Jacobus de Voragine

"Among the books which afford us an insight into the popular religious thought of the middle ages, none holds a more important place than the Legenda Aurea or Golden Legend. The book was compiled and put into form about the year 1275 by Jacobus de Voragine, Archbishop of Genoa, who laid under contribution for his purpose the Lives of the Fathers by S. Jerome, the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius, and other books of a like kind; while for the lives of the saints more nearly approaching his own age he appears to have industriously collected such legends as he could meet with, whether in manuscript or handed down by oral tradition."--Prologue.

Prose translation of a selection of women saints' lives from the Gilte Legende, the Middle English version of Jacobus de Voragine's Legenda Aurea; the female saints lives are divided into: the 'ryght hooly virgins', who vocally defend their bodies against Roman persecution; 'holy mothers', who give up their traditional role to pursue a life of contemplation; the 'repentant sinners', who convert and voice their defiance against a society that demanded silence in women; and the 'holy transvestites', who cast off their gender identity to find absolution and salvation.