John Capgrave Speaks up for the Hermits

Abstract

ONE of the most interesting prose legends of the fifteenth century, according to Professor Gerould, is John Capgrave's Life of St Augustine. Professor Gerould notes the plain, forcible yet graceful style of the piece, ancl both he and the Early English Text Society editor, Mr J. J. M1unro, stress Capgrave's apparent freedom in handling the material in a work called by Capgrave himself a translation.' Discovery of Capgrave's source rules out the suggestion of these scholars that the legend is original with Capgrave, either in English or Latin, but, since it reveals a very definite polemical purpose of Capgrave's in making the translation, certainly does not detract from the interest of the Lie. The source is the fourteenth-century Vita S. P. Augustini of Jordanus de Saxonia, also referred to as Jordanus de Quedlinburg (to distinguish him from the earlier Jordanus de Saxonia).2 The Bollandists are rather scornful of this Vita because of Jordanus' use of certain spurious sermons attributed to St Augustine in the Middle Ages, but herein lies, as we shall see, the polemical quality of the Vita and consequently its interest for us. In adldition to these sermons, Jordanus depends upon St Augustine's Confessions and Retractions, Possidius' fifth-century Vita S. Aurelii Augustini, the Chronicle once ascribed to the sixth-century bishop Datius, and Philippus ab Eleemosyna's twelfth-century Vita S. Augustini, which he alludes to as 'Legenda Famosa.'3 Since Capgrave draws on Jacobus de Voragine's thirteenth-century Acta S. Augustini for one chapter, his own Life represents something of a mosaic of the early legends. Capgrave does translate his source with considerable freedom, part of which may be merely mediaeval and part of which is undoubtedly due to his enthusiasm for St Augustine and to his knowledge of the Bishop of Hippo's writings. He is especially expansive in his first six chapters, where his additions include the etymology of the name Augustinus, borrowed from Jacobus de Voragine, and a detailed clharacterization of St Monica.4 His onily other major additions, however, are a chapter (xii) on the false accusation of theft made against St Augustine's