John Trevisa(orJohn of Trevisa;Latin:Ioannes Trevisa;fl.1342–1402 AD) was a Cornish writer and professional translator.
John Trevisa | |
|---|---|
| Born | John Trevisa 1342 Trevessa,St. Enoder parish,England |
| Died | 1402 |
| Occupation(s) | Theologian, writer, translator, vicar and canon |
| Employer | Queen's College, Oxford |
Trevisa was born at Trevessa in the parish ofSt Enoderin mid-Cornwall, in Britain and was a nativeCornishspeaker.[1]He was educated atExeter College, Oxford,and became Vicar ofBerkeley, Gloucestershire,chaplain to the5th Lord Berkeley,and Canon ofWestbury on Trym.
He translated into English for his patron the LatinPolychroniconofRanulf Higden,[2]adding remarks of his own, and prefacing it with aDialogue on Translation between a Lord and a Clerk.He likewise made various other translations, includingBartholomaeus Anglicus'On the Properties of Things(De Proprietatibus Rerum),a medieval forerunner of the encyclopedia. It seems likely that he was the translator of the Bible into Cornish, a language, which until recently, was thought not to have possessed a bible translation.[3][4]
A fellow ofThe Queen's College, Oxford,from 1372 to 1376 at the same time asJohn WycliffandNicholas of Hereford,Trevisa may well have been one of the contributors to the Early Version ofWycliffe's Bible.The preface to theKing James Versionof 1611 singles him out as a translator amongst others at that time:"even in ourKing Richard the second's days, John Trevisa translated them [the Gospels] into English, and many English Bibles in written hand are yet to be seen that divers translated, as it is very probable, in that age ".Trevisa does not seem to have been a Wycliffite or Lollard, though he had some views in common about corruption.[5]: 96
Subsequently, he translated a number of books of the Bible into French for Lord Berkeley, including a version of theBook of Revelation,which his patron had written up onto the ceiling of the chapel atBerkeley Castle. Trevisa's reputation as a writer rests principally on his translations of encyclopaedic works from Latin into English, undertaken with the support of his patron, Thomas (IV), the fifth Baron Berkeley, as a continuous programme of enlightenment for the laity.[6]
John Trevisa is the 18th most frequently cited author in theOxford English Dictionaryand the third most frequently cited source for the first evidence of a word (afterGeoffrey Chaucerand thePhilosophical Transactions of the Royal Society).[7]
References
edit- ^Ellis, Peter Berresford (1 January 1974)."The Cornish Language and Its Literature".Mass. – via Google Books.
- ^"Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden, Monachi Cestrensis; together with the English translation of John Trevisa, and of an unknown Writer of the Fifteenth Centuryedited by Rev. Joseph Rawson Lumby, Vol. III ".The Athenaeum(2282): 108–109. 22 July 1871.
- ^Grigg, Erik."The Cornish Bible of John Trevisa".Cornish Studies Volume 16.
- ^Grigg, E."The Cornish Bible of John Trevisa"(PDF).Bible Review journal.
- ^Fowler, David C. (1960)."John Trevisa and the English Bible".Modern Philology.58(2): 81–98.doi:10.1086/389366.ISSN0026-8232.JSTOR434631.
- ^Oxford DNB
- ^"Top 1000 sources in the OED".
- David C. Fowler (1993)John Trevisa,AshgateISBN0-86078-370-7
- David C. Fowler (1995)The Life and Times of John Trevisa, Medieval Scholar,Seattle: University of Washington PressISBN0-295-97427-3
- Eric Gethyn-Jones(1978)Trevisa of Berkeley, a Celtic Firebrand.Dursley: Alan SuttonISBN0-904387-20-8
External links
edit
- John of Trevisa,Online Companion to Middle English Literature
- John Trevisa,Cambridge History of English and American Literature(1907–21) – see also the previous and following pages.
- Trevisa, John de,Dictionary of National Biography,1899
- Jane Beal,John Trevisa and the English Polychronicon(2012) – book examining Trevisa's rhetorical strategies to establish his own authority in hisPolychronicon,a universal history of the world, with additional consideration of his letter to Lord Berkeley, "Dialogue between a Lord and a Clerk," and interpolated notes as well as his other translations. The final chapter considers the reception of the EnglishPolychroniconin the Renaissance.
- Works by John TrevisaatProject Gutenberg
- Works by or about John Trevisaat theInternet Archive
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain:Cousin, John William(1910).A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature.London: J. M. Dent & Sons – viaWikisource.- Digital view of Trevisa'sOn The Properties of Things,from the British Library
