A short history of translation and translators

In the Middle Ages

• 
  In the Middle Ages
  
• 
  Latin was the “lingua franca” of the western world throughout the Middle Ages. There were few translations of Latin works into vernacular languages. In the late 9th century, Alfred the Great, King of Wessex in England, was far ahead of his time in commissioning translations from Latin to English of two major works: Bede’s “Ecclesiastical History of the English People”, and Boethius’ “The Consolation of Philosophy”. These translations helped improve the underdeveloped English prose.
  
• 
  In the 12th and 13th centuries, the Toledo School of Translators became a meeting point for European scholars who travelled and settled down in Toledo, Spain, to translate major philosophical, religious, scientific and medical works from Arabic and Greek into Latin. Toledo was one of the few places in medieval Europe where a Christian could be exposed to Arabic language and culture.
  
• 
  Roger Bacon, a 13th-century English scholar, was the first to assess that a translator should have a thorough knowledge of both the source language and the target language to produce a good translation, and that he should also be well versed in the discipline of the work he was translating.
  

The first “fine” translations into English were produced by Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century. Chaucer founded an English poetic tradition based on translations or adaptations of literary works in Latin and French, two languages that were more established than English at the time. The “finest” religious translation was the “Wycliffe’s Bible” (1382-84), named after John Wycliffe, the theologian who translated the Bible from Latin to English.

• 
  The first “fine” translations into English were produced by Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century. Chaucer founded an English poetic tradition based on translations or adaptations of literary works in Latin and French, two languages that were more established than English at the time. The “finest” religious translation was the “Wycliffe’s Bible” (1382-84), named after John Wycliffe, the theologian who translated the Bible from Latin to English.