The Middle English Bible. Henry Ansgar Kelly

found some interesting differences in various parts of the translation, and the stability of the text may help to establish that these differences are original rather than merely scribal.⁸³

      The obvious goals of all translators of the Bible are accuracy and clarity. Lindberg considers that these goals were aimed at in LLV, Bodley 277, Henry VI’s Bible: it was “a conscious attempt to merge original features (at times more ancient than EV) with modernisms (not all the most recent) to form a text true to the double aim of this translation of the Bible: to be true to the Word, and to help the reader.”⁸⁴ Modern-day scholars who have studied the EV and LV have usually judged them on the basis of literary style and fluency.⁸⁵ But, as Nicholas Watson notes, the Middle Ages had no word for “literary,”⁸⁶ though they did, of course, have criteria for judging what was awkward or not. Sometimes, nowadays, “literary” is contrasted with “literal,” and “literalism” is often a bad word; but, properly understood, as fidelity to the original meaning, it is essential, particularly in the case of the Bible.⁸⁷ Even for Simple Creature in the GP, sticking to the letter is the best, and the LV often follows the EV word for word. But when clarity is sacrificed, the language should be modified, even at the expense of altering the original data. It is obvious that the supervisors of LV wished to resolve ambivalences and difficulties in the original Latin rather than to present the problems to the English readers and let them puzzle over them. This is sometimes taken to be a characteristic of the proto-Protestant reformist impulse behind this medieval Bible project.⁸⁸ Such a conclusion would make sense if, as has usually been assumed, the sentiments enunciated by the Wycliffite author of GP were, as he claimed, the driving force of the LV text. But if, as I think, he was a Johnny-come-lately to the enterprise, we need to arrive at other explanations. The rationale that first suggests itself is that for nonscholarly devotional reading it was assumed that plausible resolutions to textual problems were preferable to ambiguities or puzzles in the text.

      The iconic method of translation followed in EV resembles that followed in various Vetus Latina translations of the Bible. In the Old Testament, these translations were replaced by fresh ones made by Jerome—still, however, following characteristics of the Hebrew (and Greek) and at the same time respecting the Latin versions he was replacing.⁸⁹ But in the New Testament, the iconicity was left more in place, since the old translations were only edited anew, the Gospels by Jerome, and the other books by unknown editors. It might not be too far from the truth to see the LV revision of the EV text of the Middle English Bible as a process somewhat in between these two methods of producing the Vulgate.

      But whatever advantages could be perceived in the EV text in facilitating understanding of the Latin Bible, the peculiar virtues of more familiar kinds of speech found in LV proved preferable, as can be seen from the far greater survivals of LV manuscripts. This was the version that won the hearts of the English reading public of all persuasions.

       LV Motivations as Inferred Versus GP Motivations as Stated

      Let me single out one aspect of EV and LV and draw some conclusions from it, namely, the practice of EV to take over absolute constructions literally and the practice of LV to do away with such forms by resolving them finitely.⁹⁰ In doing so, LV was not rejecting a hidebound traditional way of writing, but resisting an innovation that was just appearing in the language. However, though LV was thereby conforming to earlier stylistic norms, there should have been a real objection to doing this on the level of accuracy; participial constructions are deliberately ambiguous, and “clarifying” them in one definite way or another, say, as causally or temporally related (using because or when), when the relationship might be the opposite, or simply circumstantial or appositional, destroys what might be considered a divinely inspired uncertainty.⁹¹

      It has been concluded on the basis of the General Prologue that “the goal in the Wycliffite Bible is a translation that produces clear English while staying as close as possible to the Latin.”⁹² But it is apparent that Simple Creature’s goals were much more ambitious; he wanted to outdo the Latin and make it more intelligible.

      He hopes that he improves on the truth and clarity of the Latin text by taking these sorts of decisions, which might seem to imply a certain quality of arrogance in assuming the correctness of his judgments, making his version better than the original. Let us review what he (or an or-speaking interpolator) says at one point: “Whether I have translated as openly or openlier in English as in Latin, let wise men deem that know well both languages and know well the sentence of Holy Scripture; and whether I have done thus or nay, ne doubt, they that ken well the sentence of Holy Writ and English together and will travail with God’s grace thereabout, may make the Bible as true and as open, yea, and openlier in English than it is in Latin.”⁹³ He claims, of course, to rely on the context of each passage, but ultimately his main reliance is on divine inspiration and guidance. His final thoughts sum up his attitude: “Many such adverbs, conjunctions, and prepositions be set oft one for another, and at free choice of authors sometimes; and now those shall be taken as it accordeth best to the sentence. By this manner, with good living and great travail, men may 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 ken well and keep well Holy Writ, and suffer joyfully some pain for it at the last. Amen.”⁹⁴ In this view, Simple Creature may have been influenced by one of his favorite works, Augustine’s De doctrina Christiana, as well as Wyclif ’s De veritate Sacre Scripture. But both Augustine and Wyclif are speaking of seeking divine help in explicating, not translating Scripture.⁹⁵

      The fact remains that by disambiguating such ambiguities for the sake of fluency, a translation like LV forecloses meanings left open in translations like EV, which observe limits imposed by the original forms.

       Other Factors In and About Oxford, and a Suggested Downsizing of the Translation and Revision Enterprises

      Other scholars who may have participated in the translations have been suggested by Jeremy Catto, connecting supporters of the project with residents of Queen’s College, Oxford, including Richard Ullerston, who will be treated below for his defense of Bible translation sometime in the decade 1400–1409, and also Philip Repingdon in his post-Wycliffite phase.⁹⁶ Repingdon, of course, may have begun his participation in his pre-Queen’s period, and while he was still a Wycliffite.

      Even though I have argued that Simple Creature himself was not an Oxford man, the general dialect of EV and LV has been associated with the university,⁹⁷ and one should not be surprised to find many other connections. Another locus at Oxford has recently been singled out by Anne Hudson as a probable center of translational activity, namely Greyfriars, the Franciscan house at the university: one of the reasons being the resources of its library.⁹⁸ Included in her suggestion is the supposition that the compilers of other works associated with the Wycliffites (associated with them at least nowadays, I would add) also took advantage of the house’s facilities; she designates specifically the Glossed Gospels; the encyclopedia called Floretum in its full form and Rosarium in the abridged version; the revisions to Richard Rolle’s English Psalms commentary;⁹⁹ and the large liturgical cycle of Wycliffite sermons.¹⁰⁰ She points out that “Wyclif and his disciples were not in the 1370s defined as enemies,” and the intensive scholarly labor that went into at least the biblical and encyclopedic enterprises had nothing obviously Wycliffite about them, “even in the developed sense of that term let alone in that of the 1370s.”¹⁰¹ I agree and wish to push the argument further, specifically concerning the organization and production of EV and LV. I suggest that there was nothing hugger-mugger about this endeavor and no reason for secrecy. The question remains, however, whether it was, especially at its origins in the production of EV, a large-scale endeavor with such wide participation that it was too routine to be mentioned, or whether it was a small-scale enterprise on the level envisaged by Forshall and Madden, who saw Wyclif himself producing the EV New Testament and Nicholas Hereford most of the EV Old Testament, with John Purvey doing the whole LV Bible. If we dismiss Simple Creature’s vision of painstaking preparation of an accurate Vulgate text and just think of getting down to work and doing it, it could have been accomplished in