Albert Frederick Pollard

“ The volume is dedicated to the king of England, where Convocation at Cranmer’s instance had, in December 1534, petitioned for an authorized English version of the Scriptures. As a work of scholarship it does not rank particularly high. Some of the title-pages state that it had been translated out of “Douche” (i.e. German) “and Latyn”: and Coverdale mentions that he used five interpreters, which are supposed to have been the Vulgate, the Latin version of Pagninus, Luther’s translation, the Zürich version, and Tyndale’s Pentateuch and New Testament. ”

“ In 1534 he published two translations of his own, the first Dulichius’s Vom alten und newen Gott, and the second a Paraphrase upon the Psalms, and in 1535 he completed his translation of the Bible. The venture seems to have been projected by Jacob van Meteren, who apparently employed Coverdale to do the translation, and Froschover of Zürich to do the printing. No perfect copy is known to exist, and the five or six which alone have title-pages give no name of publisher or place of publication. ”

“ He had already, in August 1549, at some risk, gone down with Lord Russell to turn the hearts of the rebels by preaching and persuasion, and two years later he was appointed bishop of Exeter by letters patent, on the compulsory retirement of his predecessor, Veysey, who had reached an almost mythical age. ”