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STEALTHY READING OF THE BIBLE.

91

been issued. Those who read the forbidden volume must have felt the proverb verified in its richest and truest sense, "Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant." Many did suffer for owning a Bible in their spoken tongue. Foxe1 gives numerous instances of persecution in various dioceses. Some persons were imprisoned, and others were burned. In 1519, six men and a woman perished at the stake at Coventry, for teaching their children the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments in English. The point of the charge against the "examinates," or accused persons, was uniformly not the possession of a Bible, but of an English Bible, or "book of the New Law in English." An unintelligible Latin volume of Scripture was felt to be harmless in the hands of the people, though, indeed, William Butler,2 a Franciscan adversary of Wycliffe, hesitates not to say, "The prelates ought not to allow that any person should read the Scripture translated into Latin at pleasure." There was a great desire that children should not be taught the Lord's Prayer or the Beatitudes in English. Some of the people had not the whole New Testament, but only the Gospels or a few of the Epistles. The forbidden book was often read by night, and those who had not been themselves educated listened with eagerness to the reading of others; but to read it, and to hear it read, were alike forbidden. Copies of the New Testament were also borrowed from hand to hand through a wide circle, and poor people gathered their pennies and formed copartneries for the purchase of the sacred volume. Those who could afford it gave five marks for the coveted manuscript (about £40 sterling), and others in their penury gave

2 Vaughan's Wycliffe, vol. II, p. 50. Latin Bibles were so scarce that Fitzralph, primate of Armagh, complained to Pope Innocent that four of his chaplains, on going to Oxford, could not find a Bible.

1 In vols. IV and V. Seeley, Lon- ment was published, says, "I fear don. two things I fear that the study of Hebrew will promote Judaism, and that the study of philology will revive paganism." There was some ground for the fears of Erasmus, for it was said of some of the Italian scholars, who had become classic pagans, that they had a chaunt, Come, let us sing a new song unto Pope Sixtus."

3 More than a century afterwards, Erasmus, in 1516, the year in which his first edition of Greek New Testa

gladly for a few leaves of St. Peter and St. Paul a load of hay. Nicholas Bulward, of the diocese of Norwich, was charged " that he hath a New Testament which he bought in London for four marks and fourty pence." John Colins and his wife were brought up for buying a Bible of Stacey for twenty shillings. In 1429 the price of a Bible was £2, 16s. 8d.—a great price, and probably more than twelve times that sum in our current money; but fragments in separate books would be proportionately cheaper. Some committed portions to memory, that they might recite them to relatives and friends. Thus Alice Colins was commonly sent for to the meetings, " to recite unto them the Ten Commandments and the Epistles of Peter and James." "Understandest thou what thou readest?" was a challenge wholly fruitless to many; but they enjoyed the benediction, "Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy." In 1429 Marjery Backster was indicted because she asked her maid Joan to "come and hear her husband read the law of Christ out of a book he was wont to read by night." Richard Hun, committed to the Lollard's Tower in 1514, was found dead in his cell, there being strong suspicions that he had been murdered. His indictment before his death bore that he "had in his keeping divers English books prohibited and damned by the law, as the Apocalypse in English, and Epistles and Gospels in English." One of the "new articles" brought against him after his death was that he defendeth the translation of the Bible and of the Holy Scripture into English." Between 1518 and 1521, such cases are recorded as Richard Collins, accused of having a book of Luke and of Paul; William Pope, of having a book of Paul and a book of small Epistles; Stacey, brickmaker, Coleman Street, of having a book of the Apocalypse; Thomas Colins, of having a book of Paul and of James in English; and John Ledishall, of Hungerford, reading the Bible at Burford upon Holyrood day; and John Heron of having "a book of the exposition of the Gospels fairly written in English."

The means employed to discover the readers and possessors of Scripture were truly execrable in character. Friends and

IV.]

NEFARIOUS MEANS OF DETECTION.

93

relations were put on oath, and bound to say what they knew of their own kindred. The privacy of the household was violated through this espionage; and husband and wife, parent and child, were sworn against one another. The ties of blood were wronged, and the confidence of friendship was turned into a snare in this secret service. Universal suspicion must have been created; no one could tell who his accuser might be, for the friend to whom he had read of Christ's betrayal might soon be tempted to act the part of Judas towards himself, and for some paltry consideration sell his life to the ecclesiastical powers. There are numerous examples. Robert Colins "detected" or informed against Richard Colins of Girge, for that Richard did read unto him the Ten Commandments, and taught him the Epistle of James; John Hakker detected Thomas Vincent for giving him the Gospel of St. Matthew in English; John Steventon detected Alice Colins for teaching the Ten Commandments and the first chapter of St. John in English; Thomas Colins informed against his "own natural father," because his father had taught him the Ten Commandments; Robert Pope informed against his wife, his son, and his father, the paternal crime being that his parent had listened to the reading of the Gospel of Matthew. Many from experience must have become so cunning as to escape detection, and others may have secured immunity by an organized system of vigilant sentinels, and private tokens and watchwords. On being seized many abjured. In 1519 Roger Parker of Hitchenden said to John Phip, that "for burning his books he was foul to blame, for they were worth a hundred marks. To whom John answered, that he had rather burn his books than that his books should burn him." On one occasion, at Amersham, in 1506, the daughter of the martyr William Tylsworth was "compelled with her own hands to set fire to her dear father." Foxe intimates that when he wrote the story, there were persons alive who had witnessed such a refinement of cruelty. When John Scrivener was burned, his children were forced to light the fire that consumed him.

The attachment of the Wycliffites to Scripture was notorious

all through the previous century, and from their first existence. An old satirical song complains of Lord Cobham

"Hit is unkyndly for a knight, That should a kinges castel kepe,

To babble the Bibel day and night."

Their earlier purity of conversation is brought out by Chaucer in his Canterbury Tales. The host adjures the parson, "for Goddes bones," to tell a story in his turn; but the parson's surprise at the sinful oath at once marked him out as a Lollard— "I smell a Loller in the wind." To prevent him from talking Gospel, the shipman struck in, here, nor preach, or he might springen cockle in our cleanë corn," an allusion to lolia (tares). The parson's tale, however, is in character, being a long sermon filled with quotations from Scripture, the Latin clauses being rendered by the poet himself.

"He shall no Gospel glossen

The knowledge of divine truth, received by the reading of the Scriptures, was transmitted by a succession of pious men for more than a century after Wycliffe's death. There was a

revival of spiritual life, and the dim mists of the morning were passing away at the rising of the sun. Readers of the manuscript Bible were numerous in London, where they had several places of meeting; and they abounded also in the counties of Lincoln, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, Buckingham, and Hereford. The Gospels, especially that of Matthew, the Beatitudes, the Apocalypse, and very frequently the Epistle of James, are mentioned in the informations and indictments. In 1528, John Tyball, of Steeple Bumstead, confessed to having part of Paul's Epistles after the old translation. John Pykas, in 1529, acknowledged that he had a manuscript of the Bible, and that he had been studying it since 1512. About 1520 and 1521, more than five hundred men and women were arrested in the one diocese of Lincoln, under Bishop Longland; and there was persecution from 1509 to 1517 under Fitzjames, Bishop of London. Ammonius, the Latin secretary of Henry VIII, writes in grim humour to Erasmus, in 1511, that so many heretics had been burned under Bishop Fitzjames that in and around

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TYNDALE, SUCCESSOR OF WYCLIFFE.

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London fuel had become scarce and dear.1 In 1529, John Tewksbury, citizen and leather merchant, on examination before Bishop Tunstall, deponed that he had been studying the Scripture for seventeen years, and had a copy of the "Bible written." These Bible readers called themselves "brothers" or "sisters" in Christ, and at an early period they took the name of "just-fast men," "known men," and "known women." The title was based, according to Reginald Pecock, on Wycliffe's unhappy misrendering of the last clause of 1 Corinthians xiv, 38, "If eny man unknowith he schal be unknown," Pecock's explanation being that they understood the clause to mean that if a man did not know the New Testament, he should be unrecognized of God "for to be eny of hise." In talking of a third party, one would ask, "Is he a known man?”—that is, Is he one of the party characterized by their reading of the written New Testament? But such stealth and secrecy were forced upon them-" the Word of the Lord was precious in those days, there was no open vision," and the time was yet distant when the circulation and reading of Scripture should be without bar or proscription, when there should be an Authorized Version. In consequence of the spirit of earnest inquiry which was shed abroad, the tyranny of the spiritualty was seen to be more glaringly in antagonism with inspired teaching.

In fine, there is no doubt that "this dear old English Bible" kept alive the knowledge of divine truth for many years. The influence of Wycliffe had not ceased when that of Tyndale began, for in 1529, and in the fierce proclamation of that year against heretical books-Tyndale's Testament occupying the first place on the list-all civil officers are enjoined at the same time to "destroy all heresies and errors commonly called Lollardies." Wycliffe's followers were therefore still of such note and influence as to obtain a place in this royal document. Even so far on as 1538, Lambert the martyr, in reply to one of the articles preferred against him, admitted, "I did once see a book of the New Testament, which was not written in my estimation this hundred years, and in my mind right well translated after the example of that which is read in the Church in Latin."

1 1 Epist., cxxvii.