LEGEND

(Lat. legend a, things to be read.) A book originally used at divine service in the Romish churches, in which are recorded the lives of saints and martyrs, portions of which were selected and read for the edification of the people. These legends, which contained many ridiculous stories of the lives of the saints, were studiously perused in the refectories of cloisters, and were earnestly recommended to the perusal of the laity, as so many evidences of the truth of the Roman Catholic faith. Among these the Golden Legend (the work of Jacobus de Voragine, archbishop of Genoa in the 13th century), which is a collection of the lives of the saints, maintained its ground in the church for two hundred years; though, from the number of ridiculous stories with which it teems, it has now sunk into merited oblivion. But although many of the legends consist of tastele and unmeaning fictions, the offspring of a childish credulity, which indeed they were intended to gratify, there are many of them of a highly poetical and striking character; and hence it is not surprising that this species of literature has often been regarded, even by persons of taste, as a verdant oasis amid the desert of imaginative writings in the middle ages. There are some sensible remarks as to the value of the early Christian legends in Beugnot, Hist, de la Destruction du Pagan is me en Occident, i. 280. In a general sense the term legend is used to denote any fictitious or doubtful narrative; such as the exploits of heroes of the middle ages, or the history of a people or district in which truth is so mixed with fable as to be inseparable from it. Legend. In Numismatics, that which is written round the field of a medal; opposed to inscription, which is written acro it. See Numismatics. [s. 664]