Preliminary Data and Macro-level

The 1570s edition o f the Latin Evangelium, like the English translation, had N iclaes’ reworked Cologne version of the work as its source and is, therefore, nowadays generally referred to as a revised edition. Copies of this Latin translation have so far only resurfaced in England. The two surviving copies are published, like the original, in a small octavo format and consist of 87 folios. As in the case of the English version, they use a black-letter typeface. The Cambridge copy of the

Evangelium (shelf mark: LE.20.153) is a complete book on its own, while the copy held in Christ Church (shelf mark: Allestree R .6.11.(2)) is bound together with other Latin translations o f N iclaes’ works^^^.

The actual presentation and appearance o f the two surviving copies are identical. Like the English version, the title page does not provide the reader with much information on the work as a whole. The translator is not mentioned, neither is the printer nor the date o f imprinting^^^. The title page opens with the title of the work, a straight translation from the Low German original:

Evangelium seu Laetum Nuncium Regni, a Sacro Spiritu Charitatis lesu Christ praedicatum, atque ad omnes Populorum Nationes, Veritatem in lesu Christo amantes, missum.

I w ill discuss these other Latin translations further on in this chapter.

Although printed during the w orking o f the C ologn e printing o ffic e in the 1570s, w e have no idea o f when exactly the work rolled o f the presses.

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Then follows a clear statement that the text is a revised edition, again translating from the source text:

Per HN in Lucem editum, denuoque ab eo recognitum, ac dilucidius explicatum.

The last phrase of the Latin title refers to the text as a translation. A brief statement, very similar to the one on the title page of the English translation, has been added: ‘ex Germanico translatum ’. As in the case of the English Evangelium, this is the only clear reference to the fact that the reader is presented with a translated text. Under the title, the typical circular medallion, which we also find in the original and English editions, is reproduced, followed by Latin translations of the three Biblical quotations from the original. The title page is followed by an exact translation of the preface found in the source text. As in the English version, there are no meta-texts from the hand of the translator. The visual presentation of the Latin preface and the beginning o f the actual text itself leave no doubt that this work was also published in the same printing office as the original and English version. The floral woodcuts on top of the preface and above the text itself show striking similarities.

The whole make-up of the Latin Evangelium follows closely the Low German source text; no alterations to the macro-level divisions of the original can be noted. As with the rather sober nature of the original and English copies, the Latin features no woodcuts or engravings in the text. A running title also features at the top of every page^^"^. Attention to important passages and sentences in the Latin

Evangelium, as in the case of the other versions of the text,'^drawn by the placement of small pointing hands in the margin, at precisely the same positions as in the original. The same system of referring to Biblical passages which we find in both the Low German and English versions is used in the Latin translation. However, unlike Vittels who merely copied the original’s marginal glosses, those found in the Latin version do not entirely correspond to the source text. The glosses, whose main function lies in supporting N iclaes’ theology with the teachings from the Scriptures

and which I have discussed at length in Chapter III, are all present in the translation. The different references relate to that aspect of the Low German original we have not looked at in detail before, but which I will discuss here, i.e. the glosses that point to similarities between the language of the Bible and the Evangelium. It needs to be said that these are substantially less numerous than those which support N iclaes’ teachings; approximately one reference on every two or three folios. Their study has, nevertheless, led to the discovery o f interesting new aspects of both the source text and the Latin translation.

The glosses beside the first sentence of the Latin and original Evangelium

exemplify very well their use in the rest of the text. There is only one reference Niclaes adds to point out the similarity of language in the first sentence, and it is added to ‘van-nyes tho telen’ (sig. A3r) which verb is used specifically in John 3:5 of Luther’s Low German translation of the Bible. As for his borrowings of the Bible quotations, it is again Luther’s text that Niclaes uses here^^^. In the Latin rendition, we do not find this gloss to John 3:5 but two other references (sig. A3r), which do not appear in the source text and relate to the language of the translation: the two expressions ‘Sancto Spirito unctus’ (Eph 4: 4) and ‘Christo Cohaeres’ (Rom 8: 17), employed in the Latin Evangelium, are used exactly in the Latin Vulgate^^^. This aspect of the Evangelium 's marginal glosses seems to relate the texts’ use o f words or combinations of words to the Luther Bible for the Low German original and to the Vulgate for the Latin translation. The glosses that point out the language similarity between the source text and Luther’s Low German Bible are mostly omitted in the translation, while the translator creates his own references for the

I have looked at the different B iblical texts w hich I have em p loyed in the d iscussion on w hich version o f the Scriptures N icla es used for the phrasing o f his B iblical quotations, to identify the

E van geliu m ’s g lo sses that point to this lexical sim ilarity. Indeed, it w as in Luther’s L ow German version o f the B ib le that I found the sam e w ording as in N ic la e s ’ original, even though, o f course, many o f the w ords appear also - som etim es sligh tly adapted, som etim es identical - in the D utch translation o f Luther’s text. S om e o f the other exam ples are: ‘van gantzer H erten’ (sig. B lr ; Jer 29:13), ‘L esten D a g h ’ (sig. B lr ; A cts 2: 17), ‘D odt des C rutzes’ (sig. G lr; John 19:31), ‘mit G erechticheit gerichtet’ (sig. G3r; Ps 96:13 and 98:9).

Other exam ples: ‘in T estim on iu m ’ (sig. A6r; John 15:26), ‘Indices sunt’ (sig. B lv ; M ic 3:9), ‘Christi V estig ia ’ (sig. B3r; IPet 2:21 has ‘v estigia eius [i.e. Christ]), ‘Inim icitias’ (sig. B 3v; Eph 2:14), ‘Pater multarum G entium ’ (sig. B7v; R om 4 :17), ‘ante F aciem D o m in i’ (sig. D 3v; M ai 3:1), ‘qui est R ex ludaeorum ’ (sig. E4r; Matt 27:11).

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target language. It is interesting that the Latin Evangelium has a greater num ber of such references than the original; this might suggest that the text is strongly dependent for its word use on the Vulgate.

On the whole, the findings of this macro-level comparison suggest the Latin

Evangelium to be a close rendition of the source text. However, more so than for the English text, it seems that we should expect this translation to be especially adapted to the linguistic context of the target language, as the modifications to the source text’s marginal glosses indicate.