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The First Bible Printed in England: A Little Known Witness from Late Henrician England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2016

EYAL POLEG
EYAL POLEG*
Affiliation:
School of History, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS; e-mail: e.poleg@qmul.ac.uk
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Abstract

The first Bible to be printed in England was produced in 1535 by the royal printer, and with Henry VIII's initial support. It has attracted little scholarly attention. This first extensive examination traces its creation and early reception as witness to the uncertain course of the English Reformation. Its origins reveal a dependency on continental models, which were then modified to create a book carefully placed between conservatism and reform. Priests, scholars, children and crooks left their marks on the Bible, and advanced digital technology exposes unique evidence for the merging of Latin and English in late Henrician liturgy.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 67 , Issue 4 , October 2016 , pp. 760 - 780
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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References

1 Tudor royal proclamations, I: the early Tudors, 1485–1553, ed. Hughes, Paul L. and Larkin, James F., New Haven 1964, 193–7Google Scholar.

2 Mozley, James Frederic, Coverdale and his Bibles, London 1953 Google Scholar; Greenslade, S. L., The Coverdale Bible, 1535, Folkestone 1975 Google Scholar; Latré, Guido, ‘The 1535 Bible and its Antwerp origins’, in O'Sullivan, Orlaith and Herron, Ellen N. (eds), The Bible as book: the Reformation, London 2000, 89–102 Google Scholar; Verbraak, Gwendolyn, ‘William Coverdale and the clandestine book trade: bibliographical quest for the printers of Tyndale's New Testament’, in Francois, W. and den Hollander, A. A. (eds), Infant milk or hardy nourishment? The Bible for lay people and theologians in the early modern period, Leuven 2009, 167–89Google Scholar; Tadmor, Naomi, ‘People of the covenant and the English Bible’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society xxii (2012), 95–110 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Blayney's, Peter recent re-evaluation, The Stationers' Company and the printers of London, 1501–1557, Cambridge 2013, i. 342–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Copinger, Walter Arthur, The Bible and its transmission: being an historical and bibliographical view of the Hebrew and Greek texts, and the Greek, Latin and other versions of the Bible (both MS. and printed) prior to the Reformation, London 1897, 242 Google Scholar; Darlow, T. H. and Moule, H. F. (eds), Historical catalogue of the printed editions of Holy Scripture in the Library of the British and Foreign Bible Society, London 1903, ii/2, 929 Google Scholar; Arthur Freeman, ‘To guard his words: the selectivity, conservatism and starlingly personal nature of a Bible designed by Henry viii’, Times Literary Supplement, 12 Dec. 2007, 13–14, followed by Freeman's letter of 8 Feb. 2008; Blayney, Stationers' Company, 352–6.

4 Herbert, A. S. (ed.), Historical catalogue of printed editions of the English Bible, 1525–1961, London 1968, 17 Google Scholar; Daniell, David, The Bible in English: its history and influence, New Haven 2003, 245 CrossRefGoogle Scholar (identified by Blayney, Stationers' Company, 342–3); Killeen, Kevin, Smith, Helen and Willie, Rachel (eds), The Oxford handbook of the Bible in England, c. 1530–1700, Oxford 2015 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 For a summary of research on the Reformation see Marshall, Peter, ‘(Re)defining the English Reformation’, Journal of British Studies xlviii/3 (2009), 564–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Freeman's suggestion that this is also indicative in the small number of extant copies was refuted by Blayney, Stationers' Company, 353–4.

7 Macculloch, Diarmaid, ‘Protestantism in mainland Europe: new directions’, Renaissance Quarterly lix (2006), 698–706 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 For the device see McKerrow, R. B. and Ferguson, F. S., Title-page borders used in England & Scotland, 1485–1640, London 1932, 16–18 Google Scholar, §19.

9 Colin, Clair, ‘Thomas Berthelet, Royal Printer’, Gutenberg Jahrbuch (1966), 177–81Google Scholar; K. F. Pantzer, ‘Berthelet, Thomas (d. 1555)’, ODNB.

10 Which indeed drew on a new font: Blayney, Stationers' Company, 354–6.

11 ‘We therefore, considering it to be our duty to God, have undertaken this task [publishing the Bible], so that we should be within our realm like the soul in the body, and the sun in the universe, and exercise judgment as God's representative in our kingdom’ (‘Nos itaque consyderantes id erga deum officii nostri, quo suscepisse cognoscimur ut in regno simus sicut Anima in corpore et Sol in mundo, utque loco dei iudicium exerceamus in regno nostro’). The translation, as well as the one that follows, is based on Freeman, ‘To guard his words’.

12 ‘yet we have judged it our own concern to cherish the law of God in our own bosom, whence we shall constantly ascertain that both the people, and their spiritual fathers, faithfully and observantly execute their duties’ (‘nostra tamen nihilominus interesse iudicavimus, ut ipsam dei legem ipsi tanquam in sinu gestemus qua continue pervisuri simus uti tam plebs ipsa quam spirituales patres eius utrique quod debeant fideliter ac vigilanter adimpleant’).

13 Rex, Richard, Henry VIII and the English Reformation, 2nd edn, Basingstoke 2006, 94 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 The ‘B’ of the Psalms (295r) appears also in Diuino implorato praesidio, London 1532 (RSTC 21310); The addicions of Salem and Byzance, London 1534 (RSTC 21585); and The determinations of the moste famous and mooste excellent vniuersities, London 1531 (RSTC 14287). The ‘D’ of Wisdom (172r) appears in Diuino implorato praesidio, London 1532 (RSTC 21310), and Kotser codicis R. Vvakfeldi, London 1533 (RSTC 24943), which uses the same title page as the Bible, as well as the ‘P’ of Judges [114r] and Proverbs [161v] or the ‘V’ of Leviticus [49r]). The ‘I’ of Genesis (1r) appears also in Howe one may take profite, London 1531 (RSTC 20052); A dialogue betwene a knyght and a clerke, London 1533? (RSTC 12511a); and in several books of Robert Redman, such as A proclamacyon of the hygh emperour Jesu Christ, London 1534? (RSTC 14561), and The boke of Magna Carta, London 1534 (RSTC 9272). The ‘I’ of Mark (196r), John (222v) and Jude (294v) appears in On charity, London 1535 (RSTC 16940). The ‘S’ of 3 John (294r) appears also in The addicions of Salem and Byzance and Kotser codicis R. VVakfeldi.

15 McKerrow and Ferguson, Title-page borders.

16 For example, in fo. 19r, the notes to Genesis xxxvi refer to 1 Paralipomenon; in fo. 22r, the notes to Genesis xli refer to 1 Maccabees, Judith, Nehemiah and Esdras.

17 As in fo. 270 in the British Library copy, or fo. 38 in Lambeth Palace Library, Sion ARC 8o / A12.2/1535.

18 For the high-level production of incunabula Bibles, of Dutch and of French Bibles see Needham, Paul, ‘The changing shape of the Vulgate Bible in fifteenth-century printing shops’, in Saenger, Paul Henry and Van Kampen, Kimberly (eds), The Bible as book: the first printed editions, London 1999, 53–70 Google Scholar; den Hollander, August, ‘Illustrations in early printed Latin Bibles in the Low Countries (1477–1553)’, in Gordon, Bruce and McLean, Matthew (eds), Shaping the Bible in the Reformation: books, scholars, and their readers in the sixteenth century, Leiden 2012, 41–61 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bettye Chambers, ‘What ever happened to sola scriptura? Text and paratext in sixteenth-century French Bibles’, in Francois and den Hollander, Infant milk or hardy nourishment?, 141–66; and Chambers, Bettye Thomas, Bibliography of French Bibles: fifteenth and sixteenth century French language editions of the Scriptures, Geneva 1983 Google Scholar.

19 Gordon, Bruce, ‘The authority of antiquity: England and the Protestant Latin Bible’, in Ha, Polly and Collinson, Patrick (eds), The reception of continental Reformation in Britain, Oxford 2010, 1–22 Google Scholar; Eskhult, Josef, ‘Latin Bible versions in the age of Reformation and post-Reformation: on the development of new Latin versions of the Old Testament in Hebrew and on the Vulgate as revised and evaluated among the Protestants’, Kyrkohistorisk årsskrift cvi/1 (2006), 31–67 Google Scholar.

20 Gordon, ‘The authority of antiquity’.

21 Ibid. 4.

22 In this respect it is interesting to look at Josef Eskhult's measuring stick for reformed Vulgates, which often replace the ‘ipsa’ of Genesis iii.15 with ‘ipse’ or ‘ipsum’. Berthelet's Bible indeed reads ‘ipsum’, but this is most likely the result of a close reliance on his models (such as the 1526 Antwerp or the Venice 1533 editions).

23 The process of blurring confessional boundaries by removing or modifying biblical addenda can also be seen elsewhere in the history of the English Bible, as, for example, in the omission of the general prologue from most Wycliffite Bibles: Poleg, Eyal, ‘Wycliffite Bibles as orthodoxy’, in Corbellini, Sabrina (ed.), Instructing the soul, feeding the spirit and awakening the passion: cultures of religious reading in the late Middle Ages, Turnhout 2013, 71–91 Google Scholar.

24 This is evident in Bibles such as the Biblia cum tabula noviter edita, Venice 1494, or the Biblia cum summariis concordantiis: diuisionibus: quattuor repertoriis p̄positis, Lyons 1497.

25 Berthelet's references to subdivision of the Psalms further limit the possible models, as these were not ubiquitous in editions of Bruni's table. A possible model is Biblia sacra, Paris: I. Preuel, 20 June 1528.

26 Generally, incunabula often omit marginal references, while some Parisian larger Bibles display a very full array of notes, references, summaries and etymologies.

27 This has been corroborated through the examination of sample chapters across duodecimo Bibles, commonly catalogued as, for example, Pentateuchus Moysi …Apocalypsis beati Ioannis, Venice: L. Iuntę, 1533–8; Paris: S. Colinæi, 1525–9; Paris: S. Colinæi, 1531–5.

28 Letters and papers, foreign and domestic, of the reign of Henry VIII : preserved in the Public Record Office, the British Museum, and elsewhere in England, ed. Gairdner, James, VIII: January–July 1535, London 1885 Google Scholar, §44. This could be British Library copy 219.a.15–20 (printed in Paris, 1525–9), which was part of the royal collection in the eighteenth century.

29 This has been corroborated by examination of works and catalogues of continental Bibles such as Chambers, Bibliography of French Bibles, or the websites of Biblia sacra, www.bibliasacra.nl; the British Library Catalogue, http://explore.bl.uk; or the Incunabula Short Title Catalogue, http://istc.bl.uk.

30 ‘Subveremur autem ut ordinis librorum isthec immutatio pie lector tibi minus arrideat, cui fortasse religio est, ut in literis, saltem sacris aut earundem etiam ordine vel tantillum ab antiqua facie seu usitata forma recedat. Qui si mentem in hac re nostram et causam immutationis huius introspexeris, non dubium quin probabilem et iure factam esse censueris.’

31 ‘Neque enim alias partes ita seposuimus, ut neglexisse vel minoris fecisse quis recte debeat estimare, sed & ipsas in aliud iustum volumen compegimus: ut ubi locus id postularit, quod querendum sit illic inquiramus.’

32 This inability becomes clearer when compared to the 1477 Delft Bible, where five independent composition units gave readers a degree of flexibility in compiling their Bibles. See van Duijn, Mart, ‘Printing, public, and power: shaping the first printed Bible in Dutch (1477)’, Church History & Religious Culture xciii/2 (2013), 275–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33 On the question of the biblical canon in early modern England see Ariel Hessayon, ‘The Apocrypha in early modern England’, in Killeen, Smith and Willie, The Oxford handbook of the Bible in England, 131–48.

34 The only exception is royal proclamations, which were printed in folio, but were limited in their number of leaves and technique of printing.

35 See, mainly for the later period, Roberts, Julian, ‘The Latin trade’, in Barnard, John and McKenzie, Donald Francis (eds), The Cambridge history of the book in Britain, IV: 1557–1695, Cambridge 2002, 141–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 String, Tatiana, ‘Henry viii's illuminated “Great Bible”’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes lix (1996), 315–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the title page and its illuminator see Orth, Myra Dickman, ‘The English Great Bible of 1539 and the French connection’, in Alexander, J. J. G., L'Engle, Susan and Guest, Gerald B. (eds), Tributes to Jonathan J. G. Alexander: the making and meaning of illuminated medieval & Renaissance manuscripts, art & architecture, London 2006, 171–84Google Scholar.

37 Pollard, Alfred W., Records of the English Bible: the documents relating to the translaton and publication of the Bible in English, 1525–1611, London 1911, 175–7Google Scholar.

38 Burnet, Gilbert and Nares, Edward (eds), The history of the Reformation of the Church of England, London 1830, 218 Google Scholar.

39 Visitation articles and injunctions of the period of the Reformation, II: 1536–1558, ed. Frere, Walter Howard and Kennedy, William McClure, London 1910, 9 Google Scholar. For a reappraisal of the time of the injunctions, suggesting 1537 for the incorporation of the clause on Bible possession, see Ayris, Paul, ‘Reformation in action: the implementation of reform in the dioceses of England’, Reformation & Renaissance Review: Journal of the Society for Reformation Studies v/1 (2003), 27–53 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This is refuted by Richard Rex: Henry VIII and the English Reformation, 190–1 n. 28.

40 Visitation articles and injunctions of the period of the Reformation, ii. 35.

41 Burnet and Nares, The history of the reformation of the Church of England, 182.

42 These are British Library C.36.e.19 (full); Lambeth Palace Library, Sion ARC 8o / A12.2/1535 (full); Lambeth Palace Library, SR2 E75 (1535) (full); Cambridge University Library, Sel.5.176) (full); Bodleian Library, Oxford, 4° B 1 Th.BS (lacking preliminaries); Bridwell Library, Southern Methodist University, BRA2776 (lacking preliminaries and Genesis i–viii); a copy sold in the Harmsworth sale of 8 July 1946 to Quaritch Booksellers, which I can now confirm is at the American Bible Society. I was unable to inspect the two last copies in person.

43 Christopher Haigh, English reformations: religion, politics, and society under the Tudors, Oxford 1993.

44 Carley, James, The libraries of Henry VIII: corpus of British medieval library catalogues, London 2000, 95 Google Scholar.

45 This is the typical octagonal blue British Museum stamp on the verso of the first folio: Harris, P. R., ‘Appendix i: identification of printed books acquired by the British Museum, 1753–1836’, in Mandelbrote, Giles and Taylor, Barry (eds), Libraries within the library: the origins of the British Library's printed collections, London 2009, 387–423 Google Scholar.

46 Using scrap manuscripts in rebinding, even ones taken from a sacred book, was a common practice throughout the Middle Ages.

47 The continuation is blurred, but most probably reads ‘Sursum corda. Habemus ad Dominum. Gratias agamus Domino Deo nostro’, the Salutations before the prefaces of the mass.

48 ‘House of Lords Journal volume 2: 16 June 1604’, Journal of the House of Lords, II: 1578–1614, London 1767–1830, 321–2Google Scholar, <http://www.british-history.ac.uk/lords-jrnl/vol2/pp321-322.

49 Given the gender-bias of Latin literacy and knowledge of biblical exegesis, it was most probably a male reader.

50 Interlinear gloss to Gen. iv.7: Froehlich, Karlfried and Gibson, Margaret T. (eds), Biblia latina cum glossa ordinaria: facsimile reprint of the editio princeps Adolph Rusch of Strassburg, 1480/81, Turnhout 1992, i. 31 Google Scholar.

51 On the English pre-Reformation veneration of the Holy Name see Lutton, Rob, ‘“Love this Name that is IHC”: vernacular prayers, hymns and lyrics to the Holy Name of Jesus in pre-Reformation England’, in Salter, Elisabeth and Wicker, Helen (eds), Vernacularity in England and Wales, c. 1300–1550, Turnhout 2011, 119–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

52 The reader's last name is unfortunately the least legible word, with only the last three letters transcribed with full confidence.

53 ACAD: a Cambridge alumni database, http://venn.lib.cam.ac.uk, unique identifier ATKN541T.

54 Rex, Richard, ‘Thomas Vavasour’, Recusant History xx (1990–1), 436–54Google Scholar.

55 Moorman, John R. H., The Grey Friars in Cambridge, 1225–1538, Cambridge 1952, 222–3Google Scholar.

56 This was done by Dr Graham Davis, Institute of Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London. A short article on this work will be published in due course.

57 The verso of the title page (unfoliated). The binding prevents the identification of some letters in the gutter.

58 The slightly earlier lists of biblical readings known as ‘Pistles and Gospels’ (incorporated into primers from 1537) differ from this table in both form and language. These lists provide full biblical text, rather than reference and incipit; they rely on Tyndale's New Testament, whose wording deviates from that of the Great Bible and the Lambeth copy. For a study of the ‘Pistles and Gospels’ see Butterworth, –Charles C., The English primers, 1529–1545: their publication and connection with the English Bible and the Reformation in England, Philadelphia 1953 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

59 The booke of the common praier and administracion of the Sacramentes, and other rites and ceremonies of the Churche: after the vse of the Churche of Englande, London 1549.

60 Tudor royal proclamations, i. 296–8.

61 See n. 41 above.

62 The diary of Henry Machyn, citizen and merchant-taylor of London, from A. D. 1550 to A. D. 1563, ed. Nichols, John Gough (Camden O.S. xlii, 1848), 21–2Google Scholar.

63 Although I was unable to find an exact match, the watermark is very similar to the ones used in 1583–99: Briquet, C. M. and Stevenson, Allan, Les Filigranes: dictionnaire historique des marques du papier dáes leur apparition vers 1282 jusqu'en 1600, facsimile of 1907 edn, Amsterdam 1968 Google Scholar, §12793; in 1590: Folger Shakespeare Library L.a. 432; or c. 1607: Heawood, Edward, Watermarks mainly of the 17th and 18th centuries, Hilversum 1950 Google Scholar, §3576. This coincides with the possible dating of the Lambeth Palace Library copy, suggesting that the paper was pasted in the early seventeenth century by the librarian of Lambeth Palace. I thank James Carley for this suggestion.