View source for John Trevisa

{{Short description|English Bible translator (1342–1402)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2018}}
{{Infobox person
|name=John Trevisa
|image=
|caption=
|birth_name=John Trevisa
|birth_date=1342
|birth_place=Trevessa, [[St Enoder|St. Enoder parish]], England
|death_date=1402
|occupation=Theologian, writer, translator, vicar and canon
|education=
|employer=[[Queen's College, Oxford]]
|parents=
|spouse=
|relatives=
}}
[[file:John Trevisa (1342-1402).png|350px|thumb|{{center|Polychronicon Ranulphi Higdin, Monachi Cestrensis, 1865}}]]
'''John Trevisa''' (or '''John of Trevisa'''; {{langx|la|Ioannes Trevisa}}; [[floruit|fl.]] 1342–1402 AD) was a Cornish writer and professional translator.

Trevisa was born at Trevessa in the parish of [[St Enoder]] in mid-Cornwall, in Britain and was a native [[Cornish language|Cornish]] speaker.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L709AAAAIAAJ&dq=John+Trevisa+ellis&pg=PA48|title=The Cornish Language and Its Literature|first=Peter Berresford|last=Ellis|date=1 January 1974|publisher=Mass.|isbn=978-0-7100-7928-2 |via=Google Books}}</ref> He was educated at [[Exeter College, Oxford]], and became Vicar of [[Berkeley, Gloucestershire]], chaplain to the [[Thomas de Berkeley, 5th Baron Berkeley|5th Lord Berkeley]], and Canon of [[Westbury on Trym]].

He translated into English for his patron the Latin ''[[Polychronicon]]'' of [[Ranulf Higden]],<ref>{{cite journal|title=''Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden, Monachi Cestrensis; together with the English translation of John Trevisa, and of an unknown Writer of the Fifteenth Century'' edited by Rev. Joseph Rawson Lumby, Vol. III|journal=The Athenaeum|date=22 July 1871|issue= 2282|pages=108–109|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=iau.31858029267923;view=1up;seq=122}}</ref> adding remarks of his own, and prefacing it with a ''[[Dialogue on Translation between a Lord and a Clerk]]''. He likewise made various other translations, including [[Bartholomaeus Anglicus]]' ''On the Properties of Things'' ''(De Proprietatibus Rerum)'', a medieval forerunner of the encyclopedia. It seems likely that he was the translator of the Bible into Cornish, a language, which until recently, was thought not to have possessed a bible translation. <ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.academia.edu/3439905 | title=The Cornish Bible of John Trevisa | work=Cornish Studies Volume 16 | last1=Grigg | first1=Erik }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal | url=https://bgro.repository.guildhe.ac.uk/id/eprint/855/1/Grigg_the%20cornish_2021.pdf | title=The Cornish Bible of John Trevisa | journal=Bible Review Journal | author=Grigg, E. }}</ref>

A fellow of [[The Queen's College, Oxford]], from 1372 to 1376 at the same time as [[John Wycliff]] and [[Nicholas of Hereford]], Trevisa may well have been one of the contributors to the Early Version of [[Wycliffe's Bible]].  The preface to the [[King James Version]] of 1611 singles him out as a translator amongst others at that time: ''"even in our [[Richard II of England|King Richard the second]]'s days, John Trevisa translated them [the Gospels] into English, and many English Bibles in written hand are yet to be seen that divers translated, as it is very probable, in that age"''.  Trevisa does not seem to have been a Wycliffite or Lollard, though he had some views in common about corruption.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Fowler |first1=David C. |title=John Trevisa and the English Bible |journal=Modern Philology |date=1960 |volume=58 |issue=2 |pages=81–98 |doi=10.1086/389366 |jstor=434631 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/434631 |issn=0026-8232|url-access=subscription }}</ref>{{rp|96}}

Subsequently, he translated a number of books of the Bible into French for Lord Berkeley, including a version of the ''[[Book of Revelation]]'', which his patron had written up onto the ceiling of the chapel at [[Berkeley Castle]].
Trevisa's reputation as a writer rests principally on his translations of encyclopaedic works from Latin into English, undertaken with the support of his patron, Thomas (IV), the fifth Baron Berkeley, as a continuous programme of enlightenment for the laity.<ref>[http://www.oxforddnb.com.ep.fjernadgang.kb.dk/view/article/27722 Oxford DNB]</ref>

John Trevisa is the 18th most frequently cited author in the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' and the third most frequently cited source for the first evidence of a word (after [[Geoffrey Chaucer]] and the ''[[Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society]]'').<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://oed.com/sources?descending=true&scope=ENTRY&sort=word&type=sources|title=Top 1000 sources in the OED}}</ref>

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

== Further reading ==
* David C. Fowler (1993) ''John Trevisa'', Ashgate {{ISBN|0-86078-370-7}}
* David C. Fowler (1995) ''The Life and Times of John Trevisa, Medieval Scholar'', Seattle: University of Washington Press {{ISBN|0-295-97427-3}}
* [[Eric Gethyn-Jones]] (1978) ''Trevisa of Berkeley, a Celtic Firebrand''. Dursley: Alan Sutton {{ISBN|0-904387-20-8}}
* Emily Steiner (2021) ''John Trevisa's Information Age: Knowledge and the Pursuit of Literature, c. 1400''. Oxford University Press.

== External links ==
{{Wikiquote}}
{{Portal|Cornwall}}
* [http://user.phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de/~holteir/companion/Navigation/Authors/Trevisa/trevisa.html John of Trevisa], ''Online Companion to Middle English Literature''
* [http://www.bartleby.com/212/0303.html John Trevisa], ''Cambridge History of English and American Literature'' (1907–21) – see also the previous and following pages. 
* [[s:Trevisa, John de (DNB00)|Trevisa, John de]], ''Dictionary of National Biography'', 1899
*Jane Beal, [https://acmrs.org/publications/catalog/john-trevisa-and-english-polychronicon John Trevisa and the English Polychronicon] (2012) – book examining Trevisa's rhetorical strategies to establish his own authority in his ''Polychronicon'', a universal history of the world, with additional consideration of his letter to Lord Berkeley, "Dialogue between a Lord and a Clerk," and interpolated notes as well as his other translations. The final chapter considers the reception of the English ''Polychronicon'' in the Renaissance.
* {{Gutenberg author | id=41355| name=John Trevisa}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=John Trevisa}}
* {{A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature}}
* [http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=harley_ms_614_fs001r Digital view of Trevisa's ''On The Properties of Things'', from the British Library]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Trevisa, John}}
[[Category:1342 births]]
[[Category:1402 deaths]]
[[Category:Medieval Cornish people]]
[[Category:Cornish-speaking people]]
[[Category:Writers from Cornwall]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Queen's College, Oxford]]
[[Category:Translators of the Bible into English]]
[[Category:Translators of the Bible into French]]
[[Category:14th-century English Roman Catholic priests]]
[[Category:People from Berkeley, Gloucestershire]]
[[Category:Place of death missing]]