William Salesbury
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William Salesbury also Salisbury (c. 1520 - c.1584) was the leading Welsh scholars of the Renaissance and the principal translator of the 1567 Welsh New Testament.
Salesbury was born in about 1520 in the parish of Llansannan, Conwy. He was educated at Oxford University, where he studied the Hebrew, Greek and Latin languages, and also became familiar with the (banned) writings of Martin Luther and William Tyndale as well as the technology of printing.
In 1547, he produced an English-Welsh dictionary, A dictionary in Englyshe and Welshe and in 1550 A brief an a playne introduction teaching how to pronounce the letters in the British tong (now com'enly called Welsh).... Both of these books have become important sources for information about the spoken English of the sixteenth century.
He also published Welsh books at the same time. In 1547 he published a collection of Welsh proverbs made by Gruffudd Hiraethog (d. 1564), Oll synnwyr pen Kembero ygyd.
In 1550, he published Ban wedy i dynny air yngair alla o ben gyfreith Howel da, bay ladell bren hin kymbry, ynghylch ch wechant mlynedi aeth heibia wrth yr h wn ban y gellir deall bot yr offeiriait y pryd hynny yn priodi gwragedryn dichwith aryn kyttal ac wynt in gyfreith lawn. A certaine case extracte[d] out of the auncient law of Hoel da, kyng of Wales in the yere of oure Lorde, nyne hundred and fourtene passed: whereby it maye gathered that priestes had lawfully maried wyues at that tyme. This book, printed by Robert Crowley (though perhaps in collaboration with Richard Grafton), was in Welsh and English; as the title indicates, it was an attempt to justify Protestant doctrine in favor of a clerical marriage to the Welsh and English by establishing precendent for it in the "auncient law" of a Welsh king. (It was no doubt significant that the present royal family, the Tudors, had Welsh origins.) Also in 1550, a polemical text appeared under Crowley's imprimatur stating it was "compiled" by Salesbury: The baterie of the Popes Botereulx, commonly called the high altare. A third Salesbury book with Crowley's imprimatur in 1551 is a translation of the epistle and gospel readings from the 1549 Book of Common Prayer: Kynniuer llith a ban or yscrythur lan ac a d’arlleir yr eccleis pryd commun, y sulieu a’r gwilieu trwy’r vlwyd’yn: o Cambereiciat.
As a convinced Protestant, Salesbury was obliged to spend most of the reign of Mary I, 1553-1558, in hiding. As a consequence his writing and publishing came to a stop.
The belief of Erasmus and Luther that the Bible should be available to all in their native language was firmly advocated by Salesbury. With the succession of Elizabeth I, Salesbury went to work on this project. In 1563, he helped instigate an act of parliament under which the translation of the Bible became a priority for the bishops of Wales and Hereford.
Salesbury worked with the Bishop of St. David's, Richard Davies (1501?-1581), and Thomas Huet, to prepare a translation of the New Testament from the original Greek into Welsh. This was published on 7 October, 1567. He also translated the English Book of Common Prayer into Welsh, which was also published in 1567 as Y Llyfr Gweddi Gyffredin).
See also
Sources
- 'Salesbury, William (c.1520-1584?)'. In Meic Stephens (Ed.) (1998), The new companion to the literature of Wales. Cardiff : University of Wales Press. ISBN 0708313833.
- Parry, Thomas (1955), A history of Welsh literature. Translated by H. Idris Bell. Oxford : Clarendon Press