Description
Book SynopsisSheila Delany''s spirited translation of Osbern Bokenham''s Legendys of Hooly Wummen (14431447) makes available in modern English the first all-female hagiography. Closely translated from elaborate, Latinate Middle English verse into fluent prose, A Legend of Holy Women contains the Augustinian friar's version of the stories of 13 women saints from gospel, apocrypha, martyrology, and high-medieval history. As Delany writes in her comprehensive introduction, Bokenham gives us not only an all-female hagiographyan authorial decision significant in its own rightbut a gallery of powerful, articulate women who are indubitably worthy to do God's work. Some of them are well-educated, some give sound political advice to a monarch, some preach, converting hundreds and thousands to Christianity, some walk on water or perform resurrection. Nor are they pacifists; on the contrary, they call for divinely inflicted vengeance and approve violence in their cause. Delany argues that Geo
Trade Review
"We must be grateful to Ms. Delany for the assiduity of her well-researched and perceptive study of the life and works of this little known clerical poet." -- Times Literary Supplement
