Upon its publication in 1994, Gerald Bray’s
Documents of the English Reformation
quickly and quite rightfully established itself as an essential
volume for students of the reformation in England. The reason
for its success remains as evident now as it was then.
Bray’s primary focus on theological documents, for
instance, was a valuable complement to the political and
economic documents which had been collected for publication in
the preceding decades. And his decision to reprint documents in
their entirety, while preventing the inclusion of a few
important sources, was a welcome departure from cut-and-paste
readers which can too often fall prey to an editor’s pet
interests. Likewise, the scope of the work — including
documents from 1526 through to 1700 — wisely acknowledged
that the turbulent events of Henry VIII’s reign, and even
those of his children’s reigns, did not constitute the
alpha and omega of the reformation, but were only an important
part of what became the “long reformation” in
England. Also ensuring the volume’s warm welcome were
helpful introductions, appendices, and indices, as well as a
practical (if somewhat distracting) critical apparatus which
highlighted the evolution of various documents and their
relation to other sources.
Those who made fruitful use of the first edition will
therefore be pleased to know that none of the above has been
lost in what is being billed as the “corrected
reprint” of that edition. The publisher’s
designation is important, as any who were hoping for a
substantially “revised” or “enlarged”
edition will be disappointed. Also bound to be unsatisfied are
those who hoped the publisher might take to heart previous
pleas for a volume in hardcover rather than paperback.
Ultimately more disappointing, however, is that this
“corrected” reprint does not contain as many
corrections as one would have expected. Updated bibliographical
information has been provided in the introduction, and some
misspelling has been remedied; but, for example, on page 285
quibus still appears once as guibus and
Londinensi still appears as Londineusi.
Likewise, the Henrician reformer Robert Barnes still languishes
in obscurity while an unknown “Richard” Barnes
receives credit for representing the Crown in the negotiations
which produced the 1536 Wittenberg Articles (p.118). Also
unfortunate is that some minor typesetting errors have been
introduced where they did not previously exist, as for example
with the inverted commas two-thirds of the way down page
thirteen.
Such pedantic observations, however, can by no means
overshadow the great benefits Bray’s collection will
continue to provide students of the English reformation. And
for a work of nearly 700 pages, the very reasonable price
offers yet one more reason to expect that this will remain a
standard resource for some time to come.
When reading through the book that is the subject of
today’s review, I picked a passage for publication in the
previous issue of the TSJ, as a “preview of
coming attractions”. I had a lot to learn! First, I was
using voice recognition technology for my transcription. Dragon
VRT has trouble placing my accent and sprinkles the output text
with literals.
My troubles didn’t end there. McCrie’s spelling
of place-names was outmoded, and later in the book he recanted
one detail in the Juan Diaz story, which I had to delete
altogether. Proofreading was a nightmare! I took pride,
nonetheless, in bringing a rare antiquarian book to a Tyndalian
audience — I found just one copy on Advanced Book
Exchange (ABE) and splurged on it.
But what does “rare” mean, exactly? Tyndale
Society members have David Daniell, Jasper Ridley, Geoffrey
Elton, and even (eek!) “Colonel” Eamonn Duffy on
their shelves, but few have McCrie — or so I thought. In
our community you make such assumptions at your own risk. Later
email traffic showed that “McCrie’s Reformation in
Spain” was not that uncommon, and can be found on CDROM.
But even if we overlook the king’s ransom I paid for the
hard copy, the McCrie remains, by most definitions, an uncommon
text (his history of the Italian Reformation will have to wait
for another time, or another lifetime).
McCrie’s historianship belongs to a different epoch.
His was an era when Protestants wore white hats and Catholics
black, when the Reformation saga marked an inexorable process
toward fulfilment of God’s plan. For McCrie, the
Inquisition’s body count was 2,000 a year, rather than
the aggregate2,000 asserted by today’s revisionists.
Confiscations and penances — now deemed a sign of the
Inquisition’s “leniency” and concern for
“due process” — are an unmitigated evil. Who
writes like this any more?
“It is a fact now admitted on all hands, that the
Reformation has ameliorated the state of government and
society in all the countries into which it was received. By
exciting inquiry and diffusing knowledge, it led to the
discovery and correction of abuses; imposed a check, by
public opinion, if not by statute, on the arbitrary will of
princes; generated a spirit of liberty among the people; gave
a higher tone to morals; and imparted a strong impulse to the
human mind in the career of invention and improvement.”
(pp. 276-277).
There is something about the very title which would stop
even modern secular readers dead in their tracks. Reformation
in Spain? Come again?
For sure, contemporary orthodox Catholics would have seen
Spanish Protestantism, not as an oxymoron perhaps, but
certainly as a deplorable condition to be hunted down and
crushed. The thinking went like this: “English
Protestants, German Protestants – well, what do you
expect? But Spanish Protestants???”.
Yes indeed. They are not a figment of McCrie’s
imagination. He honours their memory thusly:
“But we are not on this account to conclude that the
Spanish martyrs threw away their lives, and spilt their blood
in vain. They offered to God a sacrifice of a sweet-smelling
savour. Their blood is precious in his sight; he has avenged
it, and may yet more signally avenge it.” (p. 255).
Where were these pockets of heterodoxy situated? The
Monastery of San Isidro in Seville was one. And Spanish martyrs
were not men only.
“At Valladolid, as at Seville, the reformed doctrine
penetrated into the monasteries. It was embraced by a great
portion of the nuns of Santa Clara, and of the Cistercian
order of San Belén; and had its converts among the
class of devout women, called beatas, who are bound by no
particular rule, but addict themselves to works of
charity.” (p. 174).
Inquisitorial policy of the period showed a mix of denial
and assertions of unity combined with a pitiless enforcement
effort at home and abroad. According to hard-liners, the arrest
of one Spanish heretic was far sweeter than the imprisonment of
several Lutherans from other lands. Spanish reformers were the
ultimate prize.
That explains why Spanish exiles bore such a price on their
head, caused such grief for their families, and provided such
an endless stream of Cain-and-Abel stories (of which Juan Diaz
is only one example). Readers will recall how Michel Servet,
while in Switzerland in the early 1530s, was contacted by his
brother who assured Michel that he could expect the warmest
possible welcome back home.
But if Spaniards abroad wore the “mask, which
[none] can throw off without bidding an eternal farewell to his
country,” foreign travel and heretical influences
also waylaid other orthodox children of the Church. Cardinal
Pole got in trouble upon his return to Spain after re-inducting
England back into the Catholic Church. In mainland Spain,
Archbishop Carranza and Doctor Egidius likewise fell under
suspicion. McCrie recounts one rumour that Emperor Charles V
himself converted to the reformed faith in his final days,
after retiring into the monastic life. If none were immune from
allegations of heresy, even the obdurate might be touched by
God’s grace. These are perennial Christian themes.
Members of the fairer sex were not spared; and the
author’s pen quivers with a frisson of aghast
fascination at tales of robbed female modesty and virtue.
“(…) Dona Juana was conducted in her turn to the
place of torture. Refusing to confess, she was put into the
engine del burro, which was applied with such violence, that
the cords penetrated to the bone of her arms and legs; and
some of the internal vessels being burst, the blood flowed in
streams from her mouth and nostrils.” (p. 237).
You did expect at least one torture scene, didn’t
you?
Perhaps the name of Anne Askew just popped into your head.
The lives and deaths of the early Reformers are rich in
parallelisms; and while the names of the fallen Spaniards mean
little, their resemblances to our English friends will strike
many a chord. And as Tyndalians, we spare a thought for
translators of the Bible.
We read of Hebrew Bibles being burned in Seville by order of
Torquemada. Later we hear of the publication of a
Spanish-language version of the Pentateuch in Venice, intended
specially for Spanish Jews, printed in Venice in 1497. An early
version in the Valencian dialect by Bonifacio Ferrer was
printed in Valencia in 1478. It makes for very strange
reading.
The triumvirate of Francisco Enzinas, Juan Perez, and
Cassiodoro de Reyna — pioneers of the Castilian tongue
— are all given their due. As always, vernacular bibles
have to be printed on friendly ground: Enzinas’s Spanish
New Testament was published in Antwerp in 1543. A succession of
Bibles follows. McCrie, a wishful thinker, sketches a picture
of collegiality perhaps at odds with historical realities.
“[Juan Perez’s] version of the New Testament came
from the press, in 1556; his version of the Book of Psalms
followed in the course of the subsequent year (…). They
were all printed at Venice. (…) The task which he left
unfinished was continued by Cassiodoro de Reyna, who, after
ten years’ labour produced a translation of the whole
Bible, which was printed in 1569 at Basle. It was revised and
corrected by Cypriano de Valera, who published the New
Testament in 1596 at London and both Testaments in 1602 at
Amsterdam. “ (pp. 152-153).
Most of the New Testaments of Perez and Enzinas were
captured and burned by the Inquisition — but not all.
“Many copies of the Spanish Bible, published by
Cassiodoro de Reyna (…) made their way into Spain
notwithstanding the severest denunciations of the Holy
Office, and the utmost vigilance of the familiars.” (p.
246).
These Tyndales of Spain are far from home (Antwerp is a
frequent stopping point on their journeys). They aren’t
on chummy terms with their relatives. They must choose between
their work and their families. For instance, Enzinas’s
vocation estranged him from his mother. The apologists for the
Inquisition exploited these private tragedies and specialized
in blaming the victim; reformers were painted as sinister
loners cut off from normal bonds of regeneration and
kinship.
McCrie paints on a broad canvas, with bookends (i) in the
early Christian era and (ii) the unwinding of the
Inquisition’s operations in the 1700s. The Prohibition on
Spanish bibles is lifted by an edict dated 20 December, 1782.
McCrie implies that Spanish Catholicism was a macabre
diversion. He quotes iconoclastic voices from the dawn of the
Spanish Church, hinting at all manner of glorious possibilities
that never came to pass. For instance, a National Council, in
the beginning of the fourth century, prohibited the worship of
images, and the use of pictures in churches. These yellowing
press clippings from the First Millennium don’t exactly
qualify as auguries of the Reformation and they hardly catapult
us into the world of Luther and Tyndale.
McCrie is vague on the Islamic influence in Spain, better on
the Jewish community, better still on the shifting linguistic
and cultural boundaries between France and Spain. For him, the
Complutensian Polyglot of 1517 is a triumph of the status quo
rather than a hopeful Humanist interlude. And then he brings us
to the final scaffold, where we honour the memory of an unknown
beata.
“The last person who was committed to the flames, was a
beata, burnt alive at Seville, on the 7th of November 1781.
(… ) ‘I myself (says Mr. Blanco White) saw the
pile on which the last victim was sacrificed to human
infallibility. It was an unhappy woman, whom the Inquisition
of Seville committed to the flames, under the charge of
heresy, about forty years ago. She perished on a spot where
thousands had met the same fate. I lament from my heart, that
the structure which supported their melting limbs was
destroyed…’”. (pp. 251).
In short, this book, though dated and quaint, is a
cherishable reference source.
This may seem at first sight a book on the periphery of
academic debate concerning the Reformation, but its subject
lies at the very heart of 16th century theology. The
Reformation was essentially a battle, sometimes literally,
between Protestant and Catholic believers about the best way
for the soul to get to heaven. Protestant theology focussed
upon the Bible, whereas Catholic belief gave more weight to
tradition and the works of theologians, popes or saints —
a theological position which holds true today. With the fate of
the soul at stake, the nature and beliefs surrounding the dead
became of critical concern. This book deals with these beliefs
in Reformation England. The book takes a long view of the
Reformation with a chronology from 1480 to 1630. This 150-year
span is neat in terms of a numerical number, but does lead to
unanswered questions — why 1480 and why 1630 as start and
finish dates?
By the late 15th century when this book starts the notion of
purgatory between heaven and hell had become a crucial part of
religious belief and doctrine. Purgatory was not only a place
where the souls of sinners were purged, but also the concept
allowed for a direct interaction between the living and the
dead. The living could pray or perform good works for the dead
and so hasten the soul’s passage through the terrors of
purgatory to allow it to reach heaven. However, the Reformation
swept away the notion of purgatory from the English Church.
Marshall therefore sets out to chart the process of how
religious belief changed in relation to the dead in the seven
chapters of the book. There is therefore a combination of
analysis of the chronological development of thought and belief
about the dead with thematic chapters on ghosts and the
afterlife. Marshall tackles many questions head on, and whilst
not coming to any definitive conclusions, offers many useful
insights into the perpetual problems surrounding the analysis
of evidence.
The evidence itself is difficult because all that remains in
detail is the writings of theologians or clergymen, whether in
treatises or sermons. The real difficulty therefore lies in
trying to understand what the general population thought or
believed. Wills and inscriptions on tombs or brasses therefore
take on a heightened importance — but were only the
wishes or thoughts of the elite. Marshall gives an interesting
example of the difficulty of using such evidence when he
explores church’s attempt to ban the ringing of bells at
Halloween. The authorities viewed such ringing as continuation
of beliefs about purgatory (because the bells were rung to help
the souls of the dead) but to the local population it might
have been custom without any purgatorial overtones.
One of the themes running through the book is that of memory
and commemoration of the dead. Memory for the deceased was a
complex question for Protestants because on the one hand the
state valued hierarchy (as shown on personal tombs and brasses
in church) and individual morality, but on the other hand
memory of a person could easily lead to prayers for their soul
or ‘idolatry’. Marshall charts the swings of the
pendulum between the initial destruction of brasses and tombs
which lead to the government successfully legislating to
preserve them.
One welcome, and unexpected, chapter is that devoted to
ghosts (Chapter 6). The ghost of Hamlet’s father springs
to mind in a Reformation context, and like this ghost, ghosts
in general were a particularly intriguing theological problem,
especially for the early Reformers. If souls either went to
heaven or hell for eternity, how then could they return? The
medieval Catholic church had less of a problem, for souls could
come back from purgatory for a specific reason and so be seen
in ghostly form. Protestants tried various explanations: the
imagination of the weak, a devil or really souls from the
afterlife, but none completely explained them. Ghosts stood
outside the religious framework and could be good (such as
giving warnings), frightening, or evil, but most of all they
were haphazard and disorderly.
This is an important book which takes one crucial theme of
the Reformation and explores the theological and social
implications of changes in belief. The book examines the many
different theological views about the dead and their place in
heaven or hell through the writings of theologians or
clergymen. Interspersed are fragments of evidence from parish
life. Together they form a cohesive book which gives valuable
insights into both the views of the dead and the changing
theology of the time.
The year 2004 commemorated the quatercentenary of the
Hampton Court Conference summoned by James I to settle disputes
between bishops and Puritan divines, from which emerged an
unexpected decision to make a new revision of the English Bible
from the original Hebrew and Greek texts without controversial
marginal notes. In 1611 the marvellous masterpiece of the
Authorised Version (abr. AV) or the King James Version (abr.
KJV) was eventually produced. It is no coincidence, therefore,
that before and after 2004 there appeared several publications
on the history of the English Bible, focusing on the AV. For
example,
David Norton, A History of the English Bible as
Literature (2000: condensed revision of 1993
edition),
Christopher De Hamel, The Book. A History of the
Bible (2001),
Alister E. McGrath, In the Beginning
(2001),
Benson Bobrick, Wide as the Waters
(2001),
David Daniell, The Bible in English
(2003),
David Norton’s companion volumes, A Textual
History of the King James Bible (2004) and The
New Cambridge Paragraph Bible (2005),
apart from those on Tyndale by David Daniell and others. The
year 2004 also witnessed the completion of Conrad
Lindberg’ s monumental works on the Wycliffite Bible in
the publication of King Henry’s Bible MS Bodley
277: the Revised Version of the Wyclif Bible, Vol.
IV.
The book under present review may be said one of the best
introductions to the history of the English Bible from the
Wycliffite Bible to the Rheims- Douay Bible for the general
reader. Readers will learn with no small surprise, if they did
not know already, that in England, unlike many countries in
Europe, it was severely and rigidly prohibited on pain of death
to translate the Bible — the word of God — into the
vernacular language and ‘Lives were lost along the
way — not only for producing English Bibles, but also for
merely owning or reading them.’ (p.7) John Wyclif in
effect was condemned as heretical by church and university
authorities. His followers, the so-called Lollards suffered
continuous persecutions, and the Wycliffite Bible, the first
complete English Bible, initiated by Wyclif and carried out by
his followers, Nicholas Hereford and John Purvey among others,
was rigorously proscribed. In like manner, William Tyndale, the
first person to translate the Bible into English from its
original Hebrew and Greek and the first to print the Bible in
English, was martyred in 1536 for his religious activities
including the translation of the Bible.
The book, with a title from the words attributed to King
Henry VIII speaking of the Coverdale Bible, consists of eight
chapters with two appendices, a select bibliography and an
index. The eight chapters are arranged in chronological order
with the titles which rather vaguely describe the contents of
the book. More explicitly, Ch. 1 discusses the Wycliffite Bible
(Early Version c1384, Later Version c1395) with a very brief
note on the Bible in Old English; Ch.2 gives a short but
adequate introduction to Renaissance scholarship, focusing on
Desiderius Erasmus; Ch.3 deals with William Tyndale and his
translation of the Bible (NT 1526, Pentateuch 1530, Jonah
1531). [Here the authors sometimes disagree with David Daniell,
the latest biographer of Tyndale (pp. 42,48).]; Ch.4 is on
Miles Coverdale and his Bibles (Coverdale Bible 1535, the Great
Bible 1539); Ch.5 on the Geneva Bible produced by Puritan
exiles at Geneva (1560/NT 1557); Ch.6 on the Bishops’
Bible (1568), which was later used as the official basis of the
AV; Ch.7 on the Rheims-Douay Bible prepared by Roman Catholic
refugees in France (1610/NT 1582); Ch.8, the richest and best
chapter, is on the Authorised Version (1611), which is a main
topic of this book. At the end of the book there are two
appendices: App.1 lists the partial revisions of the AV; App.2
gives an annotated list of some of the more significant Bible
translations from 1876 to 2002.
The book is written throughout in lucid and succinct style
and is adequately provided with a number of illustrative
pictures of good quality and short textual specimens such as
Tyndale (1526), Geneva (1560) and French Geneva (1554) compared
in parallel. There are also a number of very informative boxes:
Important Editions of the Bible in Greek and Hebrew;
Tyndale’s Lord’s Prayer 1534; Hebrew Idioms from
the AV; the Great Polyglot Bibles; Nicknames and Curiosities,
and some others. Some readers will be particularly delighted to
find many linguistic and stylistic comments illuminating the
characteristics of each Bible, especially the AV which the
authors call “An Audible Bible”.
Useful and interesting information about each English Bible
is distributed liberally throughout the book. Let us provide
just a few random examples. In the 1572 Bishops’ Bible,
the text of the Psalms was unusually printed side by side with
the earlier, more familiar version of the Great Bible, but by
1577 the Great Bible version of the Psalms, which was
incorporated into the Prayer Book, had eliminated the original
less happy translation of the Bishops’ Bible itself. [It
is regrettable that a very important Bodleian copy of the 1602
Bishops’ Bible does not seem to be mentioned in this
book, although the copy contains many relevant ms. corrections
by some of the Jacobean translators.] As to the AV, profiles of
some of the Jacobean translators, all eminent and erudite
scholars of the age but some of them full of eccentricities,
are included (pp.119-123). For Lancelot Andrewes, there is T.
S. Eliot’s comment:
Andrewes ‘takes a word and derives the world from
it; squeezing and squeezing the word until it yields a full
juice of meaning, which we should never have supposed any word
to possess.’; the checkered life of George Abbott
who published a massive study of Jonah in 1600. [It might be
more amusing for readers to know that he had preached a
different sermon on Jonah every Thursday from 1594 to 1599
— 260 addresses on that single topic alone.] The AV has a
number of marginal, mainly philological notes besides the
references to parallel scriptures, although the current popular
editions usually omit these. In the OT there are 6,637
philological notes, ‘Over 4,000 of which give literal
renderings of the Hebrew idioms and some 2,156 offer
alternative ms. readings, while the NT has 765 notes, of which
35 give ms. variants, 112 literal renderings of Greek idioms
and 582 possible translations.’ (p.128). In addition
to these detailed statistics, the authors cite the often-quoted
statistical data from Charles Butterworth (1941, p. 231) that
in the AV, 39% is original; 19% derives from the Geneva Bible;
18% from Tyndale; 13% from Coverdale; 4% from Bishops’
Bible. [Perhaps on this point John Nielson and Royal
Skousen’s recent article (Reformation III,
1998) should be referred to, because Butterworth’s
statistics require some qualifications.] Of no less importance
is the authors’ observation on the Hebrew idioms in the
AV: ‘More than their predecessors, the translators tried
to replicate the style of the Hebrew syntax and they tried to
do this systematically.’ (p.132) [Actually, however, not
quite systematically in my view.] They refer to
‘and’ verbosity and distinctive Hebrew
constructions such as infinitive absolute and casus pendens.
Among Hebrew idioms from the AV, ‘sour grapes’ is
cited. However, this popular English idiom alludes not to the
Bible but, as is well-known, to Aesop’s fable about a
fox. As for matters typographical, one has wondered why the
paragraph mark (!) abruptly and strangely enough disappears
after Acts 20:36. The authors nonchalantly but perhaps
correctly assume that ‘Barker [the printer of
the 1611 edition] simply ran out of them.’
(p.124).
The authors are occasionally careless with their facts and
descriptions. There are also some moot points. On page 11 the
authors write ‘In truth, neither Wyclif nor James I
is known to have translated a single word of the Bibles named
after them.’ As to Wyclif, perhaps we should avoid
making such a hasty assertion. On page 18 we read
‘Note that the letter ‘y’ often
designates either ‘th’ or
‘i’.’ This is misleading even in a book
intended for the general reader. The medieval script for
‘th’ is the Runic thorn ‘?, though looking
like ‘y’ it was later confused with that letter;
the alternative letter for ‘i’ is ‘y’.
On page 20 the authors write about the wording of the
Wycliffite Bible: “We do not have the expression
‘do no theft’, and nor did fourteenth-century
English.” Indeed the idiomatic expression in Present-day
English is ‘commit no theft’, but things appear
otherwise in Middle English, as the MED quotes five instances
at least of ‘do (no) theft’. On page 54
the authors write “Tyndale’s colloquialism
‘and all to rent you”’, but I suspect
that this was not colloquial in Tyndale’s time, but
rather literary or archaic denoting ‘completely or
entirely’. The expression is used in the AV, Milton,
Bunyan and others. See OED s. v. ‘all’ 14b. On page
124 we read “Matthew 23:24 reads (and still mistakenly
does) ‘strain at a gnat’ rather than ‘strain
out a gnat’.” But ‘strain at’ cannot be
definitely stigmatized as mistranslation or printer’s
error. See OED s. v. ‘strain’ 21. On page 140 we
read about the revisions of the AV that ‘This
revision, the first to omit the Apocrypha, was printed in 1629
by two Cambridge printers, Thomas and John Buck.’
But in fact it does include the Apocrypha. See A. S. Herbert
(ed.),Historical Catalogue (1968).
Some minor misprints have crept into this well-produced
book: p. 121a, 1.13 “the room Apparently, Henry...”
appears obscure; p.124a, 1.9 for “Acts 10: 36” read
“Acts 20: 36”; p.l26b, 1.14 for “Luke (with
the ox) and John (with the eagle)” read “John (with
the eagle) and Luke (with the ox)”; p. 135a, 1.18 for
pent (‘the face of )” read pene (‘the face of
)”; p.139b, 1.1Sf. for “as a present tense
subjunctive” read “as a past
subjunctive”.
As a whole, Let It Go among Our
People is a useful and readable synthesis of the
historical development of the English Bible in the Renaissance
period for readers who want to understand the tumultuous
political and literary history of how the AV —
“the noblest monument of English
prose”—came to be. The spectacular and
mysterious ups and downs of the translation and dissemination
of the English Bible are successfully and vividly conveyed. We
owe the authors David Price and Charles Ryrie, specialists
respectively in Renaissance studies and in the history of the
English Bible, great gratitude for an illuminating work which
will certainly go among all people interested in the English
Bible or in Renaissance and Reformation cultural history. The
Lutterworth Press, the name of which is noted in connexion of
John Wyclif, is also to be complimented for a handsome layout
and printing produced at a reasonable price.
Yoshio Terasawa, May 2005 Prof. Emeritus, University of
Tokyo
‘Yo, g, here’s the down low on the dope
vibes’. That sentence is simply collegespeak that
can be roughly translated, ‘Excuse me, friend,
here’s the information on the most current ways of
communicating’. But, is it English? Of course, it is.
If one has any doubt, one could benefit from Melvyn
Bragg’s race through the 1500 year history of the English
language that begins when a few thousand Frisian speakers
invaded a relatively small island and ends with today’s
two billion English speakers spread across the globe. It is
indeed an adventure with many narrow escapes and sudden twists,
turning the language in unexpected ways at unexpected moments.
It is a story well told by a master story teller. There is not
a dull page in the book, but it must be understood that Bragg
is neither a historian nor a linguist. He is, as many viewers
of the British media know, a writer of fiction and non-fiction
as well as a radio and television presenter. In fact this book
has its origin an ITV series, but Bragg has added to the
content and to the depth of his earlier treatment. There are
many histories of the English language, but few authors of such
books can match Bragg’s mastery of the language
itself.
Bragg presents a host of characters such as Shakespeare and
Chaucer whose names are known around the world, but he makes it
clear that millions of others have made their contribution to
English, even though history cannot now document their names.
Modern English — in its many variations around the world
— has been influenced by kings in their royal courts and
Creole slaves in the cotton fields. It has absorbed words and
elements from Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, Arabic, Hindi
and Gullah. And it continues to do so. In fact, the ability of
English to change by absorbing new elements is, in
Bragg’s opinion, one of the characteristics that has
allowed it to become the world’s language. English no
longer belongs only to the English but to all those who use it
in the corporations and the campuses of the world. Each user
leaves a contribution to the adventure.
Readers of this journal will be delighted by the recognition
that Bragg gives to William Tyndale, but Tyndalians will be
disappointed by the content. Introducing his chapter-length
treatment of Tyndale, Bragg says that Tyndale, by his work as a
translator, prepared a book that ‘became the most
influential book there has ever been in the history of the
language, English or any other’ (p. 98). And he
adds, ‘It is impossible to over-praise the quality of
Tyndale’s writings. Its rhythmical beauty, its simplicity
of phrase, its crystal clarity have penetrated deep into the
bedrock of English today wherever it is spoken’ (p.
103). Bragg is to be commended for recognizing Tyndale’s
verbal contribution to the hoard of English words and phrases.
He gets the big picture right, but stumbles over some
historical facts. Contrary to Bragg, Tyndale never met Erasmus
(p. 101). And when one recalls that Tyndale lived only long
enough to translate about half of the Old Testament, it is
certainly misleading to speak of Tyndale’s Bible in the
same way that one can speak of the Wycliffe Bibles and the King
James Bible. To cite another example, when Bragg speaks of two
hired assassins who trapped Tyndale and took him to Vilvoorde
Castle (p. 104), the informed reader will certainly cringe and
is left wondering if the author errs in other ways as well. For
Bragg, Tyndale’s significance is that his work, when
incorporated into the work of others and authorized by the
crown, propelled English forward by the fact that it was
endorsed by both the royalty of earth and of heaven.
‘English at last had God on its side. The language
was authorized by the Almighty Himself ” (p. 108).
Valid or not, Tyndale deserves both a more accurate and nuanced
treatment.
Melvyn Bragg is a word artist who covers the canvas with a
wide brush, getting parts of the story wrong in small ways but
somehow the big picture is still breathtakingly stunning.
Catholic
University of America Press, USA 2004 paperback £27.60
Who was Sir Thomas More? Most people only know him through
the play, A Man for all Seasons,
through reading Utopia, through a knowledge of 16th century
English history and, if they are members of the Tyndale
Society, as the opponent of William Tyndale. Probably the
majority only know some aspects of the man he was. This book
claims to be ‘an introduction to More’s life
and writings for the general reader’. It provides us
with carefully selected passages from various aspects of
More’s life.
My main criticism of the book is that the first part The
Earliest Accounts of Thomas More’s Life takes up 150
pages, thus leaving only 250 pages for More’s writings.
The introduction opens a window on Thomas More, his life, his
writings and him as a person. One of the strong points is the
footnotes referring to the passages from More’s writings
printed in this book.
Part 1 The Earliest Accounts of
Thomas More’s Life contains three sections. The
first is Erasmus on Thomas More, in
which More seems to be too good to be true. Just to quote one
of the many similar statements, Erasmus wrote ‘It
would be difficult to find a more felicitous extempore speaker,
so fertile are both his mind and the tongue that does his
bidding’ (p.12). The second is William Roper’s
The Life of Sir Thomas More, Knight. Roper married
Thomas More’s oldest and favourite daughter and he, like
Erasmus, could see no faults in Thomas More. Thomas
More’s attitude to heretics was that he would
‘let them have their churches quietly to themselves,
so that they would be content to let us have ours quietly to
ourselves’ (p.33). The third section is an
Elizabethan play of 1592, Sir Thomas More, written
by Anthony Munday, Henry Chettle, William Shakespeare, and
others. I failed to see the value, as part of a source book, of
this play written approximately 57 years after his death. Once
again, like the other two sections in this part of the book, he
is portrayed as a man who had no dark side to his character. We
get a picture of the sense of humour permeating his life
‘For know, Erasmus, Mirth wrinkles up my face, and I
still crave, When that forsakes me, I may hug my
grave’ (p. 111). Even with his fall his sense of
humour was there, ‘No, wife, be merry, and be merry
all: You smiled at rising: weep not at my fall’ (p
135): until, at last, ‘Here More forsakes all mirth,
good reason why: The fool of flesh must with her frail life
die.’ (p.156.)
Part 2 is Writings on Love and Friendship. In
“On His First Love” we catch a glimpse of More,
which is not normally seen, as he opens his heart to reveal his
emotions and himself as a romantic lover. Two poems follow in
which More has complete control over his mind and his emotions,
the second, “On Detachment”, could almost apply to
the first, “Twelve Properties of a Lover”. This is
followed by four letters, to John Colet, to his children, to
his wife Alice, and finally a letter written from prison to
Antonio Bonvisi. This part ends with Plutarch’s Essay and More’s Poem.
Part 3 consists of Writings on Education. A letter
to his children’s teacher is followed by two letters to
his children. A letter to Oxford University, warning them to
deal with the “Trojans” who speak and act against
the humanist learning, especially one who ‘has chosen
during Lent to babble in a sermon against not only Greek but
Roman literature, and finally against all polite learning,
liberally berating all the liberal arts’ (p.206).
The next two sections in this Part are short extracts on
“Conscience and Integrity”, “On Pride”,
and the final section, “Erasmus on More’s Approach
to Education”. Erasmus was impressed by the education of
More’s children (especially his daughters and two other
girls who were ‘included’ in his family)
‘setting thereby a new precedent which, if I mistake
not, will soon be widely followed, so happy is the
outcome’ (p. 222).
Part 4 is entitled Writings on Government. The
first section is “On Dealing with Lions”, Thomas
More’s counsel to Thomas Cromwell, ‘in counsel
given to his Grace, ever tell him what he ought to do, but
never tell him what he is able to do, so shall you show
yourself a true faithful servant, and a right worthy Counselor.
For if the lion knew his own strength, hard were it for any man
to rule him’ (p. 232). That section is followed by
“Poems on the Human Condition and the Art of
Governing” and “Other Poems on Politics”.
“Thomas More’s ‘Petition for Freedom of
Speech’” (pp 240-241) and “More Defends the
Liberty of the House” (pp 243-245) are modern language
versions from Roper’s Life of Thomas
More – these are also found on pages 22-27, and I
wondered why this, and other extracts from this work, were
included in different sections when the whole of Roper’s
Life of Thomas More is printed in Part 1. This Part finishes
with two more sections, “On Private Property, Riches, and
Poverty” and “On Law and Liberty”.
Part 5 is Writings on Religion. It begins with
“More’s Conception of God”, where a passage
from Dialogue of Comfort is followed
by several quotations from A Treatise on the
Passion, finally two from Thomas More’s
Prayer Book. We then have
“Private Judgement and God’s Word,” followed
by “The Two Swords; Heresy and Just War”. This Part
ends with “More’s Defense of the Clergy” and
“On the Condition of Church and State in
England”.
The tone of the whole of this Source
Book, I believe is summarised in a quotation from
The Apology of Sir Thomas More
‘For first, as for my own side, look at my Dialogue, my
Supplication of Souls, and both parts of the Confutation, and
you will clearly see that I have used with reference to
neither the clergy nor the laity any hot, offensive word, and
that I have refrained from discussing in particular the
faults of either the one group or the other, but have
acknowledged that the truth is that neither party is
faultless’(p. 299).
Part 6, which ends this Source
Book, is More’s Last Days. The material
in this Part consists of “Thomas More’s letter to
Erasmus after resigning as Lord Chancellor” followed by
the inscription on his tomb and epitaph. “Thomas
More’s Account of his First Interrogation” in his
letter to his daughter Margaret, is followed by “A
Dialogue on Conscience” which comprises a letter from
Alice Alington to Margaret, and Margaret’s reply which is
mainly Thomas More’s explanation (without giving his
reasons) why he is unable to take the oath regarding the
king’s supremacy. We then have a merry tale –
“The Tale of Mother Maud” — which concerns
one’s conscience. “More’s Interrogation of 2
May 1535” is followed by his “Final
Interrogation” before we pass onto his “Trial and
Execution” and his “Last Words before
Execution”. Some useful background information follows in
the appendices.
It is a helpful introduction to Thomas More, the saint. I
would have preferred more about Thomas More, the man. To have
more of what Thomas More wrote and less of what others wrote or
said about him would have made the Source
Book more valuable. Having said that and with those
reservations I would recommend it as a basic introduction, but
for it to be read alongside John Guy’s biography
Thomas More.