7 - Slaves of the Vulgate

Summary

Richard Rolle

The Bible was translated into the English vernaculars in several ways before the time of Wyclif. These varied from verse paraphrases of parts of the Bible such as the poems associated with the seventh-century monk Caedmon to literal prose renderings accompanied by a commentary, such as the Psalter of the hermit of Hampole, Richard Rolle (d. 1349). It is from the extreme represented by Rolle that the main line of English translations descends. His was ‘the orthodox English Psalter up to the Reformation’ (ed. Hope Emily Allen, p. 3), and it has real connections with the Wyclif Bible.

Rolle regarded the Latin Psalms as the ‘perfection of divine writing’ (prologue, p. 6), and clearly loved them as spiritual teaching, perhaps also as literature. In spite of this, in spite also of their obvious poetic aspects, he made no effort to produce a literary translation. Rather, his work is a guide, first to the meaning of the Latin, second to the meaning of the Psalms. It is not an English equivalent of the Latin, but a literal crib accompanied by a commentary. He describes his intentions thus:

In this work I seek no strange/strong English, but lightest and commonest and such that is most like unto the Latin, so that they that know not Latin, by the English may come to many Latin words. In the translation I follow the letter as much as I may, and where I find no exact English equivalent, I follow the gist of the text, so that they that shall read it, they need not fear going wrong.