Folger Shakespeare Library
CELM

William Tindale

c.1494–1536

Introduction

Only two examples of Tindale's handwriting have hitherto come to light. One is the letter written from his cell to the Prison Governor at Vilvorde, a few months before Tindale was burned at the stake (*TiW 6). The other, found among John Foxe's papers, is an early draft of a treatise advocating the translating of the Bible (*TiW 2).

Two tracts by or attributed to Tindale are found in later manuscript copies (TiW 1, TiW 4-5), and, given the importance of translation in Tindale's life, it seems appropriate to record an Italian translation of yet another of his works (TiW 3). A transcript of parts of the British Library's exemplum of Tindale's Bible (Antwerp, 1534), made by Professor J.H. Gardiner in 1905, and not here given a seprate entry, is at Harvard, MS Eng 558.

Prose

A commyssion sent to the bloudy byshop of London, and to al conuents of Frers By the high and mighty prince and king, lord Sathanas the deuill of hell

First published in John Fines, An Unnoticed Tract of the Tyndale-More dispute?, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 42 (1969), 220-30.

TiW 1

Copy; in a rounded hand, inscribed Transcribed from a copy in the hands of Mr George Ballard, Sept. 20: 1748, on sixteen duodecimo leaves, in vellum wrappers within modern half crushed morocco.

Edited from this MS in Fines.

A Compendious Olde Treatyse, shewinge, howe that we ought to haue ye scripture in Englysshe

Tindale's reworking of an old Lollard tract advocating a translation of the Bible. First published in Antwerp, 1530.

*TiW 2
Autograph

Fragment of an autograph unfinished draft, on all four sides of a pair of conjugate folio leaves, endorsed in Strype's hand.

This MS edited and discussed in W.R. Cooper, A Newly Identified Fragment in the Handwriting of William Tyndale, Reformation, 3 (1998), 323-47.

A composite folio volume of papers of John Foxe.

c.1570

Partly once owned by John Strype (1643-1737), ecclesiastical historian and biographer.

The Obedience of a Christian Man

First published in Marburg, 1528.

TiW 3

MS of a translation into Italian by Sebastiano Roccataglia of Genoa, with a dedication to Thomas Copley (1532-84), 106 quarto leaves, dated from London, 23 June 1559.

1559
The British Library: Royal MSS (Royal MS 14 A. VI)
The practise of prelates

First published [in Antwerp?, 1530].

TiW 4

A formal copy, in an accomplished secretary hand, with occasional engrossing and rubrication, on 49 folio leaves, in later calf gilt.

With a formal title-page: The practise of prelates compyled By the faythfull and godly Learnid man Wylliam Tyndall Imprinted at London by Antony Scoloker and William Seres, Dwellinge withe owt tempell Barr, in the Sauoye rentes. Ano 1548 but for as much as thes books are not now to be found, beinge as it is thought consumid and Burnid in Quen Marys Days; yet fyndinge by chaunc A. Coppie of this aforesayd booke written owt in Anno. 1565, by my brother (wm. w. withe his own hand, and pervsinge the same, fynding a Lardge Discourse of all popishe practises, then in thos dayes vsid, and now in thes dayes mutch fauorid amonge many. Have not thought it vnfitt at some Idell times as Leasur might permit me to regester the same in A Booke, to Remayne vnto posterite Herafter. And begonn in Anno. 1598. as herafter follow+; 10. Die Aprillis.

1598

Later owned by Cranmer Kendrick; by H.K. Bonney (1807); and by Archdeacon Bonney, of King's Cliffe, Northamptonshire, who on 17 October 1843 gave it to W.R. Cartwright, of Aynho, Northamptonshire.

TiW 5

Extracts, headed Tindale in his booke called the practise of prelates and beginning As the Ivy first springeth out of the earth and then a while, weepeth alonge by the grond….

A duodecimo notebook of extracts from sermons, in a non-professional small secretary hand, 8 leaves, in half-calf.

Entitled (f. 5r) Apte and fit similes taken out of learned mens sermons in Oxford 1590; begun the xxijth of Aprill. A modern owner has suggested that the compiler may have been Robert Cawdray, author of A Treasurie; or Storehouse of Similies (London, 1609).

c.1590

Book label Ex Libris J. W. M. Vyse. Purchased in 2002 from Andrew Stewart.

Bodleian Library, other MSS (MS Eng. e. 3400 f. 6r-v)

Letters

Letter(s)
*TiW 6
Autograph

Autograph letter signed (W Tindale), in Latin, to the Prison Governor at Vilvorde, the Marquis of Bergen.

Asking for warmer clothes for the winter, a lamp to relieve the tedium of dark evenings, and his Hebrew Bible, grammar and dictionary; written in Autumn 1535.

1535

Edited in J.F. Mozley, William Tyndale (London, 1937), pp. 333-5. A reduced facsimile and English translation in G.E. Duffield, The Work of William Tyndale (Appleford, Berkshire, 1964), pp. 400-1. Facsimile in IELM, I.ii, Facsimile XXXI (p. 544).

Contents