Study of the Wycliffite Bible (WB) still works with a simple dichotomy between two versions: these were distinguished in the eighteenth century, their sequence being established by the monumental 1850 edition of the entire text in two forms by Josiah Forshall and Frederic Madden (FM), which has not yet been superseded. The differences between the two are, we are told, between a preliminary, very literal rendering of the Vulgate (Earlier/Early Version, here EV) – Latin ‘Englished’, only intelligible with the Vulgate alongside it – and a complete revision (Later/Late Version, here LV) that produced a free-standing, idiomatic rendering. Anyone who works with the texts can readily identify each of these: a few characteristic constructions and idioms suffice to make the designation of Earlier as against Later a simple choice on which one is very unlikely to be faulted. But with around 250 copies of WB, in whole or in part, are there no other forms, blends, confusions, or muddles? My paper is an investigation of a single manuscript which, I suggest, makes the usual choice a matter of doubt.

Before coming to the manuscript which is the particular focus here, Oxford, New College MS 67, some general points need to be made. The importance of revision to the development of a completed English text was already introduced by the writer of the so-called General Prologue (GP), a work which will be crucial to the discussion later in this paper. The authority claimed by the writer of this poorly preserved document would be hard to challenge, not least since it in general anticipates a modern reading of the manuscripts. One striking feature of the whole translational project that has excited surprisingly little comment is the consistency with which the overwhelming majority of manuscripts persist with either EV or LV throughout their content, rather than mixing the two from book to book (or concocting other, more complicated blends). It is worth briefly considering this point and its implications. The first observation is the easily divisible nature of the Bible's structure.

The years between the early fourteenth and the mid sixteenth century are of considerable interest in the history of the prelate. In some respects, this era might be regarded as a golden age of prelacy, culminating in the appearance of great ecclesiastical dignitaries across much of Europe, such as Wolsey, d'Amboise, Cisneros, Lang and Jagiellon. In terms of their political weight, their grandeur and their wide-ranging cultural patronage, these early sixteenth-century ‘cardinal-ministers’ arguably represented a high point in prelatical influence. Nor should they be regarded as wholly distinct from their clerical contemporaries: recent studies of Renaissance cardinals and the early Tudor episcopate indicate that the next rank of senior churchmen were no less concerned to express the importance and dignity of their office. However, the period c. 1300–c. 1560 also witnessed a developing critique of prelacy – not unconnected with these eye-catching assertions of ecclesiastical status and power – with complaints about senior members of the Church hierarchy a commonplace in the literature and preaching of the day. To these criticisms were added attacks on the very concept of the prelate, which was rejected as unscriptural by John Wyclif and his followers: a critique which would be taken up enthusiastically by sixteenth-century reformers in England and Europe.

Lollard opinion on ‘prelates’ was overwhelmingly governed by one fact: the term prelatus and its related noun prelatio are not to be found in the Vulgate text of the Bible. Terms that can be found in that text, and whose meaning might be thought close to those, are episcopus and episcopatum. Whatever the obscurity in detail of Wyclif's own conception of the ideals for which the Church in this world should aim, and from which the contemporary Church had so largely fallen away, it is clear that the basis of his conception and that of his followers was the model of the early Church set out in the gospels and the epistles. It is worth pausing on this linguistic point at the start of this discussion. The etymology of prelatus is transparent and unequivocal: it is the past participle of classical Latin praeferre, itself meaning simply ‘to bring forward’ in both material and abstract senses; the past participle as a noun can be traced from a date well before Wyclif in the sense of someone who has been advanced.

This volume has grown out of a conference on ‘The Prelate in Late Medieval and Reformation England’, held at the University of Liverpool in September 2011. All the papers delivered at that conference are published below, apart from those given by Natalia Nowakowska and Brigitte Resl. The volume also includes a chapter by Cédric Michon, offered subsequent to the Liverpool conference. I would like to thank the contributors to both the conference and to the volume, all of whom have been stimulating and good-humoured collaborators throughout this project.

I would also like to acknowledge gratefully the work and expert guidance of all those at Boydell & Brewer and York Medieval Press who have been involved with this volume and especially Caroline Palmer, Rohais Haughton and Professor Peter Biller. The Liverpool conference was funded partly by a British Academy Research Development Award, and partly by financial contributions from the department of History of the University of Liverpool and the Liverpool Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, without all of whose generous support the event could not have taken place. This publication has also been made possible by a grant from the Scouloudi Foundation in association with the Institute of Historical Research, acknowledged here with gratitude.