The Transformative Power of Literacy

Seminal Readings during the English

St John’s Adult Education February 15, 23 & March 1 Nancy Elkington 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 Translated 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 ▪ Scribal Culture ▪ University Learning ▪ Bible Movements Week 2: Transformations 1450-1550 Transformative Technologies

▪ Paper, Printing, Moveable Type, Ink ▪ Spread of the combined technologies Transforming ▪ Wycliffe and Caxton ▪ Impact of Vernacular on Literacy ▪ What Were They Reading? ▪ Incunable Bestsellers Week 3: 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, Cranmer • Edward VI – Cranmer & Book of Common 1549 • Mary I – , bibles, lots of “heretics” burnt-at-stakes • – Elizabethan Settlement, 1559 revision, disliked long sermons & raised hosts, religious toleration, a middle way

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 Setting the Scene: 1300 - 1400

• Great Western : 1309-1378 Gregory XI’s et al corrupt papacy in Avignon; 1378-1418 Urban VI stays in , Clement VII (Anti-) moves to Avignon • Crop Failures & Famine: throughout 14th century: climate change led to devastating crop failures and widespread famine across 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 Illiterate Printers & Workers Publishers

Literate Semi- Gentry & Literate Above On Being a Christian

• Masses of masses - regular attendance required (but remember, no pews until mid-16th century) • The sacraments: , the , , reconciliation, , 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 folks never saw a bible their entire lives John Wycliffe (1320-1384)

• English activist, reformer, proto-Protestant ▪ Eucharist – not ▪ Separation of Church and State ▪ Secularization of Church possessions ▪ Anti-Simony • Believed bible should be studied • Translated bible from Latin 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 15th Century Teaching and Learning PATER NOSTER, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen • Children: rote tuum. Adveniat regnum learning in Deumtuum. PatremFiat voluntas tua, omnipotentem,sicut Creatoremin caelo caeliet in terra.et terrae. Et in IesumPanemChristum,nostrum Filium eius unicum, Dominumquotidianumnostrum,da nobis qui • Boys: primers, hodie, et dimitte nobis conceptus est de Spiritu Sancto, readers, grammars, debita nostra sicut et nos natus ex Mariadimittimus Virgine, passusdebitoribussub catechisms, Pontio Pilato, crucifixusnostris. Et, ne mortuus nos inducas, et classical authors, sepultus, descenditin tentationemad inferos, sed, tertialibera die resurrexit anos mortuisa malo,. ascenditAmen. ad church caelos, sedet ad dexteram Dei Patris fathers, letter- omnipotentis, inde venturus est writing manuals iudicare vivos et mortuos. Credo in Spiritum Sanctum, sanctam Ecclesiam catholicam, sanctorum • Girls: religious fare Donatus'scommunionemLatin Grammar (B.M., IB,66)remissionem A fragment from an edition, printed bypeccatorum an unidentified printer, atcarnis Mainz, aboutresurrectionem 1455, in an earlier state of , the 36-line Bible type. The British Museum http://bit.ly/1dJF8oy vitam aeternam. Amen. 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 • Stained glass 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, Only the well trained or testimony, decrees, et al highly cultured could write as well as read University Learning • Attend lectures • Listen • Discuss • Remember

• Read books • Beg • Borrow • Steal

• Learn languages • Euro Languages • Greek • Arabic & Hebrew 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 is scattered and trodden underfoot by swine.“ - Papal decree Latin & English Liturgy for Clergy

A is a of the Latin liturgical of the Church containing the public or canonical prayers, hymns, , readings and notations for everyday use by , priests, and Medieval breviary, manuscript on vellum, in the Divine Office. 15th century. Text in Latin and Middle English. Huntington Library. St Vernacular Bible Movement: Stage 1 • Latin Vulgate – St Jerome – 5th C • Syriac Bible of Paris – 6th or 7th C Syriac Bible • Arabic – 10th C • Wessex Gospels – 11th C Arabic Bible • Bible Historiale – 13th C Wessex Gospels • Wycliff Bible – 14th C Bible Historiale

Wycliff Bible

(French)(Old English) (Middle English) Vernacular Bible Movement: Stage 2

• Wenceslas Bible The printing press – German – 1375-80 • Mentelin Bible played a key role in – German – 1466 the emancipation of • Delft Bible the vernacular Bible in – Dutch – 1477 • Luther Bible the late Middle Ages, – German – 1522-34 creating a juggernaut • Christian II Bible that became the – Danish – 1524 Reformation.

The Transformative Power of Literacy

Seminal Readings during the English Reformation

St John’s Adult Education February 15, 23 & March 1 Nancy Elkington Renaissance/Early Modern Who’s Who

ART SCIENCE Donatello (1386-1466) Copernicus (1473-1543) Da Vinci (1452-1529) Mercator (1512-1594) Michelangelo (1475-1564) Vesalius (1514-1564) Raphael (1483-1520) OTHER KEY Galileo (1564-1642) Titian (1488-1576) PLAYERS Kepler (1572-1630) Caxton (1415-1492) de Worde (14??-1534) MUSIC More (1478-1535) THEOLOGIANS Tallis (1510-1585) Cromwell (1485-1540) Savonarola (1452-1498) Palestrina (1525-1594) Tynedale (1494–1536) Erasmus (1466-1536) Byrd (1543-1623) Luther (1483-1546) Dowland (1563-1626) Cranmer (1489-1556) Gibbons (1583-1625) Calvin (1509-1564) Week 2: Transformations 1450-1525 Transformative Technologies ▪ Paper, Printing, Moveable Type, Ink ▪ Spread of the combined technologies Transforming Europe ▪ Wycliffe and Caxton ▪ Impact of Vernacular Bibles on Literacy ▪ What Were They Reading? ▪ Incunable Bestsellers Transformative Technologies

• 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/ Phisicorum with Marginalia 1485

Canterbury Tales 1478 Biblia Pauperum 1460 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

Used 10 different typefaces while • Wrote detailed prefaces, giving printing 105 titles in Bruges and context for most publications Westminster; translated 26 titles. Martin Luther (1483 – 1546)

• , 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 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 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 '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 Mss English Bible 1395

John Wycliffe (et al) translated from 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 Printed English 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.17 Copyright © 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 What were the Clergy Reading?

• Liturgical: , missals, , bibles, “ 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)

The Transformative Power of Literacy

Seminal Readings during the English Reformation

St John’s Adult Education February 15, 23 & March 1 Nancy Elkington 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 Transformative Technologies

▪ Paper, Printing, Moveable Type, Ink ▪ Spread of the combined technologies Transforming England ▪ Wycliffe and Caxton ▪ Impact of Vernacular Bibles on Literacy ▪ What Were They Reading? ▪ Incunable Bestsellers 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 – , 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 War of Words: 1520-1535

• 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 Thomas Cromwell (1485-1540)

• 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 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 congregation worshipping 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’s 1534 Act of Supremacy ▪ Henry declares himself Supreme Head of the Church in England ▪ Expects Parliament to grant divorce over clergy wishes ▪ Now treason to support Pope over King (death) ▪ King covets wealth of the religious bodies in England Henry VIII’s copy of the 1538 Great Bible

He commanded that a copy should be in every church in ‘some convenient place’ so that anyone could read it. Henry VIII: Head of Church & State Giving Bibles to the People

Thomas Cranmer Thomas Cromwell Five years later, in 1543, Henry VIII’s Parliament passed an Act which banned artisans, husbandmen, labourers, servants and almost all women from reading 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 More Radical Less Radical (Edward VI) Reforms Reforms (Edward VI) (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 1554 • Burns over 300 “heretics” 1555-58 including Cranmer and Bishops Latimer and Ridley Reading, Speaking, Listening

• The Bible & the BCP were the basis of instruction both spiritual and : 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 Elizabethan Religious Settlement

▪ The Forty-Two Articles of Religion 1553 ▪ Finally honed to thirty-nine in 1571 ▪ Act of Supremacy 1558 ▪ Redefined “heresy” ▪ Supreme Governor of ▪ Swear allegiance via ▪ Act of Uniformity 1559 ▪ Order of prayer set: Book of Common Prayer ▪ Every person go to church at least weekly The Thirty-Nine Articles Ten 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  worship • Radical Protestants wanting an even more extreme, reformed church  ▪ 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 What They Were Reading

• Travel narratives & atlases • Romances • Science books • How-to manuals • Poetry & plays • Statements of belief • Broadside ballads, political tracts 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 ’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)

Commentary on True and Obedience of a Augsburg Confession False Religion Christian Man Statement of Belief (The “Third Man” of the (English 1528) (Latin and German - 1530) Reformation” (German 1525) Wm Tynedale Martin Luther Huldrych Zwingli Books that Changed the World (pt 2)

Christia Religionis Institutio Book of Common Prayer First Blast of the Trumpet (Institutes of the Christian Religion) (First edition - Edward VI) Against the Monstruous (Latin 1536) (English 1549) Regiment of Women (English 1558) Jean Calvin Thomas Cranmer John Knox Bibles that Changed the World (pt 1)

New Novum Instrumentum Holy Bible Testament (From Latin & Greek into (From Hebrew & Greek (From the Vulgate into Latin and Greek 1516) Into English 1525-36) Middle English 1382) Desiderius William John Erasmus Tynedale Wycliff Bibles that Changed the World (pt 2)

The Geneva Bible The Coverdale The Great Bible (Protestant language) (Cromwell’s too) (All the biggies involved. First Bible (From various Eng & w/apparatus) (from Tynedale & Ger into English 1539) English 1560) Vulgate) English 1535) & Myles Coverdale William Coverdale Whittington

Religions in Europe in 1560

➢ Up to 1517: only Catholic & Islam