The Middle English Bible: A Reassessment

364 Pages·2016·2.112 MB·English

by  Henry Ansgar Kelly

The Middle English Bible
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THE MIDDLE AGES SERIES
RuthMazoKarras,SeriesEditor
EdwardPeters,FoundingEditor
Acompletelistofbooksintheseriesisavailablefromthepublisher.
The Middle English Bible
"
A Reassessment
Henry Ansgar Kelly
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia
Publicationofthisvolumewasaidedbygiftsfromthe
UCLAFriendsofEnglishandtheUCLADivisionofHumanities.
Copyright(cid:2)2016UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress
Allrightsreserved.Exceptforbriefquotationsusedforpurposesofrevieworscholarly
citation,noneofthisbookmaybereproducedinanyformbyanymeanswithoutwritten
permissionfromthepublisher.
Publishedby
UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress
Philadelphia,Pennsylvania19104-4112
www.upenn.edu/pennpress
PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmericaonacid-freepaper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheLibraryofCongress.
ISBN978-0-8122-4834-0
For Barret and Caroline
Noformalcondemnationof [Wyclif’s]EnglishBible
waseverissued,or,asfarasweknow,attempted.
—F.D.Matthew,‘‘TheAuthorshipoftheWycliffiteBible’’(1895)
Wycliffe’schiefbequesttoposteritywastheEnglish Bible.
—JamesGairdner,LollardyandtheReformationinEngland(1908)
IfthefirstEnglish BiblewasnotproducedbyWyclif andthe
Wycliffites,andwas notcensoredby Arundel,thehistoryofthe
latemedievalEnglishChurchandoftheliberationof theEnglish
peopleattheReformationwouldneed tobecompletelyrewritten.
—MaryDove,TheFirstEnglishBible(2007)
By farthemost importantbodyof EnglishprosesincetheConquest.
—RobertTombs,TheEnglishandTheirHistory(2014)
Contents
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Preface ix
ListofAbbreviations xiii
Chapter1. AHistoryofJudgmentsontheMiddleEnglishBible 1
Chapter2. FiveandTwentyBooksas‘‘Official’’Prologue,orNot 14
Chapter3. TheBibleatOxford 31
Chapter4. OxfordDoctors,ArchbishopArundel,andDivesand
PauperontheAdvisabilityofScriptureinEnglish 50
Chapter5. TheProvincialConstitutionsof1407 71
Chapter6. TreatmentoftheEnglishBibleintheFifteenthCentury 82
Chapter7. TheEndoftheStory:RichardHunneandThomasMore 114
Conclusion 129
Appendices 137
Notes 223
WorksCited 303
Index 329
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Preface
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I
first entered the Bible-translation field when studying the Douai-Rheims
Version, which was completed by the English priest Gregory Martin in
1580,butwasrevisedbyBishopRichardChallonerin1750.Wemedievalists
usually tell our students to use this translation rather than the King James
because it renders the Latin Vulgate, and not the Hebrew and Greek texts,
butinfactChalloner’srevisionwaslargelyinthedirectionoftheKingJames
language,whichinturn waslargelyWilliamTyndale’stext.1I decided thatI
shouldalsoexaminetheearliercompletetranslationoftheBibleintoEnglish,
produced at the end of the fourteenth century, now generally known as the
Wycliffite Bible, and recognized as existing in two main forms, an original
very literal rendering, call the Early Version, or EV, and a revision of it into
amoreidiomaticstyle,calledtheLaterVersion,orLV.
Isoonfoundthatthescholarshipconcerningthistranslationwasaffected
by the same ‘‘wars of religion’’ that surrounded the history of the Protestant
and Catholic Bibles of the sixteenth century and later. It seemed to me that
there was need for a review of how it has been regarded over the years, and
thepointsofcontroversyconnectedwithitateachstage,especiallyconcern-
ingclaimsforandagainstitsoriginasaprojectofthereligiousdissidentJohn
Wyclif(d.1384)andhisfollowers.
Accordingly,inthefirstchapterbelow,Iattempttogiveahistoriography
of critical attention to the medieval translation, to which I give the neutral
name of ‘‘Middle English Bible,’’ or MEB.2 I recount that, after seemingly
beingregardedasastraightforwardrenderingfromLatinintoEnglishduring
thefifteenthandsixteenthcenturies,notablyinthereportofThomasMore,
itwasfirstdesignatedasWyclif’sbyJohnBaleinthemiddleofthesixteenth