Wycliffite Bible — Later Version

The Later Version of the Wycliffite Bible is the most widely copied medieval English Bible and a major vernacular precursor to Reformation translation. Covering the complete Bible, it was translated from Latin on the basis of the Latin Vulgate, and represents a substantial revision of the Wycliffite Early Version, which served as its predecessor and base translation. Where that earlier rendering had followed Latin word order closely, the Later Version adopts a more idiomatic philosophy, and its distinctive character lies in offering more readable English while remaining Vulgate-based. Produced in the circle of followers associated with the reformer John Wyclif, it circulated in manuscript in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries despite ecclesiastical restrictions on unauthorised English scripture. Its many surviving copies attest to sustained demand, and it stands as the principal monument of biblical translation into English before the printed versions of the sixteenth century.