free city, like Antwerp, offered great advantages to religious exiles; and at a later period we find Coverdale. also living there for some months'. At the same time, as no press was yet established at Hamburgh, Tyndale may not have removed there during the whole of the year 1524, if, as appears likely, he published the Gospels of St Matthew and St Mark separately at that date. Among other places, Wittenberg, where Luther was then living, was easily accessible, and it is not unlikely that Tyndale found some opportunity of seeing the great leader with whom the work of the Reformation was identified. The fact of a passing visit would explain satisfactorily the statement of Sir T. More3, while the more exact account of Spalatinus', who makes no mention of Luther, leads to the belief, on all grounds. the most probable, that Tyndale, though acquainted with Luther's writings and ready to make use of them, lived independently, with his fellow exiles, at Hamburgh or elsewhere, till his chosen work was completed. 1 See below, note 6. The separate publication of these Gospels appears probable from the evidence adduced by Anderson, I. 153, 183, but the references may be to the (Cologne) quarto edition. See P. 32, n. I. 3 Dialogue, 3, 8. 'It is to be con'sidered that at the time of this ⚫ translation, Hitchins [Tyndale] was 'with Luther at Wittenberg, and set * certain glosses in the margin framed 'for the setting forth of the ungra'cious text. By St John, quoth your 'friend, if that be true that Hitchins was at that time with Luther, it is a plain token that he wrought somewhat after his counsel...... Very true, quoth I. But as touching the 'confederacy between Luther and him [it] is a thing well known and 'plainly confirmed by such as have been taken and convicted here of 'heresy coming from thence.......' 4 See below, p. 34, n. Tyndale's close connexion with Chap. ii. Chap. ii. Cochlaus accounts of Tyndale's first attempt In the next year (1525) Tyndale went to Cologne, and there began to print the translation of the New Testament, which he had by that time completed'. It was a time of sore trial for the Reformers. Luther's marriage troubled some. His breach with Karlstadt alienated others. The rising of the peasants furnished a ready pretext to the lukewarm for confounding the new doctrines with revolutionary license. But Tyndale laboured on in silence, and ten sheets of his Testament were printed in quarto when his work was stopped by the intrigues of Cochlæus, a relentless enemy of the Reformation?. It is a strange and vivid picture which Cochlæus, who is the historian of his own achievement, draws of to print his the progress and discovery of the work. The translation New Testa ment. of the New Testament of Luther'-so he calls it-was, in his eyes, part of a great scheme for converting all England to Lutheranism. The expense, as he learnt, was defrayed by English merchants; and their design was only betrayed by their excess of confidence. But though Cochlæus was aware of the design, he could not 1 Fryth did not join him till 1528; and there is no evidence that either his amanuensis Roye, or Joy, if he was with him at the time, had any independent part in the translation. See below, ch. III. The date of the printing of the New Testament is established by the use of a woodcut as the frontispiece to St Matthew which was afterwards cut down and used in an edition of Rupert of Deutz, finished June 12, 1526. A facsimile of each of these wood-cuts is given in Mr Arber's edition of the fragment, p. 71. 2 The one fragment of this edition which remains (see below, P 37) has been photo-lithographed and published with an excellent intro duction by Mr E. Arber (London, 1871), who has printed at length with great exactness and illustrated by careful notes the original records bearing upon the early life and work of Tyndale. 3 Mr Arber has given at length (l.c. pp. 18 ff.) the three passages, from works dated respectively 1533, 1538, 1549, in which Cochleæus mentions the transaction: the last account, from De Actis et Scriptis M. Lutheri, pp. 132 ff., is in every respect the most detailed. Cochlæus thinks that Henry VIII. was as much indebted to him for the information as Ahasuerus to Mordecai, though he gave him no acknowledgment for the service. for some time find any clue to the office where it was Meanwhile Tyndale pursued his work under more favourable circumstances. The place to which he fled was already memorable in the annals of the Reformation. It was then not much more than four years since the marvellous scene when Luther entered Worms (1521) to bear witness before the Emperor. But within that time the city had 'become wholly Lutheran'.' So Tyndale found a safe retreat there, and prepared two editions. of his New Testament instead of one. The edition, which had been commenced at Cologne, was in quarto and furnished with marginal glosses. A description of this had been sent to England by Cochlæus, and therefore, as it seems, to baffle his enemies Tyndale commenced a new edition in small octavo without glosses. 1 Anderson, I. p. 64, quoting Cochlæus (plebs pleno furore Lutherizabat) and Seckendorf. Chap. ii. Tyndale finishes two editions at Worms, Chap. ii. in octavo, This octavo edition was finished first. In a short epistle The words just quoted in part describe the general and quarto. Prologue and glosses with which the quarto edition was furnished, and Tyndale appears to have lost no time in completing this interrupted work'. Both editions 1 The quarto edition was com- it has been conjectured, completed i menced by Quentel. The octavo the quarto; but of this there is no was printed by P. Schoeffer, the direct evidence, as the Grenville son of one of the first great trium- Fragment contains only sheets Avirate of printers. The same printer, H, while A-K were printed by reached England without any indication of the translator's name' early in 1526; and, as might have been expected, the quarto edition first attracted attention, while for a short tinie the undescribed octavo escaped notice. Before the books arrived Henry VIII. had received a second warning of the impending danger from his almoner Lee, afterwards archbishop of York, who was then on the Continent. Writing to the king from Bordeaux on Dec. 2nd, 1525, Lee says: 'Please it your highness to 'understand that I am certainly informed, as I passed in this country, that an Englishman your subject, at the 'solicitation and instance of Luther, with whom he is, 'hath translated the New Testament into English, and Quentel. There is not however any reasonable doubt that the quarto edition was completed about the same time as the first octavo, and therefore it seems likely that it was completed at Worms and by Schoeffer. Two editions, a large and a small, one with and one without glosses, made their appearance simultaneously in England. Three thousand copies of the first sheets of the quarto were struck off and six thousand is said to have been the whole number of New Testaments printed. Moreover it is not likely that Tyndale would allow the sheets which he rescued to lie idle. [On the other hand, as Mr F. Fry reminds me, there is no direct evidence that the quarto edition was printed at Worms or printed in 1525, or that the Cologne sheets were used in this . edition. But on the whole the conjectural interpretation of the facts which I have ventured to give seems to me to be correct. It is of course possible that the chapters of Mat'thew' referred to by Necton as in his possession before the Testaments may refer to these sheets, and not to another separate publication of that Gospel. Strype, Mem. 11. p. 62. See Tyndale's name was attached to and have not rather done it in the Chap. ii. try Dec. 2, 1525. Lee's Letter to Henry VIII. Ꭰ |