Ancient Web: David Jordan’s Golden Legend Put St. Nicholas in Parallel Text

Part of the Ancient Web Collection.

St. Nicholas's medieval biography contains rather more than gifts and Christmas. A university-hosted page lets a reader follow the saint's adventures in Latin and English side by side: rescuing condemned prisoners, defending hungry sailors, and appearing in a dream to an emperor.

Read David K. Jordan's Golden Legend translation.

The source is The Golden Legend, the thirteenth-century collection of saints' lives assembled by Jacobus de Voragine. David K. Jordan, writing on a University of California, San Diego personal faculty site, explains that he translated its Nicholas narrative for a Christmas holiday project in 2004.

The web edition begins with a helpful preface about the medieval text, a Latin source based on Theodor Graesse's 1890 printing, and a comment on translating passages where the Latin itself is hard to interpret. The page records a later content-creation timestamp of December 25, 2014. The translation project and the date of this particular HTML version should not be confused.

The benefits of two columns and a table of contents

The index is organized into twelve episodes, from the meaning of Nicholas's name through his election as bishop of Myra, rescue of sailors, the great famine, and the rescue of men facing execution.

In the section on prisoners condemned by a corrupt official, Latin phrases appear directly beside Jordan's English translation. A reader can trace what the medieval compiler actually wrote, rather than taking a modern retelling on faith.

Jordan sometimes notes differences in spelling or interpretation, and the page includes images of artworks illustrating Nicholas's stories. The navigation consists of ordinary numbered links and return-to-top anchors, so a long piece of medieval literature becomes easy to browse without requiring special software.

The miracles belong to medieval religious narrative, not to externally verified biography. That distinction is important. The webpage's enduring value is as a translated historical source with its original text in view, not as proof that every story happened.

Jordan also explicitly permits teachers to use the Latin and English versions without additional permission. The site is a good example of a scholar's personal web space functioning as an informal classroom publication.

Explore the complete bilingual narrative and Jordan's translation notes.

Part of the Ancient Web Collection.