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

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 Bv LARISSA TRACY 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.1 Despite its relation1 Kirsten Wolf, 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 Gorlach'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 Oliver Pickering, "The Temporale Narratives of the South English Legendarg," 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. A. J. Minnis (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 260TRADITIO ship 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 Vorágine (ca. 1230-1298) did not include the legend of Saint Dorothy in his Legenda áurea, compiled between 1252 and 1260.2 In 1483, William Caxat 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...