Pre-Modern Translation Studies

Author: Alastair Minnis  Title: Translations  of Authority in Middle English Literature Year: 2009 Citation: Minnis, Alastair. Translations of Authority in Medieval English Literature: Valuing the Vernacular . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. This book is a collection of mostly previously published essays that, as a collection, address the value and status of the “vernacular” in the translation of, and engagement with, authoritative Latin learning. In the introduction to this volume, Minnis identifies and distinctive lack of a vernacular Engligh hermeneutic tradition and asserts that this is largely due to anti-Lollard sentiments. In doing so, Minnis finds that the concept of the vernacular accrues more meaning than simply its reference to a register of language use; the idea of the “vernacular” possesses popular cultural beliefs, values, and references that might challenge or affirm practices and beliefs authorized by state and religious institutions. Minni

Title: The Wycliffite Bible (Middle English) (c. 1380s-1390s) Author: John Wycliffe (attributed), Nicholas Hereford (attributed), John Purvey (attributed), Wycliffite circle at Oxford University Sources: St. Jerome’s “Vulgate” Latin Bible The Wycliffite Bible is a perfect example of the kinds of literary and political change that can occur through the act of translating a text into another language. People died for owning and using this Middle English translation of Jerome’s “Vulgate” Latin Bible. What we and medieval writers have called the “Wycliffite” or “Wycliffe” Bible is a group of translations of the Latin “Vulgate” Bible into Middle English. The “Wycliffite” of the title comes from John Wycliffe, an Oxfordian scholar working around the mid-to-late fourteenth century. The group of translations was attributed to him in the later English Middle Ages and Early Modern period, but it is now generally thought to have been a group effort among Wycliffe’s colleagues at Oxfo

Title:  The Latin “Vulgate” Bible (Latin), commissioned 382 CE Author:  St. Jerome ( Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus ) born c. 342, died 420. Dalmatia, Rome, Bethlehem. Sources:  Hebrew Old Testament, the Greek Septuagint , various other Greek, Aramaic, and Latin versions of the gospels St. Jerome’s Latin “Vulgate” translation of large portions of the Old and New Testaments in the late-fourth century was one of the most important and long-lasting scriptural translations during the European Middle Ages. The word vulgate often found in reference to the text means “commonly-used” or “popular” (cognate with vulgar ), and Jerome’s translation was indeed used and held as authoritative and used for almost 1,000 years, until his own translation began to be replaced by European vernaculars. Although it isn’t clear if Jerome worked wholly alone on this massive project, and although other Latin versions were later attached to Jerome’s compilation, the manuscripts of the “Vulgate” Bible cir