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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
For his work on the Bible in English and for his translations from Erasmus, Richard Taverner has had a modest importance in early Tudor literature. In other respects, he has been an easy man to disregard. He misses the pioneer's distinction in both his fields; he obscures the interest of his own utterances by offering them in the guise of translation; even what we know of his life suggests no highly individual achievement. In summary, his biography traces a path well worn by his generation of humanists—scholars trained at Renaissance Oxford and Cambridge, men matured in the dramatic, dangerous school of experience that was England between the fall of Wolsey and the death of Henry VIII. The times welcomed such a useful scholarship as Taverner devoted to education, politics, and religion. We, in turn, may increase our understanding of those times by recognizing, not simply the work he did, but also his methods and some of his results. For such a study, his little book preserved in exemplars of six editions, Proverbes or Adagies … gathered out of the Chiliades of Erasmus, has the double interest of revealing more of Taverner's thought than we should expect to find in it and of helping to color the fame of Erasmus in England.
1 For his translations, see Harold H. Hutson and Harold R. Willoughby, “The Ignored Taverner Bible of 1539,” The Crozer Quarterly, xvi (1939), 161–176; Charles Read Baskervill, “Taverner's Garden of Wisdom and the Apophlhegmata of Erasmus,” SP xxix (1932), 149–159; Henry B. Lathrop, Translations from the Classics into English form Caxton to Chapman, University of Wisconsin Studies in Language and Literature (Madison, 1933), pp. 70–71.
2 Dictionary of National Biography sub Taverner; Hutson and Willoughby, op. cit., pp. 165–167.
3 Two editions represented by copies in the Huntington Library are the basis of this study: Prouerbes or adagies with newe addicions gathered out of the Chiliades of Erasmus by Richard Tauerner. Hereunto be also added Mimi Publiant (London, 1539), and Proverbes or Adagies gathered out of the Chiliades of Erasmus by Richarde Tauerner. With newe additions as well of Latyn prouerbes as of Englysshe (London, 1545). As Professor Baskervill noted (op. cit., pp. 150–151), the title page of 1539 argues an even earlier edition. The six editions listed in STC (10436–10441) range from 1539 to 1569, a long life for a book of this sort.
4 The letters of these years, particularly to correspondents in England and Spain, are allimportant evidence (P. S. Allen and H. M. Allen, Opus Epistolarum Des. Erasmi Rolerodami, vols. vi-x [Oxford, 1926–1941], passim [vols. ix and x ed. H. M. Allen and H. W. Garrod]).
5 See, for example, Tindale's famous gibe (1530) at both More and “his darling Erasmus” (Answer to Sir Thomas More's Dialogue, Parker Society [Cambridge, 1850], p. 16).
6 A. W. Reed, “The Regulation of the Book Trade before the Proclamation of 1538,” Early Tudor Drama (London, 1926), pp. 169–173; John Archer Gee, “Hervet's English Translation, with its Appended Glossary, of Erasmus's De Immensa Dei Misericordia,” PQ, xv (1936), 136–152, and “Margaret Roper's English Version of Erasmus' Precatio Dominica]' Reviewof English Studies, xiii (1937), 257–271.
7 See especially his letter to Alfonso Fernandez, the discreet translator of Enchiridion Militis Chrisliani into Spanish (Allen, op. cit., vii, 356–357, Ep. 1969). Erasmus' suggestions for translation are “De misericordia Domini, De matrimonio Christiano, Paraphrases, Commentariolos in quatuor Psalmos, et si qua sunt huiusmodi quae, per commodum interpreten! tractata, possunt conducere moribus hominum.” Cf. Thomas Paynel's rendering of his complaint against those who “(nat withstandynge that I am a lyue, and commaunde the contrarie) do vulgate and put forthe abrode suche triflls as I wrote whan I was yong to exercise my style, nat thinkynge that they shulde be spred abrode and common for euery man to haue” (De Contemptu Mundi [London, 1533], sig. A4).
8 John Archer Gee, “Tindale and the 1533 English Enchiridion of Erasmus,” PMLA, xlix (1934), 460–471, and “John Byddell and the First Publication of Erasmus's Enchiridion in English,” ELE, iv (1937), 43–59.
9 Henry de Vocht, The Earliest English Translations of Erasmus's COLLOQUIA, 1536–1566 (Louvain, 1928). For the date of the book, see especially pp. xli-li.
10 The comparisons in this paper are based on Froben's Adagiorum Chiliades Des. Erasmi (Basle, 1539). In the preface to the edition of 1533, Erasmus wrote the history of the work (Opera Omnia [Leyden, 1703], vol. ii, sig. *3). See P. S. Allen's appraisal of Adagia as one of Erasmus's “two most notable compositions” (Erasmus: Lectures and Wayfaring Sketches [Oxford, 1934], pp. 61–66).
11 The index of 1539 omits several adages included in the volume.
12 Repeating and occasionally doubling these native proverbs, Taverner uses them in the interpretation of fifty-four, all told, of Erasmus's.
13 Lathrop, op. cit., pp. 70–71; Baskervill, op. cit., pp. 150–151.
14 Sig. Ai v in both edd., 1539 and 1545 (some variants in spelling). Cf. Taverner's similar apology for his inadequate praises of King Henry in his prefatory epistle to The Most Sacred Bible (London, 1539): “Certes, it far passeth bothe the slender capacitie of my wyt, and also the rude infancy of my tong” (Sig. .ii.).
15 Sigs. Eviii—Fi.
16 Sig. Gi v; (1545) sig. Iiii; cf. Adagiorum Chiliades (1539), pp. 845–861.
17 Sig. Dv and v; cf. Adag. Chil., pp. 349–357.
18 Mimi Publiani (bound with Proverbes of 1539, with a joint title page but separate signatures), sig. Bi; Proverbes, sig. Aiv.
19 Cf. e.g., The Apologye of Syr Thomas More, Knyght, (London, 1533), passim, where different type fonts mark the quotations from the “Pacifier” and from More's own earlier utterances, and Nicholas Udall's edition of Erasmus's Apophthegmes (London, 1542), where the same device separates the translator's commentary from the text.
20 Sig. Fii. Taverner continues with a denunciation of papal authority.
21 Do his quotations, of which about a score may be distinguished from casual allusions, correspond to the renderings in his Bible? Curiously, no. The discrepancies are striking; e.g., Proverbes: “he toke bread, and thankes yeuen, brake it and sayde to his disciples, take, eate, this is my bodye, whiche is betrayed and broken for you” (sigs. Hi V-Hii, with marginal reference: “Math. 26, Mar. 14, Luc. 22,1 Cor. 11”).
Bible: “Jesus toke bred and when he hadde geuen thankes, brake it, and gaue it to the disciples, and sayde: Take eate, this is my body” (Math. 26; sigs. Bv V-Bvi).
“Jesus toke breed, blessed and brake, and gaue to them and sayd. Take, eate, this is my body” (Mark 14; sig. Di v).
“And takyng breed and gyuyng thankes, he brake and gaue it to them, sayinge: This is my body which is gyuen for you” (Luke 22; sig. Fi v).
“For the Lorde Jesus the same nyght in which he was betrayed, toke breed: and thanked & brake, and sayde. Take ye, and eate ye: this is my body which is broken for you” (I Cor. 11; sig. Mii v).
Nor is there recognizable correspondence between the quotations in Proverbes and Coverdale, the earlier Matthew's, or the Great Bible (exemplar of 1541 seen). Even when Erasmus includes the same scriptural citation as Taverner, the latter is likely to make an independent translation; e.g., Erasmus interprets Durum est contra stimulum calcitrare (Acts 9) with “durum aduersum deum pugnare” (Adagiorum Chiliades, p. 115, sub Contra stimulum calces); Taverner places the Pauline sentence as his heading and renders it “It is harde kyckynge against the gode” (sig. Bvi). His Bible gives “It is harde for the to kycke agaynst the prycke” (Acts 9; sig. Hiii v).
22 Sigs. Cviii V-Di; Adag. Chil., p. 258.
23 Sig. Gii; Adag. Chil., p. 880. Cf. “in the churche or congregación” with Erasmus's “in ecclesia.”
24 Sig. Dv v; Adag. Chil., p. 360.
25 Sigs. Giv V-Gv; Adag. Chil., p. 14.
26 Incorrectly changed to Math. 5 in 1545 (sig. Ciii).
27 Sigs. Cii v-Ciii; cf. Adag. Chil., p. 301.
28 Sigs. Dii V-Diii; Adag. Chil., p. 307. In the last sentence of his commentary, Taverner moderates his strictures with Old Testament examples: “Yet I woll not gaynsay but a ma may be rych and not put hys confidSce in hys ryches, as Dauid, Job, Abrahā and many other Patriarches were.”
29 Sigs. Hiv V-Hv (1545 only); Adag. Chil., p. 223. Interestingly enough, Erasmus uses the sentence from Saint Matthew in his comment on the very next adage: Festucam ex alterius oculo eijcere (pp. 223–224).
30 Sig. Gvii; Adag. Chil., p. 18.
31 Sig. Hvi and v (1545 only); Adag. Chil., pp. 237–238.
32 Sigs. Hi-iii; Adag. Chil., p. 21. Cf. n. 21, supra, and pp. 942–943, infra.
33 Sig. Aiiii; Adag. Chil., pp. 60–61.
34 Cf. the exposition of the thesis in Tindale's The Obedience of a Christian Man (London, 1528); James Gairdner, The English Church in the Sixteenth Century from the Accession of Henry VIII to the Death of Mary (London, 1903), pp. 126–127. In Taverner's Bible, Romans 13 has both the heading, “The obedience of men vnto theyr rulars,” and a marginal hand against “Wherfore ye must nedes obaye not for feare of vengeaunce onely: but also because of conscience” (sig. Liiii v).
35 Sigs. B [misprint for A] vii v-viii. Contrast the relative mildness of Erasmus's “At hodie fere episcopi & reges omnia alienis manibus, alienis auribus atque oculis agunt, neque quicquam minus ad se pertinere putant quam rempub. aut priuatis suisque distenti, aut uoluptatibus occupati” (Adag. Chil., p. 68). See also the comment of Professor Lathrop on Taverner's additions here (Translations from the Classics, p. 71, where most of the passage above is quoted).
36 Sig. Evi sub Ne puero gladium; Adag. Chil., p. 492.
37 So Taverner in the discussion of Ignauis semperferice sunt (cf. p. 932, supra).
38 Consider, for example, what Taverner makes of Frons occipitto prior (p. 936, supra, and n. 35).
39 Sig. Bii v; the edition of 1545 adds: “Also this prouerbe hath place agaynst them that immoderatelye bewayle the dead. Where vnto agreeth oure Englyshe prouerbe sayenge. We ought to lyue by the quycke and not by the deade” (sig. Biii). For the Latin, see Adag. Chil., p. 79.
40 Sigs. Fiii v-iiii. Erasmus thinks tyranny still the worse evil: “Hanc Gręci uocant malum pene tyrannide peius, qua nihil potest esse peius” (Adag. Chil., p. 541).
41 Sigs. Fv v-vi, sub Ouium nullus vsus si pastor absit; Adag. Chil., pp. 546–547.
42 Sig. Gv; cf. Adag. Chil., p. 14, where we find no concern about either monks or Anabaptists.
43 Sig. Fiiii and v, sub Como puram aquam turbans nunquam inuenies polum; Adag. Chil., p. 536.
44 Sig. E [misprint for D] iiii and v, sub Bonce leges ex mails moribus procreantur; Adag. Chil., p. 337.
45 Sig. Giv v. The misprint Parmenionis in the heading is corrected in the next line. Adag. Chil., pp. 26–27.
46 Sig. Ciii v, sub Quœ supra nos, nihil ad nos. As interesting as the appearance of Jacke Strawe here is the omission of theology, which Erasmus links with politics: “qui de negociis principum, aut theologian mysteriis temere loquuntur” (Adag. Chil., p. 218).
47 Sig. Biii and v, sub Oportet remum ducere qui didicit; cf. Erasmus's illustrations from Plutarch and Horace (Adag. Chil., p. 87).
48 Sig. Ei and v, sub Quam quisque norit artem, in hoc se exerceat; Adag. Chil., pp. 416–417.
49 Sig. Cv, sub Non omnes qui habent citharam, sunt citharœdi. Misers and kings serve Erasmus as illustrations (Adag. Chil., p. 230).
50 Sig. Ciiii v; Adag. Chil., pp. 226–227. Considering the un-Horatian context here, we may wonder at Taverner's not pinning his argument to Plutarch's “pietatem esse mediam inter cõtemptum numinum & superstitionë” (p. 227).
51 Sig. Bv and v. Though pagan poets surround Saint Paul in the original—Persius, Horace, Terence, Euripides, and Homer—the Christian emphasis which Taverner preserves is strong: “Hue allusisse uidetur & diuus Paulus apostolus, cum admonet, ut ad præcludendā æmulationem sinamus unūquenque in suo sensu abundare. Cui Consilio si theologorum uulgus auscultaret, nō esset hodie tanta digladiatio de nihili quæstiunculis: Sunt enim omnino quædam qua; citra pietatis dispendium ignorari possunt” (Adag. Chil., p. 99).
52 On the relations between social and religious agitation at this time, see especially James Gairdner, Lollardy and the Reformation in England (London, 1908), i, 307–309 and passim.
53 Adag. Chil., p. 128.
54 Sig. Bvi v.
55 Sig. Diii; cf. n. 28, supra.
56 Sigs. Cii V-Ciii (1545).
57 Sigs. Hi-Hiii. Cf. p. 935, sufra.
58 Adag. Chil., p. 21.
