The Life of Saint Margaret
Books of hours often ended with
accounts of the lives of saints and prayers to those saints.
In both the manuscript and print eras, Latin remained the
language of liturgical texts, but the lives of saints often
appeared in the vernacular. This is the case in the library’s
manuscript copy of the life of St. Margaret (MSS12455),
written in Old French, as well as in the life of St. Margaret
in Middle French that appears at the end of the 1597 printed
book of hours in the Gordon Collection (Gordon 1597
.C38). These two accounts, though separated by
two centuries, contain a very similar version of the hagiographic
text, which underscores the degree to which printing technology
served to perpetuate tradition as well as to spread new
ideas.
Manuscript of the Life of St. Margaret (from a Fourteenth-Century
French Book of Hours)
Click
here to view the digital facsimile of the text in MSS23455.
The life, from Picardy, perhaps Amiens,
consists of 16 leaves containing text in single columns
of 14 lines written in a gothic book hand. Calligraphic
capitals touched with yellow begin each line. Line
endings are in colors and burnished gold, frequently
with small animals, plants or geometric designs. Nine
leaves contain two-line initials in gold and colors
with marginal bar extenders terminating in ivy leaves.
Text, in Old French rhyming verse, contains portions of
the legend of the martyred St. Margaret of Antioch
as follows, gives her to Christian nurse to raise,
she tends sheep, messenger comes from Roman governor
Olybrius who wishes to marry her (3 leaves) 2) Margaret
rejects envoy of Olybrus who sends for her, questions
her, and plots to torutre her (3 leaves) 3) Margaret
is tortured, pitied by the crowd, and meets the devil
in form of a dragon (3 leaves) 4) Devil boasts to
Margaret, she prays and counters his boasts, she suffers
and is carried to Paradise by angels (3 leaves).
In addition to Margaret's legend
the final leaves contain the fall of Adam and Eve,
the betrayal of Christ by Judas, and Christ before
Pilate (2 leaves), and prayers invoking Christ (2
leaves).
The Printed Life of St. Margaret
From Gordon 1597 .C38.
View
the digital facsimile of the text.
Read more
about the 1597 Hours in the Gordon Collection.
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