
...of debate.
Manuscripts of the Latin version survive in considerable numbers
all over Western Europe, and they, with the vast list of
translations and of printed editions, testify to its almost
unparalleled popularity. One scribe attributes it to St. Bernard
of Clairvaux; but the fact that it contains a quotation from St.
Francis of Assisi, who was born thirty years after the death of
St. Bernard, disposes of this theory. In England there exist
many manuscripts of the first three...