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The Middle English Life of Saint Dorothy in Trinity College, Dublin MS 319: Origins, Parallels, and Its Relationship to Osbern Bokenham's Legendys of Hooly Wummen
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 February 2016
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During the Middle Ages, collections of hagiography were among the most widely circulated texts, serving as both inspirational and instructional stories. The legends of virgin martyrs were some of the most popular. These young women were venerated for their ability to withstand torture in defiance of tyranny and served as models for medieval piety. One of these accounts, the legend of Saint Dorothy, is extant in at least three different Middle English versions, including select manuscripts of the 1438 Gilte Legende and Osbern Bokenham's 1447 Legendys of Hooly Wummen. The earlier history of the legend of Saint Dorothy, unknown in Greek tradition and venerated in the West since the seventh century, has been well described by Kirsten Wolf in her edition of the Icelandic redaction. Despite its relationship to many of the other fictitious hagiographical legends that came into existence in the fourth and fifth centuries based on the various calendars and martyrologies, and its development as a virgin martyr legend, Jacobus de Voragine (ca. 1230–1298) did not include the legend of Saint Dorothy in his Legenda aurea, compiled between 1252 and 1260.
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1 Wolf, Kirsten, The Icelandic Legend of Saint Dorothy , Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Studies and Texts 130 (Toronto, 1997), 1. See also Wolf, , “The Legend of St. Dorothy: Medieval Vernacular Renderings and Their Latin Sources,” Analecta bollandiana 114 (1996): 41–72. Wolf's study of the Icelandic version of Dorothy is the most comprehensive study on this virgin legend to date; she provides examples and redactions of the legend stemming from the earliest Latin hagiographical calendars through the vernacular traditions of the fifteenth century, and the circulation of this legend into the nineteenth century. However, her study is primarily concerned with the “standard” version of Dorothy as found in the manuscripts of the GiL, its possible Latin predecessors, and its evolution in Icelandic. She acknowledges the version of Dorothy found in Dublin, Trinity College Library (TCD) MS 319 and its variance from the other GiL versions, but only touches on it, following Manfred Görlach's lead in The South English Legendary: Gilte Legende and Golden Legend, Braunschweiger Anglistische Arbeiten 3 (Braunschweig, 1972), reexamined in his Studies in Middle English Saints' Legends (Heidelberg, 1998), 94 n. 153. Görlach provides a comprehensive and invaluable discussion of GiL scholarship and a detailed analysis of the GiL manuscripts in both works. For further information on the South English Legendary , see Pickering, Oliver, “The Temporale Narratives of the South English Legendary,” Anglia 91 (1973): 425–55; idem, The South English Ministry and Passion, (Heidelberg, 1984); and idem, “The Outspoken South English Legendary Poet,” in Late Medieval Religious Texts and Their Transmission , ed. Minnis, A. J. (Cambridge, 1994), 21–37, among others. The first mention of the virgin martyr from Cappadocia is in connection with Theophilus, the scholar and notary converted through her miracles and tortured after her execution, in the Matryrologium Hieronymianum falsely attributed to Saint Jerome (ca. 341–420) and drawn up in northern Italy in the second half of the fifth century (Wolf, Icelandic Legend, 1–2). According to Wolf, the oldest manuscripts of this legend date from the eighth century and depend on a single Gallican recension made either in Auxerre between 592 and 600 or at Luxeuil between 627 and 628, whose source was a series of liturgical calendars that merely mention the saints' names, date of commemoration, and place of martyrdom. These include: the work of the Chronographer of 354 continued to 420, the Syriac Breviary or Calendar of Antioch compiled between 362 and 381, and an African calendar, as well as other unknown sources (Wolf, , Icelandic Legend, 2). These calendar references are the only known mention of Dorothy before the Middle Ages, when her legend seems to have been written; the oldest known version of the legend is found in Saint Aldhelm's (639–709) didactic tract De laudibus virginitatis, addressed to Abbess Hildelitha of Barking Abbey, Essex (Wolf, , Icelandic Legend, 2). From that point on, Dorothy is mentioned in Bede's (673–735) martyrology ca. 720; the martyrology of Rabanus Maurus (776/784–856), archbishop of Mainz, who added more details to Bede's brief account, including the names of Dorothy's sisters listed as “Christae and Calistae”; and the martyrology of the Viennese archbishop Ado (ca. 800–875) (Wolf, , Icelandic Legend, 6). Ado's text served as the foundation for the monk Usuard (d. 877) whose work would become “the model for every later Roman martyrology” (Wolf, , Icelandic Legend, 3–6). This article is based on “TCD MS 319: A Version of Bokenham's Life of Saint Dorothy or His Source?” delivered at the Early Book Society sponsored session of the International Medieval Congress at the University of Western Michigan, Kalamazoo, May 2000. I would like to thank Richard Hamer, Vida Russell, V. J. Scattergood, A.I. Doyle, A.S.G. Edwards, Simon Horobin, Penn Szittya, Raymond Cormier, J. Patrick Hornbeck, Carolyn Craft, and Owen Delaney for all of their insightful suggestions on this article, and the Trinity College Library for granting me access to this manuscript during my research. I would also like to thank Traditio's anonymous reader and editorial board for their useful comments. The following abbreviations are used throughout: ALL = Additional Lives of the Gilte Legende; BHL = Bibliotheca hagiographica latina; GiL = Gilte Legende; LgA = Legenda aurea; Legendys = Legendys of Hooly Wummen. Google Scholar
2 Wolf, , Icelandic Legend, 8. The LgA has been translated and edited by both Ryan, William Granger and Stace, Christopher; see de Voragine, Jacobus, The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints , trans. and ed. Ryan, William Granger, 2 vols. (Princeton, 1993); and The Golden Legend, ed. Christopher Stace with an introduction by Richard Hamer (Middlesex, 1998). Richard Hamer edited the lives of three male saints from all the GiL manuscripts in 1978. Auvo Kurvinen completed an edition of the life of Saint Catherine from seven manuscripts in 1960 for her Oxford D.Phil. thesis “The Life of St. Catherine of Alexandria in Middle English Prose” (Oxford, 1961). The Middle English manuscripts are being fully edited by Richard Hamer and Vida Russell who are currently working on a critical edition of the manuscripts of the GiL for the EETS. Also see Richard Hamer, Three Lives from the Gilte Legende Edited from MS BL Egerton 876 (Heidelberg, 1978); Hamer, , Gilte Legende, vol. 1, EETS, o. s., 327 (Oxford, 2006); and Hamer, Richard and Russell, Vida, Supplementary Lives in Some Manuscripts of the Gilte Legende, EETS, o. s., 315 (Oxford, 2000). There are eight more or less complete manuscripts of the GiL, and three additional manuscripts containing selections that date from the beginning to the latter half of the fifteenth century. Some of these manuscripts contain material not derived from LgA, so the process of translating the collection also involved adding cognate material. From a very early stage there was a tendency for extra lives, often of local interest, to be added to these manuscripts as well. The legend of Saint Dorothy appears in a large number of LgA manuscripts, some of them early and most of them written north of the Alps, which correlates with her popularity in Germany. There is some question whether all the GiL manuscripts were translated only from the French, as stated in the colophon to Oxford, Bodleian MS Douce 372, which also gives the date 1438, or if some were translated directly from Latin sources, as suggested by the inscription at the end of Harley 630: “Here endeth the Boke of the life of Seintes called in latyn legenda aurea compiled and drawen into englissh bi worthi clerkes and doctors of Diuinite [suengly] aftre þe tenure of þe latin.” Görlach highlights this disparity in Studies, 71 n. 99. For further information on the GiL manuscripts see Görlach, , Studies, 71–145; Hamer, and Russell, , Supplementary Lives ; Tracy, Larissa, Women of the Gilte Legende: A Selection of Middle English Saints Lives (Suffolk, 2003); and eadem, “British Library MS Harley 630: Saint Alban's and Lydgate,” Journal of the Early Book Society 3 (2000): 36–58.Google Scholar
3 For more information about this new and exciting find, see Horobin, Simon, “The Angle of Oblivioun: A Lost Medieval Manuscript discovered in Walter Scott's Collection,” Times Literary Supplement , 11 November 2005, 12–13. Horobin convincingly dates this manuscript at 1449 or later, according to a reference in the text to poet John Lydgate's death. He also notes that Bokenham included additional lives in his version of the LgA, including the saints in his Legendys of Hooly Wummen. Further work on this manuscript may yield more evidence relating Caxton's version of Dorothy to the one in the Abbotsford House LgA, but that is beyond the scope of this article.Google Scholar
4 Görlach, , Studies , 96 n. 154; Fleith, Barbara, “Studien zur Überlieferungsgeschichte der lateinischen Legenda Aurea,” Subsida Hagiographica 72 (1991), quoted in Görlach, 96.Google Scholar
5 For additional information concerning the contents of Advocates Library Abbotsford MS, see Horobin, Simon, “A Manuscript Found in the Library of Abbotsford House and the Lost Legendary of Osbern Bokenham,” Regional Manuscripts: English Manuscript Studies , ed. Beal, Peter, vol. 14, English Manuscript Studies, 1100–1700 (in press).Google Scholar
6 Wolf, , Icelandic Legend , 18, 32. Wolf gives a full discussion on the vernacular versions of Dorothy, including German, French, Icelandic, and English, but my focus here is the Middle English redactions, primarily the one found in TCD 319.Google Scholar
7 Cf. Görlach, , South English Legendary ; see also idem, Studies, 94 n. 153; and Wolf, , Ice landic Legend, 36–37.Google Scholar
8 Wolf, , Icelandic Legend, 9. BHL 2324 is also identified in Theodor Graesse, Jacobi a Voragine Legenda Aurea vulgo Historia Lombardica dicta ad optimorum librorum fidem recensuit (Dresden, 1846; 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1850; 3rd ed., Breslau, 1890) who relegated the legend of Dorothy to an appendix: “legendae superadditae.” Google Scholar
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22 Ibid.Google Scholar
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29 Hamer, , Three Lives (n. 2 above), 33.Google Scholar
30 “Guide to Catalogues” (annotated typescript kept in the Manuscript Room of TCD Library), 6 for John Lyons's handwritten catalogue of 1745. See also 3–5 for earlier collections. Lyons's catalogue is now TCD Library MUN/LIB/1/53.Google Scholar
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33 Kurvinen, Auvo, “Caxton's Golden Legend and the manuscripts of the Gilte Legende,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 60 (1959): 353–75.Google Scholar
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39 Samuels, M. L., personal correspondence, quoted in Hamer, Three Lives , 35.Google Scholar
40 A textual comparison of the two versions of Catherine appears as an appendix to my doctoral dissertation: “A Ryght Hooly Virgin: An Edition of Harley MS 630, Lives of Female Saints and Saint Alban” (University of Dublin, Trinity College, 2000) Dublin.Google Scholar
41 Hamer, , Three Lives , 47. Hamer also suggests “the most likely explanation is that the compiler of T copied Catherine and Dorothy first from another source and then turned to H1 for the rest of his selection.” However, recent study has shown that the two sections of TCD 319 were most likely not compiled at the same time nor by the same person as each segment in written in a different hand.Google Scholar
42 Kurvinen, , “Caxton's Golden Legend,” 355–56.Google Scholar
43 Görlach, , Studies , 94 n. 153. Cf. also idem, South English Legendary, 36 n. 4.Google Scholar
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47 Wolf, , Icelandic Legend , 36–37; Görlach, , Studies, 94–95. Hamer, and Russell, give a full transcription from each of the three versions: the ALL represented by BL Additional MS 35298 in Görlach; the earlier prose translations, represented by BL MS Royal 2 A xviii, fols. 236v–240v in Görlach, ; and TCD 319 (Supplementary Lives, n. 2 above).Google Scholar
48 Any extracts from TCD 319 are taken from my transcription of the manuscript completed during my doctoral work on Harley 630 and TCD 319. The text of Dorothy 1 (ALL), and Dorothy 2 (earlier Middle English prose translations) are taken from Hamer and Russell, Supplementary Lives , 227–40.Google Scholar
49 A portion of the following textual comparison is also included as an introduction to the translation of the “Life of Saint Dorothy” in Tracy, , Women of the Gilte Legende , 31–32.Google Scholar
50 Wolf, , Icelandic Legend , 38. The manuscript of BHL 2325d that contains Dorothy is dated 1449, though this could only refer to the date of the manuscript and not the date of authorial composition, and Bokenham completed his collection in 1447. It is more likely that Bokenham used a different version of BHL 2325d's Latin text.Google Scholar
51 Görlach, , Studies , 95. Hamer and Russell correct this error in their edition (Supplementary Lives, 228).Google Scholar
52 Wolf, , Icelandic Legend , 20–21 n. 31; Görlach, , Studies, 94.Google Scholar
53 Bokenham's Legendys , lines 4748–49.Google Scholar
54 TCD 319, fol. 2v.Google Scholar
55 Bokenham's Legendys , line 4763.Google Scholar
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58 Quoted in Wolf, , Icelandic Legend , 4.Google Scholar
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60 Görlach, ( Studies , 94) lists Dorothy's sisters as Crystem and Calystem in his transcription of the TCD 319 Dorothy. Hamer and Russell's transcription, however, names them Trystem and Calystem (Supplementary Lives, 243), which agrees with my own transcription.Google Scholar
61 Bokenham's Legendys , lines 4891–92.Google Scholar
62 Hamer, and Russell, , Supplementary Lives , line 89.Google Scholar
63 Ibid., lines 83–84.Google Scholar
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66 New Haven, Beinecke Library, Marston MS 213, a thirteenth-century Austrian missal in the Yale University manuscript collection, also has Latin prayers to Saint Dorothy written at the end of a sequence of a Latin Catherine of Alexandria. However, the folio (2r) appears to be scrap vellum used to start the missal; the calendar of saints that begins on fol. 2v does not include Dorothy at all, and the hands are significantly different. The three prayers and the section of Catherine appear to have been added later.Google Scholar
67 The Latin antiphon is complete, though space has been left at the bottom of the leaf. The first fragment of TCD 319 ends after Dorothy and the GiL fragment begins. The Latin antiphon is complete, though space has been left at the bottom of the leaf. The first fragment of TCD 319 ends after Dorothy and the GiL fragment begins. In the transcription, () indicates expanded abbreviations; [ ] indicates difficult text that is uncertain; { } indicates illegible text. An approximate translation follows: In whatever house is found the name or image of the distinguished and blessed virgin martyr Dorothy no premature infant shall be born. That house feels no dangers of fire or theft. Nor could anyone in it, dying with the heavenly bread, suffer a bad end … through Jesus Christ, our Lord. O pious virgin Dorothy, strong in miracles, cleanse us from the stains of our sins by your peace, and defend us against the dangers of all this life. O martyr of Christ, pray for us, unworthy as we are; for you conquered the flesh, the world, and the devil. Pray for us, blessed Dorothy, that we may be made worthy of the promise of Christ. Let us pray. [Pray:] All powerful and most gentle God, in whose name the glorious virgin and martyr Dorothy overcame many kinds of tortures, we humbly pray that, by her intervention, we may face all dangers and experience her as our blessed helper in all our straits, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, your Son, who lives and reigns with you for all eternity. While the prayer clearly begins as a supplication to Dorothy, the tone shifts in the last two lines and sounds more like a prayer to the Virgin Mary. This may be due to the damaged state of the manuscript, the garbled state of the original, or a scribal error.Google Scholar
68 “profitiamur”?.Google Scholar
69 Görlach, , South English Legendary , 35 n. 2.Google Scholar
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71 Wolf, , Icelandic Legend , 104. Wolf reproduces the text of BHL 2325d represented by Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria Cod. 2800 as an appendix to her study of the Icelandic legend of Dorothy. Google Scholar
72 Ibid., 107.Google Scholar
73 Ibid., 41 n. 66.Google Scholar
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75 Ibid.Google Scholar
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77 Bokenham's Legendys, lines 6356–65. For a complete edition of Capgrave's poem see Capgrave, John, The Life of Saint Katherine , ed. Winstead, Karen A. (Kalamazoo, 1999).Google Scholar
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79 Bokenham's Legendys , lines 4965–66.Google Scholar
80 Hamer, and Russell, , Supplementary Lives (n. 2 above), lines 139–40.Google Scholar
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84 TCD 319, lines 75–77, fol. 4r.Google Scholar
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