With the Conquest of England by the Normans there arose, of necessity, urgent problems for the conquered land to deal with. Not the least was the question as to what should be the language of the future: Should it be that of the conquered or the conqueror? Before the powerful forces wielded by King and Court, and by the incoming social elements of Norman society, the English language had to fight for its very existence. But it fought strenuously and its sturdy character stood it in good stead. And so it came to pass that while Norman-French became the language of the Court, the School and the Bar, the Saxon tongue held its place tenaciously in farm-house and cottage, in the transactions of the market-place and in the every-day proceedings of common life.
But while this is true it will be seen that but little could be done in the way of translating into English the Scriptures of the Latin Vulgate. The Anglo-Saxon version of the Four Gospels continued to be written as late as the 12th century. In the British Museum there is a copy which was evidently written towards the end of that century. There are other copies also in existence at Oxford, Cambridge and elsewhere, showing that the more ancient form of the English language continued to be in use long after the Conquest. Still, up to the year 1360 only one book of Scripture had been entirely rendered into English since the Conquest. This was the Psalter, which about the year 1320 appeared in two forms. The first was a translation by William de Schorham, vicar of Chart Sutton in the county of Kent. It was followed nearly about the same time by a translation of the Book of Psalms into the Saxon dialect of North Yorkshire, which was accompanied by an English commentary, the work of Richard Rolle, a chantry priest and hermit, of Hampole, near Doncaster. This man, a native of Thornton, near Pickering, was one of the mystics of his time, a deeply spiritual soul of whom we read that he turned great numbers to God by his exhortations, and comforted many by his advice and writings and by the special efficacy of his prayers. This Psalter of his, with its commentary, appears to have been written for the benefit of Margaret Kirkby, a devout recluse at Anderby, and came to be held in high esteem by others, being widely diffused in the century after it was written. His works exhibit the more spiritual side of one of those movements which led up to the Reformation.
Beyond the versions of portions of Scripture already mentioned nothing was done in the way of giving a complete Bible to the English people until Wyclifle's time. Indeed we may say that nothing could be done until the language itself had taken something more nearly approaching a permanent form. Up to the time of the Conquest, and since the days of King Alfred and the learned men he had gathered to his Court, the West Saxon dialect had been gradually winning for itself more and more of literary form. But with the Conquest that came to an end. The contest for supremacy between French and English led to wide separations, and there were almost as many English dialects as there were counties. The centrifugal force always going on in language brought it about that in process of time the northern counties could not understand the southern, or the southern the northern. Before there could be a common English Bible there must be something approaching to a common English speech. A unifying centre must somehow be found, and from the nature of the case could only be found in central England, which was in touch both with north and south, and to a considerable extent could understand both. Circumstances from which there could be no appeal rendered it imperative, therefore, that the Bible for all must be a Bible in the Middle England speech, the speech slowly taking definite literary form as the English of Chaucer and Wycliffe. In this way it came about that John Wycliffe was the man, and Lutterworth near Leicester was the place, and the second half of the fourteenth century was the time, to give to the English people the first complete Bible in the English tongue.
Born in the little village of Wycliffe-on-Tees, near Richmond in Yorkshire, Wycliffe went as a student to Oxford where, by learning and ability, he obtained a Fellowship at Merton, the Mastership of Balliol and in 1365 the Wardenship of Archbishop Islip's new foundation in Canterbury Hall. The first half of the fourteenth century was a time of seething opinion in the Church. It was the time of the removal of the Papacy to Avignon and when it advanced claims and exercised powers which plunged Italy and Germany into discord. In opposition to these, John Marsiglio of Padua, in his Defensor Pacis, proclaimed ideas which, as time has shown, were to regulate the future progress of Europe. He gave expression to conceptions of the sovereignty of the people and of the official position of the ruler which mark the development of European politics down to our own day. Indeed he defined the limits of ecclesiastical authority and asserted the dignity of the individual believer in advance of what has yet been realised. Whether Wycliffe came under this man's influence, or worked his way independently to similar conclusions, we may not decisively determine, but in the letter of Pope Gregory XI to Archbishop Sudbury and the Bishop of London, of May 1377, directing proceedings against Wycliffe, he writes as follows: "We have heard forsooth with much grief by the intimation of many credible persons that John Wycliffe, rector of the church of Lutterworth in the diocese of Lincoln, professor of the sacred page ... does not fear to assert, profess and publicly proclaim certain propositions and conclusions which (albeit with certain change of terms) appear to breathe the perverse opinions and the unlearned doctrine of Marsilius of Padua and John of Jandun, of condemned memory." Before the arrival of this Bull ordering Wycliffe's trial Edward III died; the prelates could not take action thereon before the end of 1377, and when Wycliffe was summoned before the Archbishop and Courtney, Bishop of London, the Council did not think it wise that the trial should proceed.
This Papal prosecution, however, and still more the Great Schism in the Papacy of 1378, produced a very powerful effect upon the mind of Wycliffe. The sight of two Popes each claiming to be Head of the Church, and each devoting his entire energies to the destruction of his rival, shocked his soul, and dealt a heavy blow at that idea of the Unity of the Church which had exercised so powerful an influence on the imagination of the Middle Ages. We should be quite within the truth if we said that the Great Schism of 1378 in the Roman Church had a direct and powerful effect in the production of the complete English Bible of 1382. For while it led Wycliffe, more energetically than before, to denounce a corrupt hierarchy, and the enslavement of the Church by an antichristian Pope, it also led him and his followers to set about translating the Bible into English that all men might be supplied with the means of judging on these questions for themselves. He held that before all things God's Word must be taught in its own simplicity. He taught that Christ and His Apostles converted the world by making known the truths of Scripture in a form familiar to them. There ought, he said, to be a full and literal translation of the sacred text, for that the friars were guilty of "docking and clipping the Word of God, and tattering it by their rime." To move the English there must be an English Bible. That which is every man's guide ought to be in every man's hand. It is a book for all. Besides setting forth the great seminal truths of theology it takes up the relations, duties and trials of social and public life. It is a wise word for the parent and another for the child; it gives directions, too, to master and servant. It breathes promises of special tenderness to what must always be a very large class--the people in trouble, the widow, the fatherless, the suffering, the bereaved. It exhorts to those Christian graces without which life would go on heavily--patience and humility, condescension and self-denial, disinterested love and unwearied beneficence. The Bible is thus a people's book, overshadowing with its authority individuals, households, churches and kingdoms; including in its jurisdiction persons of every rank, age and calling, from birth to death, telling all men what to believe, what to obey, and how to suffer. Since then the Bible was for all, Wycliffe resolved that, as far as in him lay, all should have it.
We do not know at what precise time he began the work of translation, but we know that by 1380 he was busy upon the New Testament while his friend Nicholas of Hereford was engaged upon the Old. He probably knew nothing of Greek and therefore his translation was of necessity from the Latin Vulgate. Hereford's work breaks off abruptly in the middle of a verse (Baruch iii. 20), it has been conjectured because of his arrest and trial at Canterbury where he was excommunicated. It should be mentioned here that in the Vulgate Baruch follows the book of Jeremiah and is not relegated to the Apocrypha. The original manuscript of Hereford's translation with his alterations and corrections is preserved in the Bodleian Library. The remaining books of the Old Testament, Ezekiel, Daniel, the twelve Minor Prophets and the two books of the Maccabees were translated by another hand, probably by Wycliffe himself after he had finished the New Testament. The work was completed by the end of the year 1382, two years before the death of Wycliffe, which took place in 1384. It was circulated in various forms and, to render the work more practically useful, tables of the Lessons and of the Epistles and Gospels for Sundays were added to many of the copies. Also some portions of the Bible were transcribed and issued in separate form.
The first Wycliffite version was no sooner completed than its many imperfections became manifest. The desire to be faithful in the rendering of the exact words led the translators into Latinisms having their source in the Vulgate version, so that some parts can scarcely be called English at all. There seems to have been little or no consideration of the idiomatic differences between the Latin and the English tongues. Wycliffe's own part was less defective in this respect than that of Hereford his co-worker, who was more painfully literal in his rendering than his master. The result was that no sooner was the work completed than it was felt it must be done over again, and the work of revision was begun under Wycliffe's own guidance but was not completed till 1388, or four years after his death. Of Wycliffe's Bible, therefore, there are thus an earlier and a later version. This later revision, while directed at the outset by Wycliffe himself, was really the work of a friend and disciple, John Purvey. This man was a native of Lathbury, a village near Newport Pagnell, who during the closing years of Wycliffe's life came to live with him at Lutterworth. This revision of the earlier version, while instigated by Wycliffe, came to be Purvey's great life-work, and in his "General Prologue" he tells us how he set about it. First, he says he had much travail, with divers fellows and helpers, to gather many old Bibles and other doctors and common glosses and to make one Latin Bible "somedeal" true. In other words he sought to get the best form of the Latin text, to begin with. Then next, to study that text anew, the text with the gloss and such other doctors as he might get, and especially Lyra on the Old Testament, that helped him full much in his work. The third thing was to take counsel with old grammarians and old divines concerning hard words and hard sentences, how they might best be understood and translated. The fourth step was to translate as he could according to the meaning and to have many good fellows and cunning at the correcting of the translation. These are his memorable concluding words: "By this manner with good living and great travail men can come to true and clear translating, and true understanding of Holy Writ, seem it never so hard at the beginning. God grant to us all grace to know well and keep well Holy Writ, and suffer joyfully some pain for it at the last! Amen"
Of course it need hardly be said that before the invention of printing both the earlier and the later versions were accessible only in manuscript; and neither of them appeared in print in complete form till 1850. The New Testament in the later version was published by Lewis in 1731, by Baber in 1810, and by Bagster in his English Hexapla in 1841. Of the early version the Song of Solomon was given in a commentary of 1823; and the New Testament of the same version was published by Pickering in 1848. Then in 1850 the Oxford University Press published a complete edition of both versions in parallel columns under the title: "The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments with the Apocryphal Books in the earliest English versions made from the Latin Vulgate by John Wycliffe and his followers; Edited by the Rev. J. Forshall and Sir F. Madden." This is truly a noble work in four volumes, royal quarto, and beautifully printed. It is the fruit of twenty-two years of labour, as many as 170 MSS. being examined by the editors, and the various readings of some 60 MSS. being given throughout. Obsolete or obscure words are explained in a glossary appended to the fourth volume.
From the time of Purvey's Revision in 1388 to the time of the first printed New Testament by William Tyndale in 1525, or for a period of 137 years, this translation of the Scriptures, known as Wyclifte's version, though really a joint work by him and his followers, continued to be copied by professional scribes, or by private persons for their own use, either wholly or in portions. Many of these have come down to us from the 14th and 15th centuries. Forshall and Madden counted no fewer than 165 copies, 42 of them giving the earlier version; and since this enumeration was made in 1850 several more have come to light. It was a costly work to produce in its entirety, having to be copied by hand; but its multiplication must have been continuous and fairly rapid. The copies, the numbers of which have just been given, must have been made within forty or fifty years of the completion of the revision; others have at various times been, discovered, but how many have perished during the process of the centuries it is impossible to say. Of those that remain nearly half are of small size, such as could be made the daily companions of their owners. They were found in the high places of the land as well as among the common people. A folio copy of two volumes on vellum, in the earlier version, which is preserved in the British Museum, shows painted in the upper part of the illuminated border of the first page the armorial shield of Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, the youngest son of Edward III. There is also a copy of the later version, with illuminated initials and borders, which belonged to the library of Henry VII, the initial letter being a red rose, and the ornamental border containing the royal arms and a portcullis. Another copy was presented to Queen Elizabeth as a birthday gift by her chaplain.
It was, however, among the commons of England that the new translation of the Bible in whole or in portions found readiest and most responsive welcome. Leicester is but a walk of a few miles from Lutterworth, and the work of Bible translation in the one town soon made itself felt in the other. Leicester became conspicuous for its sympathy with the opinions and writings of Wycliffe, so much so that Archbishop Courtney came down in 1389 and on the 2nd of November celebrated high mass at the high altar of the monastery in full pontificals. In the course of this celebration, "in solemn wise, by ringing the bells, lighting the candles and putting out the same again, and throwing them down to the ground," he denounced those who favoured the views of Wycliffe. The next day, being All-Souls-day, he made inquiry from ecclesiastics and laymen, when the names of eight persons were laid before him, all of whom he denounced by name as excommunicate and accursed, and ordered this excommunication to be proclaimed in divers parish churches in Leicester. The whole town also was placed under interdict so long as the guilty persons were among its inhabitants, and on the 7th of November the Sheriff was ordered to arrest them under the King s Writ. Three out of the eight recanted their opinions and were absolved, but before absolution there was to be hard penance. This penance was that on the next Sunday they were to go before the Cross three times during the procession at the Cathedral Church of our Lady of Leicester. They were to do this "in their shirts, having no other apparel upon them," holding a crucifix in one hand and a taper of wax half a pound weight in the other. The procession being ended they were to stand before the Cross during the whole time of mass with their tapers and crosses in their hands. As if this were not humiliation enough they were further ordered to stand the following Saturday in the full and public market in the town of Leicester, standing in like manner in their shirts, without any more clothes upon their bodies, holding the aforesaid crosses in their right hands. Having submitted to all this in the cold November days of 1389 Roger Dexter and William Smith and Alice his wife were finally absolved as stated in letters dated November 17 in the year of our Lord God 1389. Such were the proceedings which within a twelve month signalised the completion and final revision of the Wycliffe Bible.
Passing now over some nineteen years we come to measures more directly assailing the version of the Scriptures with which we are now concerned. Archbishop Courtney having been succeeded by Archbishop Arundel, the latter caused certain Constitutions to be enacted in a Convocation of the province of Canterbury held at Oxford in 1408. These Constitutions of Arundel consisted of thirteen Articles, the sixth of which reads as follows: "We will and command that no book or treatise made by John Wycliffe ... be from henceforth read in schools, halls, hospitals or other places whatsoever, within our province of Canterbury." This article was supplemented by a seventh which was directly aimed at Wycliffe's Bible. It reads thus: "Item, It is a dangerous thing as witnesseth blessed St Jerome, to translate the text of the Holy Scripture out of the tongue into another; for in the translation the same sense is not always easily kept, as the same St Jerome confesseth, that although he were inspired, yet often times in this he erred: we therefore decree and ordain that no man, hereafter, by his own authority translate any text of the Scripture into English or any other tongue, by way of a book, libel or treatise; and that no man read any such book, libel or treatise, now lately set forth in the time of John Wycliffe, or since, or hereafter to be set forth, in part or in whole, privily or apertly, upon pain of greater excommunication, until the said translation be allowed by the ordinary of the place, or, if the case so require, by the Council provincial."
For more than a century, that is from the time of these Constitutions of Arundel in 1408 to that of the Reformation under Henry VIII in 1534, the English Bible given by Wycliffe and his followers remained under interdict, to be read only in secret and with an abiding sense of danger. Most of our knowledge of what took place in those years, especially the latter portion of them, that is, from 1509 to 1521, comes to us from an unimpeachable source--the registers kept by the bishops themselves. Two of these stand out prominently, namely, the register of Richard Fitzjames, Bishop of London, and that of John Longland, Bishop of Lincoln. These records present a curious picture of religious life during the days of our fore fathers, as well as of the fortunes of the English Bible itself. This is especially true of the county of Buckingham in which Protestant opinions were rife long before the Reformation. In the days referred to the diocese of Lincoln extended from the Humber to the Thames; Buckinghamshire therefore was included, and John Longland, the bishop, was especially active in repressing the reading of the Bible in the mother tongue. Numerous indeed were the indictments for possessing and reading together the Sacred Scriptures with which he dealt. For example we find that John Higgs was summoned because "he had in his custody a book of the Four Evangelists in English and did often read therein"; and Richard Hun because "he hath in his keeping divers English books prohibited and damned by law: as the Apocalypse in English, the Epistles and the Gospels in English, Wycliffe's damnable books, and other books containing infinite errors, in which he hath been a long time accustomed to read, teach, and study daily." James Brewster was charged with having "a certain little book of Scripture in English, of an old writing almost worn for age, whose name is not there expressed." Richard Collins, also, for "having certain English books, as the Gospel of St Luke, the Epistles of St Paul, James and Peter in English, a book of Solomon's in English, and a book called "The Prick of Conscience."
But if it was an ecclesiastical offence to be possessed of a Bible in English or any part thereof, it was a still greater offence for men to meet to read it with their neighbours. The charges under this head are frequent during the years referred to. We read, for example, that Durdant of Iver-court "sitting at dinner with his sons and their wives, after bidding a boy there standing to depart out of the house, that he should not hear and tell, did recite certain places unto them out of the Gospels and the Epistles of St Paul." Ten persons were accused "because that at the marriage of Durdant's daughter they assembled together in a barn and heard a certain Epistle of St Paul read, which reading they well liked." John Butler was compelled because of his oath to detect his three brothers and the mother of Richard Ashford "partly because they were reading two hours together in a certain book of the Acts of the Apostles in English, in Ashford's house." Richard Collins also was detected "who among them was a great reader and had a book of Wycliffe's Wicket, and a book of Luke and one of Paul and a gloss of the Apocalypse." Robert Pope of Amersham "did detect Benet Ward of Beaconsfield because he had given him a book of the Ten Commandments, also the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. Of the same Ward he learned his Christ-cross row and five parts of the eight beatitudes." Certain other persons also were detected for "reading together in the book of the Expositions of the Apocalypse, and communing concerning the matter of the opening of the book with seven clasps."
Manuscript Bibles being scarce and costly, some people exercised their gifts in committing large portions of the Scriptures to memory and reciting them to others. Thomas Chase was detected because James Morden "heard him twice recite the Epistle of St James and the first chapter of St Luke." Agnes Ashford also was charged with teaching this man part of the Sermon on the Mount. "Five times he went to the aforesaid Agnes to learn this lesson. ... These lessons the said Agnes was bid to recite before six bishops, who straightway enjoined and commanded her that she should teach those lessons no more to any man, and especially not to her children." There is a similar record concerning Alice Collins the wife of Richard Collins. "This Alice was a famous woman among them, and had a good memory, could recite much of the Scriptures and other good books; and therefore when any conventicle of these men did meet at Burford, commonly she was sent for, to recite unto them the declaration of the Ten Commandments, and the Epistles of Peter and James." Her daughter Joan seems to have been quite as remarkable, "for that she had learned with her father and mother the Ten Commandments, the seven deadly sins, the seven works of mercy, the five wits bodily and ghostly, the eight blessings, and five chapters of St James's Epistle."
As we go through these records year after year we find that things which are counted as Christian excellences now were regarded as ecclesiastical offences by John Longland, Bishop of Lincoln, and the penances he enjoined were almost uniform and all after one condition. Some of the culprits were sent by him as prisoners to certain abbeys, there to be kept in perpetual penance and not suffered to pass the precincts of the monastery. Others were ordered to stand upon the highest step of the market-cross on market-days bearing a faggot of wood upon their shoulder; and on Sunday to stand in the church from the choir-door going out to the choir-door going in, and all the time of high mass to hold a faggot of wood upon their shoulders. Also on every Friday during their life to fast on bread and ale only, and on every evening of Corpus Christi during their life to fast on bread and water. As for James Morden and others of the abjurers they were enjoined that for seven years they were to visit the church of Lincoln twice a year from Amersham. But as a pilgrimage from Buckinghamshire to Lincoln cathedral was indeed a serious journey in those days, the sentence was mitigated for some, and they were mercifully permitted to visit the image of our Lady of Missenden for the space of five years instead.
Such was the struggle for light in those far-off days and such the hardships endured by those who went forth in search of the truth of God. Well might John Foxe bear testimony and say that the Church of God in England "hath not lacked great multitudes who tasted and followed the sweetness of God's holy Word almost in as ample manner, for the number of well-disposed hearts as now. ... Certes the fervent zeal of those Christian days seemed much superior to these our days and times; as manifestly may appear by their sitting up all night in reading and hearing; also by their expenses and charges in buying of books in English, of whom some gave five marks [equal to about 40 in our money], some more, some less, for a book: some gave a load of hay for a few chapters of St James, or of St Paul in English. ... To see their travails, their earnest seekings, their burning zeal, their readings, their watchings, their sweet assemblies, their love and concord, their godly living, their faithful demeaning with the faithful, may make us now, in these our days of free profession, to blush for shame."