TREVISA, JOHN

Translator, whose writings stimulated the translation of Holy Scripture into English; d. before May 1402. He was educated at Oxford, but it is not known when he became an M.A. He was a fellow at Exeter College, Oxford, c. 1362 to 1369. In 1369 he became a fellow of Queen's College, Oxford, but he was deprived of his fellowship about 1379. An acolyte in 1370, he became subdeacon, deacon, and priest during the same year. He is known to have rented rooms in Queen's College (1382–86 and 1394–96). From c. 1387 until his death, he was vicar of Berkeley, Gloucestershire, and chaplain to Thomas, Lord Berkeley, and from c. 1389 he was also canon and prebendary of Westbury on Severn, Gloucestershire. His main writings are his English translations of ralph higden's Polychronicon, completed at Berkeley on April 18, 1387, and of bartholomaeus anglicus's De proprietatibus rerum, completed at the same place on Feb. 6, 1398. These translations are forerunners to William tyndale's English Bible. Trevisa's Dialogus inter militem et clericum throws interesting light on his outlook and ideas.

Bibliography: j. trevisa, Dialogus inter militem et clericum, ed. a. j. perry (Early English Text Society 167; 1925). r. higden, Polychronicon, tr. j. trevisa, ed. c. babington and j. r. lumby, 9 v. (London 1865–86). bartholomaeus anglicus, De proprietatibus rerum, tr. j. trevisa (Westminster, Eng. 1495). c. l. kingsford, The Dictionary of National Biography from the Earliest Times to 1900, 63 v. (London 1885–1900) 19:1139–40. m. deanesly, The Lollard Bible and Other Medieval Biblical Versions (Cambridge, Eng. 1920). a. b. emden, A Biographical Register of the Scholars of the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500, 3 v. (Oxford 1957–59) 3:1903–04.

[r. weiss]