Translation of the Bible

An extract from a letter from Andrew Downes, Professor of Greek at Cambridge to the Earl of Salisbury, 1608 (catalogue ref: SP 14/40 f.1r)

James ordered a new translation of the Bible during his reign. One of the translators employed to do the work, Andrew Downes, desired more payment for his efforts.

Transcript

Right Honourable

May it please you to receive a humble petition it hath pleased his Majesty to assign of late, a donative [special gift or donation] of Clxli [160 pounds] a year for the better maintenance of the Lady Margaret’s Divinity Lecture in Cambridge. I have been the King’s Professor for Greek now almost two and twenty years the fee whereof is bare xl [40] pound a year; employed beside in the Translation, and put to the greatest and hardest part of all, not yet received any consideration for it, as others have, my inferiors far in time and pains…

Note

li=pounds

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