On the origins, dissemination, and nature of the Wycliffite Bible and its many manuscripts – especially in the first half of the fifteenth century – and how it can be shown to be, in part, supported by the nobility, certainly aimed at erudite readers.

This volume explores the diverse ways in which the Book of Psalms profoundly influenced medieval English literature and culture, through a series of connected overviews and special case studies. A number of recent studies have highlighted the Psalter's reception in Early Modern English (and wider European culture), while three monographs by contributors to this volume offer focused studies of the Psalter in individual periods of medieval English literature: Jane Toswell's The Anglo-Saxon Psalter, Annie Sutherland's English Psalms in the Middle Ages: 1300–1450and Michael P. Kuczynski's Prophetic Song: The Psalms as Moral Discourse in Late Medieval England. But as yet no single study has sought to offer a comprehensive survey of English responses to the Book of Psalms from the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to the cusp of the Reformation. By bringing work by experts on both Old and Middle English literature into dialogue, this volume breaks down the traditional disciplinary binaries of pre- and post-Conquest English, late medieval and Early Modern, as well as emphasizing the complex and fascinating relationship between Latin and the vernacular languages of England. In order to encourage the reader to make connections both across and within these various periods and languages, the book is arranged thematically rather than chronologically, with three sections designed to offer a variety of perspectives on the Psalms and medieval English literature.

Section I (Translation) focuses on the development of English psalm translation from its beginnings in Old English interlinear glosses in Latin psalters through the multilingual psalters of the Anglo-Norman era to the stand-alone vernacular psalters of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Concentrating on the Psalter as a book, this section charts the emergence of English as a scriptural language in the medieval period.

Section II (Adaptation) considers how medieval English prose and verse writers draw on the Psalms as a source of literary inspiration. Demonstrating how the Psalter could be adapted and redeployed within the context of medieval worship and prayer, it begins with a discussion of the first adaptation of the entire Psalter into English verse, before turning to a consideration of the development of the abbreviated psalter tradition. This section also addresses the wider influence of psalmic language and imagery on Old English praise and lament poetry, and on Middle English alliterative verse.

The Wycliffite Bible was the first complete translation of the Vulgate in English, produced at the end of the fourteenth century by the followers of the Oxford theologian John Wyclif. The translation was condemned and banned within twenty-five years of its appearance but nevertheless became the most widely disseminated medieval English text — it survives in around 250 complete and partial copies. The Wycliffite Bible includes one of several surviving Middle English versions of the complete Psalter. The present chapter focuses on two aspects of the Wycliffite Psalms: their circulation and audience, and translation techniques evident in two surviving redactions of their text. These aspects are almost certainly interconnected: a remarkably liturgical character of the manuscripts of the Wycliffite Bible suggests their use by the clergy. A highly literal nature of both versions of the translation, the scholarly apparatus that accompanies them in manuscripts and a desire for precision evident in their language all indicate that they would have appealed to the learned. Earlier discussions of the translators’ care to render Latin grammatical constructions correctly, manifest in the biblical text and its analysis in the General Prologue to the Wycliffite Bible, are supplemented here for the first time by a discussion of efforts to establish appropriate vernacular biblical vocabulary. This aspect of the translators’ work, not mentioned by the author of the prologue and largely overlooked in previous scholarship, must have been, as shown below, a major part of the revision from the Earlier (EV) to the Later Version (LV) of the Bible. All this sheds a new light on the Wycliffite translation: whereas earlier scholarship assumed its popular nature because of its status as a vernacular text and polemical statements by Wycliffite authors about broadening access to Bible, the current discussion draws attention to professionalism in both its execution and likely use.

Circulation and Audience

The Book of Psalms was better known in the Middle Ages and more widely circulated than any other biblical book, not only because of the high regard for its theological, poetic and instructional value, but also because of its exceptional importance in liturgy. The Rule of St Benedict, which formed the basis of the rules of most medieval religious orders, obliged monks and nuns to recite all 150 Psalms in the course of each week.

Types of medieval owners

MS Ashmole 1517

Origin: England

Date: 15th century, first quarter

Paper leaves containing a list of passages missing from the lectionary, gospels and epistles (see below) and their transcripts from some other manuscript in Elias Ashmole's hand. The leaves are pasted to the second paper flyleaf at the beginning and paginated 1–23 in the original hand and 1–27 in a modern hand.

Text

[item 1 occupies quire I]

1. (fols. 1r–5v) Table of lections, imperfect at the beginning because of the loss of one leaf, starting at Wednesday of the second week after the octave of Epiphany. Includes the temporal and commemorations only, which suggests that the table may have been originally preceded by a calendar-lectionary (see MS Selden Supra 51 and ‘Liturgical materials’ in the Introduction). The entries consist of the name of the liturgical occasion in red, abbreviated reference to a book and chapter of the Bible, an indexing letter in red, the opening words of a reading, ‘ende’ in red, the closing words of a reading and double strokes in red. The entries for OT readings are also accompanied by letters and numbers in the margins in red, used to identify the readings in the OT lectionary (see below). Larger initials with penwork at Ash Wednesday and Ascension. Commemorations are in the following order: Our Lady, Trinity, Holy Ghost, cross, angels, salus populi, brothers and sisters, peace, clear weather, rain, in time of battles, ‘a priest for hym silf ’, pestilence of beasts, pilgrims, sinners, sick, dead and weddings. At the end: ‘te lokeris in tis kalender be riЗt wel war: for he shal not fynde alle te bigynnyngis of te lessuns of te olde lawe acorde wit te kalender for bi ordyaunce of te chirche: ter is sett to te bigynnyngis of many lessuns more & oter wyse tan it is in te bible & tat is drawun vndir wit a stryk of reed ynke & it is not in te kalender. for it is not so in te text & also it is in te same maner of manye of te endingis of to lessuns’.

Sigla

D369 – Douce 369, part II

B277 – Bodl. 277

F2 – Fairfax 2

B183 – Bodl. 183

F11 – Fairfax 11

B531 – Bodl. 531

B665 – Bodl. 665

NY65 – New York Public Library MS MA 65

NY66 – New York Public Library MS MA 66

Prologue to Matthew

D369 ‘Here endit te storie of machabeus te which is te laste book of te olde testament And now bigynnet te newe testament ffirst is te prologu of Matheu apostle & euangelist’

B227 Heere bigynnit te prologe of ierom on te gospel of Matheu’

F2 ‘Heere endet te secounde book of Macabeus and al te oolde testament Se now te newe testament || Heere bygynnet te Prolog of Ierom on Matheu’.

B183 ‘Here bigynnet te prolog of matheu’

F11 ‘Here bigynnet te prolog of mathew’

B665 ‘Here bigynnet te newe testament capitulum primum’

B531 ‘Here bigynnet te prolog on te gospl [sic] of matheu’

NY65 ‘Here bigynnet te prolog on Matheu’