In readers' hands: new perspectives on premodern Bibles in Europe

Abstract

"This volume explores the production, transmission, and reading practices of vernacular Bibles in early modern Europe. This varied collection of essays provides historical, book historical, literary, theological, and art historical perspectives to the movements of manuscript and printed Bibles. The contributions concern Bibles in many different languages and from across the European continent, from Ireland to Portugal. Rather than perceiving Scripture and the material carriers of Scripture as static things, this volume demonstrates how Bibles constantly acquired new meanings and functions as they moved through time and space, and were touched by the hands of makers, readers, and users."--Page 4 of cover.

Contents

Introduction: Premodern Bibles through space and time / Sabrina Corbellini, Renske Hoff, Wim François -- Navigating the Biblical text : the Biblical summary in Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, Cpg 110, read as a hypertext / Henrike Manuwald -- The 1528-29 Dutch Vorsterman Bibles : a book archeological study of owners and readers / Bert Tops -- Transformative actions : the fluidity of materiality and meaning in sixteenth-century Dutch Bibles / Renske Hoff -- Vernacular Bibles and their Catholic readers in sixteenth-century France / Mack P. Holt -- Sixteenth-century Polish-Lithuanian Biblical prints and Bibles between West and East / Joanna Pietrzak-Thébault -- "The tune then used" : Psalm verse numeration and English Bible readers / Jeremy Specland -- Interpolated prints as exegetical meditative glosses in a customized copy of Franciscus Costerus's Dutch New Testament / Walter S. Melion -- From medieval scripture to missionary word : the Bible in Portuguese from Catholic to Protestant hands (and back) / Herculano Alves, OFMCap, Wim François -- Burning the Bible in early modern Ireland : the Rebellion of 1641 / Tadhg Ó hAnnrachaéin -- Afterword: On using indicators of book use / Joshua Calhoun.