The Middle English Bible. Henry Ansgar Kelly
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Why EV Before LV? Unsatisfactory First Try, or Planned Preliminary Stage, or Study Help for the Clergy?
In analyzing Five and Twenty Books (GP) and its relationship to the MEB, we have already seen some differences between EV and LV. Let us remind ourselves that the biblical text that EV translates is the Latin Vulgate, and the LV revisers of EV seemingly had only the Vulgate before them as well, with no knowledge of the Hebrew or Greek texts or languages.58 EV usually follows Latin grammatical constructions very closely, while LV systematically transforms some of them into more idiomatic forms. Albert Baugh pronounces LV “in every way superior to the early version.”59 But it all depends on what one means by “superior.” When dealing with the Word of God, what is more important, accuracy or fluency?
Recently Lilo Moessner has given a more positive analysis of the EV and its “structural iconicity,” that is, its fidelity to the Latin constructions, and finds that the grammatical structure of the LV “is not without flaw,” and that LV does not always achieve the goal of being as clear, let alone clearer, than the original Latin.60 Instead of an “iconic” or “mirror-image” metaphor, we can speak of “calques,” that is, patterns, in the narrow sense of “loan translations,” in which the donor language contributes a structure not entirely natural in the receiver language: it has a foreign or nonnative feel about it, and stands out as a “loaner.”61 Middle English examples are “again-buyer” for redemptor and “again-bite of inwit” for remorsus conscientiae.
Moessner finds that the usual designations of “literal” and “free” translations are inadequate and confusing, and notes with approval David Lawton’s observation that the EV and LV present “a choice not between literal and free translation but between two understandings or types of literal translation.”62
EV can be regarded in a number of ways. To begin with, we may think that it was a timid first try at Englishing the whole Bible, dominated by fear of distorting the meaning of the Latin original, and that its inadequacy was soon recognized and a redo was undertaken. Or we may think of it as a deliberate preliminary step taken to get the exact meaning of the Latin into English first, and then to adjust it in the interests of the vernacular idiom.63 This second view is a common one, shared, for instance, by Conrad Lindberg: “When John Wyclif and his followers decided to take on the work of translating the Bible into English, they were faced with a twofold problem: how to be faithful to the Word and yet create a readable text. They solved it by making two translations, one more literal, the other more idiomatic.”64 As we have seen, Mary Dove assumes that EV was never intended for circulation.65
This second hypothesis, however, does not seem as plausible as the first. It is not easily credible that a systematic Latinate translation would be carried through to the end with the intention of then scrapping it for an idiomatic rendering, going though the whole Bible again. The envisaged process has been compared to Richard Rolle’s twofold rendering of the Psalms, first word for word, and then less so.66 But Rolle was dealing with a single book of the Bible, and he did the second version himself immediately after doing the first, whereas the adherents of a provisionary EV seem to think of it as handed over to a separate LV team for polishing.
It would seem much more likely that, after EV was produced, a change of translational philosophy occurred, which dictated the LV transformations. It might well be that John Trevisa underwent the same kind of conversion in translation theory when working on the Polychronicon. Sven Fristedt has identified a large relic of what looks like an original very literal translation; it occurs far along in the work, in chapters 15–26 of book 6. He compares it to the transformed rendering of the same chapters found in other manuscripts, with ablative absolutes and other participles removed, and so on—corresponding to the rest of the existing Englished work.67
It is possible to imagine Trevisa and Nicholas Hereford, who both arrived at Queen’s College in 1369, working on EV, with Trevisa eventually turning aside, while still at Queen’s, to produce a similarly literal version of the Polychronicon.68 As Fristedt notes, David Fowler has “ascertained that Trevisa had his hand on the Latin Polychronicon as early as 1377,”69 and therefore Trevisa may have been at work on Englishing it “for at least ten years”70—and possibly more. Then, when the decision was made to produce a more fluent version of the Bible, Trevisa perhaps participated in producing LV, before or while doing a like revision of his first rendering of Higden’s work.71
However, there is a weighty argument against such a hypothesis of Trevisa’s participation in the MEB. Although we might admit that for Trevisa “the translation of the Bible is the most important precursor to the translation of the Polychronicon,”72 it seems clear from the dialogue that serves as an introduction to the final version of his Englished Polychronicon,73 that he is not aware of any significant effort to translate the whole Bible, a point made by Margaret Deanesly.74 After mentioning some works translated out of Greek into Latin, the sensible lord of the exchange says, “[Also, Holy Writ was translated out of Hebrew into Greek and out of Greek into Latin, and then out of Latin into French.] Then what [how] has English trespassed, that it might not be translated into English?”75 He goes on to name some other translations, including King Alfred’s rendering of a large part of the Psalter into English, and Bede’s translation of St. John’s Gospel into English. He continues: “Also the Gospel and prophecy and the right faith of Holy Church must be taught and preached to Englishmen that ken no Latin. Then the Gospel and prophecy and the right faith of Holy Church must be told them in English, and that is not done but by English translation, for such English preaching is very [true] translation, and such English preaching is good and needful.”76
We notice that lord of the dialogue fails to mention not only the MEB, but also Rolle’s well-known translations of the Psalms. We will see that another fervent advocate of Bible translation from Queen’s College, Richard Ullerston, will also fail to mention the MEB, though he does mention Rolle.
There is a third way of explaining EV, suggested by David Lawton and Lilo Moessner, and K. B. McFarlane before them: that translation was foreseen as having a permanent value in assisting persons with only elementary Latin, particularly run-of-the-mill clergy, to use as a guide to understanding the Latin text.77 Lewis Brewer Hall also assumes that assisting the clergy with their understanding of Scripture was one of the purposes of EV, with the further assumption that they themselves could render the literal meaning in better English.78 And, we should add, the unpromising minor clergy at Oxford and laymen (if there were any students not in minor orders) would also find such translations helpful, not to mention both clergy and laity everywhere throughout the realm.79 Ullerston will make this argument for all biblical translations.80
We cannot, of course, prove that EV was designed to help the parish priests who went to Oxford to study the Bible, but, whatever its intended purpose, both masters and students would have been foolish not to welcome it, and LV as well, when it became available, as an aid not only to understanding the Latin Bible but also to preaching the Word of God (or “God’s Law,” if that is how they preferred to call it), especially the Gospel pericopes featured in Sunday masses.
The Transformation of EV to LV
From my analyses of EV and LV, especially in the Gospel of Luke, I confirm the long-standing view that LV systematically de-Latinizes EV. The translators responsible for LV employed a form of English that resonates better with Modern English than that of EV, for the most part. We need not assume, with McFarlane, that the reason for producing LV was that the presumed purpose of EV, “to enable a reader of weak Latinity to construe the Vulgate for himself,” proved unsatisfactory.81
Most of the constructions endorsed by Simple Creature in the General Prologue turn out to be those used in transforming EV Luke to LV Luke, the book that I have analyzed most thoroughly, though it is not always true in other books. Anne Hudson shares with others the conclusion that, while more intermediate versions of EV are being discovered, the LV translation is remarkably uniform throughout, as well