The influence of St Bonaventure on the devotional climate of the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries is well known. His own writings circulated widely, and the tradition of affective devotion was also developed in many texts attributed to him, such as the pseudo-Bonaventure Meditationes Vitae Christi. Both Bonaventure’s own writings and those attributed to him were translated into numerous vernacular languages and circulated throughout Europe. One such text is Bonaventure’s Lignum Vitae, which was translated into at least five vernacular languages, and also had a strong influence on the iconographic tradition of manuscript illumination and artistic representation throughout the late Middle Ages. Nevertheless, this text has remained neglected in its original Latin and virtually unknown in its vernacular versions.

The Lignum Vitae was written between 1257 and 1267, when Bonaventure was minister general of the Franciscan Order. It was intended as a spiritual exercise in meditation on the life of Christ for a sophisticated audience of Franciscan friars familiar with the biblical, patristic and devotional texts and traditions upon which it draws. Although there are numerous vernacular translations, there is only one surviving Middle English version of Lignum Vitae, Þe passioun of oure lord. This version is extant in two copies, St John’s College Cambridge MS G.20 and New York, Columbia University MS Plimpton 256, both mid- to late fifteenth century. It is not attributed to Bonaventure, and has not generally been recognized as a version of Lignum Vitae. In part, this is because Þe passioun of oure lord is more than simply a translation; much of the Latin text is expanded and its central metaphor is adapted in such a way as to radically alter its application expressly for a lay audience. Indeed, the alterations are extensive enough that one must describe the translator as the Middle English author, rather than simply an adaptor. The identity of the Middle English author is unknown, although he seems to have been a member of an order which included pastoral duties to lay people in its mandate; the only clue to his identity comes in the opening words of the final prayer, where he seeks Christ’s advocacy to the Father, to give the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost ‘to me and to alle my freendis þat y am bounde to preie fore’ (fol. 111v).