Illustration from a 1493 edition of The Golden Legend.
"For like as gold passeth in value all other metals, so this legend exceedeth all other books, wherein be contained all the high and great feasts of our Lord, the feasts of our Blessed Lady, the lives, passions, and miracles of many other saints, and other histories and acts, as all along here afore is made mention."
— William Caxton, afterword to The Golden Legend
The Golden Legend (or the Legenda Aurea in Latin) is a collection of hagiographies (biographies of saints) compiled by Jacobus de Voragine, an Italian archbishop of Genoa. The hagiographies chronicle the lives of the saints venerated at the time, and are arranged according to their feast days.
Typically, each chapter dedicated to a saint follows a certain template: an etymology for the saint's name, a narrative about his life, a list of miracles performed, and a list of citations where the information was found.
The Golden Legend is also one of the sources of the story of Saint George and the Dragon.
