The Great Bible was prepared by Myles Coverdale, working under commission of Thomas Cromwell, Secretary to Henry VIII and Vicar General.
In 1538, Cromwell directed the clergy to provide "one book of the Bible of the largest volume in English, and the same set up in some convenient place within the said church that ye have care of, whereas your parishioners may most commodiously resort to the same and read it."
Tyndale's books were banned by royal proclamation in 1530, and Henry then held out the promise of an officially authorised English Bible being prepared by learned and catholic scholars.
In 1534, Thomas Cranmer sought to advance the King's project by press-ganging ten diocesan bishops to collaborate on an English New Testament, but most delivered their draft portions late, inadequately, or not at all.
The King was becoming impatient with the slow progress, especially in view of his conviction that the Pilgrimage of Grace had been substantially exacerbated due to the rebels' exploitation of popular religious ignorance.
[7] Coverdale's failure to translate from the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts gave impetus to the Bishops' Bible.
The Great Bible's New Testament revision is chiefly distinguished from Tyndale's source version by the interpolation of numerous phrases and sentences found only in the Vulgate.
A large quantity of the printed sheets were sold as waste paper to a haberdasher, who resold them to Cromwell's agents, and they were, in due course, sent over to London.
1540, July – Printed in London by Richard Grafton and Edward Whitchurch, includes Archbishop Cranmer's preface with Cromwell's shield defaced on the title page 4.
1540, November — Printed in London by Richard Grafton and Edward Whitchurch, with the title page of 1541, and includes Archbishop Cranmer's preface.. 5.
"[14] A version of Cranmer's Great Bible can be found included in the English Hexapla, produced by Samuel Baxter and Sons in 1841.
"[16] The woodcut illustrations in the earlier editions of the Great Bible evidence a lack of projective geometry in their designs.
Though this Bible falls into the Renaissance period of Bible production in the early years of the Protestant Reformation of church theology and religious practice, the artwork used in the Great Byble more closely resembles the woodcut illustrations found in a typical Biblia pauperum from the medieval period.
The woodcut designs appear in the 1545 edition of Le Premier [-second] volume de la Bible en francoiz nouvellement hystoriee, reveue & corrigee oultre les precedentes impressions published in Paris by Guillaume Le Bret, and now held by the Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Réserve des livres rares, A-282.
"[17] The style employed by the French woodcutter appears to have been influenced by the Venetian engraver Giovanni Andrea Valvassori, who in 1511 produced the block print picture bible Opera nova contemplativa.
In the following year Parliament (which then practically meant the King and two or three members of the Privy Council) restricted the use of the English Bible to certain social classes – excluding nine tenths of the population.