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Dressed in Borrowed Robes: The Making and Marketing of the Louvain Bible (1578)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Elizabeth Morley Ingram
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Extract

This paper examines the transformation of a Protestant Geneva Bible into a widely used Catholic one. This surprising metamorphosis occurred in two stages: first, the publication in Paris in 1566 of a French Bible for Catholics by René Benoist, a member of the Paris Faculty of Theology; second, the marketing of this Bible as a product of the Louvain Faculty of Theology by the famous Antwerp printer, Christopher Plantin. While the relationship between the Paris and Antwerp editions is known to French specialists, the origin of the Antwerp edition has been (understandably) misdescribed in several English reference works. The relationship between the two editions seems worth rehearsing here for it touches on more general issues of Catholic attitudes towards vernacular Scripture, the migration of texts across confessional lines, and the power of printers.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 38: The Church and the Book , 2004 , pp. 212 - 221
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2004

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References

1 Darlow, T.H. and Moule, H.F., Historical Catalogue of the Printed Editions of Holy Scriptures in the Library of the British and Foreign Bible Society, vol. 2: Polyglots and Languages other than English (1911), 394, no. 3734 Google Scholar. R-A. Sayce, ‘Continental versions to c.1600: French’, in S.L. Greenslade, ed., The Cambridge History of the Bible, vol. 3: The West from the Reformation to the Present Day (Cambridge, 1963), 121. Both authorities, misled by the title of Plantin’s 1573 New Testament, describe his editions as revisions of the Louvain French translation of 1550.

2 For the arguments, see Bedouelle, Guy, ‘Le Débat catholique sur la traduction de la Bible en langue vulgaire’, in Backus, Irena and Higman, Francis, eds, Théorie et practique de l’exégèse (Geneva, 1990), 39–59 Google Scholar; Bedouelle, Guy and Roussel, Bernard, ‘La Lecture de la Bible en langue vivante au XVle siècle: chronologie de quelques textes et faites marquants’, ibid., 61–76 Google Scholar.

3 McNally, Robert E., , S.J., ‘The Council of Trent and vernacular Bibles’, Theological Studies, 27 (1966), 205–27 Google Scholar; V. Coletti, L’Éloquence de la chaire: victoires et défaites du latin entre Moyen Age et Renaissance (Paris, 1987), chs 9–11.

4 McNally, ‘Council of Trent’, 226–7.

5 Bedoueile, ‘Le Débat’, 48–9.

6 Chambers, Bettye Thomas, Bibliography of French Bibles, 2 vols (Geneva, 1983-94 Google Scholar) [hereafter Chambers]. Reader aids in Geneva Bibles are described at 1:xiii-xiv.

7 For Benoist’s biography and bibliography, see Pasquier, Emile, Un curé de Paris pendent les guerres de religion: René Benoist, le Pape des Halles, 1521–1608 (Paris, 1913 Google Scholar), and Carlo de Clercq, ‘La Bible française de René Benoist’, Gutenberg Jahrbuch (1957), 168–74. A detailed history of the Benoist-Plantin editions appears in Pierre-Maurice Bogaert, ed., Les Bibles en français: histoire illustrée du moyen âge à nos jours (Turnhout, 1991), 91–101.

8 For Benoist’s editions of 1566, see Chambers, 1, nos 371–3 (Bible), 378–9 (New Testament).

9 Sigs +5V-+6V. See the analysis by Higman, Francis, ‘Les Advertissements des Bibles De Rene Benoist (1566, 1568)’, in his Lire et découvrir: la circulation des idées au temps de la Réforme (Geneva, 1998), 563–71 Google Scholar.

10 Chambers, 1, no. 167.

11 Bogaert, Les Bibles, 93–102; De Clercq, ‘Bible française’, 169–74.

12 Voet, Leon, The Golden Compasses: The History of the House of Plantitt-Moretus, 2 vols (Amsterdam, 1969), 1:54–8 Google Scholar.

13 Chambers, 1, no. 385; Leon Voet and Voet-Grisolle, Jenny, The Plantin Press (1555-1589) (Amsterdam, 1980), no. 724 Google Scholar; Carlo De Clercq, ‘Les Éditions bibliques, liturgiques et canoniques de Plantin’, De Cuiden Passer, 34 (1956), 161–70.

14 Chambers, 1, nos 430–1.

15 Chambers, 1, no. 439; De Clercq, ‘Éditions bibliques’, 169–70.

16 Chambers, 2, no. 1227.

17 Pétavel, Emmanuel, La Bible en France (Paris, 1864), 126 Google Scholar.

18 Volz, H., ‘Continental versions to c.1600: German’, in Greenslade, , Cambridge History of the Bible, 3: 107–8 Google Scholar.

19 Higman, Francis M., Bibliographie matérielle et histoire intellectuelle: les débuts de la Réforme française, The Cassai Lecture, 1986 (1986), 7–10 Google Scholar.

20 ‘Les Moyens pour discerner les Bibles Françoises Catholiques d’auec les Huguenotes’ is advertized on the title page and printed at the end of the text. Frizon discusses Benoist’s Bible in the preface, ‘Advertisement au benin Lecteur’: Chambers, 2, no. 1107.