William Salesbury

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William Salesbury

William Salesbury also Salusbury (c. 1520 - c. 1584) was the leading Welsh

Welsh language

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe....
and the principal translator of the 1567 Welsh

Welsh language

New Testament

The New Testament is the name given to the second major division of the Christianity Bible, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
.

Salesbury was born in about 1520 in the parish of Llansannan

Llansannan

Llansannan is a rural village in Conwy county borough, Wales....
, Conwy

Conwy (county borough)

The county borough#Wales of Conwy is a Local government in Wales Principal areas of Wales in North Wales Wales....
. He was educated at Oxford University, where he studied the Hebrew

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic languages of the Afro-Asiatic languages. Modern Hebrew is spoken by more than seven million people in Israel and Classical Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jews communities around the world....
, Greek

Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
and Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
languages, and also became familiar with the (banned) writings of Martin Luther

Martin Luther

Martin Luther was a Germans monk, theology, university professor, priest, father of Protestantism, and Protestant Reformers whose ideas started the Protestant Reformation and changed the course of Western culture....
and William Tyndale

William Tyndale

William Tyndale was a 16th-century Protestant reformer and scholar who, influenced by the work of Desiderius Erasmus and Martin Luther, translated the Bible into the Early Modern English of his day....
as well as the technology of printing

Printing

Printing is a process for reproducing text and image, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. It is often carried out as a large-scale industrial process, and is an essential part of publishing and transaction printing....
.

In 1547, Salesbury produced an English-Welsh dictionary

Dictionary

A dictionary is a book of Alphabetical order listed words in a specific language, with definitions, etymologies, pronunciations, and other information; or a book of alphabetically listed words in one language with their equivalents in another, also known as a lexicon....
called A dictionary in Englyshe and Welshe, and in 1550 his was printed by Robert Crowley

Robert Crowley (printer)

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Encyclopedia

William Salesbury also Salusbury (c. 1520 - c. 1584) was the leading Welsh

Welsh language

Renaissance

Welsh language

New Testament

Llansannan

Llansannan is a rural village in Conwy county borough, Wales....
, Conwy

Conwy (county borough)

The county borough#Wales of Conwy is a Local government in Wales Principal areas of Wales in North Wales Wales....
. He was educated at Oxford University, where he studied the Hebrew

Hebrew language

Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
and Latin

Latin

Martin Luther

William Tyndale

Printing

Dictionary

Robert Crowley (printer)

Robert Crowley also Robertus Croleus, Roberto Croleo, Robart Crowleye, Robarte Crole, and Crule , was a Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers, poet, polemicist and Protestant clergyman who was among the Marian exiles at Frankfurt....
. A revised edition was printed "by Henry Denham

Henry Denham

Henry Denham was one of the outstanding England Printer s of the sixteenth century.He was apprenticed to Richard Tottel and took up the freedom of the Stationers' Company on August 30 1560....
for Humfrey Toy, dwellyng at the sygne of the Helmet in Paules church yarde, The. xvij. of May. 1567." Both of these books have become important sources for information about the spoken English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
of the sixteenth century.

Salesbury also published books in Welsh

Welsh language

Welsh ]], is a member of the Brythonic branch of Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, in England by some along the Welsh Marches and in the Welsh settlement in Argentina in the Chubut Valley in Argentina Patagonia....
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 married wyues at that tyme. This book, printed by Robert Crowley

Robert Crowley (printer)

Clerical marriage

Clerical marriage is the practice of allowing clergy to marriage. Clerical marriage is found in Protestantism, Judaism, Anglicanism, Independent Catholic Churches, and some sects of Buddhism....
to the Welsh and English by establishing precedent 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 imprint stating that it was "compiled" by Salesbury: The baterie of the Popes Botereulx, commonly called the high altare. A third Salesbury book with Crowley's imprint in 1551 is a translation of the epistle and gospel readings from the 1549 Book of Common Prayer

Book of Common Prayer

The Book of Common Prayer is the common title of a number of prayer books of the Church of England and used throughout the Anglican Communion. The first book, published in 1549 , in the reign of Edward VI of England, was a product of the English Reformation following the break with Roman Catholic Church....
: 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

Mary I of England

Mary I , was Queen of England and Monarchy of Ireland from 19 July 1553 until her death. The fourth crowned monarch of the Tudor dynasty, she is remembered for restoring England to Roman Catholicism after succeeding her short-lived half brother, Edward VI of England, to the English throne....
, 1553-1558, in hiding. As a consequence his writing and publishing came to a stop.

The belief of Erasmus and Luther

Martin Luther

Bible

The Bible is the central religious text of Judaism and Christianity. The exact Books of the Bible is dependent on the religious traditions of specific denominations....
should be available to all in their native language was firmly advocated by Salesbury. With the succession of Elizabeth I

Elizabeth I of England

Elizabeth I was List of English monarchs and Queen of Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the House of Tudor....
, 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

Wales

native_name = Cymru|conventional_long_name = Wales|common_name = Wales|image_flag = Flag of Wales 2.svg|national_motto = ...
and Hereford

Hereford

Hereford is a cathedral city City status in the United Kingdom, civil parish and county town of Herefordshire, England. It lies on the River Wye, approximately east of the border with Wales, southwest of Worcester, and northwest of Gloucester....
. Quite possibly a confederate in this project, Robert Crowley, Salesbury's former printer, was at this time a Canon

Canon (priest)

A canon is a priest who is a member of certain bodies of the Christianity clergy subject to an ecclesiastical rule .Originally, a canon was a cleric living with others in a clergyhouse or, later, in one of the houses within the precinct or close of a cathedral and ordering his life according to the orders or rules of the church....
of Hereford, having been instituted to the stall or prebend of "Pratum majus" in the cathedral of Hereford c. 1560-63.

Salesbury worked with Richard Davies

Richard Davies

Richard Davies was a Welsh people bishop and scholar....
(Bishop of St. David's) and Thomas Huet

Thomas Huet

Reverend Thomas Huet was a Wales clergyman and translator of the Bible....
(Precentor

Precentor

A precentor is a person who helps facilitate worship. The details vary depending on the religion, denomination, and era in question. The Latin derivation is "praecentor", meaning "the one who sings before" ....
of St David's) to prepare a translation of the New Testament

New Testament

The New Testament is the name given to the second major division of the Christianity Bible, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
from the original Greek into Welsh. This was published on 7 October, 1567. He also translated the English

English language

Book of Common Prayer

The Book of Common Prayer is the common title of a number of prayer books of the Church of England and used throughout the Anglican Communion. The first book, published in 1549 , in the reign of Edward VI of England, was a product of the English Reformation following the break with Roman Catholic Church....
into Welsh, which was also published in 1567 as Y Llyfr Gweddi Gyffredin), both were published by Humphrey Toy

Humphrey Toy

Humphrey Toy was a British bookseller and publisher, and the son of bookseller Robert Toy. In 1567, he published the first translation of Welsh Bible from the original Greek, translated by his close friend William Salesbury....
.

William Salesbury

See also

Further reading