Edited by Richard Hamer (1978), Edited from MS B.L. Egerton 876.
Richard Hamer (ed.) The Gilte Legende of ca. 1438 is justly considered the most important prose translation of the Legenda Aurea into Middle English, and is often preferred to Caxton’s Golden Legend, on account of its fluent and natural style. This edition was published in 1978 and up to that point only small portions of the anonymous translation had been printed. Hamer’s three- volume edition of the Gilte Legende was published by the Early English Text Society as EETS OS 327 (2006), 328 (2007), and 339 (2012). Hamer’s edition for MET of three selected legends illustrated the results of research on the text up to the late seventies and served to test the editorial methods planned for the definitive edition for EETS.