1 William Popple (?-1708), for instance, versified three chapters of the Imitatio in 1693 (B.M. Add. MS. 8888), and an anonymous Catholic verse rendering remained in manuscript for many years before finally reaching print (see n. 32).

2 (a) William Atkinson, The Imytacion and Folowynge the blessed life of ... Criste: six extant editions or issues, 1503-?28, RSTC. 23954. 7-60 (copy used for this article: RSTC. 23955: B.M. shelfmark C.21. c.5).

(b) Richard Whitford, The Folowynge of Christ: ten extant full editions ?1531-85, RSTC. 23961-68.5 (copies used: ?1531 RSTC. 23963: B.M. shelfmark IX. Eng. 128(1); 1585 RSTC. 23968; B.M. shelfmark IX. Eng. 133).

(c) Edward Hake, The Imitation or Following of Christ: four extant editions 1567-?71, RSTC. 23969-71 (copy used: RSTC. 23971: B.M. shelfmark IX. Eng. 163).

(d) Thomas Rogers, The Imitation of Christ: seventeen extant editions 1580-1640, RSTC. 23973-86 (copy used: RSTC. 23973: B.M. shelfmark IX. Eng. 91(1)).

3 See DNB.; Venn, , Alumni Cantabrigienses, lst. part, 4 vols, 1922-27Google Scholar; le Neve, J., Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, edit. by Hardy, T.D., 3 vols, 1854, vol. 3, p. 391 Google Scholar.

4 J. E. G. Montmorency, Thomas à Kempis, his Age and Book (1906), p. 137, suggests that, since Atkinson only translated three books, he used a Latin MS. of the type which entitles the Imitatio ‘Musica Ecclesiastica’. The English group of manuscripts of the Latin text, probably of Carthusian origin, which bear this name, omits the fourth book of the treatise. See Puyol, P.E., Descriptions Bibliographiques des Manuscrits et des Principales Editions du livre De Imitatione Christi (Paris, 1898), p. 120 Google Scholar; Le Manuscrit Autographe de Thomas á Kempis et ‘Limitation de Jésus-Christ’ ed. by Delaissé, L.M.J. (Brussels, 1956), p. 90 Google Scholar; Lovatt, R., ‘The Imitation of Christ in Late Medieval England’, Trans. of the Royal Hist. Soc., 5th ser., vol. 18 (1968)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 J. K. Ingram, in his edition of Atkinson, The Earliest English Translation . . . of the ‘De Imitatione Christi’ . . . also the earliest Printed Translation, EETS Extra Ser. no. 63 (1893), p. xxvii, affirms that Princess Margaret’s version of the fourth book was ‘doubtless from the first French translation, which was published at Toulouse in 1488’. This 1488 version is cited by de Backer, A., Essai Bibliographique sur le livre De Imitatione Christi (Liège, 1864), as no. 546 Google Scholar, and he quotes the beginning of the fourth book. It is clear that the English is not a translation of this French text, but is far closer to the wording of the opening of the fourth book of an anonymous translation of 1493, published in Paris, cited by de Backer as no. 547. A rapid survey of the fifteenth-century French versions of the Imitatio suggests that this translation of the fourth book is the only possible candidate as a source for the English version. It seems probable that Princess Margaret used the French translation of Book IV as it appeared in the version of the Imitatio published in Rouen in 1498 (de Backer, no. 1437), since this version would have been most accessible, as the most recent. The Rouen version was made up of three books translated in 1447 ‘a la requeste et pour l’amour de tres excellent et devot prince monseigneur Bernard d’Arminac’, and the fourth supplied from the translation of 1493. We may speculate that it was the request of Bernard d’Armagnac which suggested to Princess Margaret the idea of asking for an English translation to be made.

6 A paragraph at the end of Whitford’s translation of the Golden Epistle, first printed together with his version of the Imitatio in 1556, asks the reader to ‘praye for the olde wretched brother of Sion Richard Whitforde’.

7 See DNB.: Venn; Gillow, Bibl Dict.: G. J. Aungier, The History and Antiquities of Syon Monastery (1840), pp. 87, 90, 436-7, 535; M. Bateson, Catalogue of the Library of Syon Monastery, Isleworth (1898), pp. xii, xvi-xvii; A. O. Evans, Thomas a Kempis and Wales’, Journal of the Welsh Bibl. Soc., 4 (1932-36); F. G Francis, Three Unrecorded English Books of the Sixteenth Century’, The Library, 4th Ser., vol. 17 (1936-37); The Imitation of Christ ...by Richard Whitford, ed. by E. J. Klein (1941), pp. xiv-xv; P. G. Caraman, S.J., ‘An English Monastic Reformer of the Sixteenth Century’, The Clergy Review, N.S. 28 (1947-48). Some doubt has recently been cast on Whitford’s authorship of the version of the Imitatio usually attributed to him (see G. Williams, Two Neglected London-Welsh Clerics: Richard Whitford and Richard Gwent’, Trans. of the Hon. Soc. of Cymmrodorion, part 1 for 1961), although the case for the attribution can still be strongly argued, as I hope to demonstrate later. I shall assume for the purposes of this article that Whitford was indeed the author of the version attributed to him. Even if there is uncertainty about this, what is clear is that the version is the product of the kind of background which Whitford’s life and opinions represent (see also n. 11).

8 The copy belongs to Dr A. I. Doyle, University Library, Durham. The surviving catalogue of the men’s library at Syon records four MSS of the Imitatio, but all called Musica Ecclesiastica and all therefore of the first three books only; see Bateson, Catalogue, M26, M86, M112, N37.

9 She did not go with the nuns into exile again, but died later at her family home at Rushton in Northamptonshire; see Aungier, History, pp. 89, 97, 100.

10 An unsupported manuscript note in the British Museum catalogue attributes the new preface to William Peto, later chosen, though not appointed, Papal Legate in England. See also RSTC. 23966-68; I am indebted to Dr Rogers of the Bodleian Library for clearing up the bibliographical puzzles concerning the 1566 and c. 1575 editions.

11 See The Bridgettine Nuns of Syon, A Royal Foundation, Syon Abbey, Past and Present (1946), p. 15. L’Oyselet, the printer of this 1585 edition of Whitford, was ‘by far the most important printer of Recusant works on the Continent during the decade, 1580-90’ (A. C. Southern, Elizabethan Recusant Prose, 1559-82 (1950), p. 360). There is evidence that the Syon nuns had dealings with printers at this time, as the following narrative makes clear:

There seems little doubt that the nuns would have been interested in the reprinting of Whitford’s version of the Imitatio together with his version of the Golden Epistle of St Bernard, which accompanies it in the volume. Indeed, one part of the argument for the attribution to Whitford of this version of the Imitatio is its appearance here with a translation undeniably Whitford’s, in such a way as to suggest that the whole volume was his work, and in a place where there were many people who would know the truth of the matter.

12 See RSTC. 23968 and Allison and Rogers 814.

13 Willard, O.M., in ‘The Survival of English Books printed before 1640: a theory and some illustrations’, The Library, 4th. Ser., vol. 23 (1942-43)Google Scholar suggests that the chance of copies surviving of an early printed book is in inverse proportion to its popularity and use; that ‘books were destroyed primarily by the diligence of their original readers’ (p. 173). The theory must be treated with caution, but there is clearly something to be said for it (cf. the Bridgettine Office, n. 11).

14 See DNB.; Hake, E., Newes out of Powles Churchyarde, ed. Edmonds, C., The Isham Reprints, no. 2 (1872), pp. vii–xiv Google Scholar.

15 The title page of the first edition of Hake describes the work as ‘At the first written by Thomas Kempise a Dutchman. Amended and Polished by Sebastian Castalio an Italian, and Englished by E. H.’ (W. A. Copinger, On the English Translations of the ‘Imitatio Christi (1900), p. 13). Puyol suggests that ‘pour comprendre l’entreprise de Castalio, ou plutôt de Sébastien Chateillon, nom véritable de notre auteur, il faut se reporter par la pensée aux délicatesses linguistiques des humanistes du XVIe siècle’ (Descriptions Bibliographiques, pp. 472-3). Castellio remarks in his preface that he had translated de agrestiore sermone in paulo mundaniorem (sig. A2^v) in order to attract those readers to whom Kempis’ rustic Latinity was distasteful, and that he had cleared the work of the doctrinal errors of an earlier time, since Christi lux nostro secuto sic affulsit, vt multos errores & superstitiones detexerit (sig. A3^v). The Latin texts used for the purposes of this article are, of Kempis:

16 See DNB., under Thomas Rogers and Richard Bancroft; J. Foster, Alumni Oxonienses, Early Ser., 4 vols, 1891-92; and the end of the dedication to Bancroft of Rogers’ The Faith, Doctrine, and Religion professed, & protected in the Realme of England, 1607.

17 Sig. Al2. De Backer, Essai Bibliographique, cites an anonymous French version, located at the University of Louvain, without date or printer, of three books of the Imitatio (no. 563), whose preface begins : ‘Si ce Hure de l’Imitation de Christ à ces années passées apporte quelque fruict’; Rogers’ translated French preface begins: ‘IF this booke, which concerneth the following Christes example, haue heretofore yeelded some frute’; it seems clear, therefore, that de Backer no. 563 is an edition, at least, of the French translation from which Rogers took his ‘godlie Preface’. De Backer cites no. 563 as an edition of no. 562, which is an anonymous French translation published in Antwerp in 1576, but de Backer had not seen a copy of this 1576 edition, and he takes his information about it from Barbier, A.-A., Dissertation sur Soixante Traductions Françaises de l’Imitation de Jésus-Christ (Paris, 1812), p. 16 Google Scholar, who also had not seen a copy. The preface as it appears in Rogers’ version is plainly Protestant, and is signed A.G. ; this A.G. may just possibly be the A.G. who published at Antwerp in 1561 a work against the Cardinal of Lorraine called Monologue de Providence Divine ( de le Court, J.-V., Dictionnaire des Anonymes et Pseudonymes, ed. by de le Court, G., vol. 1 (Brussels, 1960), no. 803)Google Scholar. It does not seem likely that Rogers is indebted to this French translation in his version, as he does not mention it in the course of comment on previous translation of the Imitatio but without having seen the French version I cannot be certain of this.

18 Sig. A8^v.

19 Sig. H6.

20 Sig. P5^v.

21 RSTC. 23963; sig. L1.

22 RSTC. 23963; sig. K8-K8^v.

23 Sig. P4^v.

24 The version of Whitford published by Middleton in ?1545 reflects the effect of the gradual establishment of Protestantism at this time. Klein, E.J., in his edition of The Imitation of Christ. . . by Richard Whitford (1941), p. xxxix, n. 1 Google Scholar, describes some modifications made to this edition:

25 Sig. O⁴.

26 RSTC. 23968; sig. G3.

27 See n. 24; the use of the word ‘religious’ clearly offended the modifier of Middleton’s edition of Whitford.

28 Sig. B1.

29 Sig. C2-C2^v .

30 Rogers sig. F6-F6^v; Whitford, RSTC 23963, sig. G3-G3^v.

31 I give such detailed information as I can briefly in n. 31 and 32 for versions of the Imitatio falling in the Wing period, together with a selection of locations, since the Wing entry is confused. Editions of which I have not seen a copy are asterisked. I refer to the RSTC. as in n. 2

• (a)

  (a) Anthony Hoskins, The Following of Christ: nine extant editions 1613-54, RSTC. 23987-91 and

  • *

    * Rouen, 1654: not in Wing (MH). (copy used: RSTC. 23989: B.M, shelfmark C. 123. a,6).

• (b)

  (b) Miles Pinkney, The Following of Christ: two extant editions 1636-41, RSTC. 23992 and

  Paris, M. Blageart, 1641: not in Wing (O).

  (copy used: RSTC. 23992: B.M. shelfmark IX. Eng. 55).

• (c)

  (c) William Page, The Imitation of Christ: one extant edition 1639, RSTC. 23993 (copy used: B.M. shelfmark IX. Eng. 86).

• (d)

  (d) John Preston, The Christians Pattern:

  • i

    i Cambridge, R. Daniell, 1642: not in Wing (L).

    (copy used: B.M. shelfmark: IX. Eng. 41).

• (e)

  (e) John Worthington, The Christians Pattern:

  • * i

    * i London, R. Daniell f.J. Clarke, 1654: not in Wing (I know of a copy sold by Charles W. Traylen, Castle House, 49-50 Quarry Street, Guildford, Surrey, Catalogue 73 (1970), item 717A, to Dr R. C. Alston, School of English, Univ. of Leeds. See also n. 43).

  • ii

    ii London, R. Daniel f. J. Clark, 1657: not in Wing (L; LLP; in addition a copy owned by Rev. W. C Boulter in 1888, according to R. C Christie, Bibliography of the Works . . . by Dr John Worthington, Chetham Soc., N.S. 13, 1888).

  • iii

    iii London, J. Redmayne f. J. Clark, 1663: not in Wing (O).

  • iv

    iv London, J. Redmayne f, J. Clark, 1664: Wing T.940 (O).

  • v

    v London, J. Redmayne f. J. Clark [1668]: not in Wing (L; this British Museum copy is certainly the one described by R. C Christie, Bibliography, p. 13-15, it being the only copy he knew).

  • vi

    vi London, J. R[edmayne] f. J. Clark and W. Saywell, 1669: Wing T.941 (O).

  • * vii

    * vii London, J. Redmayne, 1671: Wing, Gallery, T.941 A (MH).

  • viii

    viii London, J. Redmayne, 1675: not in Wing (L).

  • * ix

    * ix London, J. Redmayne, 1676: not in Wing (MH).

  • x

    x London, J. R[edmayne] f. J. Williams, 1677: Wing T.942 (L; O; C; R. C. Christie, Bibliography, p. 16 mentions a copy or copies certainly not one of these three).

  • * xi

    * xi Edinburgh, A. Hislop, 1678 : Wing T.943 (Wing records a copy as belonging to F. S. Ferguson, London).

  • xii

    xii London, E. Redmayne, 1684: Wing T.944 (L).

  • xiii

    xiii London, [?E. Redmayne f.] R. Wellington, 1695: Wing T.955 (L).

  • xiv

    xiv London, E. Redmayne, 1699: Wing T.956 (L).

    (copy used: 1657: B.M. shelfmark IX. Eng. 141).

• (f)

  (f) Wilfrid Selby, The Imitation or Following of Christ:

  • i

    i Rouen, n.p,, 1657: not in Wing (L).

  • ii

    ii Rouen, n.p,, 1658: Wing T.957 (O; see also n.46).

    (copy used: 1657: B.M. shelfmark IX. Eng. 42).

• (g)

  (g) Anon: Version A, The Following of Christ:

  • i

    i Rouen, J. Courant, 1670: Wing T.951 (O).

  • ii

    ii Antwerp, f. T.D., 1686: Wing T.953 (L; O).

  • iii

    iii London, f. M. T[urner], 1686: not in Wing (O; it seems more probable to suggest that Matthew Turner reprinted a foreign edition than the reverse, hence his edition is placed after the Antwerp edition).

    (copy used: Wing T.953: B.M. shelfmark IX. Eng. 52).

• (h)

  (h) Anon: Version B, The Following of Christ x

  • i

    i London, n.p., 1673: Wing T.952 (L; O; Downside).

    (copy used: B.M. shelfmark IX. Eng. 124).

• (i)

  (i) Anon: Version C, The Following of Christ:

  • i

    i [Edinburgh], Holyrood House, J. Watson, 1687: Wing T.954 (L; O).

    (copy used: B.M. shelfmark IX. Eng. 53).

(Note: Wing T.948 is not a translation of the Imitatio Christi).

32

• (a)

  (a) Anon, A Paraphrase in English on the Following of Christ:

  • i

    i n.p., 1694: Wing, Gallery, T.957A (L).

    (copy used: B.M. shelfmark IX. Eng. 213).

• (b)

  (b) Luke Milbourne, The Christian Pattern Paraphrased:

  • * i

    * i f. R. Clavel, 1696: Wing, Gallery, T.944A (I know of no copy of this edition; Wing takes his information from a second-hand book dealer’s catalogue).

  • * ii

    * ii London, f. A. Roper and R. Clavel, 1697: Wing T.945 (L; O).

    (copy used: Wing T.945: B.M. shelfmark IX. Eng. 224).

• (c)

  (c) George Stanhope, The Christian’s Pattern:

  • * i

    * i London, W. Onley, 1697: not in Wing (MH).

  • ii

    ii London, W. 0[nley] f. M. Gillyflower, etc., 1698: Wing T.946 (L; O).

  • iii

    iii London, W. Onley f. M. Gillyflower, etc., 1699: not in Wing (L; O).

  • iv

    iv London, W. Onley f. M. Gillyflower, etc., 1700: Wing T. 947 (L; O).

    (copy used: Wing T.946: B. M. Shelfmark IX. Eng. 229).

The first two of these paraphrases were not very popular, but Stanhope’s was often reprinted during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The anonymous production was Catholic, and prepared, it seems, earlier in the century, since the author describes it in his preface as ‘the Product of an Imprison’d Exile when Loyalty in Cromwells days was a Crime’ (sig. A2^v). The Imitatio is here done into tolerable verse, and by Milbourne into intolerable verse. Stanhope is in inflated prose. The Latin text used by Stanhope can be identified with certainty. He says in his preface that ‘the Latin of Castellio is chiefly followed’ (sig. Al), and he must be referring to the edition of Castellio’s Latin published by the university press at Cambridge in 1685 (Wing T.949), to which was added the fourth book De Coena Domini similarly rendered, with the further addition in 1688 (Wing T.950) of a second course by Ralph Widdrington (‘cum Micis aliquot Epidorpidum’!). Stanhope took his M.A. at Cambridge in the year this edition of Castellio’s text first appeared, and would no doubt have known Ralph Widdrington, who was Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity in the University from 1673 to 1688.

33 The seventeeth-century translations relate to each other as follows:

34 See DNB.; Gillow, Bibl. Dict.; Foley 7, 1st part, p. 373, 2nd part, p. 1435; Southwell, N., et al., Bibliotheca Scriptoram Societatis lesu (Rome, 1675)Google Scholar, sig. Kl^v-K2:

35 See The Imitation of Christ, being the autograph manuscript of Thomas à Kempis, ed. by C. Ruelens (1879), pp. 10-11; and the Biographie Nationale de Belgique. See also Pinkney’s version (2nd. ed., 1641) sig. a7-a7^v.

36 Fourth ed.; title page and sig. Sl^v . Gee’s book went through four editions in 1624, the year of its first publication. Hoskins’ book had already been printed secretly in England at least once by 1624; and in 1623 eleven copies from the Continent were seized at Dover ( Rostenberg, L., The Minority Press and the English Crown (Nieuwkoop, 1971), p. 120)Google Scholar. In the course of the indignant defence of Kempis’ authorship of the Imitatio which replaces his Life in the second edition of Pinkney’s version, the writer makes it clear that in 1640 his own version was spread abroad in England (sig. a2^v-a3^v ).

37 See DNB., under Thomas Vaux and William Roper; G. Anstruther, Vaux of Harrowden (1953), pp. 205-32, 396,453; P. Caraman, The Flight of the Falcon: The Autobiography of John Gerard (1954), pp. 131-5.

38 Sig. A4^v.

39 See DNB., under Thomas Carre; Gillow, Bibl Dict.; F. M. Th. Cédoz, Un Couvent de Religieuses Anglaises à Paris de 1634 à 1884 (1891), esp. pp. 5-7, 18-19, 28, 104-05; Carre, Thomas, Meditations and Prayers of the Life ... of our Saviour Jesus-Christ (Paris, 1664)Google Scholar, sig. a2 (Pinkney here takes up again the defence of Kempis as author of the Imitatio Christi (see n. 36). He became a celebrated champion of Kempis, the Augustinian Canon Regular, against the Benedictine candidate for the authorship, Gersen ; see de Backer, Essai Bibliographique, nos. 3071, 3073, 3110).

40 See DNB.; Foster, Alumni Oxon.; A. Wood, Athenae Oxonienses₉ ed. Bliss, (1813-20), 3, col. 653-6; C. Coates, The History and Antiquities of Reading (1802), p. 337.

41 See DNB.; T. Fuller, The History of the Worthies of England, 1662, sig. Ooo3; T. Ball, The Life of Doctor Preston, in S. Clarke, A Generall Martyrologie, 1651, esp. sig. Pppl, Rrr2-Rrr4^v , Uuu4^v.

42 R. C. Christie, A Bibliography of the Works written and edited by Dr John Worthington, Chetham Soc., new ser., vol. 13, 1888, p. 1-2.

43 See DNB.; The Diary and Correspondence of Dr John Worthington, ed. J. Crossley and R. C. Christie, Chetham Soc, vols. 13, 36 and 114 (1847-86), esp. vol. 13, pp. 1, 37, 90,118, 202-06; vol. 114, p. 364, n. 1. It is clear from the preface to the 1657 edition of Worthington’s version (sig. ¶¶4^v) that his reworking of Preston was only partially completed for the first edition in 1654.

44 ‘Bibliographia Gregoriana’, Downside Review, 4 (1885), p. 67, referred to by Gillow, Bibi Dict.; and T. B. Snow, Obit Book of the English Benedictines, ed. H. N. Birt (1913), p. 37. Miles Pinkney (alias Thomas Carre) quotes angrily from the prefatory matter of this Rouen Benedictine version a few years later, ridiculing Selby’s citing of ‘the learned Abbot Caietane’ and ‘the R.Fa. Francis walgraue’ as champions of Gersen (Meditations, sig. a6^v ; see n. 39).

45 See Snow, Obit Book.

46 Dr Rogers of the Bodleian Library points out, for instance, that bound with the Bodleian copy of the second edition of Selby’s version (Rouen, 1658; Wing T.957) is a booklet of ‘prayers of St. Brigitte’with an Antwerp imprint, which he considers to be the work of the same press; either the ‘Rouen’ or the ‘Antwerp’ imprint in this volume must then be false, perhaps both. On the other hand, the printer’s use of ‘vv’ for ‘w’ in the first ediiton of Selby’s version (Rouen, 1657), suggests a continental press, so that the imprint is very likely genuine in this case.

47 J.O., ‘A Book printed at Holyrood House’, Notes & Queries, 2nd. Ser., 9 (January-June 1860) pp. 328-9.

48 Sig. *2v.

49 Sig. *3v.

50 Sig. *2v-*3.

51 Sig. ¶¶5.

52 Sig. †2.

53 Sig. †2^v.

54 RSTC. 23968; sig. F2.

55 Sig. F5.

56 Sig. H5^v.

57 Sig. G9^v.

58 Sig. H4^v.

59 Sig. O5^v.

60 Sig. 012^v.

61 Sig. P8.

62 Sig. A10.

63 Sig. A5^v-A6. The degree of freedom Page allows himself in the early part of his version is not matched by any other translator of the seventeenth century. Only the paraphrasers allow themselves more freedom. It is interesting to speculate that a general concern for accuracy and brevity of expression, here briefly set aside by Page, may have bred a paraphrasing reaction.

64 Holmqvist, E., On the History of the English Present Inflections, particularly -th and -s (Heidelberg, 1922), p. 188 Google Scholar; Wyld, H.C., A History of Modern Colloquial English, 3rd. ed. (1936), p. 334 Google Scholar; Jespersen, J.O.H., Growth and Structure of the English Language, 9th ed. (Leipzig, 1938), p. 190 and n. 3Google Scholar.

65 Baugh, A.C., A History of the English Language, 2nd. ed. (1959), p. 296 Google Scholar.

66 The following passage occurs in a Spectator article by Steele of 18th August, 1711:

67 It is interesting to note that in Stanhope’s prose paraphrase of the end of the century the influence of liturgical English no longer, for instance, affects verbal usage, but that the influence is still present, though not so intimately. A decline of the intimate relation between devotional and liturgical usage in Protestant English seems here to have encouraged a more obvious and self-conscious introduction of liturgical phrases into the devotional style, echoes of the Prayer Book and the Bible. There was a time earlier in the period under review, perhaps, when the devotional style mediated with some ease between the extremes of liturgical and ordinary written English, but by Stanhope’s time the distance between these extremes, the one fixed by the rhythms of the Anglican liturgy, the other still developing (for good or ill), seems to have been so great that the devotional style switches uneasily between the patterns of ordinary writing and the by now very distinctive patterns of liturgical prose. It should be noted also that the anonymous verse paraphrase composed originally before the Restoration (see n. 32), and possibly before Selby, has a verbal usage much like his, although it may of course have been modernised for publication at the end of the century. The paraphrase is a Catholic one, in any case, and another ‘modern’ rendering of the Imitatio by a Catholic hand at the mid-century would rather enforce the argument here.