The place of the rheims-douay version in the history of english prose

Abstract

After deciding on the subject of this thesis two interesting and significant facts confronted me. First of all it was with great difficulty that I managed to secure a copy of the very text I was to study. Secondly, a considerable amount of research revealed that no person apparently has bothered to make such a study before. Discussion of the Rheims-Douay version seems to have been confined to occasional articles (and very few at that) and scattered references in a dozen or so manuals of biblical studies. These latter have for the most part dismissed the Catholic version as of little merit. Yet critics such as R.W. Chambers and Professor J.S. Phillimore had passed comments suggesting the case was otherwise and the matter seemed well-worth enquiry. Since beginning this thesis, C.S. Lewis recent Oxford volume has been published and his references to the Rheims-Douay version will no doubt do much to give this translation its rightful place. It does seem a pity that a work of such value should have been so neglected. There are many reasons making a close study of this book profitable. To begin with, the Bible used by the educated medieval writers, above all by Chaucer, was the Latin Vulgate. Now the Rheims-Douay is a close translation of this and so is the nearest English equivalent to the version used by such notable authors. The extensive use of scripture by Chaucer alone surely warrants a close study of the Catholic rendering. As a specimen of prose in the plain style towards the end of the sixteenth century, the work is certainly of interest. It was written by a man with an adequate command of language and one who aimed at what the traditional makers of English prose have always sought, plain statement, simplicity of diction and a natural word order. Further, the work is much nearer the style of the Authorised Version than is generally supposed, though it is not so ornate or eloquent. Yet it has "the majesty of plainness." It is too a book which has had no small influence on the Authorised Version as well as affording an interesting example of two translations of the same book made at an interval of thirty years.