The New Testament in English

the 'Early Version'

This fine edition by William Pickering marks first appearance in print of the 'Early Version' of Wycliffe's New Testament — which together with his Old marked the first complete translation of the Bible into English.

Of the 250 surviving Bibles produced by Wycliffe (c.1384) and his followers in the 1380-1390s, the vast majority follow the 'Later Version' of the text. This replaced the direct transliteration of the Latin Vulgate of the Early Version for a more sense-by-sense rendering of the text into English.

Wycliffe was a controversial figure in his own day, blurring the the bounds of theologian and philosopher, and unwisely becoming embroiled in the court politics of fourteenth-century England. His great attack on the temporal authority of the Church De civili dominio ('On civil dominion') earnt the official condemnation of Pope Gregory XI in 1377, and his eucharistic teachings were condemned by ecclesiastical council in 1382. This would all lead ultimately to his posthumous declaration as a heretic, and the exhumation of his bones in 1428, which were burned, the ashes being scattered into the River Swift.

His legacy nevertheless survived in the Lollard heresy that gripped England in the fifteenth century, and the Hussites of Bohemia, and he would go on to be declared the prophetic 'Morning Star' in the hagiographical biographies of the Protestant Reformation that followed.

First edition; 4to (24.5 x 18 cm); facsimile frontispiece, text in Middle English, title printed in red and black, woodcut initials, head and tailpieces, spotting to frontispiece and occasionally to text, some areas of toning; contemporary vellum, covers with gilt-tooled cruciform centrepiece within gilt rules to upper cover, and in blind rules only to lower, contrasting purple morocco lettering-piece to spine, rough-trimmed with top-edge occasionally unopened, a little soiled with some toning and spotting to lower cover, slightly sprung, very good; foliation: []2, b-c4, B-4P4.

Herbert 1868.