How The Golden Legend shaped the medieval imagination
It is impossible to understand the Middle Ages without grasping the importance of The Golden Legend, the most popular medieval collection of saints' lives. Assembled in the thirteenth century by Genoese archbishop Jacobus de Voragine, the book became the medieval equivalent of a bestseller. In Search of Sacred Time is the first comprehensive history and interpretation of this crucial book. Jacques Le Goff, who was one of the world's most renowned medievalists, provides a lucid and compelling account that shows how The Golden Legend Christianized time itself, reconciling human and divine temporality. Authoritative, eloquent, and original, In Search of Sacred Time is a major reinterpretation of a book that is central to comprehending the medieval imagination.
"In the distinguished historian Jacques Le Goff, The Golden Legend has found an interpreter whose prose shimmers as radiantly as the precious metal evoked in the title of the great compendium itself. Le Goff's reading is brilliant and wholly persuasive, providing a riveting sense of what contemporary readers and listeners perceived in this most popular book. In Search of Sacred Time is a lovely meditation, one of the most moving pieces of scholarship I have ever read."--William Chester Jordan, Princeton University
"In this penetrating and enlightening study, the great medievalist Jacques Le Goff demonstrates how The Golden Legend, far from being a mere collection of pious legends or saints' lives, is a carefully constructed meditation on Christian time. Engaging readers in the subtlety and beauty of medieval culture, Le Goff reveals how The Golden Legend was designed to show that the stories of saints and their passions marked time and helped make it sacred."--Patrick Geary, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton
"This is a comprehensive and innovative interpretation of The Golden Legend. Jacques Le Goff--one of the world's finest medieval historians--has produced a most engaging and important book. It combines utter authority, intellectual vigor, beautiful prose, and countless rich insights into medieval culture. Taking the approach of a cultural historian, Le Goff shows why the vastly ambitious Golden Legend had such a tremendous purchase on the medieval imagination."--Miri Rubin, Queen Mary University of London
