THE OLDEST LEGEND OF THE LIFE OF ST. ANTHONY OF PADUA LEGENDA ASSIDUA OR PRIMA IN CROATO-GLAGOLITIC BREVIARIES

Parts of the Legenda Assidua or Prima, the oldest legend about the life of St. Anthony of Padua, form a part of the service in honour of St. Anthony. The service has been preserved in 17 Croato-Glagolitic breviaries (Bar, Dab, Hum, Ber1, Ber2, Mosk, N1, Vat10, Vat19, Vat6, Pm, Met, Mavr, Rom, Pt, Broz, N2). As St. Anthony of Padua lived in the 13th century and was a saint celebrated only by the Western Church, Croato-Glagolitic scribes could not use an older Slavonic text, nor could they translate the text from an eastern protograph. They had to translate the text from Latin. In this paper, all preserved texts are compared, and their features are analysed at all linguistic levels. Textological and linguistic differences and similarities are determined. Croatian Church Slavonic texts are compared with the Latin text, and translation techniques and translator’s knowledge of Latin are analysed. The analysis focuses on the syntactic and lexical levels because they are crucial for determining the relation between Croatian Church Slavonic texts and their Latin protograph.