Earlier Version Wycliffe New Testament

Earlier Wycliffite version of the New Testament, without prologues. This manuscript was presented by Dame Anne Danvers to Syon Monastery, Isleworth, in 1517, and was used by Lea Wilson as the basis for his 1848 edition of the Wycliffite New Testament.

Contents: New Testament in the earlier Wycliffite version. Forshall and Madden, no. 156. They note that this copy is the source of Lea Wilson's published text, The New Testament in English translated by John Wycliffe (see Bibliography below). The order is the four Gospels, Acts, Catholic Epistles, Pauline Epistles, Apocalypse: '... here endiþ þe apocalips. Blesside be þe holy trinite Amen'. f. 153v is left blank. There are no prologues.

Script: Gothic textura. Written space: 207 x 133 mm. 2 columns, 48 lines.

Secundo folio: nazareth.

Decoration: 8-line initial in burnished gold on a red and blue ground on f. 1r; 7-line initials in the same style at the beginning of all other books; numerous 4-line initials in blue ink with red penwork flourishes.

Description derived from N.R. Ker, Medieval manuscripts in British libraries, vol. III, Lampeter-Oxford (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), pp. 406-7. By permission of Oxford University Press.

Purchased by Mrs Enriqueta Rylands from Henry Yates Thompson in 1897, and later transferred to the John Rylands Library. Accession no. R4995.

See English Manuscript 902 for a transcript of this manuscript made by Lea Wilson.

(1) Given by Dame Anne Danvers, widow of Sir William Danvers, to Syon Abbey in 1517: 'Dame Anne Danvers, widowe, sumtyme wyffe to Sr William Danvers, knyght, hoose soule God assoyle hathe gevyn this present Booke unto mastre confessor and his Bretherne encloosed in Syon... The aforseid Dame Anne Danvers hathe delyverd this booke by the hondes of her son Thomas Danvers on myddellent Sunday... m. fyve hundred and seventeene.' (f.153v); she asks 'good mr Confessor of Sion wt his brethren' for their prayers for her family alive and dead: she names them individually, together with John and Thomas, servants of William Danvers, and Margaret Langford. Sir William died in 1504 and his will was proved on 8 May. His widow died in Thatcham, Surrey, in 1531, her will proved on 20 May. Both wills are printed in F.N. MacNamara, Memorials of the Danvers family (see Bibliography below), pp. 178-85, who also quotes the present inscription. Sir William's will was written by John Fowler, public notary; the Fowlers appear to have been related to the Danvers family.

(2) Edward Reynolds (1599-1676), bishop of Norwich. Inscription on f. 1: 'Ed. Reynolds ex dono D. Guillelmi Simonson. Coll. Merton socii. Fowller'. Reynolds matriculated at Merton in January 1616 and graduated in October 1618; he was elected a probationer fellow in 1620, and was warden in 1660-1. William Simonson (d. 1651) was elected fellow in 1598.

(3) Lea Wilson, F.S.A., Wycliffe scholar. Described by him in his Bibles, Testaments, Psalms, etc. (1845), pp. 137-9 (see Bibliography below).

(4) Bertram, 4th Earl of Ashburnham. Appendix no. 19.

(5) Henry Yates Thompson. He purchased the Ashburnham Appendix in May 1897 and almost immediately resold the manuscript to Mrs Rylands.

Josiah Forshall and Frederic Madden, The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments, with the Apocryphal books, in the earliest English versions made from the Latin Vulgate by John Wycliffe and his followers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1850), vol. 1, MS no.156.

N.R. (Neil Ripley) Ker, Medieval manuscripts in British libraries, vol. III, Lampeter-Oxford (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), pp. 406-7.

G.A. (Godfrey Allen) Lester, The index of Middle English prose. Handlist 2, a handlist of manuscripts containing Middle English prose in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester and Chetham's Library, Manchester (Cambridge: Brewer, 1985), pp. 10-11.

F.N. (Francis Nottidge) MacNamara, Memorials of the Danvers family of Dauntsey and Culworth (London: Hardy & Page, 1895).

Lea Wilson, Bibles, Testaments, Psalms and other books of the Holy Scriptures in English in the collection of Lea Wilson, esq, F.S.A., etc. (London: printed at Chiswick by Charles Whittingham, 1845).

Lea Wilson, The New Testament in English translated by John Wycliffe circa MCCCLXXX: now first printed from a contemporary manuscript formerly in the monastery of Sion Middlesex late in the collection of Lea Wilson FSA (London: printed at Chiswick by Charles Whittingham for William Pickering, 1848); the published edition of this manuscript.