Abstract
The trouble with very brief histories is that they are very brief. Bragg has already written extensively on the history of the King James Bible, and of the English language that the KJV played so large a part in developing, and it is not clear that this book adds much to that extensive total. In short, this is literally for those who want a brief history of Tyndale and his Bible rather than for those who wish to learn more – and, to be fair, he is generous towards those more verbose who have preceded him on Tyndale, especially, of course, David Daniell’s massive two-volume 1993 biography.
Yet, precisely because of his own carefully advertised background in both books and television, Bragg does not escape a slightly self-regarding commentary, summed up in one of the few illustrations, entitled ‘Melvyn Bragg on the site of the place Tyndale was held before he was put to death in Vilvoorde’. The picture shows a shadowy Bragg gazing soulfully through a broken window on to what looks like a junkyard. It contributes nothing, except to remind us that he had also made a TV programme on Tyndale, and this is a clip from it – reinforced by acknowledgements largely to those who helped him make that film. The implication is that those who want more than brevity should go to BBC iPlayer.
Probably the most original contribution in the book is the 21-page Part 2, on Tyndale’s legacy, which argues passionately for recognition of his part played in subsequent bibles, and, indeed, for the development of the entire English language. Here Bragg is on his strongest ground. There has indeed been too little recognition that subsequent sixteenth-century bibles – Coverdale, Matthew, Great, Bishop’s, Geneva, and certainly the KJV itself – all rest on Tyndale’s massive foundations. Similarly, the pithiness of many of his phrases have passed unrecognized into contemporary English.
The weakest part concerns the earlier persecution of those who would translate the Vulgate into English. Wycliffe was indeed hounded by the Church, and after his (very timely) death, his bones were dug up and thrown into the River Soar. But this impression of general opposition to biblical translation is weakened by such things as the existence of an Anglo-Saxon word-for-word translation in Canterbury Cathedral library, or by the fact that so many copies of the Wycliffe Bible survive, including a beautiful illuminated manuscript version, commissioned by Prince John of Lancaster, Henry V’s brother. This would almost certainly be made in a monastery scriptorium by the very ecclesiastics supposedly trying to destroy all copies.
Admittedly, such historical niggles are not appropriate material for a brief history. More surprising is the statement that there were four translation committees for the KJV (p. 84). There were in fact six: two in Cambridge, two in Oxford, and two at Westminster.