Golden Legend

The Golden Legend (Latin: Legenda aurea or Legenda sanctorum) is a collection of hagiographies by Jacobus de Voragine that became a late medieval bestseller. More than a thousand manuscripts of the text have survived. It was likely compiled around the year 1260, although the text was added to over the centuries.

A medieval bestseller

Initially entitled Legenda sanctorum (Readings of the Saints), it gained its popularity under the title by which it is best known. It overtook and eclipsed earlier compilations of abridged legendaria, the Abbreviatio in gestis et miraculis sanctorum attributed to the Dominican chronicler Jean de Mailly and the Epilogus in gestis sanctorum of the Dominican preacher Bartholomew of Trent. Over eight hundred manuscript copies of the work survive, and when printing was invented in the 1450s, editions appeared quickly, not only in Latin, but also in every major European language. Among incunabula, printed before 1501, Legenda aurea was printed in more editions than the Bible. It was one of the first books William Caxton printed in the English language; Caxton's version appeared in 1483 and his translation was reprinted, reaching a ninth edition in 1527. In 1900, the Caxton version was translated by Frederick Startridge Ellis, and published in seven volumes. De Voragine's original was translated into French around the same time by Téodor de Wyzewa.

The Golden Legend (cantata)

The Golden Legend is a cantata by Arthur Sullivan with libretto by Joseph Bennett, based on the 1851 poem of the same name by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The piece premiered at the triennial Leeds Music Festival. At least 17 performances of the cantata were given in Britain during the first year after its premiere in October 1886, and during Sullivan's lifetime it was widely considered his greatest and most successful work of serious music. Indeed, outside of the comic operas with W. S. Gilbert, this cantata was widely regarded as Sullivan's most successful large-scale composition.

A few days after the first performance, Gilbert wrote to Sullivan, "I congratulate you heartily on the success of the Cantata which appears from all accounts to be the biggest thing you've done." In May 1888, there was a performance of the work at the Royal Albert Hall by command of Queen Victoria. She sent for Sullivan after the performance and said, "At last I have heard The Golden Legend, Sir Arthur ... You ought to write a grand opera – you would do it so well."