THE GOLDEN LEGEND: Medieval Lives of the Saints, Martyrs, and Feasts of the Christian Year

Original headnotes and endnotes on the saints, sources, and history

A new introduction, a glossary of old words, and a calendar of feasts

Caxton's classic English, lightly modernized for easy reading

A cornerstone of medieval faith and storytelling, arranged along the church year.

Compiled in the thirteenth century by the Dominican friar Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend gathers the lives of the saints, the trials of the martyrs, and the meaning of the church's feasts into one richly told work. Following the calendar from Advent onward, it tells of apostles and bishops, hermits and confessors, dragon slayers and desert fathers.

For centuries it was a companion of preachers, painters, glassmakers, and ordinary believers. Its stories shaped how the Middle Ages pictured holiness, and echoes of them still appear in art, feast days, and customs today.

Inside you will find:

Forty-four chapters: feasts of the Lord and Our Lady, and forty lives of saints and martyrs

Beloved saints, including Nicholas, George, Agnes, Lucy, and Mary Magdalen

Accounts of the martyrs and the courage attributed to them

The feasts and seasons of the church year, explained through their traditions

Tales of miracles, visions, and pilgrimage from the medieval church

These are legends as the medieval church received and told them, treasured as devotion and story rather than modern biography. Readers of church history, medieval literature, and Catholic tradition will find in them a window into the imagination of an age.

Begin your journey through the Christian year with a classic of medieval faith.