William Morgan's Welsh Bible
Bishop William Morgan publishes the first complete Bible in Welsh, giving the language a standard literary form and a place in every parish church.
- Recovery, Reorientation and Reformation: Wales c.1415–1642 — Glanmor Williams, Oxford University Press (1987)
- A History of Wales — John Davies, Penguin (2007)
- Dictionary of Welsh Biography — National Library of Wales, National Library of Wales
In 1588, the year of the Armada, William Morgan, then vicar of Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant and later a bishop, published the first complete translation of the Bible into Welsh. It followed a 1563 Act of Parliament ordering the Bible and Prayer Book to be translated into Welsh for use in churches, and built on William Salesbury’s Welsh New Testament of 1567.
- Recovery, Reorientation and Reformation: Wales c.1415–1642 — Glanmor Williams, Oxford University Press (1987)
- Dictionary of Welsh Biography — National Library of Wales, National Library of Wales
Morgan’s translation drew on the classical language of the medieval bards, creating a rich, standard Welsh that every region could understand. Revised in 1620 and printed in a cheap “little Bible” in 1630, it became the foundation of Welsh literacy. Ironically, the Tudor state that excluded Welsh from government made it the language of worship, and the Reformation reached Wales in Welsh. Historians such as Glanmor Williams argue that without it Welsh might have gone the way of Cornish, which died out as a community language in the eighteenth century.
- Recovery, Reorientation and Reformation: Wales c.1415–1642 — Glanmor Williams, Oxford University Press (1987)
- A History of Wales — John Davies, Penguin (2007)
Why it matters today
Many Welsh people credit the 1588 Bible with saving their language: it gave Welsh a dignified written standard and kept it in daily use through church, chapel and Sunday school for centuries, when other Celtic languages lost their literary traditions. A copy is still a treasured family possession in many Welsh homes.