the transformative power of literacy

The Transformative Power of Literacy

Seminal Readings during the

English Reformation

St John’s Adult EducationFebruary 15, 23 & March 1

Nancy Elkington

David said of the Apostles and their preaching, "the sound of them went out into each land, and the words of them went out into the ends of the world."

John Purvey’s Prologue to the English BibleTranslated by John Wycliffe and John Purvey 1390s

Week 1: Literacy ca 1400-1450

▪ Setting the Scene

▪ On Being Christian

▪ John Wycliffe

▪ Listeners and Readers

▪ Teaching and Learning

▪ Praying and Prayers

▪ Scribal Culture

▪ University Learning

▪ Vernacular Bible Movements

Week 2: Transformations 1450-1550

▪ Paper, Printing, Moveable Type, Ink

▪ Spread of the combined technologies

▪ Wycliffe and Caxton

▪ Impact of Vernacular Bibles on Literacy

▪ What Were They Reading?

▪ Incunable Bestsellers

Transformative Technologies

Transforming England

Week 3: English Reformation 16th C

• Henry VII – First Tudor; he and his mother Lady

Margaret Beaufort were both patrons of William Caxton

• Henry VIII – Anne Boleyn & Thomas Cromwell (both

Protestants, both died as heretics), The Dissolution, the first royally authorized vernacular bible, Archbishop Cranmer

• Edward VI – Cranmer & Book of Common Prayer 1549

• Mary I – Latin mass, bibles, lots of “heretics” burnt-at-stakes

• Elizabeth I – Elizabethan Settlement, Book of Common

Prayer 1559 revision, disliked long sermons & raised hosts, religious toleration, a middle way




▪ John Wycliffe




▪ Scribal Culture



Setting the Scene: 1300 - 1400

• Great Western Schism: 1309-1378 Gregory XI’s et al corrupt

papacy in Avignon; 1378-1418 Urban VI stays in Rome, Clement VII (Anti-Pope) moves to Avignon

• Crop Failures & Famine: throughout 14th century: climate

change led to devastating crop failures and widespread famine across Europe 1315-17, 1321, 1351 & 1369. 10%-25% death rate

• The Hundred Years’ War: 1337-1450 France and England

• Black Death: 1347-1350 – lost as much as 50% of population of

Europe within two years; kept returning 1350-1400

• Peasant’s Revolt (England): 1381 - fewer workers (after Famine

and Plague), crushing payments to church, higher taxation by government

LiterateGentry &Above

Semi-LiterateClergy

IlliterateWorkers

Printers &Publishers

On Being a Christian

• Masses of masses - regular attendance required (but remember, no pews until mid-16th century)

• The sacraments: baptism, the Eucharist, confirmation, reconciliation, marriage, ordination and unction

• Most could recite the ten commandments, Paternoster, Apostle’s Creed in Latin, many did so by sound & rote

• Learned some bible stories: cathedral and church schools, church wall paintings, stained glass windows, sacred drama, mystery plays, itinerant preachers

Most ordinary folks never saw a bible their entire lives

John Wycliffe (1320-1384)

• English activist, reformer, proto-Protestant ▪ Eucharist – not transubstantiation ▪ Separation of Church and State ▪ Secularization of Church possessions▪ Anti-Simony

• Believed bible should be studied

• Translated bible from Latin Vulgate to Middle English – available as manuscript to be copied

• Died naturally then was dug up 43 years later and burned for heresy

Cultural Norms: Listeners and Readers

• Listening

• Reading privately

• Reading aloud

• Writing

• Children: rote learning

• Boys: primers, readers, grammars, catechisms, classical authors, church fathers, letter-writing manuals

• Girls: religious fare

15th Century Teaching and Learning

Donatus's Latin Grammar (B.M. IB,66) A fragment from an edition, printedby an unidentified printer at Mainz, about 1455, in an earlier state of

the 36-line Bible type. The British Museum http://bit.ly/1dJF8oy

CREDO in Deum Patrem

omnipotentem, Creatorem caeli et

terrae. Et in Iesum Christum, Filium

eius unicum, Dominum nostrum, qui

conceptus est de Spiritu Sancto,

natus ex Maria Virgine, passus sub

Pontio Pilato, crucifixus, mortuus, et

sepultus, descendit ad inferos, tertia

die resurrexit a mortuis, ascendit ad

caelos, sedet ad dexteram Dei Patris

omnipotentis, inde venturus est

iudicare vivos et mortuos. Credo in

Spiritum Sanctum, sanctam

Ecclesiam catholicam, sanctorum

communionem, remissionem

peccatorum, carnis resurrectionem,

vitam aeternam. Amen.

PATER NOSTER, qui es in

caelis, sanctificetur nomen

tuum. Adveniat regnum

tuum. Fiat voluntas tua,

sicut in caelo et in terra.

Panem nostrum

quotidianum da nobis

hodie, et dimitte nobis

debita nostra sicut et nos

dimittimus debitoribus

nostris. Et ne nos inducas

in tentationem, sed libera

nos a malo. Amen.

http://bit.ly/1dJF8oy

For the Literate: Prayers and Devotionals

Books of Hours

• Manuscript on paper• Manuscript on vellum

• Printed on paper• Printed on vellum

• Illumination• Gilding• Rubrics

For the Illiterate: Few Opportunities to Grasp Religion

• Stainedglass windows

• Walls• Statues• Tombs• Memorials

• Miracle plays

Ever-Present Church

• Baptism• Confirmation• Confession• Teach latin• Give alms• Require labor• Offer counsel• Sell pardons• Pray, preside

Scribal Culture

• Monastic scribes: copying any text, decorating too, primarily for their monastic library; also commissioned work (including royalty)

• Lay (or clergy) Clerks:letters, contracts, inventories, wills, testimony, decrees, et al

Only the well trained or highly cultured could write

as well as read

• Attend lectures• Listen• Discuss• Remember

• Read books• Beg• Borrow• Steal

• Learn languages• Euro Languages• Greek• Arabic & Hebrew

University Learning

Vulgate Latin or Vernacular

• “Englishmen learn Christ's law best in English. Moses heard God's law in his own tongue; so did Christ's apostles.” - John Wycliffe

• "By this translation, the Scriptures have become vulgar, and they are more available to lay, and even to women who can read, than they were to learned scholars, who have a high intelligence. So the pearl of the gospel is scattered and trodden underfoot by swine.“ - Papal decree

Latin & English Liturgy for Clergy

Medieval breviary, manuscript on vellum, 15th century. Text in Latin and Middle English.

Huntington Library.

A breviary is a liturgical book of the Latin liturgical rites of the Catholic Church containing the public or canonical prayers, hymns, Psalms, readings and notations for everyday use by bishops, priests, and deacons in the Divine Office.

Vernacular BibleMovement: Stage 1

• Latin Vulgate – St Jerome – 5th C

• Syriac Bible of Paris – 6th or 7th C

• Arabic Old Testament – 10th C

• Wessex Gospels – 11th C

• Bible Historiale – 13th C

• Wycliff Bible – 14th C

St Jerome

Syriac Bible

Wessex Gospels

(Old English)

Arabic Bible

Bible Historiale

(French)

Wycliff Bible

(Middle English)

Vernacular BibleMovement: Stage 2

• Wenceslas Bible– German – 1375-80

• Mentelin Bible– German – 1466

• Delft Bible– Dutch – 1477

• Luther Bible– German – 1522-34

• Christian II Bible– Danish – 1524

The printing press played a key role in the emancipation of

the vernacular Bible in the late Middle Ages, creating a juggernaut

that became the Reformation.



English Reformation


Nancy Elkington

Renaissance/Early Modern Who’s Who

ARTDonatello (1386-1466)

Da Vinci (1452-1529)

Michelangelo (1475-1564)

Raphael (1483-1520)

Titian (1488-1576)

MUSICTallis (1510-1585)

Palestrina (1525-1594)

Byrd (1543-1623)

Dowland (1563-1626)

Gibbons (1583-1625)

SCIENCECopernicus (1473-1543)

Mercator (1512-1594)

Vesalius (1514-1564)

Galileo (1564-1642)

Kepler (1572-1630)

THEOLOGIANSSavonarola (1452-1498)

Erasmus (1466-1536)

Luther (1483-1546)

Cranmer (1489-1556)

Calvin (1509-1564)

OTHER KEY

PLAYERSCaxton (1415-1492)

de Worde (14??-1534)

More (1478-1535)

Cromwell (1485-1540)

Tynedale (1494–1536)









Transforming Europe


• Paper

• Printing press

• Movable type

• Ink

All of which combined to facilitate the rapid development of mass production processes

The Huntington Library’s 1455 Gutenberg Bible Printed on Vellum

The Spread of Printing

Interactive timeline: http://atlas.lib.uiowa.edu/

Canterbury Tales 1478 Biblia Pauperum 1460

Phisicorum with Marginalia 1485

First 50 Years of Printing in Europe

Regional Incunabula

Languages of Incunabula

Evolving Role(s) of Printers

• Investment required: printing press, paper (sourcing), ink, workshop premises, bookbinders, trained workers

• Sponsorship sought, sometimes freely offered

• Source material to print?

▪ Existing bestsellers in manuscript form

▪ Vernacular translations

▪ Commissioned work from royal/noble sponsors

▪ Invite authors to create new works

• As printers began contracting out the printing functions, they looked more and more like publishers

William Caxton (1422 – 1492)• First book printed in English

(Bruges) 1473: Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye

• First book printed in England (Westminster) 1476: Canterbury Tales

• Patrons: Elizabeth Woodville, Margaret Beaufort, Henry VII, Earl of Oxford, among others

• Wrote detailed prefaces, giving context for most publications

Used 10 different typefaces while printing 105 titles in Bruges and

Westminster; translated 26 titles.

Martin Luther (1483 – 1546)

• Monk, priest, teacher, theologian, exile, reformer, hymn-writer, translator, husband, anti-semite

• 95 theses -- all doctrines and dogma of the Church not found in Scripture should be discarded (sola scriptura).

• 1522 translated the NT and in 1534 the OT into German

• Worked from Erasmus’ 1516 Latin-Greek translation

• Went out among townspeople to listen to them speak so could translate into commonly understood words

Luther’s Post Went Viral

• Oct 31, 1517 – Obscure theologian and minister is fed up and nailed 95 objections to the Church on the door to Wittenberg

• Dec 1517 – copies had been sent to Leipzig, Nuremberg and Basel

• Translations from Latin to German then to other vernacular languages

• Within 4 weeks “all of Christendom” had read his protestations

William Tyndale (1494 – 1536)• Priest, scholar, reformer, exile, heretic• Inspired by Martin Luther & Erasmus• Printed English translation of the New

Testament 1525 in Cologne• Old Testament half completed• Betrayed and arrested (Thomas More)• Staked, strangled, revived, burned

Tyndale's lovely English absorbed into the King James Bible 1611

In the beginning God created heaven and earth * lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil * knock and it shall be opened unto you * seek and you shall find * ask and it shall be given you * judge not that you not be judged * the word of God which liveth and lasteth forever * let there be light * the powers that be * my brother's keeper * the salt of the earth * a law unto themselves * filthy lucre * it came to pass * gave up the ghost * signs of the times * the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak * love thy neighbor as thyself

The First MssEnglish Bible

1395

John Wycliffe (et al) translatedfrom the Latin Vulgate into Middle English 1378 – 1395. Its huge popularity challenged the Church-held belief that only priests could interpret the bible.

Severe censorship laws (1408) upheld by both Church & State: vernacular translations banned.

British Library Shelfmark: Add MS 41175 f.105r

The First PrintedEnglish Bible –130 Years Later

William Tyndale’s 1525 NT translation from the Greek &

Latin. Printed in Worms, 1526.

Smuggled into England in bales of cloth – many were seized & burned. . . . Then those found

owning copies were also seized and burned. Gospel of John (beginning)

British Library C.188.a.17Copyright © The British Library Board

Impacts on Language

• English: Wycliffe’s and then Tyndale’s Bibles brought the beginnings of standardization in word construction, choices as to which (regional) word should predominate over other (regional) selections, spelling, and the realization that English – when written to be read and spoken aloud – could be a beautiful form of expression

• German: similar to English - Luther’s Bible, based often on spoken German, brought desperately needed standardization and was a significant step toward the modernization of the German language

What were the Clergy Reading?

• Liturgical:breviaries, missals, psalters, bibles, “epistles and gospels”

• Pastoral: handbooks, manuals of confession, penitentials, collections of sermons, “manipulas curatorum” and “stella sacerdotum”

What were the Laity Reading?• Schoolbooks

• Books of Hours

• Vernacular Bibles

• Sermons

• Classical authors

• Romances

• Household manuals

• Chronicles, histories, broadsides, etc

• Legal & medical

Incunable Bestsellers (1450-1500)

1. Romanum Breviarium (11th C Latin daily hours & prayers)

2. Books of Hours (many – mix of Latin and vernacular)

3. The Doctrinale Puerorum (a 12th C Latin grammar)

4. Missals (various, predominantly Latin)

5. Ars Minor (a 4th C Latin grammar by Donatus)

6. Psalters (various, Latin for reading and choral uses)

7. Distich de Cato (3rd C Latin textbook – proverbs, wisdom & morality)

8. Bibles (various, Latin and vernacular)



English Reformation


Nancy Elkington




▪ John Wycliffe




▪ Scribal Culture











Transforming England

Week 3: English Reformation 16th C

• Henry VII – First Tudor; he and his mother Lady

Margaret Beaufort were both patrons of William Caxton

• Henry VIII – Anne Boleyn & Thomas Cromwell (both

Protestants, both died as heretics), The Dissolution, the first royally authorized vernacular bible, Archbishop Cranmer

• Edward VI – Cranmer & Book of Common Prayer 1549

• Mary I – Latin mass, bibles, lots of “heretics” burnt-at-stakes

• Elizabeth I – Elizabethan Settlement, Book of Common

Prayer 1559 revision, disliked long sermons & raised hosts, attempted religious toleration, sought a middle way

England: 15th to 16th C Transitions

• From civil war to peace to religious wars

• Manuscript to print – overlapping modalities

• One-at-a-time production to mass printing

• Cost of a book comes within reach

• Reform: moving from conservatives to radicals

• Increasingly literate society

• New form of schooling: grammar school

• Language, syntax, spelling moving toward fixity

• Rise of a middle class (‘the middling sort’)

The first half

of the 16th century was all about

literacy, reform & bibles

Including bibles as both

conduits and as destinations

Explosion of (Mostly) English Bibles• Wessex Gospels (ca 11th C - Old English)

• Wycliff Bible (late 14th C - Middle English)

Early Modern English

• The Tyndale Bible (1525)

• The Coverdale Bible (1535)

• The Matthew Bible (1537)

• Taverner’s Bible (1539)

• The Great Bible/King’s Bible (1539)

• The Geneva Bible (1557/60)

• The Bishops Bible (1568/72)

• [The Douay-Rheims Bible (Catholic-Latin) (1582/1610)]

Tudor Catholics and/or Reformers

▪ Henry VIII’s 1519-21 “Defense of the Seven Sacraments” (Anti-Luther, Pro-Pope)

▪ Thomas Cromwell & Thomas Cranmer

▪ Act of Supremacy 1534

▪ Dissolution of the Monasteries 1536-41

▪ Henry VIII’s Great Bible 1539

▪ Edward VI’s Book of Common Prayer 1549/52

▪ Mary I Repeals Act of Supremacy 1554

▪ Elizabeth Reinstates Act of Supremacy 1559 and issues slightly revised Book of Common Prayer

• Martin Luther – Babylonian Captivity of the Church

• Henry VIII – Assertio Septem Sacramentorum

• Martin Luther – Contra Henricum Regem Angliae

• Thomas More – Responsio ad Lutherum

• More – A Dialogue Concerning Heresies

• More – The Supplication of Souls

• More – Confutation of Tynedale’s Answer

• More – An Answer to a Poisoned Book

War of Words: 1520-1535

• Henry VIII’s chief minister 1532-1540

• Architect of Henry’s divorce

• Architect of the Dissolution of the Monasteries

• Persuades (with Cromwell) Henry – against the wishes of Thomas More – to allow English bibles to enter the kingdom

• In 1540 Henry accuses him of treason, heresy and corruption – execution by beheading

Thomas Cromwell (1485-1540)

Thomas Cranmer (1489 - 1556)

• 1530 – worked on Henry’s papal dispensation

• 1533 - named Archbishop of Canterbury

• With Thomas Cromwell, supported vernacular bibles

• Vision of a unified English congregationworshipping in their own language

• Conceived and compiled the Book of Common Prayer

• Under Mary I declared a heretic and burned at the stake

Henry VIII’s1534Act of

Supremacy▪ Henry declares himself

Supreme Head of theChurch in England

▪ Expects Parliament to grant divorce over clergy wishes

▪ Now treason to supportPope over King (death)

▪ King covets wealth of thereligious bodies in England

Henry VIII’s copyof the

1538 Great Bible

He commanded thata copy should be in every church in

‘some convenient place’ so that anyone could read it.

Henry VIII: Head of Church & StateGiving Bibles to the People

Thomas Cranmer Thomas Cromwell

Five years later, in 1543,Henry VIII’s Parliament passed an Act

which bannedartisans, husbandmen, labourers, servants

and almost all women fromreading or discussing the Bible

Act for the Advancement of True Religion

The King is Dead, Long Live the King

Henry VIII 1491-1547 Edward VI

1537-1553

Book of Common Prayer:Engine of Change

• Archbishop Cranmer’s 1549 BCP - embodiment of a religious revolution in doctrine, liturgy, personal piety and communal worship

• Thrust on congregations unfamiliar with the reforms underway causing shock & even riots

• Yet it also preserved some beloved parts of the traditional Latin rites

• Its language and approach undergirded Anglicanism and came to embody Englishness

The Book of Common Prayer

1549 1552 1559

Reforms(Edward VI)

More RadicalReforms

(Edward VI)

Less RadicalReforms

(Elizabeth)

Enter Mary I (1553-1558)

• Repealed Henry’s Act of Supremacy, returning England to the Pope

• Act to revalidate her mother’s marriage

• Act to repeal all of Edward’s Protestant-leaning laws

• Mary marries Phillip II of Spain 1554

• Burns over 300 “heretics” 1555-58 including Cranmer and Bishops Latimer and Ridley

• The Bible & the BCP were the basis of instruction both spiritual and corporal: texts as well as tools

• Even now, the language of the BCP profoundly influences the lives of English speakers everywhere▪ . . . to love, comfort, honor and keep . . . in sickness

and in health, forsaking all others . . . as long as you both shall live?

▪ In the midst of life we are in death . . .

▪ Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust

Reading, Speaking, Listening

▪ The Forty-Two Articles of Religion 1553

▪ Finally honed to thirty-nine in 1571

▪ Act of Supremacy 1558

▪ Redefined “heresy”

▪ Supreme Governor of Church of England

▪ Swear allegiance via Oath of Supremacy

▪ Act of Uniformity 1559

▪ Order of prayer set: Book of Common Prayer

▪ Every person must go to church at least weekly

Elizabethan Religious Settlement

The Thirty-Nine ArticlesTen Articles 1536 (Foxe helped by Cranmer and Ridley)▪ Clearly a shift toward Luther-inspired reform▪ Only three sacraments: baptism, penance and the Eucharist

Thirteen Articles 1538 (Henry VIII in response to German Princes)

Six Articles 1539 (Henry VIII) returns to orthodoxy

42 Articles 1553 (Edward VI and Cranmer)

The Thirty-Nine Articles 1563-71 (Elizabeth)▪ Articles 1–8 The Catholic Faith▪ Articles 9–18 Personal Religion▪ Articles 19–31 Corporate Religion ▪ Articles 32–39 Miscellaneous

Two of Elizabeth’s Many Challenges

• Catholics wanting a return of a church with the Pope at the head secret worship

• Radical Protestants wanting an even more extreme, reformed church Puritans

▪ Ministers should face the congregation

▪ No making the sign of cross at baptism

▪ Kneeling unnecessary for aged and sick

▪ Ministers should wear plain clothing

• Elizabeth continued trying to steer a middle way

• Travel narratives & atlases

• Romances

• Science books

• How-to manuals

• Poetry & plays

• Statements of belief

• Broadside ballads, political tracts

What They Were Reading

1603 – First Stuart King: James I and VI

• Committed Protestant

• Hampton Court Conference 1604

• Convened 47 bible & language scholars and commissioned a new bible translation based on all available sources (Greek, Hebrew, Latin)

• Translations were based on the 1572 Bishop’s Bible as well as on the Tyndale and Wycliffe

The beloved 1611 King James Authorized Version –

the most popular of all English translations to date.

Books that Changed the World (pt 1)

Augsburg ConfessionStatement of Belief

(Latin and German - 1530)

Martin Luther

Commentary on True and False Religion

(The “Third Man” of the Reformation”

(German 1525)

Huldrych Zwingli

Obedience of a Christian Man

(English 1528)

Wm Tynedale

Books that Changed the World (pt 2)

First Blast of the TrumpetAgainst the Monstruous

Regiment of Women(English 1558)

John Knox

Book of Common Prayer(First edition - Edward VI)

(English 1549)

Thomas Cranmer

Christia Religionis Institutio(Institutes of the Christian Religion)

(Latin 1536)

Jean Calvin

Bibles that Changed the World (pt 1)

Novum Instrumentum(From Latin & Greek into

Latin and Greek 1516)

DesideriusErasmus

New Testament

(From the Vulgate into

Middle English 1382)

John Wycliff

Holy Bible(From Hebrew & GreekInto English 1525-36)

WilliamTynedale

Bibles that Changed the World (pt 2)

The Great Bible(Cromwell’s too)

(From various Eng &

Ger into English 1539)

Myles Coverdale

The CoverdaleBible

(from Tynedale & Vulgate)

English 1535)

Myles Coverdale

The Geneva Bible(Protestant language)

(All the biggies involved. First w/apparatus)

English 1560)

Coverdale & William

Whittington

Religions inEurope in

1560

➢ Up to 1517:only Catholic

& Islam

the transformative power of literacy

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