Jacobus van Meteren

Who is Jacobus van Meteren?

Sir Jacobus van Meteren was the financier and printer of early English versions of the Bible. He was involved in the printing of an edition of Tyndale's New Testament in 1535. The Coverdale Bible of 1535 may also have been his work. He may also have printed the Matthew Bible of 1537, the combined work of William Tyndale, Myles Coverdale and John Rogers. It is unknown if he was the only financier, printer or publisher of these works, or one of several.

He was born at Breda, but there has been some debate over the details of his life, which the following quote from the entry "Bible, English" in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica illustrates:

In 1877 Henry Stevens, in his catalogue of the Caxton Exhibition, pointed out a statement by a certain Simeon Ruytinck in his life of Emanuel van Meteren, appended to the latter's Nederlandische Historic, that Jacob van Meteren, the father of Emanuel, had manifested great zeal in producing at Antwerp a translation of the Bible into English, and had employed for that purpose a certain learned scholar named Miles Conerdale.

In 1884 further evidence was adduced by W. J. C. Moens, who reprinted an affidavit signed by Emanuel van Meteren, 28 May 1609, to the effect that “he was brought to England anno 1550 . . . by his father, a furtherer of reformed religion, and he that caused the first Bible at his costes to be Englisshed by Mr Myles Coverdal in Andwarp, the w'h his father, with Mr Edward Whytchurch, printed both in Paris and London”.