Gloucestershire and Oxford
William Tyndale was born around 1494 in Gloucestershire, in the cloth country between the Cotswolds and the Severn. His family also went by the name Hychyns, and it was as William Hychyns that he studied at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, taking his degrees in 1512 and 1515. He was ordained a priest, and he may have gone on to Cambridge, where Erasmus had recently taught Greek. In 1516 Erasmus brought out the first published Greek New Testament.
He was a gifted linguist. A German humanist who met him in exile is reported to have said that Tyndale knew seven languages, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, English, and French, and spoke each as though it were his own. He was also known for an upright and disciplined life. John Foxe, who gathered the memories of those who knew him, portrays a man of plain habits and few wants, and reports that even the emperor's procurator-general, who prosecuted him, called him learned, pious, and good.
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