APPENDIX

English, the Golden Legend. For like as gold passeth in value all other metals, so this legend exceedeth all other books, wherein be contained all the high and great feasts of our Lord, the feasts of our Blessed Lady, the lives, passions, and miracles of many other saints, and other histories and acts, as all along here afore is made mention. Which work I hare accomplished at the commandment and request of the noble and puissant earl, and my special good lord, William, earl of Arundel, and have finished it at Westminster the twentieth day of November, the year of our Lord fourteen hundred and eightythree, and the first year of the reign of King Richard III.

By me William Caxton.

The Life of S. Erasmus does not occur in the first edition of the Golden Legend' from which this reprint was originally made, but is found in all subsequent issues till the final black-letter edition of
1527. There is a chapel dedicated to S. Erasmus in Westminster Abbey. His aid was specially invoked by persons suffering from intestinal disorders, and it was probably for this reason that seafarers placed themselves under his special protection, in the hope of avoiding or mitigating sea-sickness.

The text here given is that of Wynken de Worde's edition of 1527.