From Bede to Wyclif: The Knowledge of Old English within the Context of Late Middle English Biblical Translation and Beyond

Abstract

Abstract The continuity between Old and Middle English periods has been a matter of interest and debate in the field of medieval studies. Though it is widely accepted that Old English texts continued to be copied and used in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the possibility that they were collected, read and studied, and influenced scholars and religious thinkers in late medieval England is often rejected as implausible. The reason most commonly given is the difficulty of understanding the Old English language in the late Middle Ages. The present article aims to reassess this view and re-examine evidence for the reading and use of Old English texts in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries with a primary focus on biblical translation. The article explores the possibility that Middle English glosses that occur in Old English sermon and biblical manuscripts reflect a scholarly interest in these texts, rather than a struggle to understand their language. The article also examines evidence that the translators of the Wycliffite Bible may have had some familiarity with Old English biblical translations, possibly as a result of study of biblical and sermon manuscripts.