Bible translations in the Middle Ages went through several phases, all using the Vulgate. In the Early Middle Ages, written translations tended to be associated with royal or episcopal patronage, or with glosses on Latin texts; in the High Middle Ages with monasteries and universities; in the Late Middle Ages, with lay and priestly uses to study the daily or weekly liturgical readings, especially with the advent of printing. Some popular movements caused, when the movement were associated with violence, official crackdowns on various kinds of vernacular scripture in Spain, England and France.
Terminology Vernacular: the native language of a community, such as Middle English; tending to be non-literate, evolving, borrowing and part of a dialect continuum, perhaps without a sophisticated vocabulary for abstract ideas. Lingua franca: a well-known bridge language between language groups, including trade languages, such as koine Greek, but prone to being superseded as economic patterns change. When a text is available in the lingua franca there may be little demand for or benefit from a vernacular translation. Official language: the language used in or by officialdom, such as Roman era Latin; tending to change slowly over time and with a large abstract vocabulary. When a text is available in the official language, there may be little patronage available to fund the translation and expensive production of a vernacular translation. Sacred or liturgical language: a language used for sacred purposes, not in common use, and tending to be quite stable over centuries or millennia.
In the modern core Anglosphere nations, English is typically the vernacular, the official language, and a lingua franca, though (especially for Protestants) there is no sacred language. Sacred languages may start as vernaculars, then go through various levels of solidification. Biblical translations into vernacular languages often rely on previous translations in the same language or language group.
Classical and Late Antiquity translations
By the end of late antiquity the written Bible was available and used in all the major written languages then spoken by Christians.
Greek texts and versions The Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew (with parts of Nehemiah and Daniel in Aramaic). In the 3rd or 2nd century BC, the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament into Koine Greek was completed in Alexandria, Egypt and thenceforth used by Jews who spoke Greek as their primary language. The Septuagint also included most of the deuterocanonical books. After various updates, it was probably completed in the 3rd century AD. The earliest complete copies of the Septuagint, Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, are from the 4th century CE. As of the early twenty-first century, the Septuagint remains in use in the Greek Orthodox Church.
Although Western scholarship has traditionally held that the New Testament was originally written in Greek, advocates of Aramaic original New Testament theory rather hold that the entire New Testament was originally written in Aramaic and that the Greek versions are translations of the Peshitta text. Others hold mixed views. For example, in his revision of the Douay-Rheims Bible, Bishop Challoner states that Saint Matthew originally wrote his Gospel in Aramaic but accepts that most of the rest of the New Testament was originally written in Greek.
The whole written Christian Bible, including the deuterocanonical books, was available in Koine Greek by about 100 AD, as were numerous apocryphal Gospels. The process by which bishops discerned the Biblical canon continued for centuries. Some variations have always remained between different Churches.
Other early versions The Bible was translated into various languages in late antiquity; including Coptic, Gothic, the Ge'ez language of Ethiopia and Latin, then later into Armenian, Georgian, and Old Nubian.
At the end of this period (c700s), Church of the East monasteries (so-called Nestorians) had translated the New Testament and Psalms (at least, the portions needed for liturgical use) from Syriac to Sogdian, the lingua franca in Central Asia of the Silk Road, which was an Eastern Iranian language with Chinese loanwords, written in letters and logograms derived from Aramaic script.
Vetus Latina, or the Old Latin
The earliest Latin translations are collectively known as the Vetus Latina. These Old Latin translations date from at least the early fourth century, and exhibit a great number of minor variations. Usage of the Vetus Latina as the backbone of the church and liturgy continued well into the Twelfth Century. Perhaps the most complete, and certainly the largest surviving example is Codex Gigas, which can be seen in its entirety online. Housed in the National Library of Sweden, the massive Bible opens with the Five Books of Moses and ends with Third Book of Kings.
Latin Vulgate
In the late fourth century, Jerome re-translated the Hebrew and Greek texts into the normal vernacular Latin of his day, in a version known as the Vulgate (Biblia vulgata) (meaning "common version", in the sense of "popular").
The Old Testament books are Jerome's translation from the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. The New Testament books are rescensions of Vetus Latina versions: the Gospels by Jerome with reference to some Greek and Aramaic versions, and the other parts perhaps by a Rufinas.
When Jerome's revision was read aloud in the churches in North Africa, riots and protests erupted since the new readings differed in phraseology from the more familiar reading in the Vetus Latina.
Jerome's translation gradually replaced most of the older Latin texts, and also gradually ceased to be a vernacular version as the Latin language developed and divided. The earliest surviving complete manuscript of the entire Latin Bible is the Codex Amiatinus, produced in eighth century England at the double monastery of Wearmouth-Jarrow. Jerome's Latin Vulgate did not take complete traction among the churches in the West until the time of Charlemagne, when he sought to standardize script, texts, and rites within Western Christendom.
Psalms The Psalms had multiple translations in Latin made for chanting, and for different rites, circulated as independent Psalters apart from the more literal semi-poetical translations in Bibles. There have been numerous Latin Psalters: Cyprianic, Vetus (at least three versions), Ambrosiana, Mozarabica, Romana (perhaps from Jerome's first minimal revision), Gallicana (perhaps from Jerome's second attempt, based on the Septuagint), and juxta Hebraicum (Jerome's last, from the Hebrew), plus two recent Catholic ones, the Piano and the Nova Vulgata.
It also has been common to create metrical semi-paraphrases of Psalms, to suit songs and metrical recitation, in cultures where this was prized, such as Middle English, and in Protestant hymnody where the words could be sung over any popular tune of the same metre. Restrictions on unauthorized new Bible translations do not seem to have applied to the Psalms.
As well as translations that attempt more satisfactory lyrical use, there are translations that do not attempt any poetic facade, such as Richard Rolle's Middle English Prose Psalter (c. 1348).
In English, the Psalms in the Book of Common Prayer come from the Coverdale Bible, not the King James Version Bible.
Early medieval vernacular translations
During the Migration Period Christianity spread to various peoples who had not been part of the old Roman Empire, and whose languages had as yet no written form, or only a very simple one, like runes. Typically the Church itself was the first to attempt to capture these languages in written form, and Bible translations are often the oldest surviving texts in these newly-written-down languages.
Meanwhile, Latin was evolving into new distinct regional forms, the early versions of the Romance languages, for which new translations eventually became necessary. However, the Vulgate remained the authoritative text, used universally in the West for scholarship and the liturgy, matching its continued use for other purposes such as religious literature and most secular books and documents.
In the early Middle Ages, anyone who could read at all could often read Latin, even in Anglo-Saxon England, where writing in the vernacular (Old English) was more common than elsewhere. A number of pre-Reformation Old English Bible translations survive, as do many instances of glosses in the vernacular, especially in the Gospels and the Psalms.For instance, see Roberts, Jane (2011). “Some Psalter Glosses in Their Immediate Context”, in Palimpsests and the Literary Imagination of Medieval England, eds. , Raeleen Chai-Elsholz, Tatjana Silec. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 61-79, which looks at three Anglo-Saxon glossed psalters and how layers of gloss and text, language and layout, speak to the meditative reader, or Marsden, Richard (2011), "The Bible in English in the Middle Ages", in The Practice of the Bible in the Middle Ages: Production, Reception and Performance in Western Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), pp. 272-295. Over time, biblical translations and adaptations were produced both within and outside the church, some as personal copies for religious or lay nobility, others for liturgical or pedagogical purposes.Lampe (1975)
One early vernacular translation in mainland Europe belonged to Peter Waldo, founder of the Waldensian Movement, who translated the New Testament and a few Old Testament books into Franco-Provençal, his native language
Oral and extemporised translation The history of oral and extemporized translations or paraphrases of scripture readings at Mass has not been well studied, though they may have been the most common vernacular Gospel translations encountered by the laity throughout the Middle Ages.
In the early Middle Ages, as the Romance languages progressively diverged from Latin, lectors would read the Latin using the conventions of the local dialect. The acts of Saint Gall contain a reference to the use of a vernacular interpreter in Mass as early as the 7th century, and the 813 Council of Tours acknowledged the need for translation and encouraged such.Gustave Masson (1866), pp. 81-83.
In the late Middle Ages, the prône portion of Pre-Tridentine Latin Mass would include such translations by the priest as needed during the vernacular homily. It was the common practiceSee, for example, the Middle English Old Kentish Sermons (c. 12th century) in that at the beginning of the vernacular homily (sermon), the Gospel reading and perhaps the Epistle reading would be rendered loosely in the vernacular by the priest.
In a pinch, this translation could be used as the sermon itself: inability or slackness to preach in the vernacular was repeatedly regarded as a failure of a priest's or bishop's duty, but must have happened over the centuries: John Purvey quoted Robert Grosseteste:
Factors promoting and inhibiting vernacular translations