be where It is by choic^i of the bishop, but must- be an in= 

 terpolation of later date froin some old fabliau. 



Voragine was provincial of the Dominicans, for Lom- 

 bardy; though, later on, Bishop Canis, a Spanish Domini- 

 can, was a severe critic of these legends. Some of them, 

 he s.aid, must have been written by "one having a hard 

 face, dull heaa"t, and an ill-balanced mind that mistook 

 monstrosities for miracles." Still, from the first the book 

 became the most highly prized hagiology of the medieval 

 church, and during the first half century of printing more 

 than seventy issues were sent forth by one and another of 

 the early printera. Caxton printed two, if not three, 

 editions. Ho used for his first edition a part already 

 turned into English, a French version, and, when neces- 

 sarv', the Latin text. It was the largest book Caxton 

 printed. Besides a large frontispiece, it hod seventy wood- 

 cuts. He bequeathed fifteen copies to the Church of St. 

 Margai'ct, Westminster. Of the first edition there are a 

 number of impeiiect copies, but no perfect copy of thaAi 

 edition is known to exist. Morris reprinted the Grolden 

 Legend of Caxton at the Kelmscctt pres3 in 1892 ; ajad a 

 low-priced edition of the saine book w^as published in seven 

 voliunes of the Temple Classics by Dent & Co. in 1900. 

 The Finding of the Holy J>ood, recorded in the sixty-fourth 

 chapter of Voragine '& book is one of the most beautiful and 

 best- known of the Golden Legends. A cognate version 

 older than the one given by Voragine is amongst the earliest 

 English prose treasured in the Bodleian library at Oxford. 



The middle agc-s, the intervening period between 

 ancient and modern times, in its full extent reaches from 

 the death of Constantine to the capture of Constantinople 

 b}' the Turks, nearly a thousand years; or in a narrower 

 sense is restricted to the time between the sixth and thir- 

 teenth centuries. During the longer period, the learning 

 Greek and Latin literature conserved suffered a pa,rtial 

 eclipse; and for a portion of the shorter period, the eclipse 

 was v/ ell-nigh total. In the fifth ccntui-Ty' Rome was sacked 

 .25 



