Middle English New Testament

[Middle English New Testament].
Illuminated manuscript on vellum.
[England, c. 1400–25]. (Prothro B-281)

The first widely circulated version of the scriptures in English, this fourteenth-century translation from St. Jerome’s Latin is attributed to followers of John Wycliffe (c. 1330–1384), an English reformer who rejected many Church rituals and institutions, preferring the Bible as his sole authority. The popularity of the Wycliffite translation grew rapidly although it was outlawed in 1407 by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who feared scriptural misinterpretation by lay readers, the erosion of clerical authority, and the propagation of heresy by dissident preachers. This is Bridwell Library’s earliest version of the scriptures in any vernacular language.