Manuscript cutting from the Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine. Initial A, The Last Judgement, Christ showing the Five Wounds; France, late thirteenth century.

Illuminated manuscript cutting from the Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine. Historiated initial A showing the Last Judgement. Christ is seated on a rainbow against a gold-leaf backgrond. He is showing the Five Wounds. Instruments of his Passion lie about Him; around Him are the Virgin and Saint John kneeling and a company of people. Red, blue, pink and green decoration with white highlights.

Purchased from J. and S. Goldschmidt as part of three portfolios (now Museum nos 234-296) designated as a 'Illuminations: a collection of 338 specimens, pages and cuttings' for the total sum of £100.0.0, received on 15 October 1872; passed on for Register in April 1874 (see Register of Drawings).

In his Chronicon Januense, Jacobus de Voragine says of himself, "While he was in his order, and after he had been made archbishop, he wrote many works. For he compiled the legends of the saints in one volume, adding many things from the Historia Tripartita et Scholastica, and from the chronicles of many writers."

The Legenda Aurea (Golden Legend) was one of the most popular works of the thirteenth century. Written between 1260 and 1275, it was a collection of legendary lives of saints. About 900 manuscripts of this work survive. Its repetitious nature is probably explained by the fact that de Voragine meant to write a compendium of saintly lore for sermons and preaching, not the popular entertainment it became.

The preface divides the ecclesiastical year into four periods corresponding to the various epochs of the world's history, a time of deviation, of renovation, of reconciliation and of pilgrimage. The book itself, however, falls into five sections: —(a) from Advent to Christmas (cc. 1—5); (b) from Christmas to Septuagesima (6-30); (e) from Septuagesima to Easter (31-53); (d) from Easter Day to the octave of Pentecost (54-76); (e) from the octaye of Pentecost to Advent (77-180). The saints' lives are full of fanciful legend, and in not a few cases contain accounts of 13th century miracles wrought at special places, particularly with reference to the Dominicans. The last chapter but one (181), "De Sancto Pelagio Papa," contains a kind of history of the world from the middle of the 6th century; while the last (182) is a somewhat allegorical disquisition, " De Dedicatione Ecclesiae." The work was translated into French by Jean Belet de Vigny in the 14th century and was also one of the earliest printed books, in ca. 1469 and in Lyon in 1473 and many other subsequent editions.

The above was taken from Wikipedia.

This MS was probably executed during the lifetime of the author

This page comes from the Legenda Aurea (Golden Legend), one of the most popular works of the thirteenth century. It was a collection of lives of saints written between 1260 and 1275. It's popularity is suggested by the fact that around 900 manuscript copies of the work still survive. It is thought that the book was meant as a collection of stories for use in sermons, rather than as a work of popular literature.

Medieval books had no contents page or index. There was usually a hierarchy of initials marking important divisions in the text. These were at this time added by specialist illuminators and rubricators, in spaces left blank by the scribe. The most important initials might be historiated with a figurative picture (istoire being the term for a story), or decorated.

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