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St. Winifred Caxton translated a life of St. Winifred and printed it about 1483. The original life was in Latin and this is the only translation from latin that Caxton is known to have made. Most of his translations were from French. St. Winifred is a saint’s life, the story of a 7th century Welsh noblewoman who after her martyrdom was brought back to life by another saint. The rest of her life was exemplary and the spring that appeared at the place of her martyrdom was considered to have healing powers. In the 12th century the monks at Shrewsbury found her bones and moved them to their monastary. The life Caxton translated can be divided into three parts: the martyrdom, the holy life afterwards, and the translation of relics. St. Winifred was important to the early Tudors, the mother of Henry VII built a shrine at the site of the spring at Holywell. Margaret of Beaufort was also a patron of Caxton’s publishing efforts. This etching made in 1813 by George Cuitt is reproduced from The Pilgrim’s Way, Shrines and Saints in Britain and Ireland, by John Adair, Thames and Hudson, New York, 1978.
I transcribed the Caxton text from the British Library copy (C.10.b.89) which was part of the Royal Library of George III. I have it in two versions here: The
complete text in English (Caxton’s original also included part
of the Latin service which I do not include here).
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