The Vulgate. St Jerome translated the Bible into Latin between A.D. 383 and 404. He originally translated it all from Greek, but as he went on he corrected the Old Testament against the Hebrew original. (The New Testament was originally written in Greek.) Jerome's Latin version was called the Biblia vulgata, the 'Bible in the common tongue'. By rendering it into Latin he made it accessible to Western Europe. This was the Bible used throughout the Middle Ages.

The Douai-Reims translation of the Bible was produced at the end of the sixteenth century by scholars of the English College of Douai in Flanders. They were Roman Catholics who had fled from England under Elizabeth I. The college moved to Reims in 1578, and the New Testament was published there: it then migrated back to Douai, where the Old Testament was published in 1607.
This was a translation from the Vulgate, designed to provide an authoritative non-heretical Englishing for Roman Catholics. Medievalists nowadays quote from the Douai-Reims translation rather than the Authorised Version, as it is a more accurate reflection of the medieval Vulgate readings familiar to the Middle Ages.

The Authorised (King James) Version of the Bible was commissioned by King James I. It was translated by a team of scholars, who revised earlier English versions (especially that of Tyndale) against the Hebrew and Greek originals. It was published in 1611. It became the standard version used by the Anglican communion.

The Psalms are differently numbered in the Vulgate/Douai and Authorised Versions, and hence in medieval (Roman Catholic) and Anglican service books.

Up to Psalm 8 they are the same.

In the Vulgate, Psalm 9 consists of the AV's Psalms 9 and 10. The Vulgate's Psalm 10 is the AV's Psalm 11, the Vulgate's Psalm 11 is the AV's Psalm 12, and so on.

After this the versions are one out until Psalm 114. Psalms 114, 115, and 116 are differently divided in each version.

However, the versions continue to be one out until Vulgate Psalm 146, AV Psalm 147. AV Psalm 147 is divided in two in the Vulgate, where it becomes Psalms 146 and 147. The last three Psalms in both versions are in synch.

This has obvious repercussions if you are trying to check your transcriptions against the AV translation.

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© MEG TWYCROSS 1998