1529. There can be no doubt that Joye completed his work some years before it was published. On Advent Sunday, 1531, Stokesley, bishop of London, included ‘the psalter in English by Joye’ among the books meriting ecclesiastical censure, and in 1532 More, in his ‘Confutation of Tyndale's Answer,’ credited Joye with having translated the Psalms into English. Francis Foxe, a printer, had on 16 Jan. 1530–1 issued at Strasburg ‘The Psalter of David in English,’ from the Latin of Bucer or Felinus, without giving the name of editor or translator (Brit. Mus.). This volume has often been regarded as the first edition of Joye's Antwerp psalter, but the verbal differences are too thorough to render this theory probable.
At Antwerp Joye made the acquaintance of Tindale and of John Frith [q. v.] Strype's statement that Joye aided Tindale in the translation of the New Testament, of which the first edition was probably printed by Peter Schoeffer at Worms in 1525, seems to be due to a confusion of Joye with William Roy [q. v.], but Joye undoubtedly aided Tindale in 1532 in the latter's embittered controversy with Sir Thomas More. On 5 April 1533 there was published anonymously at ‘Nornburg,’ from the press of Niclas Twonson, ‘The Souper of the Lorde … wheryn incidently M. More's letter against Johan Frythe is confuted.’ More, in a printed reply, confessed his doubts whether to identify ‘the nameless heretic’ who penned it with Joye or Tindale, but quoted a well-known intercepted letter from Tindale to Frith, in which Joye was said to have recently had in manuscript a book on the same subject (cf. Tindale, Works, Parker Soc., i. p. liv). When ‘The Souper’ was prohibited in England in 1542, it was described in the proclamation as ‘of George Joye's doing’ (Burnet, Reformation, Oxf. edit., iv. 518). Nevertheless it was printed among Tindale's works by the Parker Society in 1850. Joye certainly answered More's criticism of it in ‘The Subuersion of Moris False Foundacion: whereupon he sweteth to set faste and shoue under his shameles shoris to underproppe the popis chirche. Made by George Joye, 1534’ (Brit. Mus.). This work was printed at Embden by Jacob Aurik.
Meanwhile Joye and Tindale had quarrelled. In the summer of 1534 Joye surreptitiously saw through the press belonging to Christopher Endhoven's widow at Antwerp, a new edition of Tindale's New Testament, which he described as ‘diligently overseen and corrected,’ although no editor's name was given. A unique copy (in 12mo) is in the Grenville Library of the British Museum. Joye introduced several alterations drawn from the Vulgate. Tindale was irritated by Joye's presumption, and in his own new edition of his New Testament, which appeared in November of the same year, he taunted Joye with the anonymity of his effort, and with his ignorance of Greek and Hebrew (cf. F. Fry, New Testament, Tyndale's version, 1878, pp. 38–43). A few weeks later Joye replied to what he called Tyndale's ‘uncharitable and unsober pystle’ in a spirited ‘Apologie made by George Joye to satisfye, if it may be, W. Tindale’ (Antwerp, November 1534). The only copy known is in the Cambridge University Library, and it has been reprinted by Professor Arber in his ‘English Scholars' Library’ (1883). Joye attempts to prove by examples the obscurity of Tindale's style, and complains of Tindale's long delay in correcting the errors of his first edition, but he fails to acquit himself of Tindale's charges of unfriendly conduct, and his mode of defence rendered reconciliation impossible.
On 4 June 1535 Edward Foxe wrote to Cromwell that Joye was lodging with him at Calais, that he would not hereafter attack ‘the present belief concerning the sacrament, that he was conformable on all points as a Christian man should be,’ and that, therefore, Cromwell might reasonably permit his return to England (Letters, &c., Henry VIII, 1535, No. 823). Phillipes, the agent of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had contrived Tindale's arrest in the Low Countries in the same year (1535), reported a few weeks later that Joye was falsely credited with aiding in Tindale's capture, and was consequently ‘greatly abused’ (ib. No. 1151). Joye seems to have settled in England soon afterwards. More had mentioned a rumour in his ‘Confutation’ of 1532 that Joye had translated the primer ‘wherein the seven psalmes be sette in without the Letanye … and the Dirige is left clene out.’ Herbert identifies this undertaking with ‘A goodly prymer, the English newly corrected’ (London, by John Byddell, 1535, 4to; cf. Ames, Typ. Ant. (ed. Herbert), p. 485). Two imperfect copies are in the British Museum. Joye can hardly, however, be identical with the George Joye, a layman, holding a prebend in Ripon Cathedral, whom the Archbishop of York sought to expel in 1537 (Letters, &c., 1537, pt. ii. Nos. 851, 1173). In 1541 he seems to have possessed a printing-press in London. Thence he issued a pamphlet written by himself with the title, ‘A Contrarye to a Certayne Manis Consultacion: that Adulterers ought to be punyshed wyth deathe. Wyth the solucions of his argumentes for the contrarye. Made by George Joye’ (Brit. Mus.)
