A Bible a Bit Less Protestant:

The Rheims-Douai Bible

Protestants may have fled to the continent during the reign of Mary I, but it was the Catholics who often found themselves on the outside during Elizabeth’s rule. In 1568, an Englishman named William Allen founded a college in Douai, France, that soon moved to Rheims. In Rheims, Allen sponsored a translation effort to produce an English Bible in order to help English students keep the everyday use of the English language while answering the demand for a non-Protestant translation at the same time.

This new version was not to be a revision of a previous English version, as had become standard practice among the Anglicans, but instead was to be a secondary translation of the Vulgate. Beginning in October of 1578, Gregory Martin, a teacher at the school, systematically translated two chapters a day until he completed the New Testament in 1582. The Old Testament was not published until 1610, after the college had returned to Douai, hence the name, Rheims-Douai.

Of particular note is the literal manner in which many Latin-type phrases have been rendered in English, as well as the Roman typeface used in contrast to the Gothic types of the Anglican versions.

Rheims New Testament

Printed by Daniel Veruliet in Antwerp, the Netherlands

Second Edition: 1600