Scottish Text Society publications > Old series > New Testament in Scots > Volume 1, 1901

INTRODUCTION.
XVH
furnished with its prologue, Tyndale’s Testament had seen
the light, the reform had entered upon a new phase, and
the old man’s version was no longer in demand. The
Amherst MS. thus survives as a unique Biblical monu¬
ment of the Scottish Lollards.
An examination of the linguistic character and peculi¬
arities of this Scottish Testament may be more fitly
reserved for the third volume, when the whole text will
be before the reader. But something may be said here
of the general relations of Nisbet’s work to the English
Wycliffite versions which preceded it, and to the Latin
Vulgate, which lies at the basis of them all.
At the end of the fourteenth century there were two The two
current versions of the Bible which emanated from
Wycliffe or his followers. The first, which is ascribed
to Wycliffe himself, though the greater part of the Old
Testament was apparently the work of his companion,
Nicholas of Hereford, was completed in or about 1382.
It was a rough and very literal translation, closely
adhering to the construction of the Latin original,
while glosses or alternative renderings were occasionally
introduced into the text. The need of a version in
smoother and more flowing English was at once felt,
and a new version, or rather a revision of the older ver¬
sion, was undertaken by another disciple of Wycliffe,
John Purvey, whose work was executed about 1388, or
four years after Wycliffe’s death, which took place on
December 31, 1384.
There are extant numerous manuscripts of both of these
Bibles, but for a long time their relationship was not
clearly understood. An edition of the New Testament