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INTRODUCTION

TO THE;

ROMAUNT VERSION OF THE GOSPEL
ACCORDING TO ST JOHN.

THE present Volume contains a specimen only of the Romaunt translation of the New Testament, which I hope on a future occasion to exhibit in a complete form. I believe that I shall be enabled to supply a desideratum in sacred literature, by the publication of an ancient vernacular version of the whole of the New Testament, as old as the twelfth century, and more accurate and literal in its character than any other translation of the same age.

Much has been said and written lately on the study of holy Scripture in the dark and middle ages; but although partial and paraphrastic sections of Scripture, in vernacular tongues, have been brought to light, no complete versions have appeared, and no satisfactory evidence has been given to prove the diffusion of all the sacred books in any of the modern languages of Europe, at an earlier period than the last decade of the thirteenth century.

Now, if it has been thought important to the cause of truth to shew, that the Bible in Latin, a dead language, was circulated extensively in the dark ages1, for the use of the educated classes, it is equally and even more important to adduce proofs, that the word of God was diffused

1 See "The Dark Ages;" a series of essays intended to illustrate the state of religion and literature in the 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th centuries, by the Rev. S. R. Maitland. 8vo. Rivingtons, 1844. The author's principal object is to shew that the knowledge of the Bible in the dark ages was much greater, and more general, than some modern writers would lead us to suppose. Mr Maitland's proofs are for the most part confined to the use of the Bible in Latin, and by the monks and clergy.

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in vernacular translations, which all might understand. It may be alleged, that some of these vernacular translations were the work of religious professors whom the dominant Church condemned: but they ought not to be examined with less interest and curiosity on that account, but rather with more, because they afford the best means of judging of the orthodoxy or heterodoxy of those who came under the censure of the hierarchy.

Every translation is more or less an interpretation and an exposition of the creed of the translators, and of the religious investigations of the age in which it was made. The Latin Vulgate could be used by the learned only in the dark and middle ages, but the great question is, what provision was made for the multiplication and diffusion of the sacred books among the people, in the vulgar tongue, that such as could might read them, and that all might hear them read, "every man in his own tongue wherein he was born"?

The extracts from the Romaunt Version, which I here present to public attention, bear witness that there were some devoted scholars, whether within or without the pale of the Roman Church, who, in those days, when letters were taught to the few only, and books were beyond the purchase of the many, were moved by Divine Grace to supply all, who had access to scriptural instruction, with literal translations of Holy Writ, and to give a new impulse to spiritual life. These translations may be traced as far back as the twelfth century, and were the work of men, the distant forerunners of the Reformation, who, while most of their learned contemporaries employed their talents for the exaltation of the Roman Pontificate, and the subjugation of the human mind under it, were labouring for the supreme Head of the Church, and for "the true Light, that lighteth every man that cometh into the world." They are very superior to the imperfect interpretations of

Scripture, which were circulated about a hundred years later, after the model of the "Historia Scholastica," of Peter Comestor. Such, for example, as the "Bible Historiale" of Guiart des Moulins, completed in 1294, which, with some corrections and alterations, passed through sixteen impressions after the invention of printing.

That the Romaunt Version, from which the Gospel of St John in this publication is taken, was intended for as general use as the state of public instruction would allow, is manifested by the form in which the surviving copies have come down to us. They are, for the most part, small in size, portable, and simple in their decorations, and very unlike those splendid and ponderous folios of the Latin Vulgate, some of which, penned in characters of gold and silver, richly painted and illuminated, and enclosed in binding ornamented with gems and precious metals, invited admiration rather than study, and were consequently more fitted for high places than for the use of the people' in their own dwellings. No doubt there existed many copies of the Latin Vulgate in a smaller and more simple form; but the greater number of those, which have come down to us, are of a size that implied infrequent use, from their magnitude and noli me tangere decorations 2.

Without pretending dogmatically to assign the honour of having begun or completed a Romaunt Version to this or that community of Christians, or to speak with certainty

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1 See "The Dark Ages," pp. 194-221, for a descriptive catalogue of many of these "costly and precious volumes," which, Mr Maitland remarks, were considered as belonging to the treasury, rather than to the library of the church. They were," he says, "for the most part, brought out only on festivals, the church being provided with others for daily use." p. 213.

2 "Tales habere codices ditiorum olim erat, non vero eorum quibus res esset angusta domi." Sabatier, Vol. 1. Præf. xxxiv.

Jerome remarked on the costly character of the sacred books in his time. Such splendid bindings denoted more reverence for the thing so decorated than desire to multiply copies.

on the date, or the origin of a work to which obscure priests and monks, who held the truth in secresy, or laymen, on whom the light had broken, may have lent their aid, my chief object is to bring into notice a vernacular translation, which has hitherto lain in the dust of manuscript libraries. The very existence of this venerable relic, which was certainly in use among the ancient Waldenses, whoever were the authors of the Version, was in later ages unknown, except to such investigators as Ussher, Le Long, and Raynouard. Simon, in his "Critical History of the Text of the New Testament," admits that he had never seen a copy of it'. But I shall discuss these points more fully as I proceed.

The LINGUA ROMANA or ROMAUNT, was, in one or other of its dialects, the vernacular language of the South of Europe, from the time when pure Latin ceased to be spoken2, until the French, Spanish, and Italian languages were completely formed3; that is to say, from the eighth to the thirteenth or fourteenth century. It derived its name from ROMANIA, under which term the Gallic, Ita

1 "I should here speak of the Bibles of the Vaudois, if I had any MS. copies." See English Translation of Simon, Part I. p. 208,

2 "Cette langue dernière (Latine) y subsista encore long temps: mais le commerce des Provinciaux avec les Visigots, les Bourgignons, les François et les autres peuples barbares dont ils étoient sujets, en altera si fort la pureté qu'il se forma enfin une nouvelle langue qu'on appella Langue Romaine." Vaissette, Hist. Générale de Languedoc, vol. 1. p. 238.

3 “Le midi de l'Europe avoit tiré du latin les langues vulgaires, que nous y voyons perfectionnées aujourd'hui, le françois, l'italien, l'espagnol. Le provençal, derivé de la même source, l'emportoit incontestablement sur toutes les autres, soit qu'il participât aux beautés du grec, qui fut long temps le langage des Marseillois, soit qu'il eut été plus tôt cultivé par des talens capables de l'embellir." Millot, Hist. Litt. des Troubadours. Tom. I. Discours prelim. lxxi.

4 "Elle commençoit cependant à se corrompre, et degenera enfin de manière qu'elle forma ce qu'on appella dans la suite la Langue Romaine, qui est a peu près la même qu'on parle aujourd'hui dans les provinces meridionales du Royaume, et qui dès le milieu du IX siècle se trouvoit déjà toute formée." Vaissette, Hist. Génér. du Languedoc, I. p. 327.

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lian, and Spanish provinces of the Roman empire were designated by the Northern nations, before the latter submitted to the imperial yoke of Charlemagne.

The LINGUA ROMANA, consisting of an intermixture of Latinisms and barbarisms, was also called by writers of the middle ages, LINGUA RUSTICA, VULGARIS, and GALLICA 6. It was used, and generally understood, from the shores of the Adriatic to those of the Western coasts of France and Spain, and though it was distinguished by several dialects, yet it preserved its characteristic Latin features wherever it was spoken. As the natural consequence of its Latin derivation, and of its being for so long a period the vulgar tongue of the most populous and civilized regions of Europe, there must have been a greater number of literary productions in the Romaunt than in the German, or any other language of the West, from the time of the decline of the Latin to the cultivation of the French, Italian, and Spanish languages. The Romaunt was one of the two vernacular tongues into which the Councils of Tours and Rheims, at the suggestion of

5 "Cette Langue, qui est une corruption du Latin, se forma d'abord dans ces provinces ou les habitans etoient en effet pour la plûpart Gaulois, ou Romains d'origine. De là vient sans doute que les auteurs du temps donnent à ces pays le nom de Romaine, de Gaule Romaine, ou de France Romaine." Ibid. p. 584.

6 "Hinc colligi potest, in usu tunc fuisse Gallicam linguam, quam Romanam dicunt." Bouquet, Rec. des Hist. des Gaules, vol. x. p. 513, note (b). "Vulgaris hæc lingua, de qua hic agitur, profecto erat Gallica, ea nempe, quam Romanam diximus." Ibid. p. 527, note (a).

"Tunc cantilena Rollandi inchoata, ut martium viri exemplum pugnaturos accenderet." Ex Willielmi Malmesbur. Lib. iii. note (a). Rivetus noster, Tom. VII. Hist. Litt. Franc. p. lxxii., feliciter inde probat, linguam Gallicam seu Romanam jam tunc a multis annis apud nos fuisse in usu; scilicet anno 1066. Bouquet, Vol. XI. p. 184. See also Raynouard, "Lexique Rom." Vol. 1. pp. xiv. xvi. xxix., and "Nouvelles Recherches sur les Idiomes Vulgaires de la France." Par Champollion-Figeac, p. 24, and Vaissette, Hist. Gén. de Languedoc, I. p. 584.

7 Hist. Littér. de la France, Vol. xx. pp. 518, 519; Hist. des Langues Romanes, par Bruce-Whyte, Vol. 1. pp. 375—7; Vol. II. 144, 166.

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