Middle English Gospel Glosses and the Translation of Exegetical Authority

Abstract

The non-Wycliffite Middle English commentaries on the Synoptic Gospels in MSS London, British Library Egerton 842 (Matt.), Cambridge, University Library Ii.2.12 (Matt.), and Cambridge, Corpus Christi College Parker 32 (Mark and Luke) are important witnesses to the widespread appeal of scholastic exegesis in later fourteenth-century England. They appear to have been produced by two different commentators (or teams of commentators) who worked without knowledge of one another's undertakings but responded similarly to the demand for vernacular biblical material. The commentary on Matthew represents a more extensive effort at compilation than the Mark and Luke texts, and, in his elaborate prologue, the Matthew commentator translates the priorities of scholastic Latin criticism even as he tailors his writing to meet the perceived needs of his English readers. Especially when considered alongside the Wycliffite Glossed Gospels, these texts illustrate further the variety and richness of vernacular biblical commentary composed in the decades following the important precedent of Richard Rolle's English Psalter.