CB .2877 INTRODUCTION THE publication in 1611 of the Authorized Version marked an epoch, in the proper sense of that term, in the history of the English Bible. It was a point at which one period ended and another began. It ended a long series of attempts to produce a satisfactory translation of the Scriptures into English. It began a period of supremacy, unassailed after the first thirty years of its existence, and unquestioned for two hundred years thereafter, for the translation which then saw the light. It gave to the English nation, and eventually to all the English-speaking peoples throughout the world, a version of the Scriptures as faithful and accurate as the scholarship of the day admitted, and expressed in prose so stately and splendid as to make it one of the great classics of the English tongue. For the English language, for English literature, for English religion, and, through English, for the religion of many peoples, nations, and languages in all the earth, the publication of 1611 was in the fullest sense epoch-making. The roots of the English Bible lie far back in the history of the nation; but its development was a long and slow process. The Bible of Western Europe, at the time when England was converted to Christianity, was Latin, the so-called Vulgate', due in the main to St. Jerome, though embodying much of the work of earlier translators, and modified not a little since his time. This Bible was used alike by the Celtic monks who carried Christianity from Ireland to Iona, and from Iona to Northumbria, and by the Roman monks who accompanied Augustine to Kent. Monuments of this stage in the history of the Bible in England may be seen in the magnificent Lindisfarne Gospels (no. 11 in the present exhibition) written at the end of the seventh century in Northumbria; in another Northumbrian book closely related to it, of the eighth century (no. 13); and in various copies, at Oxford and elsewhere, which claim to have been brought to Canterbury by Augustine, and which at any rate belonged to the southern Church at a very early period. At this stage there was no need for a Bible in English. The new converts probably could not read, and the vernacular instruction given to them was no doubt oral. The earliest demands for anything in the way of translation took the form either of paraphrases of the Bible story, or versions of special passages, or of word-for-word translations written between the lines of Latin Bibles, to assist readers imperfectly acquainted with Latin, or who needed help in interpreting the Latin to Anglo-Saxon hearers. Of all these forms of translation examples are known, either by tradition or in specimens still extant. The earliest of all is the poem of Cadmon, now extant only in a manuscript of the end of the tenth century at Oxford. Cadmon, according to the picturesque story of Bede, was a cowherd at Whitby in the third quarter of the seventh century. Being unable to sing, he used to leave the table at feast times when he saw the harp passed towards him. But one evening, when he had thus retired to the stable, One appeared to him in a dream and said, 'Cadmon, sing something for Me." And he answered, 'I cannot sing, and for that reason I left the feast and came hither.' But He said, 'Yet thou canst sing somewhat for Me.' And he : 'What should I sing?' 'Sing the beginning of created things.' And forthwith he began to sing to the glory of the Creator a song of which this is the tenor: 'Now ought we to praise the Author of the heavenly kingdom', &c. How much of the poem now extant really goes back to the age of Cadmon, it is impossible to say; but there is no reason to doubt that it represents the earliest attempt to tell the Bible story in the English tongue. Early in the eighth century (A.D. 735) comes the story of the translation of the Gospel of St. John, completed by the Venerable Bede with his last breath; but of this no part is extant. To the ninth century belongs a word-for-word translation of the Psalter, written between the lines of a Latin manuscript in this Museum (Cotton MS. Vespasian A. i), probably at Canterbury; and from this version are descended several other interlinear translations now extant in MSS. written between this date and the twelfth century. At the end of the century stands a name of real importance in the religious, as in the literary, education of the country, that of Alfred the Great. Of the translation of the Psalms which he is said to have made, no portion is known to exist; though a MS. at Paris contains a version of Psalms 1-50 which may belong to this date and has been conjecturally assigned to him. But to his code of laws he prefixed a translation of the Decalogue and the letter of the Council of Jerusalem, together with a summary of the Mosaic law; and these are still extant. In the tenth century comes a verse translation of Psalms 51-150, contained in the Paris MS. above mentioned, and the word-for-word version of the Gospels inserted between the lines of the Lindisfarne Gospels (no. 11 in the present exhibition). This, which is repeated in the Rushworth MS. at Oxford, is the earliest form in which the Gospels are now extant in the English language. It will have been observed that the translations hitherto mentioned have been confined almost wholly to the Psalms and the Gospels. Early in the eleventh century another step forward was taken. Elfric the Grammarian, first a monk at Winchester, then abbot of Cerne in Dorset, and finally abbot of Eynsham in Oxfordshire, observing that the English had not the evangelical doctrines among their writings, those books excepted which King Alfred wisely turned from Latin into English', set himself, at the request of Ethelweard, son of Ethelmær (ealdorman of Devon and founder of Eynsham), to remedy this defect by the composition of a paraphrase of the Old Testament narrative. This paraphrase covered the whole of the narrative portions from Genesis to Judges, and, in addition, Ælfric wrote epitomes of the Books of Kings and of Job, and homilies containing summaries of Esther, Judith, and Maccabees. One of the two extant manuscripts of the Heptateuch, with quaint illustrations, is included in the present exhibition (no. 20). To the same date as Elfric's paraphrase belongs the first independent version of the Gospels in English. The author of it is unknown, but it appears to have been produced in Wessex early in the eleventh century. Six copies of it have survived, with a portion of a seventh; and one, which belonged to the great monastery of Christ Church, Canterbury (now Canterbury Cathedral), and subsequently to Archbishop Cranmer, is here exhibited (no. 21). At the time of the Norman Conquest, then, the Gospels and the Psalms had been translated into English, and the Old Testament narrative was likewise accessible in the language of the people; but there is no reason to suppose that such books had any wide circulation. The language of the Church was still Latin, and such works of theology as were either written or read were for the most part Latin too; but the contemporary historians give but a poor picture of the intellectual and religious condition of the country in the last generations of the SaxoDanish kingdom. The Conquest checked the use of the English language for literary purposes altogether. Such translations as were needed were French, not English. Specimens of the illustrated Apocalypses, written in Norman-French and illuminated with quaint and wonderful designs, may be seen in the Grenville Room of this Museum; and, in addition, Norman-French translations of the greater part of the Bible were produced during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. On the part of the conquered English, the only sign of activity is the poem of the Ormulum, written about the end of the twelfth century, and containing metrical paraphrases of the Gospels and Acts. In the course of the thirteenth century there was a great growth of interest in the Scriptures, both in France and in England; but it was manifested mainly in the multiplication of copies in Latin (see nos. 17, 18). It was not until the fourteenth century that any corresponding development in the demand for vernacular Bibles is noticeable; and until near the end of that century the demand was satisfied by versions of single books, especially (as always) the Psalms. The Psalter of Richard Rolle of Hampole, which belongs to the first half of the century, enjoyed great popularity (no. 22). It contained the Psalms in Latin, accompanied, verse by verse, by an English translation and commentary. The author lived as a hermit at Hampole, near Doncaster, and his translation was originally made in the northern dialect; but in many of the extant copies it appears in southern dialects, showing that it had spread throughout the kingdom, and had been modified in the process. The commentary itself was rewritten in the fifteenth century from a Lollard point of view, and in this shape it continued to circulate long after the invention of printing. Another version of the Psalms, in which the Latin and English again alternate, verse by verse, was produced about the same time in the Midlands (no. 23); but as it is only known in two copies, its popularity evidently bore no comparison with that of Rolle's work. It has been attributed to one William of Shoreham, but without adequate reason; and the dialect is said not to suit Kent, where William was vicar at Chart Sutton. Besides the Psalter, the Apocalypse also appeared in English in the course of this century, having been translated from the NormanFrench Apocalypse mentioned above; and this version circulated somewhat widely. A life of Christ, extracted from the Gospels for Sundays and holy days, is known from a single manuscript at Cambridge. A more extensive and original attempt appears in another group of MSS. This consisted originally of the Pauline Epistles and the four larger Catholic Epistles, to which were subsequently added the minor Catholic Epistles, the Acts, and Matthew i-vi. 8. This version, which represents the first attempt to produce the Epistles in an English dress, was made at the |