By Jacques Le Goff (writer), Tomás Fernández Aúz (translator)

A prodigious dialogue between the most famous work of the Middle Ages and the greatest contemporary medievalist.

The Golden Legend, written by the Dominican Santiago de la Vorágine at the end of the thirteenth century, was, after the Bible, the book with the greatest circulation in the Middle Ages. Far from merely recording the uplifting legend of the saints of the calendar, this prodigious work had the ambition to Christianize time and show how God, through it and with his good use, can enchant the world. Thus, divine time and human time interact in a perpetual motion that is that of the very life of the Christian, holy or not. As Jacques Le Goff masterfully shows, the Golden Legend played a decisive role in the development of European culture, in which awareness and control of time are essential elements.