Saints’ Lives for Medieval English Nuns, I

A Study of the 'Lyves and Dethes' in Cambridge University Library, MS Additional 2604

By (author) Brepols Publishers

Book cover: Saints’ Lives for Medieval English Nuns, I

Extent: 430 pages

Publisher: Brepols Publishers

Subjects: Medieval Studies, Religious Studies

Series: Medieval Women: Texts and Contexts

Series volume number: 18

Language: English

Hardback (Published)

(December 2024)

ISBN: 9782503545516

Price: $125.00

In stock

This contextual study of the predominantly female saints’ lives in Cambridge University Library, MS Additional 2604 argues for an original readership of medieval English nuns in an East Anglian convent.


Saints’ Lives for Medieval English Nuns provides a study and critical edition of a unique late fifteenth-century manuscript, Cambridge University Library Additional MS 2604. Catalogued only in 2009 and virtually unknown to scholars, this manuscript contains a collection of prose saints’ lives translated from Latin into Middle English. The focus on female saints associated with the Benedictine order appears to indicate an audience of Benedictine or Augustinian nuns. The content, dialectal, and decorative features suggest an East Anglian convent and information about later provenance points to an identification of the convent. This manuscript contains nineteen lives of female saints–all of whom were virgins, martyrs, or nuns–and three male saints–John the Baptist, John the Evangelist, and Leonard. The codex has some post-medieval additions, including hagiographical and liturgical material.The book features an edition of all twenty-two saints’ lives, hitherto unpublished. It concludes with two appendices, a select glossary, an index of manuscripts/archives, and a bibliography of primary and secondary scholarship.

  • By (author) Brepols Publishers