Ælfric, the tenth-century monk and author, wrote in the Old English preface to his Lives of Saints, “we say nothing new in this work, because it was written down long ago in Latin books, although lay people did not know that.” Created for the benefit of two powerful aristocratic patrons related to the English royal family, his project provided versions of the stories of saints’ lives, along with some sermons, that could be read, listened to, and meditated on even by those who were not priests, monks, or nuns. Those people who didn’t know the Latin language of the educated elite were being left out, with no way to learn from and enjoy reading the exemplary lives of Christianity’s heroes. In three volumes just published in the Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library series, Mary Clayton and Juliet Mullins (both of University College Dublin) have gone back to the surviving manuscripts to present a brand-new edition and translation of Ælfric’s Lives of Saints and once again bring these stories to a whole new audience.
