Nicholas Love (?-c. 1424) was prior of the Carthusian house of Mount Grace in Yorkshire, and translated the Meditationes Vitae Christi (attributed to St. Bonaventure) into English as The Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ. Around the year 1410, he submitted his translation to Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of Canterbury, in conformity with the strictures of the Lambeth Constitutions of 1407-09, which forbade any new translations of biblical material in any form, unless that translation was submitted to the local bishop for approval. The archbishop took this action in an attempt to stop the circulation of the Wycliffite translation of the bible into English, and other heretical Wycliffite (Lollard) writings; Love's translation in fact includes a number of major additions to the original Latin text, arguing specifically against the positions of John Wycliffe and his followers on, e.g., the ecclesiastical hierarchy, almsgiving, and the sacraments of penance and the Eucharist.
References[]
- Sargent, Michael G., ed. Nicholas Love. The Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ: A Full Critical Edition, based on Cambridge University Library Additional MSS 6578 and 6686, with Introduction, Notes and Glossary. Exeter, UK: University of Exeter Press, 2005. (ISBN 0 85989 740 0)
- Oguro, Shoichi, Richard Beadle and Michael G. Sargent, eds. Nicholas Love at Waseda: Proceedings of the International Conference, 20-22 July 1995. Cambridge, UK: D.S. Brewer, 1997. (ISBN 0 85991 500 X)
- Salter, Elizabeth. Nicholas Love's 'Myrrour of the Blessed Lyf of Jesu Christ'. Analecta Cartusiana 10. Salzburg, Austria, 1974.