04. John de Trevisa
Contemporary with Wiclif, was John de Trevisa, born of an ancient family, at Crocadon in Cornwall. He was a secular priest, and Vicar of Berkeley. He translated several large works out of Latin into English; and chiefly the entire Bible, justifying himself by the example of the Venerable Bede, who had done the same thing for the Gospel of John. This great, and good, and dangerous task he performed by commission from his noble and powerful patron and protector, Lord Thomas de Berkeley. This nobleman had the whole of the book of Revelation, in Latin and French, which latter was then generally understood by the better educated class of Englishmen, written upon the walls and ceiling of his chapel at Berkeley, where it was to be seen hundreds of years after. Trevisa, notwithstanding his translation of the Bible made him obnoxious to the persecutors of his day, lived and died unmolested, though known to be an enemy of monks and begging friars. He expired, full of honor and years, being little less than ninety years of age, in the year 1397.* Little else is known of him, or of his translation, which did not supersede the labors of Wiclif.
The first book ever printed with metal types was THE LATIN BIBLE, issued by Gutenberg and Fust, at Mentz, in the Duchy of Hesse, between the years 1450 and 1455, for it bears no date. It is a folio of 641 leaves, or 1282 pages, in two volumes. Though a first attempt, it is beautifully printed on very fine paper, and with superior ink. At least eighteen copies of this famous edition are known to be in existence; four of them on vellum, and fourteen on paper. Twenty-five years ago, one of the vellum copies was sold for five hundred and four pounds sterling; and one of the paper copies lately brought one hundred and ninety pounds. Truly venerable relics! Thus the printing-press paid its first homage to the Best of Books; the highest honor ever done to that illustrious art, and the highest purpose to which it could ever be applied.
The first Scripture ever printed in English was a sort of paraphrase of the seven penitential
* Fuller's Church History of Britain, I. 467.
Psalms, so called, by John Fisher, the popish bishop of Rochester, who was beheaded by Henry VIII. in the year 1535. This little book was printed in 1505.