South English Legendary (Paperback)

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. The South English Legendary is a Middle English (13th to 14th century) legendary (a hagiographic manuscript), best preserved in MS Harley 2277 and CCCC 145, which contain 92 narrative lives, extremely varied in length, usually including one of two prologues and often including a life of Christ and/or temporale items. The collection is so comprehensive as to include lives of "anti-saints" Judas and Pilate. It is written in verse with a line of fourteen syllables and seven stresses but with much irregularity and deviation, the same metre as the Gloucester Chronicle, with certain lives appearing in both, suggesting at least some authorial overlap. The South English Legendary grew as it was copied, and later manuscripts often add in new saints' lives.