ÞE Passioun of Our Lord: A Middle English Adaptation of Bonaventure's Lignum Vitae in St John's College, Cambridge, MS G.20

Abstract

St John's College, Cambridge, MS G.20 contains a Middle English translation/adaptation of Bonaventure's Lignum vitae. Bonaventure uses the metaphor of the tree as both a structural and a mnemonic device, to aid his Franciscan readers in their meditation. While the Middle English adaptor retains the tree metaphor as a structural device, he also expands it. He describes the process of translation as searching in the forest of the gospels for the two “fagots” of wood that form the cross, assembling them into the form of a tree, and bringing the tree out so that his “simple” (lay) readers can learn how to conform themselves to the works of Christ. The book itself becomes the tree, to which readers can have recourse in order to avail themselves of the medicinal leaves that heal from sin (the words of the text), the fragrant flowers (meditations) and the delightful fruit (Christ). Reader and author are joined in the “bearing” of the tree/cross through the composition and reading of the text.