APOCRYPHAL LITERATURE
. Biblical books not regarded as inspired, and hence excluded from the sacred canon,
appeared in the early Christian centuries in response to pious curiosity about Jesus, his
family, and his companions. From the point of view of medieval literature, four Greek
texts are of prime importance: the 2nd-century Book (or Protevangelium) of James and
the Gospel of Thomas, which deal with the childhood of Mary and the birth and infancy
miracles of Jesus; the 6th-century Gospel of Nicodemus, which supplements the gospel
accounts of the Passion; and the 7th-century Assumption of the Virgin, which describes
the death, funeral, and miraculous assumption of Mary. The Nicodemus was translated
into Latin in the later 6th century and again a century or so later, while the stories from
the Gospel of Thomas and the Book of James were combined in the 8th or 9th century
into a new Latin collection called the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew. This in turn was the
source of the Gospel of the Nativity of Mary.
Apocryphal legends first appeared in French in the 12th century, in Wace’s
Conception, which includes the story of the three Marys and the birth, childhood, and
assumption of the Virgin. Similar material appeared in three texts dubiously attributed to
Gautier de Coinci a half-century later. Quite different versions of this material occur in
the 13th-century Roman de saint Fanuel and Histoire de Marie et de Jésus. The
childhood miracles of Jesus were recounted in verse in Old French and Anglo-Norman
and in three distinct versions in Provençal. There are ten poems on the Passion (which
was usually completed by one of four versions of the Descent into Hell), as well as three
translations of the Gospel of Nicodemus. In 1357, Jean de Venette compiled most of the
legends into his long poem Histoire des glorieuses Maries. Apocryphal material also
supplemented the more strictly biblical narratives of Herman de Valenciennes, Geoffroi
de Paris, Roger d’Argenteuil, and Macé de la Charité. Prose versions of the legends
appear from the middle of the 13th century, usually in collections of saints’ lives but
independently as well.
Maureen B.M.Boulton
[See also: ENFANCES; MORAL TREATISES; WACE]
Boulton, Maureen, ed. The Old French Évangile de l’enfance:An Edition with Introduction and
Notes. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1984.
Chabaneau, Camille, ed. “Le Romanz de saint Fanuel.” Revue des langues romanes 28(1885):157–
253.
Ford, Alvin, E., ed. Évangile de Nicodème: les versions courtes en ancien français et en prose.
Geneva: Droz, 1973.
——, ed. La vengeance de Nostre-Seigneur: The Old and Middle French Prose Versions: The
Version of Japheth. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1984.
Frank, Grace, ed. Le livre de la Passion, poème narratif du XIVe siècle. Paris: Champion, 1930.
Reinsch, Robert. Die Pseudo-Evangelien von Jesu und Marias Kindheit in der romanischen und
germanischen Literatur. Halle: Niemeyer, 1879.
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