P018 A Short History of the English Bible.

P018 A Short History of the English Bible. The book is said to be, to a considerable extent, a copy of the "Durham Book."

Ælfric,(1) near the close of the tenth century, made paraphrases and translations of many portions of the Bible.

Parts of the books from which he translated, however, he omitted, and other parts he abridged. In the twelfth century there was an Anglo-Norman version of the Psalms written.

Later in the twelfth, or early in the thirteenth century, an Augustine monk named Orm, or Ormin, wrote a versified paraphrase of the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles, which he called the "Ormulum."(2) About the same time a metrical paraphrase of the Old and New Testaments was written by an unknown author.

It bears the name of Salus Animɶ, or Sowlehele, [Soul-health.]

There is, also, a metrical version of Genesis and Exodus, Which was probably written about the middle of the thirteenth century.

About 1325 William de Schorham, vicar of Chart-Sutton, in Kent, made a prose translation of the Psalms.

Another version of the Psalms was written about the same time, or a few years later, by Richard Rolle, a chantry priest, who lived in seclusion near Hampole, where he died in 1349.

He wrote also a metrical paraphrase of the Book of Job and of the Lord’s Prayer.

Referring to his Psalms, he says, "In this werke I seke no strange ynglys, but lightest and communest, and swilk is most like unto the Latyne, so that thai that knowes noght the Latyne be the ynglys may come to many Latyne wordis."

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(FN1)There were two eminent ecclesiastics and scholars of this name, who were contemporaries. Authorities differ as to their identity and writings.

(FN2)The reason for the name is thus given: "Thiss boc iss nemmnedd Orrmulum Forrthi thatt Ormm itt wrohhte." — White’s Ormulum.

Preface, lines 1 and 2. The orthography is very peculiar throughout the work.

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