Merten de Keyser (born Martin Lempereur; died 1536) was a 16th-century French printer and publisher, working mainly in Antwerp. He printed the first complete French and the first complete English Bible translations of several works by English Protestant authors.
Not much is known about his life. He married Françoise La Rouge, the daughter of the Paris printer Guillaume Le Rouge, whose workshop he took over on Le Rouge's death in 1517. [1] [2] When a series of condemnations of evangelical works and a ban on Bible translations were issued in Paris in 1525, he moved to Antwerp. [3]
In his Antwerp publications, he adapted his name to the language of the publication (using Martinus Caesar in the Latin volumes, Merten de Keyser in the Dutch books, and Martyne Emperowr in the English works). He died in Antwerp in 1536. After his death, his widow continued to run the workshop. [4]
De Keyser issued many works by the French humanist Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples: his French Psalter (1525), his French Old Testament (1528), his French New Testament (1529, 1531, 1532, 1535) and his complete French Bible (1530 and 1534), the first French Bible ever in print. [3] De Keyser published the second edition of Lefèvre's fivefold Psalter, the Quincuplex Psalterium , which contained the Psalms in five different Latin versions.
His Dutch publications included New Testaments (e.g. Dat nieuwe testament ons Heeren Jesu Christi met alder neersticheyt oversien, ende verduytst in 1525), Psalters, partial biblical translations and other religious works. His printer's device is included in the second complete Dutch Bible, published by his colleague Willem Vorsterman in 1528 in Antwerp, hinting at some co-operation between the two printers working in the same street. [5]
Merten de Keyser was active in the English market, too. In 1528, he published William Tyndale's The obedience of a Christen man, and in 1530 Tyndale's The practyse of Prelates as well as Tyndale's translation of the Pentateuch. A year later (1531) he issued Tyndale's Exposition of the fyrste Epistle of seynt Ihon, George Joye's translation of Isaiah, and Tyndale's translation of Jonah, the latter two intended as a twin-publication. [6] Thomas Abell's Invicta Veritas, criticizing Henry VIII's divorce, also saw the light of day in the Merten de Keyser workshop in 1532. [7]
In 1533, he posthumously printed John Frith's answer to Thomas More, which Frith composed while imprisoned in the Tower of London. In 1534, De Keyser printed the second, revised edition of Tyndale's New Testament [8] as well as Joye's fresh edition of the Davids Psalter based on Zwingli's Latin Psalter, and Joye's translation of the book of Jeremiah. [9] These Old Testament translations were the first English translations of these biblical books ever in print. [10] Furthermore, according to the discovery of Guido Latré in 1997, it was also Merten de Keyser who printed the first complete English Bible, the Coverdale Bible. [11]
Among de Keyser's Latin publications, we find Robert Estienne's Latin Bible (e.g. in 1534), a scholarly revision of the Vulgate based on various ancient manuscripts. [12] De Keyser also issued reprints of Erasmus's Latin translation of the New Testament. [13]
De Keyser also published at least one book in Leuven in 1532. [14]
The Vulgate is a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible. It is largely the work of Jerome who, in 382, had been commissioned by Pope Damasus I to revise the Vetus Latina Gospels used by the Roman Church. Later, of his own initiative, Jerome extended this work of revision and translation to include most of the books of the Bible.
William Tyndale was an English Biblical scholar and linguist who became a leading figure in the Protestant Reformation in the years leading up to his execution. He is well known as a translator of much of the Bible into English, and was influenced by the works of prominent Protestant Reformers such as Martin Luther.
Myles Coverdale, first name also spelt Miles, was an English ecclesiastical reformer chiefly known as a Bible translator, preacher and, briefly, Bishop of Exeter (1551–1553). In 1535, Coverdale produced the first complete printed translation of the Bible into English. His theological development is a paradigm of the progress of the English Reformation from 1530 to 1552. By the time of his death, he had transitioned into an early Puritan, affiliated to Calvin, yet still advocating the teachings of Augustine.
Sir Jacobus van Meteren (1519–1555) was the financier and printer of early English versions of the Bible. He was involved in the printing of an edition of Tyndale's New Testament in 1535. The Coverdale Bible of 1535 may also have been his work. He may also have printed the Matthew Bible of 1537, the combined work of William Tyndale, Myles Coverdale and John Rogers. It is unknown if he was the only financier, printer or publisher of these works, or one of several.
The Bible has been translated into many languages from the biblical languages of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. As of September 2023 all of the Bible has been translated into 736 languages, the New Testament has been translated into an additional 1,658 languages, and smaller portions of the Bible have been translated into 1,264 other languages according to Wycliffe Global Alliance. Thus, at least some portions of the Bible have been translated into 3,658 languages.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1526.
Johann Cochlaeus (Cochläus) was a German humanist, music theorist, and controversialist.
Early Modern English Bible translations are those translations of the Bible which were made between about 1500 and 1800, the period of Early Modern English. This was the first major period of Bible translation into the English language including the King James Version and Douai Bibles. The Reformation and Counter-Reformation led to the need for Bibles in the vernacular with competing groups each producing their own versions.
Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples was a French theologian and a leading figure in French humanism. He was a precursor of the Protestant movement in France. The "d'Étaples" was not part of his name as such, but used to distinguish him from Jacques Lefèvre of Deventer, a less significant contemporary who was a friend and correspondent of Erasmus. Both are also sometimes called by the German version of their name, Jacob/Jakob Faber. He himself had a sometimes tense relationship with Erasmus, whose work on Biblical translation and in theology closely paralleled his own.
Christiern Pedersen was a Danish canon, humanist scholar, writer, printer and publisher.
Peter Schöffer or Petrus Schoeffer was an early German printer, who studied in Paris and worked as a manuscript copyist in 1451 before apprenticing with Johannes Gutenberg and joining Johann Fust, a goldsmith, lawyer, and money lender.
The Coverdale Bible, compiled by Myles Coverdale and published in 1535, was the first complete Modern English translation of the Bible, and the first complete printed translation into English. The later editions published in 1537 were the first complete Bibles printed in England. The 1537 folio edition carried the royal licence and was therefore the first officially approved Bible translation in English. The Psalter from the Coverdale Bible was included in the Great Bible of 1540 and the Anglican Book of Common Prayer beginning in 1662, and in all editions of the U.S. Episcopal Church Book of Common Prayer until 1979.
German language translations of the Bible have existed since the Middle Ages. The most influential is Luther's translation, which established High German as the literary language throughout Germany by the middle of the seventeenth century and which still continues to be most widely used in the German-speaking world today.
The Tyndale Bible (TYN) generally refers to the body of biblical translations by William Tyndale into Early Modern English, made c. 1522–1535. Tyndale's biblical text is credited with being the first Anglophone Biblical translation to work directly from Hebrew and Greek texts, although it relied heavily upon the Latin Vulgate and Luther's German New Testament. Furthermore, it was the first English biblical translation that was mass-produced as a result of new advances in the art of printing.
The Statenvertaling or Statenbijbel was the first translation of the Bible from the original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek languages into Dutch. It was ordered by the Synod of Dordrecht in 1618, financed by the government of the Protestant Dutch Republic and first published in 1637.
Jacobus Latomus was a Catholic Flemish theologian, a distinguished member of the Faculty of Theology at the University of Leuven. Latomus was a theological adviser to the Inquisition, and his exchange with William Tyndale is particularly noted. The general focus of his academic work centered on opposing Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation, supporting the papacy and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. Etymology: Latinized Latomus = Masson from Greek lā-tómos 'stone-cutter, quarryman', thus 'mason'.
George Joye was a 16th-century Bible translator who produced the first printed translation of several books of the Old Testament into English (1530–1534), as well as the first English Primer (1529).
A Protestant Bible is a Christian Bible whose translation or revision was produced by Protestant Christians. Typically translated into a vernacular language, such Bibles comprise 39 books of the Old Testament and 27 books of the New Testament, for a total of 66 books. Some Protestants use Bibles which also include 14 additional books in a section known as the Apocrypha bringing the total to 80 books. This is in contrast with the 73 books of the Catholic Bible, which includes seven deuterocanonical books as a part of the Old Testament. The division between protocanonical and deuterocanonical books is not accepted by all Protestants who simply view books as being canonical or not and therefore classify books found in the Deuterocanon, along with other books, as part of the Apocrypha. Sometimes the term "Protestant Bible" is simply used as a shorthand for a bible which contains only the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments.
The Sixtine Vulgate or Sistine Vulgate is the edition of the Vulgate—a 4th-century Latin translation of the Bible that was written largely by Jerome—which was published in 1590, prepared by a commission on the orders of Pope Sixtus V and edited by himself. It was the first edition of the Vulgate authorised by a pope. Its official recognition was short-lived; the edition was replaced in 1592 by the Sixto-Clementine Vulgate.
The Leuven Vulgate or Hentenian Bible was the first standardized edition of the Latin Vulgate. The Leuven Vulgate essentially served as the standard text of the Catholic Church from its publication in 1547 until the Sixtine Vulgate was published in 1590. The 1583 edition of the Leuven Vulgate is cited in the Oxford Vulgate New Testament, where it is designated by the siglumH.