The lanterne of lizt, ed. from ms. Harl. 2324 / by Lilian M. Swinburn.

B. The English Translation.

By the beginning of the fifteenth century there were in existence a number of translations of different parts of the Bible in addition to the famous Wycliffite versions of 1380 and 1388. They are as follows:

I. The Psalter translated by Richard Rolle of Hampole. [Bramley, The Psalter ... by R. Rolle of Hampole, Oxford, 1884.]

II. The West Midland Psalter. [Bülbring, Earliest Complete English Prose Psalter, E.E.T.S.]

III. Commentaries upon the Gospels of St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke. [Cf. Wycl. Bible, i, p. ix.]

IV. Translation of the Gospels for Sundays and Festivals, arranged to form a continuous narrative. [MS. Pepys, 2498; cf. Paues, English Bibl. Version, 1902, Introduction.]

V. The Pauline Epistles with a Commentary. [MS. Parker, 32, Corpus Christi College; cf. Wycl. Bible, i. p. xiii.]

VI. Apocalypse with a Commentary. [Formerly attributed to Wyclif; now proved to be a verbal rendering of twelfth-century Norman Apocalypse; cf. Paues, Fourteenth-century English Bible Version, p. xxvii.]

VII. Part of St. Matthew, the Acts, Catholic Epistles, and Pauline Epistles. [Paues, Fourteenth-century English Bible Version.]

VIII. Wycliffite Translations of the Bible, 1380 and 1388. [The Holy Bible . . . in the earliest English version by Wyclif, ed. by J. Forshall and Sir F. Madden, 1850.]

It might be expected that in a work of this kind, written during the early years of the fifteenth century and evidently directly inspired by the teaching of Wyclif, the English rendering of the quotations from the Vulgate would have been taken from either of the two Wycliffite translations of the Bible. This, however, is not the case, for on a comparison being made, it was found that in spite of occasional similarities of rendering, the divergences in translation are too many to allow of the theory that the author of the Lanterne of Liȝt used either the 1380 or the 1388 version.

The renderings in the text have also, where possible, been compared with those in the Biblical versions mentioned above. The comparison proved that none of these translations were used by the author, although with regard to the version edited by Miss Paues, there are three passages in the text which closely resemble its renderings:

James v. 16. MS.

'Þe bisi preier of þe riȝtwise is miche worþe.'

P.

'For muche worþ is a bysy preyere of a riȝtful man.'

James i. 18. MS.

'God haþ wilfulli & of his owene free wille gotun us þoruȝ þe worde of trouþe, þat we mai be summe bigynnyng of his creature.'

P.

'For wylfullyche he haþ bygeten ous þoruȝ þe word of trewþe, þat we ben sum bygynnynge of his creature.'

Acts v. 42. MS.

'Forsoþe iche dai in þe temple & aboute housis: þei ceessid not teching & preching Crist Jesu.'

P.

'Soþely euery day in þe temple & abowte howses þei cessed noghte of techinge ande prechinge of Jesu Criste.'

Elsewhere, however, the renderings are so different, that the resemblances in these three passages must be looked upon as accidental.

The natural inference is that the author of the Lanterne of Liȝt made his own translation from the Latin, a deduction which is borne out by the fact that Wyclif pursued a similar plan. Throughout his English works, the passages which Wyclif quotes from the Bible are not taken from the early Wycliffite version, but are translated from the Latin independently. [Cam. Hist. of Engl. Lit., vol. ii, pp. 52, 60.]