. The Bible and the Anglo-Saxon people. 1 and 1500 twenty-six editions, besidesvarious portions, of the vernacular Bible were printedat Venice, and sixty-three appeared in the followingcentury. Within a decade of the fall of Mayence presseswere at work in thirty cities and towns; before thecentury closed printed books were issuing from twohundred and twenty centres in Europe.^ Thus, as though the stars themselves were leaguedin their courses against tyranny and wrong, humanevents converged for that renovation of religionwhich was to change the whole aspect of the world. the monastery of Erfurt
. The Bible and the Anglo-Saxon people. 1 and 1500 twenty-six editions, besidesvarious portions, of the vernacular Bible were printedat Venice, and sixty-three appeared in the followingcentury. Within a decade of the fall of Mayence presseswere at work in thirty cities and towns; before thecentury closed printed books were issuing from twohundred and twenty centres in Europe.^ Thus, as though the stars themselves were leaguedin their courses against tyranny and wrong, humanevents converged for that renovation of religionwhich was to change the whole aspect of the world. the monastery of Erfurt possessed a copy, and Luther may havepondered over its pages. The effect which it was supposed to havehad on the mind of the Reformer gave rise to the jingle : Si Lyra non lyrasset,Latherus non saltasseu (But for Lyras fiddle-strings,Luther had not danced his flings.) Rag-paper, an ahnost indispensable printing material, hadalready been for a considerable time in existence. The italic character we owe to the Venetian printer Aldus* 54. William Tindale. Anglo-Saxon People CHAPTER IV WILLIAM TINDALE From the monument of Tindale ^ on the breezytop of Nibley Knoll the prospect includes the placeof his birth, whether it lay in a woody nook of theCotswolds or among the meadows of the Severn. In one direction you seek for the Towers ofBerkeley, where John Trevisa ^ may perhaps havemade the English translation of the Vulgate whichCaxton says he undertook, but of which no trace hasbeen discovered. Looking in another, you think ofthe ancient church of Aust, which Wycliife servedfor some years. A few miles away, on a sunny south-western slope, stands the manor-house of LittleSodbury, in which Tindale himself was for a timetutor or chaplain in the family of Sir Thomas it was that he declared, if God but spared hislife, he would ** ere many years cause a boy thatdriveth the plough to know more of the Scriptures *than the beneficed doctors and learned prelates who • In the only
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