The "Goed Fyn" of Saint Alexius in a Middle English Version of His Legend*

Robert K. Upchurch, University of North Texas

It is with a grin and a wince that one reads F. J. Furnivall's introductory comments to his 1897 edition of the life of St. Alexius:

I should perhaps apologize for wasting so much space on a mere legend of a so-calld saint's life. But the present story is the same pathetic one as Guy of Warwick's; it is prettily versified; and the comparing of the four ways in which the same incidents are told, has a certain interest: one likes to see how the religious-story writers of old spun out or shortend their material: and the oddness of their notions as to the line of his images' life that pleasd the God and Father of men, is always instructive, specially when set beside many of the popular ideas on this and like subjects now. If folk would but stop attributing to God, motives, opinions, arrangements and likings, which they'd consider an insult to set down to any wise and good friend of their own, how much useless bother would come to an end!