Manuscripts
A legendary is any hagiographic collection. Earlier scholarship attempted to identify a unitary work known as the ''South English Legendary'' (''SEL'') that varied between different copies but still had an identifiable point of origin, similar to ''Compilation and audience
Manfred Görlach concluded that the first collection of versified saints' lives identifiable as a legendary written in southern Middle English was created c. 1270-85. This has largely been supported by subsequent scholarship. Dialectal evidence suggests that most of the texts were composed in the South-West or West Midlands of England.Anne B. Thompson, ''Everyday Saints and the Art of Narrative in the South English Legendary'' (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), p. 193.Editions
*Acker, Paul, "Saint Mildred in the ''South English Legendary''", in ''The South English Legendary: A Critical Assessment'', ed. Klaus Jankofsky (Tübingen: Francke, 1992), 140-153. *Braswell, Laurel, "Saint Edburga of Winchester: A Study of her Cult, a.d. 950-1500, with an edition of the fourteenth-century Middle English and Latin lives", ''Mediaeval Studies'' 33 (1971), 292-333. *D'Evelyn and Mill, ''The South English Legendary, edited from Corpus Christi College Cambridge MS. 145 and British Museum MS. Harley 2277'' (1956), review: Dorothy Bethurum, Speculum (1959). *Horstmann, Carl, "''The Early South English Legendary or Lives of Saints'' London: 1887. Early English Text Society 87. *Major, Tristan, "Saint Etheldreda in the ''South English Legendary''," ''Anglia'' 128.1 (2010), 83-101. *Nagy, Michael, "Saint Æþelberht of East Anglia in the ''South English Legendary''", ''The Chaucer Review'' 37 (2002), 159-72. *Yeager, Stephen, "The ''South English Legendary'' "Life of St. Edwine": An Edition," ''Traditio'' 66 (2011), 170-87.Scholarship
* Blurton, Heather and Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, ed., ''Rethinking the 'South English Legendaries (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012). *Görlach, Manfred. ''The Textual Tradition of the South English Legendary'', Leeds Texts and Monographs, n. s. 6 (Leeds: University of Leeds, 1974). *Jankofsky, Klaus P, ed. ''The South English Legendary: A Critical Assessment'' (Tübingen: Francke, 1992). *Pearsall, Derek, ed. ''Studies in The Vernon Manuscript'' (Cambridge: DS Brewer, 1990). *Samson, Annie. 'The South English Legendary: Constructing a Context', in ''Thirteenth Century England I'', ed. by P. R. Coss and S. D. Lloyd (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1985). *Thompson, Anne. ''Everyday Saints and the Art of Narrative in the South English Legendary.'' (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003).References
{{Reflist Middle English literature Christian hagiography Harleian Collection