[4] Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, A.D. 709.
[5] “I have seen a book at Crowland Abbey, which is kept there for a relic. The book is called Saint Guthlake’s Psalter, and I weene verily that it is a copy of the same that the king did translate; for it is neither English, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, nor Dutch, but something sounding to our English; and as I have perceived since the time I was last there, being at Antwerp, the Saxon tongue doth sound likewise, and it is to ours partly agreeable.” The answer of John Lambert to the twenty-sixth of the Articles laid against him. (Foxe, Acts and Monuments, vol. v. p. 213.)
[6] The Chronicle of Florence of Worcester, A.D. 699, and A.D. 714.
[7] Many of the clergy were probably at this time unable to interpret the Latin Bibles used in the Church services. Several MSS. exist which have an English translation (gloss) inserted between the lines by writers of the ninth or tenth centuries. One of these, the “Lindisfarne Gospels,” now in the British Museum, is a most richly-adorned MS. It was written by one bishop of Lindisfarne, and ornamented by another, and was encased in jewelled covers. Over each Latin word is written its equivalent in English (Anglo-Saxon). This, as is explained by a note at the end, was done by one “Aldred, the priest,” and, as his handwriting shows, in the tenth century. It cannot be supposed that this was done for the benefit of ordinary readers. So valued a MS. would not be likely to come into any other hands than those of the clergy or the monks.
[8] There is no direct evidence for the existence at an earlier date of any translation of the entire Scriptures into any form of English. In an interesting tract (commonly assigned to the earlier part of the fifteenth century, and printed by Foxe in the first edition of his Acts and Monuments, 1563), entitled, “A Compendious Old Treatise, showing how that we ought to have the Scripture in English.” It is stated, “Also a man of London, whose name was Wyring, had a Bible in English, of northern speech, which was seen of many men, and it seemed to be two hundred years old.” (Foxe, Acts and Monuments, vol. iv. p. 674.) It cannot, however, be inferred from this statement that the volume referred to was a complete Bible.
[9] See [Appendix A].
[10] As many as one hundred and fifty manuscripts, containing the whole or parts of Purvey’s Bible, are still in existence, and the majority of these were written within forty years from the time of its completion.—Forshall and Madden, Wycliffite Versions of the Holy Bible, Preface, p. xxxiii.
[11] No portion of the Wycliffe Bible was printed until 1731, when the New Testament, in the later of its forms, was published by the Rev. John Lewis, of Margate. This was reprinted in 1810, under the editorship of the Rev. Henry Baber. The complete Bible was not printed till so recently as 1850, in the splendid volumes issued from the University press of Oxford, and edited by the Rev. J. Forshall and Rev. F. Madden.
[12] The first work known to have been printed with moveable metal type is the Latin Bible, issued from the press of John Gutenberg at Maintz, 1450-55. This Bible is sometimes referred to as the Mazarin Bible, from the accidental circumstance that a copy of it was found about the middle of last century in Cardinal Mazarin’s library at Paris. (Hallam, Literature of Europe, vol. i. p. 210.) With more propriety it may be called the Gutenberg Bible.
[13] See [Appendix C].