Study of the Wycliffite Bible (WB) still works with a simple dichotomy between two versions: these were distinguished in the eighteenth century, their sequence being established by the monumental 1850 edition of the entire text in two forms by Josiah Forshall and Frederic Madden (FM), which has not yet been superseded. The differences between the two are, we are told, between a preliminary, very literal rendering of the Vulgate (Earlier/Early Version, here EV) – Latin ‘Englished’, only intelligible with the Vulgate alongside it – and a complete revision (Later/Late Version, here LV) that produced a free-standing, idiomatic rendering. Anyone who works with the texts can readily identify each of these: a few characteristic constructions and idioms suffice to make the designation of Earlier as against Later a simple choice on which one is very unlikely to be faulted. But with around 250 copies of WB, in whole or in part, are there no other forms, blends, confusions, or muddles? My paper is an investigation of a single manuscript which, I suggest, makes the usual choice a matter of doubt.

Before coming to the manuscript which is the particular focus here, Oxford, New College MS 67, some general points need to be made. The importance of revision to the development of a completed English text was already introduced by the writer of the so-called General Prologue (GP), a work which will be crucial to the discussion later in this paper. The authority claimed by the writer of this poorly preserved document would be hard to challenge, not least since it in general anticipates a modern reading of the manuscripts. One striking feature of the whole translational project that has excited surprisingly little comment is the consistency with which the overwhelming majority of manuscripts persist with either EV or LV throughout their content, rather than mixing the two from book to book (or concocting other, more complicated blends). It is worth briefly considering this point and its implications. The first observation is the easily divisible nature of the Bible's structure.