COVERDALE, MILES. - English religious writer, b. at Coverdale (County of York) in 1488, d. in February 1568. He was an Augustinian friar at Cambridge, where he came into contact with R. Barnes and T. Cromwell. He broke away from Catholicism, travelled extensively abroad,
and published at Zurich (1535) the first complete Bible in the English language, the second edition of which (1537) was the first to be published in England. He was bishop of Exeter from 1551 until 1553, when Queen Mary ascended the throne. The following year he obtained permission to leave England. In 1558 he was in Geneva, whence he returned to England, where he died.
C. was not a man of profound humanistic learning and, for his translations, made use of Latin and German texts; he shows, especially in the Book of Psalms, uncommon literary gifts. In 1539 he prepared a new edition known as The Great Bible, which became the customary version in English churches. The edition of 1540, preceded by a preface by Thomas Cranmer, is commonly called the Cranmer Bible.