CIPRIANO DE VALERA, SPANISH REFORMER (1532?–1602?)

Abstract

Since the extensive work of B. B. Wiffen on Spanish Reformers about a century ago, nothing of substance seems to have been published in Britain about Cipriano de Valera, who spent the greater part of his life in England. There is no evidence that he left this country more than once after taking up residence here, and that was towards the very end of his life. His name is well-known as the first reviser of the standard Protestant version of the Bible in Spanish. It will be of interest, therefore, to British Hispanists, and to others concerned with sixteenth-century religious history, to set down the main facts about his life and to list his known works, incorporating mention of some new autograph material relating to his stay in Cambridge.

BSS Subject Index:

• BIBLE/BIBLIA
• CALVINISM
• ERASMUS [DESIDERIUS] (1469?–1536)
• HERESY/HERETICS
• RELIGION — HISTORY
• TRANSLATION/TRANSLATIONS — THEORY & PRACTICE
• VALERA, CIPRIANO DE (1532?–1602)
• EXILE/EXILES [IN HISTORY, LITERATURE & CULTURE]

Notes

¹B. B. Wiffen, an English Quaker, co-operated closely with Luis de Usoz y Río, a Spanish Quaker, to produce the many volumes of Reformistas antiguos españoles in the middle years of last century, thus rescuing from obscurity many of the works of the Spanish Reformers, including all Valera's original works. Using Wiffen's papers, after his death, Eduard Boehmer produced Bibliotheca Wiffeniana, 3 vols. (London/Strasbourg 1883-1904). The papers are now preserved in Wadham College, Oxford. More recently, Paul J. Hauben, in the U.S.A., has written Three Spanish Heretics and the Reformation (Geneva 1967).

²W. McFadden, Life and Works of Antonio del Corro (unpublished Ph.D. Thesis, Queens University, Belfast, 1953), 57.

³M. Bataillon, Erasmo y España (Mexico 1950) II, 318 footnote², refers to a document entitled Memoria de los frayles hereges que se huyeron de Sevilla discovered by F. Braudel in Simancas, which gives a list of the San Isidro fugitives. The Archivo General de Simancas has no knowledge of this document. McFadden, op. cit., 54ff, examines their fate very thoroughly.

¹See e.g. Index Librorum Prohibitorum (Madrid 1667) under C, first class, p. 229. I am indebted to Professor E. M. Wilson of Cambridge for this reference, and for general criticism before publication of this article. It would be interesting to know just when this designation was first applied to Valera.

²Not least of these is M. Menéndez Pelayo, Historia de los heterodoxos españoles (Buenos Aires 1945), V. See e.g. also Enciclopedia universal ilustrada, ad loc

³ Biblia (Amsterdam 1602), Exhortacion al Christiano Lector, prelims. fol. **1r.

⁴Pablo Besson in Revista Cristiana (Madrid 1894), 41 quoted by Boehmer op. cit. III, 149.

⁵ University of Cambridge Grace Book Δ1542–1588 fol- 56b.

⁶ Acta consistorii ecclesiae Londinogallicae cum responsio Antonii Corrani (London 1571) p. A5 v & r.

⁷Boehmer, op. cit. III, 149; E. H. J. Schäfer, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Spanischen Protestantismus (Gutersloh 1902), II, 313, No. 289.

¹C. G. Bretschneider, Corpus Reformatorum (Brunswick 1877), XLIV, 278, letter 2529, Viret to Calvin, Sept. 1556.

²M. Droin, Histoire de la Réformation en Espagne (Lausanne/Paris 1880), 56; Boehmer, op. cit. 1, 66; Geneva, Registre du Conseil 54 fol 302r. This church is still standing and in use by the Old Catholics.

³Geneva City Archives, Habitation A No. 1, 263 r.

⁴Lansdowne MSS. Vol. 4 art_. 46.

⁵Baron F. de Schickler, Les Églises du Refuge en Angleterre (Paris 1892) 1, 121.

⁶Menéndez Pelayo, op. cit., V, 151 quoting a letter of Diego Pérez dated 5 Oct. 1563 from Archivo General de Simancas.

¹J. A. Pellicer y Saforcada, Ensayo de una bibliotheca de traductores españoles (Madrid 1778), 41.

²Copies of this Confession, dated 4 Jan. 1559 (O.S.) are extremely hard to find in Spanish. Hauben traced a copy of a 1601 edition of it in Halle. Hauben, op. cit., 86f & 1o1f. Quite by chance I found a German translation of it in the British Museum, Christlich und in Gottes Wort wohlgegründtes Glaubensbekäntnuss Der verfolgten Evangelischen Kirchen in und ausser Hispanien, etc. (Amberg 1611).

³Magdalene College Archives, Royal Mandates for the Election of Fellows 1567 (sic)-1667. Hidden in the middle of this volume is Valera's mandate, sadly out of order, and not even in place in a volume with this title at all.

¹Hauben, op. cit., 109. Public Record Office S.P. 46/24 fol. 236.

²E. K. Purnell, University of Cambridge College Histories—Magdalene College (London 1904), 41.

³The author is Revd N. V. Fenn (Upper Norwood 1900). The book tells practically nothing about Valera himself.

⁴E. Leigh, A Treatise on Religion and Learning (London 1656), 348.

⁵Sir J. Ware, De Scriptoribus Hiberniae (Dublin 1639), ad. loc.

¹Purnell, op. cit., 41. I have not managed to have sight of this document.

²Oxford University, Regislrum KK9 (1564–1582) fol. 20 r.

³Kirk & Kirk, Returns of Aliens dwelling in the City of London (Aberdeen 1908), 1, 394.

¹Lansdowne MSS. Vol. 60 art. 66.

²Boehmer, op. cit., III, 151.

³Lansdowne MSS. Vol. 21. art. 46.

⁴A. B. Grosart (ed.), The Townley Hall MSS: The Spending of the Money of Robert Nowell of Reade Hall, Lancs. (Blackburn/Manchester 1877), 100.

¹ Actes du consistoire de l’Eglise de Threadneedle Street 1578–1588 fol. 16 ff. Valera's name also figures in the Verbali della Chiesa Italiana di Londra 1570–1590 MS. Yelverton 105, B.M. Add. 48,096 (739c) fol. 22V–25V, 29V, 32V, 65V.

²It has been pointed out that one of the unexpected results of the failure of the invasion was the sudden increase in the production of Spanish books and pamphlets in England, which the government needed to counter Spanish power. G. Ungerer, ‘The Printing of Spanish Books in Elizabethan England’, The Library 5th Ser., XX (1965), 180.

³Where appropriate, numbers are given of the entries in: Pollard & Redgrave, A Short-title Catalogue of Books Printed in England, Scotland & Ireland and of English Books Printed Abroad 1475–1640 (London 1926) = S.T.C.

⁴J. G. Underhill, Spanish Literature in the England of the Tudors (New York 1899), 190, 220. The copies of this first edition in the British Museum, Cambridge University Library, and two copies in the Bodleian do not carry any such dedication. In any case, Valera in Un enxambre says it was printed at the expense of two Flemish merchants.

¹ Praestantium ac Eruditorum Virorum Epistolae (Amsterdam 1660), 134.

¹Wiffen's papers stored in Wadham College further add: ‘The book containing this inscription was preserved in the Saville Library until 1861, when the book was bought from it for 16/-’ in Wiffen's hand.

²Alejandro Ramírez, ‘Un testimonio inédito de Cipriano de Valera’, Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance, XXX (1968), 145–46; Leyden University Library, Bib. Pub. Lat. Codex Misc. 2185.

³Cooper & Cooper, Athenae Cantabrigenses (Cambridge 1913), III, 120. L. Linnhoff, Spanische Protestanten und England (Emsdetten 1934), 42, etc.

⁴This is meant simply as a short first statement of a proposed extended study of the lives and works of Valera and other Spanish Reformers which I am at present carrying out under the guidance of Professor F. W. Pierce of Sheffield University.