and attracted to vernacular translations of scripture, and who were untroubled by having both elements enfolded within a long-established Catholic hagiographic tradition. The publishing history of Caxton’s Golden Legend discloses an oftenunrecognized narrative about English culture and the history of books in the half century prior to the Henrician Reformation, and this study aims to tell that story. Caxton’s original edition of The Golden Legend is the subject of Chapter 2 which analyzes his work as a unique construction within the Legenda aurea tradition. Chapter 2 explores the book’s visual appearance, organization of chapters, paratext, and illustrations as evidence of decisions Caxton made in designing a product to attract an English audience. Chapter 3 addresses the question of Caxton’s creative transformation of his three main sources: the mid-thirteenth-century Latin Legenda aurea; its mid-fourteenth-century French translation, La Légende dorée; and its early fifteenth-century Middle English translation, the Gilte Legende. The fourth chapter focuses on the most obvious alteration Caxton made in his version of the Legenda, namely, the addition of chapters from the Old Testament presented as hagiography. Chapter 4 situates this transformative effort in the context of the demand for vernacular scripture in late medieval England and explores how it fits into the history of the vernacular English Bible. Chapter 5 explores the chapters on British saints in Caxton’s Golden Legend, most of whose lives were not included in Latin or French versions of the Legenda. It also analyzes the other chapters in Caxton’s version that contain elements of British history. This material is considered within the framework of English national identity. Chapter 6 examines the two editions released by Wynkyn de Worde in the 1490s, and Chapter 7 explores the sixteenth-century editions produced by Worde, Richard Pynson, and Julian Notary. The changes and continuities in each edition reveal the publishers’ efforts to refine and increase the appeal of this text for a changing market. After Worde’s last edition in 1527, although there were no further editions or reprintings for more than 300 years, existing copies continued to be used. Some readers recorded their responses by marking the text. Chapter 8 explores the marginal notes made by readers – underlining, comments, manicules, and other marks made in the books – and, to the extent possible, determines the century in which they were made based on the admittedly imprecise method of categorizing the script in which they

12 William Caxton and devotional literature were written. Collectively, these readers’ annotations suggest a picture of the attitudes and values of the book owners and readers. This chapter analyzes reader responses over the course of the early modern period.

Notes 1 The study of William Caxton has produced a substantial historiography. Important studies include: Lotte Hellinga, William Caxton and Early Printing in England (London: The British Library, 2010); William Kuskin, ed., Caxton’s Trace: Studies in the History of English Printing (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006); William Kuskin, Symbolic Caxton: Literary Culture and Print Capitalism (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008); Anne F. Sutton, “Caxton was a Mercer: His Social Milieu and Friends,” in England in the Fifteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1992 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. Nicholas Rogers, Harlaxton Medieval Studies, vol. 4 (Stamford: Paul Watkins, 1992), 118–48; and Norman Francis Blake, William Caxton and English Literary Culture (London: Hambledon Press, 1991). 2 Useful definitions of these terms as they apply to the production of early books may be found in Sarah Werner, Studying Early Printed Books, 1450–1800: A Practical Guide (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell, 2019), 8 and 176. 3 Kuskin, Symbolic Caxton, 17. 4 Tamara Atkin and A. S. G. Edwards, “Printers, Publishers and Promoters to 1558,” in A Companion to the Early Printed Book in Britain, 1476–1558, ed. Vincent Gillespie and Susan Powell (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2014), 29. 5 Andrew Pettegree, The Book in the Renaissance (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010), 21. 6 The term “edition” is imprecise, even when applied to modern printed books. It is defined by Werner as “all copies of a book made from (mostly) the same setting of type”: Werner, Studying, 173. 7 Pettegree, The Book, 69. 8 Peter W. M. Blayney, The Stationers’ Company before the Charter, 1403–1557 (London: The Worshipful Company of Stationers & Newspapermakers, 2003), 23. 9 Alexandria Gillespie, “Bookbinding and Printing in England,” in Gillespie and Powell, Early Printed Book, 81–82. 10 GL EEBO 1484. The imprint statement in the colophon specifies 1483, but the release of the book was most likely delayed until March1484 by a shortage of paper. See Anne Sutton, “William Caxton, Merchant and King’s Printer,” in The Medieval Merchant, ed. Caroline Barron and Anne F. Sutton, Harlaxton Medieval Studies, 24 (Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2014), 273. 11 Pierce Butler, “Legenda Aurea – Légende Dorée – Golden Legend: A Study of Caxton’s Golden Legend with Special Reference to Its Relations to the Earlier English Prose Translation,” PhD diss. (The Johns Hopkins University, 1899), 10–11, 143. 12 Hellinga, William Caxton, 70. 13 Hellinga, William Caxton, 70. 14 The ISTC labels the 1487 printing as a second issue of the first edition: “Incunabula Short Title Catalogue” [ISTC], British Library, published 18 August 2017, https://data.cerl.org/istc/ij00148000. An issue, to quote Werner, is a “deliberately planned and identified group of copies of an edition that differ in some bibliographic way from the rest of the edition”: Werner, Studying, 175. In other words, the first edition was reissued in 1487 with a new colophon, so both the 1484 printing and the 1487 printing are part of the same edition. Furthermore,

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15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

34 35 36 37

13

as noted in the ISTC, copies of Caxton’s 1484 edition of The Golden Legend were frequently made up or “perfected” with leaves printed in 1487; that is, missing or damaged leaves from the former were replaced by some early modern or modern owner with leaves from the latter to make a “complete” copy. The practice of “perfecting” copies was common in the nineteenth century: Warner, Studying, 136–37. This practice was so frequently applied to the first edition of Caxton’s Golden Legend that most extant copies of the 1484 and 1487 versions are made up of leaves from both: Henry R. Plomer, A Short History of English Printing, 1476–1898, ed. Alfred Pollard (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1900), 14. The four full-length editions are GL EEBO 1498; GL EEBO 1512; GL EEBO 1521; and GL EEBO 1527. The abbreviated edition is GL EEBO 1510. The Notary edition is GL EEBO 1504. The 1507 edition was made in two different issues produced simultaneously. In one, the colophon indicates Worde as the printer; in the other, Pynson is indicated. Hellinga, William Caxton, 107. His home town is a matter of debate; it may have been Strood: Sutton, “Caxton was a Mercer,” 129. Louise Wilson, Gordon Kendal, and Neil Rhodes, eds., English Renaissance Translation Theory, MHRA Tudor & Stuart Translations, vol. 9 (London: Modern Humanities Research Association, 2013), 215. G. D. Ramsay, “A Saint in the City: Thomas More at Mercers’ Hall, London,” The English Historical Review 97 (1982): 280. Sutton, “Caxton was a Mercer,” 120. Hellinga, William Caxton, 13. He was apprenticed to the Mercer Robert Large, who served as mayor of London: Kuskin, Symbolic Caxton, 18. Sutton, “Caxton was a Mercer,” 121; Louise Gill, “William Caxton and the Rebellion of 1483,” English Historical Review 112 (1997): 106–7. Ramsay, “A Saint,” 281. Gill, “William Caxton,” 106–7. Vincent Gillespie, “Introduction,” in Gillespie and Powell, Early Printed Book, 4. Wilson, Kendal, and Rhodes, English Renaissance, 215; Hellinga, William Caxton, 1–2. Pettegree, The Book, 48. Hellinga, William Caxton, 14–15. At least one merchant family from Genoa built a library in Bruges that contained humanist texts: Hellinga, William Caxton, 14–16. Samuel Mareel, “Urban Literary Patronage in the Early Modern Low Countries: Public Festive Culture and Individual Authorship,” Renaissance Quarterly 64, no. 1 (2011): 53–54. Daniel Wakelin, Humanism, Reading and English Literature, 1430–1530 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 127. Gordon Kipling, The Triumph of Honour: Burgundian Origins of the Elizabethan Renaissance (The Hague: Leiden University Press, 1977), 1. A document from 1467 shows the dukes of Burgundy owning about 900 books: Anne F. Sutton and Livia Visser-Fuchs, “Choosing a Book in Late Fifteenth-Century England and Burgundy,” in England and the Low Countries in the Late Middle Ages, ed. Caroline Barron and Nigel Saul (Sutton: Stroud, 1995), 62. Hellinga, William Caxton, 15. Hellinga, William Caxton, 19–21. The identification of the “garter” in Edward’s chivalric order remains a matter of controversy and debate. Vergil’s Aeneid makes the Trojans ancestors of the Romans. Gill, “William Caxton,” 107.

14 William Caxton and devotional literature 38 Sutton, “Caxton was a Mercer,” 122; Wilson, Kendal, and Rhodes, English Renaissance, 215; Hellinga, William Caxton, 2. 39 Hellinga, William Caxton, 14 and 19; Gill, 108–10. 40 Gill, “William Caxton,” 107–8. 41 Sutton, “William Caxton,” 262. 42 Gill, “William Caxton,” 108. 43 Hellinga, William Caxton, 19–21. Also see the discussion in Alexandria Gillespie, Print Culture and the Medieval Author: Chaucer, Lydgate and Their Books, 1473–1557 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 27–30. 44 Sutton, “William Caxton,” 262–63. 45 Wilson, Kendal, and Rhodes, English Renaissance, 216. 46 Wilson, Kendal, and Rhodes, English Renaissance, 216; Sutton, “William Caxton,” 266. 47 Hellinga, William Caxton, 1–2; John King, “Early Modern English Print Culture,” in A Companion to the History of the English Language, ed. Haruko Momma and Michael Matto (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2018), 284. 48 Hellinga, William Caxton, 7. There is a sizable literature on the origins of printing in Europe. See especially: Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979); Jean-François Gilmont, ed., The Reformation and the Book, trans. Karin Maag, rpt. ed. (London: Routledge, 2016); and Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 49 Hellinga, William Caxton, 12. 50 Hellinga, William Caxton, 33. 51 Pettegree, The Book, 48. 52 Paul Saenger, “Colard Mansion and the Evolution of the Printed Book,” The Library Quarterly 45, no. 4 (1975): 405–18; Atkin and Edwards, “Printers, Publishers and Promoters,” 27. 53 William Kuskin, “Introduction,” in Kuskin, Symbolic Caxton, 13–15. Caxton continued to import books as well as publish them: Jessica Coatesworth, “The Design of the Golden Legend: English Printing in a European Context,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 91 (2015): 23. 54 Sutton, “Caxton was a Mercer,” 133. 55 Peter W. M. Blayney, “The Site of the Sign of the Sun,” in The London Book Trade: Topographies of Print in the Metropolis from the Sixteenth Century, ed. Robin Myers, Michael Harris, and Giles Mandelbrote (London: Oak Knoll Press & The British Library, 2003), 2. 56 Barbara Belyea, “Caxton’s Reading Public,” English Language Notes 19 (1981): 16. 57 Wilson, Kendal, and Rhodes, English Renaissance, 215; Anne F. Sutton, “Merchants,” in Gillespie and Powell, Early Printed Book, 127. 58 Hellinga, William Caxton, 61. 59 David Baldwin, The Kingmaker’s Sisters: Six Powerful Women in the Wars of the Roses (Stroud, Gloucestershire: History Press, 2009), 107. 60 Caxton published fourteen books dedicated to or published for members of the royalty or aristocracy: two for King Edward IV; three for Earl Rivers; and one each for Edward, Prince of Wales; Margaret of York; George, Duke of Clarence; King Richard III; the Earl of Arundel; Lady Margaret Beaufort; King Henry VII: the Earl of Oxford; Arthur, Prince of Wales: Sutton, “Caxton was a Mercer,” 118. 61 Nevertheless, he may have been seen by others as having the king’s patronage. On 20 November 1482, William Purde wrote in his copy of Trevisa’s translation of Higden’s Polychronicon that it had been bought from Caxton, “printer of the king.” Like Caxton, Purde was a Mercer: Sutton, “Merchants,”129.

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62 A. S. G. Edwards and Carol M. Meale, “The Marketing of Printed Books in Late Medieval England,” The Library, 6th ser., 15 (1993): 103. 63 Edwards and Meale, “Marketing,” 96. 64 David R. Carlson, “Chaucer, Humanism, and Printing: Conditions of Authorship in Fifteenth-Century England,” University of Toronto Quarterly 64 (Spring 1995): 278. 65 Hellinga, William Caxton, 52. 66 Sutton, “Merchants,” 128. 67 Hellinga, William Caxton, 34. 68 Hellinga, William Caxton, 60 and 113. 69 Hellinga, William Caxton, 2; Sutton, “Merchants,”128; Gillespie, “Introduction,” 4. 70 Sutton, “Merchants,’127. 71 I. M. W. Harvey, “Was there Popular Politics in Fifteenth-Century England?” in The Macfarlane Legacy: Studies in Late Medieval Politics and Society, ed. R. H. Britnell and A. J. Pollard (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995), 159. 72 Atkin and Edwards, “Printers, Publishers and Promoters,” 28; William Kuskin, “‘Onely imagined’: Vernacular Community and the English Press,” in Caxton’s Trace: Studies in the History of English Printing, ed. William Kuskin (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006), 199. 73 Gillespie, “Introduction,” 1; Mary C. Erler, “Devotional Literature,” in The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, vol. 3, 1400–1557, ed. Lotte Hellinga and J. B. Trapp (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 496. 74 Susan Powell, “The Secular Clergy,” in Gillespie and Powell, Early Printed Book, 155. 75 David R. Carlson, “A Theory of the Early English Printing Firm,” in Caxton’s Trace: Studies in the History of English Printing, ed. William Kuskin (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006), 52–53. 76 Gillespie, “Introduction,” 7. 77 Gillespie, “Introduction,” 7. 78 Margaret Connolly, “Compiling the Book,” in The Production of Books in England 1350–1500, ed. Alexandria Gillespie and Daniel Wakelin, Cambridge Studies in Paleography and Codicology, gen. ed. David Ganz and Teresa Webber (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 133. 79 Lotte Hellinga, “The Golden Legend,” in Gothic Art for England, 1400–1547, ed. Richard Marks and Paul Williamson, item 226 (London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 2003), 346–47. 80 Sherry L. Reames, The “Legenda aurea”: A Reexamination of its Paradoxical History (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), 245, n. 2.; Richard Hamer, “Introduction,” in The Golden Legend: Selections, Jacobus de Voragine, trans. Christopher Stace, introduction and notes by Richard Hamer (London: Penguin Books, 1998), ix. See also Jacques Le Goff, In Search of Sacred Time: Jacobus de Voragine and “The Golden Legend,” trans. Lydia G. Cochrane (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014). 81 Hamer, “Introduction,” ix. 82 Reames, Reexamination, 4. 83 JoAnn Hoeppner Moran Cruz, “Popular Attitudes towards Islam in Medieval Europe,” in Western Views of Islam in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Perception of Other, ed. David R. Blanks and Michael Frassetto (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999), 66; Reames, Reexamination, 3. The consensus that the Legenda was the most influential books of its time is widely repeated. 84 William Granger Ryan, “Introduction,” in The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, Jacobus de Voragine, trans. William Granger Ryan, vol. 1 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), xiii.

16 William Caxton and devotional literature 85 Manfred Görlach, The “South English Legendary,”“Gilte legend” and “Golden legend”(Braunschweig: Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 1972) 7, n. 2. 86 “Incunabula Short Title Catalogue” [ISTC], British Library, accessed 5 August 2019, www.bl.uk/catalogues/istc/. 87 “Incunabula Short Title Catalogue” [ISTC], British Library, accessed 5 August 2019, www.bl.uk/catalogues/istc/. 88 Mart van Duijin, “Printing, Public, and Power: Shaping the First Printed Bible in Dutch (1477),” Church History and Religious Culture 93 (2013): 289. 89 Butler, “A Study,” 10–11; John Scahill, “Caxton at Work: How the Temporale of the Golden Legend Was Made,” Journal of the Early Book Society for the Study of Manuscripts and Printing History 21 (2018): 197–214. 90 Butler, “A Study,” 12. See also Hellinga, William Caxton, 70. 91 Michael Lapidge, The Cult of St. Swithun, Winchester Studies 4, vol. 2, The Anglo-Saxon Minsters of Winchester (Oxford: Clarendon Press for the Winchester Excavations Committee, 2003), 71–72. 92 There was precedent for treating Old Testament figures as saints, but only in contexts that were likely unfamiliar to Caxton. Robert Bartlett notes that while Byzantium, Greece, and Venice (which traded extensively with Byzantium and participated in the looting of Constantinople in 1204), treated such Old Testament figures as Abraham, Isaac, and David as saints, western Europe very rarely did so. Bartlett attributes the difference to the presence of these figures’ relics in the Greek-speaking regions: Robert Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things? Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation, rpt. ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015), 205. 93 N. F. Blake, “The Biblical Additions in Caxton’s Golden Legend,” Traditio 25 (1969): 231. See also Sarah M. Horrall, “William Caxton’s Biblical Translation,” Medium Aevum 53, no. 1 (1984): 91–98. 94 James H. Morey, Book and Verse: A Guide to Middle English Biblical Literature, Illinois Medieval Studies (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000), 154. 95 Useful studies exist comparing Caxton’s Golden Legend to its Latin and vernacular sources and counterparts. See especially Butler, “A Study,” and Coatesworth, “The Design.” 96 F. S. Ellis, ed., The Golden Legend (Hammersmith: Kelmscott Press, 1892). 97 See William S. Peterson, The Kelmscott Press: A History of William Morris’s Typographical Adventure (Oakland: University of California Press, 1991). 98 F. S. Ellis, “Prologue,” The Golden Legend, ed. F. S. Ellis, vol. 1, The Temple Classics (London: J. M. Dent, 1900), vi–vii. 99 F. S. Ellis, ed., The Golden Legend, 7 vols., The Temple Classics (London: J. M. Dent, 1900). 100 Ryan’s translation is based on the second Latin edition produced by Theodor Graesse, which was at that time considered the standard critical Latin edition: William Granger Ryan, trans., The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, by Jacobus de Voragine (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), vol. 1, xiii. 101 Robert Grabhorn, A Short Account of The Life and Work of Wynkyn de Worde with a Leaf from the Golden Legend Printed by Him at the Sign of the Sun in Fleet Street, London, the Year 1517 (San Francisco: Grabhorn Press, 1948), 2; Kuskin, Symbolic Caxton, 15. 102 See especially the chapter “The Origins of National Consciousness” in Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed. (London: Verso, 2006), 37–46. Thirty years after Anderson’s initial publication, vigorous advocates for locating the origins of English national identity in the nineteenth century still exist. See, for example, Krishan

William Caxton and devotional literature

17

Kumar, The Making of English National Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 103 Cathy Shrank, Writing the Nation in Reformation England, 1530–1580 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 2. 104 For example, see Jeremy Gregory, “The Making of a Protestant Nation; ‘Success’ and ‘Failure’ in England’s Long Reformation,” in England’s Long Reformation, 1500–1800, ed. Nicholas Tyacke (London: University College London, 1998), 307–34; and Richard Helgerson, Forms of Nationhood: The Elizabethan Writing of England (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992). Even scholars who focus on Catholics still tend to locate the English sense of national identity in the context of a Protestant ecclesiology. For example, see Christopher Highley, Catholics Writing the Nation in Early Modern Britain and Ireland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). 105 Shrank, Writing, 8.

2

Caxton’s Golden Legend The first edition

In March of 1484 when the first edition of William Caxton’s Golden Legend was completed and ready to offer to the public, potential book buyers in England would have found themselves in unusual and perhaps worrying times.1 The death of King Edward IV in the spring of 1483 left the throne to a minor, as both his sons, Edward V (b. 1470) and Richard, Duke of York (b. 1473), were still children. By the summer their uncle, the duke of Gloucester, had become King Richard III (r. 1483–1485). His nephews disappeared from public view and almost certainly were killed while held in the Tower of London. They are often known today as the Princes in the Tower. An Italian observer described London as pervaded by a mood of dismay.2 By the fall of 1483, a brief uprising against Richard III called Buckingham’s Rebellion had been attempted and suppressed.3 Caxton suffered repercussions from these events: in January 1484 he completed printing his translation of Geoffrey de la Tour Landry’s Knight of the Tower for Elizabeth Woodville (1437–1492), mother of the Princes in the Tower, but chose not to name her as patron because, by the time of the book’s release, she was widowed and living in sanctuary in Westminster Abbey as protection against Richard III, her brother-in-law.4 Those book buyers who belonged to intellectual circles may have been stirred by the currents of the Italian Renaissance, a movement whose devotion to the classical age might have influenced Caxton’s release of Aesop’s Fables, a text believed to have originated in ancient Greece, at around the same time as The Golden Legend, as well as his publication of his translation of Cato’s Distichs, from ancient Rome, just prior to Aesop’s Fables.5 Devout book buyers would have been unaware of what was heralded by the birth of Martin Luther a few weeks after the Princes in the Tower vanished, but those in touch with the Continent may have known about the publication of the New Testament in French a few years earlier, in 1478, and perhaps wished for an English version.6 Even in turbulent times, people of means bought books. By the 1480s, book buyers attracted by novelty or moved by the desire to appear forward-looking may have sought printed books; others may have preferred handwritten codices or not cared how the text was reproduced. People in England seeking to start or expand a personal library in the spring of 1484, along with

Caxton’s Golden Legend 19 representatives of institutions such as parish churches and monasteries searching for new material, could have found, among their other options, an old favorite, the Legenda aurea, in a brand-new English translation. Customers looking at Caxton’s Golden Legend would have seen a large folio book. It contained nearly 900 pages printed on paper larger than Caxton used for any other project.7 Gordon Duff states that a full sheet measured 2 feet by 16 inches.8 One extant copy that seems not to have been trimmed by later owners, unlike most copies of this edition, measures 15.87 x 11.54 x 3.54 inches.9 The size of The Golden Legend would have conditioned the way it was used.10 Large books cannot be moved easily and may require special equipment, such as a lectern.11 As King and Rankin explain, folio books were “suited for reading in a scholar’s study, on a church podium, or on a family lectern.”12 The size of Caxton’s Golden Legend implies that potential buyers would need personal or institutional space devoted, at least part of the time, to reading and study. It was a substantial book for at least reasonably prosperous readers. Buyers of Caxton’s Golden Legend would have been unlikely to have seen the book enclosed within a cover prior to purchase. Booksellers, called stationers, typically kept on hand only a few copies of bound books; most books would have been sold unbound as gatherings of pages stitched together.13 Bookbinders were a distinct occupation from stationers; binders normally worked to the specifications of book owners rather than those of publishers. Caxton probably employed or worked closely with a bookbinder for books he offered through retail sales, but most books would have been bought unbound.14 Those who owned several books may have chosen to have them bound in matching covers to create a uniform library. Other readers may have collected several smaller texts to be bound together in what is called a “sammelband,” creating a small personal library between two covers.15 In any case, publishers in Caxton’s day could not rely on a striking cover to attract buyers to a book, but they could and did use woodcuts to fill the pages of the text with eye-catching images. A customer approaching the first edition of Caxton’s Golden Legend by looking at its first leaf would not have seen a title or publication information because, like all of Caxton’s books, it had no title page. Title pages did not become common until shortly after this time.16 The first page that a customer would have seen upon opening this edition featured a large woodcut, almost a full page in size, and below it, text in the English language (see Figure 2.1).17 All the elements on this page – the woodcut, the words, their language, and their typeface – would have conveyed meaning to readers. Woodcuts were used in early printed books to entice buyers in a variety of ways. Pictures created an air of luxury by increasing the similarity between printed books and illuminated manuscripts.18 Customers might have been drawn to a generously illustrated text because they wanted something that looked sumptuous. Consequently, woodcuts were sometimes employed as mere decorative elements, and at times printers used woodcuts

20 Caxton’s Golden Legend

Figure 2.1 Frontispiece, Caxton’s Golden Legend (1484) [Hunterian Bg.1.1]. Used by permission of the University of Glasgow Library, Archives & Special Collections.

Caxton’s Golden Legend 21 to fill out the text on a page. In addition to looking luxurious, images may have exercised a particular appeal to customers on the borders of literacy because they could illustrate the meaning of a verbal passage, aiding the reading process.20 Illustrations might have served as inducements to read, or as relief from the hard work of deciphering a text.21 In addition, woodcuts provided a visual vocabulary that identified and classified texts for potential customers who were not expert book buyers.22 In other words, pictures might have indicated the genre of the text. The general public would have been familiar with a catalog of visual images that functioned in contexts independent from textual illustration.23 For example, martyrs were frequently identified by images of the instruments of their death, and were depicted that way in paintings, statues, stained glass, and other media. In early printed books, woodcuts were frequently reused, and their repetition could create a sense of visual continuity within a book, across several editions of the same book, or even among completely different books, creating relationships for readers.24 A shrewd publisher could use illustrations to shape how customers experienced a book even before reading it. A potential buyer would have seen woodcuts printed in black and white. Aside from a small amount of experimentation with red and blue lettering there were no colored inks used in early English printed books.25 Sometimes owners rubricated initial letters, or paid illustrators to do so, and some even painted colors on the woodcuts, but these steps would be taken after purchase.26 Publishers did not control the painting of illustrations, but did control their size, quantity, placement, and of course, their subject matter. The image that opens Caxton’s Golden Legend depicts the Trinity seated among clouds surrounded on either side by angels above a crowd of people identified as saints by their halos (Figure 2.1). The crowd is diverse – male and female; clerical, lay, and monastic – perhaps offering a subject of identification or particular devotion to a diverse body of potential readers. Women stand on one side, men on the other, as was typical of the arrangement of parishioners in medieval parish churches.27 Among the men, priests, monks, and friars occupy the lower row; apostles and martyrs fill the upper row. Some of the saints are easily identified by their iconography, such as Saint James the Apostle, positioned near the left margin, wearing his cockle hat, and Saint Katherine of Alexandria, near the lower margin on the right, with the long, loose hair that symbolizes female virginity, wearing the crown and furs that indicate royal status, and carrying the wheel and sword that symbolize her torture and execution. Other saints are anonymous figures of whom only a partial halo may be seen. Customers would have easily categorized the book by this image as a collection of many saints’ lives. A saint standing near the center of the bottom row whose eyes are raised up towards God is clearly recognizable as Peter the Apostle by his key and his short square beard.28 The key represents his control over the admittance of souls into heaven. This image depicts Peter as a pope: he both holds a papal staff and wears a papal tiara, or triple crown, iconography that was 19

22 Caxton’s Golden Legend uncommon and served to emphasize his role in the ecclesiastical hierarchy.29 Chief among the justifications made by the late antique and medieval church for recognizing the bishop of Rome as pope was the claim that papal succession may be traced back to Peter, who was given the office by Jesus. The ecclesiological position implied by this depiction of Peter is one that supports a claim that the papacy is a divinely instituted office validated by apostolic succession. The compositionally conspicuous position of Peter in this image may have served to remind readers of an aspiration to be admitted to heaven, an ambition potentially furthered by reading about and imitating saints. This particular representation of Peter as pope was uncontroversial and orthodox; nevertheless, it serves as a reminder that Caxton’s decision to use this image in such a prominent location, as arguably the principal visual device attracting readers to the book, indicates that he expected English readers to find the idea of Peter as a pope to be appealing. The choice of the Trinity to depict God is also noteworthy. The Trinity was one of the more problematic Christian doctrines to illustrate through an image, at least without suggesting that Christians worship three gods.30 Nevertheless, its employment may have signaled to readers a commitment to orthodox theology because the rejection of Trinitarian imagery was associated with the principal heretical ideology of late medieval England. In the fourteenth century, the opinions of Oxford theologian John Wycliffe (c.1331–1384) came to resemble in some respects those of later Protestants, particularly in regard to the claim of the superior authority of scripture over tradition and the advocacy of vernacular scriptures.31 His followers, known as lollards, accepted Wycliffe’s teachings to a greater or lesser extent; they were never a centrally organized group and there is a lack of scholarly consensus regarding both their numbers and the strength of their influence.32 Wycliffe, who criticized the use of religious images generally, condemned in particular the use of images to depict the Trinity.33 Moreover, in the “Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards,” a statement of belief presented to Parliament in the late fourteenth century, the eighth conclusion, which recommends that people be taught that pilgrimages and offerings to saints are more pagan than Christian, condemns depictions of the Trinity as “abominable.”34 So closely was the rejection of Trinitarian imagery associated with heresy that the Feast of the Trinity came to be seen as an occasion on which to preach against heretics.35 Yet the Trinity held a special place in English piety as expressed by the crown. When King Edward III founded the Order of the Garter in the late 1340s, he dedicated the organization to Mary, Saint Edward the Confessor, Saint George, and the Trinity.36 King Henry V (r. 1413–1422) chose to have these same four patrons represented on his banners at the Battle of Agincourt.37 Although Caxton may not have known about the iconography used at Agincourt, he was certainly familiar with the Order of the Garter, alluding to it in a passage that he almost certainly composed himself in the chapter on Saint George.38 Caxton’s selection, or his approval of the selection, of this particular woodcut as the

Caxton’s Golden Legend 23 introduction to this legendary indicates that he was seeking to appeal to readers whose piety embraced orthodoxy, and perhaps particularly to readers who knew of the royal devotion to the Trinity and either shared it, or wished to imitate it, or wanted to be seen as sharing it. It is conceivable that those who purchased Caxton’s Golden Legend might be attracted not only by elements that reflected positions and beliefs that they genuinely held, but also by those that they wished others to attribute to them, regardless of their authenticity. This All Saints woodcut gestures towards the English monarchy in a more direct way than its incorporation of a Trinitarian image: one of the identifiable saints, positioned at the center-left, is Saint Edmund King and Martyr, the Anglo-Saxon monarch King Edmund I (r. c.855–c.869). He can be identified by the combination of his royal attire, that is, his crown and fur collar; by his lack of a tonsure, indicating lay status; and by the arrow he carries, which was the instrument of his martyrdom. Similar iconography may be seen in the woodcut illustrating the chapter on Edmund King and Martyr later in the book (see Figure 2.2).39 Unlike James, whose shrine in Compostela elevated his cult to among the most widely known in Europe, and unlike the cults of most of the identifiable saints in this woodcut, the cult of Saint Edmund King and Martyr would not have been widely known outside England. In fact, he would not typically have been included in most versions of the Legenda aurea (see Table 3.1). But Edmund King and Martyr was not forgotten in England: John Lydgate (c.1370–c.1451) wrote a lengthy poem about him, a poem presented to King Henry VI (r. 1422–1461, 1470–1471) during his minority. Caxton was a great admirer of Lydgate.40 Edmund’s inclusion and his position in a visually prominent spot near the center of the image seems to be an attempt to attract potential readers who are already interested in his cult, or in the English monarchy, or both. A customer browsing through the first few leaves of the book may have taken a moment to read the text below the initial woodcut. It would have been easy for most readers to decipher, as both the typeface and the language would have been familiar. The text was printed in a Gothic typeface, also known as English black letter.41 The typefaces Caxton used looked very much like scripts used in late medieval manuscript production, so most readers would have been accustomed to them.42 Roman typeface was becoming dominant in Italy. Like Gothic, it was based on scribal hands, but specifically those hands favored by humanistic scribes associated with Renaissance literary production.43 English readers might have found roman typefaces more challenging than black letter, and Caxton owned no roman typefaces.44 Black letter was commonly used in books printed in England through the middle of the sixteenth century.45 By the later sixteenth century, readers might draw deductions about the genre of a text based on its typeface, but they probably would not have done so at the time of the first edition of The Golden Legend. The text below the initial woodcut was in English, as was the rest of the text in the book. Customers in England should not have been surprised at

24 Caxton’s Golden Legend

Figure 2.2 Edmund King and Martyr, Caxton’s Golden Legend (1484) [Hunterian Bg.1.1, folio CCClxxvii recto]. Used by permission of the University of Glasgow Library, Archives & Special Collections.

Caxton’s Golden Legend 25 the choice of language, as the clear majority of Caxton’s publications, and indeed the majority of early printed books in England, were in English.46 Nor would it have been remarkable for a devotional text to be published in the vernacular. In spite of deep-seated associations between lollardy and the use of the English language for religious purposes, a large number of orthodox religious texts were written in the English vernacular and at least some clergy encouraged their production.47 Caxton’s choice of the English language and black letter typeface made the text assessible to the broadest possible group of English readers. He might have chosen to use Latin, or to have experimented with roman type: such choices might have implied an interest in attracting a more elite audience, perhaps more educated, or more interested in Renaissance humanism. Instead, a wider net was cast to draw in any potential buyer with the wherewithal to purchase a large book. An attempt to appeal to a broad group of readers rather than to the most sophisticated is also indicated by the arrangement of the text into two columns. Modern readers, at least, find that the longer the line of text, the more difficult it is for the eye to follow.48 Less experienced readers may prefer shorter lines of text. Customers who paused to read through the section of text beginning below the All Saints image would have been reading the prologue. This part of the book offered an opportunity to captivate an audience. Scholars note that Caxton used prologues and epilogues to attract buyers: as David Carlson explains, they functioned like twentieth-century blurbs.49 Caxton’s prologue to the first edition of The Golden Legend is comprised of two parts: the prologue proper and a dedication. The prologue begins on the recto of the first unfoliated leaf, below the All Saints woodcut, and finishes on its verso; the dedication is on the recto of the second unfoliated leaf. The text of the dedication is below a half-page woodcut that depicts a white horse trotting in front of an oak tree, around which is wrapped a banner bearing the phrase “My Truste Is.”50 Caxton’s prologue draws heavily from the prologue of his major French source, Jean de Vignay’s La Légende dorée, while the dedication does not.51 Essentially, the first two sentences of Caxton’s prologue are from Vignay, as is the section starting with Saint Bernard and ending with the well-known line from which the collection takes its title, namely, the claim that this book is a “Golden Legend” because it is more noble than other legendaries, as gold is more noble than other metals.52 Caxton intersperses Vignay’s text with his own: the translated sections represent deliberate choices as much as the original material does. The first of the two sections of the prologue that are not drawn from Vignay trumpets Caxton’s translated books. In between the two opening sentences and the second block of translated text, where Vignay references his translation of Le miroir des histoires du monde from Latin to French, Caxton takes the opportunity to advertise his own translations from French to English. He lists the following: Recuyell of the histories of Troy; The game of Chess; The history

26 Caxton’s Golden Legend of Jason; The mirror of the world; Ovid’s Metamorphoses’ Godfrey of Boulogne, or the siege and conquest of Jerusalem; and “other dyvers werkys & bokes.”53 Customers reading this list would be assured that the book before them was produced by a man conversant with classical literature, aristocratic entertainments, and chivalric history. This list of titles might appeal to those who were humanists or nobles, or to the much larger audience of readers who wished to share or seem to share in the interests of those groups. Possibly customers reading this list in stationers’ shops might be tempted to request to see copies, or to have them ordered from Westminster. In the second section of the prologue not drawn from Vignay, that is, the passage following the line explaining why this collection is “golden,” Caxton describes his process of producing The Golden Legend as translating the Latin and the French versions, adding them to the existing English version, rearranging the contents, and setting the result in print. In this section, Caxton offers potential readers an array of spiritual benefits that could be gained by reading or hearing it, namely, that they “may en-creace in them virtue / and expelle vyce and synne / that by the ensaumple of the holy sayntes amende theyr lyvyng here in thys shorte lyf.” Orthodox customers seeking readings to enhance their piety may have found this section appealing because it offers assurance that the text reproduces traditional hagiography for conventionally devout purposes. The inclusion of a reference to those who would benefit from hearing rather than reading the text may have been an attempt to appeal to those who were considering buying the book to add to a parish library whose purpose was to provide material for sermons. Such customers might have been parish clergy or churchwardens or their agents, as lay parish communities in late medieval England spent money on books as well as on the church fabric. The principal technique employed to engage customers throughout the prologue and the dedication is the appeal to authority. Like the crowd in the All Saints woodcut, the named authorities are diverse: clerical and lay, classical and contemporary. The first two sentences, taken largely from Vignay, cite both Saint Jerome (c.347–420) and Saint Augustine of Hippo (c.340–397) on avoiding idleness: both Vignay and Caxton use the rhetoric of avoiding idleness to justify the promotion of their other translations. There is slight variation in phrasing: where Vignay uses the title “Monseigneur” as well as “saint” to refer to these two renowned men, Caxton uses the term “doctor” along with “saint,” giving their authority a vaguely academic flavor, although they are both considered “doctors” of the church.54 The term “doctor” gestures towards an authority derived from intellectual expertise and not merely clerical office. The retention of Jerome as the first dignitary introduced in the text is notable because he was best known to medieval readers as the man who translated the Bible into Latin. Jerome created the Vulgate, the standard medieval Latin Bible. Both Vignay and Caxton had cause to emphasize an authority known primarily as a translator, but Caxton might have had an additional reason to emphasize Jerome. As one of Caxton’s principal innovations in his version of The Golden Legend was the incorporation of

Caxton’s Golden Legend 27 biblical material in the form of chapters loosely translated from the Vulgate, he may have hoped that an early reference to Jerome would create a connection in the mind of the reader between his text and the Bible. The other three authorities invoked in the lines of Caxton’s prologue derived from Vignay are Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153), also titled “Doctor” by Caxton and not by Vignay; Cassiodorus (c.485–c.585); and Prosper of Aquitaine (c.390–c.455), all referenced as writing against idleness. These five men are all major figures in theology: four of them are saints (all but Cassiodorus), and four are from Greco-Roman antiquity (all but Bernard). Customers glancing over this list of luminaries may have felt reassured regarding the orthodoxy and intellectual weight of the book, even though these authors effectively have nothing to do with writing its contents. The authority Caxton invokes in the dedication is an English aristocrat, namely, William, 16th Earl of Arundel, 6th Baron Maltravers, also known as William FitzAlan (1438–1487).55 The Golden Legend is one of fourteen books Caxton dedicated to or published on behalf of English royalty or members of its aristocracy.56 The dedication offers a narrative in which Caxton nearly despairs of completing his Golden Legend because of the protracted and costly nature of the work, even though he desperately wants it finished. The project is rescued by a powerful, noble, and virtuous earl who insists on its completion, and who offers as a reward an annuity of a buck every summer and a doe every winter, along with a promise to buy a reasonable number of the completed books. This story is more a rhetorical device than an account of how early books were actually financed.57 As Edwards and Meale explain, the role of the patron of a printed book was “more talismanic and less manifestly economic in nature.”58 The same sort of reader who would have been favorably impressed by the translation of a book about chess and of knightly adventures in the Holy Land may have been captivated by what amounted to an elite endorsement of a book. The woodcut above the text of the dedication features heraldic symbols of the FitzAlan family.59 The FitzAlans had a few different heraldic symbols, as was typical, all of which included oak leaves or acorns; one formation was a white horse galloping below an oak tree sprouting acorns. The phrase written on the banner draped around the oak tree in Caxton’s woodcut, “My Truste Is,” was one the FitzAlan mottos.60 None of the authorities invoked in the prologue, including such well-known and highly regarded figures as Jerome and Augustine of Hippo, were deemed by Caxton as being sufficiently important to the readers’ first impressions to merit a woodcut. As Martha Driver notes, images provided a way to increase the impact of text on a reader, and the badge of a noble near the beginning of a book increased its prestige.61 Caxton apparently believed that section explaining the patronage of William, Earl of Arundel was worth accentuating through the investment in a large woodcut marking the story of his endorsement. William, Earl of Arundel was connected to the most politically powerful people in the English government. His wife, Joan Neville (d. 1462), was the

28 Caxton’s Golden Legend sister of Richard, Earl of Warwick (1428–1471), known to history as Kingmaker because he was instrumental first in elevating his cousin to the throne as Edward IV after helping to depose Henry VI, and then, nearly a decade later, in helping restore Henry VI to the throne. Warwick died in the subsequent fighting between the supporters of Edward IV and those of Henry VI.62 Scholars agree that the explanation for Warwick turning against Edward IV was the preferential treatment that the king accorded the family of his wife, Elizabeth Woodville, whom he married in 1464. Part of the disagreement was diplomatic: Warwick favored diplomatic ties with France; the Woodvilles favored ties with Burgundy.63 The conflict was also, in part, personal: not only did Warwick resent the Woodville family for having been Lancastrian supporters, but also he could not ignore that they came to enjoy royal patronage and favors that might otherwise have gone to the Nevilles. In short, after Edward IV’s marriage to Elizabeth, the Nevilles and the Woodvilles became rivals for power.64 Arundel seems to have become estranged from Warwick and the Neville family after Joan’s death.65 This distancing would become politically disadvantageous when a Neville connection, namely, Richard III, became king in July of 1483. Richard had been raised in Warwick’s household and had married Anne Neville, Warwick’s daughter and Joan’s niece.66 Not only had Arundel become disengaged from the Nevilles by the time of Richard III’s coronation, but he had also made an alliance with the Woodvilles.67 In 1466 his eldest son and heir, Thomas, married Margaret Woodville, Elizabeth’s sister.68 This marriage bound the house of Arundel more closely to King Edward.69 It also made Thomas, son of the patron of Caxton’s Golden Legend, the brother-in-law of Anthony Woodville, 2nd Earl Rivers, Elizabeth’s brother and Caxton’s most important patron.70 Caxton enjoyed a productive professional relationship with Rivers, whom he had met in the Burgundian court.71 Caxton ultimately published three of Rivers’s translations, including the Dicts and sayings of philosophers (1477), whose epilogue suggests, in the words of Lotte Hellinga, “a certain intimacy between author and publisher, despite his professions of respect for Earl Rivers’s high rank.”72 Rivers had been culturally influential in the court of Edward IV, promoting a refined version of the cult of chivalry and Burgundian literary tastes, the sort of tastes that Caxton’s catalog promoted.73 Rivers and Caxton, although occupying very different levels of society, would have been seen as associates. The brief reign of Richard III was calamitous for the Woodvilles, and especially so for Rivers. Before Elizabeth Woodville’s flight to the sanctuary of Westminster Abbey, and before her sons were taken to the Tower, never to be seen again, Richard had seized the twelve-year old Edward V from the protection of his maternal uncle, Rivers, who had been governor of the boy’s household since Edward was three years old.74 After the death of Edward IV in April, as Rivers was bringing Edward V to his mother, Richard intercepted them, taking custody of Edward and arresting and

Caxton’s Golden Legend 29 75

imprisoning Rivers. Richard had Rivers beheaded in June, despite protests that he had done nothing treasonous.76 Caxton’s ties to Rivers were dangerous during the reign of Richard III, and were probably the reason why Caxton sued for a pardon following Buckingham’s Rebellion in the fall of 1483, an uprising for which there seems to be no other extant evidence of Caxton’s involvement.77 The rebels were supporters and allies of the late Edward IV.78 The crown took the revolt quite seriously: of the 104 people who suffered attainder for their participation, only a third were pardoned.79 Caxton’s decision in March of 1484 to issue The Golden Legend featuring the heraldic symbols and motto of the family of William, Earl of Arundel in a double-column woodcut on its second leaf was not an innocuous choice, as it might serve as a reminder of his connections with the Woodvilles, especially to his associate, the recently executed Anthony Woodville, 2nd Earl Rivers. Caxton was not politically fearless: just two months earlier, he issued the Knight of the Tower without naming Elizabeth Woodville as its patron even though he had completed that translation on her behalf.80 Caxton was unlikely to have been making a public political declaration either, as in the very next month he issued his translation of Raymon Lull’s The book of the order of Chivalry or Knighthood dedicated to King Richard III.81 Caxton must have weighed the potential risks of emphasizing that some of his associations were unpopular with the crown against the fact that William, Earl of Arundel was an older aristocrat not currently active on the political stage, and decided that the endorsement of one of his books by an earl was not something he was willing to forgo. The marketing value of aristocratic patronage must have been great, or at least, Caxton must have believed it to be. The customers Caxton envisioned might have been reassured by references to traditional orthodox religious authorities such as Augustine of Hippo, but the recommendation of a text by a living English aristocrat would have been more germane to their decision to purchase a copy. At the conclusion of the dedication, a potential buyer leafing through the beginning of The Golden Legend would have seen: “And to thende eche hystory lyf & passyon may be shortely foūden I have ordeyned this table folowyng / where & in what leef he shal fynde suche as shal be desyred / and have sette the nombre of every leef in the margin.” Caxton is describing a table of contents. Although some medieval codices included a calendar or list of contents, tables identifying where specific content would have been found were rare in manuscript books. Tables of contents were largely developed in fifteenth-century printed books: Caxton experimented with them in the 1480s.82 These tables, as Caxton explains to readers presumably unfamiliar with them, help a reader to find a particular part of a book. Many fifteenth-century lay people who read devotional texts were, as Margaret Connolly describes them, somewhat unsophisticated readers who may have needed help in navigating a long text. A clearly delineated organization, in particular the division of material into distinct

30 Caxton’s Golden Legend sections, may have made lengthy books more comprehensible.83 Caxton’s inclusion of tables of contents, along with an explanation of the purpose of such a table, is another element suggesting that he sought to appeal to a broad base of customers. A woodcut of the FitzAlan heraldic symbols may have created a pleasing suggestion of aristocratic tastes, but the specifics of The Golden Legend’s component parts argue for a much more broadly imagined readership, one that may have wished to participate in elite culture, but that actually stood lower on the social ladder. Turning the page, a potential buyer would have seen a table of contents organized into two columns. It is the first of two such tables that together cover the verso of the dedication, the recto and verso of the next two leaves, and the recto of the next leaf, all unfoliated.84 A reader may have noticed that the first table has no title, and begins “Thadvent of our lord folio primo.” A fifteenthcentury reader would not have been surprised to see that the book uses folio numbers rather than page numbers.85 Foliation means that each leaf is numbered, on the front only, rather than the front of a leaf being marked by a page number and the back of the leaf being marked by the next successive page number. A folio number refers to both the front and the back of the leaf. The numbers in the table were either written out as words (all in English, except “primo”), or in Roman numerals. The foliation throughout this edition uses Roman numerals, as does every edition of Caxton’s Golden Legend through 1527.86 Roman numbers would also not have surprised Caxton’s customers, who would have anticipated neither pagination nor Arabic numerals. A reader glancing down the first column of the first table of contents would have seen at the top a list of “movable” feasts, that is, feasts that fall on a different date each year, tied to the date of Easter, followed by a list of histories and lives of Old Testament figures, each with a number.87 After these, about two-thirds of the way down the first column, that is, below the thirtyfifth entry, the reader would have seen a gap, then, indented, a pilcrow followed by the title “Of saynts.”88 That title is the only division within this table: the remainder consists of a list of saints’ names and saints’ feasts (for example, the annunciation of the Virgin), each followed by a Roman numeral. Customers would have been able to tell by the sequence of numbers that the first table follows the successive placement of the chapters in the text, starting with the earliest numbered folio and ending with the last numbered folio. There were 250 chapters altogether. The second table of contents, in contrast, is marked by a title: “Another table by letter.” It is organized alphabetically, an avant-garde configuration for the 1480s. The table arranges chapters as an index might today, grouping together all the chapters beginning with the letter “A” first, then all those beginning with “B,” and so on, with each section of the table visually marked by spacing both before and after, and the use of a larger typeface in the initial line of each section. The two tables of contents imply two different ways of using the text. The first table follows the liturgical calendar.89 It groups the movable, or

Caxton’s Golden Legend 31 Temporale, feasts before the Sanctorale feasts; the dates of the former change each year in conjunction with the date of Easter, while the latter are celebrated on the same date every year. The Sanctorale chapters appear in calendrical order, starting with the season of Lent. Caxton’s Golden Legend starts the Sanctorale section of the first table of contents with the feast of Saint Andrew in late November. Much later in the book, between the end of the chapter on Saturnine and the start of the chapter on James the Martyr, Caxton references this organization by inserting: “Thys feste is the laste feste of the yere / for to begynne at the feste of saynt andrewe / and herafter shal folo-we dyvers feestys whiche been added and sette in thys sayd book callyd the golden legend.”90 Medieval collections of saints’ lives were often arranged to follow the liturgical calendar, as were sermon collections and breviaries. Legendaries organized in this way would be conveniently arranged for readers seeking supplementary material for sermons across the liturgical year.91 In following this organization, Caxton seems to have expected some of his readers to use The Golden Legend as a resource for sermon writing, a conventional use for all variants of the Legenda aurea.92 The second table serves readers who approach the text in a way unrelated to the liturgical calendar. Caxton appears to have imagined some readers of The Golden Legend using the text for reasons other than collecting materials for sermons, such as private devotion. Potential buyers whose interest was sufficiently piqued by the preliminary leaves of the book might have skimmed through the rest of the book. They would have seen visual markers helping them identify chapters. Caxton, like his colleagues in the printing industry, adapted compositional strategies from manuscript books. Several conventions developed in Latin codices to help readers navigate the text on a page had spread by the end of the fourteenth century to vernacular manuscript books read by larger and more diverse audiences.93 In Caxton’s Golden Legend there are paratextual elements, namely, headlines, prefaces, and conclusions, linked to graphic elements including decorated initial letters and woodcuts, that frame the text into chapters. If Caxton had anticipated that most of his readers would use the book sequentially, moving through the chapters as the liturgical calendar of the year progressed to get narratives to add to sermons, there would have been little reason to put much effort into helping readers navigate to particular sections of the book. The paratextual and graphic elements marking chapters, much like the alphabetical table of contents, indicate that Caxton imagined readers who would want to find their way to particular saints’ lives regardless of when their feast date fell in the liturgical year. Headlines serve to help readers identify chapters. Unlike modern conventional practice, chapters in The Golden Legend start immediately after the end of the prior chapter, not on the next page, so textual divisions are more difficult to discern. White spaces tended to be avoided by early printers because paper constituted the most expensive aspect of book production.94 The presence of headlines in The Golden Legend is evidence of the

32 Caxton’s Golden Legend importance that Caxton placed on helping readers navigate the text, as many early printed books lack them.95 Neither headlines nor the tables of contents in The Golden Legend are flawless aids. The tables of contents indicate a folio number for each chapter, but do not specify whether the chapter begins on its recto or verso. Glancing at the headline might help resolve that question, unless the chapter being sought was short. While some chapters run over a dozen folios, others are so brief that they begin and end on the same page, so that a single recto or verso of a leaf might include the conclusion of one chapter, the entirety of a second or third chapter, and the beginning of the next chapter. The headline for that page might be the title of any of those chapters. Another complication is that frequently chapters in Caxton’s Golden Legend have slightly different titles in different parts of the book. Headlines sometimes change through the course of a chapter, and might also differ from the title used in the tables of contents. In addition to headlines, Caxton assisted readers in seeing textual divisions through the consistent use of introductions and conclusions, as well as through initial letters and the more intermittent use of woodcuts. The start of almost every chapter is indicated by an introduction, often starting “Here beginneth,” and the end by a conclusion, often starting with “Here endith.” Both introductions and conclusions are typically printed within a column rather than across the two columns of a page, as headlines are, but are printed in a larger typeface than the regular text, which may help to draw the eye. Initial letters, decorated letters used for the first letter of the first word of the start of a section of text, are another element of the manuscript tradition designed to help readers navigate texts. They might be simply large red letters; they might include decorative elements; they might have an ornamental border, called a factotum, around the letter; or they might include an image or a miniature scene, in which case they are called historiated initials.96 The first edition of Caxton’s Golden Legend is designed so that purchasers could add their own decorated initials. In incunabula, that is, books printed before 1501, blank spaces were often left for decorated initials to be inserted. Sometimes these spaces include small guide letters so that the illustrator would not have to guess what letter to draw.97 In this edition of The Golden Legend, the initial letter in each chapter, and in some of the longer chapters, the initial letter of each section, is not printed but rather indicated by a very small letter to allow space for a decorated letter to be hand-painted. Sometimes these were painted by professional rubricators, as was the practice in manuscript books. At other times, owners chose to do the work themselves. In consequence, individual copies of this edition, like other incunabula, present a customized appearance. In some copies the initial letters appear professionally painted throughout, but in others they become less elaborate as the text progresses, and sometimes stop

Caxton’s Golden Legend 33 part way through. In some copies, no initial letters at all were added. There are many reasons why owners may have chosen not to rubricate: they might have wanted to avoid the extra cost, or did not need or want additional chapter markers, or they may have become distracted by other things before making arrangements. Owners who wanted the work done professionally probably could have contracted a rubricator through the stationer’s shop where they bought their book. Caxton and other early printers in England developed business relationships with rubricators and artists who finished books; Caxton may have had such an artist on staff.98 Although Caxton could not control the style or completion of decorative initials, he did determine the placement and content of illustrations. The production of illustrated books was quite new: the very first one printed in England was Caxton’s The Mirrour of the World, released in 1481.99 The iconography used in printed books, in contrast, was typically far older than the mode of its production. Illustrations in early printed books drew upon established visual vocabularies; in the case of hagiography, they employed a conventional grammar of religious and devotional images.100 The pictorial representations of particular saints had developed standardized and widely repeated iconographic forms. The reproduction of saints’ images formed part of the practice of their cults. Guilds devoted to a particular saint would often have his or her image made in paint, glass, cloth, or stone so it could be admired, conversed with, and appealed to.101 When woodcuts made the mass production of images possible, printed pictures of saints were offered as singleleaf prints, which were the first “holy cards.”102 In this edition of Caxton’s Golden Legend, images appear in three types of places: on the preliminary leaves, at the start of many of the chapters, and on the end pages.103 The chapters embellished by illustrations almost never have more than one woodcut, and that image is virtually always placed at the beginning of the chapter, helping to mark a division in the text. The chapter images in Caxton’s Golden Legend did not impart new information to the reader: they were not didactic. They portrayed saints using symbolism already familiar to most people, so a reader would recognize a saint rather than learn something new about him or her. Chapter illustrations in The Golden Legend served chiefly to draw the reader’s attention to the start of a particular chapter. Of the 250 chapters in the first edition of Caxton’s Golden Legend, eightyfour are illustrated, or just about one third. Of the eighty-four, only eighteen are double-column width, the remaining sixty-six are single-column width (see Table 2.1). The particular chapters that Caxton chose to illustrate were those to which he wanted to draw the reader’s eye, while the double-column illustrations undoubtedly decorate those chapters which Caxton thought especially significant. In other words, the placement of chapter illustrations in The Golden Legend indicates what Caxton imagined the English book-buying public would find most appealing in a collection of readings on the saints.

34 Caxton’s Golden Legend Table 2.1 Illustrated chapters in Caxton’s Golden Legend (1484) Type of Chaptera

Apostles Life of Christ Vulgate: Old Testament British saints Martyrs Marian feasts Evangelists and biblical translators Bishops and popes Soldiers Monks and friars Confessors Hermits Not saints’ lives TOTAL

Number Double

Single

Total

0 8 1 2 0 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 18

14 6 11 6 7 1 5 5 3 3 2 2 1 66

14 14 12 8 7 5 5 5 3 3 2 2 4 84

Sources: This table draws upon GL EEBO 1484. Note a These types are not mutually exclusive. For example, Matthew and John are both evangelists and apostles. For the purposes of this chart each chapter is listed only once, in whichever category is most emphasized by the chapter text or illustration.

The greatest number of illustrated chapters belong to two groups: those dedicated to apostles, or rather, to saints accepted as apostles in the medieval west, and those connected to the life of Christ. There are fourteen chapters on apostles, or rather sixteen, as Matthew and John were both apostles and evangelists but are treated in The Golden Legend more as evangelists. Although the term “apostle” is sometimes used to refer to the missionary who first brought Christianity to a particular place or people, it is used here to refer to those saints believed to have been among the earliest followers of Christ: with the exceptions of Paul and Matthias, all were believed to have been adherents of Jesus during his lifetime. There are two illustrated chapters on Paul, one for his life and one for his conversion, and three for Peter: one for his life; one for his throne, that is, a relic of the saint held by the popes; and another for his chains, which were another relic of the saint held in Rome.104 There is an illustrated chapter that treats Simon and Jude together.105 The remaining eight are chapters for Andrew, Thomas, Matthias, Philip, James the Greater, James the Less, Barnabas, and Bartholomew.106 All of these chapters are in the Sanctorale section and all feature a single-column image. Caxton reuses some of the woodblocks. All three chapters on Peter, for example, display the identical image of a man with a short, square beard holding two large keys

Caxton’s Golden Legend 35 with one hand while the other touches the chain around his neck. This image of Peter does not depict him as a pope, but does draw attention to the relic of his chains held in Rome. Similarly, the same woodcut of a bearded man holding a sword and an open book appears in both chapters on Paul. These duplications are not surprising, as they might serve to visually link chapters that focus on the same person. However, the woodcut used for Paul also illustrates the chapter on Barnabas, which underlines Caxton’s use of illustrations to draw the eye rather than to serve a didactic purpose. Peter’s image is not used for any other saint, as the iconography of the two keys is idiosyncratic. But the chapters on the less iconographically distinct Thomas the Apostle and James the Less feature identical images of a bearded man holding a spear and an open book. Caxton chose to illustrate chapters on the apostles even though some individual apostles were so infrequently the focus of graphic representation as to have no meaningfully identifiable iconography. The other group of chapters most embellished by illustrations are those connected to the life of Christ, consistent with the generally Christocentric flavor of piety throughout late medieval Europe.107 This group may be subdivided into two sets. One set consists of seven Christological feasts, namely, the Nativity (Christmas), the Epiphany, the Passion (Good Friday), the Resurrection (Easter Sunday), the Ascension, Pentecost (Whitsunday), and Corpus Christi.108 Each of these seven chapters is illustrated with a unique, double-column woodcut.109 These feasts are all movable, Temporale feasts, so all seven occur near the beginning of the book, within the first fifteen chapters. Their placement may have had as much influence on the decision to decorate them with large woodcuts as did their content: lavish illustration of the early chapters may have more influence on potential buyers. The second set in this group consists of seven Sanctorale feasts related to the life of Christ. Two are feasts dedicated to Christ’s cross: the Invention of the Cross (“invention” in the sense of finding) and the Exultation of the Cross. Both are illustrated by a unique, single-column woodcut.110 The feast of the Holy Innocents, the children executed on Herod’s orders as he tried to eliminate Jesus in infancy, is included in this set. It is illustrated by a single-column woodcut showing small children being cut with swords held by adult men.111 Another two chapters focus on John the Baptist, a saint best known for baptizing Jesus: one concerning John’s birth, and one his beheading. The former chapter, which recounts the simultaneous pregnancies of Mary and Elizabeth, is distinguished by a unique, doublecolumn woodcut; the latter, by a unique, single-column woodcut in which John’s severed head is shown being held by his hair above a plate.112 The chapter on the feast of Mary Magdalene includes Jesus in its narrative, as Mary Magdalene is one of the few saints aside from the apostles and the holy family who were believed to have interacted with him directly. This chapter is illustrated by a unique single-column woodcut.113 The final chapter in this set is that of Saint Christopher. Unlike the cross, the massacre of the innocents, John the Baptist, and Mary Magdalene, all of

36 Caxton’s Golden Legend which may be found in the text of the New Testament, Christopher is a non-Biblical saint and very likely one whose legend has little historical foundation.114 Nevertheless, in his narrative Christopher encounters Jesus in corporeal form, an event which is rare among non-Biblical saints in The Golden Legend. Visitations tend to be from deceased saints, or to take the form of a heavenly voice. In Christopher’s legend, however, the saint carries a boy later revealed to be Christ across a river: the child Jesus rides on Saint Christopher’s shoulders. This corporeal encounter with Jesus is the subject of the unique, single-column woodcut decorating this chapter; it depicts a bearded man crossing a river while a boy sits on his shoulder holding a globus cruciger in his left hand as his right lifts in a gesture of blessing.115 The boy would be easily identified by this iconography as Jesus. Caxton’s decision to concentrate chapter illustrations on narratives about Jesus and the people he encountered is evident in the illumination of the Marian chapters. Mary, as the mother of Jesus, is the saint most closely associated with him. Not only are all five Marian chapters illustrated, but four of the five have double-column woodcuts.116 One chapter, on the Assumption of Our Lady, is not only very long, covering the better part of seventeen leaves, but is also the only chapter in the book to have two illustrations: the same double-column woodcut appears both at the front and in the middle of the chapter.117 Only the Christological feasts feature more double-column woodcuts than the Marian ones. Altogether, the chapters on the apostles, those related to Christ, and the Marian chapters account for thirty-three of the eighty-four illustrated chapters in this edition, or nearly 40 percent. Even though The Golden Legend includes legends of saints from all over Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, from the first through the thirteenth century, nearly 40 percent of the illustrated chapters, and two-thirds of those with doublecolumn woodcuts, focus on Jesus, his close associates, and the cross, subjects drawn from the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles in both their canonical and apocryphal variants. To clarify, the narratives of some of these chapters are drawn from apocryphal literature, such as the later travels of apostles to lands not mentioned in the canonical scriptures, including India.118 Nevertheless, the category of subjects related to the New Testament, canonical and apocryphal, is much smaller than that of all saints’ legends, most of which concern men and women who lived long after biblical times and who did not encounter Jesus either as a living human or in the form of a posthumous visitation. Caxton’s use of illustrations to draw the attention of readers to material related to scriptural narratives is apparent in his illustration of the chapters translated and adapted from the Vulgate; that is, the fifteen consecutive chapters in which the lives of people from the Old Testament are presented in a format similar to that of the lives of saints.119 Twelve of these fifteen chapters are illustrated, one by a double-column woodcut.120 The large woodcut illustrates the chapter on Judith, depicting two women putting the

Caxton’s Golden Legend 37 severed head of a bearded man into a bag in front of a headless body. As these Old Testament chapters are consecutive, even a customer leafing through the text quickly would have been likely to notice this densely illustrated group of pages. Like the chapters on the apostles, some of the biblical chapters repeat the same woodcut: the chapters on Saul, Solomon, and Rehoboam display the identical image of a king holding an unrolled scroll. Again, as with the chapters on the apostles, Caxton selected the Old Testament chapters for illustration even if some of their subjects lacked easily identifiable iconography. This pronounced use of illustration to highlight scriptural material, broadly defined, is underscored by Caxton’s decision to illustrate all four chapters on the evangelists: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The evangelists, or writers of the gospels, had a long-established set of symbols: Matthew as a winged man, Mark as a winged lion, Luke as a winged ox, and John as an eagle. Three of the woodcuts in Caxton’s chapters employ this traditional iconography. The illustration for Matthew shows a man holding an open book and facing a much smaller winged man holding a jar.121 For Mark, the image depicts man holding a book standing in front of a smiling, winged lion.122 The chapter on Luke begins with a woodcut of a man holding a scroll, standing in front of a winged ox.123 The image in the chapter on John does not include an eagle or any other bird, but instead presents a different although also traditional iconographic symbol for John, namely, a man holding a chalice containing a snake.124 However, his role as an evangelist is emphasized by both the chapter heading, “The lẙf of saẙnt Johan thevangeliste,” and the introduction, which reads: “And next foloweth of saẙnt Johan thevangeliste.”125 In the three chapters in which the woodcut employs iconography associated with the saint’s role as an evangelist, that information is not repeated in the heading, although the chapters on Mark and Luke both use the term “thevangeliste” in the introduction.126 All four of these illustrated chapters clearly signal to the reader that the saint was a gospel writer. In addition, Jerome, the saint known primarily for creating the Vulgate, the standard Latin translation of the Bible used throughout the Middle Ages, is provided with a unique, single-column woodcut.127 Taking the chapters on the apostles, those connected to the life of Christ, the Marian feasts, the Old Testament chapters, and the evangelists’ chapters all together, they constitute fifty chapters, or nearly 60 percent of the illustrated chapters. They include thirteen chapters decorated with doublecolumn images, or 72 percent of the chapters favored in that way. Even allowing that the early position in the book occupied by the seven illustrated Christological feasts probably contributed to the decision to decorate them, the placement of so much of the illustration of The Golden Legend in these chapters offers powerful testimony that Caxton expected his customers to be attracted by biblical narratives.

38 Caxton’s Golden Legend The remaining thirty-five illustrated chapters represent other components of The Golden Legend that Caxton chose to highlight. Eight of these chapters are lives of British saints, meaning that nearly 10 percent of the illustrated chapters in the book focus on Britain.128 The two chapters on Thomas of Canterbury (c.1119–1170), also known as Thomas Becket, one about his life and the other about the translation of his relics, both feature the identical double-column image of three men with swords menacing a robed figure kneeling before an altar.129 The other seven British chapters each include one single-column image.130 As with the apostles and the Old Testament figures, some of these repeat the same image. The chapters for Augustine of Canterbury (d. c.604); Edmund of Abingdon (c.1174–1240), also known as Edmund Rich; and Erkenwald (c.630–693) all feature the identical depiction of a clean-shaven man wearing a bishop’s miter, holding a floriated crook, and raising a hand in blessing. British saints seem to be another category that Caxton chose to highlight even if some of the saints lacked distinctive iconography. Seven chapters Caxton selected for illustration in this edition feature martyrs. Medieval Christians often believed martyrs to be the most authentic saints, and their legends, to quote Robert Bartlett, were “considered the most prestigious kind of hagiography.”131 Caxton may have expected readers who noticed these chapters to raise their estimate of the merit of his collection. The martyrs’ chapters include the only illustrated chapters in this edition devoted to women saints other than Our Lady and Mary Magdalene. Virgin martyrs were extraordinarily popular in late medieval England, especially those from early Rome and most especially Katherine of Alexandria (4th c.), Margaret of Antioch (3rd c.), and Barbara (3rd c.).132 Caxton chose to illustrate each of their chapters, as well as that of the virgin martyr Ursula, with a unique, single-column woodcut.133 The three male martyrs whose chapters are illustrated in this edition, namely, Stephen Protomartyr (c.1st c.), Roche (c.1295–1327), and Laurence (225–258), also each have their own unique, single-column woodcut.134 The lack of repetition among the martyrs’ images reflects the well-established iconography produced by long-standing, popular saints’ cults. Five of the chapters that feature a woodcut focus on high-level clergy, that is, bishops and popes. All five chapters use generic images of bishops or popes. Three of these saints are also Latin doctors of the church, men accepted as great authorities on Christian doctrine whose inclusion among the illustrated chapters may have served to elevate the perceived status of the collection. Two of them, Augustine of Hippo and Ambrose of Milan (d. 397), are depicted using an image of a bishop from the same woodblock used in the chapters on Augustine of Canterbury, Edmund of Abingdon, and Erkenwald.135 A third Latin doctor, Pope Gregory I (r. 590–604), is depicted using the same woodblock of a papal figure used in the chapter on Pope Pelagius.136 That chapter, called Pelagius and the history of the Lombards, might have been significant to potential customers who were already familiar with the Latin

Caxton’s Golden Legend 39 Legenda aurea. The original version of the Legenda ended with this chapter, and so the collection was sometimes known under the title “The History of the Lombards” rather than “The Golden Legend.” The Latin doctors of the church were prestigious theologians but not popular saints, and thus were not so commonly depicted as to have distinctive iconography. The other bishop saint whose chapter is illustrated in this edition is Nicholas (d. c.350), who is portrayed using the same woodblock used in five other chapters on bishopsaints.137 The feast of Nicholas was often celebrated by festivities in which a boy was dressed as a bishop while children playacted clerical functions. These were extremely popular ceremonies in late medieval England, sometimes performed in conjunction with miracle plays. That festive association might have drawn readers to this chapter.138 Three of the illustrated chapters feature monks and friars. The two friars are Dominic (1170–1221) and Francis (c.1181–1226), the men who founded the Dominican Order, or as it was known in England, the Blackfriars, and the Franciscan Order, known in England as the Greyfriars.139 These became the two largest mendicant orders and their friars featured prominently among the canonizations of the later Middle Ages.140 The mendicant orders saw great success in England. Around the turn of the sixteenth century, there were about 180 mendicant houses with about 3,000 friars in England.141 Caxton may have considered the mendicant houses to be potential customers for The Golden Legend. An interest in mendicant saints could be anticipated for lay households as well. Friars exerted influence on several prosperous families through acting as confessors and scribes. Moreover, in London alone, between 1417 and 1483, some nine to thirteen percent of wills left bequests to friars.142 An expectation that English readers might be particularly interested in Francis and Dominic was probably well-grounded. The monk whose chapter features a woodcut is Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153). Although he was not formally named a doctor of the church until the nineteenth century, he was popularly considered one during the Middle Ages. Caxton’s introduction to the chapter stresses Bernard’s informal status as a doctor: “Here foloweth the lyf of saynt Bernard the mellifluous doc-tor.”143 Bernard’s chapter, like that of Augustine of Hippo and Ambrose, is illustrated by an image used elsewhere in the text; in this case, in the chapter on Brendan (d. c.577). King Louis IX of France (1214–1270), George (4th c.), and Michael the Archangel, all military saints, have chapters in this edition illustrated by unique, single-column pictures.144 Louis IX was royal, an enthusiastic crusader, and associated with chivalry, all characteristics that should have made his narrative appealing to the sort of reader who valued aristocratic endorsement.145 His woodcut features the symbols of his kingly status. George was associated with the crusades, but the best-known aspect of his cult was his conflict with a dragon; his chapter illustration features that conflict. His cult was also connected to Britain, even though he was not a British saint. Michael is technically an angel with a saint’s cult.146 His chapter emphasizes his role as a warrior, stating that “He also faught with the dragon and his angles / and

40 Caxton’s Golden Legend cas-tynge them oute of heven had a greete victory.”147 The woodcut Caxton selected shows Michael slaying a dragon.148 This edition contains an illustrated chapter for Martin of Tours (d. 397) and for Anthony of Egypt (d. 356), men considered to be the models for confessor saints, that is, Christians who suffered heroically for their faith, either through compulsion by external authorities or personal aestheticism, but who did not undergo martyrdom.149 Prior to Martin and Anthony, sainthood implied martyrdom. Both of these chapters feature unique, single-column woodcuts. Martin is pictured in conventional bishop’s dress performing a healing miracle, the final miracle described in the chapter. Anthony is depicted as a bearded, robed man standing in front of a pig with tusks: his traditional iconography included a pig. Caxton chose to depict Anthony this way even though the miracle of healing a pig is not included in this chapter. This choice underlines the function of Caxton’s chapter illustrations as visually arresting chaptermarkers rather than pictorial explications of the text. Anthony was also a model for hermit saints, of which there are two among the illustrated chapters in this edition: Leonard (d. 559) and Giles (c.650–c.710).150 Leonard’s chapter features a unique single-column woodcut of a bishop holding fetters: he was associated with the freeing of prisoners. The chapter on Giles uses the identical woodcut found in the chapters on Bernard and Brendan. Martin, Anthony, Leonard, and Giles remained popular in late medieval England: they were among the thirty-nine saints listed by Richard of Gloucester, later Richard III, as those towards whom he had the most devotion when he founded a collegiate church in Yorkshire.151 In this edition, Caxton chose to illustrate four chapters whose subjects are not saints’ lives. Two of these chapters focus on large groups. The chapter for All Saints’ Day, a holy day which is a microcosm of The Golden Legend, is adorned with a unique double-column woodcut.152 Its imagery loosely echoes the book’s initial All Saints woodcut but employs more generic symbols: God is represented not as the Trinity but rather as a crowned king flanked by angels, while the saints, held in God’s lap, are too small and homogenous for any individual to be distinguished by iconography.153 The companion feast of All Souls, which falls on the day after All Saints’ Day, is illustrated by a unique, single-column woodcut.154 The remaining two chapters of this type are on the Dedication of a Church and the History of the Mass, each illustrated by a unique, doublecolumn woodcut.155 These two chapters are widely separated in the text, the former located immediately after the Christological feasts at the start, and the latter among the last few chapters, but they share a similarity of subject. Both of them concern services that could be performed only by priests. The first explains the procedure for sanctifying a church building as well as specifying the circumstances in which it must be undertaken. The second is not a “history” as a modern person might use the word, that is, it does not trace the historical development of the mass. Instead, this chapter describes how the mass is to be conducted. Dividing the mass into four parts, the text

Caxton’s Golden Legend 41 provides instructions for where the priest should stand, what prayers he must say, and what gestures he must use. Although intelligent lay people might have been curious about these ceremonies, it is much more likely that Caxton sought to draw the attention of priests to these chapters, especially those who had the responsibilities of a parish, were not fully confident of their duties, and preferred to do their reading in English. Caxton, in fact, had published a version of John Mirk’s Festial, a sermon collection made for a very similar audience, the year before The Golden Legend was released.156 Potential customers leafing through the book, perhaps slowly, savoring all the illustrations, or quickly, pausing only occasionally for a closer look, would have seen this colophon if they turned to the final leaf: Thus endeth the legende named in latyn legenda aurea / that is to saye in englysshe the golden legende / For lyke as golde passeth in valewe alle other metalles / so thys legend excedeth alle other bookes / wherin ben contey-ned alle the high and grete festys of our lord / the festys of our blessyd lady / the lyues passyons and myracles of many other sayntes / and other hystoryes and actes / as al allonge here afore is made mencyon / whyche werke I haue accomplisshed at the commaū-demente and requeste of the noble and puyssaunte erle / and my specyal good lord wyllyam of arondel / & haue fynysshed it at westmestre the twenty day of nouembre / the yere of our lord M / CCCC / lxxxiii / & the fyrst yere of the reygne of kyng Rychard the thyrd / By me Wylyam Caxton.157 The colophon provides a summary of the text and reminds readers once again of the encouragement provided by William, Earl of Arundel. This passage would have been the end of the book. The eighty-four illustrated chapters as well as the preliminary leaves and colophon provide evidence of the audience for whom Caxton designed this edition of The Golden Legend. Customers would have needed the funds to purchase a large book, either individually or corporately, for example, for a parish or religious house, but would not have necessarily been among the most sophisticated readers. Some customers were imagined to be clerics or friars, or lay people making purchases for their use, but the audience was not expected to be exclusively clerical or mendicant. Customers would be readers attracted to devotional texts in English, who appreciated generally popular saints and were comfortable with a conventional ecclesiological structure in which the pope headed the church. The imagined readers had a strongly scriptural inclination to their piety, but one that was undisturbed by apocryphal narratives or other non-scriptural sources of information about biblical figures. They were interested in England, but not particularly drawn to women saints other than Our Lady. The anticipated customers were strongly impressed by authority figures, including eminent theologians and saints with great spiritual power, but perhaps even more so by secular royalty and nobility.

42 Caxton’s Golden Legend The imagined readers admired, or shared, or hoped to be seen as sharing, a luxurious, aristocratic culture. In the spring of 1484, Caxton offered his Golden Legend to the English market. Its enthusiastic approval of his choices is revealed, not by sales records, as none survive, but by the fact that Caxton reissued this edition in 1487.158 The second impression of this edition has numerous differences in spelling, but only three deliberate changes. One is the elimination of the second of two identical chapters on Saint Germain. The second is the inclusion, at the end of the collection, of an unillustrated chapter on the ancient Roman martyr Saint Erasmus (d. c.303), so the number of chapters remains the same.159 Finally, the date is changed to 1487 in the colophon. Every other aspect of the text, its paratext, and illustration remains the same. This continuity offers convincing evidence that Caxton’s assumptions about what would persuade English customers to buy a massive collection of saints’ lives were substantially correct.

Notes 1 According to the colophon it was printed in 1483 but its release seems to have been delayed by a shortage of paper until March 1484: Anne Sutton, “William Caxton, Merchant and King’s Printer,” in The Medieval Merchant, ed. Caroline Barron and Anne F. Sutton, Harlaxton Medieval Studies, 24 (Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2014), 273. England had no paper mills until the late sixteenth century, so publishers obtained paper from France, Holland, and Italy: Sarah Werner, Studying Early Printed Books, 1450–1800: A Practical Guide (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell, 2019), 26. 2 Stephen Cooper and Ashley Cooper, “A Hog Under the Law,” History Today 63, no. 11 (2013): 37. 3 There is a substantial literature on the Wars of the Roses, the name for the larger conflict of which these events were a part. See Michael Hicks, The Wars of the Roses (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010); Dan Jones, The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors (New York: Viking Press, 2014); and David Baldwin, The Kingmaker’s Sisters: Six Powerful Women in the Wars of the Roses (Stroud, Gloucestershire: History Press, 2009). 4 Lotte Hellinga, William Caxton and Early Printing in England (London: The British Library, 2010), 70. 5 Hellinga, William Caxton, 74. There are several studies of the impact of the Italian Renaissance on England during this period. For example, see Clare Carroll, “Humanism and English Literature in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries,” in The Cambridge Companion to Renaissance Humanism, ed. Jill Kraye (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 246–48. 6 Vincent Gillespie and Susan Powell, “Chronology of the Period,” in A Companion to the Early Printed Book in Britain, 1476–1558, ed. Gillespie and Powell (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2014), xviii. For a discussion of the late medieval vernacular French Bible, see Margaret Hoogvliet, “The Medieval Vernacular Bible in French as a Flexible Text: Selective and Discontinuous Reading Practices,” in Form and Function in the Late Medieval Bible, ed. Eyal Poleg and Laura Light (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 287–306. 7 Hellinga, William Caxton, 70.

Caxton’s Golden Legend 43 8 E. Gordon Duff, The Printers, Stationers and Bookbinders of Westminster and London from 1476–1535 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1906), 15. 9 It is the Denchworth Parish Copy: GL Bodleian 1484. The measurements are found in the descriptive notes: Bod_Inc Online, http://incunables.bodleian.ox. ac.uk/record/J-068 (accessed 16 May 2019). 10 The size of a particular edition may indicate the market for which it was produced: Ralph Hanna, “Middle English Books and Middle English Literary History,” Modern Philology 102, no. 2 (November 2004): 172. 11 Joseph A. Dane, What is a Book? The Study of Early Printed Books (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 2012), 39. 12 John King and Mark Rankin, “Print, Patronage, and the Reception of Continental Reform: 1521–1603,” The Yearbook of English Studies 38 (2008): 51. 13 Werner, Studying, 72. The term “stationer” described anyone in the early modern book trade: Werner, Studying, 178. For a more detailed account of stationers during this period, see Peter W. M. Blayney, The Stationers’ Company before the Charter, 1403–1557 (London: The Worshipful Company of Stationers & Newspapermakers, 2003). 14 Sutton, “William Caxton,” 272. 15 Werner, Studying, 76. 16 Tamara Atkin and A. S. G. Edwards, “Printers, Publishers and Promoters to 1558,” in Gillespie and Powell, Early Printed Book, 28. 17 GL EEBO 1484. The image is called “Trinity Adored by the Assembly of Saints,” although there would have been no indication of that title in Caxton’s book: Martha W. Driver, The Image in Print: Book Illustration in Late Medieval England (London: British Library, 2004), 35. 18 Driver, Image in Print, 29–31; Stephen Partridge, “Designing the Page,” in The Production of Books in England, 1350–1500, ed. Alexandria Gillespie and Daniel Wakelin, Cambridge Studies in Paleography and Codicology, gen. ed. David Ganz and Teresa Webber (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 81. 19 Partridge, “Designing the Page,” 127. This practice does not characterize their use in The Golden Legend. 20 Tessa Watt, Cheap Print and Popular Piety, 1550–1640 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 5; Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, “The English Illustrated Book and Medieval Ways of Reading: An Archaeology of Images at Work,” in Medieval Images, Icons, and Illustrated English Literary Texts from the Ruthwell Cross to the Ellesmere Chaucer, ed. Madie Hilmo (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2004), xxi. 21 Martha W. Driver, “Pictures in Print: Late Fifteenth- and Early SixteenthCentury English Religious Books for Lay Readers,” in De Cella in Seculum: Religious and Secular Life and Devotion in Late Medieval England, ed. M. G. Sargent (Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer, 1989), 238. 22 Driver, Image in Print, 73–75. 23 Partridge, “Designing the Page,” 126. 24 Martha W. Driver, “Woodcuts and Decorative Techniques,” in Gillespie and Powell, Early Printed Book, 95. 25 Dane, What is a Book?, 136–37; Hellinga, William Caxton, 95. 26 Rubrication refers to the hand-painting of red initial letters. Any painting of woodcuts in England was done at the request of the book’s owner: Driver, “Woodcuts,” 95–97. At least one copy of Caxton’s Golden Legend had woodcuts painted in watercolor, but most surviving copies have uncolored woodcuts. The colored copy is in a private collection: Driver, “Woodcuts,” 95–96. 27 Katherine L. French, The People of the Parish: Community Life in a Late Medieval English Diocese, Middle Ages Series (Philadelphia, PA: Penn Press, 2000), 167–68.

44 Caxton’s Golden Legend 28 Carolyn Kinder Carr, “Aspects of the Iconography of Saint Peter in Medieval Art of Western Europe to the Early Thirteenth Century,” PhD diss. (Case Western Reserve University, 1978), 7. 29 To quote Carolyn Carr: “The major innovation which took place in the Medieval era was the evolution of a type which stressed through the use of attributes and liturgical vestments Peter’s power, his authority, and his role in the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Representations of Peter as supreme pontiff … were, however, relatively rare”: Carr, “Saint Peter,” ii, 33–34. 30 Ursula Rowlatt, “Popular Representations of the Trinity in England, 990–1300,” Folklore 112, no. 2 (2001): 204. 31 There is a considerable body of scholarship devoted to Wycliffe and his followers. See especially K. B. McFarlane, John Wycliffe and the Beginnings of English Nonconformity (New York: Macmillan, 1953); Anne Hudson, The Premature Reformation: Wycliffite Texts and Lollard History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988); and Kantik Ghosh, The Wycliffite Heresy: Authority and the Interpretation of Texts, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature, 45 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). 32 In regard to using “lollardy” rather than “Lollardy,” see Fiona Somerset, “Textual Transmission, Variance, and Religious Identity among Lollard Pastoralia” in Religious Controversy in Europe, 1378–1536: Textual Transmission and Networks of Readership, ed. Michael Van Dussen and Pavel Soukup (Belgium: Brepols, 2013), 71–72, note 1. Essentially, the explanation rests on an understanding of “lollardy” after Wycliffe as less a coherent movement and more a personal rejection of orthodoxy combined with an emphasis on direct access to theological truth, usually through reading scripture. See Shannon McSheffrey, “Heresy, Orthodoxy and English Vernacular Religion, 1480–1525,” Past & Present 186 (2005): 49. 33 Madie Hilmo, Medieval Images, Icons, and Illustrated English Literary Texts from the Ruthwell Cross to the Ellesmere Chaucer (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2004), 143–44. Hilmo notes that Wycliffe particularly disliked the “Mercy Seat configuration” of the Trinity rather than the depiction of the Trinity as three adult men that figures in Caxton’s frontispiece. See also Robert Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things? Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation, rpt. ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015), 595. 34 The eighth conclusion reads, in part: “Þe viii. conclusion nedful to telle to þe puple be gylid is þe pilgrimage, preyeris, and offringis made to blynde rodys and to deve ymages of tre and of ston ben ner of kin to ydolatrie … ʒet þe ymage usuel of Trinite is most abhominable”: H. S. Cronin, “The Twelve Conclusions of the Lollards,” The English Historical Review 22, no. 86 (1907): 300. 35 Alan J. Fletcher, “John Mirk and the Lollards,” Medium Aevum LVI, no. 2 (1987): 219. Fletcher makes this observation in the context of an explanation of how Mirk’s Trinity sermon argues against lollards. 36 Jonathan Good, The Cult of Saint George in Medieval England (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2009), 66. 37 Philip Lindsay, King Henry V: A Chronicle (London: Ivor Nicholson & Watson, 1934), 189. 38 GL EEBO 1484, folio Clvi verso. In regard to Caxton’s composition of this passage, see Pierce Butler, “Legenda Aurea – Légende Dorée – Golden Legend: A Study of Caxton’s Golden Legend with Special Reference to Its Relations to the Earlier English Prose Translation,” PhD diss. (The Johns Hopkins University, 1899), 87; Mary Jeremy [Finnegan], “Caxton’s Original Additions to the Legenda Aurea,” Modern Language Notes 64, no. 4 (1949): 259; and Manfred Görlach, The “South English Legendary,” “Gilte Legende” and

Caxton’s Golden Legend 45

39 40

41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49

50 51 52

53 54

55

56

“Golden Legend” (Braunschweig: Technische Universität Carolo-Wilhelmina, Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 1972), 93. GL EEBO 1484, folio CCClxxvii recto. Hellinga, William Caxton, 108. Saint Edmund King and Martyr would probably have been special to Lydgate, who was a monk at the Benedictine Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, the burial site and principal shrine of Saint Edmund. In addition to admiring Lydgate’s style, Caxton published some of his work, including The Temple of Glas (1477) and The Lyf of Our Lady (1484). See Andrew Higl, “Printing Power: Selling Lydgate, Gower, and Chaucer,” Essays in Medieval Studies 23 (January 2006): 59. It is called “black letter” because it uses less white space than most typefaces: Werner, Studying, 39. Keith Thomas, “The Meaning of Literacy in Early Modern England,” in The Written Word: Literacy in Transition, ed. Gerd Baumann (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 99; Hellinga, William Caxton, 93; Werner, Studying, 37. Werner, Studying, 39. Dane, What is a Book?, 108. Werner, Studying, 39; Mark Bland, The Appearance of the Text in Early Modern England (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), 93–94. Seventy-one of the 111 titles that Caxton published were either entirely or mostly written in English: Hellinga, William Caxton, 60 and 113. McSheffrey, “Heresy, Orthodoxy,” 49–51. Dane, What is a Book?, 86. David R. Carlson, “Chaucer, Humanism, and Printing: Conditions of Authorship in Fifteenth-Century England,” University of Toronto Quarterly 64 (Spring 1995): 279. See also Daniel Wakelin, Humanism, Reading and English Literature, 1430–1530 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 147–54. Caxton’s prologues and epilogues were published as a collection in the early twentieth century: W. J. B. Crotch, The Prologues and Epilogues of William Caxton, EETS o.s. 176 (London: Early English Text Society, 1928; rpt. 1971). GL EEBO 1484, first unfoliated leaf, verso, and second unfoliated leaf, recto. The source of the prologue to Caxton’s Golden Legend was noted by Pierce Butler: Butler, “A Study,” 75. Vignay’s prologue may be found here: Brenda Dunn-Lardeau, ed. and trans, La Légende dorée: Edition critique, dans la révision de 1476 par Jean Batallier, d’après la traduction de Jean de Vignay (1333–1348) de la Legenda aurea (c.1261–1266), Textes de la Renaissance sous la direction de Claude Blum, 19 (Paris: Honoré Champion, l997), 87–88. I use the now-standard, or almost standard, titles; Caxton does not. Doctors of the church are theologians recognized as especially influential. Augustine and Jerome are two of the four great Latin doctors; the other two are Gregory the Great and Ambrose. For doctors of the church in connection to saints, see Bartlett, Why Can the Dead, 186–88. For Augustine, see John K. Ryan, “Introduction,” in The Confessions of St. Augustine, ed. and trans. John K. Ryan, 17–38 (Garden City: Doubleday, 1960). Baldwin, Kingmaker, 11. The title “Earl of Arundel” was granted to John FitzAlan in the mid-thirteenth century; it descended through his family: (Fanny) Bury Palliser, “Historic Devices and Badges,” The Art Journal, n.s. 6 (1867): 33. Anne F. Sutton, “Caxton was a Mercer: His Social Milieu and Friends,” in England in the Fifteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1992 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. Nicholas Rogers, Harlaxton Medieval Studies, vol. 4 (Stamford: Paul Watkins, 1992), 118.

46 Caxton’s Golden Legend 57 Hellinga describes the question of how much this arrangement actually helped to finance the publication as “a moot point”: Hellinga, William Caxton, 70. 58 A. S. G. Edwards and Carol M. Meale, “The Marketing of Printed Books in Late Medieval England,” The Library, 6th ser., 15 (1993): 96. 59 Duff states that one of the large woodcuts in this edition is the device of the Earl of Arundel, although he does not indicate which woodcut: Duff, Printers, 16. 60 Palliser, “Historic Devices,” 33. The phrase is from the thirty-first psalm. 61 Driver, The Image in Print, 77, 83–89, 151. 62 Baldwin, Kingmaker, 54, 72. 63 David Santiuste, Edward IV and the Wars of the Roses (Barnsley: Pen and Sword Books, 2010), 86. 64 Santiuste, Edward IV, 84–85; Hicks, Wars, 189. 65 Baldwin, Kingmaker, 60. 66 Baldwin, Kingmaker, 12; Santiuste, Edward IV, 105–6. 67 Hicks, Wars, 80. 68 Baldwin, Kingmaker, 65. 69 Hicks, Wars, 172. 70 Hellinga, William Caxton, 61. 71 Rivers was part of the party that accompanied Edward IV to Burgundy in 1470: Santiuste, Edward IV, 105. 72 Hellinga, William Caxton, 61. 73 Gordon Kipling, The Triumph of Honour: Burgundian Origins of the Elizabethan Renaissance (The Hague: Leiden University Press, 1977), 11–12; Santiuste, Edward IV, 85. 74 Hellinga, William Caxton, 61. 75 Baldwin, Kingmaker, 106–7; Cooper and Cooper, “Hog,” 36–37. 76 Cooper and Cooper, “Hog,” 37. 77 Darcy Kern, “Parliament in Print: William Caxton and the History of Political Government in the Fifteenth Century,” Journal of Medieval History 40, no. 2 (2014): 211. Buckingham’s Rebellion was actually a series of rebellions planned across southern England for October 1483 in an attempt to dethrone Richard III and replace him with Elizabeth of York, the eldest daughter of Edward IV, whom the rebels planned to unite in marriage with the Lancastrian exile, Henry Tudor. The conspirators included Elizabeth Woodville, Margaret Beaufort, and Henry Tudor, but it was principally a rebellion of Edward IV’s household gentry. Over 1,100 men and women, most of whom had been in service to Edward IV, sued for a similar pardon: Louise Gill, “William Caxton and the Rebellion of 1483,” English Historical Review 112 (1997): 111–12. The Duke of Buckingham had been married to yet another Woodville, Katherine, sister to Elizabeth Woodville: Santiuste, Edward IV, 84. A genealogical table may be found in Hicks, Wars, 166. 78 Cooper and Cooper, “Hog,” 37. 79 Cooper and Cooper, “Hog,” 37. 80 Hellinga, William Caxton, 70. 81 Hellinga, William Caxton, 63. Carole Weinberg argues that Caxton incorporated a subtle insult to Richard III in the Morte Darthur by changing the bear in Arthur’s dream of bear who is a tyrant tormenting his people to a boar, Richard’s symbol: Weinberg, “Caxton, Anthony Woodville, and the Prologue to the Morte Darthur,” Studies in Philology 102, no.1 (2005): 59–61. 82 Sutton, “William Caxton,” 272. 83 Margaret Connolly, “Compiling the Book,” in Gillespie and Wakelin, The Production of Books, 134.

Caxton’s Golden Legend 47 84 Neither table of contents was reproduced by Ellis in the modern edition of Caxton’s Golden Legend. Ellis creates his own table of contents and assigns a number to each chapter: Frederick Startridge Ellis, ed. The Golden Legend or Lives of the Saints as Englished by William Caxton, Temple Classics (London: J. M. Dent, 1900). 85 This edition employs neither pagination nor quire signatures: Atkin and Edwards, “Printers,” 28. Pagination was not introduced until the sixteenth century: Werner, Studying, 92. 86 There are many errors in foliation in this edition, as sometimes numbers are repeated on consecutive folios, sometimes numbers are skipped, and sometimes elements of the numbers are out of order (such as, for example, “xli” written as “xil’). All the editions of Caxton’s Golden Legend through 1527 have at least a few foliation errors. 87 The date of Easter is calculated in relation to the vernal equinox, so the date on which it is celebrated shifts each year. In this table of contents, the first chapter is on Advent, followed by chapters for the feasts of the Nativity, the Circumcision, the Epiphany, Septuagesima, Sexagesima, Quinquagesima, Quadragesima, Ember Days, the Passion of the Lord, the Resurrection (Easter), the Greater and Lesser Litanies, the Ascension of our Lord, Pentecost, and Corpus Christi. 88 Pilcrows are early versions of paragraph marks. 89 Bartlett, Why Can the Dead, 551. 90 GL EEBO 1484, folio CCClxxxxi recto. 91 Bartlett, Why Can the Dead, 550–51; Alan J. Fletcher and Susan Powell, “The Origins of a Fifteenth-Century Sermon Collection: MSS Harley 2247 and Royal 18 B XXV,” Leeds Studies in English 10 (1978): 74. 92 N. F. Blake uses this organizational schema as evidence for categorizing Caxton’s Golden Legend as a book of sermons: N. F. Blake, “The Biblical Additions in Caxton’s Golden Legend,” Traditio 25 (1969): 237. 93 Partridge, “Designing the Page,” 79–80. 94 John King, “Early Modern English Print Culture,” in A Companion to the History of the English Language, ed. Haruko Momma and Michael Matto (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2018), 286. Before the 1580s, most white paper in England was imported: Blayney, Stationers, 17. 95 Werner, Studying, 111. 96 Werner, Studying, 88–89. 97 Werner, Studying, 88. 98 Julia Boffey, “From Manuscript to Print: Continuity and Change,” in Gillespie and Powell, Early Printed Book, 18. 99 David Bland, A History of Book Illustration: The Illuminated Manuscript and the Printed Book (Oakland: University of California Press, 1969), 137. 100 Driver, Image in Print, 73–75. 101 Bartlett, Why Can the Dead, 492–95. 102 Driver, Image in Print, 116. 103 The woodcuts used in this edition seem to have been made by the same artist who made the woodcuts for the second edition of Caxton’s Book of Chess: Butler, “A Study,” 78. 104 Paul, GL EEBO 1484, folio CCv verso; Conversion of Saint Paul, Cxxvii recto; Peter, CCii verso; Peter in Cathedra, Cxxxix verso; and Peter ad Vincula, CCxxxiiii recto. 105 GL EEBO 1484, folio CCCxxxviii verso. 106 Andrew, GL EEBO 1484, folio lxxxii verso; Thomas, lxxxxiiii verso; Matthias, Cxl verso; Philip, Clxiiii recto; James the Greater, CCxxi recto; James the Less, Clxiiii verso; Barnabas, Clxxvii verso: and Bartholomew, CClxix recto.

48 Caxton’s Golden Legend 107 Bartlett, Why Can the Dead, 79. 108 Corpus Christi was created in the thirteenth century as a celebration of the Eucharist. It became popular by the middle of the fourteenth century: John Bossy, Christianity in the West, 1400–1700 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 71. 109 Nativity, GL EEBO 1484, folio iiii verso; Epiphany, viii verso; Passion, xiiii recto; Resurrection, xviii verso; Ascension, xxiii recto; Pentecost, xxvi verso; and Corpus Christi, xxx verso. 110 Invention, GL EEBO 1484, folio Clxvii recto; and Exultation, CClxxxix verso. 111 GL EEBO 1484, folio Cii verso. 112 Nativity of John the Baptist, GL EEBO 1484, folio CClxxxxi verso; Decollation of John the Baptist, CClxvii recto. 113 GL EEBO 1484, folio CCxvi recto. 114 Christopher was supposedly a third-century Canaanite and a giant: John J. Delaney, Pocket Dictionary of Saints, abridged edition (New York: Image Books, 1983), 118. According Caxton, Christopher stood twelve cubits tall, or about eighteen feet: GL EEBO 1484, folio CCxxiiii verso. 115 GL EEBO 1484, folio CCxxiiii verso. A globus cruciger is a small globe or ball with a cross protruding from its top. It symbolizes the idea of God as ruler of the world. 116 The double-column woodcuts are for the Purification of Our Lady, GL EEBO 1484, folio Cxxxii recto; the Annunciation of Our Lady, Cl recto; the Assumption of Our Lady, CClii recto and CClviii recto; and the Nativity of Our Lady, CClxxxiiii recto. The chapter with a single-column woodcut is for the Conception of Our Lady, lxxxx verso. 117 The chapter begins on GL EEBO 1484, folio CClii recto and ends on CClxii recto. The only longer chapters in this edition are those for Clare, folio CCClx verso – CCClxx recto; and Edward King and Confessor, folio CCCxxii verso – CCCxxxii recto. 118 For the apocryphal gospels, see Bart D. Ehrman, Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003; rpt. ed. 2005); and Ehrman, Lost Scriptures: Books that Did Not Make It into the New Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003; rpt. ed. 2005). 119 These chapters are discussed in greater detail in Chapter 4. 120 The single-column woodcuts are for Noah, GL EEBO 1484, folio xxxix recto; Abraham, xl verso; Isaac and his sons, xliiii verso; Joseph and his brothers, xlviii verso; Moses, liiii verso; Saul, lxiii recto; King David, lxviii verso; Solomon, lxxi verso; Rehoboam, lxxiiii recto; Job, lxxiiii verso; and Tobias, lxxv verso. The double-column woodcut is for Judith, lxxx recto. 121 GL EEBO 1484, folio CClxxxxv verso. The jar may be an inkwell. 122 GL EEBO 1484, folio Clix recto. 123 GL EEBO 1484, folio CCCxxxii verso. 124 GL EEBO 1484, folio C recto. 125 GL EEBO 1484, folio C recto. 126 Mark, GL EEBO 1484, folio Clix recto; and Luke, CCCxxxii verso. 127 Jerome, GL EEBO 1484, folio CCCix recto. 128 These chapters are discussed in greater detail in Chapter 5. 129 Thomas of Canterbury, GL EEBO 1484, folio Cv recto; and the Translation of Thomas of Canterbury, CCxii recto. 130 Augustine of Canterbury, GL EEBO 1484, folio Clxxiii recto; Edward King and Confessor, CCCxxii verso; Edmund of Abingdon, CCClxxiii verso; Edmund King and Martyr, CCClxxvii recto; Brendan, CCClxxxxiiii verso; and Erkenwald, CCClxxxxviii verso.

Caxton’s Golden Legend 49 131 Bartlett, Why Can the Dead, 505. 132 Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, c.1400–c.1580 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992), 170–71. Their legends place all three in the fourth century. 133 Katherine, GL EEBO 1484, folio CCClxxxiii verso; Margaret, CCxiiii verso; Barbara, CCClxx recto; and Ursula, CCCxxxvi recto. Ursula’s legend also places her in the fourth century. 134 Stephen Protomartyr, GL EEBO 1484, folio lxxxxviii recto; Roch, CClxii recto; and Laurence, CC xlvi verso. Stephen’s legend places him at the time of Christ. 135 Augustine of Hippo, GL EEBO 1484, folio CClxxii recto; Ambrose, folio Cliii recto. 136 Pope Gregory I, GL EEBO 1484, folio Cxlii recto; Pelagious and the history of the Lombards, CCCCvii verso. 137 GL EEBO 1484, folio lxxxvii recto. The other five chapters are those for Augustine of Canterbury, Augustine of Hippo, Edmund of Abingdon, Erkenwald, and Ambrose. Saint Nicholas is identified with Santa Claus today, but was very likely not so identified by Caxton’s readers. 138 Lawrence M. Clopper, “Miracula and The Tretise of Miraclis Pleyinge,” Speculum 65, no. 4 (1990): 885; Joel Fredell, “The Three Clerks and St. Nicholas in Medieval England,” Studies in Philology 92, no. 2 (Spring 1995): 181–82, 187–90; Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars, 13–14. Similar festivities were celebrated on the feasts of Saint Catherine, Saint Clement, and the Holy Innocents, of which the chapters on the former and the latter are also illustrated in this edition but the chapter on Clement is not. 139 Dominic, GL EEBO 1484, folio CCxxxviii verso; and Francis, CCCxii verso. 140 Bartlett, Why Can the Dead, 65–71. 141 G. W. Bernard, The Late Medieval English Church: Vitality and Vulnerability Before the Break with Rome (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 177. 142 Bernard, Late Medieval, 178. 143 GL EEBO 1484, folio CClxiiii verso. For Bernard’s status as a doctor, see John J. Delaney, Dictionary, 74. For further detail on his life, see John A. F. Thomson, The Western Church in the Middle Ages (London: Arnold, 1998), 112–19. 144 King Louis IX of France, GL EEBO 1484, folio CCCCxxix verso; George, Clvi verso; and Michael the Archangel, CCCiiii verso. 145 Thomson, Western Church, 109; Delaney, Dictionary, 320–21. 146 He was not the only such figure: see Bartlett, Why Can the Dead, 163–67. 147 GL EEBO 1484, folio CCCv recto. 148 The illustration chosen for Margaret in this edition also features a dragon, so Caxton may have believed that readers found dragons to be appealing or perhaps eye-catching figures. Further discussion of Margaret’s lesser-known dragon may be found in Jenny C. Bledsoe, “Practical Hagiography: James of Voragine’s Sermones and Vita on St Margaret of Antioch,” Medieval Sermon Studies 57 (2013), 29–48. 149 Martin of Tours, GL EEBO 1484, folio CCClvi recto; and Anthony, Cxiiii verso. For confessor saints and the role of Anthony and Martin as models, see Bartlett, Why Can the Dead, 16–22. 150 Leonard, GL EEBO 1484, folio CCCliii verso; and Giles, CClxxxii verso. 151 Bartlett, Why Can the Dead, 236. 152 GL EEBO 1484, folio CCCxxxxiv recto. 153 The failure to represent God in the form of the Trinity in the illustration for the chapter on All Saints’ Day strongly suggests that the use of the Trinity in the initial “Trinity Adored by the Assembly of Saints” woodcut is not a reference to the reading on the Trinity belonging to the liturgy of All Saints’

50 Caxton’s Golden Legend

154 155 156

157 158 159

Day in late medieval service books. For further information on that liturgy, see Bartlett, Why Can the Dead, 119–20. GL EEBO 1484, folio CCCxlviii verso. Dedication of a Church, GL EEBO 1484, folio xxxii verso; and the History of the Mass, CCCCxxxv recto. Hellinga, William Caxton, 82. See Susan Powell, ed., John Mirk’s Festial: Edited from British Library MS Cotton Claudius A. II, vol. 2, Early English Text Society, o.s. 335 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). It was reissued many times by Caxton and other early English printers. GL EEBO 1484, folio CCCCxliiii recto. GL EEBO 1487. Saint Erasmus was also known as Saint Elmo: Delaney, 165.

3

Caxton’s sources The Legenda aurea, La Légende dorée, and the Gilte Legende

One aspect of the process of creating The Golden Legend that readers would not have seen is Caxton’s selection of materials from his source texts. All Caxton’s decisions as a publisher regarding such elements as organization, paratext, and illustration were built upon decisions he made as an editor and compiler. His goal of producing a book that would be attractive to his imagined readers would have informed his judgment in these preliminary roles as much as they did in his role as publisher. His Golden Legend is not an exact translation of any other text, but a unique collection of materials that he assembled to suit his imagined audience. Scholars have identified the Latin, French, and English books that Caxton references in the prologue of his Golden Legend as the thirteenth-century Legenda aurea by Jacobus Voragine; its mid-fourteenth-century French translation, La Légende dorée, by Jean de Vignay; and its anonymous fifteenth-century Middle-English translation, the Gilte Legende.1 Identifying the precise versions of these books consulted by Caxton has proven much more elusive, which makes the reconstruction of his selection process provisional. Jacobus’s original Latin Legenda probably included just under 180 chapters, most of which are vitae of a single saint, that is, a biography of the saint and related information, such as posthumous miracles. A few chapters are entirely about one aspect of a saint’s life, such as the chapter on the Assumption of Mary. In addition, some chapters are narratives about a group of related saints, or about a religious celebration, such as Christmas. There is no plot connecting the chapters: the Legenda aurea is more of an encyclopedia than a chronicle. Its structure offered tremendous latitude to copyists and translators to introduce modifications. Typically, variants of the Legenda make few changes in the text of chapters beyond the accumulation of posthumous miracles or the elimination or shortening of Jacobus’s fanciful etymologies of the saints’ names; so, for example, a chapter on Michael the Archangel would contain roughly the same text in all variants no matter what other chapters were included alongside it. The chapters themselves were often added, removed, or reordered. Various renderings of the Legenda aurea therefore differ not only in the language employed or in details of expression, but in the presence or

52 Caxton’s sources absence of entire chapters and the order in which they appear. A scribe working in a German-speaking region, for example, might copy all the chapters found in his Latin source and then add a dozen new chapters at the end, also in Latin, devoted to regionally popular saints not included in the original. In other words, he would adapt the collection to suit his audience. There were pronounced regional variations in the medieval cult of saints easily traced through such practices as church dedications, and many local saints would be unknown beyond their region.2 This new hypothetical Latin version with additional chapters about saints admired in the region around this conjectural German-speaking scribe might then generate several copies. Another scribe might copy one of them, but choose to break up the block of saints’ lives added at the end and intersperse them among the other chapters. That variant might also generate several copies that would offer no indication, even by placement, that some chapters were not originally part of the collection. A monastic scribe working, for example, in Burgundy, might copy this new version, and choose to omit a few saints less popular in his area while adding the lives of saints associated with the history of his monastic order. A later scribe might revise a copy of that Burgundian version, not by adding new saints’ lives but by including chapters on new liturgical feasts. These two variants might each generate several copies. Through this process of inventive copying, many versions of the legendary were produced throughout Europe, all known as the Legenda aurea, without anything like a modern editorial introduction to distinguish among them. When the Legenda was translated into vernacular languages, any of its variants might be chosen as the model, called an exemplar, on which the translation would be based. If a hypothetical French translator had available to him only a copy similar to the original Latin Legenda aurea, or chose to use such a copy as his exemplar, then his French La Légende dorée – French for “Legenda aurea” – might include fewer French saints than might be found in some of the Latin variants. Caxton worked in this complex and elastic tradition. The question of Caxton’s exemplars for The Golden Legend, that is, the specific variants he consulted, has attracted more scholarly attention than has its printing history, but answers remain incomplete. The immensely popular Latin Legenda aurea branched into several variant traditions over the more than two centuries between its original compilation and Caxton’s production of his Golden Legend.3 Vignay’s popular French translation, La Légende dorée, likewise branched into different traditions during the period, lasting more than a century, in which it circulated in manuscript form. In 1476 it became the first book to be printed in the French language, and it was subsequently published in different editions.4 In contrast, the Middle English Gilte Legende survives in only eight fairly complete manuscript copies and two fragments.5 Even with those few copies, the Gilte Legende developed variant versions. Scholars from the

Caxton’s sources 53 nineteenth and twentieth centuries have scrutinized the extant texts of the Legenda aurea, La Légende dorée, and the Gilte Legende to identify Caxton’s exemplars.6 A fairly robust picture has emerged from this work, and Table 3.1 indicates which chapters in the first edition of Caxton’s Golden Legend were present in its three main source texts, both in their modern critical edition and in one important variant. Nevertheless, there is no way to be certain that all the variant versions available to Caxton are still extant, nor even that all extant versions have been found. It remains possible that Caxton had before him some variant of the Legenda aurea, La Légende dorée, or the Gilte Legende that included chapters absent from the ones known to researchers. The current modern critical edition of the Latin Legenda Aurea by Giovanni Paolo Maggioni represents a reconstruction of the legendary as it was first assembled by Jacobus de Voragine in c.1260.7 It includes a mere 178 chapters. A small clue regarding Caxton’s Latin exemplar may be found in his text. Caxton ends the chapter on Saint Roche with the declaration: “whiche lyf is translated oute of latyn in to Englysshe by me William Caxton.”8 As there seems to have been no life of Roche in Jacobus’s original Legenda, Caxton must have used some later variant to which additional chapters had been added.9 One such variant was edited by Theodor Graesse in the nineteenth century; this was the main critical edition before Maggioni’s work.10 Graesse’s edition includes 243 chapters. There is no reason to think that the copy of the Legenda Aurea consulted by Caxton had all the same chapters as the Graesse edition. The modern critical edition of La Légende dorée by Brenda DunnLardeau, in contrast, is not a reconstruction of the original French translation of the Legenda aurea made by Jean de Vignay c.1340 but rather of its printed version published in Lyons in 1476 by Jean Batallier, who revised Vignay’s work for publication.11 The Batallier edition is by far the most accessible to the modern researcher, but it is unlikely to have been the one consulted by Caxton. Among the other versions was one which Pierce Butler claims, probably correctly, to have been Caxton’s French exemplar.12 He draws this conclusion partly because of the similarity of the order of the chapters between this version and Caxton’s; partly on the number of chapters in Caxton’s Golden Legend found here but in no other version; and partly because both this version and Caxton’s omit much of the etymological material that Vignay had retained in his translation.13 Butler’s conclusion is supported by Dunn-Lardeau, who labels this variant “Jean de Vignay (c),” and notes that there are three manuscript copies extant.14 Butler, writing in the late nineteenth century, was aware of only two copies of this particular variant, one in manuscript and one in print, both held by the British Library.15 As the print version lacks its colophon, the tentative conjecture in the British Library catalog at the time of Butler’s research was that it had been published in Paris in c.1480, an identification repeated by Butler.16 It has since been identified as the work of Flavius Josephus,

54 Caxton’s sources Table 3.1 Chapters in Caxton’s Golden Legend (1484/87) and in its main source textsa Chapter in the Golden Legend 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Advent The Nativity of Our Lord The Circumcision The Feast of the Epiphany (Three Kings) Septuagesima Sexagesima Quinquagesima Quadragesima The Ember Days The Passion of Our Lord The Resurrection The Greater and Lesser Litanies The Ascension of Our Lord Pentecost (Whitsunday) Corpus Christi The Dedication of a Church The Life of Adam The History of Noah The Life of Abraham The Life of Isaac The History of Joseph and his Brethren The History of Moses The Ten Commandments The History of Joshua The History of Saul The History of King David The History of Solomon The History of Rehoboam The History of Job The History of Tobit The Story of Judith St. Andrew St. Nicholas The Conception of Our Lady SS. Gentian, Fulcian, and Victorice St. Lucy St. Nicasius St. Thomas the Apostle St. Anastasia

Legenda Aurea M M M M M M M M M M M M M M – M – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – M M – – M – M M

G G G G G G G G G G G G – – G G – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – G G G – G – G G

Légende Dorée D D D D D D D D D D D D D D – D – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – D D – – D – D D

B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B – – – – – – – B – – – – – – – – B B B B B B B B

Gilte Legende H H H H H H H H H H – H H H – H – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – H H H – H – H H

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

(Continued )

Caxton’s sources 55 Table 3.1 (Cont.) Chapter in the Golden Legend 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78

St. Eugenia St. Stephen Protomartyr St. John the Evangelist The Holy Innocents St. Thomas of Canterbury St. Silvester St. Paul the Hermit St. Remigius St. Hilary St. Firmin St. Macarias St. Felix St. Marcel St. Anthony St. Fabian St. Sebastian St. Agnes St. Vincent St. Basil St. John the Almoner The Conversion of St. Paul St. Pauline the Widow St. Julian the Bishop St. Ignatius The Purification of Our Lady St. Blasé St Agatha St. Amande St. Vedaste St. Valentine St. Juliana Virgin St. Peter in Cathedra St. Matthias the Apostle St. Gregory Pope St. Longinus St. Maur St. Patrick St. Benedict St. Cuthbert

Legenda Aurea – M M M M M M M M – M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M – M M –

– G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G – G G –

Légende Dorée – D D D D D D D D – D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D – D D –

B B B B B B B B B B B B B – – – – – – – – – B B – – – – B B B – – – – B B B –

Gilte Legende – H H H H H H H H – H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H – H H –

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – S

(Continued )

56 Caxton’s sources Table 3.1 (Cont.) Chapter in the Golden Legend 79 The Annunciation of Our Lady 80 St. Seconde 81 St. Mary of Egypt 82 St. Ambrose 83 St. Alphage 84 St. George 85 St. Mark the Evangelist 86 St. Marcelin the Pope 87 St. Vital 88 St. Peter of Milan 89 St. Philip 90 St. James the Less 91 The Invention of the Holy Cross 92 St. John before the Latin Gate 93 St. Gordian 94 SS. Nereus and Achilleus 95 St. Pancras 96 St. Urban 97 St. Pernelle (Petronilla) 98 St. Dunstan 99 St. Aldhelm 100 St. Augustine of Canterbury 101 St. Germainb 102 St. Peter the Deacon 103 SS. Priam and Felician 104 St. Barnabus the Apostle 105 SS. Vitus and Modestus 106 SS. Quirine and Juliet 107 St. Marine 108 SS. Gervase and Prothase 109 St. Edward King and Martyr 110 SS. Alban & Amphibalus 111 The Nativity of St. John the Baptist 112 St. Loye 113 St. William 114 St. Eutrope 115 St. Marcial 116 St. Genevieve 117 St. Maturin

Legenda Aurea M M M M – M M M M M M M M M M M M M M – – – M M M M M M M M – – M – – – – – –

G G G G – G G G G G G G G G G G G G G – – – G G G G G G G G – – G – – – G G –

Légende Dorée D D D D – D D D D D D D D D D D D D D – – – D D D D D D D D – – D – – – – – –

B B B – – – – – – – – – – – – B B B – – – – B B B B B – – B – – B B B B B B B

Gilte Legende H H H H – H H H H H H H H H H H H H H – – – H H H H H H H H – H H – – – – – –

– – – – S – – – – – – – – – – – – – – S S S – – – – – – – – S – – – – – – – –

(Continued )

Caxton’s sources 57 Table 3.1 (Cont.) Chapter in the Golden Legend 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156

St. Victor SS. John and Paul St. Leo the Pope St. Peter the Apostle St. Paul the Apostle The Seven Brethren St. Theodora St. Swithun Translation of Thomas of Canterbury St. Kenelm St. Margaret St. Praxede St. Mary Magdalene St. Apollinaris St. Christine St. James the Greater St. Christopher The Seven Sleepers St. Nazarian St. Felix Pope SS. Simplicien, Faustin, and Beatrice St. Martha SS. Abdon and Sennen St. Eusebius The Seven Maccabees St. Peter ad Vincula St. Stephen the Pope Invention of St. Stephen Protomartyr St. Dominic St. Sixtus Pope St. Donatus St. Ciriacus St. Laurence St. Hippolytus The Assumption of Our Lady St. Roche St. Bernard St. Timothy St. Symphorien

Legenda Aurea – M M M M M M – – – M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M – M M M

– G G G G G G – – – G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G

Légende Dorée – D D D D D D – – – D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D – D D D

B B B B B B – – – – B B B B B B B B – B B B B B B B B B B – B – – – – – – – –

Gilte Legende – H H H H H H – – – H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H – H H H H H H H H – H H H

– – – – – – – S – S – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

(Continued )

58 Caxton’s sources Table 3.1 (Cont.) Chapter in the Golden Legend 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195

St. Bartholomew St. Augustine Doctor The Decollation of St. John St. Felix St. Savien St. Lupe or Lowe St. Mamertine St. Giles The Nativity of Our Lady St. Adrian Martyr St. Gorgone SS. Prothus and Hyacinth The Exultation of the Holy Cross St. John Chrysostom SS. Cornelius and Cyprian St. Eufemia St. Lambert St. Mathew St. Maurice St. Justina SS. Cosmo and Damian St. Fursey St. Michel St. Jerome St. Remigius St. Logier St. Francis St. Pelagienne St. Margaret or Pelagien St. Thais St. Denis St. Calixtus St. Edward King and Confessor St. Luke SS. Crisaunt & Daria St. Ursula SS. Crispin and Crispinian SS. Simon and Jude St. Quintin

Legenda Aurea M M M M M M M – M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M M – M M M – M M

G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G G – G G G – G G

Légende Dorée D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D D – D D D – D D

– – – – B – – – – B B B B B B B B B – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Gilte Legende H H – H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H H – H H H – H H

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – S – – – – – –

(Continued )

Caxton’s sources 59 Table 3.1 (Cont.) Chapter in the Golden Legend 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234

St. Eustace All Hallows The Commemoration of Souls St. Winifred St. Leonard The Four Crowned Martyrs St. Theodore St. Martin St. Brice St. Clair St. Barbara St. Alexis St. Elizabeth St. Edmund of Abingdon St. Hugh St. Edmund King St. Cecilia St. Clement St. Crysogonus St. Katherine St. Saturnine St. James the Martyr The Venerable Bede St. Dorothy St. Brendan St. Erkenwald St. Pastour, abbot St. John, abbot St. Moses, abbot St. Arsenius St. Agathon, abbot SS. Barlaam and Josaphat St. Pelagius/History of Lombards St. Simeon St. Polycarp St. Quiriacus St. Thomas Aquinas St. Gaius St. Arnold

Legenda Aurea M M M – M M M M M – – M M – – – M M M M M M – – – – M M M M M M M – – – – – –

G G G – G G G G G G G G G – – – G G G G G G – G – – G G G G G G G – – – G – –

Légende Dorée D D D – D D D D D – – D D – – – D D D D D D – – – – D D D D D D D – – – – – –

– – – – – – – – – B B B – – – – B B – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – B B B B B B

Gilte Legende H H H – H H H H H – – – H – – – H H H H H H – – – – H H H H H H H – – – – – –

– – – S – – – – – – S – – S – S – – – – – – – S S S – – – – – – – – – – – – –

(Continued )

60 Caxton’s sources Table 3.1 (Cont.) Chapter in the Golden Legend 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250

St. Turien St. Fiacre St. Justin St. Demetrius St. Rigobert St. Landry St. Mellonin St. Ives St. Morant St. Louis, King of France St. Louis, Bishop of Marseilles St. Aldegonde St. Albine The History of the Mass The Twelve Articles of the Faith St Erasmusc

Legenda Aurea – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

– – G – – – – – – – – – – – – G

Légende Dorée – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

B B B B B B B B B B B B B B B –

Gilte Legende – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Sources: This table draws upon GL EEBO 1484 and GL EEBO 1487. Key M This chapter appears in the modern critical edition of the Legenda Aurea edited by Giovanni Paolo Maggioni. G This chapter appears in the edition of the Legenda aurea edited by Theodor Graesse. D This chapter appears in the modern critical edition of La Légende dorée edited by Brenda Dunn-Lardeau. B This chapter appears in the variant of Vignay’s La Légende dorée identified by Butler as Caxton’s French exemplar; Dunn-Lardeau labels it “Jean de Vignay (c).” H This chapter appears in the modern critical edition of the Gilte Legende, edited by Richard Hamer. S This chapter is one of the supplementary lives added to a variant of the Gilte Legende, edited by Richard Hamer and Vida Russell. Notes a This table indicates that there is a chapter in the source text for the same saint or concept, not whether Caxton’s chapter is a direct translation. In many cases, however, the contents of Caxton’s chapters closely resemble the contents of the source texts. b The 1484 impression includes two identical copies of the chapter on St. Germain, presumably by mistake. c The chapter on Erasmus is in the 1487 issue, but is omitted in the 1484 issue.

a printer who worked in the southern Netherlands, and dated to between 1475 and 1477; four copies have been identified.17 There is also a modern critical edition of the English Gilte Legende, edited by Richard Hamer.18 As Hamer explains, the Gilte Legende is a close translation of Vignay’s La Légende dorée rather than a parallel translation of the Latin Legenda Aurea.19 The Gilte Legende was composed in 1438 by

Caxton’s sources 61 a translator known only as “a synfulle wrecch” despite scholarly efforts at more precise identification.20 Hamer and Vida Russell have edited a collection of supplementary chapters added to variants of the Gilte Legende.21 These additional chapters were adapted largely from a late thirteenth-century English collection of saints’ lives called the South English Legendary, which was also partly based on the Legenda aurea.22 Hamer and Russell address the question of Caxton’s source text among the various renderings of the Gilte Legende and argue that the most likely candidate is a version extant in one copy held in the British Library, namely, BL, Add. MS 35298, but that it is not close enough to Caxton’s Golden Legend to actually claim it as his English exemplar. Hamer and Russell conclude that Caxton either used another similar variant or supplemented BL, Add. MS 35298 with another source or sources for material on British saints.23 A comparison of the chapters in first edition of Caxton’s Golden Legend with those in the known, extant versions of his three main sources (see Table 3.1) reveals probable origins for most of the chapters that Caxton chose to include, but since there is uncertainty regarding the specific exemplars he used, it is impossible to determine conclusively which chapters he chose to omit. In the Maggioni edition of the Legenda aurea there is only one chapter not included in Caxton’s Golden Legend, namely, that of Syrus of Genoa (d. c.381).24 Perhaps Caxton decided that the life of the third bishop of Genoa would not interest English readers, even though it had no doubt been dear to Jacobus de Voragine, who had been near Genoa and became archbishop there. It is also possible that Caxton’s copy of the Legenda simply did not include this chapter. Graesse’s edition of the Legenda includes more than thirty chapters not found in Caxton’s work.25 Graesse worked in Germany and used manuscript copies of the Legenda found there. Many of the saints’ lives in his edition that are not included in Caxton’s are from German-speaking regions. Caxton’s Latin exemplar may have included these lives, or at least certain of them, but if its origin was from some other region of Europe it may have included a quite different group of saints’ lives. Without knowing Caxton’s Latin exemplar, one cannot reconstruct his omissions. Caxton’s use of La Légende dorée stands on more solid ground. Butler’s argument that Caxton’s French exemplar was the variant that Dunn-Lardeau calls “Jean de Vignay (c)” is compelling. That variant includes fifteen chapters not included in Caxton’s Golden Legend.26 Of these, two are related to Christ. The first, the Transfiguration of Our Lord, was one of the feasts added to the church calendar in the late Middle Ages as Christological celebrations became more prevalent.27 Like all such feasts, it came into use gradually, at different times in different places. In England, the Transfiguration began appearing in churchwardens’ accounts and parish liturgical books only in the 1480s and 1490s, so Caxton could reasonably have decided it was too little known among his potential readers to be selected.28 The second was a chapter on a miraculous crucifix in Lucca, Italy, supposedly carved by a sculptor who had seen Christ.29 It is a relic that seems to have not generated much of a cult following in

62 Caxton’s sources England. The other thirteen chapters are all focused on the lives of saints. Two of these thirteen saints’ lives are actually incorporated into Caxton’s Golden Legend as parts of other chapters rather than as independent chapters. The first, the Roman martyr Valerian (3rd c.), is included in Caxton’s chapter on Cecilia.30 The second, the Italian saint Scholastica (d. 543), is included in Caxton’s chapter on her brother, Benedict of Nursia.31 Of the remaining eleven saints to whom chapters are devoted in “Jean de Vignay (c)” but not in Caxton’s Golden Legend, one is unidentified, eight are French, and the two were missionaries to France.32 These saints had French regional cults that were not well known throughout Europe. Although Caxton’s work included many French saints, he seems to have chosen to increase the British material rather than the French. If these fifteen chapters were indeed included in Caxton’s French exemplar, it is not difficult to understand a decision to omit them from The Golden Legend. Caxton’s use of the English Gilte Legende is, like the Legenda aurea, difficult to reconstruct because of the uncertainty regarding his specific exemplar: although Hamer and Russell argue that the most likely extant candidate is BL, Add. MS 35298, they believe that Caxton used a text similar to it rather than this specific version, or that he supplemented it with another source or sources.33 BL, Add. MS 35298 contains nine chapters not included in Caxton’s Golden Legend.34 Two are not saints’ lives. The first, called “Pardon for All the Churches of Rome,” is described by Hamer and Russell as a translation of a much-copied Latin manuscript compiled for pilgrims, the Liber Indulgentiarum, which lists indulgences conferred for visiting churches in Rome.35 Nothing comparable is incorporated into The Golden Legend. There is evidence that taking pilgrimages in order to secure indulgences played a role in late medieval English devotional practices.36 Perhaps Caxton thought that too few of his potential customers were likely to travel to Rome, or he might have believed for some other reason that a list of Roman indulgences would not attract buyers. Of course, this chapter may simply have not been in his exemplar. The second chapter that is something other than a saint’s life does, in contrast, have echoes in Caxton’s work. This chapter, called “What the Church Betokeneth,” explains the symbolic meaning of various parts of the church building, such as the windows, pillars, and roof, as well as services and ceremonies, such as matins and the blessing of the paschal candle.37 It is not parallel to Caxton’s “Dedication of a Church,” which explains the symbolic meaning of the elements of one specific ceremony.38 However, “What the Church Betokeneth” includes a section devoted to the Ten Commandments and another to the Twelve Articles of Faith.39 Neither Caxton’s chapter on the Ten Commandments nor his chapter on the Twelve Articles of Faith is a direct translation of this material, but if “What the Church Betokeneth” was in fact present in Caxton’s English exemplar, then he would have seen an additional instance of including these topics in a hagiographical collection besides “Jean de Vignay (c).”40 The other seven chapters present in the Gilte Legende of BL, Add. MS 35298 and absent from Caxton’s Golden Legend are saints’ lives, namely those of Bride or Brigid (5th–6th c.), Oswald of Worcester (d. 992),

Caxton’s sources 63 Theophilus (n.d.), Chad (d. 672), Faith (3rd c.), Leger (b. c.616), and Frideswide (d. c.727).41 Bride is Irish, and Oswald, Chad, and Frideswide are English, so they would have fitted into Caxton’s incorporation of additional British saints’ lives. Even the French Saint Faith had an English cult that flourished in London: Hamer and Russell remark of the chapter that it “is slightly surprising that it does not appear in Caxton.”42 If this version of the Gilte Legende indeed served as Caxton’s English exemplar then he chose to exclude these chapters for reasons difficult to reconstruct, but it is also possible that he worked with an English exemplar that did not include them. Although the specific English and Latin exemplars that Caxton used remain obscure, it seems clear that he made curatorial choices from among the saints’ lives and other chapters contained in the books before him. As far as may be determined, Caxton did not take any existing variant of the Legenda aurea as a paradigm to be merely translated and printed. As Manfred Görlach remarks, Caxton “rejected the easy method of printing the exact text that he found.”43 Furthermore, Caxton evidently did not use the material in his exemplars to reconstruct some original or “accurate” version of the Legenda from the testimony of conflicting witnesses: he must have been aware that the British lives he included were not standard elements of the Legenda. As a compiler and translator, what Caxton did was recast the available materials to construct his ideal of a collection of saints’ lives to be sold to English readers. Further evidence that Caxton’s objective was to create a new version of the Legenda may be found in the presence of chapters in The Golden Legend that seem to be absent from his sources. Caxton almost certainly looked beyond his three exemplars for material. As Table 3.1 shows, there are eighteen chapters without models in the texts believed to have served as Caxton’s likely exemplars. These eighteen chapters may be divided into two groups: four saint’s chapters and fourteen Old Testament chapters. The subjects of the four saints’ chapters in Caxton’s Golden Legend that cannot be traced to one of his exemplars are the Translation of Thomas of Canterbury, also known as Thomas Becket (1118–1170); Crispin and Crispinian (3rd c.); Hugh of Lincoln (1140–1200); and Bede (c.672–735).44 Thomas, Hugh, and Bede are English saints whose chapters support the focus on British material evident in Caxton’s selection of chapters to illustrate. Of these three, Thomas was unquestionably the best known: his shrine at Canterbury was one of Europe’s major pilgrimage sites.45 His cult flourished beyond the borders of England, and the critical editions of the Legenda aurea, La Légende dorée, and the Gilte Legende all include a chapter on his feast day, as does Caxton.46 In addition to the usual chapter on Thomas’s life, Caxton also includes a chapter honoring the day of his translation, a term used in hagiography to describe the movement of a saint’s relics from one location to another.47 Thomas is one of the few saints in The Golden Legend to be featured in more than one chapter.48

64 Caxton’s sources Crispin and Crispinian, in regard to their legend, have no connection to England: they are Roman martyrs of doubtful historicity.49 Crispin’s feast day, in contrast, might have been very much part of English historical memory during Caxton’s lifetime as it was the day on which the Battle of Agincourt (1415) was fought, and calendar dates were much more likely to be thought of in the form of a saint’s day than the numbered day of the month.50 In other words, Agincourt would be remembered as having been fought, not on 25 October, but on Saint Crispin’s Day. The Battle of Agincourt, at which the forces of King Henry V of England (r. 1413–1422) defeated those of King Charles VI of France (r. 1380–1422) was not only one of the most important English victories of the Hundred Years War, but it was also the one closest to Caxton’s lifetime, having been fought only a few years before he was born. It was a conflict remembered, in the words of Clifford Rogers, with “prestige and glory” in England.51 If these four chapters in Caxton’s Golden Legend were not in his exemplars, then he may have sought them in other sources in order to increase the British material in his collection, especially material associated with England’s best-known saint and most important military victory in living memory. It is possible, nevertheless, that all four chapters were in his exemplars. If so, the most likely settings would be a variant of the Legenda aurea that contained a chapter on Crispin and Crispinian and an undiscovered or lost variant of the Gilte Legende that included chapters for Hugh of Lincoln, Bede, and Thomas of Canterbury’s Translation. The remaining fourteen chapters included in Caxton’s Golden Legend that cannot be traced to one of his exemplars are those on the Old Testament.52 It is possible that some undiscovered or lost variant of the Legenda aurea, La Légende dorée, or the Gilte Legende served as a prototype for these chapters, but the scholarly consensus is that there were no models in Caxton’s sources for them; that Caxton derived these chapters from other texts.53 The unexpected addition of more than a dozen chapters based on the Bible to a collection ostensibly devoted to saints aligns with the evidence offered by the distribution and placement of illustrations in the first edition: both indicate that Caxton imagined readers with a strongly biblical inclination to their piety. His choices in the role of compiler reinforce those made in his role as publisher. Caxton, as compiler and translator of The Golden Legend, took part in a long-established tradition of adapting and modifying the Legenda aurea to suit local tastes. The incorporation of British material comprises a conventional part of that tradition, namely, the addition of chapters about saints with whom the anticipated audience might identify, at least in part, through shared membership in a regional, linguistic, or monastic community. The Old Testament chapters constitute the most unconventional way of participating in the Legenda aurea’s transformative tradition, namely, the introduction of scriptural material. Understanding Caxton’s inclusion of these two groups of chapters, those on the Old Testament and those on British saints, requires analysis beyond a comparison with his main source texts.

Caxton’s sources 65

Notes 1 Pierce Butler, “Legenda Aurea – Légende Dorée – Golden Legend: A Study of Caxton’s Golden Legend with Special Reference to Its Relations to the Earlier English Prose Translation,” PhD diss. (The Johns Hopkins University, 1899), 10–11. 2 Robert Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things? Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation, rpt. ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015), 453. 3 William Granger Ryan, “Introduction,” in The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, Jacobus de Voragine, trans. William Granger Ryan, vol. 1 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), xiii; Manfred Görlach, The “South English Legendary,” “Gilte Legende” and “Golden Legend”. (Braunschweig: Technische Universität Carolo-Wilhelmina, Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 1972), 7, note 2. 4 Butler, “A Study,” 12; Bartlett, Why Can the Dead, 82. 5 Michael Lapidge, The Cult of St. Swithun, Winchester Studies 4, ii, The AngloSaxon Minsters of Winchester (Oxford: Clarendon Press for the Winchester Excavations Committee, 2003), 71–72. 6 See especially the work of Pierce Butler, Mary Jeremy [Finnegan], and Manfred Görlach. 7 Giovanni Paolo Maggioni, ed., Jacopo da Varazze’s Legenda Aurea con le miniature del codice Ambrosiano C 240 inf, Edizione Nazionale Dei Testi Mediolatini, 20, Serie II, 9 (Florence: SISMEL, Edizoni del Galluzzo, 2007). 8 GL EEBO 1484. 9 On Table 3.1, Roche is on line 153. Unfortunately, Caxton is not always to be trusted regarding his claims about his sources. For example, the Golden Legend chapter on Augustine of Hippo includes a miracle story purportedly drawn from an illustration Caxton personally saw: “I wylle sette here in one myracle / whiche I haue sene paynted on an aulter of Saynt Austyn at the blacke freres of Andwerpe,” GL EEBO 1484, folio CClxvi verso – CClxvii recto. Contradicting Caxton’s claim to be describing a miracle he saw painted on an altar in Antwerp is its description in much the same terms in the manuscript version of the Trinity Sunday sermon in John Mirk’s Festial. If the account were only in the version of the Festial that Caxton published, then he might have added the anecdote to both books, but it was part of the Festial prior to Caxton’s publication. See Susan Powell, ed., John Mirk’s “Festial” Edited from British Library MS Cotton Claudius A. II, Early English Text Society, o.s. 335 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 154. 10 Theodor Graesse, ed., Legenda Aurea, Vulgo Historia Lombardica Dicta, by Jacobi a Voragine (Dresden: Libraria Arnoldiana, 1846). 11 Brenda Dunn-Lardeau, ed. and trans., La Légende dorée: Edition critique, dans la révision de 1476 par Jean Batallier, d’après la traduction de Jean de Vignay (1333–1348) de la Legenda aurea (c.1261–1266), Textes de la Renaissance sous la direction de Claude Blum, 19 (Paris: Honoré Champion, l997). 12 Butler, “A Study,” 41–44. 13 Butler, “A Study,” 41–46, 147. 14 Dunn-Lardeau, La Légende dorée, 11, 41. 15 Butler identifies the manuscript copy as British Library, Stowe 50–51: Butler, “A Study,” 44. The British Library catalog entry for another copy of this La Légende dorée, namely Royal MS 19 B XVII, states that “Other copies are in Add. MS. l6907, Egerton MS. 645, and Stowe MSS. 50, 51,” and notes that “On f. 5 is the autograph inscription, ‘My tryst ys. Arundell’, of Thomas Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel (1488–1524).” See British Library, Archives and Manuscripts Catalog, accessed 27 June 2019, http://searcharchives.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/display.do? tabs=detailsTab&ct=display&fn=search&doc=IAMS040-002107609&indx=1&re

66 Caxton’s sources

16 17

18 19 20 21 22

23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

cIds=IAMS040-002107609&recIdxs=0&elementId=0&renderMode=poppedOut& displayMode=full&frbrVersion=&dscnt=0&frbg=&scp.scps=scope%3A%28BL% 29&tab=local&dstmp=1,561,761,310,559&srt=rank&mode=Basic&&dum=true&vl (freeText0)=La%20L%C3%A9gende%20dor%C3%A9e&vid=IAMS_VU2. Thomas FitzAlan was the son of William FitzAlan, Earl of Arundel, Caxton’s patron for The Golden Legend. Thomas FitzAlan was born in 1450; 1488 was the date he took over the title after his father’s death. Thomas apparently owned this manuscript at one time and inscribed it with the same family motto that Caxton employed in the Arundel woodcut decorating the dedication of the first edition. Butler, “A Study,” 44. British Library, Incunabula Short Title Catalogue (ISTC), Legenda aurea sanctorum, sive Lombardica historia [French] La légende dorée, trans. Jean de Vignay, 13 July 2016, accessed 27 June 2019, https://data.cerl.org/istc/ ij00151500. According to this ISTC entry, the four copies are held in (1) the British Library (IC.50152); (2) the Musée archéologique de Namur, Belgium; (3) the Bibliothèque Municipale de Lille, France; and (4) an imperfect copy in Cambridge University Library, England. Dunn-Lardeau refers to it as the Pays-Bas (Netherlands) edition: Dunn-Lardeau, La Légende dorée, 41. Richard Hamer, ed., Gilte Legende, 3 vols, 1 (2006) Early English Text Society, 327; 2 (2007), Early English Text Society, 328; 3 (2012) Early English Text Society, 339 (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Hamer, “Editorial Procedures,” in Gilte Legende, vol. 1, xi. Hamer, “Editorial Procedures,” in Gilte Legende, vol. 1, xi. Richard Hamer and Vida Russell, eds., Supplementary Lives in Some Manuscripts of the “Gilte Legende,” Early English Text Society, 315 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). Hamer and Russell, “Introduction,” Supplementary Lives, xiv. This matter is discussed at greater length in Görlach, “South English Legendary,” throughout. Hamer and Russell’s work of uncovering the supplementary lives of the Gilte Legende provides the connection postulated by Görlach of a text containing adaptations from The South English Legendary that was consulted by Caxton. Hamer and Russell, “Introduction,” Supplementary Lives, xiv–xx. Görlach came to the same conclusion: Görlach, “South English Legendary,” 94. Maggioni, Legenda Aurea, 670–83. Graesse, Legenda Aurea, table of contents, xiii–xvii. Butler, “A Study,” 41–44. Jean Batallier’s La Légende dorée edited by DunnLardeau includes no chapters that are not also present in Caxton’s Golden Legend. See R. W. Pfaff, New Liturgical Feasts in Late Medieval England, Oxford Theological Monographs (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1970). Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, c 1400–c.1580 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992), 45. Titled “Du bon diacre … st. voult de luques”: Butler, “A Study,” 44. Cecilia married Valerian and converted him, after which he preached Christianity until martyred: GL EEBO 1484, folio CCClxxvii verso – CCClxxix recto. Caxton includes a note in the text after the chapter on Ambrose that the lives of the saints Tyburce and Valerian have been included in the life of Cicely, virgin and martyr: GL EEBO 1484, folio Clv verso. The feast dates of Ambrose and Cecilia are close together: the former on 7 December, the latter on 22 November. The chapters are widely separated because Cecilia’s is in the group of noncalendrically ordered chapters that follow Pope Pelagius and the History of the Lombards.

Caxton’s sources 67 31 GL EEBO 1484, folio Cxlix recto. 32 They are: Valerie (3rd c., French), Tillon (7th c., French), Austreberta (7th–8th c., French), Liévin the Archbishop (7th c., missionary in France), Piat (4th c., French), Bavo (7th c., French), Géry (7th c., French), Waldetrude (7th c., French), Bauder/Balthild (7th c., French), Sulpicius (7th c., French), and Losmer (?): Butler, “A Study,” 41–44. Information about some of these lives may be found in Jo Ann McNamara, John E. Halnorg, and E. Gordon Whatley, ed. and trans., Sainted Women of the Dark Ages, rpt. ed. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996), Austreberta, 304–35; Waldetrude, 235–63; and Balthild, 264–78. 33 Hamer and Russell, “Introduction,” Supplementary Lives, xiv–xx. 34 Hamer and Russell, “Introduction,” Supplementary Lives, vx. 35 Hamer and Russell, Supplementary Lives, 73–84, esp. 73. 36 Evidence includes wills and the example of Margery Kempe: Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 193–94. 37 Hamer and Russell, Supplementary Lives, 88–128. 38 GL EEBO 1484, folio xxxii verso – xxxvi verso. 39 Hamer and Russell, 105–7 and 112. 40 GL EEBO 1484, folio lx recto – lxiii recto. 41 Hamer and Russell, Supplementary Lives, 141, 173, 189, 213, 223–24, 251, and 151. The life of the almost certainly non-historical Theophilus is a precursor to the Faust story: John J. Delaney, Pocket Dictionary of Saints, abridged edition (New York: Image Books, 1983), 479. 42 Hamer and Russell, Supplementary Lives, 224. 43 Görlach, “South English Legendary,” 98. 44 On Table 3.1 these are the rows numbered 126, 193, 210, and 218. Caxton did not, of course, number his chapters. 45 Bartlett, Why Can the Dead, 431–32. Robert Bartlett describes Thomas of Canterbury as “the newcomer who overshadowed the saintly world after 1170”: Bartlett, Why Can the Dead, 234. 46 On Table 3.1 it is row 44. 47 In 1220, Thomas of Canterbury’s relics were transferred from one location in Canterbury Cathedral to a new chapel constructed in his honor in the same building: Bartlett, Why Can the Dead, 253. 48 The others are Mary, the apostles Peter and Paul, and John the Baptist. 49 For Crispin and Crispinian, see Delaney, Dictionary, 32. 50 For the Battle of Agincourt, see Clifford J. Rogers, “Henry V’s Military Strategy in 1415,” in Hundred Years War: A Wider Focus, ed. L. J. Andrew Villalon and Donald J. Kagay (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 399–428. 51 Rogers, “Henry V,” 426. 52 On Table 3.1 these are rows 17–22 and 24–31. 53 Butler, “A Study,” 83; N. F. Blake, “The Biblical Additions in Caxton’s Golden Legend,” Traditio 25 (1969): 231; and James H. Morey, Book and Verse: A Guide to Middle English Biblical Literature, Illinois Medieval Studies (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2000), 154.

4

The Bible as hagiography in Caxton’s Golden Legend

No book is more associated with early European print culture than the Bible. The Gutenberg Bible (c.1455) was not only the first book to be printed in Europe using movable type, but it also may be the most famous early printed book. Most of the first generation of European printers published biblical editions. William Caxton was an outlier because he did not publish the Bible, despite his enthusiastic production of other devotional texts. Nevertheless, he is sometimes listed among early printers of the Bible because of the lengthy passages from the Old Testament incorporated into the first edition of The Golden Legend. There are thirteen consecutive chapters covering about forty-six folios in the first edition of Caxton’s Golden Legend in which sections of the Old Testament are presented in the format used for the lives of saints. These chapters are on Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac and his sons, Joseph and his brothers, Moses, Saul, King David, Solomon, Rehoboam, Job, Tobias, and Judith.1 There are also semi-independent chapters on Joshua and the Ten Commandments incorporated into the unit on Moses.2 These chapters were almost certainly absent from the French, Latin, and English versions of the Legenda aurea used by Caxton as his main sources. They are translations, or rather, loose paraphrases, of the Vulgate, the standard medieval Latin Bible, with possibly some supplementary use of the Wycliffite Bible.3 Caxton was very likely the translator for these chapters, a role he performed for the rest of the book.4 His decision to add Old Testament material to The Golden Legend, as well as the absence of the Bible from his catalog, may be understood in the context of the history of vernacular scripture in late medieval England. Concerns about the appropriateness of translating the scriptures out of Latin shaped the culture of Bible production in England, so Latin and vernacular Bibles must be considered separately. Gutenberg’s first printed Bible was an edition of the Latin Vulgate. It was published in Mainz in about 1455, roughly eighty years before the first Latin Bible was printed in England.5 This disparity was not the consequence of legal restrictions: no English laws prohibited the production or ownership of Latin Bibles. It is likely that fifteenth-century English booksellers found it less expensive to import Latin Bibles than to have them printed locally because they were easily available

The Bible as hagiography 6

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from many printers on the Continent. The English domestic market for Bibles appears to have increased during the reign of King Henry VIII, whose government made the church officially Protestant.7 This increased demand seems to have made the domestic production of the Latin Bible more economically viable. The history of vernacular Bibles is more complicated. Until recently many scholars thought that such Bibles were scarce everywhere in Europe during the era of early printing.8 Sixteenth-century reformist rhetoric claimed that medieval clergy jealously guarded an exclusive access to the scriptures and consequently hindered vernacular translation. Nevertheless, recent research privileging the evidentiary value of the quantity of surviving manuscripts of vernacular Bibles over the claims of sixteenth-century Protestant reformers has demonstrated that, during the late Middle Ages, vernacular Bibles had become common in Continental Europe.9 Although there is evidence of misgivings on the part of individual members of the clergy regarding the propriety of biblical translation, no church council or pope ever issued a universal prohibition against it.10 Increasingly during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, European lay people produced, traded, and read biblical translations in manuscript form.11 The first printed vernacular Bible was in German, published in Strasbourg in 1466, scarcely a decade after the first printed Latin edition. It was soon followed by vernacular Bibles printed in every European country with the technology to do so, with the exception of England. Complete English Bibles were not printed until the 1530s.12 The lengthy gap between the first printed German Bible and the first printed English Bible is the consequence of concerns regarding scriptural translation that emerged from a context of alternative theology and religious legislation in late medieval England.13 Lollards, the people who adopted the opinions of Oxford theologian John Wycliffe to a greater or lesser degree, not only promoted lay access to vernacular scripture but also produced an English translation of the Vulgate, in two variants, in the late fourteenth century.14 The Wycliffite, or Lollard, Bible was the first complete English vernacular Bible.15 By the close of the century, lollardy was condemned as heretical.16 A defining moment in its official denunciation was the Great Revolt of 1381, a post-Black Death uprising blamed on Wycliffe’s followers by some of the chroniclers.17 Vernacular translations of the Bible in England became tarred with the brush of rebellion against both the church and the crown. In the wake of the Great Revolt, Archbishop Thomas Arundel’s Constitutions set legal limits on public access to the English Bible for the first time: lawful access from 1409 into the reign of Henry VIII was limited to those who held a special license.18 In addition, Arundel’s Constitutions demanded that future translations obtain prior permission from ecclesiastical authority. The Constitutions were the first attempt to regulate biblical translation in England. Scholars such as Nicholas Watson argue that the inhibiting effect of Arundel’s legislation created a restrictive atmosphere of self-censorship.19 Certainly, there were no new complete English translations of scripture during the period 1409 to 1530, and

70 The Bible as hagiography Arundel’s Constitutions were likely the main impediment.20 The only complete English Bibles available during that period were those translated by Wycliffe’s followers, which were associated with lollardy even though the translations, based on the Vulgate, were not in themselves unorthodox. The Old Testament chapters in Caxton’s Golden Legend were the closest that any publisher of that era came to printing a new translation the Bible in English. Although Arundel’s Constitutions prevented the publication of a complete vernacular Bible in England, their efficacy in impeding the reading of vernacular scriptures is more debatable. A substantial body of scholarship argues that the condemnation of lollardy, along with Arundel’s Constitutions, created an environment in which all forms of vernacular scriptures were considered heretical, and in which their mere possession was vigorously prosecuted.21 According to this school of thought, during the period bounded by Arundel’s Constitutions and Henry VIII’s religious legislation, that is, between the 1410s and the 1530s, any version of the Bible in English was both hard to find and dangerous to own. This interpretation probably overestimates the impact of legislation on the actual ownership of books.22 Recent research indicates that both prior to and contemporaneous with early printing, manuscript copies of the Wycliffite Bible were abundant.23 This Bible, especially its second version, attributed to John Purvey, was among the most widely distributed vernacular manuscripts in fifteenth-century England.24 Despite the considerable intentional destruction of copies in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, about 250 copies remain extant.25 Moreover, the Wycliffite Bible was found in thoroughly orthodox contexts, and some manuscripts even contain liturgical components, such as lectionaries and calendars, indicating that they were created for liturgical use by priests, most likely parochial clergy.26 As Ralph Hanna puts it, “whatever official pronouncements said, it could be re-appropriated to orthodoxy and used, without particular anxiety, as a convenient consultation text.”27 Regarding the danger of owning such books, examination of specific charges brought against lollards in trials reveals that the possession of vernacular scriptures was never the sole basis of an accusation of heresy. Their ownership was included in trial charges only in conjunction with other accusations.28 Furthermore, English Bibles were advocated by some orthodox members of the ecclesiastical establishment, such as Richard Ullerston (d. 1423), theologian and Chancellor of Oxford University.29 It seems that an otherwise orthodox reader might have been able to own a copy of the Wycliffite Bible without very much danger, and might have been encouraged by some orthodox members of the clergy to read it. The popularity of the Wycliffite Bible constitutes evidence of a strong interest in vernacular scriptures among English readers. Publishers were eager to serve the interests of the market, but the notion that Caxton or other early English printers might have thought themselves able to print and sell Wycliffite Bibles without fear of prosecution is untenable. Similarly, the idea that they might produce a new translation, publish it, and sell it without obtaining permission or attracting notice is also untenable. Publishing a book is a much more conspicuous act than owning or reading

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one. Some scholars have speculated that Caxton started to produce his own biblical translation but abandoned the project because of fear of prosecution, and that the Old Testament chapters of The Golden Legend were part of that project.30 This notion seems plausible, as it would be doubtful that anyone lacking clerical status and formal theological education would be granted permission to produce a new vernacular translation. Caxton, who spent most of his adult life outside England, may have come to that realization belatedly. A publisher might be willing to risk arrest or financial loss if his motive for releasing a vernacular Bible were ideological rather than commercial, but in regard to the early publishing industry in England, scholars agree that neither Caxton nor the other printers were proponents of either lollardy or other variants of bibliocentric Christianity.31 Caxton, far from being motivated by doctrine, selected texts that were likely to sell.32 Even if early publishers in England were prepared to face such unpleasant legal consequences as might follow the publication of an unlicensed biblical translation, fears that it might lack buyers may have been sufficient to deter them. Knowledge that the mere possession of a vernacular Bible had never been the sole basis of an accusation of heresy in England, even if Caxton and his colleagues were aware of that circumstance, may not have been sufficient security for them to anticipate a healthy market, in spite of what seemed to be a strong interest in vernacular scripture. It is hard to imagine publishers being willing to invest substantial capital in a project in the hopes that a sufficiently large portion of the market would be willing to risk buying a costly item that their local ecclesiastical courts might interpret as a cause for arrest, even if the likelihood of arrest was actually small. A context of sporadic and infrequent censorship in regard to vernacular Bibles may have been sufficient to dampen the interest of commercial ventures such as publishing houses in which the financial margin between success and bankruptcy was usually quite slim. Whatever the origins of the Old Testament chapters, they appear in Caxton’s Golden Legend as scripture repurposed into hagiography. Caxton must have believed that such readers as might be tempted to purchase a large collection of saints’ lives would find that repurposing attractive rather than distasteful, which reveals something about his imagined audience. It is doubtful that all English readers would have viewed these chapters the same way. Different opinions existed regarding the propriety of specific modes of adaptation of the Bible into the vernacular. These chapters are actually paraphrases rather than translations, and that distinction carried significant theological weight in Caxton’s time. Translation of the Bible reflects what Fiona Somerset has termed “author-centered” book production, that is, an approach that attempts to faithfully reproduce what an author wrote in an effort to preserve a stable text.33 In fifteenth-century England, the author-centered approach to biblical translation was favored by lollardy, which rejected the practice of biblical paraphrase.34 While the general public seems to have been willing to encounter scripture in a variety of formats, those sympathetic to lollardy or later to

72 The Bible as hagiography Lutheran-centered Protestantism, as well as ecclesiastical authorities interested in suppressing lollardy or such later Protestantism, insisted that the mode in which vernacular scripture was presented was critical. By the middle of the sixteenth century, the divide between, on the one side, those who believed that framing selections from the Bible in an interpretive scaffold of other texts was desirable, and that adapting scriptures into other literary forms was acceptable, and on the other side, those who believed so adamantly that the Bible must stand alone as a self-explanatory book that textual admixtures were viewed as corruption, corresponded roughly to the divide between Catholic and Protestant.35 Caxton’s reframing of his Old Testament paraphrases as chapters in a collection of saints’ lives participates in a tradition in Middle English, and more broadly, medieval literature, of transforming and reshaping biblical content – a tradition rejected by lollardy. Varieties of textual restructuring of scripture included summaries, Gospel harmonies, paraphrases, lives of Christ, verse versions, and other narrative forms.36 These were considered an unexceptional part of orthodox piety. Moreover, scriptural excerpts and transformations might easily be found in secular contexts, as there was no expectation that the Bible should be kept separate from nonspiritual texts. For example, material from the Books of Kings was treated as chivalric literature alongside the romances of Arthur and Merlin in thirteenth- and fourteenthcentury England.37 The incorporation of secular, chivalric components into scripture also happened. For example, the Bible anonyme, an adaptation of the Old Testament dating from thirteenth-century France, includes, along with translations of Genesis, Exodus, and other biblical books, a narrative about the Holy Cross which includes four human monsters that appear to have been borrowed from Chrétien de Troyes’s Yvain and his Perceval.38 Caxton’s Old Testament chapters, although innovative in the context of the Legenda, followed a tradition of transformative medieval biblical literature. Even though the text of the Old Testament chapters in Caxton’s Golden Legend is for the most part a close paraphrase of the Vulgate rather than a more assertive rewording, fifteenth-century readers may have seen it as different from a Bible, in part because of compositional elements. The page layout and illustration of late medieval manuscript Bibles tended to be distinctive.39 The “Paris Bible,” developed in the thirteenth century, probably at the University of Paris, rapidly became the dominant form of manuscript Bible throughout Europe, reflecting the importance of Paris in commercial book production.40 Typically, “Paris Bibles” divided sections by the use of large, elaborately decorated, usually historiated, initials connected to ornate decorative strips called bar borders arranged vertically along margins or between columns.41 Caxton’s Golden Legend does not employ this format. The pages have no bar borders and, while blank spaces left for rubricated initials helped to divide chapters and subsections, the printed matter indicates textual divisions by means of chapter introductions, conclusions, headings, and often illustrations. In the manuscript book tradition, use of column-width illustrations to introduce new

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sections on a page in which the text is arranged in two columns was more typical of romances than Bibles.42 The mise en page might have guided a potential buyer glancing through Caxton’s Golden Legend to associate it with romance literature. Even more so than visual elements, the paratext of Caxton’s Golden Legend marks the Old Testament paraphrases as belonging to a genre other than scripture. Although the text of the chapters is largely taken from the Vulgate, Caxton composed the headlines, prefaces, conclusions, and titles in the tables of contents. His use of the terms “legend” and “life,” terms employed for the lives of saints, reframes the text to signal its place within the genre of hagiography.43 The word “legend” in Middle English was used to refer to the biography of a saint, hence the titles Legenda aurea and The Golden Legend, while saints’ legends were also known as saints’ lives. “Legend” did not denote an improbable story, but was drawn from the Latin term legere meaning “something to be read.” Saints’ legends, in other words, meant the same as “readings about saints.” The terms “legend” and “life” are repeatedly used as chapter titles throughout every edition of Caxton’s Golden Legend. Although in the table of contents the title for most saints’ chapters is simply “Of Saynt X” or “Saynt X,” or, for saints with multiple chapters, a descriptor such as “The nativity of X,” typically these chapters employ the terms “legend” or “life” in the headlines, introductions, and conclusions. For example, the chapter on St. Andrew, which follows immediately after the conclusion of the biblical chapters, although labeled simply “Saynt andrewe” in the table of contents, uses the term “legend” in its introductory passage; its headline is “The lyf of saynt Andrew’; and its concluding passage is “Here endeth the lif of seynt Andrewe thappostle.”44 Of the thirteen full and the two semiindependent Old Testament chapters in the first edition, eight use the term “life” or “legend,” spelled variously, in their headlines, introductions, or conclusions, namely, those for Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Moses, Saul, David, and Solomon.45 For readers, these terms would serve to connect the material in these chapters with the genre of hagiography. The other terms that would incline Caxton’s readers to place the Old Testament chapters in a genre other than scriptural translation are “history” and “story.” In the table of contents, the chapter on Adam is called “The hystorye of adam.”46 The introduction reads: “The Sonday of Septuagesme begynneth the storye of the bible / In whiche is redde the legend and storye of Adam whiche foloweth.”47 The phrase “the legend and storye of Adam” signals to the reader a correspondence between a hagiographic legend and a biblical story. In addition, the headline for this chapter is “The lyf of Adam,” while the conclusion reads “Here endeth the lyf of Adam.”48 Together, the table of contents, introduction, conclusion, and headline inform the reader that this chapter is a history, a story, a legend, and a life of Adam. The pattern of using these terms interchangeably continues throughout the Old Testament chapters. Those for Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Moses, and David are labeled as histories in the table of contents and as lives or legends in their headlines, introductions or conclusions.49 Similarly, the chapter on Saul,

74 The Bible as hagiography although not labeled as a “history” in the table of contents, begins with the phrase “His hystorye maketh mencion that,” the headline is “Thystorye of Saul,” and the conclusion reads: “Thus endeth the lyf of Saul whiche was first kynge upon Israhel.”50 The chapter on Solomon, which has as its headline “Thystorye of Salomon,” has the conclusion: “Thus endth the lyf of Salamon.”51 The chapter on Moses offers even stronger evidence of how these terms were used interchangeably by Caxton. Its headline starts out as “Thystory of Moyses,” then changes to “The lyf of Moyses,” then returns to “Thystory,” and then back to “The lyf.” The conclusion also uses both terms: “Here endeth the lyf and thystorye of Moyses.”52 The terms “history” and “story” are less conventionally associated with hagiography than are the terms “life” or “legend,” but Caxton lays the groundwork for their linkage in the prologue to the first edition. In the section of the prologue that Caxton translated from his main French source, La Légende dorée, more traditional terms are employed: “the natyvyties / the lyves / the passyons the myracles / and the dethe of the holy sayntes / & also some other notorye dedes and actes of tymes passed.”53 In contrast, in a section of Caxton’s prologue for which there is no corresponding passage in La Légende dorée, that is, a passage that Caxton either wrote himself or, less probably, found in an exemplar not yet identified, the term “history” is used: “I had by me a legende in frensshe / & another in latyn / & the thyrd in englysshe whiche varyed in many and dyvers places / and also many hystoryes were comprysed in the two other two books / whiche were not in the englysshe book.”54 This passage maps the term “history” onto saints’ lives by explaining that the Latin and French versions of the Legenda contain “many hystoryes” not included in the existing English translation. Consequently, when the table of contents, which follows directly after the prologue, employs the term “history” as a label for many of the biblical chapters, readers might easily see these chapters as part of the genre of hagiography. There are only a few chapters in Caxton’s Golden Legend other than those for the Old Testament that incorporate the terms “history” or “story” in their title, but those are enough to prevent the term being used exclusively to mark the scriptural paraphrases. In the general table of contents there is only one, “Pelagyen and thystorye of the lombardes,” which arguably is much more of a genuine history of a region in early medieval Italy than it is a saint’s life, yet it seems to have had a more conventional title in Caxton’s Latin and French sources.55 Two other chapters in this edition employ these terms in their headlines, namely, “Thẙstorẙe of thẙnnocentes,” and “The Storie of the masse.”56 The impression that the Old Testament chapters in Caxton’s Golden Legend constitute historical accounts of biblical events rather than direct scriptural translations informs their content as well as their titles. Caxton weaves into the biblical chapters extracts from other sources as blocks of text, in a style broadly typical of medieval historical writing.57 The non-scriptural sources used by Caxton in the biblical chapters include written treatises and histories,

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which have been identified by Sarah Horrall, as well as oral accounts apparently drawn from conversation.58 For example, there is a passage in the chapter concerning David in which Caxton describes his having heard an account of the penance undergone by David from a counselor to the Duke of Burgundy named Sir John Capons while riding Ghent to Brussels: For as I ones was by yonde the see Rydyng in the companye of a noble knyght named Syr John Capons … that tyme Conuceyllour unto the duc of bourgonye Charleys / It happend we comened of the hystorye of David / and this said noble man told me that he had redde that david dyde this penaunce folowyng for thyse said synnes / that he dalf hym in the ground standyng nakyd unto the hed so longe that the wormes began to crepe in his flesshe / and made a verse of this psalme Miserere / and thenne cam out / and whan he was hole therof / he wente in agayn / and stode so agayn as longe as afore is said and made the second verse / and so as many tymes he was dolven in the erth as be verse in the said psalme of Misere-re mei deus / and every tyme was a-bydyng therin tyl he felte the wormes crepe in his flesshe / This was a grete penaunce and a token of grete repentaunce / For ther ben in the psalme xx. Verses / And xx tymes he was dolven Thus thys noble man told me rydyng bytwene the toun of Gaunt in Floun-dres / And the toun of Bruxellis in Braband.59 Similarly, the chapter on Solomon includes a passage explaining that Caxton was told, although he cannot find it in the Bible, that Solomon repented of the sin of idolatry and did great penance.60 Such passages convey to the reader an effort to reconstruct an accurate historical account of the past from several sources rather than an effort to produce a precise translation of a single text. In addition to non-scriptural written and oral sources, Caxton includes parts of the Bible considered apocryphal, notably the chapters on Rehoboam, Tobias, and Judith.61 During the fifteenth century these were widely considered to be legitimate, although the Wycliffite Bible identifies the books of Judith and Tobias as apocryphal.62 For much of the Middle Ages, the Bible in both its Latin and vernacular incarnations was most frequently encountered not as a complete, bound text but rather in individual manuscript books. The number of codices was not standardized, and a single Bible might be divided into as many as eleven volumes.63 As these volumes were rarely encountered as a complete set, and as there was not yet a universally accepted distribution of scriptures into chapters, there was often uncertainty about which texts of seeming scriptural material were officially accepted as canonical.64 It was not until the development of the “Paris Bible” in the thirteenth century that a onevolume Bible, known as a pandect, began to replace the multivolume format, and introduced a standardized division into books and chapters.65 By that time, many uncanonical medieval narratives concerning the Creation, the birth and death of Christ, the Harrowing of Hell, the end times, and the lives of Mary and the apostles had circulated widely.66 Biblical apocrypha were

76 The Bible as hagiography frequently used as sources of sacred history during the Middle Ages, and they constituted a source for many saints’ lives in the Legenda aurea. Like some of Wycliffe’s followers, many later Protestant reformers were less inclined to accept apocrypha.67 The inclusion of such material in Caxton’s Golden Legend further communicates the absence of an intention to translate a supposed original, correct version of the Bible. The terms “history” and “story” in Caxton’s Golden Legend serve to associate the Old Testament chapters with a medieval understanding of scripture as a form of history, that is, as a record of past events that were theologically important, especially in regard to human salvation, rather than a static text whose specific phrasing and organization were themselves divinely ordained and theologically significant. From this perspective, the Bible is understood not primarily as an autonomous revelation but rather as a collection of historical narratives through which God communicates with his people, the truth of which may be literal or figurative.68 Consequently, neither the order in which the stories appear in the Bible nor the specific words used are considered sacred, thus legitimizing alternate forms of presentation, such as paraphrases, excerpts, or verse forms, as well as stories that recount parts of sacred history not included in the canon of scriptures. In the words of James H. Morey, the “willingness to read the Bible discontinuously and to apply extrabiblical material demonstrates how, for these authors, the larger history of Christian salvation subsumes the history of both Testaments and of the world.”69 Caxton references this understanding of the Bible in the introduction to the chapter on David, which reads: “Here foloweth how David regned after Saul / & governed Israhel / shortlẙ taken out of the bible the most historẙal maters and but litil towched.”70 This understanding of the Bible often incorporates the notion that saints’ legends are a type of continuity from scripture in that they are true narratives of the same nature, again, literally or figuratively true, that continue or supplement the material in the Bible. The understanding of scripture as a form of sacred history was broadly typical of late medieval orthodoxy throughout Europe, and was an outlook opposed by those who believed that biblical translation demanded an “author-centered” approach focused on the precise replication of a divinely ordained text.71 Whatever his plans may have been when he first began to translate the Old Testament, Caxton took care that the scriptural paraphrase incorporated in The Golden Legend is presented as sacred history existing in a continuum with the lives of saints. In addition to shaping the Old Testament material as sacred history, Caxton includes in the first edition of The Golden Legend elements associating the scriptural chapters with the mass. The liturgy of the word, which incorporates specified readings from the Bible into a requisite sequence of gestures and prayers, epitomizes the practice of removing passages of scripture from their biblical context and placing them in an interpretive scaffolding determined by ecclesiastical authority. Caxton’s text and paratext supports a way of reading the Old Testament chapters in conjunction with the scriptural readings

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assigned to specific days of the liturgical calendar by explaining when these chapters, and other sections of the Bible, would be read aloud as part of the mass. The chapter on Joshua, for example, includes a lengthy passage that reads like a lectionary, that is, a list of the scriptural readings appointed for a given day on the liturgical calendar: whiche I passe over unto thystoryes of the kynges / whiche is redde in holy chyrche fro the fyrst sonday after trynyte sonday unto the first sonday of August / And in the moneth of August is redde the book of sapience / And in the moneth of Septēbre ben redde thystoryes of Job : of Thobye . and of Judith / And in Octobre the hystorye of the Machabeis / And in Novembre the book of Ezechiel and his visions / And in Decembre the hystorye of Advent and the book of ysaye unto crystemasse & after the fest of Epyphanye unto Septuagesme ben red thepistles of paule / And this is the Rewle of the temporal thurgh the yere &ċ.”72 Similarly, the chapter on Adam, begins: “The Sonday of Septuagesme begynneth the storye of the bible / In whiche is redde the legend and storye of Adam whiche foloweth.”73 Septuagesima Sunday is the third Sunday prior to Easter. The chapter on Noah is introduced with: “Hre begynneth the hystorye of Noe the first Sonday in Sexagesme.”74 Sexagesima is the second Sunday before Ash Wednesday; the sections of the Book of Genesis concerning Noah are scheduled to be read during that mass.75 There are similar passages in Caxton’s chapters on Isaac, Joseph, Moses, Saul, Job, Tobias, and Judith.76 In addition, the only biblical chapter not to use the terms “life,” “legend,” “history” or “story” in its title has a title referencing the liturgical calendar, namely, “The first fesyal Sonday after trynyte sonday is redde thystoryes of samuel the prophet & of saul the first kynge of Israhel.”77 This title conveys the information that this section of the Bible is read in church on the first Sunday following Trinity Sunday that is not otherwise devoted to a feast or vigil for a saint; Trinity Sunday is the first Sunday after Pentecost, the feast commemorating the descent of the Holy Spirit onto the assembled apostles. Finally, Caxton brackets the biblical chapters away from those that follow using phrasing that references a division between the Temporale feasts and the Sanctorale feasts, a division from the liturgical calendar. The last Old Testament chapter, on Judith, ends “After the fests of our lord Jhesu crist to fore sette in ordre folowen the legēdes of Saynctes & first of saynt Andrewe.”78 This edition of Caxton’s Golden Legend maps the paraphrased parts of the Vulgate onto the liturgical calendar, imagining at least some potential buyers who would want to read scriptural paraphrase as a complement to their experience of the mass, most probably as a celebrant or possibly as part of the congregation. Ultimately, Caxton’s decision to include paraphrases of the Old Testament as chapters in The Golden Legend was undoubtedly the result of a careful balancing of costs and benefits. Any element that made an already lengthy text

78 The Bible as hagiography even longer would have added to the cost of paper, the most expensive part of making books in Caxton’s day. Consequently, a decision to add illustrations, for example, would be grounded on an expectation that their value in encouraging buyers would offset the degree to which they demanded the investment of capital. The Old Testament chapters added forty-six folios to The Golden Legend, significantly increasing its production costs. In addition, the publication of text that had the potential to be interpreted as a new, unlicensed biblical translation, that is, a violation of Arundel’s Constitutions, carried some degree of legal risk. Caxton must have been reasonably confident that the value these chapters added outweighed their cost and their risk. Caxton’s inclusion of the Old Testament chapters provides compelling evidence that he believed English book buyers were strongly attracted to scriptural material, evidence reinforced both by the popularity of the manuscript Wycliffite Bible and by other decisions taken by Caxton in preparing the first edition of The Golden Legend. His selection of chapters to be illustrated highlights narratives associated with the life and times of Christ, as well as the four evangelists who wrote the gospels, and Jerome, whose Biblical translation produced the Vulgate.79 Nevertheless, Caxton clearly anticipated a readership more associated with orthodox piety than its alternatives. His imagined audience would not have been found among those committed to a form of Christianity whose rhetoric set scriptural “truth” in opposition to the “false legends” of saints produced by monks and friars, but rather among those eager to access vernacular scripture in the more traditional contexts of medieval biblical literature. The Old Testament chapters seem designed for readers eager for scriptural material but who also enjoy saints’ lives, and are comfortable not only with an understanding of the Bible as being more an account of theologically significant events than a static divine revelation, but also with a tradition of transforming scripture into other genres and excerpting passages into interpretative frameworks, especially that of the mass. Caxton’s inclusion of the biblical chapters in the first edition his translation of the Legenda aurea aligns with an orthodox approach to piety, even as it may bend the letter of the law. Historical scholarship often associates the desire for an English Bible in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries with either lollardy or Protestantism, but Caxton’s Golden Legend contributes to the evidence that interest in vernacular scriptures was not confined to those who sought to use a purified version of the Bible as a tool to critique or reject established religious beliefs and practices.80 Caxton staked considerable capital, invested in the largest, most lavishly illustrated book that he ever produced, on the expectation that there was a substantial portion of the English book-buying public who wanted vernacular scriptures as well as conventional hagiography, who understood both as comparable expressions of sacred history, and who would enjoy having them brought together in one text. The success of the first edition of Caxton’s Golden Legend, evidenced by its reprint in 1487, justified his expectations.

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Notes 1 GL EEBO 1484, folio xxxvi verso – lxxxiii recto. 2 These are listed in the table of contents as chapters but in the text the typical chapter ending, “Here endeth,” is omitted for Moses, so it is not separated from the chapters on Joshua and the Ten Commandments. Furthermore, the headline for Moses continues across all three. 3 Norman Blake, in his seminal article on the biblical chapters, concludes that the majority of their contents are drawn from the Vulgate, usually in loose translation mixed with material from non-biblical sources, and most scholars have agreed: N. F. Blake, “The Biblical Additions in Caxton’s Golden Legend,” Traditio 25 (1969): 231. John Scahill argues for Caxton’s supplementary use of the vernacular Wycliffite Bible in some of the chapters, particularly the chapter on Judith: John Scahill, “The Wycliffite Bible as a Source for Caxton’s Legend of Judith,” English Studies 99, no. 8 (2018): 848–53. 4 Regarding Caxton’s role as translator, see James H. Morey, Book and Verse: A Guide to Middle English Biblical Literature, Illinois Medieval Studies (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2000), 154. As Norman Blake observed, although the Gilte Legende includes chapters for “The Lives of Adam and Eve,” and “The Fives Wiles of Pharaoh,” they are so different from Caxton’s versions that it is unlikely that they were a significant source: Blake, “The Biblical Additions,” 231. For these two Gilte Legende chapters, see Richard Hamer, ed., Gilte Legende, vol. 2, Early English Text Society, 328 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 991–1036. Furthermore, the conclusion of the chapter on Rehoboam seems to be almost an apology for a failure to include more biblical material which, if not sincere, might at least be supposed to persuade the reader that its author translated the Book of Kings up to that point: “And here I leve alle thystorye and make an end of booke of kynges for thys tyme & / For ye that lyste to knowe how every kyng regned after other ye may fynde it in the fyrst chapytre of saynt Mathew / whych is rede on Chrystemas day in the mornyng to fore Te deum / whyche is the genelagye of our lady”: GL EEBO 1484, folio lxiii recto. 5 It was published by the King’s Printer, Thomas Berthelet: John King, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and Early Modern Print Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 9. 6 John King, “Early Modern English Print Culture,” in A Companion to the History of the English Language, ed. Haruko Momma and Michael Matto (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2018), 289. 7 There is an extensive historiography on the Henrician Reformation. A good introduction to it may be found in G. W. Bernard, “The Making of Religious Policy, 1533–1546: Henry VIII and the Search for the Middle Way,” Historical Journal 41 (1998): 321–49. 8 For example, see F. F. Bruce, History of the Bible in English (Cambridge: Lutterworth Press, 1979), 1. For an excellent discussion of the underpinnings of that historiography, see Andrew C. Gow, “Challenging the Protestant Paradigm: Bible Reading in Lay and Urban Contexts of the Later Middle Ages,” in Scripture and Pluralism: The Study of the Bible in the Religiously Plural Worlds of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, ed. Thomas Heffernan (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 161–92. 9 A good example of such research is the project “Holy Writ and Lay Readers: A Social History of Vernacular Bible Translations in the Late Middle Ages” (2008– 2013), funded by the European Research Council and the University of Groningen, which attempted to reconstruct the translation and dissemination of vernacular Bibles in Italy, France, and the Low Countries from the end of the thirteenth century through the beginning of the sixteenth, and has collected a list of more than 3,000

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14 15

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18

19

vernacular Bibles. The project is described in Sabrina Corbellini, Mart van Duijin, Suzan Folkerts, and Margaret Hoogvliet, “Challenging the Paradigms: Holy Writ and Lay Readers in Late Medieval Europe,” Church History and Religious Culture 93 (2013): 171–88. See also Margaret Hoogvliet, “Encouraging Lay People to Read the Bible in the French Vernaculars: New Groups of Readers and Textual Communities,” Church History and Religious Culture 93 (2013): 239–74; and Francis Wormald, “Bible Illustration in Medieval Manuscripts,” in The Cambridge History of the Bible, ed. G. W. H. Lampe, vol. II, The West From the Fathers to the Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 315. Henry Hargreaves, “The Wycliffite Versions,” in Lampe, Cambridge History of the Bible, 391–92. Mart van Duijin, “Printing, Public, and Power: Shaping the First Printed Bible in Dutch (1477),” Church History and Religious Culture 93 (2013): 275–76. Shannon McSheffrey, “Heresy, Orthodoxy and English Vernacular Religion 1480–1525,” Past & Present 186 (2005): 63. There is an enormous scholarly literature on Christianity in late medieval England. See especially Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400–1580 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992); G. W. Bernard, The Late Medieval English Church: Vitality and Vulnerability before the Break with Rome (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012); and Mary Dove, ed. The Earliest Advocates of the English Bible: The Texts of the Medieval Debate, Exeter Medieval Texts and Studies (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2010). Margaret Deanesly, The Lollard Bible and Other Medieval Biblical Versions, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1920). The names of the translators are not known, but they were probably academics, most likely working in Oxford: Elizabeth Solopova, “Manuscript Evidence for the Patronage, Ownership and Use of The Wycliffite Bible,” in Form and Function in the Late Medieval Bible, ed. Eyal Poleg and Laura Light (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 333. There is a substantial scholarly literature on lollardy. See, for example, John A. F. Thomson, The Later Lollards, 1414–1520 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965); Anne Hudson, The Premature Reformation: Wycliffite Texts and Lollard History (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988); Steven Justice, “Lollardy,” in The Cambridge History of Medieval Literature, ed. David Wallace (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1999), 662–89; Fiona Somerset, Jill C. Havens, and Derrick Pitard, eds., Lollards and Their Influence in Late Medieval England (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2003); and Shannon McSheffrey and Norman Tanner, eds., Lollards of Coventry, 1486–1522, Camden Fifth Series (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). An excellent discussion of this claim and the related historiography may be found in Steven Justice, Writing and Rebellion: England in 1381, The New Historicism: Studies in Cultural Poetics, gen. ed. Stephen Greenblatt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 67–101. Archbishop Thomas Arundel (1353–1414) is not to be confused with William, Earl of Arundel, Caxton’s patron for The Golden Legend. Thomas was a cousin of William’s great-grandfather. Neither Thomas’s stance on vernacular translation nor his politics can be presumed to have been shared by members of his family living a century later. A lively discussion of Archbishop Arundel may be found in Terry Jones, et al., Who Murdered Chaucer? A Medieval Mystery (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2003). Nicholas Watson, “Censorship and Cultural Change in Late-Medieval England: Vernacular Theology, the Oxford Translation Debate, and Arundel’s

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20 21

22

23 24

25 26

27 28 29 30 31

32 33

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Constitutions of 1409,” Speculum 70, no. 4 (1995): 822–64. For further discussion of the Constitutions of Arundel as they relate to the replication of the Bible see Anne Hudson, “Wyclif and the English Language,” in Wyclif and His Times, ed. Anthony Kenny, 85–103 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986); and Kantik Ghosh, The Wycliffite Heresy: Authority and the Interpretation of Texts, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). McSheffrey, “Heresy, Orthodoxy,” 63. Probably most influential work on this topic is Watson, “Censorship and Cultural Change,” 822–64. See also Margaret Aston, Lollards and Reformers: Images and Literacy in Late Medieval England (London: Hambledon Press, 1984); Anne Hudson, “The Debate on Bible Translation, Oxford 1401,” English Historical Review 90 (1975): 1–18, reprinted in Lollards and Their Books (London: Hambledon Press, 1985), 67–84; and Su Fang Ng, “Translation, Interpretation, and Heresy: The Wycliffite Bible, Tyndale’s Bible, and the Contested Origin,” Studies in Philology 98, no. 3 (Summer 2001): 315. Morey, Book and Verse, 43; Fiona Somerset, “Censorship,” in The Production of Books in England 1350–1500, ed. Alexandria Gillespie and Daniel Wakelin, Cambridge Studies in Paleography and Codicology, ed. David Ganz and Teresa Webber (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 239–44. See, for example, Mary Dove, The First English Bible: The Text and Context of the Wycliffite Versions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). McSheffrey, “Heresy, Orthodoxy,” 63; Ralph Hanna, “English Biblical Texts before Lollardy and their Fate,” in Lollards and Their Influence in Late Medieval England, ed. Fiona Somerset, Jill C. Havens, and Derrick Pitard (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2003), 141–53. Solopova, “Manuscript Evidence,” 334. Solopova, “Manuscript Evidence,” 334. Some 40 percent of the surviving copies include a table of lections from the unquestionably orthodox Use of Sarum: Matti Peikola, “Tables of Lections in Manuscripts of the Wycliffite Bible,” in Poleg and Light, Form and Function, 351–78. Hanna, “English Biblical Texts,” 151. McSheffrey, “Heresy, Orthodoxy,” 63. Dove, ed., Earliest Advocates, xix. For example, see Sarah M. Horrall, “William Caxton’s Biblical Translation,” Medium Aevum 53, no. 1 (1984): 96. McSheffrey, “Heresy, Orthodoxy,” 49–63. Norman Blake also specifically rejects the notion that Caxton was motivated by lollardy: Blake, “The Biblical Additions,” 239. James Morgan notes that there is no record of Wynkyn de Worde having expressed strong unorthodox political or religious views: Lotte Hellinga and Mary C. Erler, eds. Wynkyn de Worde, Father of Fleet Street, James Moran, author, rev. ed. (New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll, 2003), 51. In the late nineteenth century, biographer William Blades claimed that Caxton had been deeply moved by the “sad spectacle” of the burning of Sir Richard Wyche on Tower Hill for lollardy in 1439, when Caxton was serving his apprenticeship, but Blades did not conclude that Caxton went on to embrace lollardy: William Blades, The Biography and Typography of William Caxton, England’s First Printer (London: Trübner, 1877), 17–18. A. S. G. Edwards and Carol M. Meale, “The Marketing of Printed Books in Late Medieval England,” The Library, 6th ser., 15 (1993): 95–124. Fiona Somerset, “Textual Transmission, Variance, and Religious Identity among Lollard Pastoralia,” in Religious Controversy in Europe, 1378–1536: Textual Transmission and Networks of Readership, ed. Michael Van Dussen and Pavel

82 The Bible as hagiography

34 35 36 37 38 39 40

41 42 43 44 45

46 47 48 49

50 51 52

53

Soukup (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), 75. Somerset is discussing lollard texts in general, not exclusively biblical material. Morey, Book and Verse, 19. See the discussion in Jamie H. Ferguson, “Faith in the Language: Biblical Authority and the Meaning of English in More-Tyndale Polemics,” Sixteenth Century Journal 63, no. 4 (2012): 989–1011. Morey, Book and Verse, 1–37. This point is also made in Corbellini et al., “Challenging the Paradigms,”177. Michael Camille, “Visualizing the Vernacular: A New Cycle of Early Fourteenth-Century Bible Illustrations,” Burlington Magazine, 130A (1988): 99. Julia C. Szirmai, “Arthurian ‘Monsters’ in the Thirteenth-Century Bible anonyme (Paris, BNF fr. 763),” Neophilologus (2014) 98: 206–9. Camille, “Visualizing the Vernacular,” 98. Richard Rouse and Mary Rouse, “Santa Barbara’s Thirteenth-Century Paris Bible: A Second Look,” Journal of the Bible and its Reception 3, no. 2 (2016): 177; and Robert Branner, Manuscript Painting in Paris During the Reign of Saint Louis: A Study of Styles (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), 66–67. Camille, “Visualizing the Vernacular,” 98. Camille, “Visualizing the Vernacular,” 98–99. Robert Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things? Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation, rpt. ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015), 518–23, 546–52. GL EEBO 1484, second unfoliated leaf verso; folio lxxxiii verso – lxxxvii recto. The chapter on Adam uses these terms in its introduction, headline, and conclusion: GL EEBO 1484, folio xxxvi verso, xxxvii recto, and xxxix recto. The chapter on Noah uses them in its headline and conclusion: folio xl verso and xxxix verso. The chapter on Abraham uses them in its introduction and headline: folio xl verso. The chapter on Isaac uses them in its introduction and headline: folio xliiii verso. The chapter on Moses uses them in its headline and conclusion: folio lvii recto and lxiii recto. The chapter on Saul uses them in its conclusion: folio lxviii verso. The chapter on David uses them in its conclusion: folio lxxii verso. Finally, the chapter on Solomon uses them in its conclusion: folio lxxiii verso. GL EEBO 1484, third unfoliated leaf verso. GL EEBO 1484, folio xxxvi verso. GL EEBO 1484, folio xxxvi verso – xxxix recto. In the chapter on Noah, these terms are used in its headline and conclusion: GL EEBO 1484, folio xxxxix verso and xl verso. The chapter on Abraham uses them in its introduction and headline: folio xl verso. The chapter on Isaac uses them in its introduction and headline: folio xliiii verso. The chapter on Moses uses them in its headline and conclusion: folio lvii recto and lxiii recto. The chapter on David uses them in its headline: folio lxxii verso. GL EEBO 1484, folio lxiii recto – lxviii verso. GL EEBO 1484, folio lxxi recto – lxxiii verso. The headline for the chapter on Moses is “Thystory of Moyses”: GL EEBO 1484, folio lv verso [the first of two non-identical folios marked “lv”] through folio lvi recto; “The lyf of Moyses” on folio lvii recto – verso; “Thystory of Moyses” on folio lviii recto; and “The lyf of Moyses” on folio lviii verso through lxiii recto, which includes the section on the Ten Commandments. The conclusion is on folio lxiii recto. GL EEBO 1484, first unfoliated leaf. Vignay’s French version reads: “la nativité, les vies, les passions et les meurs des saintes et aulcuns autre faitz notoires des tempes passes”: Brenda Dunn-Lardeau, ed. and trans., La Légende dorée: Edition critique, dans la révision de 1476 par Jean Batallier, d’après la traduction de

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54 55

56

57

58

59

60

83

Jean de Vignay (1333–1348) de la Legenda aurea (c.1261–1266), Textes de la Renaissance sous la direction de Claude Blum, 19 (Paris: Honoré Champion, l997), 88. GL EEBO 1484, first unfoliated leaf. GL EEBO 1484, second and third unfoliated leaf. The critical edition of the Legenda aurea titles it “San Pelagio papa”: Giovanni Paolo Maggioni, ed. Jacopo da Varazze’s Legenda Aurea con le miniature del codice Ambrosiano C 240 inf., edizione nazionale dei testi mediolatini, 20, serie II, 9 (Florence: SISMEL, Edizoni del Galluzzo, 2007), volume 1, ix. In the French critical edition it is “De saint Pelagien, pape”: Dunn-Lardeau, La Légende dorée, 94. GL EEBO 1484, folio Cii verso and CCCCxxxv recto. The History of the mass is not included in either the Latin or the French critical edition. The chapter on the Holy Innocents is titled in the former “De innocentibus”: Maggioni, Legenda aurea, v; and in the later, “Des Innocens”: Dunn-Lardeau, La Légende dorée, 90. Peter Burke writes: “Historical narratives tended to resemble ‘bricolage,’ compositions made from ready-made fragments, for the historian would often incorporate the actual words of the ‘authority,’ making a mosaic of the different authors”: Peter Burke, The Renaissance Sense of the Past, Documents of Modern History, gen. ed. A. G. Dickens and Alun Davies (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1969), 7. Sarah Horrall convincingly argues that the non-biblical material Caxton used to supplement the Vulgate was primarily drawn from Peter Comestor’s Historia Scholastica, Friar Lorens’s Somme le roi, and the Middle English Cursor Mundi: Horrall, “Biblical Translation,” 91–93. She concludes that Caxton used the particular text of Somme le roi that was included with later manuscripts of Vignay’s Légende, noting that Caxton printed a full translation of the Somme le roi, called the Royal Book, shortly after finishing the Golden Legend: Horrall, “Biblical Translation,” 91–93. In the French language tradition, Guyart des Moulin’s Bible historiale, a composite work comprised of a French translation of Comestor’s Historia Scholastica and a complete French translation of the Vulgate, was sufficiently common that over 100 manuscript copies survive. It functioned as a “French Bible” for much of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries: Jeanette Patterson, “Stolen Scriptures: The Bible Historiale and the Hundred Years’ War,” Digital Philology: A Journal of Medieval Cultures 4, no. 2 (Fall 2013): 155. See also C. A. Robson, “Vernacular Scriptures in France,” in Cambridge History of the Bible, ed. G. W. H. Lampe, vol. 2, The West from the Fathers to the Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 436–54. GL EEBO 1484, folio lxx recto. Mary Jeremy argues that this passage is original to Caxton, along with three other passages found in non-Biblical chapters in which he refers to his time in and around the Low Countries, namely, in the chapters on the Circumcision, Ursula, and the Nativity of Our Lady: Mary Jeremy [Finnegan], “Caxton’s Original Additions to the Legenda Aurea,” Modern Language Notes 64, no. 4 (1949): 259–61. John Capons was a Catalan nobleman and former governor of Majorca who had rebelled against the King of Aragon: Anne F. Sutton, “Caxton was a Mercer: His Social Milieu and Friends” in England in the Fifteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1992 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. Nicholas Rogers, Harlaxton Medieval Studies, 4 (Stamford: Paul Watkins, 1992), 119. The passage reads: “It is said but I fynde it not in the byble / that Salamon repentyd hym moche of thys synne of ydolatrye / and dyde moche penaunce therfor / For he lete hym be drawe thurgh Jhrusalem and bete hym self wyth Roddes and scorgys that the blood folowed in the syght of alle the peple”: GL EEBO 1484, folio lxxiii verso.

84 The Bible as hagiography 61 I am using the broader definition of apocryphal literature, namely, texts that seem to have been to be designed to be considered part of the Bible, or that were, at some point, considered part of the Bible. For further discussion of such texts, see Bart D. Ehrman, Lost Scriptures: Books that Did Not Make It into the New Testament (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003; rpt. ed. 2005). 62 Dove, Earliest Advocates, 3. 63 Rouse and Rouse, “Santa Barbara,” 179. 64 Rouse and Rouse, “Santa Barbara,” 179; Geoffrey Shepherd, “English Vernacular Versions of the Scriptures Before Wyclif,” in Lampe, Cambridge History of the Bible, 364. 65 Rouse and Rouse, “Santa Barbara,” 178–80. Paul Saenger argues that the standard system of Biblical chapter divisions was actually developed in St. Alban’s monastery in England and reached Paris through the Abbey of Saint Victor: Paul Saenger, “The Twelfth-Century Reception of Oriental Languages and the Graphic Mise en Page of Latin Vulgate Bibles Copied in England,” in Poleg and Light, Form and Function, 31. 66 Shepherd, “English Vernacular Versions,” 364. 67 David Weil Baker, “The Historical Faith of William Tyndale: Non-Salvific Reading of Scripture at the Outset of the English Reformation,” Renaissance Quarterly, 622 (2009): 661–62; Burke, Renaissance Sense of the Past, 50. See also Rainer Pineas, “William Tyndale’s Use of History as a Weapon of Religious Controversy,” Harvard Theological Review 55 (1962b): 121–41. 68 From the Patristic period, medieval scholars interpreted the Bible according to four senses: the literal or historical; the allegorical; the moral; and the anagogical or salvific: Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1969). 69 Morey, Book and Verse, 20. 70 GL EEBO 1484, folio lxviii verso. 71 The Protestant movement also recognized a role for history in the service of religion, of course, but that role was different from the model described here. David Weil Baker describes the Protestant sense as more of a partnership between history and scripture in which each was pressed into service to justify ecclesiastical polity: Baker, “Historical Faith,” 122–23. 72 GL EEBO 1484, folio lxiii recto. 73 GL EEBO 1484, folio xxxvi verso. 74 GL EEBO 1484, folio xxxix recto. 75 Accordingly, John Mirk’s Festial, the most widely copied manuscript collection of English vernacular sermons during the fifteenth century, includes a discussion about Noah in its sermon for Sexagesima: Susan Powell, ed., John Mirk’s “Festial” Edited From British Library MS Cotton Claudius A. II, vol. 1, Early English Text Society, o.s. 334 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 69–70. 76 The chapter on Isaac states that his life is read in church on the second Sunday of Lent: GL EEBO 1484, folio xliii verso. The chapter on Joseph states that the story of Joseph and his brothers is read on the third Sunday of Lent: folio xlviii verso. The chapter on Moses states that his story is read on mid-Lent Sunday: folio lv verso. The chapter on Saul explains that the Book of Kings is read starting from the first Sunday after Trinity Sunday through the month of August: folio lxiii recto. The chapter on Job states that his story is read on the first Sunday of September: folio lxxiiii verso. The chapter on Tobias states that his story is read on the third Sunday in September: folio lxxv verso. Finally, the chapter on Judith states that her story is read on the last Sunday of October: folio lxxx recto. 77 GL EEBO 1484, second unfoliated leaf verso.

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78 GL EEBO 1484, folio lxxxiii verso. 79 See Chapter 2, especially Table 2.1. 80 Sometimes this claim is made not only for English vernacular scriptures, but for all writing in English. For example, Wooding claims that “To write in English was to declare an interest in the work of religious regeneration that was such a key preoccupation of the age”: Lucy Wooding, Rethinking Catholicism in Reformation England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), 2.

5

England and the British Isles in Caxton’s Golden Legend

The inclusion of Old Testament chapters is not the only element that makes Caxton’s Golden Legend unlike other versions of the Legenda aurea. Caxton “Englished” the text in two ways: not only translating it into the English language, but also augmenting the amount of material on the history of England and the British Isles. Caxton’s Golden Legend includes twenty-three chapters on saints whose legends assert that they were born or lived in England, Ireland, Scotland, or Wales, or in territories that became those countries.1 These chapters are for Thomas of Canterbury; Alban (4th c.); Amphibalus (4th c.); Patrick (4th–5th c.); Fursey (d. c.648); Brendan; Erkenwald; Alphage (c.954–1012); Dunstan (c.910–988); Aldhelm (c.639–709); Winifred (d. c.650); Swithun (d. 862); Kenelm (d. c.812); Edward King and Martyr (c.962–978); Edward King and Confessor (1003–1066); Edmund King and Martyr; Augustine of Canterbury; Bede (c.672–735); Mellonin (4th c.); Fiacre (d. c. 670); Hugh of Lincoln (1140–1200); Cuthbert (d. 687); and Edmund of Abingdon.2 Most of these twenty-three are English. Only seven are associated with other parts of the British Isles: Patrick, Fursey, and Brendan are Irish saints; Amphibalus, Mellonin and Winifred are Welsh; and Fiacre is described as being born in Ireland but of the Scottish nation. Amphibalus shares a chapter with Alban, an English saint. In addition to these twentythree, another eight non-British saints’ lives contain elements of British history in their narratives.3 Adding chapters about saints of local interest to the Legenda aurea was a long-standing practice among its copyists and translators throughout Europe, but in England there is evidence of an unusually strong attachment to homegrown saints. Late medieval England developed a tradition of extracting the lives of saints from the British Isles from more geographically diverse collections in order to assemble them as “national” legendaries. Antonina Harbus describes the collection of local saints in isolation from the rest of the communion as “an exclusively English phenomenon.”4 The earliest example dates from the early fourteenth century when an anonymous compiler created a Latin legendary consisting of the lives of forty-seven British saints.5 Independent of this effort but also in the first half of the fourteenth century, John of Tynemouth compiled the Sanctilogium Angliae, Walliae, Scotiae et

British Isles in Caxton’s Golden Legend 87 Hisperniae, a Latin compilation of 156 legends of saints from the British Isles.6 In the fifteenth century, an editor, usually identified as John Capgrave (1393–1464), revised Tynemouth’s work and rearranged the chapters to follow alphabetical order rather than the order of the liturgical calendar. This version is known as the Nova Legenda Anglie.7 In 1516, Wynkyn de Worde revised and published Capgrave’s version under the title Nova Legenda Anglie.8 An English translation was released by Richard Pynson under the title The Kalendre of the New Legende of Englande in the same year.9 Carl Horstman, in reference to Tynemouth’s collection, describes this work as “nationalizing” the idea of sainthood.10 There is no liturgical reason for these legendaries. The compilation of saints’ lives to include only those from the British Isles reflects devotional interest imbued with national sentiment. In Caxton’s Golden Legend, the British material is not collected into contiguous chapters, as are the Old Testament paraphrases, but rather dispersed throughout a collection that includes lives of saints from Continental Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. Caxton might have chosen to offer a hagiographic collection of exclusively English, or British, saints, as both Worde and Pynson were to do in the sixteenth century. Instead, he constructed a legendary with more material about the British Isles than would be found in the Legenda aurea or La Légende dorée while retaining the universal church as its framework: a national emphasis within an identity shared with the whole of Christendom. That choice is consistent with the Legenda aurea tradition, and more broadly, with hagiographic texts. As Robert Bartlett affirms, “When we consider the cult of the saints, we almost always see local or regional identity coexisting in this way with a sense of the shared collective identity of the Church as a whole.”11 Caxton’s British material can therefore be seen as a conventional manifestation of the Legenda aurea tradition, as well as an element he imagined would attract English book buyers. Although the possibility that Caxton owned a variant of the Legenda aurea no longer extant or as yet unrecovered from which he drew all his British material more or less verbatim cannot be completely dismissed, it seems likely, based on the available evidence, that he sought some of the material about Britain from sources other than the Legenda aurea, La Légende dorée, and the Gilte Legende.12 As he enhanced the Old Testament chapters with information drawn from both oral and textual sources other than the Vulgate, it is probable that he followed a similar process for the British material, drawing on different strands of historical writing in England. The two standard historical narratives in England in Caxton’s day were Ranulf Higden’s (c.1280–1364) Latin Polychronicon, a universal chronical, and the Brut tradition.13 In the words of Andrew Galloway, “For all their diversity, most Latin histories of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were continuations of the Polychronicon, just as most vernacular chronicles of the period were continuations of the Brut.”14 The Brut tradition was an understanding of the past in which England during the classical era, especially the Roman imperial period, enjoyed

88 British Isles in Caxton’s Golden Legend a highly refined, sophisticated, and chivalric culture best associated with Arthur, King of the Britons.15 This popular narrative, or rather, collection of narratives, begins at the time of the legendary Brutus the Trojan and continues through the arrival of and initial resistance to the Anglo-Saxons. It tells the story of an ancient England whose people were Britons. This tradition is expressed in many medieval texts, of which the best-known is Laʒamon’s Brut, written in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, but was extant by at least the early twelfth century, as may be seen in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae of 1136.16 The Brut tradition remained popular in the late fifteenth century.17 It would have been the most familiar account of England’s past among Caxton’s contemporaries, occupying a central position shaping both historical memory and national consciousness.18 The Arthurian narratives gave England an ancient and dignified identity, especially important among elites and those who were aware of the humanist cult of the classical past.19 The late medieval and Tudor monarchy also tended to favor the Brut as a supporting myth in which King Arthur and his predecessors ruled an empire.20 Knowledge of the Brut tradition was not confined to England, but was written about in France, and was the subject of spectacular pageantry in the Burgundian court, where Caxton may have first encountered it.21 The Brut tradition explains the practice in which English authors from late Middle Ages into the sixteenth century sometimes used the terms “Great Britain,” “Britain,” and “England” interchangeably. Caxton himself uses the phrase “grete brytaygne / whiche now is called englond” or a close variation a number of times in The Golden Legend.22 That use does not mean that the British Isles were perceived as culturally integrated. There is evidence that, by at least the twelfth century, inhabitants of England thought of their culture as distinct from that of the Irish, Welsh, and Scots, and considered the Celtic societies to be less civilized.23 Popular histories based on the Brut projected into the classical past the existence of Irish, Scottish, and Welsh nations living in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, respectively, as well as a nation of Britons living in what later became known as England. Caxton’s catalog reveals that he had considerable experience with the genre of historical writing, which is not surprising as fifteenth-century English readers of both printed and manuscript books purchased an impressive number and variety of historical titles, including classical and national histories.24 Caxton worked on these titles not only as a publisher but also, in some cases, as a belated co-author. In 1480 Caxton published a version of the Brut titled the Chronicles of England in which he wrote a continuation of the narrative of British history through the mid-fifteenth century.25 Similarly, when he published John Trevisa’s (d. 1402) English translation of the Polychronicon, Caxton wrote a final section which continued the historical narrative into his own time. He also published The Descripcion of Britayne, a text he derived from the Polychronicon.26 Caxton advocates for national history in his prologue to the Polychronicon as well as his epilogue for The Descripcion of

British Isles in Caxton’s Golden Legend 89 Britayne, in which he declares that “it is necessarie to alle Englisshmen to knowe” about British history.27 Shortly after the first edition of The Golden Legend, Caxton published Thomas Malory’s Morte Darthur, a literary version of Arthurian stories.28 His publication of these works helped to increase their popularity.29 Caxton seems to have drawn the additional British material in his Golden Legend from both historical and devotional sources. The eight non-British saints in the collection whose lives include passages about British history all had corresponding chapters in both the Legenda aurea and La Légende dorée.30 In six cases, the British material comprised a well-established part of the legend present in the exemplars, such as the famous pun using “Angles” and “angels” from the story in which Pope Gregory asked about the origin of two angelic-looking blond boys for sale in a Roman marketplace and was told that they were Angles from Britannia, prompting him to advocate in favor of sending a Christian mission there.31 In the other two cases, those of Katherine of Alexandria and George, the Latin and French versions do not include any British material, suggesting that Caxton added it from elsewhere. In both cases, the passages focus on England. In the case of Katherine, the British material is present in Caxton’s English exemplar, the Gilte Legende.32 The passage is phrased differently in the Gilte Legende, but appears in the same place in the text as in Caxton’s version, that is, at the beginning, so the Gilte Legende is probably his inspiration for its inclusion. Caxton acknowledges that this passage is an addition to the standard version of Katherine’s life by printing at its conclusion the phrase “Now foloweth the lẏf of saint Katherẏne” in the slightly larger typeface used in this edition for introductions and conclusions.33 The added passage describes Katherine’s ancestral relationship to British royalty. It states that Katherine was descended from Roman emperors, and was specifically the daughter of Costus, Constantius’s son by his first wife. The narrative continues, describing how Constantius, after the death of his first wife, was sent into Britain to suppress a rebellion against the Roman Emperor. King Coel of Britain admired Constantius so much that he arranged his marriage to Helen, Coel’s daughter. Their child, Constantine, ultimately became the Roman emperor who converted to Christianity, and Helen, in due course, recovered the true cross.34 This passage serves to position British history as central to the conversion of the Roman Empire, a pivotal event of Christian history. The notion that Helen, Constantine’s mother, was a British princess ultimately derives from the Brut tradition: Laʒamon’s Brut contains the oldest extant vernacular account of the British Helen legend.35 John Trevisa’s English translation of the Polychronicon includes a version of it as well.36 Within Caxton’s Golden Legend, a reader turning to the chapter on the Invention of the Holy Cross (“invention” in the sense of “finding”) would see a narrative describing Constantine’s military victory under the sign of the cross, his conversion to Christianity, and his subsequent dispatching of his mother, Helen, to Jerusalem to recover the cross of the

90 British Isles in Caxton’s Golden Legend crucifixion.37 The British king’s decision to marry his daughter to Constantius is thus presented as the initiating event for the triumph of Christianity in the Roman Empire and for the recovery of its most powerful relic, the true cross. Caxton selected both the chapter on Katherine and the Invention of the Holy Cross for illustration.38 The other chapter about a non-British saint that contains British material in Caxton’s version but not in either the Legenda aurea or La Légende dorée focuses on George. Unlike the case of Katherine, the additional passage in the chapter on George is not found in the Gilte Legende. Caxton very likely wrote this paragraph, added at the end of the chapter, in which George is named as the patron saint of England.39 The passage reads: Thys blessyd and holy marter saynt George is pa-trone of this royame of englond / and the crye of men at warre / In the wor-shyp of whome is founded by the noble ordre of the garter / And also a noble college in the castell of Wyndesore / by kynges of englond / In whiche college is the herte of Saynt george / Whych Sygysmond the Emperour of almayn broughte and gafe for a grete and a precious relyque to Kyng Harry the fyfthe / And also the sayd Sygismonde was a broder of the sayd garter / And also there is a pyece of his heed which college is nobly endowed to thonoure and worshyp of almyghty god / and hys blessyd marter saynt george / Thenne let us praye unto hym that he be special protectour and defendour of thys royame.40 George is not a British saint; his legend attributes his birth to Cappadocia and never implies that he so much as visited England.41 Outside his legend there is no evidence that George existed as a historical figure.42 By the late twelfth century he began to be placed in English contexts by English authors: the chronicle of Gervase of Canterbury puts both George and Thomas of Canterbury in ethereal form at the Battle of Lewes on the side of Simon de Montfort (c.1208–1265) against King Henry III (r. 1216–1272).43 In the late thirteenth century, English kings began to associate George with the crown, first in war and later in peace. Edward I (r. 1272–1307), who may have acquired his devotion to George during the Crusades, ordered the saint’s arms to be sewn on archers’ bracers and foot soldiers’ pennants in England’s campaign against Wales.44 Edward continued to use the image of George during the Scottish wars.45 As late as 1340, the French fleet employed a ship called St. George in the battle of Sluys, demonstrating, as Robert Bartlett observes, “that the saints had not been corralled into strict national enclaves.”46 But in 1348, Edward III founded the famous Order of the Garter under the protection of George, an action which, in the words of Jonathan Good, “institutionalized the place of St. George in the English court, military, and even national life.”47 In the early fifteenth century, Henry V is supposed to have appealed to George at the Battle of Agincourt, and later a story developed that the saint had appeared in the sky prior to the battle.48 The

British Isles in Caxton’s Golden Legend 91 choices made by chroniclers and the court annexed George into British hagiography, making him, as Robert Bartlett expresses it, “a dynastic and national saint.”49 Caxton’s conclusion to the chapter on George brings its hagiographic narrative into the recent past, serving a function similar to his additions to the Polychronicon and the Chronicles of England. The passage also serves to highlight the spiritual significance of the English monarchy. Just as in the distant past, when events initiated by an English king led to the recovery of the central Christian relic, the true cross, in this account of the recent past, relics owned by the crown serve to confirm the saintly patronage of George over England. Both these additions highlight chivalric and sacred aspects of English history. Like the chapters on Katherine and the Invention of the Holy Cross, Caxton selected the chapter on George for illustration.50 As with the British material in the chapters on non-British saints, Caxton seems to have drawn on supplementary sources for some the chapters on the twenty-three British saints. Of these, only three had cults sufficiently well established throughout Europe for their lives to be included in the Legenda aurea and La Légende dorée, namely, Thomas of Canterbury, Fursey, and Patrick.51 Caxton’s chapter on the life of Thomas is a very loose paraphrase and amalgamation of material in the Legenda aurea, La Légende dorée, and the Gilte Legende. His chapter on Fursey does not seem to be augmented, but his chapter on Patrick is supplemented with material drawn from the Polychronicon.52 Caxton cites the Polychronicon in reference to the names of members of Patrick’s family, but also adds material from this text at the end of the chapter without citation.53 Whereas Patrick’s chapter in both the Legenda Aurea and La Légende dorée concludes with Nicholas coming out of the pit that leads to purgatory and dying a month later, Caxton’s chapter significantly shortens the section on purgatory and adds a concluding passage from the Polychronicon connecting Patrick with the Brut tradition, more recent English history, and the English landscape.54 Specifically, Caxton tells his readers that Patrick died while Aurelius Ambrose was king of Britain, which is a pseudo-historical reign from the Brut tradition; that Patrick left Ireland because he found its people too rebellious, and went to Glastonbury Abbey in England; and that the bodies of Patrick and two other Irish saints were found in Ulster when King John of England first went to Ireland. Caxton thus emphasizes English elements of the life of this well-known Irish saint. Of the twenty chapters on British saints in Caxton’s Golden Legend for which there are no corresponding chapters in either the Legenda aurea or La Légende dorée, models for seventeen may be found in his English exemplar, the Gilte Legende. Sixteen of those are what Richard Hamer and Vida Russell term “supplementary,” meaning that they are not included in the main variant of the Gilte Legende.55 Caxton may have had a copy of the Gilte Legende that included all of these sixteen supplementary chapters, although no such version is extant, or he may have intentionally sought out

92 British Isles in Caxton’s Golden Legend a copy or copies that included the lives of specific British saints. He augmented one of these seventeen. As Pierce Butler notes, Caxton added material from the Polychronicon as well as John Capgrave’s Nova Legenda Angliae to the chapter on Edward the Confessor.56 The remaining three of these chapters, namely, those for Bede, Hugh of Lincoln, and the Translation of Thomas of Canterbury, cannot be traced to any of Caxton’s main exemplars. The chapter on Bede in Caxton’s Golden Legend explicitly cites the Polychronicon: “In the book of polycronycon is reherced that is won-der / that a man that was so wythoute use of scole made so many noble volu-mes in so sobre words / in soo lytell space of his lyf tyme.”57 This sentence paraphrases a comment on Bede in the Polychronicon, namely “wonder ate ful / that a man that was so without use of scole made so many noble volumes in so sobre words in so lytel space of his lyf tyme.”58 Although that passage is the only one explicitly credited to the Polychronicon, nearly all of Caxton’s chapter on Bede, beginning with his birth and ending with the translation of his body to the tomb of Saint Cuthbert in Durham, is a paraphrase of the Polychronicon, specifically the text in Liber Quintus, capitulum 24 between “¶That yere deyde that worthy man Beda” and “seynt Cuthbert.”59 The only passage not in the Polychronicon is the closing of the Golden Legend chapter in which the inscription on Bede’s tomb is described as having been begun by a clerk and completed by an angel.60 These particular sentences are taken from a different chapter in The Golden Legend, namely the chapter on Pope Pelagius and the History of the Lombards.61 Caxton was not their author: this episode appears in the chapter on Pope Pelagius in the Legenda aurea, La Légende dorée, and the Gilte Legende.62 Caxton simply chose to repeat and rephrase it to close his chapter on Bede. Caxton’s decision to create a chapter on Bede may have been based on the saint’s reputation as a historian of the English church. Bede was recognized as a reliable historian among medieval English chroniclers and hagiographers.63 Although his chapter is brief, comprising not quite three columns, Bede’s “hystorya anglycana” is specifically mentioned.64 In that history, Bede situates the Anglo-Saxon church as part of a greater Roman tradition rather than a detached Celtic one, a stance Caxton reflects through his dispersal of the lives of British saints among the larger communion of saints.65 Another reason for the creation of a chapter on Bede may have been that his work provided an early model for translating parts of the Bible into English. The Golden Legend chapter states that Bede “translated saynt Johans gospel in to englysshe / and sayd to his scolers / lerne ye my smale children,” establishing that the translation was meant for dissemination rather than merely personal study.66 In these respects, Bede’s work might have been understood as the beginning of a tradition of historical writing and biblical translation to which Caxton believed his Golden Legend belonged. The chapter on Hugh of Lincoln also appears to draw from the Polychronicon but to a much more limited degree. The Polychronicon confines

British Isles in Caxton’s Golden Legend 93 its discussion of Hugh to his appointment as bishop of Lincoln and his burial.67 Its account of the dignitaries who attended the saint’s burial, including the kings of England and Scotland as well as three archbishops, resembles the description Caxton’s Golden Legend.68 The remainder of Caxton’s chapter on Hugh has been identified by James F. Dimock as a translation into English of the initial portion of a vita created to be read in Lincoln cathedral on Hugh’s feast day, itself largely drawn from the report of the papal commissioners’ inquiry into Hugh’s canonization.69 Caxton’s selection of Hugh of Lincoln may have been another way of bringing sacred history into the near present, avoiding the impression that most British saints lived in antiquity. The third British chapter for which there is no model in Caxton’s extant exempla is for the Translation of Thomas of Canterbury. All three of Caxton’s major sources, the Legenda aurea, La Légende dorée, and the Gilte Legende, include a chapter on the feast of Thomas of Canterbury, but none include Caxton’s second chapter, focusing on Thomas’s relics. This chapter contains two sections: the events of the translation, and posthumous miracles. The former may have been drawn from the office in the Sarum Breviary written in honor of the translation.70 Most but not all of the miracle stories were drawn from La Légende dorée.71 Thomas was the most internationally renowned English saint because his shrine in Canterbury Cathedral was a prominent pilgrimage destination.72 In 1220, about fifty years after his death, the cathedral chapter opened a chapel constructed in a horseshoe shape with the tomb in the center so that throngs of pilgrims might efficiently process around it.73 The large number of souvenirs and pilgrims’ badges still extant are evidence of the shrine’s popularity.74 The international quality of Thomas’s fame may be illustrated by fifty-two extant Limoges enameled reliquaries of Thomas, whose medieval owners lived as far away as Italy and Sweden.75 As late as 1520, the most powerful man in Europe, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1500–1558), went on pilgrimage to Canterbury.76 Caxton’s creation of a chapter on the translation of Thomas’s relics, a chapter that seems to have no model in any of the variants of the Legenda that Caxton used as sources, focuses attention away from Thomas as a man who defied the English monarchy and towards a version of Thomas as a set of miracle-working relics at England’s principal pilgrimage site. Thomas of Canterbury never quite achieved the status of England’s patron saint. An internationally important pilgrimage site might lead to the recognition of its saint as a national patron, as happened with James the Apostle, whose shrine is at Compostela, in Spain, but Thomas of Canterbury’s legend was problematic for the English monarchy in a way that impeded his full development into a national saint. Specifically, his martyrdom had been prompted by his opposition to King Henry II (1133–1189).77 Thomas was embraced by the English clergy as symbolic of protecting the church against encroachment by the laity; for this reason, the Archbishops of Canterbury featured his image on their seals.78 Thomas was also seen as a symbolic

94 British Isles in Caxton’s Golden Legend defender of the common people against royal oppression, a “standard-bearer for English nationhood,” in the words of Kay Slocum.79 But the English monarchy, understandably, did not promote Thomas in the same way. For much of the central Middle Ages, English kings championed Anglo-Saxon royal saints, especially Edward the Confessor and, to a lesser degree, Edmund the Martyr, as symbols of the crown and the nation.80 In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the crown began to promote George, a military saint with broad appeal, if less historical validity than the Anglo-Saxon royal saints.81 Jonathan Good remarks that George was a national saint “that both rulers and ruled could venerate and thereby declare their status as members of that nation.”82 Caxton’s chapter on the life of Thomas tactfully never names Henry II: Thomas’s opponent is merely “the king,” or the “the king of England.”83 In contrast, Caxton’s chapter on Thomas’s translation records the central role played by Henry III (1207–1272) in the ceremony: “And also king harry the third with erles & barones whiche kynge hym self toke the cheste upon his sholders / and with the other prelates & lords brought it wyth grete joye and honour in to the place.”84 Caxton’s treatment of Thomas glorifies the saint with as little direct criticism of the monarchy as possible while narrating the events of his martyrdom and translation. As the compiler of The Golden Legend, Caxton would have not only selected sources for its British material but also determined the amount of such material to include. As there are twenty-three chapters on British saints among the 250 chapters in Caxton’s Golden Legend, nearly 10 percent of the chapters focus on British saints; the proportion of folios in these chapters relative to the number in the book is also roughly 10 percent. One of the English chapters is the longest in the collection: the chapter on Edward King and Confessor is twenty-two folio pages, one of only five chapters longer than fifteen folio pages.85 Caxton chose to produce a book substantially longer than would have resulted from merely translating La Légende dorée into English and adding Old Testament chapters, indicating the value he anticipated his readers would accord to the inclusion of more material on local saints. Caxton’s selection of chapter illustrations focuses attention on the English saints among those from the British Isles. Of the twenty-three British chapters, eight are illustrated in the first edition, a portion roughly the same as the book as a whole.86 Seven of the eight chapters selected for illustration are for English saints; Brendan is the only exception. The focus on English saints is particularly striking in light of the fact that Patrick and Fursey are among the three British saints in The Golden Legend whose cults were sufficiently well established to be included in the Legenda aurea and La Légende dorée. They might be presumed to be more widely known among potential buyers, yet Caxton chose not to use illustration to draw attention to their lives, preferring to highlight saints from England. Of the eight illustrated chapters on British saints in the first edition of Caxton’s Golden Legend, two feature a double-column woodcuts, namely, the two chapters on Thomas of Canterbury.87 Of the eighteen double-column

British Isles in Caxton’s Golden Legend 95 woodcuts in this edition, seven appear in chapters on Christological feasts; four on Marian feasts; two in chapters on Thomas of Canterbury; one in the chapter on John the Baptist; one in the All Saints chapter; one in the final Old Testament chapter, on Judith; and two in the non-hagiographical chapters on the Dedication of a Church and the History of the Mass.88 The use of two double-column woodcuts elevates Thomas of Canterbury into a category primarily occupied by Jesus and Our Lady. The textual content of the chapters on the English saints in Caxton’s Golden Legend is also broadly different from that of the Irish, Welsh, and Scottish saints. The legends of the latter focus on miracles; these chapters fit straightforwardly into the tradition of adding local interest to a translation of the Legenda aurea by the addition of regional saints. Caxton selected English saints’ lives that, while incorporating miraculous events, include more historical narrative, particularly concerning government and the monarchy. Four of the sixteen English saints whose lives Caxton includes are royal, namely, Kenelm, a king of Mercia; Edward King and Martyr; Edward King and Confessor; and Edmund King and Martyr, and much of their narratives deal with court politics and military affairs.89 All four were among the “supplementary” lives that appeared only in variant versions of the Gilte Legende. Another way in which the content of the English chapters differs from the other saints’ lives in Caxton’s Golden Legend is those chapters’ tendency to express national sentiment through descriptions of the superior power and prowess of the ancient Britons. The chapter on Ursula, in which her martyrdom is dated to either 238 or 406, states that the king of England “was right mighty / and subdued many nacions to his empire.”90 In another chapter set during the Roman Empire, on Saints Alban and Amphibalus, when young nobles from the British Isles train for knighthood in Emperor Diocletian’s court in Rome, the pope is struck by “the grete bewte of thys yonge companye,” which later earns “the prys and vyctorye” in a great tournament among knights from all over the Roman Empire.91 The English Alban is described as “the best knyght and moste beste prevyd in strengthe / wherefore he had a souerayn name tofore al other.”92 The text at this point digresses into Alban’s posthumous future, explaining that King Offa (r. 757–796) wore the arms of Saint Alban into battle, earning glorious victories, before depositing them in the monastery of St. Albans, which he founded.93 The English saints’ chapters in Caxton’s Golden Legend suggest that England’s land, people, and language historically inspired admiration. The chapter on Augustine of Canterbury states that Pope Gregory had “a grete zele and loue unto englond” because of the physical beauty of the English children he saw in the Roman marketplace, and that Augustine was moved to great efforts in his mission not for the reason typically provided, namely, combatting paganism, but because he desired “the health of the peple of englond.”94 A passage in the chapter on Kenelm explains that news of the saint’s martyrdom was miraculously communicated to the pope by means of a scroll written in golden letters delivered to him by a white dove,

96 British Isles in Caxton’s Golden Legend a conventional symbol of the Holy Spirit. The message, which explains where Kenelm’s decapitated body might be found, is written in English. The pope: shewed the scrolle to alle the peple But there was none that coude telle what it mente / tyll ate last there cam an englyssh man / And he told it o-penly tofore all the peple what it ment And thenne the pope wyth alle the peple gaf laude and praysyng to oure lord / and kepte that skrowe for a re-lyque.95 Typically, the Golden Legend does not portray messages from heaven as being unreadable by the pope. The inclusion of this episode does little to emphasize the power of the church, but rather suggests a divine preference for English language for communications about England, no matter how obscure or unfamiliar that language might be thought in the court of Rome. Additionally, the English chapters differ from all the other saints’ lives in Caxton’s Golden Legend in that England is made the deictic center, the place from which the narrator writes. England is “here”; it is “this land.” Sometimes the corresponding chapter in the Gilte Legend uses similar language. For example, in Caxton’s chapter on Alphage, the description of an invasion of England by the Danes states that there “came a wicked tyraunt out of denmarcke in to thys londe of Englond,” and that the Danes “dyd moche harme in thys londe.”96 In this case, the chapter in the Gilte Legende uses parallel language.97 Similarly, in the description of a Danish invasion in Caxton’s chapter on Edward the Confessor, a bishop prays “for pees of this Royamme of Englond” in much the same way as in the Gilte Legende.98 In other cases, Caxton seems to have changed the wording. For example, a passage in Caxton’s chapter on Edward the Confessor describes a prophecy that the Danish invasions will cease, and that “this Royamme shall be prosperous in alle thynges / and the peple shal be of suche condicions / That other londes shal bothe love and drede them.”99 The corresponding passage in the Gilte Legend, in contrast, reads “And Þe reame shall be prosperus ….”100 Similarly, the passage in Caxton’s chapter on Alban and Amphibalus asserting that English laws originated with Julius Caesar states that he “stablisshed certeyn statutes in this londe whiche were long obseruyd and kepte / Emonge whyche he ordeyned that none of thys londe ….”101 The corresponding chapter in the Gilte Legend does not use the same language: “He ordained than statutes whiche were longe tyme kept in the ile, amonge whiche he ordained that none of that londe ….”102 As the specific variant of the Gilte Legende used by Caxton has not been identified, it remains possible that in all cases, Caxton retained rather than added the phrasing that positions England as the deictic center of the narrative.103 Either way, Caxton’s wording expresses an identification that he seems to have expected his imagined readers to feel towards England. Caxton’s addition of British material to The Golden Legend is part of a well-established tradition of adapting the legendary to suit local tastes.

British Isles in Caxton’s Golden Legend 97 His distribution of chapters focused on saints from the British Isles throughout the text supports an understanding of its church as belonging to a universal church headed by the pope. Caxton’s Golden Legend draws attention to the links connecting England to the rest of Christendom through such elements as the genealogy showing the first Christian Roman emperor to be King Coel’s grandson and the emphasis placed on the one English shrine that international pilgrims regularly visited. Caxton’s shaping of The Golden Legend in this way indicates that he expected it to appeal to a readership who either saw or were willing to see the English nation as having a sacred history that formed part of the Catholic whole. Caxton seems to have expected readers of The Golden Legend to enjoy the expression of national sentiment. Scholars have observed that hagiography is a genre peculiarly useful for expressing national identify.104 Caxton’s collection employs techniques that draw attention to England among the nations of the British Isles, including chapter illustration and the use of language to identify the place of the narrator, and possibly the reader, as England. Furthermore, the text features expressions of the historical superiority of English chivalric skills and physical beauty. Caxton seems to have anticipated some overlap between readers of The Golden Legend and readers of English historical writing. References to the Polychronicon, the use of the Brut tradition, and the inclusion of a chapter on Bede that names him as the author of the Ecclesiastical History of the English People, suggest an expectation of familiarity with and fondness for that genre. Nevertheless, had Caxton merely wanted to offer secular accounts of English history, the Chronicles of England, the Polychronicon, The Descripcion of Britayne, and the Morte Darthur would probably have met that goal, and if they had not, he could have produced any number of other purely secular historical texts by other authors or of his own composition. The incorporation of historical material into his translation of the Legenda aurea indicates that Caxton sought to reframe a narrative of English history as a sacred story and expected to find readers who would be attracted to that choice. Medieval saints’ lives, including those of the Legenda aurea, tell stories of the church triumphant on earth. The Legenda describes the working-out of a victorious Christendom in fulfillment of a divine plan.105 Including national history in this hagiographic context transforms it by mapping that past onto the divine plan. Finally, Caxton imagined readers who believed that English kings had a religious function. As Anthony D. Smith writes, “By the fourteenth century, the growing association of the state with an English national identity in a ‘national state’ is evident … At the same time, a concept of sacred kingship developed.”106 Caxton’s Golden Legend supports the impression of a sense of national identity growing around an ideal of sacred kingship. There are repeated instances of royalty using relics to help the state achieve a goal: Coel’s daughter Helen bringing the true cross back to a Christianizing Roman Empire; Offa using Alban’s arms to win victories

98 British Isles in Caxton’s Golden Legend for Mercia; and Henry V installing relics of George in Windsor castle, confirming George’s role as England’s patron saint upon whom its military may call during wartime. Embedded in Caxton’s Golden Legend is a way of thinking about the English nation as being led by divinely guided kings who are aided by saints and their relics. While the form of English national identity that ultimately matured in the early modern centuries was powerfully associated with Protestantism, that history does not preclude the development or expression of English national identity prior to the break with Rome, a national identity affiliated with and exhibited through late medieval Catholic piety, such as those identities that developed in both France and Spain. Caxton’s activity as a publisher and a translator has long been associated with such elements of national identity as the promotion of the English language and the creation of a national literature.107 His work with The Golden Legend may be seen as contributing to that identity, fashioning it with the materials of late medieval popular devotional texts. Caxton designed The Golden Legend for imagined readers who not only would purchase a book that merged vernacular scripture into sacred history, but who also wanted to see the past of their own nation and kingdom expressed as part of that same sacred story.

Notes 1 Thomas of Canterbury, also known as Thomas Becket, has two chapters, one for his life and one for his translation, while Alban and Amphibalus share a chapter: GL EEBO 1484, Alban and Amphibalus, folio Clxxxiii recto – Clxxxvi verso; Thomas of Canterbury, Ciiii verso – Cviii recto; the Translation of Thomas of Canterbury, CCxii recto – CCxiii recto. 2 In addition to Thomas of Canterbury, Alban, and Amphibalus, the others are: Patrick, GL EEBO 1484, folio Cxlv verso – Cxlvi verso; Fursey, CCCiiii recto – verso; Brendan, CCClxxxxiiii verso – CCClxxxxviii verso; Erkenwald, CCClxxxxviii verso – CCClxxxxix verso; Alphage, Clv verso – Clvi verso; Dunstan, Clxxi verso – Clxxii verso; Aldhelm, Clxxii verso – Clxxiii recto; Winifred, CCClii verso – CCCliii verso; Swithun, CCxi recto – CCxii recto; Kenelm, CCxiii recto – CCxiiii recto; Edward King and Martyr, Clxxxii recto – Clxxxiii recto; Edward King and Confessor, CCCxxii verso – CCCxxxii recto; Edmund King and Martyr, CCClxxvii recto – verso; Augustine of Canterbury, Clxxiiii recto – Clxxv recto; Bede, CCClxxxxii verso – CCClxxxxviii recto; Mellonin, CCCCxxvi verso; Fiacre, CCCCxxiii recto – verso; Hugh, CCClxxvi recto – verso; Cuthbert, Cxlix recto – Cl recto; and Edmund of Abingdon, CCClxxiii verso – CCClxxvi recto. Caxton’s chapter on Hugh is about a bishop of Lincoln, not the child saint Hugh of Lincoln who purportedly was ritually murdered by Jews. 3 These are: Katherine, GL EEBO 1484, folio CCClxxx verso – CCClxxxx recto; Pope Gregory, Cxlii recto – Cxliiii recto; Ursula, CCCxxxvi recto – CCCxxxvi verso; Genevieve, Clxxxxiiii recto – Clxxxxviii verso; The Conception of Our Lady, lxxxxi verso – lxxxxii verso; Bernard, CClxiiii verso – CClxviii recto; Pelagius and the History of Lombards, CCCCvii verso – CCCxv recto; and George, Clvi verso – Clviii verso. 4 Antonina Harbus, Helena of Britain in Medieval Legend (Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer, 2002), 82.

British Isles in Caxton’s Golden Legend 99 5 Carl Horstman, “Introduction,” in Nova Legenda Anglie: As Collected by John of Tynemouth, John Capgrave, and Others, and First Printed, with New Lives, by Wynkyn de Worde, Now Re-Edited with Fresh Material from MS. and Printed Sources, ed. Carl Horstman (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1901), ix. 6 Horstman concludes that Tynemouth’s work did not rely on the earlier collection: “Introduction,” ix. 7 Horstman, “Introduction,” ix. 8 Horstman, “Introduction,” ix. It is catalogued as STC (2nd ed.), 4601. 9 Manfred Görlach, ed., The Kalendre of the Newe Legende of Englande (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 1994); Horstman, “Introduction,” xxi. It is catalogued as STC (2nd ed.), 4602. 10 Horstman, “Introduction,” x. 11 Robert Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things? Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation, rpt. ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015), 30. 12 Hellinga notes that Caxton had to rely on other sources for material in the chapters on British saints: Lotte Hellinga, William Caxton and Early Printing in England (London: The British Library, 2010), 106. 13 Harbus, Helena, 83. 14 Andrew Galloway, “Writing History in England,” in The Cambridge History of Medieval Literature, ed. David Wallace (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 275–76. 15 Galloway, “Writing History,” 267. 16 Antonia Gransden, Legends, Traditions and History in Medieval England (London: Hambledon Press, 1992), 18; Harbus, Helena, 83. 17 Ralph A. Griffiths “The Island of England In the Fifteenth Century: Perceptions of the Peoples of the British Isles,” Journal of Medieval History 29, no. 3 (2003): 182. 18 Darcy Kern, “Parliament in Print: William Caxton and the History of Political Government in the Fifteenth Century,” Journal of Medieval History 40, no. 2 (2014): 213. 19 Anthony D. Smith, “‘Set in the Silver Sea’: English National Identity and European Integration,” Nations and Nationalism 12, no. 3 (2006): 441. 20 Griffiths, “The Island of England,”183. 21 Gordon Kipling, The Triumph of Honour: Burgundian Origins of the Elizabethan Renaissance (The Hague: Leiden University Press, 1977), 95. 22 This example is from the chapter on Alban and Amphibalus: GL EEBO 1484, folio Clxxxiii recto. On the same page in the same column is the phrase: “in the londe of britayne which now is called englond”: folio Clxxxiii recto. Also see the chapter on Katherine, folio CCClxxxiiii recto; and Genevieve, Clxxxxiiii recto. 23 John Gillingham, “The English Invasion of Ireland,” in Representing Ireland: Literature and the Origins of Conflict, 1534–1660, ed. Brendan Bradshaw, Andrew Hadfield, and Willy Maley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 24. 24 Kern, “Parliament in Print,” 209. 25 The Chronicles of England [STC (2nd ed.), 9991] was first issued in 1480; Caxton published a second edition [STC (2nd ed.), 9992], with corrections, in 1482. See Kern, “Parliament in Print,” 213; and Anne Sutton, “William Caxton, Merchant and King’s Printer,” in The Medieval Merchant, ed. Caroline Barron and Anne F. Sutton, Harlaxton Medieval Studies, 24 (Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2014), 267–68. 26 The Description of Britain [STC (2nd ed.), 13440a] was published in 1480; in 1482, Caxton released the Polychronicon [STC (2nd ed.), 13438] in which he

100 British Isles in Caxton’s Golden Legend

27

28

29 30 31

32

33 34 35 36 37 38 39

wrote the Liber Ultimus, creating a lengthy book of 450 folio leaves, longer than The Golden Legend: Kathleen Tonry, “Reading History in Caxton’s Polychronicon,” The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 111, no. 2 (April, 2012): 171, note 5. See also: Sutton, “William Caxton,” 267–68; Hellinga, William Caxton, 60 and 69. In regard to the Polychronicon, see Tonry, “Reading History,” 180–84. In regard to The Descripcion of Britayne, see Kern, “Parliament in Print,” 211. See also Ronald Waldron, “Caxton and the Polychronicon,” in Chaucer in Perspective: Middle English Essays in Honour of Norman Blake, ed. Geoffrey Lester (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 375–94. The Morte Darthur [STC (2nd ed.), 801] was published in 1485: Hellinga, William Caxton, 60–61. For a discussion of Caxton’s idea of “history” as a genre, see William A. Kretzschmar, Jr., “Caxton’s Sense of History,” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 91 (1992): 510–28. Kretzschmar relies on what Norman Blake identified as Caxton’s own prose, particularly Caxton’s introduction to the Morte Darthur, and does not consider Caxton’s use of the term “history” in paratextual elements such as tables of contents in which Caxton classified portions of text for readers as history. Griffiths, “The Island of England,”183. At least as far as the modern critical editions indicate: see Chapter 3 for a more detailed discussion. “Quadam die beatus Gregorius per forum urbis Romane transiens cernit quosdam pueros forma pulcherrimos, uultu uenustos, capillorum nitore perspicuous esse uenales. Interrogat igitur mercatorem de qua illos patria attulisset. Qui respondit: ‘De Britannia, cuius incole simili candor refulgent.’ Interrogat iterum si christiani sunt. Cui mercator: ‘Non, sed paganis erroribus implicati tenentur.’ Tunc Gregorious acriter ingemiscens: ‘Heu proh dolor, quam splendidas facies princeps tenebrarum nunc possidet!’ Interrogat insuper quod esset uocabulum gentis illius. Cui ille: ‘Anglici uocantur.’ ‘Bene, inquit, anglici quasi angelici quia et angelicos uultos habent’”: Giovanni Paolo Maggioni, ed. Jacopo da Varazze’s Legenda Aurea con le miniature del codice Ambrosiano C 240 inf, Edizione Nazionale Dei Testi Mediolatini, 20, Serie II, 9 (Florence: SISMEL, Edizoni del Galluzzo, 2007), 334. Richard Hamer, ed. Gilte Legende, vol. 1, Early English Text Society, 328 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 877–78. This section is absent from the chapter on Katherine in both the Legenda aurea and La Légende dorée: Maggioni, Legenda aurea 1350–1363; and Brenda Dunn-Lardeau, ed. and trans., La Légende dorée: Edition critique, dans la révision de 1476 par Jean Batallier, d’après la traduction de Jean de Vignay (1333–1348) de la Legenda aurea (c. 1261–1266), Textes de la Renaissance sous la direction de Claude Blum, 19 (Paris: Honoré Champion, l997), 1105–16. GL EEBO 1484, folio CCClxxxiiii verso. GL EEBO 1484, folio CCClxxxiiii verso. Harbus, Helena, 83. Harbus, Helena, 88. GL EEBO 1484, folio Clxvii recto – Cl xviii verso. Katherine, GL EEBO 1484, folio CCClxxxiii verso; Invention of the Holy Cross, Clxvii recto. Pierce Butler concludes that this paragraph is original to Caxton: Butler, “Legenda Aurea – Légende Dorée – Golden Legend: A Study of Caxton’s Golden Legend with Special Reference to Its Relations to the Earlier English Prose Translation,” PhD diss. (The Johns Hopkins University, 1899), 87. Other scholars agree: Mary Jeremy, “Caxton’s Original Additions to the Legenda Aurea,” Modern Language

British Isles in Caxton’s Golden Legend 101

40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54

55

56 57 58 59 60

61

Notes 64, no. 4 (1949): 261; and Manfred Görlach, The “South English Legendary,” “Gilte Legende” and “Golden Legend” (Braunschweig: Technische Universität Carolo-Wilhelmina, Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 1972), 93. The life of George does not include this paragraph in the modern critical edition of the Legenda aurea: Maggioni, Legenda aurea, 398. Except for minor differences in spelling and word order, the conclusion of George’s life in the Graesse edition repeats Maggioni’s: Theodor Graesse, ed., Legenda Aurea, Vulgo Historia Lombardica Dicta, by Jacobi a Voragine (Dresden: Libraria Arnoldiana, 1846), 264. The conclusion of the life of George in the modern critical edition of La Légende dorée is a close translation of his life in Maggioni’s edition: Dunn-Lardeau, La Légende dorée, 431. Similarly, the conclusion of the chapter on George in the Gilte Legende is also a close translation of the Latin: Richard Hamer, ed. Gilte Legende, vol. 1, Early English Text Society, 327 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 274. GL EEBO 1484, folio Clviii verso. GL EEBO 1484, folio Clvi verso – Clviii verso. Jonathan Good, The Cult of Saint George in Medieval England (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2009) 21; Bartlett, Why Can the Dead, 21. Good, The Cult of Saint George, 38. Bartlett, Why Can the Dead, 230; Good, The Cult of Saint George, 53–54. Good, The Cult of Saint George, 55. Bartlett, Why Can the Dead, 233. Good, The Cult of Saint George, 63. See also Jonathan Bengtson, “Saint George and the Formation of English Nationalism,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 27, no. 2 (1997): 317–40. Good, The Cult of Saint George, 82–83. Bartlett, Why Can the Dead, 231. GL EEBO 1484, folio Clvi verso. See Chapter 3. Görlach, “South English Legendary,” 43 and 97–98. GL EEBO 1484, folio Cxlv verso – Cxlvi verso. The French version concludes “Et trent jours après, il reposa en Nostre Seigneur Jhesucrist bonnement”: Dunn-Lardeau, La Légende dorée, 366. The Latin version concludes “post triginta dies in domino feliciter requieuit”: Maggioni, Legenda aurea, 372. The passage Caxton uses from the Polychronicon may be found here: Ranulf Higden, Polychronicon, trans. John Trevisa (Westminster: William Caxton, 1482), [STC (2nd ed.)13438], accessed through the EEBO facsimile of an original in the British Library, Liber quintus, capitulum 4, folio CCxxx verso – CCxxxi recto. Richard Hamer and Vida Russell, “Introduction,” Supplementary Lives in Some Manuscripts of the “Gilte Legende,” ed. Richard Hamer and Vida Russell, Early English Text Society, 315 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), xiv– xx. The one chapter not to be supplementary is for Alban and Amphibalus. Butler, “A Study,” 83–86. GL EEBO 1484, folio CCClxxxxii verso. Higden, Polychronicon, folio CClxviii recto. Higden, Polychronicon, folio CClxvii verso – CClxvii verso. In hagiography, “translation” is the term used for moving relics from one location to another. This aspect of the legend dates back to the ninth century: Peter Wilcock, The Lives of Benedict, Ceolfrid, Easterwine, Sigfrid, and Huetbert, the First Five Abbots of the United Monastery of Wearmouth and Jarrow, Translated from the Latin of Venerable Bede (Sunderland: George Garbutt and Longman, 1818), 5. GL EEBO 1484, folio CCCCx verso – CCCCxi recto.

102 British Isles in Caxton’s Golden Legend 62 Maggioni, Legenda aurea 1421–22; Dunn-Lardeau, La Légende dorée, 1162; and Hamer, Gilte Legende, vol. 2, 947. 63 Gransden, Legends, 2–5. 64 GL EEBO 1484, folio CCClxxxxii verso. The more common title today is Historia Ecclesiastica, or The Ecclesiastical History of the English People. 65 Walter Goffart, The Narrators of Barbarian History (A.D. 550–800): Jordanes, Gregory of Tours, Bede, and Paul the Deacon (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 235–328. 66 GL EEBO 1484, folio CCClxxxxii verso. 67 Higden, Polychronicon, Liber Septimus, capitulum 21, folio CCCliiii verso; capitulum 32, folio CCClxx verso – CCClxxxi recto. 68 GL EEBO 1484, folio CCClxxvi verso. 69 James F. Dimock, “Preface,” in Magna Vita S. Hugonis Episcopi Lincolniensis: From Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and the Imperial Library, Paris, ed. James F. Dimock, Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland During the Middle Ages (London: Public Record Office, 1864), xiv. 70 The Breviary describes the carrying of Thomas’s coffin in the presence of King Henry III: Kay Brainerd Slocum, The Cult of Thomas Becket: History and Historiography through Eight Centuries, Sanctity in Global Perspective (London: Routledge, 2019), 100. 71 Görlach, “South English Legendary,” 71. Specifically, of the six miracle stories in Caxton’s chapter only the first, concerning a man on a bridge at Brentford by London, is not based on either La Légende dorée or the Legenda aurea, at least as far as may be determined from their modern critical editions. The remaining five miracle stories are close translations of passages from the chapter on the feast of Thomas of Canterbury in La Légende dorée: Dunn-Lardeau, La Légende dorée, 178–80. 72 Slocum, The Cult, 67–82. Bartlett writes that “Canterbury, although a latecomer, made a determined and highly successful bid to enter the top ranks of pilgrimage sites”: Bartlett, Why Can the Dead, 431. Rome, Cologne, and Compostela were the other major pilgrimage sites of late medieval western Europe. 73 Bartlett, Why Can the Dead, 253. 74 G. W. Bernard, The Late Medieval English Church: Vitality and Vulnerability Before the Break with Rome (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 127. 75 Bartlett, Why Can the Dead, 267; Slocum, The Cult, 114–17. Many of Thomas’s relics derived from his blood, and could therefore be infinitely subdivided. 76 Bernard, Late Medieval English Church, 126. 77 Good, The Cult of Saint George, 18–19. 78 Bernard, Late Medieval English Church, 48. 79 Slocum, The Cult, 51. Not that Thomas was beloved by everyone below the monarchy. Because of lollard rejection of pilgrimages and relics, Thomas and his shrine at Canterbury “were prime targets for their invective”: Slocum, The Cult, 144. Some lollard texts rejected the idea that Thomas’s death was actually a martyrdom: J. F. Davis, “Lollards, Reformers and St Thomas of Canterbury,” University of Birmingham Historical Journal 9 (1963): 2. 80 Good, The Cult of Saint George, 18–19; Bartlett, Why Can the Dead, 221. 81 Bartlett, Why Can the Dead, 229–32. Bartlett describes the fifth century account of George’s life as “entirely fictional”: Bartlett, Why Can the Dead, 230. 82 Good, The Cult of Saint George, 19. 83 The three main exemplars do not use Henry’s name either: Maggioni, Legenda aurea, 122–25; Dunn-Lardeau, La Légende dorée, 176–80; Hamer, Gilte Legende, vol. 1, 61–65.

British Isles in Caxton’s Golden Legend 103 84 GL EEBO 1484, folio CCxii verso. 85 The others are for the Assumption of Our Lady, Clare, Pope Pelagius and the History of the Lombards, and the History of the Mass. The supplementary chapter on Edward the Confessor in the Gilte Legende is equally long: Hamer and Russell, Supplementary Lives, 1–38. 86 These eight illustrations are: Thomas of Canterbury, GL EEBO 1484, folio Cv recto; the Translation of Thomas of Canterbury, CCxii recto; Augustine of Canterbury, Clxxiii recto; Edward King and Confessor, CCCxxii verso; Edmund of Abingdon, CCClxxiii verso; Edmund King and Martyr, CCClxxvii recto; Brendan, CCClxxxxiiii verso; and Erkenwald, CCClxxxxviii verso. See Chapter 2 for further discussion of the chapter illustrations. 87 The images in the two chapters on Thomas are identical: a robed figure with a nimbus, presumably Thomas, kneels at an altar on which stands an open book, two candles, a chalice, and a gesticulating statue of Mary; next to him is a tonsured figure holding a cross; behind him are three men in armor with large swords, one of whom has broken off the point of his sword, which is lodged in the head of the kneeling figure: Thomas of Canterbury, GL EEBO 1484, folio Cv recto; the Translation of Thomas of Canterbury, CCxii recto. 88 See Table 2.1. 89 Kenelm is not a well-documented historical figure; his earliest biography is from the mid-eleventh century and is untrustworthy: Susan J. Ridyard, The Royal Saints of Anglo-Saxon England, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, 4th series, book 9 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 244. 90 GL EEBO 1484, folio CCCxxxvi recto – verso. The passage was retained by Caxton, not added by him. See Dunn-Lardeau, La Légende dorée, 1001; and Maggioni, Legenda aurea, 1204. The legend of Ursula describes her as a Christian princess from Brittany sought as a bride by the pagan king of England for his son. Ursula wishes to refuse, but for the sake of both politeness and politics she accepts on condition that the English king send 10,000 virgins to celebrate virginity with her for ten years while the English prince is taught Christianity. To her surprise, the offer is accepted and the large group, joined by many others, goes on pilgrimage to Rome. England remains pagan because, when the converted prince inherits the crown after the death of his father, he takes his mother and sister to join his betrothed in Cologne in time for the whole group to be martyred by the Huns. 91 GL EEBO 1484, folio Clxxxiii verso. While the lives of Alban and Amphibalus do not seem to have been included in either Caxton’s Latin or French exemplars (see Chapter 3, especially Table 3.1), the Gilte Legend includes a chapter on these saints. This passage in Caxton closely resembles a passage in that chapter: Hamer, Gilte Legende, vol. 1, 377–79. 92 GL EEBO 1484, folio CCClxxxiiii verso. There is a corresponding passage in the Gilte Legende: Hamer, Gilte Legende, vol. 1, 379. 93 GL EEBO 1484, folio Clxxxiii verso. There is a corresponding passage in the Gilte Legende: Hamer, Gilte Legende, vol. 1, 379. Alban is supposedly buried in St. Alban’s Abbey, which is believed to have been founded by King Offa of Mercia. 94 GL EEBO 1484, folio Clxxiiii recto. While the life of Augustine of Canterbury does not seem to have been included in either Caxton’s Latin or French exemplars (see Chapter 3, especially Table 3.1), the Gilte Legend includes a supplementary chapter on him. These passages in Caxton closely resemble passages in that chapter: Hamer and Russell, Supplementary Lives, 369 and 372.

104 British Isles in Caxton’s Golden Legend 95 GL EEBO 1484, folio CCxiiii recto. While the life of Kenelm does not seem to have been included in either Caxton’s Latin or French exemplars (see Chapter 3, especially Table 3.1), the Gilte Legend includes a supplementary chapter on him. This passage in Caxton closely resembles a passage in that chapter: Hamer and Russell, Supplementary Lives, 209–10. 96 GL EEBO 1484, folio Clvi recto. 97 Hamer and Russell, Supplementary Lives, 165. 98 GL EEBO 1484, folio CCCxxiii recto; Hamer and Russell, Supplementary Lives, 4. 99 GL EEBO 1484, folio CCCxxiii recto. 100 Hamer and Russell, Supplementary Lives, 5. 101 GL EEBO 1484, folio Clxxxiii recto. 102 Hamer, Gilte Legende, vol. 1, 376. 103 See the discussion in Chapter 3. 104 There have been many studies of this phenomenon. See, for example, K. I. Koppedrayer, “The Making of the First Iroquois Virgin: Early Jesuit Biographies of the Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha,” Ethnohistory 40, no. 2 (Spring 1993), 277–306; and Steven Pfaff, “The True Citizens of the City of God: The Cult of Saints, the Catholic Social Order, and the Urban Reformation in Germany,” Theory and Society 42 (2013): 192. 105 See especially Sherry L. Reames, The “Legenda aurea”: A Reexamination of its Paradoxical History (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985). 106 Smith, “Set in the Silver Sea,” 440. 107 Kern, “Parliament in Print,” 210.

6

The late fifteenth-century editions

William Caxton passed away c.1492, but his publishing house did not. Wynkyn de Worde took over Caxton’s business and catalog.1 Unlike Caxton, Worde was not English: his birthplace is not recorded, but the most probable location is Woerden near Utrecht.2 His working relationship with Caxton seems to have begun in the Low Countries, early in Caxton’s career in the book trade, after which Worde came to England either with Caxton or soon after him.3 Worde worked for Caxton, possibly as his shop foreman, although there is no specific description of his duties in the surviving documents.4 Worde was not the only immigrant in England employed in publishing: there had been alien printers in London from the late 1470s through the early 1480s.5 Although an act of 1484 imposed restrictions on foreign tradesmen, printers and stationers were exempt until 1534.6 After Caxton’s death, Worde operated his own publishing house in one of the properties that Caxton had rented in the Almonry in Westminster.7 It should be considered a continuation of Caxton’s firm. Worde brought to completion a number of works begun by Caxton before he died, one of which was the second edition of The Golden Legend.8 The Golden Legend as translated and compiled by William Caxton was issued in different editions for thirty-five years after his death. Continuities may be seen in both form and content. All editions are printed in black letter, although the specific typeface varies. The English language is used in all, occasionally supplemented by brief Latin phrases. New chapters begin where the previous chapter ends rather than at the top of the next page, and are marked by introductions, conclusions, and headlines, the content of which remains largely the same across editions except for variations in spelling. The 1510 edition includes only the Old Testament chapters and is thus unique, but all the full editions are in folio format and organize most pages of text into two columns of equal width.9 All use foliation rather than pagination, and all foliation employs Roman rather than Arabic numerals. The full editions all open with some version of a large image of God adored by saints. Individual chapters selected for illustration continue to be decorated almost exclusively by a single woodcut, almost always placed at the start of the chapter. The saints’ lives selected by Caxton from his exemplars remain consistent across all the

106 The late fifteenth-century editions full editions, although some chapters containing content other than saints’ lives are not printed in all editions. After Caxton’s introduction of Erasmus in 1487, no new saints are added and none are removed. Nor do any of the full editions introduce a comprehensive reorganization of chapters such as alphabetical order, as occurred in some of the main source texts. In many ways, Caxton’s first edition of The Golden Legend served as the paradigm for all its later editions. The posthumous editions nevertheless introduced modifications as the circumstances of their publication and the tastes of their potential readers changed, and as publishing conventions themselves evolved. The preliminary leaves are revised across editions. The colophon changes, and editions begin to include a printer’s device, or logo indicating the publishing firm. Spaces left empty for hand-painted rubrication give way to printed decorative initial letters. Some of the chapters that do not focus on saints are omitted or change their position within the book. Tables of contents are altered to accommodate these changes. Over time, different chapters are selected for illustration, and the size of many of the pictures changes: Table 6.1 indicates which chapters are illustrated and the size of the woodcuts used across all the full editions. The discontinuities in different editions of Caxton’s Golden Legend are best understood in the specific context of their production. Wynkyn de Worde published two editions of Caxton’s Golden Legend in the 1490s.10 This decade saw the beginning of European colonization of the Americas, starting with the voyages of Christopher Columbus (1451–1506) on behalf of Spain. In Florence, Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) produced some of the most famous art of the Italian Renaissance, including The Last Supper (1498). In England, the first Tudor king, Henry VII (r. 1485–1509), ruled during this decade, the earliest sovereign of a dynasty that would ultimately lead England into not only greater engagement with Renaissance culture but also early colonization efforts in North America. These developments did not take center stage in England in the 1490s. Instead, the unsettled political landscape of Richard III’s time continued well into the reign of his successor, introducing new potential patrons for Caxton’s firm and changing the political standing of some early associates. Henry Tudor defeated Richard III and supplanted him on the throne of England in August of 1485, while William Caxton was still alive.11 The new king spent much of the early part of his reign dealing with potential and actual resistance to the new dynasty.12 Margaret of York, the dowager Duchess of Burgundy, became intensely involved in Yorkist conspiracies against the crown, especially the two that centered around pretenders to the throne.13 Although she resided in Bruges, her attempts to oust Henry VII had repercussions for her friends and connections in England, among whom William Caxton can be numbered. Margaret had been the first important patron of his career in book production.14

The late fifteenth-century editions 107 Table 6.1 Chapters in all full editions of Caxton’s Golden Legend, 1484–1527, showing size of woodcuts Chapter title 1

Advent

2

The Nativity of Our Lord

3

The Circumcision

4

Feast of the Epiphany

5

1484/ 1493 1498 1504 1507 1512 1521 1527 1487 –

–

SC

PC

SC

SC

SC

SC

DC

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

–

PC

SC

PC

SC

PC

PC

PC

DC

PC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

Septuagesima

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

6

Sexagesima

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

7

Quinquagesima

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

8

Quadragesima

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

9

The Ember Days

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

10

The Passion of Our Lord

DC

PC

SC

PC

SC

SC

SC

SC

11

The Resurrection

DC

PC

SC

PC

SC

SC

SC

SC

12

Greater and Lesser Litanies

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

13

The Ascension of Our Lord

DC

PC

SC

PC

SC

SC

SC

SC

14

Pentecost (Whitsunday)

DC

PC

SC

PC

SC

SC

SC

SC

15

Corpus Christi

DC

PC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

16

The Dedication of a Church

DC

PC

SC

PC

SC

SC

SC

SC

17

The Life of Adam

–

SC

PC

SC

SC

SC

SC

18

The History of Noah

SC

SC

PC

SC

SC

SC

SC

19

The Life of Abraham

SC

SC

PC

SC

SC

SC

SC

20

The Life of Isaac

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

–

–

21

History of Joseph

SC

SC

PC

SC

SC

SC

PC

22

The History of Moses

SC

SC

PC

SC

SC

SC

SC

23

The Ten Commandments

–

–

–

–

–

–

24

The History of Joshua

–

–

–

–

–

–

25

The History of Saul

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

26

The History of David

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

27

The History of Solomon

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

28

The History of Rehoboam

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

29

The History of Job

SC

SC

PC

SC

SC

SC

SC

30

The History of Tobit

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

31

The History of Judith

DC

DC

SC

SC

SC

–

–

(Continued )

108 The late fifteenth-century editions Table 6.1 (Cont.) Chapter title

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32

St. Andrew

SC

SC

SC

PC

SC

SC

SC

SC

33

St. Nicholas

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

34

The Conception of Our Lady

SC

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

35

SS. Gentian, Fulcian, and Victorice

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

– –

36

St. Lucy

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

37

St. Nicasius

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

38

St. Thomas the Apostle

SC

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

39

St. Anastasia

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

40

St. Eugenia

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

41

St. Stephen Protomartyr

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

42

St. John the Evangelist

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

43

The Holy Innocents

SC

SC

SC

PC

–

–

–

–

44

St. Thomas of Canterbury

DC

SC

SC

PC

SC

SC

SC

SC

45

St. Sylvester

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

46

St. Paul the Hermit

–

–

–

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

47

St. Remigius

–

–

–

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

48

St. Hilary

–

–

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

49

St. Firmin

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

50

St. Macarias

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

51

St. Felix

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

52

St. Marcel

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

53

St. Anthony

SC

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

54

St. Fabian

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

55

St. Sebastian

–

–

–

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

56

St. Agnes

–

–

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

57

St. Vincent

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

58

St. Basil

–

–

–

PC

–

PC

PC

PC

59

St. John the Almoner

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

60

The Conversion of Saint Paul

SC

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

61

St. Pauline the Widow

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

62

St. Julian the Bishop

–

–

–

PC

–

–

– (Continued )

The late fifteenth-century editions 109 Table 6.1 (Cont.) Chapter title

1484/ 1493 1498 1504 1507 1512 1521 1527 1487 –

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

DC

–

–

–

–

PC

PC

PC

St. Blaise

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

66

St. Agatha

–

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

67

St. Amande

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

68

St. Vedaste

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

69

St. Valentine

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

70

St. Juliana Virgin

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

71

St. Peter in Cathedra

SC

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

72

St. Matthias the Apostle

SC

SC

SC

PC

–

–

–

–

73

St. Gregory Pope

SC

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

74

St. Longinus

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

75

St. Maur

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

76

St. Patrick

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

77

St. Benedict

–

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

78

St. Cuthbert

–

–

–

–

–

PC

PC

PC

79

The Annunciation of Our Lady

DC

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

80

St. Seconde

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

81

St. Mary of Egypt

–

–

–

PC

–

PC

PC

PC

82

St. Ambrose

SC

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

83

St. Alphage

–

–

–

PC

PC

–

–

–

84

St. George

SC

SC

SC

PC

SC

–

–

–

85

St. Mark the Evangelist

SC

SC

SC

PC

PC

–

–

–

86

St. Marcelin the Pope

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

87

St. Vital

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

88

St. Peter of Milan

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

89

St. Philip the Apostle

SC

SC

SC

PC

–

–

–

–

90

St. James the Less

SC

SC

SC

PC

PC

–

–

–

91

Invention of the Holy Cross

SC

SC

SC

PC

SC

PC

PC

PC

92

St. John Before the Latin Gate

–

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

63

St. Ignatius

64

The Purification of Our Lady

65

(Continued )

110 The late fifteenth-century editions Table 6.1 (Cont.) Chapter title

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93

St. Gordian

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

94

St. Nereus and Achilleus

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

95

St. Pancrace

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

96

St. Urban

–

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

97

St. Pernelle (Petronilla)

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

98

St. Dunstan

–

–

–

PC

PC

–

–

–

99

St. Aldhelm

–

–

–

–

–

PC

PC

PC

SC

SC

SC

PC

PC

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

PC

PC

PC

PC

102 St. Peter the Deacon

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

103 St. Priam and Felician

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

104 St. Barnabus the Apostle

SC

SC

SC

PC

–

–

–

–

105 SS. Vitus and Modestus

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

106 SS. Quirine and Juliet

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

107 St. Marine

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

108 SS. Gervase and Prothase

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

109 St. Edward King and Martyr

–

–

–

PC

PC

–

–

–

110 SS. Alban and Amphibalus

–

SC

SC

PC

–

–

–

–

DC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

112 St. Loye

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

113 St. William

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

114 St. Eutrope

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

115 St. Marcial

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

116 St. Genevieve

–

SC

SC

PC

PC

–

–

–

117 St. Maturin

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

118 St. Victor

–

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

119 SS. John and Paul

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

120 St. Leo the Pope

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

121 St. Peter the Apostle

SC

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

122 St. Paul the Apostle

SC

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

123 The Seven Brethren

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

100 St. Augustine of Canterbury 101 St. Germain

1

111 Nativity of St. John the Baptist

(Continued )

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124 St. Theodora

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

125 St. Swithun

–

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

DC

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

126 Trans. Thomas of Canterbury

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

128 St. Margaret

SC

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

129 St. Praxede

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

SC

SC

SC

PC

SC

SC

PC

PC

131 St. Appollinaris

–

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

132 St. Christine

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

133 St. James the Greater

SC

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

134 St. Christopher

127 St. Kenelm

130 St. Mary Magdalene

SC

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

135 The Seven Sleepers

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

136 St. Nazarien

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

137 St. Felix Pope

–

PC

PC

PC

–

PC

PC

PC

138 SS. Simplicien, Faustin, and Beatrice

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

139 St. Martha

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

140 SS. Abdon and Sennen

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

141 St. Eusebius

–

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

142 The Seven Maccabees

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

143 St. Peter ad Vincula

SC

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

144 St. Stephen the Pope

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

145 Invention Stephen Protomartyr

–

–

–

PC

PC

–

–

–

SC

SC

SC

–

–

–

–

–

147 St. Sixtus Pope

–

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

148 St. Donatus

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

146 St. Dominic

149 St. Ciriacus

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

150 St. Laurence

SC

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

152 The Assumption of Our Lady

DC

SC

SC

–

–

–

–

–

153 St. Roche

SC

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

151 St. Hyppolitus

(Continued )

112 The late fifteenth-century editions Table 6.1 (Cont.) Chapter title

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154 St. Bernard

SC

SC

SC

–

PC

PC

PC

PC

155 St. Timothy

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

156 St. Symphorien

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

157 St. Bartholomew

SC

SC

SC

PC

–

–

–

–

158 St. Augustine Doctor

SC

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

159 The Decollation of St. John

SC

SC

SC

SC

–

PC

PC

PC

160 St. Felix

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

161 St. Savien

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

162 St. Lowe

–

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

163 St. Mammertin

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

164 St. Giles

SC

SC

SC

PC

PC

–

–

–

165 The Nativity of Our Lady

DC

PC

SC

PC

–

PC

PC

–

166 St. Adrian Martyr

–

–

–

–

–

SC

SC

SC

167 St. Gorgone

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

168 SS. Prothus, Jacinctus, and Eugenia

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

SC

SC

SC

PC

–

–

–

–

169 Exultation of the Holy Cross 170 St. John Chrysostom

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

171 SS. Cornelius and Cyprian

–

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

172 St. Euphemia

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

173 St. Lambert

–

–

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

174 St. Matthew

SC

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

175 St. Maurice

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

176 St. Justina

–

SC

SC

PC

–

–

–

–

177 SS. Cosmo and Damian

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

178 St. Forsey

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

179 St. Michael

SC

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

180 St. Jerome

SC

SC

SC

–

PC

PC

PC

PC

181 St. Remigius

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

182 St. Logier

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

183 St. Francis

SC

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

184 St. Pelagienne

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

185 St. Margaret or Pelagien

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

(Continued )

The late fifteenth-century editions 113 Table 6.1 (Cont.) Chapter title

1484/ 1493 1498 1504 1507 1512 1521 1527 1487

186 St. Thais

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

187 St. Denis

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

188 St. Calixtus

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

189 St. Edward King and Confessor

SC

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

190 St. Luke

SC

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

SC

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

SC

SC

SC

PC

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

191 SS. Crisaunt and Daria 192 St. Ursula 193 SS. Crispin and Crispinian 194 SS. Simon and Jude 195 St. Quintin 196 St. Eustace

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

197 All Hallows

DC

SC

SC

PC

–

PC

PC

PC

198 The Commemoration of Souls

SC

SC

SC

PC

PC

SC

SC

SC

199 St. Winifred

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

200 St. Leonard

SC

SC

SC

PC

PC

–

–

–

201 The Four Crowned Martyrs

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

202 St. Theodore

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

SC

SC

SC

PC

SC

–

–

–

204 St. Brice

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

205 St. Clare

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

SC

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

207 St. Alexis

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

208 St. Elizabeth

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

SC

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

203 St. Martin

206 St. Barbara

209 St. Edmund of Abingdon

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

SC

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

212 St. Cecilia

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

213 St. Clement

–

–

–

PC

PC

–

–

–

214 St. Grysogone

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

215 St. Katherine

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

210 St. Hugh 211 St. Edmund King and Martyr

216 St. Saturine

(Continued )

114 The late fifteenth-century editions Table 6.1 (Cont.) Chapter title

1484/ 1493 1498 1504 1507 1512 1521 1527 1487

217 St. James the Martyr

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

218 The Venerable Bede

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

219 St. Dorothy

–

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

220 St. Brendan

SC

SC

SC

–

PC

PC

PC

PC

221 St. Erkenwold

SC

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

222 St. Pastour

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

223 St. John Abbot

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

224 St. Abbot Moses

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

225 St. Arsenius

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

226 St. Abbot Agathon

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

227 St. Barlaam the Hermit

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

228 St. Pelagius/History of Lombards

SC

SC

SC

PC

PC

PC

PC

PC

229 St. Simeon

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

230 St. Polycarp

–

SC

SC

PC

–

PC

PC

PC

231 St. Quiriacus

–

SC

SC

PC

–

–

–

–

232 St. Thomas Aquinas

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

233 St. Gaius

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

234 St. Arnold

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

235 St. Turien

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

236 St. Fiacre

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

237 St. Justin

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

238 St. Demetrius

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

239 St. Rigobert

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

240 St. Landry

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

241 St. Mellonin

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

242 St. Ives

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

243 St. Morant

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

SC

SC

SC

PC

–

–

–

–

244 St. Louis, King of France

(Continued )

The late fifteenth-century editions 115 Table 6.1 (Cont.) Chapter title

1484/ 1493 1498 1504 1507 1512 1521 1527 1487

245 St. Louis, Bishop of Marseilles

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

246 St. Aldegonde

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

PC

–

–

–

–

247 St. Albine 248 The History of the Mass

DC

249 The Twelve Articles of the Faith

–

250 St. Erasmus2

–

–

–

PC

–

–

PC

–

TOTALS

84

82

99

156

96

88

87

85

Sources: This table draws upon all EEBO copies of Caxton’s Golden Legend except the 1510 edition, which includes only the biblical chapters. Information regarding folios missing from the EEBO copies was supplied from physical copies: GL Morgan Library 1504, GL Brasenose Oxford 1504, GL Folger Library 1507, GL John Rylands 1512, GL John Rylands 1521, and the copy of the 1507 edition in the Lambeth Palace Library, [ZZ] 1507.1, Lambeth Palace, London. Key DC = This chapter has a double-column illustration. SC = This chapter has a single-column illustration. PC = This chapter has a partial-column illustration. A grayed-out box indicates that the chapter was not included in that edition. Notes 1 The 1484 issue includes two copies of the chapter on St. Germain, presumably by mistake. 2 The chapter on Erasmus is in the 1487 issue, but is omitted in the 1484 issue.

The first attempt to replace Henry VII with a pretender revolved around Lambert Simnel (c.1477–c.1525), who was initially put forward as Richard of York, the younger of the two Princes in the Tower, and then as Edward, Earl of Warwick (1475–1499), the son of George, Duke of Clarence (1449–1478), who was a younger brother of Edward IV and Richard III.15 In the summer of 1487 approximately 2,000 German mercenaries supplied by Margaret of York fought against Henry VII in this short-lived and unsuccessful rebellion.16 Caxton’s reputation with the new king seems to have weathered the opposition mounted by the publisher’s first noble benefactor. No doubt it worked in Caxton’s favor that his was the only publishing concern operating in England by 1487 and that Henry VII was a king who, in the words of Lotte Hellinga, “fully grasped the political potential of the press.”17 Caxton was approached by the crown in January 1489 to publish the rules of conduct that the king wished to promulgate among his military, a request that occasioned Caxton’s publication of the Fayts of arms in the summer of 1489.18

116 The late fifteenth-century editions William Caxton passed away near the start of a second attempt to use a pretender, this time Perkin Warbeck, to oust Henry VII, a campaign described by Geoffrey Elton as “the most serious threat he was to face in his whole reign.”19 The eight-year uprising began in 1491 with the claim that Warbeck was Richard of York. According to information that Warbeck is said to have provided after his arrest, he was actually a Flemish commoner.20 The Low Countries were deeply involved in this rebellion. Critical to the uprising was the enthusiastic support of Margaret of York, who accepted Warbeck as her nephew.21 In 1493 Warbeck moved to the court of Burgundy where Margaret persuaded the Flemish nobility to recognize him as King Richard IV of England. Ian Arthurson describes the effect of this recognition in England as “galvanic,” and argues that Henry blamed the threat posed by the pretender directly on Margaret of York.22 Henry responded by ordering the complete cessation of trade with the Low Countries, a boycott that badly disrupted the English wool and cloth industry for the two years it lasted.23 The economic damage to England caused by the loss of Flemish trade led to riots in London.24 The boycott did nothing to stop Warbeck’s diplomatic success: he was recognized as the king of England by the husband of Margaret’s deceased step-daughter, Archduke Maximilian of Austria (1459–1519), who was soon to become Holy Roman Emperor, as well as by the kings of France and of Scotland.25 In 1495, Margaret provided funds for Warbeck’s invasion of England. Two years later, in 1497, the invasion ended in Warbeck’s defeat, arrest, and confession.26 Although Caxton had passed away, many of those involved in the Warbeck matter had been part of his circle. Arthurson, in exploring the connections among those who supported Warbeck in England, concluded that the “common link is found through William Caxton.”27 Warbeck’s supporters included associates of Caxton’s deceased patron, Anthony Woodville, the 2nd Earl Rivers; and William Daubney, whom Caxton had named as a friend in a dedication; as well as both John Sant, Abbot of Abingdon, and John Kendal, Knight Hospitaller, for whom Caxton had worked.28 Wynkyn de Worde, as Caxton’s successor in the business, may have felt unusually vulnerable to suspicion during the Perkin Warbeck episode. Not only may members of the court have assumed a degree of continuity among the associates of the firm before and after its founder’s death, but also Worde was himself a native of the Low Countries and maintained ties to printers there.29 The 1490s could not have been a comfortable time for a business owner from the Duchy of Burgundy to operate in England. Worde underwent denization in 1496, a process which gave him a status similar to that of modern resident aliens.30 He completed this change in status soon after the execution of Sir William Stanley and others accused of promoting Perkin Warbeck’s cause in England.31 Worde remained settled in London, married twice, and had at least one child.32 According to the will he had made in 1534, he had become both a citizen of London and a member of the Stationers’ Company.33 He is known to have had apprentices, which alien merchants were not permitted, verifying his status as a denizen.34

The late fifteenth-century editions 117 Of the two editions of Caxton’s Golden Legend that Worde released in the 1490s, one was issued prior to his denization and one after it, in 1493 and 1498 respectively. Caxton is listed as the publisher of the 1493 edition in its colophon. He may have helped prepare this edition before his death, but it is impossible to know which, if any, changes were decided upon by him. Worde did not list his own name as publisher in any book until the following year, 1494, the first being Walter Hilton’s Scale of Perfection, printed on behalf of a powerful patron: Margaret Beaufort (1443–1509), mother of Henry VII.35 Margaret Beaufort’s patronage may have significantly increased Worde’s sense of security. A customer opening the 1493 edition of The Golden Legend would see the same woodcut of saints adoring the Trinity that decorates the preliminary leaf of the first edition.36 This particular woodcut appears as the frontispiece in every edition of The Golden Legend issued from Worde’s shop, which is unsurprising as he developed the custom of repeating images at the opening and closing of books as a type of branding for his products.37 The layout of the page containing the woodcut, on the other hand, is different. The first edition includes nothing approaching a title: the All Saints woodcut occupies the top of the page and the prologue begins below it. In contrast, in the second edition, there is no text below the woodcut, while above the woodcut appears what is almost a title, namely: “here begynneth the legend named in latyn legenda aurea / that is to say in englyshe the golden legend: For lyke as passeth golde in valewe al other metallys / soo thys Legende excedeth all other bokes.”38 The page presents only these two elements: text that is close to a title and a large woodcut. In other words, what a customer would see upon opening the second edition would be almost a title page. This change reflects a development in publishing conventions: Worde introduced the title page in England.39 Turning to the verso of the leaf, a potential book buyer would see another innovation: a printed decorated initial. Covering nearly a quarter of the page is an ornate capital “T” wreathed with lobed foliage, the height of fifteen lines of text.40 This innovation continues throughout the text: initials are used below chapter introductions to provide a visual clue indicating where a chapter text begins, although the capital “T” of the first leaf appears only once more, at the close of the book, and the other initials are neither as large nor as elaborate. Nearly every chapter begins with an initial, and, in several cases, subsections within chapters do so as well. When used in conjunction with an illustration, the initial letter is usually about the height of three to four lines of text and is typically a somewhat calligraphic letter. In chapters without illustrations, the initial is larger, usually the height of five or six lines of text, and is decorated with foliage or floriation, or is historiated with a very simple image such as a human face. The larger initials display some variety: there are, for example, at least three versions of a decorated capital “T” used. In addition to these initial letters, the 1493 edition also makes greater use of

118 The late fifteenth-century editions pilcrows to indicate divisions in the text, although their use is rather inconsistent. As Martha Driver remarks, Worde was more willing than Caxton to experiment with visual aspects of the book, including page layout and decorated initials.41 The frequency and size of the decorated initials in the 1493 edition lends it a luxurious appearance like that of an expensively illuminated manuscript book. Painted initial letters function in manuscript books to both decorate pages and aid readers.42 The first edition of Caxton’s Golden Legend leaves blank spaces for such initials to be painted by hand, either by the owner or a professional rubricator. In consequence of the printed initials in the second edition, a customer would purchase a finished product, except perhaps for the binding. Blank spaces for hand-drawn rubrication never reappear in any edition of The Golden Legend. Its buyers apparently did not place high value on the opportunity to customize their books. On the same page as the first decorated initial and the page facing it, customers would see the prologue, a part of the book that incorporates both changes and continuities from the first edition. The text replicates the first section of the 1484 prologue, still employing a first-person voice that, by the content, can be only that of William Caxton: “I had performed & accomplysshed dyvers workys & hystoryes trās-lated out of frensshe in to englys-she at the requeste of certeyn lordes, ladyes & gentylmen as thystorye of the recuyel of Troye.”43 The text is identical to the first edition, except for spelling changes, from the first line invoking the authority of Saint Jerome, through the ending with a prayer that those who read or hear the book may become more virtuous through both the example and merit of the saints, a prayer followed in both editions by the word “Amen.”44 There are several plausible reasons why Worde might have chosen to retain the impression that Caxton produced this edition. Caxton may have actually edited it nearly to the printing stage, or Worde may have wanted to maintain continuity with the previous edition, or believed that Caxton’s name had marketing value. It may have been a way of acknowledging that Caxton was the translator and compiler of the collection in an era when the book conventions had not yet developed the option of including “translated and compiled by William Caxton” on a title page. These possibilities are not mutually exclusive. Unlike the text, the layout for the first page of the prologue differs not only from that of the 1484 prologue but also from all the other pages in the 1493 edition: instead of being divided into two columns, this page is one solid block of text.45 The probable reason is that the decorated initial “T” is wider than half the page. If the text had been divided into two columns, they could not be evenly spaced at the top, making a two-column layout awkward. While the first part of the prologue, with its appeals to ecclesiastical and learned authorities as well as its listing of Caxton’s early publications, is retained, the incorporation of a visually arresting and

The late fifteenth-century editions 119 technologically innovative printed decorated initial is given higher priority than the ease of reading its text. The prologue of the 1493 edition ends at “Amen,” omitting the entire dedication referencing the support of William FitzAlan, Earl of Arundel, as well as the woodcut displaying the device and motto of the FitzAlan family. Reference to the Earl of Arundel is confined in this edition to the colophon at the close of the book, which reads in part: “whiche werke I dyde accomplisshed at the commaundemēte and requeste of the noble and puyssaunte erle & my specyal good lord Wyllyam erle of Arondel … By me Wyllyam Caxton.”46 The most probable explanation for the omission of the dedication is William FitzAlan’s death in 1487. Endorsement by a deceased member of the nobility would do little to suggest to customers that this text reflects fashionable aristocratic taste. Glancing across from the page printed as a solid block of text to the facing page, that is, to the recto of the second unfoliated leaf, a potential customer would see, below the conclusion of the prologue, the beginning of the tables of contents. These are formatted into a two-column layout. The tables begin with the same descriptive introduction used in the first edition. Filling the better part of the recto and verso of three leaves, the two tables follow the same organizational scheme as do those of the first edition: the first table follows the successive placement of the chapters in the text; the second is more of an alphabetical index. Readers familiar with the first edition might notice that while the 1493 edition retains all the chapters that are saints’ lives, it omits some of those that are not. The absence of the Old Testament chapters is the most substantial change in the text between the first and the second editions. It is possible that Worde, or Caxton prior to his death, thought that a version without these chapters might find a receptive market; in other words, that the bookbuying public had grown less interested in scriptural material over the previous decade. That explanation is unpersuasive not only in light of the multiple elements highlighting scripture that were incorporated into the first edition, a version sufficiently popular to justify a second printing in 1487, but also because the third edition restores the Old Testament chapters five years later. Furthermore, the second edition retains the woodcut illustrations used for the chapter on Jerome, the man who produced the Vulgate, as well the four chapters on the evangelists, indicating a continued expectation that these chapters mattered to potential readers.47 A more persuasive explanation for the omission of the Old Testament chapters may be found in the short-term circumstances during which the second edition was released, namely, Worde’s status as a Dutch alien in a time when Henry VII was so incensed with the Low Countries for accepting Perkin Warbeck as the legitimate king of England that he imposed financially damaging and unpopular economic sanctions against them for two years, and while a number of the pretender’s supporters had ties to the founder of the firm which Worde now headed. Even if publishing a vernacular translation of

120 The late fifteenth-century editions parts of the Bible had become no riskier by 1493 than it had been in 1484 and 1487, and there is no reason to believe that the risk had increased, Worde’s standing as an alien may have made him unwilling to hazard it. The other textual change between the first and second editions is the omission of two chapters near the close of the book that are not saints’ lives, namely the History of the Mass and the Twelve Articles of Faith. The former provides instructions for priests on how to conduct a mass; the latter is a discursive version of the Apostles’ Creed in which each statement of faith is attributed to a specific apostle.48 Although interested members of the laity may have found both chapters instructive, their most likely intended audience would have been parochial clergy. The Apostles’ Creed was a statement of belief that lay people were supposed to learn, along with the Ten Commandments, the seven sacraments, the seven virtues, and the seven vices. Nevertheless, the laity were not expected to seek out copies to read and memorize. The responsibility of teaching these lists to the laity rested on parish priests. From the eleventh century forward, parochial clergy in England were required to teach their parishioners the creed. By the thirteenth century, English clergy were encouraged to teach the Creed and other lists of dogma in the vernacular.49 Removing these two chapters made Caxton’s Golden Legend a little less of a primer for parish priests, even though the chapter on dedicating a church remained. This small shift towards a lay audience signals a permanent change. Unlike the Old Testament chapters, the History of the Mass and the Twelve Articles of Faith were never restored to any of the editions issued in the fifteenth or the sixteenth centuries. In addition to omitting these non-hagiographical chapters, the 1493 edition introduces changes in the illustration of chapters, as shown in Table 6.1.50 The most common change is a reduction in the size of the woodcut used. The second edition eliminates all eighteen of the double-column woodcuts while introducing partial-column woodcuts, or images smaller than the width of a column. These partial-column woodcuts are floating figures, that is, they have lines of text adjacent to them, more fully integrating the image into the column. Partial-column woodcuts in this edition are usually the height of ten to eleven lines of text. In nineteen chapters of the second edition the illustration used is smaller than it is in the corresponding chapter of the first edition.51 The use of smaller images did not lead to a reduction in the amount of paper required to print the 1493 edition, so saving paper seems not to have been a goal.52 Far from reducing illustrations to leave more room for text, the second edition adds woodcuts to thirteen chapters that had not been previously illustrated. Much like the frequent use of decorated initials, the increased number of illustrations allows readers to have a book that looks something like a decorated manuscript without the expense or labor of rubrication. The thirteen chapters newly illustrated in the second edition heavily favor the ecclesiastical hierarchy: their subjects include four popes and five bishops.53 The images communicate that the chapters’ subjects are prelates

The late fifteenth-century editions 121 but lack iconography specific to particular individuals, indicating that the selection of these saints’ lives for illustration is based on their status as church officials rather than their character as foci of popular cults. The chapters for Popes Urban and Felix both employ identical images of a man wearing a papal crown standing outdoors. The chapters for Popes Sixtus and Cornelius display an identical image of a man wearing a papal crown standing indoors, an image that also appears in the chapter on Pelagius and the chapter on Gregory, both in this edition and the first edition.54 Similarly, the chapter on Swithun repeats the generic episcopal image that appears in the chapter for Nicholas, namely, a man in episcopal robes holding a crosier while giving a blessing, while the chapter for Lowe uses the same episcopal image as the chapter for Polycarp, showing a man wearing a bishop’s miter holding a floriated crosier, an image which appears in other chapters in both this and the previous edition.55 Among this group, only the chapter on Quiriacus is illustrated by an image other than that of a generic bishop or pope, and its woodcut is used in two other chapters in this edition, all set during the Roman Empire.56 The notable increase in the number of illustrated chapters featuring popes and bishops in the 1493 edition may be related to its omission of the Old Testament chapters. The representation of bishop-saints signals an emphasis on the authority of the church.57 An increased promotion of papal and episcopal saints alongside the removal of the biblical paraphrases may have been viewed as signaling a willingness to accept the church as the arbitrator of religious doctrine in opposition to individual interpretation of scripture. Even if this opinion was not generally held among English book buyers, if Worde was uneasy about his standing as a Dutch merchant in a time that witnessed not only increasing legal restrictions on foreign tradesmen in London but also a particular hostility towards the Low Countries on the part of the king, he may have decided to act on the side of caution. Women saints are also favored in the thirteen chapters newly illustrated in the second edition, although to a much smaller degree than popes and bishops. Two of these chapters focus on female saints, namely, Genevieve and Justina (4th c.), raising the number of illustrated chapters featuring women other than Our Lady from five to seven.58 Whereas the woodcuts of all five chapters on women saints that are illustrated in both editions display identifying iconography – Margaret with a dragon, Katherine with a wheel, Barbara with a quill pen, Mary Magdalene with an ointment jar, and Ursula with many other women – the chapters for Genevieve and Justina both employ identical images of a gowned woman with long, loose hair, holding a sword. The hairstyle indicates a female virgin and the sword might indicate the instrument of martyrdom for Justina, but not for Genevieve, who was not even a martyr. This image, like the generic papal and episcopal images added to the second edition, seems to function more to draw attention to a type of saint than to particular saints. Although an increase of only two women saints may be too small to signal much of

122 The late fifteenth-century editions a reimagining of the audience, it may indicate a slight recognition of female readers, a market that some scholars believe Worde encouraged over the course of his career.59 Other than these three modifications, namely, the tendency to reduce the size of images in coordination with the incorporation of decorated initials, the marked increase in illustrated chapters on popes and bishops, and the slight increase in illustrated chapters on women saints, the chapters selected to be marked by woodcuts in the 1493 edition suggest that the preferences expected of its intended audience were similar to those anticipated for book buyers in 1484.60 The illustrated chapters continue to emphasize the life and times of Christ. All the Christological feasts illustrated in the first edition continue to be illustrated in the second, although not by double-column woodcuts, while the Feast of the Circumcision includes an image for the first time in the second edition.61 The same chapters on Our Lady are illustrated in both editions, with the exception of the Purification, which has no woodcut in 1493.62 The chapters on Our Lady, like those of the Christological feasts, no longer feature double-column woodcuts in the second edition. The same chapters on the apostles are illustrated in both editions, each using an identical image in both editions. The same continuity may be seen regarding the chapters related to the cross, possibly amplified by the addition of a woodcut in 1493 to the chapter on Bishop Quiriacus who, according to his legend, before converting to Christianity and becoming bishop of Jerusalem, had been the member of the Jewish community who revealed the location of the cross to Empress Helen.63 The Quiriacus chapter is thus connected to both Christological material and to England in the Brut tradition.64 The same chapters on Christopher, Mary Magdalene, and John the Baptist are illustrated in both editions, although the chapter on the Nativity of John the Baptist displays a smaller woodcut in 1493.65 In regard to the illustrated chapters concerning British saints, the chapter on Edmund of Abingdon includes an image in only the first edition, while the chapters on Swithun and on Alban and Amphibalus have images in only the second, resulting in a net gain of one in 1493, and a slightly greater focus on the ancient past of the Britons.66 In consequence of this one additional image, in the 1493 edition, more than 12 percent of the illustrated chapters are for British saints. The chapters on the Purification of Our Lady and on Edmund of Abingdon are the only two to have woodcuts in the first edition but not in the second; all other chapters selected for illustration in 1484 are illustrated in 1493, although in several cases, the woodblocks used are smaller.67 If potential buyers looking through the chapters had stopped to read some of the text just prior to an illustration, that is, the conclusions of chapters, they may have noticed that many more end with the word “Amen.” This change from the first edition, like the omission of the History of the Mass and the Twelve Articles of Faith, is retained throughout future editions of Caxton’s Golden Legend published by Worde.

The late fifteenth-century editions 123 It indicates an expectation that some readers will use the book as a tool to aid in prayer. While such an expectation does not preclude a belief that other readers, clerical readers, will use the book as a reference work for sermon composition, it nonetheless highlights a use of the text more directly for devotional purposes. Customers turning the last page of the 1493 edition would see two elements: above, a colophon, and below, a woodcut.68 The colophon starts with the same large, ornate capital “T” that begins the prologue, providing visual continuity between the opening and closing of the book. Like the prologue, the colophon employs a first-person voice that must be identified as William Caxton’s: Thus endeth the legēde named in latyn legenda aurea / that is to say in englisshe the goldē legēde for lyke as passeth golde in valewe al other metallis / soo thys Legende excedeth all other bokes / wherin ben conteyned in alle the hyghe and grete festys of our lorde The festys of our blessyd lady / The lyves passiōs & myracles of mani other saintes hystoryes & actes / as all alonge here afore is made mencyon / whiche werke I dyde accomplisshed … And now have renewed & fynysshed it at westmestre the xx day of May / The yere of our lord MCCCClxxxxiii / And in the viii yere of the reygne off kynge henry the vii / By me wyllyam Caxton. Below the colophon, centered on the page, is a single-column-width woodcut not used elsewhere either in this edition or the previous one. It depicts a dynamic scene of the crucifixion at the moment when a Roman soldier spears Jesus’s side. Two crucified thieves writhe in pain on either side; cloth waves in the wind; four men on horseback sit at various angles; a man and a woman, presumably John and Mary, kneel on the ground; while in the background a crowd of haloed figures stream through the gate of a fortified town. It is a much more detailed and energetic image than either the singlecolumn woodcut used to illustrate the chapter on the crucifixion in this edition or the double-column one used in the corresponding chapter of the first edition, neither of which includes a town, men on horseback, the two thieves, or a procession of saints.69 Closing with this image of the crucifixion speaks to an intensification of an expectation already present in the first edition, namely, that Caxton and Worde believed that English book buyers were more likely to purchase a large hagiographic collection if it emphasized the life and times of Jesus. Furthermore, it draws attention to an implicit relationship between the life of Christ and the communion of saints. As a number of scholars have observed, Worde’s selection of illustrations successfully reflects, at least to a degree, the expectations of contemporary readers.70 In 1498, after his denization, Worde issued a third edition of Caxton’s Golden Legend, this time naming himself as publisher in the colophon.71 Customers opening this edition would see the same All Saints’ woodcut and title-like text arranged in the same layout as in the second edition, altered only by a few

124 The late fifteenth-century editions spelling changes and the use of periods rather than virgules, but, turning to the next page, they would see a new and perhaps unexpected element. On the recto of the next unfoliated leaf there are two double-column-width woodcuts vertically stacked: the top image depicts the annunciation; the bottom image shows the crucifixion. These two pictures present the beginning and end of the life of Jesus. The woodcuts are not new: they appear in the first edition as the illustrations for the chapters on the Annunciation of Our Lady and Passion of Our Lord, respectively.72 These two images stacked together are nearly as large as the opening All Saints woodcut. The two illustrations together convey that what follows will be a saints’ legendary containing a history of Jesus. Turning over the second leaf, prospective readers of the 1498 edition would have seen an entirely different text, paratext, and illustration than they would have seen at the start of any prior edition of Caxton’s Golden Legend. The only element on the verso of the page displaying the vertically stacked Christological woodcuts is a brief table of contents listing only the Old Testament chapters. It is titled “Tabula,” followed by an introduction that makes its source text explicit: “¶ here foloweth a lytell Table contey-nynge the lyves and hystoryes shortly taken out of the Byble.” The chapters are listed in their sequential order in the text, the first chapter starting on “folio primo” and the last, on Judith, on folio xlii.73 The Old Testament chapters have been restored, relocated to the beginning of the book, and explicitly labeled as parts of the Bible. Looking over to the facing page, customers would see the start of the chapter on Adam, illustrated for the first time.74 A single-column woodcut depicts a naked Adam and Eve standing on either side of an apple tree, a picture so obviously portraying a scene from Genesis as to be recognizable even to these who might not read. In addition, there is an initial “A” the height of eight lines of text decorated with lobed foliage below the woodcut of Adam, making for a visually rich page. As the Old Testament chapters are grouped together at the start of the 1498 edition, a potential buyer would need to page through more than fifty leaves before coming to the prologue and the tables of contents for the non-biblical chapters. There would be much to draw the eye in these first fifty-three leaves. With the addition of a woodcut to the chapter on Adam, every Old Testament chapter in this edition is illustrated: all the images found in these chapters in 1484 reappear in 1498, including the double-column woodcut in the chapter on Judith, the only chapter in this edition decorated with so large an image.75 No other section of this edition is so lavishly illustrated. The Old Testament chapters invite readers’ attention by placement, by illustration, and by having their own table of contents, indicating the high value that Worde placed on them as a way to attract buyers. Readers who paid attention to the text of opening pages may have made less of an association between the Old Testament chapters and the liturgical calendar than did their counterparts reading the first edition. In the Old Testament table of contents of the third edition, the chapter on Saul is called “The hystorye of Saul” rather than “The first fesyal Sonday after trynyte sonday is redde thystoryes of samuel the prophet & of saul the first kynge of

The late fifteenth-century editions 125 Israhel,” as it is in the first edition. The titles for the Old Testament chapters in 1498 are designated either as “lives,” namely, Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, or as “histories,” which include Moses, Saul, David, Solomon, Rehoboam, Job, Tobit, and Judith. However, the introduction to the chapter on Adam on the facing page reads “The sondaye of Septuagesme begynneth the storye of the Byble. In whiche is redde the legend and storye of Adam whiche foloweth.” A potential buyer in 1498 would see no reference to liturgical readings in the table of contents, but would still find them on the facing page. This edition thus shifts the verbal clues about how the contents might be used slightly away from a model in which the chapters are read in conjunction with the liturgical readings, as they would most likely have been read by those exploiting them for sermon material. Customers who turned to the end of the Old Testament chapters would have seen another new element: William Caxton’s printer’s device.77 Caxton had first used it in 1489, and Worde continued to use Caxton’s device through the end of the fifteenth century.78 Printer’s devices are usually placed at the end of books, and, in this case, the device helps to formally separate the Old Testament chapters from the rest of The Golden Legend. Turning over that leaf, potential buyers would have seen on its verso and the recto of the next folio, that is, on a double-page spread, images that echo the start of this edition. The vertically stacked Christological woodcuts of the annunciation and the crucifixion used in the preliminary leaves appear on the left-hand page; facing them is the All Saints woodcut under the title-like text that replicates the opening of the book. On the verso of the All Saints woodcut is the prologue, followed by the two tables of contents, sequential and alphabetical, for the remaining chapters, followed in turn by the start of the text on a folio numbered “folio primo.”79 The 1498 edition is essentially two books presented together, each with its own preliminary leaves, table of contents, and foliation, with the biblical paraphrase placed first and the legendary placed second. The two subsidiary “books” of the 1498 edition are related to each other through a historical order reflected in the placement of the large woodcuts separating them. After the events of the Old Testament comes the life of Jesus, represented by the annunciation and crucifixion, then the lives of the saints follow, represented by the All Saints image.80 The chapters of the second “book” are organized, as they are in all editions of Caxton’s Golden Legend, so that the Temporale, or movable feasts whose timing is tied to Easter, come before the Sanctorale, or fixed feasts, an organization which groups the Christological chapters at the beginning.81 This edition thus begins with the Old Testament chapters, follows them with chapters about Christ, then ends with chapters on the saints. Although the liturgical calendar still determines the order in which the saints’ lives appear, that arrangement is now subsumed into a sacred history. In that respect, this edition unstitches some of the work Caxton did in merging biblical paraphrases into a book of saints’ lives 76

126 The late fifteenth-century editions organized to follow the liturgical cycle, and reorganizes the chapters into a historical account of Christianity. The prologue that begins on the verso of the All Saints image contains the same text as the prologue of the previous edition, allowing for variations in spelling, but the mise-en-page is different. No longer a solid block of text, the first page is organized into two columns of equal width, as is the rest of the book. The large, fifteen-line decorated initial “T” of 1493 is replaced with a more modest initial “T” a mere six lines high. Furthermore, the third edition omits most of the decorated initials used in the second. In the 1498 edition, the prologue and the colophon use the same six-line high initial “T”; the first chapter in the Old Testament “book,” on Adam, has an initial “A” the height of eight lines of text; and the first chapter of the legendary “book,” for Advent, has a blank space seven lines high where an initial probably should have been printed. These are the only large initials in the third edition. The repeated use of sevento eight-line high decorated initials found throughout the second edition is gone. Instead, the initials used to begin most chapters and the start of some chapter sections are calligraphic letters a mere two lines in height. Evidently, Worde no longer believed that potential buyers of The Golden Legend sought books that looked something like decorated manuscripts. Customers glancing over the legendary chapters of the third edition, that is, the chapters following the prologue, would have seen more illustration, both by size and by number of images, than they would have seen in the previous edition.82 The changes stress three themes emphasized in the second edition: the importance of the life of Christ; a focus on the ecclesiastical hierarchy; and slightly more attention awarded to women. Not only are all the chapters illustrated in the second edition also illustrated in the third, but also Worde reverses the trend of using smaller woodblocks. There are no chapters illustrated in 1498 with woodcuts smaller than the corresponding chapter had displayed in 1493. Furthermore, nine chapters display larger images.83 In eight of the nine cases, the illustrations had been reduced from double-column images in the first edition to partial-column ones in the second, and were now increased to single-column images.84 Seven of these eight chapters are Christological. In addition to increases in the size of illustrations, four chapters are decorated with woodcuts for the first time in 1498. One, on Advent, concerns the season leading to the birth of Jesus; it is also the first chapter in the legendary section.85 Two of the chapters focus on bishops, namely Hilary of Poitiers (4th c.) and Lambert (d. c.705).86 The fourth is a chapter about a woman, Agnes (4th c.), a Roman virgin martyr.87 All four chapters use single-column woodcuts. The two bishops are portrayed with a generic episcopal image employed in all previous editions as well as six other chapters in this edition.88 The illustration for Advent also appears elsewhere, in the chapter on the life of Thomas of Canterbury, both in this edition and the previous one.89 The chapter on Agnes, in contrast, displays

The late fifteenth-century editions 127 a woodcut not seen elsewhere in this or previous editions. Like the images used in Caxton’s Golden Legend for the other virgin martyrs with wellestablished cults, the woodcut selected for Agnes includes a symbol by which she could be identified, namely, a palm branch.90 Customers turning to the last leaf in the book would have seen a page with three elements: the colophon above, and below it, two single-column-width woodcuts horizontally arranged.91 The colophon begins with the same text as in the two previous editions, but then omits any mention of the Earl of Arundel, and concludes: “Whyche werke I dyde accomplysshe and fynysshe att Westmynster the viii. daye of Janeuer The yere of our lorde Thousande. CCCClxxxxviii. And in the xiii yere of the reygne of kynge henry the vii. By me Wynkyn de Worde.” The image nearer to the outer margin is the same dynamic picture of the crucifixion that closes the 1493 edition, featuring a row of haloed figures streaming through an entryway. The woodcut by the inner margin, in contrast, does not appear elsewhere in this or previous editions. It features a Madonna and Child amid twelve richly dressed men, many of whom are crowned, all standing on branches of a tree growing out of the chest of a sleeping man in a box at the bottom on the frame; in other words, a Jesse Tree. This iconography had become increasingly popular during the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, especially in the Low Countries, where Worde may have encountered it.92 Worde acquired many woodblocks from the Continent; this may have been one of them.93 A Jesse Tree represents the genealogy of Jesus from the family of David, linking the Old Testament to the birth of Christ.94 In this particular woodcut, the iconography reveals one of the figures to be David, by his harp and another to be Solomon, by his turban, specifically referencing two of the Old Testament chapters in Caxton’s Golden Legend.95 These two final images reinforce the idea that the reorganization of the chapters casts them into a chronological narrative of sacred history. Reading them from left to right, a reader would see the birth of Christ emerging from the Old Testament, and the death of Christ followed by a procession of saints. The two editions of Caxton’s Golden Legend released in the 1490s incorporate important continuities with the first edition, but also offer evidence of changes in the way potential readers were imagined. In regard to form and appearance, the editions of this decade are both large and presumably expensive, indicating a continued anticipation of buyers possessing the means to purchase and house a bulky folio volume. Customers in the 1490s were presumed to be less interested in customizing the book through illustration after its purchase than those of the 1480s. Subsequent to the attempt in 1493 to simulate an ornate codex through the copious use of decorated initials and small introductory chapter illustrations, the 1498 edition anticipated an audience less interested in buying a printed book that mimics an illuminated manuscript. Printed books in general were developing conventions further removed from their manuscript predecessors. Regarding the content of The Golden Legend, buyers were imagined in the 1490s as being among those attracted to devotional texts in English and

128 The late fifteenth-century editions appreciative of generally popular saints, and were moreover were still expected to have a strong inclination towards biblical and British material. After omitting the Old Testament chapters in 1493, probably in consequence of Worde’s immigration status during the Perkin Warbeck episode, these chapters are triumphantly restored in 1498. In that edition, these chapters are identified as Biblical paraphrases, placed at the front of the book with their own preliminary leaves, separately foliated, and concluded with a printer’s device. Furthermore, every one of the Old Testament chapters is illustrated. No British chapters are removed from either of these editions, and an additional chapter among them is selected for illustration during this decade. These two editions indicate a shift in the authority figures expected to impress customers. Although eminent theologians are still referenced in the prologue, its layout in 1493 and its placement in 1498 indicate that the prologue was no longer considered a crucial element in marketing the book. Furthermore, all references to sponsorship by the deceased Earl of Arundel are removed by the end of the decade, with no attempt to replace them by any element implying that The Golden Legend is admired within chivalric culture. Instead of gesturing towards the authority of learned theologians and aristocrats, much greater emphasis is placed on ecclesiastical authority, that is, on men whose influence derives from their position within the church hierarchy. In 1493, this emphasis may have represented an attempt to signal an acceptance of the claim by that hierarchy to determine doctrine, offered in coordination with the removal of the scriptural paraphrases. In 1498, when the Old Testament chapters are restored, the focus on bishops and popes is not only retained but also augmented, indicating that readers were imagined to value that type of dignitary, despite claims in the historiography of the period regarding English anticlericalism in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.96 The 1498 edition anticipates readers enthusiastic about both vernacular scriptures and ecclesiastical authority. The editions of the 1490s indicate slight shifts in who the readers were imagined to be and how they were expected to use the book. There is evidence of a reduced focus on the needs of parochial clergy, who might be expected to use the book as a sermon manual with supplementary materials on ceremonies and instructional duties. There are indications that readers of the 1490s are envisaged as using the text more directly for devotional purposes, as an aid to prayer. The 1498 edition, furthermore, uses both illustrations and the order of chapters to present the text as a sacred history in which Old Testament figures serve as ancestors to Jesus, whose life and death gives rise to the lives of saints. The figure of Jesus becomes even more of a focal point than it had been in the previous editions, anticipating a readership intensely interested in the life of Christ. The moderately increased emphasis on women saints suggests that some of these anticipated readers may have been women. By the close of the century, Worde found himself working within a larger community of publishers in England, who might be competitors, collaborators, or both. The number of publishing firms releasing editions of

The late fifteenth-century editions 129 Caxton’s Golden Legend increased in the sixteenth century, as the expectations regarding its imagined audience continued to evolve.

Notes 1 No will has ever been found for William Caxton, so it is unclear if Worde inherited the business, bought it from Caxton’s heirs, or came by it through some other arrangement: Lotte Hellinga, William Caxton and Early Printing in England (London: The British Library, 2010), 133. 2 Peter W. M. Blayney, The Stationers’ Company before the Charter, 1403–1557 (London: The Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspapermakers, 2003), 24; Hellinga, William Caxton, 133–35. 3 Norman F. Blake, “Wynkyn de Worde: The Early Years,” Gutenberg Jahrbuch (1971): 62. 4 Vincent Gillespie and Susan Powell, “Chronology of the Period,” in A Companion to the Early Printed Book in Britain, 1476–1558, ed. Vincent Gillespie and Susan Powell (Cambridge, UK: D. S. Brewer, 2014), xviii; Peter W. M. Blayney, “The Site of the Sign of the Sun,” in The London Book Trade: Topographies of Print in the Metropolis from the Sixteenth Century, ed. Robin Myers, Michael Harris, and Giles Mandelbrote (London: Oak Knoll Press & The British Library, 2003), 1. 5 Anne Sutton, “Merchants,” in Gillespie and Powell, Early Printed Book, 127. 6 In 1529 foreigners were prohibited from opening new presses: Lotte Hellinga and Mary C. Erler, eds., Wynkyn de Worde, Father of Fleet Street, rev. ed. (New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll, 2003), 39–40. 7 Caxton rented several properties, and it is not known in which of them Worde established his first independent shop: Blayney, “The Site,” 1. 8 Julia Boffey, “Wynkyn de Worde, Richard Pynson, and the English Printing of Texts Translated from French,” in Vernacular Literature and Current Affairs in the Early Sixteenth Century: France, England, and Scotland, ed. Richard Britnell and Jennifer J. Britnell (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2000), 175. 9 For early books, a folio is a book “in which one sheet of paper is folded once to make two leaves”: Sarah Werner, Studying Early Printed Books, 1450–1800: A Practical Guide (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell, 2019), 174. Although the size of paper may vary, folios are large books, usually about fifteen inches tall: Michelle Levy and Tom Mole, The Broadview Introduction to Book History (Peterborough, Canada: Broadview Press, 2017), 78. 10 GL EEBO 1493 and GL EEBO 1498. 11 G. R. Elton, England Under the Tudors, 2nd ed., rpt. ed. (London: Methuen, 1983), 1. 12 Elton, England, 21–29. 13 Ian Arthurson, The Perkin Warbeck Conspiracy, 1491–1499 (Phoenix Mill, UK: Alan Sutton Publishing, 1997), 50–59. Margaret remained influential in the Burgundian court long after the death of her husband. 14 Hellinga, William Caxton, 19. 15 Elton, England, 22–23. Elton notes that Simnel survived the conspiracy and became a servant at the royal court. 16 Elton, England, 23. 17 Hellinga, William Caxton, 102. There had been other publishers in England during Caxton’s lifetime. As Peter W. M. Blayney explains, the first to set up shop in England after Caxton was Theodoric Rood, from Cologne, whose business opened in Oxford probably in 1478. Next was the anonymous schoolmaster in St. Albans, whose business opened probably in 1479. John

130 The late fifteenth-century editions

18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

31 32 33

34 35 36

37 38 39 40 41 42 43

Lettou, possibly from Lithuania, followed in 1480, and later his partner, William de Machlinia, from Belgium, opened his own shop in 1481. All these had closed by 1487, leaving Caxton the only publisher in England: Blayney, The Stationers, 23. Hellinga suggests as the probable reasons for the closures “family obligations for Theoderic Rood, organizational chaos at St Albans, and quite probably death for William de Machlinia”: Hellinga, William Caxton, 99. Hellinga, William Caxton, 103. Elton, England, 26. Arthurson reprints the full text of the confession: Arthurson, Warbeck, xi–xii. Arthurson, Warbeck, 50–59. Arthurson, Warbeck, 59 and 65. Elton, England, 27. Arthurson, Warbeck, 73. Arthurson, Warbeck, 69, 1–2. David Bates, “Conspirator Perkin Warbeck Captured,” History Today 10 (1997): 36. Warbeck was executed in 1499 after a few failed attempts at escape: Elton, England, 29. Arthurson, Warbeck, 90. Arthurson, Warbeck, 90–91. Hellinga, William Caxton, 134–35. There are letters of denization for him dated 1496: Hellinga and Erler, Wynkyn de Worde, 39; Robert Grabhorn, A Short Account of The Life and Work of Wynkyn de Worde with a Leaf from the Golden Legend Printed by Him at the Sign of the Sun in Fleet Street, London, the Year 1517 (San Francisco: Grabhorn Press, 1948), 25. These men suffered attainder, which means that they were condemned by Parliament without a trial, and all their goods were forfeited to the crown: Elton, England, 27. Blake, “Early Years,” 62; Hellinga, William Caxton, 131. Blayney, The Stationers’ Company, 24. The London Stationers Company, which incorporated bookbinders, text-writers, illuminators (limners), and booksellers, was formed in 1403: Michael Pelham, “Foreword,” in Blayney, The Stationers’ Company, 5. Blayney, The Stationers’ Company, 24. Grabhorn, A Short Account, 2; Blake, “Early Years,” 66. GL EEBO 1493 has lost its early folios and begins with an unfoliated leaf on which a modern hand has written out the first part of the prologue. It is faced by an unfoliated leaf which has printed on its recto the end of the prologue and the start of the table of contents. Fortunately, there are copies in which the first printed, unfoliated leaf is preserved. See, for example, GL Morgan Library 1493 (1) and GL Trinity Oxford 1493. Martha W. Driver, The Image in Print: Book Illustration in Late Medieval England (London: British Library, 2004), 77. Large woodcuts were expensive, so a publisher would not replace one nearly a full-page in size without a good reason. GL Morgan Library 1493 (1), first unfoliated leaf, recto. This text is a paraphrase of part of Caxton’s prologue, present in the first edition and retained in 1493. Driver, Image in Print, 77. GL Morgan Library 1493 (1), first unfoliated leaf, verso. Whoever hand-copied the beginning of the prologue into GL EEBO 1493 did not attempt to draw a decorated initial. Driver, Image in Print, 34. Stephen Partridge, “Designing the Page,” in Gillespie and Powell, Early Printed Book, 79–80. GL Morgan Library 1493 (1), first unfoliated leaf, verso.

The late fifteenth-century editions 131 44 GL Morgan Library 1493 (1), first unfoliated leaf, verso – second unfoliated leaf, recto. 45 GL Morgan Library 1493 (1), first unfoliated leaf, verso. 46 GL EEBO 1493, folio CCCCxxix verso. This wording is identical to that of the first edition, except for spelling changes. 47 Jerome, GL EEBO 1484, folio CClxxxix recto; Matthew, CClxxiiii recto; Mark, Cxxiiii verso; Luke, CCCxvi verso; and John, lxi recto. The first four of these chapters use the same woodcut in both editions. John’s chapter discards the single-column image of a man holding a chalice containing a snake in favor of a smaller (partial-column) image of a robed, barefoot man holding a book on which rests a small lamb with a pennant staff. 48 GL EEBO 1484, folios CCCCxxxv recto – CCCCxliiii recto. 49 Andrew Brown, Church and Society in England 1000–1500, Social History in Perspective, gen. ed. Jeremy Black (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2003), 49–53. 50 As the fifteen Old Testament chapters were omitted, their illustrations were omitted as well. 51 In six chapters, the change is from a double-column to a single-column woodcut; on Table 6.1, these are lines 2, Nativity of Our Lord; 44, Thomas of Canterbury; 79, The Annunciation of Our Lady; 126, The Translation of Thomas of Canterbury; 153, The Assumption of Our Lady; and 198, All Hallows. In nine chapters, the change is from a double-column to a partial-column woodcut; on Table 6.1, these are lines 4, The Feast of the Epiphany; 10, The Passion of Our Lord; 11, The Resurrection; 13, The Ascension of Our Lord; 14, The Feast of Pentecost; 15, Corpus Christi; 16, The Dedication of the Church; 111, The Nativity of St. John the Baptist; and 166, The Nativity of Our Lady. In four chapters, the change is from a single-column to a partial-column woodcut; on Table 6.1, these are lines 33, Nicholas; 41, Stephen Protomartyr; 42, John the Evangelist; and 216, Katherine. Worde did not, of course, number his chapters. 52 The edition issued in 1484, GL EEBO 1484, has about 445 leaves, while the 1493 edition, GL EEBO 1493, has about 432 leaves. (These figures are averages based on fairly complete copies.) There are thus about thirteen fewer leaves in the second edition than the first. The second edition omits the Old Testament chapters, which begin on folio xxxvi verso and end on folio lxxxii recto in the first edition, or 46 folios of Old Testament chapters. It also omits the chapter on the History of the Mass and the Twelve Articles of Faith, which in the first edition occupy another nine folios. The second edition thus uses 42 more folios than the first edition to print the same chapters. Layouts accommodating larger initial letters take up more pages. A desire to save space does not seem to have motivated the approach to layout and illustration in the 1493 edition. 53 The popes are Urban I (3rd c.), GL EEBO 1493, folio Cxxxv recto; Felix (3rd c.), Clxxxxix verso; Sixtus (3rd c.), CCxvi verso; and Cornelius (3rd c.) (in the same chapter with Bishop Cyprian), CClxxi verso. The bishops are Swithun, GL EEBO 1493, folio Clxxix recto; Lowe (7th c.), CClvii recto; Cyprian (3rd c.) (in the same chapter with Pope Cornelius), CClxxi verso; Polycarp (2nd c.), CCCCvii verso; and Quiriacus (4th c.), CCCCviii verso. 54 In the 1493 edition: Pelagius and the History of the Lombards, GL EEBO 1493, folio CCClxxxxvii verso; and Gregory I, Ciii verso. In the 1484 edition: Pelagius and the History of the Lombards, GL EEBO 1484, folio CCCCvii verso; and Gregory I, Cxlii recto. 55 Nicholas, GL EEBO 1493, folio xliiii verso. In the 1493 edition, the image used for Lowe and Polycarp also appears in the chapters on Augustine of Canterbury, GL EEBO 1493, Cxxxvii verso; Erkenwald, CCClxxxvii recto; Augustine of Hippo, CCxlvi verso; Ambrose, Cxvi recto; and the Translation of Thomas of

132 The late fifteenth-century editions

56 57 58

59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72

73

74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81

Canterbury, Clxxx recto. In the 1484 edition, it is in the chapters on Augustine of Canterbury, GL EEBO 1484, Clxxiii recto; Edmund of Abingdon, CCClxxiii verso; Erkenwald, CCClxxxxviii verso; Augustine of Hippo, CClxxii recto; Ambrose, Cliii recto; and Nicholas, lxxxvii recto. The other two chapters are for Alban and Amphibalus, GL EEBO 1493, folio Cxlviii verso; and Victor (3rd c.), Clxvi verso. Both these chapters are among the thirteen illustrated for the first time in the 1493 edition. Maile Sophia Hutterer, “Lofty Sculpture: Flying Buttress Decoration and Ecclesiastical Authority,” Gesta 54, no. 2 (2015): 195–218. The two newly illustrated chapters on female saints are for Genevieve, GL EEBO 1493, folio Clx verso; and Justina, CClxxviii recto. Those that are illustrated in both 1484 and 1493 are Mary Magdalene, GL EEBO 1493, folio Clxxxiii verso; Margaret, Clxxxii verso; Ursula, CCCxvii verso; Barbara, CCCli verso; and Katherine, CCClxx verso. A. S. G. Edwards and Carol M. Meale, “The Marketing of Printed Books in Late Medieval England,” The Library, 6th ser., 15 (1993): 120. See Table 6.1. GL EEBO 1493, folio vi verso. GL EEBO 1493, folio lxxxxiii recto – lxxxxiiii verso. GL EEBO 1493, folio CCCCviii verso – CCCCix verso. See Chapter 5 for further discussion of the Brut tradition. Nativity of John the Baptist, GL EEBO 1493, folio Clii verso. Edmund of Abingdon, GL EEBO 1493, folio CCClvix verso – CCClxii recto; Swithun, Clxxix recto; and Alban and Amphiablus, Cxlviii verso. To clarify, all other chapters selected for illustration in the first edition are illustrated in the second edition, unless the chapter itself was omitted, such as the Old Testament chapters. GL EEBO 1493, folio CCCCxxix verso. The Passion of the Lord, GL EEBO 1493, folio xvi recto; GL EEBO 1484, folio xiiii recto. Seth Lerer, “The Wiles of a Woodcut: Wynkyn de Worde and the Early Tudor Reader,” Huntington Library Quarterly 59, no. 4 (1996): 382. GL EEBO 1498, final unfoliated leaf. GL EEBO 1484, Annunciation of Our Lady, folio Cl recto; and Passion of Our Lord, xiiii recto. These woodblocks are not used in the corresponding chapters of the 1498 edition: both chapters have single-column woodcuts. See rows 10 and 79 on Table 6.1. The chapters on the Ten Commandments and on Joshua are not listed in the table. Their content is in the book, but is subsumed into the chapter on Moses, indicated by using that chapter title in the page headings. The incorporation of these two chapters into the chapter on Moses begins in the first edition and is found in every subsequent edition containing the Old Testament chapters through 1527. See row 17 on Table 6.1. GL EEBO 1498, folio xlix recto. See also Table 6.1. GL EEBO 1498, second unfoliated leaf verso; GL EEBO 1484, second unfoliated leaf, verso, in the sequential table of contents. GL EEBO 1498, unfoliated leaf following liii. Hellinga, William Caxton, 100. The introduction to the tables of contents is the same as in the earlier editions. This framework is not a completely tidy historical schema as some saints were contemporaries of Jesus and a few, such as Michael the Archangel, long preceded him, but it is generally accurate. See Table 6.1, rows 1–15.

The late fifteenth-century editions 133 82 These changes require more leaves. The 1498 edition has about 456 leaves, which makes it about ten leaves longer than the 1484 edition even though both include the Old Testament chapters and the third edition omits two chapters present in 1484, namely, the History of the Mass and the Twelve Articles of Faith. The 1498 edition has fifteen more illustrated chapters than the first edition (see Table 6.1), as well as another table of contents and more large illustrations on the preliminary and closing pages. 83 These nine chapters in Table 6.1 are on lines 3, The Circumcision; 4, The Epiphany; 10, The Passion of Our Lord; 11, The Resurrection; 13, The Ascension of Our Lord; 14, Pentecost; 15, Corpus Christi; 16, The Dedication of a Church; and 166, The Nativity of Our Lady. 84 The exception is the Circumcision, which had not been illustrated at all in the first edition. 85 GL EEBO 1498, folio primo recto after the prologue. On Table 6.1 this chapter is row 1. 86 Hilary, GL EEBO 1498, folio lxvi verso; and Lambert, CClviii recto. On Table 6.1, these chapters are rows 48 and 174. 87 GL EEBO 1498, folio lxxii recto. On Table 6.1, this chapter is row 56. 88 The other chapters are for the Translation of Saint Thomas of Canterbury, GL EEBO 1498, folio Clxxiii recto; Ambrose, Cxvi recto; Augustine of Hippo, CCxxxii verso; Lowe, CCxlii verso; Erkenwald, CCClxi recto; and Polycarp, CCClxxix recto. 89 Thomas of Canterbury, GL EEBO 1498, folio lix verso; and GL EEBO 1493, folio lviii recto. 90 Robert Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things? Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation, rpt. ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015), 519–20. 91 GL EEBO 1498, folio CCClxxxxviii recto. 92 Susan L. Green, Tree of Jesse Iconography in Northern Europe in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries, Routledge in Art and Religion (New York: Routledge, 2019), 12–13. 93 David Bland, A History of Book Illustration: The Illuminated Manuscript and the Printed Book (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), 138. 94 Green, Tree of Jesse, 15. 95 Green, Tree of Jesse, 23. 96 For a useful, brief summary and assessment of the historiography, see G. W. Bernard, The Late Medieval English Church: Vitality and Vulnerability Before the Break with Rome (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 151–63.

7

Sixteenth-century editions

More editions of Caxton’s Golden Legend were published during the sixteenth century than during the fifteenth, and the title was released by more publishers. There were only three publishing firms in England between Caxton’s death and 1504, all three operated by immigrants: Wynkyn de Worde, Julian Notary (1455–1523), and Richard Pynson (c.1449–1530).1 All three firms produced editions of Caxton’s Golden Legend. Julian Notary published an independent edition in 1504, and Richard Pynson published one in collaboration with Wynkyn de Worde three years later.2 Worde published four independent editions during the sixteenth century, the last in 1527: see Table 7.1.3 Across all six editions, some of Caxton’s choices were preserved while others were adjusted or overturned. The changes and continuities reveal what the publishers imagined would succeed with English readers in the new century.

Julian Notary’s edition Only six years separated Worde’s 1498 edition from Notary’s edition of 1504. Henry VII still ruled England, and strategized to perpetuate the Tudor dynasty. Catherine of Aragon, daughter of the formidable Spanish monarchs Ferdinand (1452–1516) and Isabella (1451–1504), arrived in England in 1501 to marry Arthur, Henry’s eldest son and heir. The marriage negotiations between England and the more powerful Spain had lasted more than twelve years.4 Arthur suddenly passed away in 1502 and his mother, Elizabeth of York, died the following year. To preserve the Spanish alliance, a papal dispensation was secured in 1503 for Arthur’s widow to marry his twelve-year-old brother, Henry.5 In 1504 the king’s mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, removed herself from active engagement in the court and took a vow of chastity, thereby entering a status adjacent to that of a nun.6 She remained an active consumer of devotional texts and patron of Wynkyn de Worde. The world of English book production relocated in about 1500 when Wynkyn de Worde moved his business from Westminster to Fleet Street, opening a firm under the Sign of the Sun. Worde rented premises near Shoe

Sixteenth-century editions 135 Table 7.1 Sixteenth-century editions of William Caxton’s Golden Legend, 1504–1527 PUBLISHER

YEAR

1 2 3 4 5 6

1504 1507 1510 1512 1521 1527

Julian Notary Wynkyn de Worde and Richard Pynson Wynkyn de Worde Wynkyn de Worde Wynkyn de Worde Wynkyn de Worde

Lane from the Ankerwyke Priory.7 This move helped make Fleet Street the center of the English publishing industry into the twentieth century.8 Worde has been described as the most prolific and wide-ranging of the early publishers in England. He worked to develop new markets, particularly for smaller books that could be produced quickly and inexpensively.9 Worde’s firm was commercially successful, developing a catalog responsive to both “popular taste and foreign competition.”10 The Sign of the Sun stayed in business for more than forty years, published nearly a thousand titles, and developed a catalog quite different from Caxton’s.11 Soon after Worde relocated, Julian Notary moved from Westminster to a site near the Temple Bar on Fleet Street.12 Notary, a native of Brittany, had been operating as a publisher in England since about 1496.13 He briefly worked in partnership with two others, Jean Barbier and an individual known as I. H., who may possibly have been Jean Huvin or Inghelbert Haghe, before opening an independent business.14 Notary and his partners had been commissioned by Worde to print the Horae ad usum Sarum in 1497 and in the following year printed a Sarum Missal for him.15 The publishing firm that Notary opened in Fleet Street, known as the Sign of the Three Kings, operated on a smaller scale than either Worde’s or Pynson’s.16 Printing and publishing were not Notary’s only ventures: he was also bookbinder and a prominent importer of books.17 His publishing firm remained active until 1520, producing about thirty-five titles and often printing for Worde’s company.18 The first book released by Notary after his move to Fleet Street was Caxton’s Golden Legend.19 The text of Notary’s edition is a close copy of Worde’s 1498 edition, with variations in spelling and punctuation, including many more pilcrows and minor rephrasing. Notary’s version retains the organization of the 1498 edition. In spite of these similarities, the appearance of Notary’s edition is unique. Customers would have seen a much slimmer folio book containing fewer than 300 leaves in contrast to the 430 to 445 leaves of Worde’s 1490s editions. As paper was the most expensive aspect of book production, Notary’s edition may have been designed for frugal or less affluent readers. Although wealth was not the only determining factor of social status in sixteenth-century

136 Sixteenth-century editions England, prosperity tended to accompany rank. Notary may have imagined a less privileged audience than that anticipated by Caxton and Worde. On the recto of the first leaf, customers would see a large woodcut of saints with no surrounding text.20 Lacking the title-like text that Worde introduced in 1493, the Notary edition does not reflect the contemporary development of the title page. Its image, while superficially similar to the “Trinity Adored by Saints” used by Caxton and Worde, is from a different woodblock (see Figure 7.1).21 Notary’s All Saints frontispiece is architecturally framed by pillars and a round arch. It depicts Mary and John on either side of God, as they would normally appear on either side of a crucifix along the top of a rood screen.22 In that respect, it reflects imagery most people would have seen in their parish church.23 Rather incongruously, there is no depiction of the crucifixion in Notary’s woodcut, although modified Chi-Rho symbols near the base of each pillar may remind readers of it. The depiction of God is not Trinitarian as in the “Trinity Adored by Saints” (see Figure 2.1) but instead depicts only God the Father, wearing a papal crown, raising one hand in blessing while holding a globus cruciger in the other. Jesus is depicted amid the crowd of saints as a small appendage to Christopher, as a haloed boy riding on the saint’s shoulder while holding his own globus cruciger. This image serves as identifying iconography for Christopher rather than an independent figure. Unlike the image of Jesus in the “Trinity Adored by Saints,” which displays the wounds of the Passion, the image of the child Jesus in the Notary edition lacks wounds, which minimizes its association with the Christ of the crucifixion. The third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, is not represented at all. Notary’s All Saints woodcut forgoes not only the Christological but also the Trinitarian associations of Caxton’s “Trinity Adored by Saints” and with them, the antiheretical implications and connection to the English monarchy implied in the Caxton and Worde editions. The gathering of saints is also arranged differently in Notary’s frontispiece than it is in Caxton’s. In Notary’s version, instead of men standing on one side and women on the other, as in a medieval parish church, all the women, except for Mary, stand in the lowest of four rows. This placement suggests, however mildly, a position of inferiority. The row above them consists of generic representations of monks, friars, bishops, and a pope; above them, a row of lay male saints; and in the fourth row, just below God, are biblical figures. Few saints in the crowd can be individually identified through iconography. Barbara stands in the first row wearing fur and a crown; Sebastian, naked and shot with arrows, stands in the third row next to Christopher, who holds a pole and carries the child Jesus; and Peter stands in the fourth row as a haloed man with a short, square beard, although he lacks the keys traditional to his iconography. Other than these, the saints are types rather than individuals. Women in monastic dress stand on one side; women whose long hair identifies them as lay virgins on the other. The men grouped in the center of the row of lay male saints wear

Sixteenth-century editions 137

Figure 7.1 Frontispiece, Caxton’s Golden Legend (1504) [STC 24877]. Used by permission of the Folger Shakespeare Library.

138 Sixteenth-century editions armor, revealing them to be military saints. In the top row, the halos and robes of the figures on one side indicate apostolic status, while the turbans, rich dress, and lack of haloes of the figures on the other side denote Old Testament kings. Unlike Caxton’s “Trinity Adored by Saints,” few potential readers would be able to identify favorite saints on the opening page, and none of the saints in Notary’s woodcut are identifiably English. Turning over this leaf, a customer would see that the organization of Notary’s 1504 edition mirrors Worde’s 1498 edition. The verso of the first leaf contains only a short table of contents for the Old Testament chapters, identified in the table as being taken “out of the Byble,” and the chapters are labeled as either lives or histories. The start of the chapter on Adam occupies the facing page. Following the “two book” model of 1498, the conclusion of the Old Testament chapters is followed by a repetition of the All Saints woodcut, the prologue, and a general table of contents. These opening pages demonstrate that Notary, like Worde, imagined readers for whom vernacular scriptures held a powerful appeal. Other expectations, different from those of Worde, may also be indicated. The front pages of Worde’s 1498 edition include not only an identifiably adult Jesus in the “Trinity Adored by Saints,” but also vertically stacked images of the Annunciation and the Crucifixion. The omission of these elements by Notary in an organization that otherwise conforms to the 1498 edition may imply that he placed a lower value on Christological piety to encourage sales. The depiction of God wearing a papal crown in Notary’s frontispiece probably signals an acceptance of papal authority, but its omission of the image of Peter wearing a papal crown and holding the keys to heaven included in the “Trinity Adored by Saints” eliminates symbolic support for the doctrine of apostolic succession, indicating that Notary may have imagined readers uninterested in justifications of the papacy. Similarly, Notary may have expected readers to be less devoted to the Trinity, less interested in the English monarchy, and more comfortable with an image of the heavenly court in which women occupy a low position. Alternately, Notary may have been less skilled at designing opening pages to appeal to the audience he imagined would purchase his book. Potential readers seeing the first leaves of Notary’s edition and leafing through the subsequent pages would undoubtedly have realized how it managed to contain the text of Caxton’s Golden Legend in a book roughly twothirds the length of previous editions. The elements of page layout mirror those of earlier editions: the text is generally arranged into two columns, and chapter divisions are indicated by headings, introductions, conclusions, and often graphic elements. However, both the leading and kerning are more constricted, allowing more words to fit on each page. While Notary’s edition of The Golden Legend was almost certainly less expensive than the versions produced by Caxton, Worde, and Pynson, customers may have found it more difficult to read. Notary’s version also saves space by using as chapter illustrations nearly exclusively small partial-column woodcuts with

Sixteenth-century editions 139 text next to them rather than woodcuts that occupy the whole column, or spread over two columns. Furthermore, less white space is used in between chapters. To illustrate the compression, Worde’s 1498 Old Testament chapters end on the forty-ninth folio while Notary’s biblical chapters, despite using virtually the same text, end on the thirty-fifth folio, filling fourteen fewer leaves. Notary seems to have enjoyed the challenge of compressing texts into smaller spaces. In 1500, a few years before he released Caxton’s Golden Legend, Notary printed a miniature edition of the Horae ad usum Sarum that measures only an inch by an inch and a quarter.24 In 1507, he published a collection of the statutes of Henry VII, not in the usual folio format but in a “small quarto.”25 Customers turning to the conclusion of the Old Testament chapters in Notary’s edition would have found changes and continuities in the way the “two book” model is rendered. In the 1498 edition, Worde closes the Old Testament “book” with a printer’s mark, an element normally placed on the concluding pages of books at this time, followed by two illustrated pages in which the vertically stacked images of the Annunciation and the Crucifixion face the title page. In Notary’s edition, the conclusion of the last Old Testament chapter is faced by a title page in which his All Saints woodcut appears below the title-like text used in earlier editions, namely, “¶ Here begynneth the legend named in latyn legenda aurea.”26 The insertion of this “title” more than thirty folios from the beginning of the book renders Notary’s decision not to print it over the frontispiece on the first leaf perplexing. On the verso of this title page is the prologue, printed in its entirety on that page in two columns. Notary’s prologue repeats Caxton’s verbatim. Whereas Caxton modified Vignay’s prologue in places, in particular by replacing Vignay’s list of his previous translations with a list of Caxton’s own works, Notary simply duplicates Caxton’s wording. As Caxton’s prologues served as marketing devices, Notary appears to have wasted an opportunity to advertise books from his own list rather than the list that Worde took over from Caxton.27 In Notary’s edition, the prologue is followed by a general table of contents which is made to fit on the recto and verso of a single leaf, in part by using three columns on the verso. This table is ordered sequentially, and this edition does not include an alphabetical table of contents. Notary does not appear to have imagined readers who valued the ability to easily find the life of a particular saint. Readers leafing through Notary’s edition would have seen that most of its chapter images are very small. There are no double-column-width woodcuts in the chapters, and only one single-column image, used twice.28 That woodcut, depicting a beheading, is the height of nineteen lines of text. Most chapter illustrations in this edition are between eight and eleven lines high, and shaped as narrow rectangles. With few exceptions, the chapter illustrations are only slightly larger than the decorated initials used in this edition, of which there are two sets, one depicting intertwined dragons and the other consisting of letters decorated with leaves, flowers, and birds. A few

140 Sixteenth-century editions chapters include both an illustration and a decorated initial, but in most cases, either one or the other is used to mark the start of a chapter. The use of decorated initials is reminiscent of the 1493 edition, but the crowded text and restricted white space of the Notary edition reduce any resemblance to an illuminated manuscript. The Notary edition contains 156 chapter illustrations, and therefore fiftyseven more illustrated chapters than Worde’s 1498 edition.29 Almost all ninety-nine chapters selected by Worde for illustration in 1498 also contain a woodcut in the Notary edition, with only five exceptions, of which two feature decorated initials.30 The subjects of the fifty-seven additional chapters illustrated in Notary’s edition include twenty-six bishops and popes; fourteen women other than Our Lady; and eight British saints, reflecting similar expectations of reader preferences to those demonstrated by Worde in the previous edition.31 These choices are not reinforced by Notary’s frontispiece, which not only lacks British saints but also lowers the position of women. The lack of consistency between the chapter illustrations and the initial woodcut makes the Notary edition of Caxton’s Golden Legend a less coherent book. The chapter illustrations in the Notary edition infrequently allow readers to identify particular saints or feasts iconographically. In part this difficulty is grounded in the use of illustrations to indicate types rather than individuals: woodblocks are reused far more than in previous editions. In ninety-eight, or 63 percent, of the illustrated chapters in the Notary edition, the woodcut is not a unique depiction of the saint. For example, one woodblock displaying a generic episcopal figure appears in thirty-one chapters.32 In some cases, the selection of the same woodblock to illustrate different chapters in this edition may hinder a reader’s recognition of those chapters’ subjects. For instance, Macarius is one of the saints whose life is among the thirty-one illustrated with a generical episcopal image. While there is a saint Macarius (d. c.335) who was a bishop of Jerusalem, the saint who is the subject of the chapter is Macarius the Elder (c.300–390), an Egyptian hermit saint who was not a bishop.33 Similarly, the lives of James the Less, James the Greater, and James the Martyr are illustrated by the same image even though they are not the same type of saint: James the Less and James the Greater are both apostles, but James the Martyr, also known as James the Dismembered (d. 421), is a Persian martyr.34 Likewise, Margaret of Antioch and Margaret otherwise called Pelagien (n.d.) are illustrated with the same woodblock, even though the dragon-destroying virgin of Antioch is not the same type of saint as the cross-dressing Margaret who lived as a monk.35 The difficulty of locating individual saints by means of iconography in the Notary edition is compounded by other factors. The headlines are less likely to serve as useful guides because the compressed text increases the likelihood that more than one chapter begins on the same page, only one of which would be named in the headline. Additionally, Notary did not include an alphabetical table of contents. This edition is designed to serve readers who want to use the book sequentially more than those who want to easily locate specific saints.

Sixteenth-century editions 141 The chapters in the Notary edition illustrated by particularized, unique woodcuts suggest that their selection was guided by expectations regarding readers’ interests similar to those that informed the previous editions. Of the fifty-six chapters in the Notary edition displaying a unique woodcut, thirteen are Christological feasts or otherwise closely related to the life of Jesus; ten are for Old Testament chapters; six are for women saints other than Our Lady; three are Marian; and four are British.36 George also has a unique woodcut; although he is not a British saint, his chapter expresses English national sentiments.37 Much like the selection of new chapters to illustrate, the selection of chapters to be illustrated by unique woodcuts is not reinforced by the frontispiece, which lacks any depiction of an adult Christ, lacks any British saints, and fails to highlight any women saints other than Mary. A reader turning to the close of the book would see, beneath the end of the final chapter, a colophon copied from the last Worde edition until its final lines, which read: “Whyche werke I dyde accomplysshe and fynysshe att Tempell baar the xvi. daye of feverer. The yere of oure lorde a.Thousande.CCCCC.iii. And in the.xix. yere of the reynge of kynge Henry the.vii. By me Julyan Notary.”38 Turning over the page, the reader would see a full page of illustration. In the center, horizontally stacked, is an image of the Nativity above, Notary’s printer’s mark below, and in between, the text: “Thys Empryn-ted at temple bar-re be me: Julyan Notary Dwellyn-ge in saynt clemē-tys parysshe.”39 This central section is surrounded by a collection of decorative rectangular woodcuts that fill out the page. The edition of Caxton’s Golden Legend released by Notary in 1504 emerges as more of an experiment in format than an attempt to adjust to changing times or to a reading public imagined as having changed since the 1490s. This edition also seems to be less coherently executed than those previously published by Caxton and Worde. The most substantial change is size: the reduction of white space around the text and the use of smaller images decreases the number of pages required. The book was almost certainly less expensive, but probably more difficult to read. The reduction of paratextual and graphic elements that serve to locate and identify particular chapters may have made the book more challenging to navigate. Notary’s imagined readers were probably less prosperous than those of Caxton and Worde. If reading skills grew weaker as one descended the sixteenth-century economic ladder, then the difficulty in reading and navigating the book may have worked against its sales. Of course, any correlation between proficiency in reading and economic status would have had numerous exceptions. The types of chapters expected to be attractive to readers does not seem to have been envisaged differently by Notary than by Worde. The chapters placed in the front of the book, those selected for illustration, and those marked by unique woodcuts indicate that Notary expected readers to be drawn to vernacular scriptures, the life of Christ, and British saints, much as Caxton seems to have originally imagined.

142 Sixteenth-century editions Worde’s fifteenth-century editions indicate his anticipation of a growing interest in the ecclesiastical hierarchy and women saints; Notary’s choices reflect the same expectations. In Notary’s edition, in contrast to prior editions, the front pages, the pages between the two “books,” and the closing pages do little to incite customers with those preferences to explore the book in greater depth. Notary did not reprint this edition or create any other edition of Caxton’s Golden Legend. His firm did not always limit its production of books from Caxton’s list to a single edition. Notary released the Chronicles of England in the same year as The Golden Legend, and produced another edition of the Chronicles in 1515.40 Sales of The Golden Legend, or other factors associated with the 1504 edition, did not persuade Notary to repeat the experiment.

Rychard Pynson’s edition The next edition of Caxton’s Golden Legend was released three years later, in 1507. England was still under the rule of Henry VII, but the nature of his reign had changed. The increasingly ailing king had become, in the words of Dan Jones, “withdrawn, suspicious and tyrannical,” and, during these last two years of his reign, Henry VII “governed by fear.”41 English ecclesiastical authority seems to have become more intolerant as regards lollardy. As G. W. Bernard explains, in “the early sixteenth century there was unquestionably a revival of the episcopal persecution of heretics.”42 In 1506, more than sixty people in Amersham and twenty in Buckingham were accused of heresy: two were burnt at the stake.43 In 1507, the year in which this fifth edition was released, two events transpired that would prove quite momentous for the sixteenth-century church but were noted by few at the time: Thomas Wolsey entered royal service and, beyond the borders of England, Martin Luther underwent ordination as a priest.44 The 1507 edition of Caxton’s Golden Legend was published as a joint venture between Richard Pynson and Wynkyn de Worde. Pynson stood at the forefront of the second generation of publishers in England.45 Originally from Normandy, he came to England sometime around 1490, shortly before William Caxton’s death.46 Although the documentation is ambiguous, it is likely that Pynson originally established his press in St. Clement Danes just outside London’s city limits.47 He seems to have become a naturalized English citizen in 1493.48 Like Worde and Notary, Pynson moved his firm into the City of London shortly after 1500, setting up on Fleet Street under the Sign of St George.49 He is known to have had stationers serve as apprentices under him, so he must have become both a freeman of London and a member of the Stationers’ company.50 In time, Pynson’s son married Joan Rastell, whose father was the publisher John Rastell (c.1475–1536) and whose mother was Thomas More’s (1478–1535) sister.51 This marriage linked Pynson’s family to one of the most famous and respected humanists in England, a highly influential man who would eventually serve as Lord Chancellor to Henry VIII (1491–1547).52

Sixteenth-century editions 143 For the first third of the sixteenth century, Pynson and Worde dominated English publishing.53 Their two firms produced more than half of all books printed in English during the that period.54 At the start of his career, Pynson, like Caxton and Worde, relied heavily on texts that had enjoyed a substantial manuscript circulation.55 Later, in contrast to Worde’s more comprehensive catalog, Pynson came to specialize in regard to content, focusing on governmental and legal texts (statutes, proclamations), and in works in Law French.56 Most of the devotional works on Pynson’s list were, nevertheless, in the English language.57 In regard to the appearance of books, including layout, typeface, and illustration, Pynson ultimately became an innovator; for example, he introduced the roman typeface to England.58 Even though they were business rivals, Pynson and Worde frequently worked together.59 Pynson used a number of Worde’s woodblocks, although he also imported woodblocks by Holbein, whose designs became very influential in England.60 Their relationship seems to have begun to change after 1506 when Pynson was appointed the King’s Printer.61 Originally a vaguely defined office, the duties of the King’s Printer came to involve the production of a wide range of publications such as statutes, proclamations, and works commemorating state occasions.62 Pynson may have been selected for this appointment because of his extensive connections in court.63 After obtaining this post, he and Worde seem to have come to see themselves as more directly in competition, leading the former to emphasize his role as King’s Printer by including an image of the king’s coat of arms in some of his titles, and the latter to draw attention to his patronage by Lady Margaret Beaufort through using the title “Printer to the King’s mother.”64 Pynson’s status continued to rise: by 1515, he became the first to hold the title “Printer to the City of London.”65 In spite of the rivalry, Pynson and Worde continued to collaborate from time to time, and they may have cooperated to prevent the unintentional publication of the same material at the same time.66 In 1507, Pynson and Worde published two books collaboratively: The Royal Book and The Golden Legend.67 Based on the typography, Worde’s firm appears to have performed the actual printing of The Golden Legend.68 Pynson’s firm contributed by supplying slightly more than half its woodcuts.69 Pamela Neville explains that the books in this edition of Caxton’s Golden Legend contain variant colophons, some crediting Pynson as publisher and others Worde.70 In those crediting Worde, the colophon reads: “In Fletestrete in the signe of the Sonne, by Wynkyn de Worde, … the fourth daye of Septembre, the yere of our Lorde MCCCCC & vii,” below which is Worde’s device in a version that encloses William Caxton’s initials between an upper block displaying the Sign of the Sun and a lower one containing Wynkyn de Worde’s name.71 In those crediting Pynson, the colophon reads: “¶which werke was fy-nysshed the fourth day of Septembre. The yere of our lorde M.CCCCC.&vii. Enprynted at Londō in Fletestrere in the sygne of the

144 Sixteenth-century editions George. By Rycharde Pynson,” below which is Pynson’s device.72 There are no extant records offering an explanation of this particular joint venture; Atkin and Edwards attribute it to shared commercial pressures.73 Johnson suggests that Pynson may have had less time for book publication in this year, perhaps because of duties associated with the assumption of the title of King’s Printer, or because of problems in his personal life.74 Upon opening this edition, customers would have seen a full-page frontispiece, different from both that used by Caxton and Worde and that used by Julian Notary, but resembling the latter more closely (see Figure 7.2).75 As in Notary’s edition, there is no text on the page with this woodcut, and, as in Notary’s version, the image is architecturally framed by pillars and an arch. In the Pynson woodcut, the architectural elements are more elaborate, imitating the English Perpendicular style. Like Notary’s image, Pynson’s depicts God as a single individual rather than as a Trinity, and positions Mary and John on either side of him, as they would normally appear on either side of a crucifix on top of a rood screen. Also, as in Notary’s version, the saints are arranged so that all the women are grouped at the bottom. In Pynson’s version, in somewhat disorderly rows that continue up the sides of the frame, the monastic and clerical saints are grouped above the women, with lay saints mixed among them, especially along the sides; and above them are apostles on one side and Old Testament kings on the other, with an assortment of less identifiable saints. Pynson’s frontispiece depicts God as majestic and remote. Not only is he portrayed as one individual rather than as a group of three men sharing a bench, as in the Caxton and Worde woodcut, there is no depiction of the second or the third persons of the Trinity anywhere in this image. Even the modified Chi-Rho symbols near the base of each pillar in Notary’s version are absent. Pynson’s frontispiece completely eliminates both the Christological and the Trinitarian implications of Caton’s “Trinity Adored by Saints.” The figure of God in Pynson’s version, as in Notary’s version, is portrayed as raising one hand in blessing and holding a globus cruciger in the other. The symbolic meaning of the globus cruciger, that is, God as ruler of the world, is enhanced in Pynson’s image by God’s seat being depicted as the top of a circle, as though God were sitting on the world. There is nothing above him except the top of the arch. He is ringed on either side and below by angels. The figure of God is surrounded by considerable white space on all sides, separating him from the arch above and the angels’ outstretched hands. In Notary’s version, although there is white space around God’s head and shoulders, the saints gather so close to him that he is visible from the waist up only. In the Caxton and Worde version, clouds surround the Trinity on three sides, while the saints gather immediately below. In Pynson’s frontispiece, an enthroned God is spatially isolated from all the other figures. The use of imagery emphasizing God’s remoteness and power over the earth in the Pynson version implies that the publishers of this edition imagined an audience whose expectation that saints had potent

Sixteenth-century editions 145

Figure 7.2 Frontispiece, Caxton’s Golden Legend (1507) [(ZZ) 1507.1]. Used by permission of Lambeth Palace Library.

146 Sixteenth-century editions intercessory powers because of their proximity to God was less critical than their desire to see God portrayed as a solitary, almighty ruler. The frontispiece in the 1507 edition also reduces allusions to the papacy. In the Caxton and Worde version, Peter is depicted wearing a papal crown and holding the keys to heaven, showing symbolic support for the doctrine of apostolic succession, and in Notary’s woodcut, God the Father wears a papal crown, but the sole papal image in Pynson’s woodcut is a generic papal figure among the group of ecclesiastic saints. Both God and Peter are depicted with nothing but haloes on their heads, and Peter holds no keys. These choices imply an imagined audience for whom the doctrine of apostolic succession, the belief that the church hierarchy guides admission to heaven, and the institution of the papacy itself were of little interest. The representation of Peter as having no relation to the papacy and no special authority over admission to heaven was to become a characteristic of early Protestantism.76 As in Notary’s frontispiece, there are few recognizable saints in Pynson’s version other than Mary and John. Only three other saints are depicted with idiosyncratic iconography. Peter may be identified by his short square beard; James, standing in the middle of the saints along the right side, wears his iconic cockle hat, and Sebastian, naked and shot with an arrow, stands near James. Other than these, the saints in this image are generic types. Head dressings indicate categories: crowns, turbans, and miters; tonsured men; and women with long, loose hair. Some figures wear armor, some monastic habits. No women saints other than Mary are individually identified, nor are any English saints. The audience imagined as being motivated to buy the book based on an impression derived by its first image was not expected to place great value on either. Looking across to the facing leaf, a customer would see that the organization of the 1507 edition broadly follows both Notary’s 1504 edition and Worde’s 1498 edition, namely, the “two book” model in which the Old Testament chapters are grouped together at the start, with their own table of contents and foliation, followed by the remaining chapters, with their own table of contents and foliation. The leaf facing the All Saints woodcut in the 1507 edition contains the now-standard short table of contents for the Old Testament chapters, identified as being taken out “of the Byble,” with the chapters labeled as lives or histories. The chapter on Adam begins immediately below it, starting with its usual introduction. There is a singlecolumn image below the introduction. Its subject matter is the same as in both the 1498 and 1504 editions, namely, Adam and Even standing on either side of a tree, but a different woodblock is used. As evidenced in its first few pages, the audience imagined for this edition, however little they were expected to be attracted to the Trinity, the papacy, women saints, and English saints, was anticipated to be drawn to vernacular scriptures as much as the readers imagined for the previous two editions. Nor did the intensification of lollard persecution in the early years of the sixteenth

Sixteenth-century editions 147 century, nor the increasing irascibility of Henry VII, dissuade Pynson and Worde from prominently featuring vernacular scripture. Perhaps they felt confident that the lack of persecution following the two previous editions meant that English ecclesiastical authorities did not object to Old Testament paraphrase when framed as hagiography, or perhaps they felt confident that Pynson’s court connections were sufficient protection against whatever mild risk this publication represented. Whatever their reasoning, the 1507 edition marks the third consecutive edition of Caxton’s Golden Legend to present the biblical paraphrases as their own subsidiary book within a hagiographic collection. Customers leafing through the Old Testament chapters, and perhaps the rest of the 1507 edition, might have noticed that most of the chapter illustrations occupy only part of a column. Partial-column illustrations, introduced in Worde’s late fifteenth-century editions, appear with greater frequency in successive editions. There are fifty-three chapters in Worde’s 1498 edition with single-column woodcuts for which the corresponding chapter in the 1507 edition has only a partial-column woodcut.77 Of the ninety-six illustrated chapters in the 1507 edition, only twenty use singlecolumn woodcuts, and none have double-column ones. This reduction in the size of illustrations did not create a shorter book: the English Short Title Catalogue describes this edition as having 466 folio leaves.78 Although this edition is still a folio, the paper is smaller than in previous editions, creating a slightly less luxurious appearance than the previous Caxton and Worde versions.79 The layout and paratext of the 1507 edition of Caxton’s Golden Legend emphasize elements that serve to mark chapter openings for readers. As in the Notary edition, the start of the text is sometimes indicated by a decorated initial, and subsections are also sometimes so marked.80 The Pynson edition does not replicate the constricted leading and kerning of the Notary edition, and incorporates more white space surrounding introductions and conclusions, making them easier to see. Additionally, geometric borders, rope borders, and fleurons, that is, floral ornaments, are often used below the final words of text to mark the close of a chapter.81 Another innovation in this edition is the practice of using two headlines, one over each column, on pages in which one chapter ends and another begins. The system is not perfect, as sometimes parts of more than two chapters appear on a single page, but it is clearly an aid to readers who wish find the start of a particular chapter. Readers hoping to use the book non-consecutively rather than following the sequential order, which mirrors the liturgical calendar, were somewhat more likely to be using the book to aid personal devotion rather than weekly sermon composition, although discontinuous reading and sermon construction were not at all incompatible. Readers who hoped to be able to easily locate chapters on particular saints might have been disappointed upon turning to the second “book” to find only a sequential table of contents, under a large block containing the title “Legenda Aurea” in white text on a black background. The second, alphabetical, index-

148 Sixteenth-century editions like table of contents facilitating the process of finding the life of a particular saint is omitted from this edition, as is the prologue. Caxton’s prologue, marketing this book and others from his list, is omitted from the three sixteenthcentury editions released after 1507 as well. Pynson and Worde apparently no longer found it relevant as a marketing device. The illustrations in the 1507 edition are more likely to identify chapters on particular saints than those of Notary’s 1504 edition. Only twenty-eight of the ninety-six illustrated chapters in the 1507 edition, or 29 percent, lack unique woodcuts. Most replicated woodblocks in this edition are repeated in only two or three chapters; and the two most repeated, both episcopal images, appear in only five chapters and eight chapters, respectively.82 In contrast, one woodblock in Notary’s 1504 edition appears in thirty-one chapters. Furthermore, Notary’s edition sometimes repeats a woodblock across chapters on saints who share a first name, which might mislead a reader into thinking that the chapters concern the same saint. In the 1507 edition illustrations are not placed so as to erroneously imply a common identity across chapters on different saints. Below the end of the table of contents in the 1507 edition is a large illustration focused on the cult of saints. It is comprised of nine partial-column woodcuts, each depicting a saint, printed contiguously in rows of three, surrounded by a decorative border.83 The top row features three female saints, perhaps redressing the grouping of women at the bottom of the gathering of saints in the frontispiece. The second row includes an image of Edmund King and Martyr, the English saint featured in the “Trinity Adored by Saints” woodcut of Caxton and Worde, possibly redressing the lack of British saints in the frontispiece. This location is less prominent than the frontispiece, so a potential customer not captivated by the initial woodcut might not have continued perusing the book to see what follows the Old Testament chapters. In one respect, this image echoes the frontispiece: both are devoid of any depictions of Jesus. Unlike the Christocentric images that follow the table of contents in the late fifteenth-century Worde editions, none of these nine images portray Jesus. Clearly, the imagined audience for the 1507 edition was not expected to be drawn to drawn to Christocentric piety. This choice represents a discontinuity from the decisions made in previous editions. Similarly, the selection of chapters to illustrate in the 1507 edition shows continuity with the previous editions in regard to a focus on the church hierarchy and on British saints, but marks a break from them in regard to the emphasis placed on the life and times of Jesus. Worde’s 1498 edition provides the most constructive comparison, as the principles guiding chapter illustration in Notary’s 1504 edition are idiosyncratic. The 1507 edition does not illustrate eighteen chapters that are illustrated in the 1498 version, while it illustrates fifteen chapters not illustrated in 1498.84 Specifically, the 1507 edition removes illustration from three chapters on popes and bishops, but adds illustration to six such chapters, for a net increase of three.85 Pynson’s

Sixteenth-century editions 149 is the fourth consecutive edition to increase the number of illustrated chapters on popes and bishops, indicating a growing interest in clerical saints perceived by all the early publishers of Caxton’s Golden Legend, a pattern at odds with claims regarding the rise of anticlericalism in England that may still be found in the historiography of this period.86 This edition increases the number of illustrated chapters on British saints by two, also a pattern followed across the editions following Caxton’s.87 Additionally, of the four saints whose chapters are marked by single-column woodcuts, one is Thomas of Canterbury and the other is George.88 There also discontinuities. Five chapters on apostles that were illustrated in 1498 have no woodcut in 1507, and only one new apostolic chapter is given a woodcut.89 Whereas the practice across previous additions was to use illustration to emphasize the life and times of Jesus, three chapters about people and objects associated with Jesus in the Bible that were illustrated in 1498 are not in 1507.90 These choices reinforce the conclusion implied by the frontispiece and the illustrations following the table of contents, namely, that the 1507 edition is for an imagined audience not strongly attracted to Christological piety. There are no records explaining which decisions were made by Worde and which by Pynson in the 1507 edition of Caxton’s Golden Legend. Nevertheless, as Worde published two editions prior to 1507, it is reasonable to suppose that the choices made in the 1507 edition that conflict with Worde’s earlier decisions may have originated with Pynson. The decreased emphasis on the life Jesus in this edition seems at odds with Worde’s expectation of a strong strain of Christological piety among readers who might be tempted to purchase this legendary. Similarly, Worde’s other editions offer little support for an image of the divine as a majestic but remote ruler. That depiction seems unlikely to encourage investment in the cult of saints, whose devotional appeal stems in part from their intercessory abilities arising from their proximity to God. Possibly Pynson drove these decisions. The attention drawn by means of chapter illustrations in the 1507 edition to both British saints and those in the top ranks of the clerical hierarchy seems to resonate with Worde’s earlier choices. Unlike Worde’s earlier editions in which appeals to these two devotional preferences were fashioned with consistency, in the 1507 edition they are undermined by the omission of visual references to the power of the papacy from the two largest images in the book and the absence of British saints from the All Saints frontispiece. Another seeming inconsistency is the modification of page layout in ways that make the start of chapters easier to locate while eliminating the alphabetical table of contents. One aspect of the construction of the 1507 edition that resonates strongly with Worde’s prior choices is the prominent placement of the Old Testament chapters. These editions imagine readers who preferred to have a large hagiographic collection paired with a selection of vernacular scriptures, and who did not oppose framing scriptures as saint’s lives. Pynson and Worde’s collaborative production of Caxton’s Golden Legend was an experiment not repeated, nor did Pynson issue additional editions independently. He produced fewer devotional books than Worde: it is

150 Sixteenth-century editions estimated that only about 17 percent of Pynson’s total output consisted of devotional literature, compared to just under half of Worde’s titles.91 Pynson went on to concentrate his catalog on legal and governmental books and articles.

Wynkyn de Worde’s sixteenth-century editions Unlike Pynson’s focus on the government, Worde cultivated relationships with prominent customers who wanted vernacular devotional texts, such as Lady Margaret Beaufort and the religious house, Syon Abbey.92 A valuable client, Syon Abbey possessed one of the largest libraries in early sixteenthcentury England, containing almost 1,400 books.93 In addition to the institutional collection, the abbey’s rules required that novices own or acquire certain books upon admission to the house.94 Worde’s catalog, although diverse, strongly inclined towards devotional and religious titles.95 He published four new editions of Caxton’s Golden Legend in the first three decades of the sixteenth century. Worde’s first independent sixteenth-century edition of The Golden Legend was issued around 1510.96 Henry VII died in April of 1509, followed a few months later by his mother, Lady Margaret.97 The new king was Henry VIII. In the words of Geoffrey Elton, the “reign of Henry VIII opened in a blaze of glory.”98 The young king was popular, apparently conventionally pious, and sufficiently interested in publishing to renew Pynson’s appointment as King’s Printer.99 Few if any anticipated that the reign of Henry VIII would see England separate from the long-established papal leadership of Christendom and establish an autonomous national church. There was no reason to expect this reign to initiate a radical departure from the climate of piety that had already encouraged Caxton’s Golden Legend to be released six times. Just as the Notary and Pynson editions represent, in different ways, discontinuities from the fifteenth-century publishing history of Caxton’s Golden Legend, so does Worde’s 1510 edition. In this version, the Old Testament chapters are issued as an independent, stand-alone text. The initial folios are missing from what seems to be this edition’s only extant copy, including those that might have included a frontispiece and a table of contents. The surviving text begins early in the chapter on Adam.100 The stand-alone edition of the Old Testament chapters is much smaller than the full editions of Caxton’s Golden Legend: while all the full editions are folios, this text is only a quarto. Its small size suggests that it was produced to be used for individual reading, as it could be carried as a pocket book. The idea of personal use is reinforced by the reduction of textual associations between the scriptural paraphrases and the liturgical calendar, although such references are not fully eliminated. For example, the introduction to the chapter on Noah no longer reads: “Hre begynneth the hystorye of Noe the first Sonday in Sexagesme” but “here begynneth the lyfe

Sixteenth-century editions 151 of Noe as here after foloweth in this p[re]cent treatyse.”101 Similarly, the introduction to the chapter on Saul eliminates the phrase: “The first sondaẙ after Trẙnẙty sondaẙ unto the first sondaẙ of the moneth of August is redde the book of kẙnges.”102 The 1510 edition uses the same woodblocks as Caxton’s first edition, although they cover a much larger portion of the page in a quarto than they do in a folio, giving this text almost the appearance of a picture book. The small size and lavish illustration of this text are not unusual for Worde’s firm, which is recognized as having focused on developing the popular market by bringing out smaller, less expensive books, while simultaneously employing more illustrations.103 Nor were “Picture Bibles” an innovation, having existed as a manuscript genre since at least the thirteenth century. This form of the Bible, sometimes known as the “Moralized Bible style,” at their largest might comprise over 1,800 full pages of illumination. They consisted of passages of scripture, each illustrated and accompanied by a moral or allegorical interpretation.104 Caxton’s text, of course, does not supplement its paraphrases with interpretations. The production of the 1510 edition testifies to Worde’s expectation that not only would vernacular biblical paraphrase still find an audience among the book-buying public, but also that there were readers who wanted a personal copy of stories from the Bible independent from a large hagiographic collection. The failure of Worde’s or any other printing shop to reissue this small, illustrated edition of the Old Testament chapters suggests that its sales were disappointing. Perhaps the modification of the scriptural paraphrases to fit a hagiographic framework was unpalatable taken out of the context of The Golden Legend, and customers who wanted to own a pocket-sized copy of vernacular scripture preferred a version with fewer modifications. Possibly potential buyers were deterred by the revived episcopal persecution of heretics. In any case, this experiment, like those of the Notary and Pynson editions, was not repeated. In 1512, about two years after the abridged version of Caxton’s Golden Legend, Worde released a new full edition. Henry VIII was still at the start of his reign, and much of his attention focused on foreign policy, especially war with France. In June of 1512, Henry went to France to oversee the military campaign there, trusting his wife Catherine to be governor of the realm in England.105 By 1518, it became clear that Henry was not going to succeed in taking the crown of France, and peace was enacted in an elaborate performance at the Field of the Cloth of Gold.106 Towards the end of the decade, Henry’s attention came to be drawn increasingly to matters of religion. The version of Caxton’s Golden Legend released by Worde in 1512 was its sixth complete edition. After the previous three experiments with text compression, collaboration, and abridgment, the 1512 version looks back to Worde’s 1498 edition as a model in regard to organization and layout. It also serves as a paradigm for the next two editions, published in 1521 and 1527. Like the 1498 edition, all three of Worde’s full sixteenth-century editions use the “Trinity Adored by Saints” frontispiece of the fifteenth-century Caxton and Worde

152 Sixteenth-century editions editions, with its painstaking depiction of all three persons of the Trinity, its inclusion of the English saint Edmund King and Martyr, and its portrayal of Peter holding a key and wearing a papal crown. As many of the woodcuts used in the collaborative edition were also employed by Worde in this and his next two editions, Worde presumably might have borrowed or rented Pynson’s frontispiece woodblock if he had wished. Worde’s choice to use the same frontispiece as Caxton is a deliberate one, not the result of a lack of alternatives. Additionally, all three of Worde’s full sixteenth-century editions follow the “two book” model, with the Old Testament chapters in front and the other chapters in the back, each with their own table of contents and foliation.107 These three editions all incorporate the Old Testament paraphrases into the genre of historiography, and they all use the terms “history,” “life,” and “legend” to describe the biblical chapters. Even though the particular woodblocks change over time, the Old Testament chapters in these three editions are lavishly illustrated, ranging from 80 to 100 percent having a woodcut, much higher than for the second “book” of the text.108 Therefore, of the eight full editions of Caxton’s Golden Legend published during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the “two book” model is used in six of them. The publishers clearly considered it to be the organizational scheme most likely to inspire sales. Worde, Pynson, and Notary evidently believed that members of the English book-buying public were eager to possess copies of a large collection of medieval saints’ lives, that the readers interested in investing in works of hagiographic piety also wanted an English-language version of the Old Testament, and that they were, in addition, open to vernacular scriptures that were not only paraphrases rather than translations but also modified to fit the genre of hagiography. Any of these printers might have chosen to omit the biblical chapters and simply offer the second “book” to the public. Or Caxton’s original 1484 edition might have been revived as a printing exemplar, submerging the Old Testament chapters into the text where they would not form the customers’ first impressions. Worde and Pynson dominated English printing during these three decades. It is unlikely that they could be very much mistaken regarding their customers’ taste in devotional literature. The page layouts in Worde’s 1512 edition of Caxton’s Golden Legend reveal both continuity and change from the collaborative 1507 version. Many of the borders and fleurons of the 1507 edition are retained: decorative borders regularly mark chapter endings in the 1512 edition. Furthermore, borders and fleurons are frequently positioned next to smaller woodblocks to fill out the width of the column. In this way, partial-column-sized woodblocks, many of which also appear in the 1507 edition, form part of larger images. In addition, the set of historiated initials used in the Pynson edition are used again in 1512, usually to mark the start of chapters, although they appear infrequently. This edition discontinues the practice of using two headlines on pages containing parts of two chapters.

Sixteenth-century editions 153 The 1512 edition displays a wider range of chapter images through the creation of composite woodcuts incorporating factotums, elements used sparingly if at all in previous editions. Factotums are separate figures that can be combined in various ways in different woodcuts, such as male and female figures whose clothing identifies them as a type, or whose gestures communicate a message, as well as different backgrounds or buildings.109 For example, a single generic image of a bishop might be fitted with rolling hills in the background of one illustration and a walled city in another. Because of this innovation, and the use of borders and fleurons, few woodblocks in this edition are repeated as identical images. The 1512 edition of Caxton’s Golden Legend also uses banderoles, that is, scrolls with wording. Scrolls in woodcuts were based on illustrations in medieval manuscripts, paintings, and tapestries, where they were often used to identify figures.110 Worde uses them to label generic figures as specific saints. For example, the chapter on Isaac displays an image of man wearing a cape and turban, his hands clasped in prayer, standing below a scroll reading: “Ysaac.”111 The use of banderoles supports the impression that chapter images served to help readers locate chapters on particular saints. Worde’s composites and banderoles provided a cost-effective way of customizing images to aid readers looking for specific chapters rather than reading continuously.112 Further evidence that the 1512 edition was designed to accommodate a discontinuous reading of the book may be found in its table of contents. Readers who turn to the end of the Old Testament “book” would see only one table of contents, and it is arranged alphabetically. The sequential table is omitted. The alphabetical table is introduced by a title and a description: The table of this present boke. To the ende that eche hystorye lyfe and passion may be short-ly founded I have ordeyned this table folowynge by letter of a/b/c & name of every saynt whose lyfe is cōteyned in the bo-ke ensuynge / where and in what lefe he shall fynde suche as shall be desired: I have sette the nombre of every lefe in the margyne.113 This edition does not reorder the chapters in the second “book” alphabetically: they are still arranged with the Temporale feasts grouped first, followed by the Sanctorale chapters arranged according to the liturgical calendar. Nevertheless, the omission of a sequential table, along with more specific chapter images, indicates that the imagined readers for this edition are expected to be less eager to read the text in coordination with the liturgical calendar than the readers imagined by Caxton when he assembled the collection thirty years earlier. The readers of the 1512 edition might be imagined as using the book as a reference for sermon composition, but the further the paratext and illustrations drifted from presenting the text as auxiliary to the liturgical calendar, the more likely it is that the publishers anticipated readers using the book for private devotional purposes.

154 Sixteenth-century editions Another way to assess how the readers imagined the 1512 edition might compare with those of Caxton’s original version is to consider the chapters selected for illustration in each. As Table 7.2 indicates, areas in which expectations regarding the devotional preferences of imagined readers remain constant are the life of Christ, the Old Testament material, and British saints. In Caxton’s first edition, these three categories account for 40 percent of all illustrated chapters; in Worde’s 1512 edition they represent nearly the same: 38 percent. The anticipation of readers interested in life of Christ evident in the large number of illustrated chapters on that topic is reflected in the choices made in the 1512 edition regarding the woodcuts positioned at the beginning and end of each “book.” Other than the frontispiece and printer’s device, most have been omitted. Worde retains from the 1498 edition the vertically stacked woodcuts in which the top image depicts the annunciation and the bottom, the crucifixion; in other words, the beginning and end of the life of Jesus, positioned in 1512 just prior to the Old Testament chapters. At the close of the final biblical chapter, although there is no woodcut, there is a group of geometric shapes arranged in the form of a cross, a clear Christocentric reference. Table 7.2 Illustrated chapters in Caxton’s Golden Legend in 1st edition (1484) and the 7th edition (1512) TYPE OF CHAPTERa

Apostles Life of Christ Vulgate: Old Testament British Saints Martyrs Marian Feasts Women Not Our Lady, Mary Magdalene, or Martyrs Evangelists and Biblical Translators Bishops and Popes Soldiers Monks and Friars Confessors Hermits Not Saints’ Lives TOTAL

NUMBER 1483

1512

Change

14 14 12 8 7 5 0 5 5 3 3 2 2 4 84

8 14 13 9 11 4 1 4 16 1 2 1 1 3 88

(6) 1 1 4 (1) 1 (1) 11 (2) (1) (1) (1) (1)

Sources: This table draws upon GL EEBO 1484 and GL EEBO 1512, supplemented in the case of missing folios in the 1512 edition with GL John Rylands 1512. Note a These types are not mutually exclusive. For example, Matthew and John are both evangelists and apostles. For the purposes of this chart each chapter is listed only once, in whichever category is most emphasized by the chapter text or illustration.

Sixteenth-century editions 155 There are only three topics in which the number of illustrated chapters is appreciably different between the 1484 and 1512 editions, namely, the apostles, which decrease by six; martyrs, which increase by four; and bishops and popes, which increase by eleven. The decrease in the use of woodcuts to highlight apostles and the large increase in their use to highlight members of the higher clergy suggests that the buyers imagined for the 1512 edition placed a greater value on the medieval church hierarchy than on ancient church leaders. Perhaps this partiality indicates an acceptance of the role of the episcopacy and papacy in determining ecclesiological structure and ritual in opposition to a desire to remodel the church in accordance with apostolic practice, although it may not necessarily express that ideological leaning. At the very least, it argues that Worde expected book buyers to be more impressed by clerical saints than moved by anticlericalism. The increase in illustrated chapters on martyrs indicates, in part, a continued expectation of devotion to what was long considered to be the premier type of saint. Two of the four martyrs whose chapters are selected for illustration in the 1512 edition but not in the 1484 edition are women.114 This choice may be connected to the decision to illustrate for the first time a female saint who is neither a martyr nor a close companion of Jesus, namely, Mary of Egypt, a hermit saint. These additions increase the number of illustrated chapters on female saints other than Our Lady in the 1512 edition to seven, an admittedly small number, representing less than 10 percent of all illustrated chapters, but nevertheless greater than the four such chapters originally selected by Caxton for illustration. This increase may indicate an attempt to appeal to imagined readers who were themselves women. Worde’s next full edition of Caxton’s Golden Legend was released 1521, in a more volatile environment as regards theological belief and devotional practice. In 1516, Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466–1536) published a Greek translation of the New Testament based not on the Vulgate but on linguistic research informed by humanism. In 1517, Martin Luther issued his ninetyfive theses in Wittenberg.115 Although both events took place outside England, they inspired a sizable English reaction. The year 1518 marks the first importation of Luther’s books into England, specifically into Oxford, where they seem to have found a market.116 In 1520, Pope Leo X (r. 1513–1521) condemned some of Luther’s teachings, prompting some English bishops to order his books to be confiscated and burned.117 Henry VIII was initially strongly opposed to Luther’s ideas. The Assertio Septem Sacramentorum adversus Martinum Lutherum, Henry’s theological work denouncing the ninety-five theses, a work possibly ghost-written by his advisors or by academics, was displayed in May of 1521 at a royal ceremony in London presided over by Lord Chancellor Thomas Wolsey, a ceremony that included the burning of Lutheran books at Saint Paul’s cross.118 It was because of the Assertio that Henry was rewarded with the papal designation “Defender of the Faith.”119 In 1521, Wolsey organized a national effort to eliminate Luther’s books from England, prompting a royal proclamation ordering local officials to assist bishops in uncovering Luther’s supporters.120

156 Sixteenth-century editions There were tracts printed in England supporting and attacking Luther’s ideas. Both Thomas More and John Fisher (c.1469–1535), for example, had spirited defenses of the king’s Assertio published in response to attacks on it by Luther and his supporters.121 But these kinds of tracts were not without risk to the publishing industry. As expressed by Stanley Johnson, “Apart from the profits brought in to the printers and booksellers by the sale of pro- and antiLutheran tracts, the Lutheran controversy also served to subject the printers and booksellers to increasing regulation by both the Church and the Crown.”122 Furthermore, spurred by the attempt to limit the introduction of Lutheran ideas, during the late 1520s England imposed more restrictions on foreign-born printers, apprentices, and journeymen.123 Worde’s 1521 edition of Caxton’s Golden Legend largely mirrors the previous edition. The organization follows the “two book” model, and the sole table of contents for the second “book” is arranged alphabetically, headed by the same descriptive introduction. There are a few changes in the images: the vertically stacked woodcuts of the annunciation and the crucifixion are omitted, as are the images for the chapters on Isaac and Judith; the cross made of geometric shapes is omitted from the table of contents; and the final chapter, on Erasmus (d. c.303), a bishop, is illustrated.124 Worde’s printer’s device is more elaborate, but still incorporates William Caxton’s initials. Other than these minor modifications, Worde seems to have expected the design of the 1512 edition to attract the English book-buying public. There is evidence from the 1520s that Worde considered expanding his list of devotional works to include Lutheran material and texts otherwise considered heretical by the English church. In 1524 he was among those warned by Bishop Tunstall against importing Lutheran books into England. In 1525, Worde and his former apprentice, John Gough, were summoned to ecclesiastical court for their publication of The Image of Love, alleged to contain heresy.125 Many copies had already been sold, including sixty copies sent to Syon Abbey. Worde and Gough were charged to stop selling copies and to recover those already sold.126 These events reveal two critical aspects of the context in which Worde produced the final editions of The Golden Legend. First, Worde’s willingness to sell theologically suspect texts shows him to be motivated by a desire to meet market demands rather than by religious convictions. His decision to continue issuing Caxton’s legendary should not be understood as a campaign to persuade readers to adhere to an unwelcome orthodoxy, but rather an ongoing effort to offer for sale whatever the market wanted to buy. Second, these actions show that Worde operated under the belief that a demand for traditional hagiographic works and cutting-edge evangelical ones existed simultaneously. The mid-1520s saw the English episcopate, guided by Lord Chancellor Wolsey, attempt to prevent a new vernacular translation of the New Testament, based in part on the work of Erasmus of Rotterdam, from reaching the English market. This new translation, made by William Tyndale, a supporter of Luther, was printed in March of 1526. It was published in Worms because of English

Sixteenth-century editions 157 laws against new vernacular translations of the Bible, but copies were quickly imported to England.127 In the fall, London booksellers were ordered to submit any copies they had to the diocesan office, an order shortly after replicated throughout the country.128 In November of 1527, at a trial arranged by Wolsey of two Oxford-trained priests accused of preaching Lutheranism, the English episcopate was expressly reminded that only the Church could interpret scripture.129 The efforts of the English government to prevent Lutheran ideas from taking root encountered an unexpected complication in this same year. In 1527 Henry VIII directed Wolsey to begin secret proceedings to overturn the papal permission that had allowed the king to marry Catherine of Aragon even though she was his brother’s widow. Their only surviving child, Mary, had been born in 1516, and the king wanted to marry Anne Boleyn (1501–1536) with the expectation that she would provide a male heir.130 Wolsey ultimately failed to find a method of ending Henry’s marriage to Catherine in a way that would allow the king to remain in obedience to the pope. In this same year, 1527, Worde issued his final edition of Caxton’s Golden Legend. It closely mirrors the 1521 edition. The organization follows the “two book” model, and the sole table of contents for the second “book” is arranged alphabetically, headed by the same descriptive introduction. Two woodcuts are omitted, namely chapter illustrations for the Nativity of Our Lady and the final chapter, on Erasmus.131 None are added. Otherwise, the paratext and illustrations remain virtually the same. The editions of Caxton’s Golden Legend published during the roughly thirty-year period from 1498 through 1527 offer substantial evidence that, in the professional opinions of Wynkyn de Worde, Richard Pynson, and Julian Notary, members of the book-buying public interested in saints’ lives might be tempted into purchasing a large collection by the conspicuous inclusion of fifty or so generously illustrated leaves of paraphrased English scripture. The repetition of the “two book” format over the course of six editions, particularly by so market-savvy a businessman as Worde, signals an English readership interested in both conventional hagiography and the vernacular Bible. Furthermore, these readers were imagined as comfortable with biblical paraphrase rather than direct translation; with the idea of the Bible as a collection of true histories rather than a text whose specific words and expression are divinely inspired; and with biblical figures occupying the same devotional category as saints. These same readers are imagined by Worde as being interested in the life of Christ, a life understood as beginning with the nativity and continuing posthumously through the relic of the cross and a visitation to Saint Christopher. At the same time, the readers are imagined as being enthusiastic about bishops and popes, the established leaders of the church hierarchy. Worde did not expect partiality towards vernacular scriptures and the life of Christ to be oppositional to a fondness for high-ranking clergy. Finally, these readers are imagined to be drawn towards British saints and attracted

158 Sixteenth-century editions by stories of the British, and particularly English, past. Chapter illustrations directed attention toward British saints as well as papal ones, anticipating readers whose national sentiments were not seen as incompatible with an attachment to the papacy. In 1529, the “Reformation Parliament” began to meet, and would not fully disband until 1534. In that year, the Act of Supremacy proclaimed that the monarch rather than the pope was head of the church in England. The dissolution of ties between the English church and the pope marked an opportunity for Protestant sympathizers in court to exercise greater influence over religious policy, at least temporarily.132 The mid-1530s thus witnessed a change in the attitude of the government towards the Bible. In 1535 the first full printed English vernacular Bible, the Coverdale Bible, was produced in Antwerp; it was imported and sold in England without governmental obstruction.133 Scholars such as Tyndale and Erasmus of Rotterdam, who insisted on “pure” translations of original texts of scripture, or rather, of the texts they believed to be closest to the originals, would have welcomed the Coverdale Bible as a step in the right direction.134 By 1538 the crown ordered all parishes to acquire a copy of the English Bible.135 In 1539, little more than a decade after Worde’s final edition of Caxton’s Golden Legend, the folio edition of the Coverdale Bible, also known as the Great Bible, was printed in England under royal license.136 Wynkyn de Worde died in 1534 or 1535, just after the Act of Supremacy, in the same period when Thomas More and John Fisher were executed for their refusal to accept a Christian church headed by the king of England.137 Worde’s will, dated 5 June 1534, expresses a conventional piety. He belonged to the Fraternity of Our Blessed Lady at Saint Bride’s church, requested burial before the altar of Saint Katherine in the same church, and bequeathed ten shillings for prayers for his soul. He also instructed his executors to provide funding for an obit, or annual mass for his soul, and an annual gift of twenty shillings to the poor of Saint Bride’s parish.138 After Worde’s 1527 edition, Caxton’s Golden Legend was not published again, except in excerpts, for 365 years. In 1892, William Morris chose it as a project for his Kelmscott Press, an attempt to revive the aesthetics of early English printing as envisaged by pre-Raphaelite artists. The Kelmscott edition is designed to appeal to tastes encouraged by late nineteenth-century Romanticism, not to readers of pious literature. The devotional culture that emerged after the Henrician Reformation proved uncongenial to Caxton’s legendary, drawing to a close its forty-three-year publication history.

Notes 1 Lotte Hellinga, William Caxton and Early Printing in England (London: The British Library, 2010), 2. Aliens dominated the English book trade at this time: Yvonne Rode, “Importing Books to London in the Late Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries: Evidence from the London Overseas Customs Accounts,”

Sixteenth-century editions 159

2 3 4 5 6 7

8 9 10

11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23 24

Journal of the Early Book Society for the Study of Manuscripts and Printing History 15 (2012): 46. GL EEBO 1504; GL EEBO 1507. GL EEBO 1510; GL EEBO 1512; GL EEBO 1521; and GL EEBO 1527. Dan Jones, The Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors (New York: Viking Press, 2014), 319. G. R. Elton, England Under the Tudors, 2nd ed., rpt. ed. (London: Methuen, 1983), 37–39. G. W. Bernard, The Late Medieval English Church: Vitality and Vulnerability Before the Break with Rome (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 105. Peter W. M. Blayney, “The Site of the Sign of the Sun,” in The London Book Trade: Topographies of Print in the Metropolis from the Sixteenth Century, ed. Robin Myers, Michael Harris, and Giles Mandelbrote (London: Oak Knoll Press & The British Library, 2003), 1–2; 12. Worde may have moved anytime between the spring of 1500 and 1501, but probably moved before the end of 1500: Blayney, “The Site,” 3. Lotte Hellinga and Mary C. Erler, eds., Wynkyn de Worde, Father of Fleet Street, rev. ed., original author was James Moran (New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll, 2003), 17. Tamara Atkin and A. S. G. Edwards, “Printers, Publishers and Promoters to 1558,” in A Companion to the Early Printed Book in Britain, 1476–1558, ed. Vincent Gillespie and Susan Powell (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2014), 30. Hellinga and Erler, Wynkyn de Worde, 33; Robert Grabhorn, A Short Account of The Life and Work of Wynkyn de Worde with a Leaf from the Golden Legend Printed By Him at the Sign of the Sun in Fleet Street, London, the Year 1517 (San Francisco: Grabhorn Press, 1948), 8. Martha Driver, The Image in Print: Book Illustration in Late Medieval England (London: British Library, 2004), 34. Hellinga and Erler, Wynkyn de Worde, 17 and 37. Other printers who opened premises around Fleet Street in the early sixteenth century included Richard Pynson, John Wayland, John Butler, Robert Copland, and Richard Tottel: Hellinga and Erler, Wynkyn de Worde, 17. Hellinga, William Caxton, 126 and 148. Peter W. M. Blayney, The Stationers’ Company before the Charter, 1403–1557 (London: The Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspapermakers, 2003), 23. Hellinga and Erler, Wynkyn de Worde, 37. Blayney, “The Site,” 7; Hellinga, William Caxton, 148. Hellinga, William Caxton, 176; Rode, “Importing Books,” 41–55; Henry R. Plomer, A Short History of English Printing, 1476–1898, ed. Alfred Pollard (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1900), 37–38. Hellinga, William Caxton, 176. E. Gordon Duff, The Printers, Stationers and Bookbinders of Westminster and London from 1476–1535 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1906), 141. GL EEBO 1504, unfoliated leaf. None of the woodcuts in Notary’s edition of Caxton’s Golden Legend appear in the editions produced by Caxton and Worde, although Notary owned some woodblocks that had belonged to Caxton’s firm, possibly sold by Worde upon his move from Westminster: Duff, Printers, 141–42. The function of a rood screen is to separate the nave from the chancel, that is, the part of the church associated with the laity from the part associated with the clergy. Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, c.1400–c.1580 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992), 157–60. Duff, Printers, 39; Hellinga, William Caxton, 175, fig. 97.

160 Sixteenth-century editions 25 Pamela Ayers Neville, “Rychard Pynson, King’s Printer (1506–1529): Printing and Propaganda in Early Tudor England,” PhD diss. (University of London, Warburg Institute, 1990), 58. 26 GL EEBO 1504, unfoliated leaf following folio xxxv. 27 On prologues as “blurbs,” see David R. Carlson, “Chaucer, Humanism, and Printing: Conditions of Authorship in Fifteenth-Century England,” University of Toronto Quarterly 64, (Spring 1995): 279. 28 It appears in the chapters on Judith, GL EEBO 1504, folio xxxiii verso; and the Decollation of John the Baptist, Cliii verso. 29 See Table 6.1. 30 Dominic, GL EEBO 1504, folio Cxxviii verso; the Assumption of Our Lady, Cxxxiiv verso; Bernard, Cxlv recto; Jerome, Clxxiiii recto; and Brendon, CCxxx verso. The two with historiated initials are those of Dominic and the Assumption of Our Lady. 31 These categories are not mutually exclusive. The bishops and popes are: Nicasius, GL EEBO 1504, folio xxxiii verso; Sylvester, xliii recto; Remigius, xlv recto; Firmin, xlvi recto; Felix, xlvii recto; Marcel, xlvii recto; Fabian, xlviii recto; Basil, liii recto; Julian the Bishop, lviii recto; Ignatius, lix recto; Blaise, lx verso; Vedaste, lxiii recto; Patrick, lxviii recto; Alphage, lxxv recto; Marcelin the Pope, lxxvii verso; Dunstan, lxxxv recto; Loye, lxxxxvi verso; Forsey, Clxx verso; Logier, Clxxvi recto; Denis, Clxxxi recto; Calixtus, Clxxxii verso; Clement, CCxx verso; Gaius, CCxlvii recto; Arnold, CCxlvii verso; Louis of Marseilles, CClv recto; and Albine, CClvi verso. The women saints are: Lucy, xxxii verso; Anastasia, xxxv verso; Eugenia, xxxvi recto; Pauline the Widow, lvi verso; Juliana the Virgin, lxiii verso; Mary of Egypt, lxxii verso; Pernella, lxxxv recto; Marine, lxxxix recto; Theodora, Cx recto; Christine, Cxvi verso; Margaret, Clxxx recto; Winifred, CCii recto; Clare, CCvii recto; and Aldegonde, CClvi recto. The British saints are: Patrick; Alphage; Dunstan; Edward King and Martyr, lxxxxii recto; Kenelm, Cxi verso; Fursey, Clxx verso; Winifred; and Fiacre, CCxlix recto. 32 These are for: Nicholas, GL EEBO 1504, folio xxix recto; Nicasius, folio xxxiii verso; Remigius, xlv recto; Hilary, lxv verso; Firmin, xlvi recto; Macarius, xlvi verso; Felix, xlvii recto; Basil, liii recto; Julian the Bishop, lviii recto; Ignatius, lix recto; Blaise, lx verso; Vedaste, lxiii recto; Maur, lxvii verso; Patrick, lxviii recto; Ambrose, lxxiii verso; Alphage, lxxv recto; Augustine of Canterbury, lxxxvi recto; Swithun, Cx verso; Translation of Thomas of Canterbury, Cxi recto; Augustine of Hippo, Cl recto; Lowe, Clvi verso; Lambert, Clxvi recto; Forsey, Clxx verso; Logier, Clxxvi recto; Martin, CCiiii recto; Erkenwold, CCxxxiii recto; Polycarp, CCxlv recto; Arnold, CCxlvii verso; Louis, Bishop of Marseilles, CClv recto; Albine, CClvi verso; and Erasmus, CClvii recto. 33 Macarius, GL EEBO 1504, folio xlvi verso. For these and other saints named Macarius, see John J. Delaney, Pocket Dictionary of Saints, abridged edition (New York: Image Books, 1983), 326–27. 34 James the Less, GL EEBO 1504, folio lxxx verso; James the Greater, Cxvii recto; and James the Martyr, CCxxviii verso. Delaney, Pocket Dictionary, 263–64. 35 Margaret of Antioch, GL EEBO 1504, folio Cxii verso; Margaret otherwise called Pelagien, Clxxx recto. 36 The thirteen Christological feasts or chapters otherwise closely related to the life of Jesus are: Advent, GL EEBO 1504, folio primo; Circumcision, iiii verso; Epiphany, vi verso; Passion of Our Lord, x verso; Resurrection, xiiii recto; Ascension of Our Lord, xvii recto; Pentecost, xix verso; Corpus Christi, xxii verso; Invention of the Holy Cross, lxxxii recto; Exaltation of the Cross, Clxii verso; John the Baptist, lxxxxv recto; Mary Magdalene, Cxiii verso; and Christopher, Cxix verso. The ten for Old Testament chapters are: Adam, folio i recto; Noah, ii verso; Abraham, iii

Sixteenth-century editions 161

37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46

47 48 49 50 51 52

53 54 55

56 57 58 59 60 61

verso; Isaac, vi verso; Joseph, x recto; Moses, xv recto; David, xxv verso; Solomon, xxvii verso; Job, xxix verso; and Tobit, xxx recto. The six for women saints other than Our Lady are: Agnes, folio l verso; Mary of Egypt, lxxii verso; Mary Magdalene, Cxiii verso; Ursula, Clxxxxiii recto; Barbara, CCxii verso; and Katherine, CCxxiii verso. The three Marian are: the Conception of Our Lady, folio xxxi recto; the Annunciation, lxxi verso; and the Nativity of Our Lady, Clviii recto. The four British are: Thomas of Canterbury, folio xl verso; Dunstan, lxxxv recto; Edward King and Martyr, lxxxxii recto; and Edward the Confessor, Clxxxiii recto. GL EEBO 1504, folio lxxv verso. GL EEBO 1504, folio CClviii recto. GL EEBO 1504, folio CClviii verso. Duff, Printers, 141–44. Jones, Wars of the Roses, 325–26. Bernard, Late Medieval, 209. Bernard, Late Medieval, 209. Elton, England, 74. Blayney, The Stationers’ Company, 23. Pynson was probably born before 1451, that is, while King Henry VI still ruled Normandy, so he may have been technically an English native: Blayney, The Stationers’ Company, 24. Contemporary documents, however, refer to him as French: Neville, “Rychard Pynson,” 11. Atkin and Edwards, “Printers, Publishers,” 30. Neville, “Rychard Pynson,” 12. Blayney, “The Site,” 1; Hellinga and Erler, Wynkyn de Worde, 17. Blayney, The Stationers’ Company, 24. Blayney, The Stationers’ Company, 29–31; Johnson, “Richard Pynson,” 56. Daniel Wakelin, Humanism, Reading and English Literature, 1430–1530 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 194; Elton, England, 113. On the relationship between More and the business community of London, see G. D. Ramsay, “A Saint in the City: Thomas More at Mercers’ Hall, London,” The English Historical Review 97 (1982): 269–88. Blayney, The Stationers’ Company, 24; Norman Francis Blake, “Wynkyn de Worde: The Early Years,” Gutenberg Jahrbuch (1971): 66. Hellinga and Erler, Wynkyn de Worde, 41. Julia Boffey, “Wynkyn de Worde, Richard Pynson, and the English Printing of Texts translated from French,” in Vernacular Literature and Current Affairs in the Early Sixteenth Century: France, England, and Scotland, ed. Richard Britnell and Jennifer J. Britnell (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2000), 175. Boffey, “Wynkyn de Worde,” 179; Johnson, “Richard Pynson,” 54. Shannon McSheffrey, “Heresy, Orthodoxy, and English Vernacular Religion, 1480–1525,” Past and Present 186 (2005): 57. Atkin and Edwards, “Printers, Publishers,” 28. Hellinga and Erler, Wynkyn de Worde, 41. Boffey, “Wynkyn de Worde,” 178; David Bland, A History of Book Illustration: The Illuminated Manuscript and the Printed Book (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), 137–38. Anne Sutton, “William Caxton, Merchant and King’s Printer,” in The Medieval Merchant, ed. Caroline Barron and Anne F. Sutton, Harlaxton Medieval Studies, 24 (Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2014), 259–60. In 1504, the court seems to have bestowed the title of “King’s Printer” for the first time: the recipient was William Faques (d. 1505): Stanley Howard Johnson, “A Study of the Career and Literary Publications of Richard Pynson,” PhD diss. (University of Western Ontario, 1977), 71; Neville, “Richard Pynson,” 33.

162 Sixteenth-century editions 62 Neville, “Richard Pynson,” 2. 63 Neville, “Rychard Pynson,” 34. 64 Boffey, “Wynkyn de Worde,” 179; Neville, “Rychard Pynson,” 37. Both Worde and Pynson had heraldic woodcuts made to celebrate their association with Lady Margaret: A. S. G. Edwards and Carol M. Meale, “The Marketing of Printed Books in Late Medieval England,” The Library, 6th ser., 15 (1993): 102. 65 Neville, “Rychard Pynson,” 12. 66 Blake, “Early Years,” 66. Worde participated in many collaborations throughout his career, both with English printers and French ones: Boffey, “Wynkyn de Worde,” 176. 67 Atkin and Edwards, “Printers, Publishers,” 34; Boffey, “Wynkyn de Worde,” 178. 68 Johnson, “Richard Pynson,” 94. 69 Johnson, “Richard Pynson,” 94. 70 Neville, “Rychard Pynson,” 36. O’Mara concurs, stating that these two variants of the 1507 edition are identical except for the colophon: V. M. O’Mara, “From Print to Manuscript: The Golden Legend and British Library Lansdowne MS 379,” Leeds Studies in English, n.s. 23 (1992), note 34. Johnson states that the copies produced for Pynson have “Pynson’s name placed in a substitute colophon and Pynson’s device”: Johnson, “Richard Pynson,” 94. These variants have been assigned slightly different Short Title Catalogue numbers: STC 24878.3 for those crediting Worde and STC 24878.5 for those crediting Pynson. 71 The EEBO copy is missing the colophon, but it is present in the physical copy GL Folger Library 1507. 72 The only copy of the 1507 book crediting Pynson is in Lambeth Palace Library: E. Gordon Duff, Printers, Stationers, 162. There is no EBBO copy, but Lambeth Palace Library makes images of several of the folios available in its online image collection: Lambeth Palace Library, Collection Section, Printed Books, http://images.lambethpalacelibrary.org.uk/luna/servlet, version 7.1.6.11, accessed 31 August 2019. 73 Atkin and Edwards, “Printers, Publishers,” 34. 74 Johnson, “Richard Pynson,” 94. Pynson was involved in a number of lawsuits. 75 Both the EBBO facsimile and the physical copy of this edition that I examined are missing the opening folios: GL EEBO 1507 and GL Folger Library 1507. The copy in Lambeth Palace Library is complete: Lambeth Palace Library, Collection Section, Printed Books, http://images.lambethpalacelibrary.org.uk/ luna/servlet, version 7.1.6.11, accessed 31 August 2019. I appreciate the longdistance assistance provided by Sarah Etheridge, Assistant Librarian, Lambeth Palace Library, regarding this copy. 76 Karen Bruhn, “Reforming Saint Peter: Protestant Constructions of Saint Peter the Apostle in Early Modern England,” The Sixteenth Century Journal 33, no. 1 (2002): 37–38. 77 See Table 6.1. 78 British Library, English Short Title Catalogue, http://estc.bl.uk/S95710, accessed 1 September 2019. This length refers to the Pynson issue, STC 24878.5, as it is a complete copy. 79 The appearance of luxury can be created by liberal margins: Partridge, “Designing the Page,” in The Production of Books in England, 1350–1500, ed. Alexandria Gillespie and Daniel Wakelin, Cambridge Studies in Paleography and Codicology, gen. ed. David Ganz and Teresa Webber (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 81. 80 There seems to have been only one set used: five-line high historiated initials decorated with human faces, animal heads, birds, and flowers.

Sixteenth-century editions 163 81 These elements are also used after short lines of text to give the appearance of center justification. Worde and Pynson both seem to have had abundant supplies of fleurons: Martha Driver, “Woodcuts and Decorative Techniques,” in Gillespie and Powell, Early Printed Book, 110. 82 The former appears in the chapters on Alphage, GL EEBO 1507, folio Cxvi recto; Translation of Thomas of Canterbury, Clxxiii recto; Appollinaris, Clxxxi recto; Eusebius, Clxxxxv recto; and Augustine of Hippo, CCxxxiiii verso. The latter appears in the chapters on Hilary, folio lxx recto; Ambrose, Cxiii verso; Augustine of Canterbury, Cxxxiii verso; Germain, Cxxxv verso; Bernard, CCxxvii verso; Lambert, CCxxxv verso; Leonard, CCCxi verso; and Brendon, CCClv verso. Brendon is usually depicted as a monk rather than a bishop, but he is credited with founding several episcopal sees in Ireland. 83 The saints depicted are: (top row) Mary of Egypt, the Conception of Our Lady, and Anne; (middle row) Edmund King and Martyr; John the Baptist; and Gangulphus of Burgundy; (bottom row) Norbert, Anthony, and Ursula. In five cases, the image used here is also used as a chapter illustration in this edition: Conception of Our Lady, GL EEBO 1507, folio xlviii recto; Edmund King and Martyr, CCCxxxviii verso; John the Baptist, Cxlvii verso; Anthony, lxxiii recto; and Ursula, CClxxxxiiii verso. In three cases, the saints are not the subject of chapters in Caxton’s Golden Legend, namely Anne, Gangulphus, and Norbert. Mary of Egypt is the subject of a chapter, but it is unillustrated in this edition. Worde will use this woodblock to illustrate Mary of Egypt’s chapter in his next three editions. 84 See Table 6.1. 85 Illustrations are removed from the chapters on Pope Felix and Bishops Polycarp and Quiriacus; they are added to the chapters on Pope Clement and Bishops Remigius, Dunstan, Germain, Apollinaris, and Eusebius. 86 A detailed argument against claims of English anticlericalism may be found in Christopher Haigh, English Reformations: Religion, Politics and Society under the Tudors (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993). 87 The illustration is removed from the chapter on Alban and Amphibalus, but added to the chapters on Alphage; Dunstan; and Edward King and Martyr. 88 Thomas of Canterbury, GL EEBO 1507, folio lxii verso; and George, Cxvii recto. The other two saints whose chapters have larger illustrations are Martin and Andrew. The remainder of the single-column woodcuts decorate Old Testament chapters, chapters on Christological feasts, and the chapter on the Dedication of a Church. 89 Illustrations are removed from the chapters on the apostles Matthias, Philip, Barnabas, Bartholomew, and Simon and Jude; one is added to the chapter on John Before the Latin Gate. 90 Illustrations are removed from the chapters on the Holy Innocents, the Decollation of John the Baptist, and the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. 91 Susan Powell, “The Secular Clergy,” in Gillespie and Powell, Early Printed Book, 155. 92 Edwards and Meale, “Marketing,” 118. 93 Martha Driver, “Pictures in Print: Late Fifteenth- and Early Sixteenth-Century English Religious Books for Lay Readers,” in De Cella in Seculum: Religious and Secular Life and Devotion in Late Medieval England, ed. M. G. Sargent (Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer 1989), 230–31. 94 Driver, “Pictures in Print,” 231. 95 Blake, “Early Years,” 64. 96 The EEBO copy has no colophon; EEBO describes the date as “1510?” 97 Elton, England, 41.

164 Sixteenth-century editions 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118

119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133

Elton, England, 70. Neville, “Richard Pynson,” 37. GL EEBO 1510. The EEBO copy also cuts off the foliation. GL EEBO 1484, folio xxxix recto; GL EEBO 1510, image 7. GL EEBO 1484, folio lxiii recto; GL EEBO 1510, image 67. Atkins and Edwards, “Printers, Publishers,” 30. Robert Branner, Manuscript Painting in Paris During the Reign of Saint Louis: A Study of Styles (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), 22–32. Johnson, “Richard Pynson,” 88. Johnson, “Richard Pynson,” 137–38. The 1512 edition dispenses with both the printer’s device at the close of the first “book” and the frontispiece at the start of the second “book.” On average, throughout the various editions, only about a third of the chapters are illustrated. Driver, “Woodcuts,” 99. Driver, “Woodcuts,” 105. GL EEBO 1512, folio x recto. Driver, Image in Print, 67. GL EEBO 1512, unfoliated leaf after folio liiii. They are Agnes and Barbara. Neville, “Rychard Pynson,” 151. Haigh, English Reformations, 57. Haigh, English Reformations, 57. Haigh, English Reformations, 57. John King and Mark Rankin argue that Thomas More and John Fisher probably contributed: King and Rankin, “Print, Patronage, and the Reception of Continental Reform: 1521–1603,” The Yearbook of English Studies 38 (2008): 50. The Assertio Septem Sacramentorum was printed in June of 1521 by Richard Pynson: Johnson, “Richard Pynson,” 144. Johnson, “Richard Pynson,” 145. Haigh, English Reformations, 57. Johnson, “Richard Pynson,” 146. Johnson, “Richard Pynson,” 150. Atkin and Edwards, “Printers, Publishers,” 36; Grabhorn, A Short Account, 5; Johnson, “Richard Pynson,” 86. Isaac, GL EEBO 1521, folio x verso; Judith, liiii verso; Erasmus, CCClxxxii verso. Its author was John Ryckes, a Cambridge-educated Franciscan who was, to quote Lotte Hellinga, “an ardent evangelist”: Hellinga, William Caxton, 168–69. Hellinga and Erler, Wynkyn de Worde, 42. Haigh, English Reformations, 57–58. Haigh, English Reformations, 58. Haigh, English Reformations, 62. Haigh, English Reformations, 89–90. Nativity of Our Lady, GL EEBO 1527, folio CCxxxiiii verso; Erasmus, CCClxxxii verso. The Act of Supremacy, which established the monarch as head of the church in England, was issued in 1534. John King, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and Early Modern Print Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 10. Myles Coverdale based his New Testament on the translation made by the unfortunate William Tyndale.

Sixteenth-century editions 165 134 Andrew C. Gow, “Challenging the Protestant Paradigm: Bible Reading in Lay and Urban Contexts of the Later Middle Ages,” in Scripture and Pluralism: The Study of the Bible in the Religiously Plural Worlds of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, ed. Thomas Heffernan (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 188–89. 135 The Royal Injunctions of 1538 required parish authorities to purchase a singlevolume copy of the Bible: Ellen Spolsky, “Literacy after Iconoclasm in the English Reformation,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 39, no. 2 (Spring 2009), 306. Churchwardens’ accounts suggest that rural parishes were slow to comply, probably more because of cost than theological opinion. See Robert Whiting, Local Responses to the English Reformation (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), 94. 136 Ellen Spolsky, “Literacy,” 305; F. F. Bruce, History of the Bible in English (Cambridge: Lutterworth Press, 1979), 69; King, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, 10. 137 Hellinga and Erler, Wynkyn de Worde, 39; Powell, “The Secular Clergy,” 155. 138 Hellinga and Erler, Wynkyn de Worde, 43.

8

The afterlife of The Golden Legend

Although no new editions of Caxton’s Golden Legend were released between 1527 and 1892, copies of the books continued to be owned, presumably sometimes read, and occasionally written on or otherwise marked by men and women who lived during that time. Religious cultures developed during these early modern centuries that were quite different from those prevailing when the editions of Caxton’s Golden Legend were created. Early modern Europe witnessed the birth of Protestantism followed by conflict among different Christian confessions, phenomena affecting England from the reign of King Henry VIII. Shortly after Worde’s final edition was released, Henry’s failure to obtain papal permission to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon led him to remove the church in England from papal obedience. In 1534 Parliament issued the Act of Supremacy, which rejected the papal claim to authority over the whole Christian church and set the groundwork for naming Henry VIII the supreme head of the Church of England. Subsequent legislation closed monasteries, dissolved religious gilds, changed liturgical practices, and created new rules governing clergy. Henrician legislation, followed by legislation issued under his Protestantminded successors through Elizabeth I (r. 1558–1603), made England an officially Protestant state. Even though diverse religious opinions were held by people in sixteenthcentury England, especially during the first decades after the break from Rome, by the close of the sixteenth century mainstream English religious culture had become Protestant.1 In the 1590s, the poet Edmund Spenser (1552–1599) wrote about England as a nation whose identity was centered in the experience of reformation.2 A solid scholarly consensus supports the idea that Protestantism played a major role in the early modern development of English national identity.3 It is important, nevertheless, to remember that this facet of national identity did not crystalize immediately upon the passage of the Act of Supremacy. A Protestant majority seems to have emerged gradually. As late as the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth I, there were so few Protestants in England that those committed to religious change gave precedence to efforts to sway popular opinion towards Protestantism.4 It was not until the end of the Elizabethan era that texts such as John Foxe’s Calendar and Acts and Monuments began to replace more

The afterlife of The Golden Legend 167 Catholic devotional works in popular consciousness, creating a Protestant culture.5 An association between English national identity and Protestantism was not firmly established in the Henrician period. Even after the break with Rome, it was possible for people to identify equally with Catholicism and the English nation.6 Marks made in copies of Caxton’s Golden Legend by owners and readers during the early modern period reflect the new religious cultures of that age, although the reflections are fragmentary and often focus on objects other than the text whose pages they share. As Jennifer Richards and Fred Schurink remark regarding the notes made in early modern books, “As signs of ownership, samples of handwriting practice, records of the annotator’s life and affairs, declarations of love, and much more, they often resist our attempts to use them as a means to recover past practices of reading.”7 Certainly, many of the marks made in copies of The Golden Legend throw no light on how their makers read the text. The sketch, in one copy, of a horned animal in the margins of the chapter on Ambrose and a of an opulent ring on the pages of the life of Maturin – pictures that may have been drawn by the same hand – communicate no more of a response to the text than does the picture of a man and a boy dressed in broad collars drawn in the margins of the life of Thomas the Apostle in a different copy.8 Sometimes the comments on the text are simply idiosyncratic, such as the reader who noted in a seventeenth-century italic hand, in the space between the chapter on Clair and the chapter on Barbara, that Barbara is the greater saint.9 Far more drawings, personal names, mathematical exercises, and notes appear in the forty copies of full editions of Caxton’s Golden Legend examined for this study than are analyzed in this chapter, which confines its observations to only such marks as appear to respond to or comment on the text in reference to religious culture and national identity.10 It might be assumed that readers whose opinions favored some variety of Protestantism available in early sixteenth-century England or who embraced the Protestantism adopted by the Church of England by the late sixteenth century might simply eschew books such as Caxton’s Golden Legend. Perhaps many did. Nevertheless, some readers chose to amend or update copies of traditional devotional texts to bring them into closer conformity with reformed opinion. A number of copies of The Golden Legend contain readers’ marks refuting or doubting beliefs expressed in the text. For example, a reader has added, in a sixteenthcentury secretary hand, the note “his unholie doctrine” to the chapter on Thomas Aquinas, an immensely influential thirteenth-century theologian and doctor of the church whose ideas became synonymous with Catholic orthodoxy.11 In a different copy, a reader wrote, also in a sixteenthcentury secretary hand, “This may be true / choose where you will beleeve” in the margin of the chapter on the Seven Sleepers, in which the sleepers emerge from their cave after decades of sleeping.12 In the same

168 The afterlife of The Golden Legend copy, in the chapter on Peter the Apostle, a reader using a sixteenthcentury italic script wrote “ego non credo,” that is, “I do not believe,” twice: once by the passage concerning the miraculous separation of Peter’s bones from those of Paul, and once by the description of a woman healed by Peter’s appearance in a vision.13 In that same copy, a reader using a seventeenth-century secretary hand comments in a margin beside a passage describing the furnace prepared for the martyrdom of Thomas the Apostle that “This Bok is full of lyrs. as the,” breaking off before ending the comparison.14 Perhaps the clearest rejection of the text as a whole was that written in a seventeenth-century cursive italic hand on the bottom margin of the first page of the opening chapter on Adam: it is goode for unlearned, and men of meane capacitie to shūnne cūriositie in reading bookes superstitious; or controuersies in religion / if the author of this booke sinned superstitiouslie he is to be pitied, if ignorantlie; to be borne withal, butt if wittingly; all godde men and ӿtians, ought to abhor him; yet; without slaūnder to those holie saint of God who whome he hath slaūndered.15 Sometimes reader’s marks in copies of Caxton’s Golden Legend refute particular points of doctrine. For example, one reader canceled the word “purgatore” in the chapter on All Saints.16 A reader who may have had Calvinist leanings wrote in a seventeenth-century transitional hand “O Antichrist the righteous scarcely saved” beside the passage in the chapter on All Souls describing the people to whom heaven is open.17 Another reader protested against the belief in the power of relics, or at least, of the central relic of the crucifixion, by writing “horible blasphemy” in a sixteenth-century secretary hand next to the passage that calls on the cross to save the company assembled to praise it.18 Yet another reader wrote the word “error” next to a passage asserting that Jesus was as wise while in the womb as he had been in heaven, or was to be at age thirty.19 Some readers’ marks in Caxton’s Golden Legend indicate both anticlericalism and a rejection of the Catholic mass, particularly of transubstantiation, that is, the belief that the rituals of the mass, performed by ordained priests, transform bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. In the first edition of The Golden Legend, the chapter on the Feast of the Holy Sacrament (Corpus Christi), which focuses on transubstantiation, begins with a double-column woodcut depicting four priests around an altar: two kneel while holding a monstrance (a container for transubstantiated hosts) and two consult a book. The woodcut is positioned at the bottom of the verso of one leaf. The chapter text occupies all of the next leaf, and part of a third. In one copy, a reader drew x’s over the tonsures of the four priests as well as two larger x’s covering the bottom half of the picture. The next folio is blank, and the next has x’s drawn through the conclusion of this

The afterlife of The Golden Legend 169 chapter while leaving the start of the next chapter undefaced.20 The blank folio was probably added when the book was rebound, most likely because the original had been removed. The chapter on the History of the Mass in the same copy is also defaced. This chapter begins with the same image as is used in the Corpus Christi chapter. Someone, likely the same reader, marked it in the same way: x’s on all four tonsures, and two large x’s below. The title printed over the woodcut reads: “Here begynneth the noble historẏe of thexpolicion of the masse.” The word “noble” has been canceled, and a sixteenth-century secretary hand has written “most abomynall” above it with a caret marking its place; written “popish” above the line between the words “the” and “masse,” also indicated by a caret; and written “moste to be aborryd of all Cristians” at the end, thus changing the title to “Here begynneth the most abomynall historẏe of thexpolicion of the popish masse moste to be aborryd of all Cristians.”21 In this seventeen-folio chapter, most of the text is crossed out and some pages have been replaced with blanks. On the pages that remain, the words “popish masse” are written across the top, and the word “horrendum” is written in a margin in what seems to be the same hand used on the first leaf of the chapter, next to a passage stating that the apostles were sent to teach the people the way of truth.22 Opposition to the Catholic understanding of clerical powers often included a rejection not only of transubstantiation but also of the role of priests as mediators between the faithful and God. A reader of the fourth edition signaled a repudiation of the intercessory function of the priesthood by heavily blotting the passage in the chapter on Dominic that asks him to mediate between God and the readers.23 The defacement of these chapters reveals religious sentiments quite different from those of the audience imagined by Caxton, Worde, and Pynson. These publishers had increased the emphasis on chapters about clerical saints over time, a choice hardly conducive to selling books if many buyers could be reasonably expected to be hostile to the clergy. Anticlericalism and the rejection of transubstantiation in England had long been characteristic of the minority holding lollard opinions.24 In the sixteenth century, both anticlericalism and opposition to transubstantiation came to be embraced by Calvinists and, although Luther’s teachings on the subject of the Eucharist are complex, his followers would be likely to deny transubstantiation as well.25 The readers who changed The Golden Legend to disparage clergy and the Eucharist may have embraced the concept of sainthood, but they rejected a fundamental part of the ideology of Christianity embedded in Caxton’s hagiographical collection. In contrast to the number of readers’ marks indicating a rejection of religious beliefs expressed in Caxton’s Golden Legend, far fewer marks suggest devotional sentiments in close continuity with those expressed in the text. For example, some readers noted the dates of particular saints’ days, indicating a continued interest in the liturgical calendar. A reader using an eighteenthcentury hand noted in the chapter on William that “St Williams Day is the 8

170 The afterlife of The Golden Legend of June” – information not included in the text; while in another copy a reader using an early seventeenth-century hand added “Visitation of Mary 6,” a feast not included in Caxton’s Golden Legend, to the table of contents.26 A late sixteenth-century reader expressed confidence in the belief that following the examples of the saints would earn God’s pardon for sins, by writing under the colophon on the final leaf: “This booke was bought by me hommfraye whitlocke at the feste of saynt myckelle Arck Anggell 1574. I¯m cost me in redye monnye Xiv shilings / God grant us pard so followe thear good in sampell.”27 Overall, the readers’ marks in these forty copies of Caxton’s Golden Legend support the scholarly consensus that, during the early modern period, the tide of opinion in England turned against many of the beliefs that shaped Caxton’s production of this book, even among its readers. Despite the shift towards Protestantism, there is evidence indicating that at least some early modern readers continued to use The Golden Legend as a tool for personal devotion, as seems to have been intended by Worde, Notary, and Pynson, and to a lesser degree, by Caxton. These marks indicate that people prayed with the text. For example, a reader using a sixteenth-century secretary hand wrote part of the Lord’s Prayer, “father which art in heaven,” in the margin of the chapter on Moses.28 Readers in two different copies, both using a sixteenth-century secretary hand, wrote the Trinitarian formula: one in the margin of the chapter on Paul the Apostle, partly cut off by page trimming, but reading “In the name of [cut off] / father & of the s[cut off] / and of the holy[cut off] / Amene”; the other in the margin of the chapter on All souls, reading “In the name of the fader ^ & son and ye holy goste.”29 In the former copy, what looks like the same hand also wrote in the margins of the chapter on Laurence: “In the name othe / In the name of God Amen.”30 Also in the same copy, a reader using what appears to be an eighteenth-century hand wrote next to a passage on the pain of purgatory in the chapter on All Souls: “From all evil and mischeef / good Lord deliver us / John Sevens citizen / Draper of London / John Sevens.”31 The comments discussed thus far almost certainly represent unprompted acts by readers, but many marks in copies of Caxton’s Golden Legend were probably made in obedience to Henrician legislation. A royal proclamation of June 1535 ordered the ecclesiastical authorities have the name of “the said bishop of Rome … utterly to be abolished, eradicated and erased out” of service books.32 Several scholars have noted the large number of surviving service books from which the word papa has been blotted out or erased, demonstrating that many complied with the order.33 There are also some extant copies unaltered, a condition explained in the scholarship either by refusal to comply, or by the failure of that particular copy to be used during the years following the proclamation.34 Other copies appear to indicate both compliance and reluctance. As Ethan Shagan notes, “Some priests … attempted to square the circle by effacing the name of the pope from their books in incomplete or easily reversible ways,” such as covering the word with wax paper or drawing a thin line through it which left it legible.35

The afterlife of The Golden Legend 171 The majority of the forty copies of the full edition of Caxton’s Golden Legend examined for this study conform to the pattern of broad compliance observed elsewhere, showing the word “pope” canceled or erased throughout the book with greater or lesser degrees of thoroughness. As Eamon Duffy argues, it “would be a mistake to attribute too much significance to such obedience … even religious conservatives placed a high value on loyalty to the regime.”36 The marks made in some of copies of The Golden Legend show more than mere obedience to the royal proclamation, indicating a personal rejection of the papacy, especially of the notion that the pope is God’s representative on earth, a tenet of belief promoted by Caxton’s editorial choices as well as those of the publishers who followed him. In some copies, the word “pope” was not merely canceled, it was corrected in a sixteenth-century secretary hand to the title “bishop.”37 In a copy held in Trinity College Library, Oxford, not only was the word “pope” canceled quite thoroughly throughout the text, but also lines were drawn through phrases expressing papal authority and esteem, including “of our holy fader the pope,” “auctory of the pope,” and “For the pope is the hiest man in ye erth under god / and that best representeth the persone of Jhesu cryste.”38 Several readers blotted out, erased, or cut through the papal crown or the papal staff in one or more of the woodcuts, actions not required by law.39 In one copy, a reader defaced both instances of the full-page All Saints woodcut by blotting out the papal crown worn by God and the cross on the globus cruciger he holds.40 In a different copy, the word “knave” has been added in a sixteenth-century secretary hand to the woodcut of Peter holding the keys to the heaven.41 In contrast, no readers’ marks in the copies examined expressed an admiration for the papacy. The disparaging marks demonstrate that at least some owners or readers of The Golden Legend sincerely opposed papal supremacy, but still valued the book enough to keep and amend it rather than discard or ignore it. In November of 1538, a few years after the legislation regarding the pope’s name, another royal proclamation ordered that not only should Thomas of Canterbury no longer be considered a saint but also that his name be “rased and put out of all the books.”42 The impact of these orders may be seen both in service books and in texts created for lay devotion, such as books of hours. Duffy observes that the “overwhelming majority of surviving manuscript and printed Books of Hours show that most Tudor devotees dutifully blotted, scraped or sliced the Pope and St Thomas Becket out of their devotions.”43 As with the word “pope,” some readers canceled Thomas’s name incompletely or reversibly, with only a thin line, or covered it with a strip of paper; similarly, sometimes Thomas’s image was not blotted out but altered to suggest the depiction of a different saint.44 The majority of the forty copies of the full edition of Caxton’s Golden Legend examined for this study obeyed the legislation regarding Thomas of Canterbury by barely canceling, or heavily blotting out, or removing the two chapters dedicated to him as a saint, that is, one on his life and one on

172 The afterlife of The Golden Legend his translation, and sometimes canceling or erasing his name in the table of contents. There is not a complete correlation between the copies in which the word “pope” was removed and those in which the Thomas material was canceled or removed. In a few, the word “pope” was canceled or erased, but the content on Thomas remains undefaced; in others, the reverse is true.45 Despite this general compliance, in twelve of forty copies examined neither the material on Thomas nor the word “pope” was defaced.46 In other words, nearly 30 percent of these copies did not comply with the royal proclamations, in spite of having other early modern readers’ marks in them. There is no way of knowing how accurately these figures represent all the copies of The Golden Legend that once existed in early modern England, but if they bear any resemblance, a significant minority of those who owned this book chose not to comply with these royal proclamations. In contrast to the several copies in which readers expressed a rejection of the papacy, only two copies of Caxton’s Golden Legend examined for this study include notes expressing particular contempt for Thomas of Canterbury. One instance may be found in the same copy of The Golden Legend in which a reader using a sixteenth-century secretary hand wrote the Trinitarian formula in the margins on the chapter on Paul the Apostle, along with other devotional phrases.47 Notes in the chapter on Thomas’s translation, which seem to have been written by the same reader, combine condemnation of the saint with a devotional phrase. On the first page of the chapter, on which the woodcut has been defaced with a heavily-rendered X, amid much repetition of hand-written phrases and words across the page, the margins contain these partially trimmed phrases: “the knave thomas byq [cut off] / the knave thomas byq [cut off] / In the name of god Amen.”48 On the same page, between the introduction and the text of the chapter, is written, in what seems to be the same hand, “Thys Saynt Thomas was a knafe / thomas was a knave.” On the reverse of this leaf, in the top margin, in what seems to be the same hand, is written “+ 1542 / Thomas bequet of Caunterbury In Keynt / In the tyme of henry the iiijth say peplle}.”49 The date 1542 places the writing late in the reign of Henry VIII. This leaf suggests that readers who rejected aspects of the text might still associate its use to personal prayer. The second instance of a reader’s comments disparaging Thomas of Canterbury occurs in the copy in Trinity College Library, Oxford, in which references to the papacy are also severely damaged.50 The heading on the first page of the chapter on the life of Thomas has been changed, in a sixteenthcentury secretary hand, from the original “The lyfe of saynt Thomas” to “The lyfe of saynt Thomas ye traytor.”51 In the chapter introduction, “saint” is canceled, the first three letters of “marter” are erased, and the same hand has written “a Rancke treytor” between the introduction and the start of the text. The woodcut has two diagonal tears through it, forming an X, and the papal crown being held out towards the kneeling Thomas by a priest standing behind him has been erased. The line immediately below

The afterlife of The Golden Legend 173 the woodcut has been altered to read “Saynt Thomas the marter.” The words “saint,” “pope,” and “martyr” are canceled throughout the text of both this chapter and the chapter on the translation. The rhetoric used in these condemnatory comments may be explained by the late medieval and early modern history of the cult of Thomas of Canterbury. One of the decisions made by William Caxton when he organized The Golden Legend in the 1480s was to highlight the importance of Thomas of Canterbury.52 Caxton divided his material on Thomas, using some for a chapter on his life, marking his feast day, but also creating a chapter on the translation of Thomas’s relics to the chapel created in his honor in Canterbury Cathedral. Caxton’s decision made Thomas one of the few saints to be the subject of more than one chapter in this collection. Thomas of Canterbury enjoyed higher status throughout Europe than any other English saint, as his relics were the locus of both local and international pilgrimages. His cult, though highly respectable, nevertheless incorporated the potentially destabilizing element of divine sanction for resisting the will of the monarch. That component provoked an attack on the cult during the Henrician Reformation. Henry VIII, while carrying out his decision to separate the church in England from the Roman church, simultaneously acted to destroy the cult of Thomas of Canterbury. Henry believed that the continuing veneration of Thomas constituted a threat to royal religious and political agendas, so the cult was suppressed in England in the 1530s.53 The government, along with those eager to shift the theology of the English church in a more Protestant direction, recast Thomas’s resistance to his king from principled objection to treason. William Tyndale, in The Practice of Prelates (1532), attacked the reputation of Thomas, closing “with a charge that Becket was a traitor to his king.”54 In 1533, King Henry went to Canterbury but did not visit Thomas’s shrine.55 In 1538, the same year in which Henry adopted the title of Supreme Head of the Church of England and was excommunicated by Pope Paul III (r. 1534–1549), Thomas’s shrine was destroyed under royal orders.56 In celebration, a play no longer extant by John Bale, “Against the Treasons of Thomas a Becket,” was performed before the king and court in Canterbury.57 Henry’s death did not bring this campaign to a close. The crown continued to promote the image of Thomas as a traitor during the reign of Edward VI (r. 1547–1553).58 In 1555, under Mary I (r. 1553–1558), the office of Thomas of Canterbury was restored to the service books in Canterbury Cathedral.59 The reign of Elizabeth unsurprisingly reverted to promoting an official historical memory of Thomas as a traitor.60 Pockets of popular opinion on Thomas of Canterbury deviated from the official position on his cult long before the 1530s. During the fifteenth century, when Thomas had official approval, a marked objection to his cult had appeared in lollard circles. In the 1420s an interrogation of Margery Backster, the wife of a Norfolk craftsman, on suspicion of heresy records that:

174 The afterlife of The Golden Legend the said Margery said … that Thomas of Canterbury whom the people call St. Thomas, was a false traitor and dampned in hel, because he injuriously indowed the churches with possessions, and raised up many heresies in the church … he suffred his death … as a false cowardly traitor.61 In 1532, just as the official position on Thomas was poised to change, a letter that a lawyer named James Bainam had sent to his brother, in which Bainam wrote that Thomas of Canterbury “was a thief and a murtherer, and a devil in hel,” was introduced into evidence at Bainam’s heresy trial before the vicar general of London.62 Towards the end of the sixteenth century, after the official denunciation of the cult of Saint Thomas, his veneration came to be embraced by English Catholics for whom he emerged as a symbol of papal supremacy.63 The readers’ marks in the copies of Caxton’s Golden Legend examined for this study suggest that support for Thomas of Canterbury was stronger than support for the papacy. Only two copies added specific condemnations to their compliance with the royal proclamation ordering that Thomas no longer be considered a saint. There are a number of copies in which markings suggest that readers approved of Thomas, even though some of these copies are in compliance with the royal injunctions regarding him. An example of the latter is a copy in which Thomas’s name has been canceled in the headings and conclusion of his feast while leaving the text and the woodcut untouched, while in the chapter on his translation not only is his name not canceled, but also the text is marked by underlining, a practice implying close reading.64 Similarly, a reader in a different copy bracketed the passage in Thomas’s life in which the king dishonestly accuses Thomas of embezzlement during his time as chancellor, a section that attributes Thomas’s death to the king’s dishonesty rather than to actual criminal behavior on Thomas’s part.65 Belief in Thomas’s sanctity is implied in a different copy in which a reader has drawn a manicule pointing to the phrase “Atte whos tombe by the merytes and prayers of this holy martyr / our blessyd lord hath shewed many myracles.” in the chapter on his life.66 Similarly, in the chapter on Thomas’s translation in another copy, a reader has underlined the passage in which King John lifts onto his shoulders the chest containing the saint’s relics as well as the section describing the miracle of the talking bird. The latter also is marked by both a scalloped line in the margin and a manicule.67 There are also a few cases in which the leaves from one or both chapters on Thomas have been cut from the book, and the text later restored, although some of these restorations probably occurred in the modern period.68 In spite of a limited amount of evidence of support for Thomas of Canterbury’s sanctity in the reader’s marks, the additional material that Caxton added to the chapter on George in the 1480s already described him, rather

The afterlife of The Golden Legend 175 than Thomas, as patron of the realm of England. Although Caxton’s addition made no explicit comparison between George and Thomas, one of the readers did just that. In one copy, the note “St Georgins ense percussit dracone” has been written in a graceful sixteenth-century italic hand next to the woodcut illustrating the chapter on George.69 At the end of the chapter is an observation written in an early to mid-seventeenth-century italic hand: “Joyw to St. Georg our English Don Phebe / eclyped St. Thomas knight of the Sunn.”70 In other words, the comment praises Saint George as an English “Sir Moon” for eclipsing “Sir Sun,” Saint Thomas. This remark seems to aspire to a degree of sophistication, incorporating chivalric language, astrological phenomena, and Greek mythology. Although its script differs from that of the marginal comment adjacent to the woodcut, both notes may have been written by the same person, as a seventeenth-century reader may have made a deliberate choice to write the first comment in an archaic script as well as choosing Latin for its language. The comparison between Thomas and George in the later note is respectful to both saints, even while championing George. Rather remarkably, the reader clearly categorizes George as English. Caxton’s text describes George as the patron of the realm of England while still acknowledging his foreign origins, but the early modern period saw a revision of the legend that portrayed George as English. During the reign of Elizabeth I, Edmund Spenser included a version of George’s vita in Book I of The Faerie Queene in which he is supplied with royal Saxon ancestors.71 Richard Johnson’s The Most Famous History of the Seven Champions of Christendom (1596) recounts George’s adventures through much of the world, but makes him a native of England, born in the time of Uther Pendragon.72 George was thus integrated into the British pseudohistory of the Brut tradition. Johnson’s work proved popular and was reprinted in many editions throughout the early modern period.73 It is therefore not surprising that a seventeenth-century reader of The Golden Legend believed George to be English. The relatively small number of unprompted disapproving reader marks regarding Thomas in comparison to the greater number directed towards the papacy in Caxton’s Golden Legend probably stems from a continued regard among readers for England and for British saints. Readers’ marks reveal an unbroken thread of interest in Britain connecting the audience imagined by Caxton and his fellow publishers in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries to the book’s early modern readers. One reader drew, in the margins of Brendon’s chapter, a picture of a single-masted ship with “+ brendan” written below it in a sixteenth-century italic hand. This sketch may indicate no more than an attraction to stories of strange adventures, as the phrase “for every sheep was as grete as an oxe” is underlined.74 Yet the same copy includes in the margins of the chapter on Alban and Amphibalus a drawing of a cross within a circle, probably an attempt to render Saint Alban’s arms, next to the passage describing Alban as the best knight in his

176 The afterlife of The Golden Legend troop in Rome, suggesting, if the pictures were sketched by the same reader, a particular interest in the adventures of British saints.75 Another reader drew a nota mark in a different copy of that same chapter next to the passage concerning the baptism of Amphibalus, the son of the Prince of Wales.76 In yet another copy, a reader using pencil, a tool suggesting the seventeenth or eighteenth century, drew marginal lines in the chapter on Bede next to passages on his wisdom and teaching, and on the angelic completion of the engraving on his tomb.77 In the copy of Caxton’s Golden Legend that includes the comparison between Thomas of Canterbury and George there are readers’ marks indicating a special esteem accorded to the English people. A reader using a sixteenth-century italic hand has written the word “Albions,” an archaic name for the English associated with the Brut tradition, in a margin of the chapter on Tobit.78 The word is placed next to a passage of direct address to God about the children of Israel, implying an identification between the English and God’s chosen people. Just above it, in a late sixteenth-century secretary hand, is written the phrase “for the love / for the lord / god above.” A sixteenth-century reader may have written both this remark and the word “Albions,” or perhaps the seventeenth-century reader whose comments on George incorporated Greek mythology also contributed this use of an archaic name for the people of England, or perhaps each note was made by someone different. Whichever reader chose to juxtapose “Albions” with the children of Israel revealed an understanding of the English as a people beloved by God. Several readers’ marks indicate a special interest in English places. In one copy of the first edition, among many marginal lines drawn adjacent to particular passages of text, are marks next to the passage about Winchester Bridge in the chapter on Swithun; about the River Swale, Strood in Kent, and the county of Dorset in the chapter on Augustine of Canterbury; about the town of Clent in the chapter on Kenelm; about Bury in the chapter on King Edmund; and about the English arrival in Ireland in the chapter on Patrick.79 In the same copy, marginal lines mark the passage concerning drowned men restored to life by Alban at Holmshurst; a description of George’s arms; Pope Gregory’s notice of English children; and the mention of King Edward the Confessor in the chapter on John the Evangelist.80 In a different copy, a reader wrote marginal notes in a sixteenth-century secretary hand about remarkable events in the narrative that were set in English places, namely, that the children of the pagans who drove Augustine of Canterbury from Dorsetshire by pelting him with dead fish were born with fishtails, and that the phenomenon also happened in Kent. The marginal notes read: “dorset shire children hade tayles” and “kentishe men hade tayles.”81 In another copy, the phrase “in the west ende of the cyte whyche thenne was called thorny. & now is named Westmestre” in the chapter on Edward the Confessor has been underlined.82 A reader of a different copy not only underlined the phrase “Also as saint Austin came in to Oxford Shyre to a town,” but also marked the passage in the margin with three vertical lines.83 In that

The afterlife of The Golden Legend 177 same copy, a manicule has been drawn pointing to the passage in the chapter on Edward the Confessor in which the king kneels and prays for peace during his coronation at Westminster.84 A number of readers of Caxton’s Golden Legend displayed an interest in the British monarchy, both historical and contemporary, an interest that Caxton also expected to find among book buyers. For example, one reader made a nota mark next to the passage in the chapter on John the Evangelist that mentions Edward the Confessor, while in a different copy, a reader made a marginal note in a sixteenth-century secretary hand by the same passage, although too much of the note has been cut off by page trimming to be read.85 At the end of the chapter in this copy, a reader, possibly the same one, has noted in a sixteenth-century secretary hand, in Latin, that the story had been written by Saint Wulfstan, bishop.86 In yet another copy, a reader drew carets pointing towards the passage in which the AngloSaxon Quendred becomes queen after Kenelm’s murder.87 In a different copy, a reader has written in a sixteenth-century secretary hand the enthusiastic phrase “Lord Kyng Edward kyng kyng” in the margins of the chapter on Pauline the widow.88 As neither the chapter on Edward King and Martyr nor the chapter on Edward King and Confessor is close to the chapter on Pauline, the reader was likely referencing King Edward VI, and probably wrote this comment during his brief reign. Similarly, a reader wrote, in a different copy, the phrase “Mary Qunene of England” in the margin of the chapter on the Assumption of Our Lady. While this note may be an assertion that Mary, mother of Jesus, is metaphorically the Queen of England, as it is written in a sixteenth-century secretary hand, the comment probably refers to Queen Mary I and was most likely written during her brief reign. Finally, a reader selected the chapter on Edward King and Confessor to write the patriotic note “M burten: his booke amen, god And the king Ann 1640” perhaps symbolically linking his king to a predecessor.89 In 1537, ten years after Worde released his final version of Caxton’s Golden Legend, a complete, government-authorized, vernacular English Bible was printed in London, known as the Great Bible. The full-page frontispiece of the Great Bible, at least by its officially corrected edition in 1539, expresses a paradigm of divine order, as did the frontispieces of all the editions of The Golden Legend published before it. The representation of the relationships comprising the sacred hierarchy in the frontispiece of the Great Bible is quite different from that expressed in the frontispieces of the Caxton, Worde, Notary, and Pynson editions of The Golden Legend. In the Great Bible, instead of an image of God surrounded by angels and saints, the frontispiece features King Henry VIII seated in state, delivering the Bible to Archbishop Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556), who hands it both to the clergy and to the chief minister Thomas Cromwell (c.1485–1540), who gives it in turn to the people, while below a crowd cries out “Vivat Rex.”90 This frontispiece champions bibliocentric Christianity and fosters the cult of the monarchy. Just as in Caxton’s Golden Legend, the frontispiece of the

178 The afterlife of The Golden Legend Great Bible represents a rhetorical choice on the part of its creators. The court was not in the business of selling books and could therefore afford to prefer self-promotion over marketing.91 The imagery of the frontispiece of the Great Bible serves the public-relations interests of the court that authorized it, but does not necessarily reflect the prevailing understanding of the distribution of sacred power within England. Scholarship arguing that English national identity emerged from the experience of the Protestant Reformation often identifies the appearance of the vernacular Bible and the Act of Supremacy as significant points of departure.92 Yet the tidy chronological narrative that makes the Henrician Reformation a fulcrum separating medieval England from a state characterized by nationalism, vernacular print culture, and a bibliocentric, Protestant church obscures critical continuities. While Protestant England was undoubtedly a creation of the sixteenth century, the assumption that vernacular print culture; an attachment to the land, people, and crown of England; and a high regard for the English Bible were also creations of the sixteenth century and, moreover, were intrinsically tied to Protestantism, is much more susceptible to doubt. Print culture in England, and specifically vernacular print culture, obviously preceded the Act of Supremacy by more than half a century: Caxton was in Westminster printing books in English by 1477. The early modern readers’ marks in Caxton’s Golden Legend, considered in conjunction with its printing history, provides evidence of continuity in attachment to the land, people, and monarchy of England as well as an attraction to vernacular scriptures among book buyers and readers that spans the divide between a Catholic culture and a Protestant one. In the 1480s, Caxton tailored his production of The Golden Legend to suit the tastes of his imagined readers. He increased its British content and highlighted it through illustration, a choice repeated in subsequent editions published by Worde, Notary, and Pynson. Readers’ marks made in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries provide evidence of a broad though not universal rejection of those aspects of theology and ecclesiology expressed in The Golden Legend that conflicted with Protestant interpretations, but reveal a sustained interest in its British content. The other major variation that Caxton introduced into his translation of the Legenda aurea, namely, vernacular English paraphrases of excerpts from the Bible, seems to have inspired no criticism among early modern readers, even though they had the example of the Great Bible against which to draw comparisons. No reader complained, in the copies examined for this study, about the scriptures in The Golden Legend being paraphrased rather than directly translated, or taken out of the context of the whole Bible, or included along with saints’ legends. If the availability of the Great Bible instigated a change in the popular attitude towards scriptural material that created disdain towards biblical paraphrases and extracts, or towards the inclusion of scripture in a category of sacred story that encompassed saints’ lives, that transformation did not leave traces in the margins of The Golden Legend.

The afterlife of The Golden Legend 179 Even the fundamental conviction expressed by Caxton when choosing to translate and publish The Golden Legend, namely, that English readers valued the cult of saints, seems to have been shared by the court of Henry VIII. Certainly, many sixteenth-century Protestant intellectuals viewed saints’ legends, notably those collected in the Legenda aurea, without much sympathy.93 Similarly, many humanists were critical of them because of their lack of historicity, especially in regard to improbable miracles.94 Such criticisms did not dissuade the Henrician government from using the cult of saints as an instrument of policy. Although the cult of Thomas of Canterbury was attacked, the cult of George was promoted. Henry, like Caxton before him, explicitly acknowledged George as the patron saint of England.95 Henry VIII had the coin known as the “George Noble” minted, depicting the king’s image on one side and George’s on the other.96 The identification between George and England was embraced: many sixteenthcentury paintings of the English army feature George’s banner, which implies that the saint had become a symbol of the English nation.97 As Jonathan Bengtson argues: Saint George’s cult was central in the formation of a collective imagination in England and in the creation of a sense of national community. The monarchy made Saint George a divine national hero and through his cult established an intimacy with the people which it could not otherwise easily have achieved.98 Henry’s court would surely not have bothered to promote Saint George unless its members, like Caxton, believed that the cult of saints was held in high regard. Caxton’s Golden Legend was not published for 300 years after 1527, but devotion to the cult of saints did not end with the Henrician reforms. The history of Caxton’s Golden Legend demonstrates that there were important continuities between the period when English religious culture was almost entirely Catholic and the period in which English Catholics became a religious minority.99 When Caxton issued the first edition in 1484 there were no Protestants anywhere: Martin Luther was born in November of that year and his theological remonstrations against indulgences were many years away. The Golden Legend enjoyed nearly half a century of life on the English market between its initial publication and Worde’s final edition in 1527. Although there were undoubtedly some Protestants in England before the Act of Supremacy, as well as people who were not Protestant but were nonetheless eager for church reform, England was not a Protestant nation before 1534. The history of The Golden Legend suggests that it may have been a Catholic nation, or at least may have been in the process of becoming one. There is a large historiography devoted to accurately establishing the time at which European countries developed a sense of national identity, and the

180 The afterlife of The Golden Legend issue is a controversial one.100 In regard to England, although the majority opinion locates the origin of English national identity in the Henrician and Elizabethan periods, a body of scholarship exists that argues for the creation of national identity, and even a state, long before the reign of Henry VIII.101 Some interpretations argue for the development of an English state in the late Anglo-Saxon period, but do not necessarily claim continuity between that period and the sixteenth century.102 More scholars identify a sense of national identity in England during the late Middle Ages, but even they tend to exempt the period in which Caxton worked. This interpretation is summarized by Anthony D. Smith: By the fourteenth century, the growing association of the state with an English national identity in a “national state” is evident, as English became the language of court and administration, and London the stable capital of a unitary state. At the same time, a concept of sacred kingship developed, notably under Richard II and Henry V. However, this process was interrupted by the Wars of the Roses, and was only brought to fruition with the resumption of the drive for a strong centralized state under the Tudors, especially after the break with Rome.103 Similarly, Derek Pearsall maintains that while there were outpourings of English national feeling during the periods of 1290–1340 and 1410–1420, the fifteenth century after 1420 was not characterized by a sense of national identity.104 To the degree that Caxton’s incorporation of the history of the British church and crown into his English translation of the Legenda aurea is an expression of national identity made during the disruptive period of the Wars of the Roses, it stands in opposition to an interpretation of this period as one absent from such expressions. Caxton’s Golden Legend was created for an audience of Catholic English book buyers and readers. Caxton expected this audience to want books that included vernacular scripture and stories about British, and particularly English, saints, kings, and people, expectations that seem to have been justified based on the frequency with which The Golden Legend was reissued and the editorial choices made in the editions following the first. In the 1530s the publishing industry in England was affected by political and religious controversy, and The Golden Legend ceased to be reissued.105 Beginning with the Act of Supremacy in 1534, the Henrician Reformation created the context in which a Protestant English national identity emerged, but the history of The Golden Legend suggests that a Catholic English national identity had also been possible. Critical connections linked attitudes before and after the reign of Henry VIII. Popular devotion to the cult of saints survived the 1530s, even if it took different forms, just as attachment to an idea of England preceded them. The publishing history of the biblical chapters in Caxton’s Golden Legend demonstrates that the appetite for

The afterlife of The Golden Legend 181 vernacular scriptures was dispersed among those who made up the market for books other than those expressing theological views of lollardy and Protestantism. In a way, Caxton’s Golden Legend offers a glimpse of a road not taken, an English Catholic print culture in which the vernacular was used to communicate scripture and in which pride in the land and its people could be expressed not only within the context of hagiography but also within the framework of a church headed by the pope and staffed with Catholic clergy who were thought to be quite capable of embodying sanctity. This culture flourished for more than half a century before the break from Rome. The ultimate triumph of a Protestant English national identity in the early modern centuries does not mean that its success was historically inevitable. An authentic history of early English print culture must incorporate the audiences imagined by publishers who lived during the decades prior to the Henrician reforms. It must respect the expert knowledge that Caxton, Worde, Pynson, Notary, and others had in regard to the book-buying public, even if their choices merely reflected the culture of their times rather than prophesying the future.

Notes 1 Debates about the timing and nature of popular adherence to Protestantism in England have generated an extensive historiography. Some of the major works are David Aers and Nigel Smith, “English Reformations,” Journal of Medieval & Early Modern Studies 40, no. 3 (Fall 2010): 425–38; A. G. Dickens, The English Reformation, 2nd ed. (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2005); Patrick Collinson, The Birthpangs of Protestant England: Religious and Cultural Change in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988); Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, c.1400–c.1580 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992); Christopher Haigh, English Reformations: Religion, Politics and Society under the Tudors (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993); Christopher Haigh, ed., The English Reformation Revised (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987); and John J. Scarisbrick, The Reformation and the English People (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984). 2 Cathy Shrank, Writing the Nation in Reformation England, 1530–1580 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 1–2. 3 Shrank, Writing the Nation, 8. 4 Ethan Shagan, “Introduction: English Catholic History in Context,” in Catholics and the “Protestant Nation”: Religious Politics and Identity in Early Modern England, ed. Ethan Shagan (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005), 3. 5 Gania Barlow, “Protestant Martyrs Added to a Book of Hours in English Ownership,” Notes and Queries 58, no. 2 (2011): 210. 6 Lucy Wooding, Rethinking Catholicism in Reformation England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000), 6. 7 Jennifer Richards and Fred Schurink, “Introduction: The Textuality and Materiality of Reading in Early Modern England,” Huntington Library Quarterly 73, no. 3 (September 2010): 345.

182 The afterlife of The Golden Legend 8 The first drawings are in GL Morgan Library 1484 (1), folio Cliii recto and Clxxxxviii verso; the second, in GL Morgan Library 1484 (2), folio lxxxxiiii verso. 9 GL Morgan Library 1498, folio CCCxxix recto. 10 Many of these copies would repay the effort of a broader analysis than that attempted here. 11 GL Huntington 1487, folio CCCCxix recto. 12 GL Morgan Library 1484 (2), folio CCxxvi verso. 13 GL Morgan Library 1484 (2), folio CCv recto. 14 Modernized, “This book is [as] full of liars as the”: GL Morgan Library 1484 (2), folio lxxxxiiii verso. 15 Modernized: “It is good for the unlearned, and men of little understanding, to shun curiosity in reading superstitious books or controversies in religion. If the author of this book sinned superstitiously, he is to be pitied; if ignorantly, to be tolerated; but if knowingly, all good men and Christians ought to abhor him; but without slander to those holy saints of God whom he has slandered”: GL EEBO 1521, folio ii recto. The bottom line is very shadowed in the EEBO copy. The text is clearer in the physical copy: GL Huntington 1521. 16 GL Brasenose 1504, folio Clxxxxix recto. 17 GL Harry Ranson 1512, folio CCCxv recto. 18 GL Huntington 1487, folio CClxxxx verso. 19 GL Harry Ranson 1512, folio Cxi recto. 20 GL Bodleian 1484, folio xxx verso – xxxii recto. 21 GL Bodleian 1484, folio CCCCxxxv recto. 22 GL Bodleian 1484, folio CCCCxxxv recto – CCCCxliii recto. The word “horrendum” is on folio CCCCxxxvi recto. 23 GL Brasenose 1504, folio Cxxxii verso. 24 Haigh, English Reformations, 51–52. 25 Alister McGrath, Reformation Thought: An Introduction (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1988), 121–22. 26 GL Morgan Library 1484 (1), folio Clxxxx recto; GL John Rylands 1504, unfoliated table of contents. 27 Modernized: “This book was bought by me, Humphrey Whitlock, at the feast of Saint Michael the archangel, 1574. The item cost me in ready money 14 shillings. God grant us pardon, so follow their good example”: GL NYPL 1527, folio CCClxxxiiii verso. 28 GL Magdalen Oxford 1498, folio xxi verso. 29 The first, modernized and completed, is: “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen”: GL Morgan Library 1484 (2), folio CCvii recto. The second is in GL John Rylands 1504, folio CC recto. 30 GL Morgan Library 1484 (2), folio CCCl verso. 31 GL Morgan Library 1484 (2), folio CCCxlvii recto. 32 Eamon Duffy, Marking the Hours: English People and Their Prayers, 1240–1570 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006), 149. Duffy is quoting P. L. Hughes and J. F. Larkin, eds., Tudor Royal Proclamations, vol. 1: The Early Tudors, 1485–1553 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1964), 231. 33 Ethan Shagan, “Confronting Compromise: The Schism and its Legacy in midTudor England,” in Catholics and the “Protestant Nation”: Religious Politics and Identity in Early Modern England, ed. Ethan Shagan (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005) 50–51; Barlow, “Protestant Martyrs,” 209; Maidie Hilmo, Medieval Images, Icons, and Illustrated English Literary Texts: From the Ruthwell Cross to the Ellesmere Chaucer (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2004),137.

The afterlife of The Golden Legend 183 34 35 36 37 38 39

40 41 42

43 44 45

46

47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58

Shagan, “Confronting Compromise,” 51; Duffy, Marking the Hours, 151–52. Shagan, “Confronting Compromise,” 51–52. Duffy, Marking the Hours, 155. GL John Rylands 1484, folio CCxxix verso; GL Morgan Library 1484 (2), folio CCCCvii verso; and GL Folger Library 1504, table of contents. GL Trinity Oxford 1493, folio Clxxx recto, CCxxxix verso, and CCCxlvii verso. This phenomenon occurs in GL Morgan Library 1484 (2) in the chapter on Pelagius and the Lombards, folio CCCCvii verso; in GL Morgan Library 1493 (2) in Sixtus, folio CCxvi verso; in GL Magdalen Oxford 1498 in Cornelius and Cyprian, folio CClv recto; in GL EEBO 1512 in Cornelius and Cyprian, folio CClviii verso; in GL John Rylands 1521 in Gregory, folio lxxxxvi verso; in GL Trinity Oxford 1493 in Gregory, folio Ciii verso, Cornelius and Cyprian, CClxxi verso, and Pelagius and the Lombards, CCClxxxxvii verso; and in GL John Rylands 1512 in Gregory, folio C verso, Felix, Clxxxxi recto, Sixtus, CCvii recto, and Cornelius and Cyprian, CClviii verso. GL EEBO 1504. GL Magdalen Oxford 1498, folio lxxxxiii verso. Kay Brainerd Slocum, The Cult of Thomas Becket: History and Historiography through Eight Centuries, Sanctity in Global Perspective (London: Routledge, 2019), 143–51. Slocum is quoting Hughes and Larkin, Tudor Royal Proclamations, vol. 1, 271. Duffy, Marking the Hours, 151–52. Slocum, The Cult, 171; R. E. Scully, “The Unmaking of a Saint: Thomas Becket and the English Reformation,” Catholic Historical Review 86 (2000): 597. One or both chapters on Thomas are defaced, but the word “pope” is not canceled or erased in: GL EEBO 1487 and GL Huntington 1527 (2). The word “pope” is canceled or erased, but the chapters on Thomas are not defaced in: GL EEBO 1484 (except for the cancellation of the word “pope” in the text of the life of Thomas on folio Cvi verso and Cviii recto), GL Morgan Library 1493 (2), GL John Rylands 1498, and GL EEBO 1512. GL Bodleian Library 1484, GL Folger Library 1493, GL Morgan Library 1493 (1), GL Morgan Library 1493 (3), GL Morgan Library 1498, GL EEBO 1507, GL Folger Library 1507, GL Morgan Library 1521, GL Folger Library 1527, GL Huntington 1527 (1), GL Christ Church Oxford 1527, and GL NYPL 1527. See notes 29 and 30. Modernized and completed: “the knave Thomas Becket / the knave Thomas Becket / In the name of god Amen”: GL Morgan Library 1484 (2), folio CCxii recto. Modernized: “Thomas Becket of Canterbury in Kent / In the time of Henry IV, say people”: GL Morgan Library 1484 (2), folio CCxii verso. People saying so would be mistaken, of course, as Thomas died in the reign of Henry II. See note 38. GL Trinity Oxford 1493, folio lxiii recto. See Chapter 5. Slocum, The Cult, 143–52; Scully, “Unmaking,” 596. Slocum, The Cult, 143. Scully, “Unmaking,” 589. Slocum, The Cult, 156. The destruction of Thomas’s shrine occurred prior to the bull of excommunication and was specifically mentioned in it: Scully, “Unmaking,” 595–96. Scully, “Unmaking,” 594. Scully, “Unmaking,” 599.

184 The afterlife of The Golden Legend 59 J. F. Davis, “Lollards, Reformers and St. Thomas of Canterbury,” University of Birmingham Historical Journal 9 (1963): 14. 60 Scully, “Unmaking,” 599–600. 61 Davis, “Lollards,” 5. 62 Davis, “Lollards,” 9. 63 Slocum, The Cult, 171. 64 GL Huntington 1487, folio Ciiii verso – Cviiii recto and CCxii recto – Ccxiii recto. 65 GL Morgan Library 1498, folio lxi recto. 66 GL Bodleian Library 1484, folio Cviii recto. 67 GL John Rylands 1498, folio Clxxiii verso and Clxxiiii recto. 68 One or both chapters on Thomas are missing (sometimes with sections on leaves shared with other chapters retained, but heavily hatch-marked or blotted) from GL Bridwell Library 1484, GL John Rylands 1484, GL NYPL 1484, GL Morgan Library 1484 (1), GL Magdalen Oxford 1498, GL John Rylands 1504, and GL EEBO 1521. In GL Folger Library 1521, the chapter on Thomas’s life has been removed but rewritten in a late sixteenth-century secretary hand, composed in two columns on multiply folded paper. In the chapter on the translation, the first page only is defaced. Both chapter titles are canceled in the table of contents. In GL Morgan Library 1504, there is a note in pencil in a modern, possibly nineteenth-century script near the start of the chapter on the life of Thomas, on folio xl verso: “Here some leaves are wanting / fols 41 42.” Yet folios xli and xlii are present, possibly restored from another copy when the book was rebound. The chapter on the translation in this copy has both name blotting and x’s drawn through the columns. In GL Harry Ransom 1512, the text of the chapter on Thomas’s life has been removed and replaced, rewritten in a stylized modern hand, in two columns. The chapter on Thomas’s translation is undefaced. It is perhaps worth noting that the bookplate on the inside cover of this copy reads: “From the Library of William Morris Kelmscott House Hammersmith.” 69 In English: “St George strikes a dragon with weapons”: GL Morgan Library 1484 (2), folio Clvii recto. 70 Modernized: “Joy to St. George our English Don Phoebe [Greek moon goddess] / eclipsed St. Thomas Knight of the Sun”: GL Morgan Library 1484 (2), folio Clvi verso. 71 George is called the “Knight of the Red Crosse”: Jonathan Bengtson, “Saint George and the Formation of English Nationalism,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 27, no. 2 (1997): 333. 72 Bengtson, “Saint George,” 334. 73 Bengtson, “Saint George,” 334. 74 GL EEBO 1487, folio CCClxxxxv recto. There are other lines and dashes in the margins of this chapter. 75 GL EEBO 1487, folio Clxxxiii verso. 76 GL NYPL 1483, folio Clxxxvi recto. 77 GL Trinity Oxford 1493, folio CCClxxxi recto. 78 GL Morgan Library 1484 (2), folio lxxix verso. 79 GL John Rylands 1484, Swithun, folio CCxii verso; Augustine of Canterbury, Clxxiiii recto and verso, Clxxv recto; Kenelm, CCxiiii recto; King Edmund, CCClxxvii recto; and Patrick, Cxlvi recto. 80 GL John Rylands 1484, Alban and Amphibalus, folio Clxxxv recto; George, Clvi verso; Gregory, Cxlii verso; and John the Evangelist, Ciii recto. 81 Modernized: “Dorsetshire children had tails” and “Kentish men had tails”: GL Morgan Library 1493 (3), folio Cxxxix verso. 82 GL John Rylands 1498, folio CClxxxvi verso.

The afterlife of The Golden Legend 185 83 GL EEBO 1507, folio Cxxxiiii verso. 84 GL EEBO 1507, folio CClxxxii verso. 85 GL Huntington 1487, folio Ciii recto and GL Morgan Library 1493 (1), folio CCCviii verso. 86 GL Morgan Library 1493 (1), folio CCCix verso. 87 GL EEBO 1507, folio Clxxv recto. 88 GL John Rylands 1504, folio lvii recto. 89 Modernized: “M. Burten’s book, amen. God and the king. AD 1640”: GL John Rylands 1521, folio CClxxiiii verso. The year 1640 fell in the reign of Charles I, nine years before his execution. 90 Roughly translated to “Long live the king!”: Ellen Spolsky, “Literacy after Iconoclasm in the English Reformation,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 39, no. 2 (Spring 2009): 305; F. F. Bruce, History of the Bible in English (Cambridge: Lutterworth Press, 1979), 70. 91 For an excellent discussion of this topic, see Kevin Sharpe, Selling the Tudor Monarchy: Authority and Image in Sixteenth-Century England (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009). 92 This scholarship sometimes employs Geoffrey Elton’s influential concept of the “Tudor Revolution”: G. R. Elton, England Under the Tudors, 2nd ed., rpt. ed. (London: Methuen, 1983), 160–92. Significant works include Collinson, Birthpangs of Protestant England; Richard Helgerson, Forms of Nationhood: The Elizabethan Writing of England (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992); Jeremy Gregory, “The Making of a Protestant Nation; ‘Success’ and ‘Failure’ in England’s Long Reformation,” in England’s Long Reformation 1500–1800, ed. Nicholas Tyacke, 307–34 (London: University College London, 1998); Krishan Kumar, The Making of English National Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); and Shrank, Writing the Nation. 93 The list of critics is long and includes such figures as Martin Luther, Desiderius Erasmus, Juan Luis Vives, and William Tyndale: David Weil Baker, “The Historical Faith of William Tyndale: Non-Salvific Reading of Scripture at the Outset of the English Reformation,” Renaissance Quarterly, 622 (2009): 671–72. 94 Peter Burke, Renaissance Sense of the Past, Documents of Modern History, gen. ed. A. G. Dickens and Alan Davies (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1969), 7. From the late sixteenth century, a group of humanist-influenced Jesuit scholars, the Bollandists, devoted themselves to revising the written histories of all saints on the basis of reliable primary sources: Burke, The Renaissance Sense of the Past, 70–71. 95 Bengtson, “Saint George,” 332. 96 Henry’s government had it minted through 1547: Bengtson, “Saint George,” 332. 97 Bengtson, “Saint George,” 332. 98 Bengtson, “Saint George,” 317. 99 The issue of Catholic identity in Protestant England is a difficult one, particularly in regard to terminology, and it has a long and complex historiography. An excellent summary of the issues and debates in this field may be found in Shagan, “Introduction,” 3–14. 100 See Patrick Geary, The Myth of Nations: The Medieval Origins of Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002); Lesley Johnson and Alan V. Murray, eds., Concepts of National Identity in the Middle Ages (Leeds: Leeds University Press, 1995); and Susan Reynolds, Kingdoms and Communities in Western Europe 900–1300, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997). 101 A “nation” differs from a “state.” Benedict Anderson’s work has been very influential in defining a “nation” as social construct in which a group of people perceive themselves as sharing membership in a community: Benedict Anderson, Imagined

186 The afterlife of The Golden Legend

102

103

104

105

Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 2nd ed. (London: Verso, 1991). A “state,” to use Anthony D. Smith’s definition, is a “set of autonomous institutions claiming to exercise a monopoly of coercion and extraction within a given territory”: Anthony D. Smith, “‘Set in the Silver Sea’: English National Identity and European Integration,” Nations and Nationalism 12, no. 3 (2006): 440. See, for example, Adrian Hastings, The Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion and Nationalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); and Kathy Lavezzo, ed. Imagining a Medieval English Nation, Medieval Cultures, 37 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004). Smith, “Silver Sea,” 440. See also John Gillingham, The English in the Twelfth Century: Imperialism, National Identity and Political Values (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2000); Thorlac Turville-Petre, England the Nation: Language, Literature, and National Identity, 1290–1340 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996); Michael Hicks, English Political Culture in the Fifteenth Century (New York: Routledge, 2002); and V. J. Scattergood, Occasions for Writing: Essays on Medieval and Renaissance Literature, Politics and Society (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2010). Derek Pearsall, “The Idea of Englishness in the Fifteenth Century,” in Nation, Court and Culture: New Essays on Fifteenth-Century English Poetry, ed. Helen Cooney (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2001), 15 and 20. Pearsall’s argument is based exclusively on English poetry, excluding any statements of national feeling that might have been expressed in prose. Tamara Atkin and A. S. G. Edwards, “Printers, Publishers and Promoters to 1558,” in A Companion to the Early Printed Book in Britain, 1476–1558, ed. Vincent Gillespie and Susan Powell (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2014), 38.

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Bibliography 207 Wakelin, Daniel. Humanism, Reading and English Literature, 1430–1530. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Waldron, Ronald. “Caxton and the Polychronicon.” In Chaucer in Perspective: Middle English Essays in Honour of Norman Blake. Ed. Geoffrey Lester, 375–94. Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999. Walker, Simon. “Political Saints in Later Medieval England.” In The Macfarlane Legacy: Studies in Late Medieval Politics and Society. Ed. R. H. Britnell and A. J. Pollard, 77–105. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995. Wallace, David, ed. The Cambridge History of Medieval Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Walsham, Alexandra. Church Papists: Catholicism, Conformity and Confessional Polemic in Early Modern England. Woodbridge, UK: D. S. Brewer, 1993. Wang, Yu-Chiao. “Caxton’s Romances and Their Early Tudor Readers.” Huntington Library Quarterly 67, no. 2 (2004): 173–88. Watson, Nicholas. “Censorship and Cultural Change in Late-Medieval England: Vernacular Theology, the Oxford Translation Debate, and Arundel’s Constitutions of 1409.” Speculum 70, no. 4 (1995): 822–64. Watt, Tessa. Cheap Print and Popular Piety 1550–1640. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Watts, John. “‘Common Weal’ and ‘Commonwealth’: England’s Monarchical Republic in the Making, c.1450–1530.” In The Languages of Political Society. Ed. Andrea Gamberini, 147–66. Rome: Viella, 2011. Weinberg, S. Carole. “Caxton, Anthony Woodville, and the Prologue to the Morte Darthur.” Studies in Philology 102, no.1 (2005): 45–65. Weightman, Christine. Margaret of York, Duchess of Burgundy, 1446–1503. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989. Werner, Sarah. Studying Early Printed Books, 1450–1800: A Practical Guide. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell, 2019. West, William. “Old News: Caxton, de Worde, and the Invention of the Edition.” In Caxton’s Trace: Studies in the History of English Printing. Ed. William Kuskin, 241–74. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006. White, Helen. “Early Renaissance Saints’ Lives.” Annuale Mediaevale 4 (1963): 93–123. White, Jack H. “Richardus Pynson de Parochia Sancti Clementis Danorum.” FifteenthCentury Studies 8 (1983): 275–90. Whiting, Robert. Local Responses to the English Reformation. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998. Wilcock, Peter. The Lives of Benedict, Ceolfrid, Easterwine, Sigfrid, and Huetbert, the First Five Abbots of the United Monastery of Wearmouth and Jarrow, Translated from the Latin of Venerable Bede. Sunderland, UK: George Garbutt and Longman, 1818. Williams, C. H., ed. English Historical Documents, 1485–1558. Vol. 5. Gen. ed. David C. Douglas. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971. Wilson, Louise, Gordon Kendal, and Neil Rhodes, eds. English Renaissance Translation Theory. MHRA Tudor & Stuart Translations, vol. 9. Gen. ed. Andrew Hadfield and Neil Rhodes. London: Modern Humanities Research Association, 2013. Wooding, Lucy. Rethinking Catholicism in Reformation England. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000.

208 Bibliography Woolfson, Jonathan. “Bishop Fox’s Bees and the Early English Renaissance.” Reformation and Renaissance Review 5, no. 1 (2003): 7–26. ———, ed. Reassessing Tudor Humanism. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. Wormald, Francis. “Bible Illustration in Medieval Manuscripts.” In Lampe, Cambridge History of the Bible, 309–37. Wyatt, Michael. The Italian Encounter with Tudor England: A Cultural Politics of Translation. Cambridge Studies in Renaissance Literature and Culture. Rpt. ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Index

Note: Page numbers in italics indicate figures. Page numbers in bold indicate tables. Act of Supremacy (1534) 158, 164n132, 166 Acts and Monuments (Foxe) 166–7 Aesop’s Fables 18 Agincourt, Battle of (1415) 22, 64, 90 Agnes, Saint 126–7 Alban, Saint 86, 95, 96, 103n91, 103n93, 122 Aldhelm, Saint 86 Alphage, Saint 86, 96 Ambrose of Milan 38 Amphibalus, Saint 86, 96, 103n91, 122 Anderson, Benedict 10, 185n101 Andrew the Apostle 34 Anthony of Egypt 40 anticlericalism 128, 149, 155, 168–9 apocrypha 75–6, 84n61 apostles, iconography 21–2, 34–5, 140, 155 apostolic succession 21–2, 138 Arthurian narratives 88, 89 Arthurson, Ian 116 Arundel, Thomas FitzAlan, 17th Earl of 28, 66n15 Arundel, William FitzAlan, 16th Earl of 27–8, 29, 41, 119 Arundel’s Constitutions (Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury) 69–70 Assertio Septem Sacramentorum adversus Martinum Lutherum (Henry VIII) 155 Atkin, Tamara 6, 144 Augustine of Canterbury 38, 86, 95, 103n94 Augustine of Hippo 26, 38, 45n54 authority, appeals to 26–7, 128

Backster, Margery 173–4 Bainam, James 174 Baker, David Weil 84n71 Bale, John 173 Barbara, Saint 38, 121, 136 Barbier, Jean 135 Barnabas, Saint 34, 35 Bartholomew, Saint 34 Bartlett, Robert 16n92, 38, 67n45, 87, 90, 91, 102n72 Batallier, Jean 53 Beaufort, Margaret, Lady 46n77, 117, 134, 143, 150 Bede, Saint 63, 86, 92, 97 Belyea, Barbara 5 Bengtson, Jonathan 179 Bernard, G. W. 142 Bernard of Clairvaux 27, 39 Bible: apocrypha 75–6, 84n61; Latin production 68–9; “Paris Bible” layout 72, 75; vernacular production 68, 69–71, 79–80n9, 156–7; see also Old Testament chapters Bible anonyme 72 Bible historiale (Guyart des Moulin) 83n58 bishops: and anticlericalism 128, 149, 155, 168–9; and ecclesiastical authority 128, 155; saint illustrations 38–9, 120–1, 126, 140, 148–9, 155 Blackfriars (Dominicans) 39 black letter typeface 23, 45n41 Blades, William 81n31 Blake, Norman 79n3, 81n31, 100n28 Blayney, Peter 2, 129–30n17 Bollandists 185n94

210 Index bookbinders 19 Brendan, Saint 86 Bride (Brigid), Saint 62–3 British saints: collections as English phenomenon 86–7; distinguished from other saints in Golden Legend 94–6; in Gilte Legende 62–3, 89, 91–2, 103n91, 103n94, 104n95; and historical narratives of England 87–9, 97; illustrations 38, 94–5, 103n87, 140, 148; national saint designation 93–4, 175, 179; and non-British saints 89–91, 141; reader interest in 175–7, 178–9; royalty 23, 24, 94, 95, 177; unique to Golden Legend 63–4, 92–3; see also specific saints Bruges 3–5 Brut tradition 87–8, 89, 97, 175, 176 Buckingham’s Rebellion 18, 28–9, 46n77 Burgundian court 4–5, 28 Burke, Peter 83n57 Burne-Jones, Edward 9 Butler, John 159n12 Butler, Pierce 53, 61, 92, 100n39 Calendar (Foxe) 166–7 Calvinism 168, 169 The Canterbury Tales (Chaucer) 5, 7 Capgrave, John, Nova Legenda Anglie 87, 92 Capons, Sir John 75, 83n59 Carlson, David 6, 25 Carr, Carolyn 44n29 Cassiodorus 27 Catherine of Aragon 151, 157, 166 Cato, Distichs 18 Caxton, William: career in commerce and publishing 1–2, 3–6; catalog 18, 25–6, 88–9; political and religious views 71, 81n31; preference for vernacular 6, 23–5, 45n46; royal and aristocratic patrons 5, 14nn60–1, 18, 28–9, 106, 115–16; see also The Golden Legend (first edition) Cecilia, Saint 62, 66n30 Chad, Saint 63 Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor 93 Charles VI, King of France 64 Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy 4 Chaucer, Geoffrey 6; The Canterbury Tales 5, 7 chivalric literature 72 Chrétien de Troyes: Perceval 72; Yvain 72

Christological iconography 35–6, 122, 123, 126, 127, 136, 148 Christopher, Saint 35–6, 48n114, 122, 136 Chronicles of England 88, 91, 97, 142 clergy see bishops Coel, King 89, 97 Cologne 5 colophons 41, 123, 127, 143–4 confessor saints 40 Connolly, Margaret 7, 29 Constantine, Roman Emperor 89–90 Copland, Robert 159n12 Cornelius, Pope 121 Coverdale Bible (Great Bible) 158, 164n133, 177–8 Cranmer, Thomas 177 Crispin and Crispinian, Saints 63–4 Cromwell, Thomas 177 Cruz, JoAnn 7 Cursor Mundi 83n58 Cuthbert, Saint 86 Daubney, William 116 David (biblical figure) 75, 127 dedications, book 27, 29, 119 Dent, J. M. 9 The Descripcion of Britayne 88–9, 97 devotional practice 7, 122–3, 128, 147, 153–4, 169–70 Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers (Rivers) 5, 28 Dimock, James F. 93 Distichs (Cato) 18 doctors of the church 26–7, 45n54, 128 Dominic, Saint 39 Driver, Martha 27 Duff, Gordon 19, 46n59 Duffy, Eamon 9, 171 Dunn-Lardeau, Brenda 53, 61 Dunstan, Saint 86 ecclesiastical authority 128, 155; see also bishops; popes and papacy Edmund, King and Martyr 23, 24, 45, 86, 94, 95, 148, 152 Edmund of Abingdon 38, 86, 122 Edward, King and Confessor 86, 94, 95, 96, 176–7 Edward, King and Martyr 86, 95 Edward I, King of England 90 Edward III, King of England 4, 22, 90 Edward IV, King of England 4, 18, 28

Index Edward V, King of England 18, 28–9 Edward VI, King of England 173, 177 Edwards, A. S. G. 6, 144 Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist 35 Elizabeth I, Queen of England 10, 166 Elizabeth Woodville, Queen consort of England 18, 28, 29, 46n77 Ellis, Frederick Startridge 9–10, 47n84 Elton, Geoffrey 150, 185n92 English saints see British saints episcopacy see bishops Erasmus, Saint 42, 50n159 Erasmus of Rotterdam 155, 156, 158 Erkenwald, Saint 38, 86 Erler, Mary 6 Eucharist 40–1, 120, 168–9 evangelists, iconography 37 The Faerie Queene (Spenser) 175 Faith, Saint 63 Felix, Pope 121 female saints 35, 38, 121–2, 126–7, 136, 140, 146, 155 Festial (Mirk) 41, 65n9, 84n75 Fiacre, Saint 86 Fisher, John 156, 158, 164n118 FitzAlan family 27–8, 45n55; see also entries at Arundel Foxe, John: Acts and Monuments 166–7; Calendar 166–7 Francis of Assisi 39 friars, illustrations 39 Frideswide, Saint 63 Fursey, Saint 86, 91, 94 Galloway, Andrew 87 The Game of Chess 5, 25 Genevieve, Saint 121 Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Regum Britanniae 88 George, Saint 39, 90–1, 94, 101n39, 141, 174–5, 179 Gervase of Canterbury 90 Giles, Saint 40 Gilte Legende: overview 8; comparison to Golden Legend 54–60, 62–3, 91–2, 93, 96, 103n91, 103n94, 104n95; critical edition 60–1, 66n22; variants 52–3 God, iconography 22, 40, 136, 144–6 Godfrey of Boulogne, or the siege and conquest of Jerusalem 26 The Golden Legend (first edition): appeal to authority 26–7; colophon 41;

211

dedication 27, 29; modern editions 9–10; navigational aids 29–33, 73–4; posthumous printing 12–13n14; prologue 25–6; size 19; source material, overview 7–9; source material, chapter comparisons 54–60, 61–4, 89, 91–2, 93, 96, 103n91, 103n94, 104n95; source material, variants and critical editions 9, 16n100, 51–3, 60–1; typeface and language 23–5, 45n41; woodcuts, chapter pages 33–41, 34, 107–15; woodcuts, frontispiece 19, 20, 21–3, 43n17, 117; see also British saints; Old Testament chapters; reader responses The Golden Legend (late fifteenth-century editions): appeal to authority 128; colophon changes 123, 127; continuities and discontinuities with first edition, overview 105–6, 117; devotional application 122–3; illustration changes 120–2, 123, 124, 126–7, 131n47; length changes 131n52, 133n82; navigational aid changes 117–18, 124, 126; prologue changes 118–19, 126; textual changes 119–20, 124–6, 128 The Golden Legend (sixteenth-century editions): Notary’s 135–42; Pynson’s 143–50, 162n70; Worde’s 150–8 Good, Jonathan 90, 94 Görlach, Manfred 63 Gough, John 156 Grasse, Theodore 9, 16n100, 53, 61 Great Bible (Coverdale Bible) 158, 164n133, 177–8 Great Revolt (1381) 69 Greek mythology 4 Gregory I, Pope 38, 89, 95, 121, 176 Greyfriars (Franciscans) 39 Gunthorpe, John 3 Gutenberg, Johannes 1 Gutenberg Bible 68 Guyart des Moulin, Bible historiale 83n58 Haghe, Inghelbert 135 hagiography genre 73–4, 97, 152 Hamer, Richard 60–1, 62, 63, 66n22, 91 Hanna, Ralph 70 Harbus, Antonina 86 Helen, mother of Constantine 89–90 Hellinga, Lotte 46n57, 99n12, 115, 130n17

212 Index Henry II, King of England 93, 94 Henry III, King of England 90, 94 Henry V, King of England 22, 64, 90 Henry VI, King of England 28 Henry VII, King of England 46n77, 106, 115–16, 134, 142, 150 Henry VIII, King of England 10, 69, 150, 151, 157, 166, 170, 173, 177, 179; Assertio Septem Sacramentorum adversus Martinum Lutherum 155 heresy 22, 69, 136, 142, 156, 173–4 hermit saints 40, 140 Higden, Ranulf, Polychronicon 87, 88, 91, 92–3, 97 Hilary of Poitiers 126 Hilmo, Madie 44n33 Hilton, Walter, Scale of Perfection 117 Historia Regum Britanniae (Geoffrey of Monmouth) 88 Historia Scholastica (Peter Comestor) 83n58 The History of Jason 25–6 Holbein, Hans 143 Horae ad usum Sarum 135, 139 Horrall, Sarah 75, 83n58 Horstman, Carl 87 Hugh of Lincoln 63, 86, 92–3 humanism 155 Huvin, Jean 135 illustrations see woodcut illustrations The Image of Love 156 initial letters 32–3, 117–18, 126, 139–40 Isaac (biblical figure) 153 Jacobus Voragine 7; see also Legenda aurea James the Apostle 21, 34, 93, 140 James the Less 34, 35, 140 James the Martyr 140 Jean de Vignay 8; see also La Légende dorée Jeremy, Mary 83n59 Jerome, Saint 26–7, 37, 45n54 Jesus Christ, iconography 35–6, 122, 123, 126, 127, 136, 148 John of Tynemouth, Sanctilogium Angliae, Walliae, Scotiae et Hisperniae 86–7 Johnson, Richard, The Most Famous History of the Seven Champions of Christendom 175 Johnson, Stanley 144, 156, 162n70

John the Apostle 34, 37 John the Baptist 35, 122 Jones, Dan 142 Josephus, Flavius (fifteenth-century printer) 53, 60 Judith (biblical figure) 36–7 Justina, Saint 121 The Kalendre of the New Legende of Englande 87 Katherine of Alexandria 21, 38, 89, 121 Kelmscott Press 9, 158 Kendal, John, Knight Hospitaller 116 Kenelm, Saint 86, 95–6, 103n89, 104n95 King, John 19, 164n118 Kretzschmar, William A., Jr. 100n28 Kuskin, William 1 Lambert, Saint 126 Large, Robert 13n22 Latin Vulgate 68–9 Laurence, Saint 38 Laʒamon, Brut 88, 89 Lefèvre, Raoul, Recueil des histories de Troies 4–5, 25 Legenda aurea (Jacobus Voragine): comparison to Golden Legend 54–60, 61, 63, 89, 91, 93; critical editions 9, 16n100, 53, 61; Pelagius and Lombards chapter 38–9; popularity 7–8; as sermon writing resource 31; variants 51–3 La Légende dorée (Vignay): appeal to authority 26–7; comparison to Golden Legend 25, 54–60, 61–2, 63, 89, 91, 93; critical edition 53; popularity 7–8; variants 52–3 Leger, Saint 63 Leonard of Noblac 40 Leo X, Pope 155 Lettou, John 129–30n17 liturgical calendar 30–1, 47n87, 76–7, 84n76, 125–6, 153 lollards and lollardy 22, 44n32, 69–70, 71–2, 81n31, 102n79, 142, 169 London Stationers Company 130n33 Lorens, Friar, Somme le roi 83n58 Louis IX, King of France 39 Lowe, Saint 121 Luke the Evangelist 37 Luther, Martin 142, 155–6, 179 Lydgate, John 23; The Lyf of Our Lady 40n45; The Temple of Glas 40n45

Index Macarius, Saint 140 Macarius the Elder 140 Machlinia, William de 130n17 Maggioni, Giovanni Paolo 53 Malory, Thomas 6; Morte Darthur 46n81, 89, 97 Mansion, Colard 5 manuscript book production vs. print 6 Margaret (Pelagien), Saint 140 Margaret of Antioch 38, 49n148, 121, 140 Margaret of York 4–5, 106, 116 Mark the Evangelist 37 Martin of Tours 40 martyrs, iconography 21, 23, 38, 121, 127, 155 Mary, mother of Christ 35, 36, 122, 127, 136, 141, 146 Mary Magdalene 35, 121, 122 Mary of Egypt 155 Mary I, Queen of England 173, 177 mass 40–1, 120, 168–9 Matthew the Apostle 34, 37 Matthias, Saint 34 Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor 116 Mellonin, Saint 86 mendicant orders 39 Mercers 3 Merchant Adventurers 3, 4 Metamorphoses (Ovid) 26 Michael the Archangel 39–40 military saints 39–40, 138 Mirk, John, Festial 41, 65n9, 84n75 The Mirror of the World 26, 33 monks, illustrations 39 More, Thomas 142, 156, 158, 164n118 Morey, James H. 76 Morgan, James 81n31 Morris, William 9, 158 Morte Darthur (Malory) 46n81, 89, 97 Morton, John 3 The Most Famous History of the Seven Champions of Christendom (Johnson) 175 national identity: and Protestantism 10–11, 166–7, 178–81; and sacred kingship 97–8, 177–8, 180; scholarship on English 10–11, 17n104, 180; see also British saints navigational aids 29–33, 73–4, 117–18, 124, 126, 139, 147–8 Neville, Anne 28

213

Neville, Joan 27–8 Neville, Pamela 143 Neville family 28 Nicholas, Saint 39, 121 Notary, Julian 2, 135–42 Nova Legenda Anglie (Capgrave) 87, 92 Offa, King 95 Old Testament chapters: added cost to Golden Legend 77–8; and exemplars of Golden Legend 64, 68; figures as saints 16n92, 73–4; illustrations 36–7, 124, 152; in later editions of Golden Legend 124–5, 138, 139, 146–7, 150–1, 152, 156, 157; liturgical application 76–7, 84n76, 125–6, 153; page layout 72–3; as paraphrases vs. translations 68, 71–2, 79n3; removal from second edition of Golden Legend 119–20; as sacred history 73–6, 83n58, 125, 127, 128; vernacular Bible production context 69–71 O’Mara, V. M. 162n70 Order of the Garter 4, 22, 90 Order of the Golden Fleece 4 orthodoxy 22–3, 26, 69–70, 136 Oswald of Worcester 62–3 Ovid, Metamorphoses 26 papacy see popes and papacy “Paris Bible” 72, 75 Patrick, Saint 86, 91, 94 Paul, Saint 34, 35 Paul III, Pope 173 Pearsall, Derek 180 Pelagius, Pope 38–9, 121 Perceval (Chrétien de Troyes) 72 Peter the Apostle 21–2, 34–5, 44n29, 136, 138, 146, 152, 167–8 Peter Comestor, Historia Scholastica 83n58 Pettegree, Andrew 1 Philip the Apostle 34 Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy 4 political rebellions 18, 28–9, 46n77, 106, 115–16 Polycarp, Saint 121 Polychronicon (Higden) 87, 88, 91, 92–3, 97 popes and papacy: and Act of Supremacy 158, 164n132, 166; and apostolic succession 21–2, 138; and ecclesiastical authority 128, 155; name

214 Index erasure in service books 170–3; saint illustrations 38–9, 120–1, 146, 148–9, 155 The Practice of Prelates (Tyndale) 173 printer’s devices 125 printing firms 1–2, 70–1, 129–30n17, 134–5, 143, 159n12 printing press: arrival in Bruges 5; vs. manuscript book production 6 prologues 25–6, 118–19, 126, 139, 148 Prosper of Aquitaine 27 Protestantism: and Act of Supremacy 158, 164n132, 166; and apocrypha 75, 76; Lutheran controversy 155–7; and national identity 10–11, 166–7, 178–81; and reader response to Golden Legend 167–9, 170–4, 184n68; and vernacular Bibles 69, 71–2, 84n71, 156–7, 158 publishers 1–2, 70–1, 129–30n17, 134–5, 143, 159n12 Purde, William 14n61 Purvey, John 70 Pynson, Richard 2, 87, 142–50, 159n12, 161n46, 162n70 Quiriacus, Saint 121, 122 Rankin, Mark 19, 164n118 Rastell, Joan 142 reader responses: devotional notes 169–70; name erasures 170–4, 184n68; and national identity 175–80; religious notes 167–9 Reames, Sherry 7 Recueil des histories de Troies (Lefèvre) 4–5, 25 Red Pale 5 Reformation see Protestantism Rehoboam (biblical figure) 75 religious imagery see woodcut illustrations Richard, Duke of York 18 Richard III, King of England 18, 28–9, 40, 46n77, 46n81, 106 Richards, Jennifer 167 Rivers, Anthony Woodville, 2nd Earl 28–9, 46n71, 116; Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers 5, 28 Roche, Saint 38 Rogers, Clifford 64 roman typeface 23, 143 Rood, Theodoric 129–30n17 The Royal Book 143

rubrications 21, 32–3, 43n26, 118 Russell, John 3 Russell, Vida 61, 62, 63, 66n22, 91 Ryan, William Granger 9, 16n100 sacred kingship 97–8, 177–8, 180 Saenger, Paul 84n65 saints: ecclesiastical 38–9, 120–1, 126, 128, 140, 148–9, 155; feasts 30–1, 35; in Golden Legend vs. source material 61–3; martyrs 21, 23, 38, 121, 127, 155; Old Testament figures as 16n92, 73–4; women 35, 38, 121–2, 126–7, 136, 140, 146, 155; see also British saints Sanctilogium Angliae, Walliae, Scotiae et Hisperniae (John of Tynemouth) 86–7 Sanctorale feasts 30–1, 35, 153 Sant, John, Abbot of Abingdon 116 Scale of Perfection (Hilton) 117 Scholastica, Saint 62 Schurink, Fred 167 scripture see the Bible Sebastian, Saint 136 sermon writing 7, 31, 123, 128, 147, 153 Shagan, Ethan 170 Shrank, Cathy 10–11 Simnel, Lambert 115 Simon de Montfort 90 Sixtus, Pope 121 Smith, Anthony D. 97, 180, 186n101 Solomon (biblical figure) 75, 127 Somerset, Fiona 71 Somme le roi (Lorens) 83n58 South English Legendary 61, 66n22 Spenser, Edmund 166; The Faerie Queene 175 Stephen Protomartyr 38 Swithun, Saint 86, 121, 122 Syon Abbey 150, 156 Syrus of Genoa 61 tables of contents 29–31, 73–4, 119, 124, 139, 153, 156 The Temple of Glas (Lydgate) 40n45 Temporale feasts 30–1, 35, 47n87, 153 Theophilus, Saint 63, 67n41 Thomas the Apostle 34, 35, 168 Thomas Aquinas 167 Thomas of Canterbury (Thomas Becket): featured in Golden Legend 38, 63, 86, 91, 93, 94–5, 103n87; rejection of 102n79, 171–5,

Index 184n68; and Saint George 90, 94; status as saint 63, 67n45, 67n47, 93–4, 102n72 Tobias (biblical figure) 75 Tottel, Richard 159n12 transubstantiation 168–9 Trevisa, John 88, 89 Trinitarian iconography 22–3, 44n33, 136, 144 Tunstall, Bishop 156 Tyndale, William 156, 158, 164n133; The Practice of Prelates 173 typefaces 23, 45n41, 143 Ullerston, Richard 70 Urban, Pope 121 Ursula, Saint 103n90 Valerian, Martyr 62, 66n30 Veldener, Johannes 5 vernacular books: Bibles 68, 69–71, 79–80n9, 156–7; Caxton’s preference for 6, 23–5, 45n46 Vignay, Jean de 8; see also La Légende dorée Virgin Mary 35, 36, 122, 127, 136, 141, 146 Vulgate 68–9 Warbeck, Perkin 116 Warwick, Richard Neville, Earl of 28 Watson, Nicholas 69 Wayland, John 159n12 Weinberg, Carole 46n81 Werner, Sarah 12n6, 12n14 Westminster 5 Winifred, Saint 86 Wolsey, Thomas 142, 155, 156–7 women saints 35, 38, 121–2, 126–7, 136, 140, 146, 155

215

woodcut illustrations: apostle and evangelist iconography 21–2, 34–5, 37, 140, 155; bishops and popes 38–9, 120–1, 126, 140, 146, 148–9, 155; British saints 38, 94–5, 103n87, 140, 148; changes to later editions of Golden Legend 120–2, 123, 124, 126–7, 131n47, 136–41, 144–9, 151–5, 154, 156, 157, 163nn85–90; Christological iconography 35–6, 122, 123, 126, 127, 136, 148; colored 43n26, 118; comparison of Golden Legend editions 107–15; ecclesiastical imagery 40–1, 168–9; frontispiece of Golden Legend 19, 20, 21–3, 43n17, 117, 136–8, 137, 144–6, 145, 151–2; function 19–21; martyrs 21, 23, 38, 121, 127, 155; Old Testament 36–7, 124, 152; Peter iconography 21–2, 34–5, 44n29, 136, 138, 146, 152; royalty and aristocracy 23, 24, 27, 39; Trinitarian iconography 22–3, 44n33, 136, 144 Wooding, Lucy 85n80 Woodville, Margaret 28 Woodville family 28–9 Worde, Wynkyn de: alien status 116, 119–20; business relocation 134–5; catalog 87, 135, 150; collaboration with Pynson 2, 142–9; as continuator of Caxton’s work 2, 10, 105, 129n1; death and burial 158; political and religious views 81n31; royal patrons 117, 134, 143; sixteenth-century editions of Golden Legend 150–8; see also The Golden Legend (late fifteenth-century editions) Wycliffe, John 22, 44n33, 69 Wycliffite Bible 68, 69–70, 75 Yvain (Chrétien de Troyes) 72