A Hybrid Life of John the Baptist: The Middle English Text of MS Harley 2250

Abstract

British Library MS Harley 2250 (last quarter of the 15th century, from Cheshire) contains a life of John the Baptist that has long been considered a witness of the South English Legendary (SEL) version of the Baptist’s vita. In fact, however, the text combines material from a number of sources to create a unique saint’s life that relates the full range of events in scriptural accounts of John’s nativity and beheading. This hybrid life gives evidence of a desire in the late Middle Ages to supplement the narrative possibilities offered by the SEL. The text is edited here for the first time in its history, with commentary drawing on most of the known analogues. It has also been collated with those passages in all witnesses of the SEL life of the Baptist that overlap with the Harley life.