Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T05:48:57.905Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 April 2014

Vincent Gillespie
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
Vincent Gillespie
Affiliation:
J.R.R. Tolkien Professor of English Literature and Language at the University of Oxford
Susan Powell
Affiliation:
Held a Chair in Medieval Texts and Culture at the University of Salford, and is currently affiliated to the Universities of London and York
Get access

Summary

For as the first decay and ruine of the Churche, before began of rude ignoraunce, and lacke of knowledge in teachers: so to restore the Church agayne by doctrine and learning, it pleased God to open to man, the arte of Printyng, the tyme whereof was shortely after the burnyng of Hus and Hierome. Printyng beyng opened, incontinent ministred to the Church, the instrumentes and tooles of learnyng and knowledge, whiche were good bookes and authors, whiche before lay hyd and vnknowen. The science of Printyng beyng found, immediatly folowed the grace of God, whiche styrred vp good wittes, aptely to conceaue the light of knowledge and of iudgemēt: by which light, darkenes began to be espyed, and ignoraunce to be detected, truth from errour, religion from superstition to bee discerned.

Like all totalising narratives, John Foxe's polemical narrative of the invention of printing as a providential preliminary to the wholesale reformation of the Church can only work by omitting much that is inconvenient in the story. But his ideologically biased analysis, mounted from the Protestant haven of Elizabethan England, formed only a few years after the change of regime that marks the terminal date for this volume, has the merit of reminding us that there is much more to the history of printing in England than Caxton and his chivalric and gentry romances that have occupied so much space in literary and general histories of the period.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2014

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×