The Middle English Bible. Henry Ansgar Kelly

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СКАЧАТЬ the same is true of Workman.¹¹⁵ Loserth also points out that the whole passage in defense of the vernacular is obviously out of context, “so that it must be looked upon as a note, which by some hasty transcriber has been inserted in the wrong place” in the treatise.¹¹⁶ What the passage says, in effect, is that criticizing the use of English in matters of religion would be like criticizing the new queen for having the Scriptures in her vernaculars of Czech and German—if she did.

      We can sum up by saying that even though Richard Ullerston’s treatise in favor of translating the Bible into English may have been associated with the debate on the subject that was taking place at the beginning of the century, he may have added further reasons after the bishops and other clergy passed the requirement, in 1407 and again in 1409, that new translations had to be approved by local bishops. This legislation likely sparked a new flurry of debate on the subject, of which Ullerston’s hastily supplemented treatise was an early manifestation. The author of the English tract took advantage of it and freely drew on his arguments to make many of the same points, and then went off on his own to denounce a Dominican opposer of translation, John Tille, who tried to persuade the bishop of London and a hundred other listeners that St. Jerome himself was against biblical translation. Our author then recounted that the two archbishops and other clergy back in the time of Richard II were indeed against the Bible translations then in circulation, but that their efforts were opposed by John of Gaunt and the other laity, represented by the Lords and Commons of Parliament. And finally he recalled that a subsequent archbishop of York, who was now archbishop of Canterbury, expressed warm approval of the Gospels in English with commentaries that Queen Anne had submitted to him for his inspection. (This sounds like a complete set of Glossed Gospels; if so, it has not survived.) The author of Against Them would be affirming that these translations were already approved, and that any newer translations would simply have to be submitted to just the sort of episcopal inspection that Arundel performed for Queen Anne.

      Dives and Pauper and the Longleat Sunday Gospels

      The dialogue Dives and Pauper¹¹⁷ was composed by a friar, perhaps a Franciscan, who reveals that he is writing in the year 1405.¹¹⁸ He presents one of his interlocutors, the affluent layman Dives, as complaining that people are saying that the Bible should not be read by the unlearned laity, not even to teach it to their children (I modernize spelling and verb forms): “Reason giveth that men should teach their children God’s Law and good thews [morals], and for to take heed to God that made us of nought and bought us so dear. But now men say that there should no lewd [uneducated] folk intermit them of [involve themselves in] God’s Law, nor of the Gospel nor of Holy Writ, neither to ken it nor to teach it.”¹¹⁹ The other dialoguist, Pauper, who like his author seems very friarlike, responds that this is not right: “That is a foul error and well perilous to man’s soul, for each man and woman is bound after his degree to do his business to know God’s Law, that he is bound to keep. And fathers and mothers, godfathers and godmothers, are bound to teach their children God’s Law, or else do [cause] them be taught.”¹²⁰ Later on, Dives says that “God’s Law is forgotten and defended [prohibited], that men shall not ken it, nor have it in their mother tongue,”¹²¹ and this time Pauper lets the complaint pass by, without comment or correction. Dives’s words have regularly been taken to refer to the provincial constitutions that were enacted at Oxford in 1407 and promulgated in 1409, and the dialogue consequently dated to 1410 or so.¹²² However, there is good reason to think that Dives is not referring to any official restrictions against English Bibles. As I have stated before, and as we shall see in detail in Chapter 5, the constitutions did not forbid the translation of the Scriptures into English.

      We should come to the same conclusion about a later work of the Dives author, which we can call the Longleat Sunday Gospels, that it too was written before the constitutions were issued.¹²³ The work consists of a new English translation of each of the Sunday Gospels and an explication of the text. The author says here that the teaching of the Gospel in English is prohibited, but only by some prelates (“thoghu it be these dayis defendit and inhibight be somme prelatis that men schulde techin the Gospel in Englich”),¹²⁴ which means that he is not referring to any legislation passed by all of the prelates of the southern province. He goes on to say, addressing the layman to whom he sends this compilation,

      Lief [dear] friend, sith it is leaveful to preach the Gospel in English, it is leaveful to write it in English, both to the teacher and to the hearer, if he ken [knows how to] write. For by writing is most secure examination of man’s speech; and by writing, God’s Law may best be couth [known] and best kept in mind. And therfore, lief friend, although some prelates have defended [forbidden] me to teach the Gospel and to write it in English, yet none of them hath defended you, nor may defend you, to ken the Gospel in English, that is your kindly [natural] language.¹²⁵

      This has been taken to mean that the reader had a “privileged position … apparently beyond the reach of episcopal enquiry even though the preacher himself might be persecuted.”¹²⁶ The conclusion is based on the supposition that the constitution regulating Bible “reading” is already in force. But the author says at the beginning of his comment that reading the Bible in English is lawful to anyone who can read. He himself, unfortunately, has been specifically prohibited by certain bishops from teaching the Gospel and producing an English translation of the Gospel, but no bishop, he says, would be able or permitted to impose such a prohibition upon his reader.

      He again contrasts his position with that of his reader, saying that though he himself is in danger for translating the Gospel, no bishop may forbid his friend from reading it: “Sith I have written the Gospel to you in well great dread and persecution, ye that be in such secureness that no prelate may let you nor disease you for kenning nor for keeping of the Gospel, ken it and keep it with good devotion, as ye will answer to Christ at the Day of Doom.”¹²⁷ It is unlikely that he is speaking only of his friend, and suggesting that he is of such high standing that no bishop would dare to risk his displeasure. Rather, he would seem to be saying that there is no rule against laymen reading biblical translation and no grounds for lawfully imposing such a rule.

      One thing we can be certain of: he has never heard of a general mandate from the archbishop and the other bishops of the province of Canterbury forbidding anyone from reading (whether lecturing upon or simply perusing) a new English translation of the Scriptures until it has been approved by his or her local bishop.

      He goes on to speak of an attempt, undoubtedly again on the part of some bishops, to place unwonted restrictions upon preaching, and also, surprisingly, to make them venerate statues and pictures more than is proper:

      And as ye may hear, now preaching and teaching of the Gospel and of God’s Law is arted [restricted] and letted more than it was wont to be, therefore take goodly the teaching that cometh to you freely. And though the persecution of Diocletian and Maximian be now newly begun to let teaching and preaching of God’s word and God’s Law and to compel men to worship graven images of stone and of tree, stand ye stiff in the faith, and worship ye yon God above all thing. And think that imagery and paint is but a book to the lewd people for to steer them to think on God and other saints and to worship God above all thing, and saints in their degree, as the Law showeth well, De Cons., D. 3, c. Perlatum.¹²⁸

      It may be, however, that he is saying that the strictures against preaching and teaching are equivalent by counteracting the true purpose of religious art. The canon of Gratian that he cites, Perlatum, an excerpt from Pope Gregory the Great’s letter to Bishop Serenus of Marseilles, can be read as authorizing literate persons to read the Bible:

      It is reported to us that, fired by inconsiderate zeal, you have destroyed images of saints under the alleged excuse that they should not be adored. We praise you for forbidding them to be adored, but we rebuke you for breaking them up. Tell me, brother, what priest has ever done or been heard СКАЧАТЬ