4. It must be borne in mind, however, that the art of printing had not yet been discovered. All books, being in MS., had to be laboriously co|iied by hand, and were therefore rare and costly. This was especially true of the Bible, from its large size and the dead lan- guages in which it was written. The Latin Vulgate was the authorized, or rather, as we shall presently see, the only accessible form ; and this the common people,
X.— U U U
of course, could not understand, nor even read. Hence Wycliffe, in his familiar intercourse with the popu- lace, for which, as we have seen, his earliest public ap- pearance was distinguished, must have orally trans- lated for their benefit such passages of Scripture as he had occasion to cite in their hearing. The inconven- ience and indirectness of this process seem to have in- duced in him the determination from his very college days to furnish a more adequate text than then exist- ed for popular religious instruction. This purpose his whole career afterwards confirmed.
The only professed or real versions of any part of the Bible in English proper before Wycliflfe's were those of the Psalms, made nearly simultaneously by William of Shoreham and Richard RoUe in the early part of Wyc- liflfe's century. They were both made from the Latin, were exceedingly crude, fragmentary, and encumbered with notes in most copies, and never had any great celeb- rity or circulation. The earlier efforts at translation in English were mere poetical paraphrases of portions of Scripture, such as the Ormuliim, a versification of the narrative of the Gospels and Acts, belonging probably to the former part of the preceding century; the Biblical poem entitled Soulhele, dating about the same period; a rhymed rehearsal of the principal events of Genesis and Exodus of a somewhat later date; and apparently con- temporaneous with the last named, a metrical version of the Psalms, which existed with many variations in different MSS. The Anglo-Saxon versions that had preceded — namely, Cajdmon's historical poem in the 7th century, Aldhelm's and (iuthlac's Psalter of about the same date, " the Venerable" Bede's Gospel of John in A.D. 735, Aldred's " Durham Book," and Owen and Farmen's "Rushwort.h Gloss," about the middle of the 10th cen- tury; iElfric's abstracts from the historical books and Job a little later; besides king Alfred's attempts and a few other imperfect glosses on the Psalms, Proverbs, Canticles, etc. — were altogether sporadic ; moreover, their language was quite unintelligible to Wycliffe's generation. The Anglo-Norman dialect which inter- vened was partially represented by a series of versions, or rather revisions, of these scattered elements, covering probably most of the Bible, and certainly the Gospels, the Psalter, the Canticles, and the historical books of the Old Test.; but these were of a mongrel character, and scarcely attained the authority or currency even of the Anglo-Saxon relics. There was an obvious and ur- gent need of a new and tndy English version adapted to the actual condition and vernacular of the people.
II. Life. — Wycliffe's name ( spelled also Widif, De WyMef, etc.) is thought by Vaughan {John de Wyclije, [1853], p. 4) to have been originally Wye-cliffe, i.e. Wn- tercli[fe, referring to a rocky hill on the banks of the Tees, about eleven miles north of the city of Richmond, in Yorkshire, where the family mansion was located. The estate has since passed into the possession of the Roman Catholic families of the Tonstalls and Constables ; but the parish church adjoining is still known by the old name of Wycliffe. Of the Reformer's immediate parent- age and early education nothing is recorded, nor is the exact date of his birth known. From the fact that he entered while yet a youth as one of the first commoners of Queen's College, Oxford, which was foinided in 1340, he is generally believed to have been born in 1324. Some- what later he became a probationer, and apparently also a fellow, of Merton College, and at the period of his first introduction to notice he was associated with some of the best scholars of the university, Chaucer being said to have been at one time his pupil. His hours were doubtless chiefl}' occupied, like those of an English college tutor of the present day, with private instruction to the under- graduates ; and his intervals of recreation appear to have been largely spent in social rambles among the peasant- ry in the neighborhood. His scholastic culture, warmed by a genial temper, gave him great influence as well as ready access in thus acting the rare function of a link between the literary aristocracy and the sturdy popu-
WYCLIFFE
1042
WYCLIFFE
Portrait of Wjcliflfe.
(From a couteinporaneous paiutiu the rectory at Wycliffe.)
still hanj:
lace of a collegiate borough. Hence he was enabled to sympathize with the wants and sentiments of the lower classes, and to meet them with the higher qualitications and views of a Christian student. In person consider- ably above the medium height, straight, slender, but wiry, with features indicating penetration and refine- ment, a thin aquiline nose, firm mouth, smooth fore- head, and clear though somewhat deep -set eyes; his expression at once franiv and cautious, bland but well- bred, intellectual and yet sympathetic, Wycliffe was a man to rivet attention and secure respect at the first glance.