A revolution in book-production marked the beginning of the Church. Almost all literary works were written on scrolls (or roll-books), and were read by unrolling from one hand to the other. It was and remains the obligatory form of the Jewish Torah-scroll. The revolution replaced the roll with the codex or leaf-book of papyrus or parchment: ‘the most momentous development in the history of the book until the invention of printing’. A quire or quires of papyrus or parchment, folded and bound at the back, produced the kind of book with pages familiar to us.

The ecumenical and general councils of the Church have produced arguably the most important documents of Christianity after the Bible. How this ‘book’ of the councils came to be composed is the subject of this paper. In the composition, Christians have had to confront three problems similar to those involved in establishing the book of the Bible. First, which councils are to be considered ecumenical or general, paralleling the question of which books are to be included in the Bible. Secondly, which decrees are to be considered the authentic decrees of a particular council, paralleling the question of which chapters and verses make up a particular book of the Bible. Thirdly, which manuscripts or editions form the best text of a given decree, paralleling the search for the best texts of Scripture. There are, too, the additional issues of establishing some hierarchy in the importance of the councils and their decrees – the great creeds and doctrinal statements outrank, surely, most decrees of a purely disciplinary nature, just as the Gospels have a certain priority within the New Testament or Romans and Galatians outrank in importance the Pastoral Epistles – and secondly the difficulties of translating the original texts into the vernacular languages, alike for the councils as for the Bible. Alongside these similarities between the book of the councils and that of the Bible was the tension between Scripture and Tradition. How far could Tradition, represented cumulatively and retrospectively by the councils, interpret or develop the teaching of Scripture? This tension was never far below the surface, and erupted especially in the Reformation controversies.

In a famous passage on the training of those who wished to become wise in sacred letters, in effect, learned readers of the Christian scriptures, Cassiodorus wrote:

Early in the fifteenth century, Thomas of Elmham, who grew up in Norfolk and became a monk of St Augustine’s abbey, Canterbury, began to write and illustrate an ambitious history of his monastery. It may be that his interest in history arose from his early years at Elmham, site of the see of East Anglia in late Anglo-Saxon times. This could explain why he became a monk at the oldest monastic establishment in England instead of at the local Benedictine houses, such as Bury St Edmunds, Ely, or Norwich. Clearly he developed his historical interests at St Augustine’s with its ancient books and relics, even though, apart from the chapel of St Pancras and St Martin’s church nearby, pre-Conquest buildings were no longer to be seen.

In 849, Gottschalk of Orbais was summoned to the Synod of Quierzy. From his own studies of the patristic theologians he had formed views on predestination that had found little favour with the established Church of his day. No text of the proceedings at Quierzy survives but we do have reports from eye-witnesses in the contemporary Annals of St Bertin – interpolated by Archbishop Hincmar of Rheims to Gottschalk’s disadvantage – and by Florus the Deacon of Lyons. Hincmar is very scathing on how much Gottschalk’s learning had led him astray; he was too erudite for his own good. Hincmar tells us that at the synod, Gottschalk was accused of errant views, condemned, flogged, and compelled to burn the books containing his teachings (librosque suarum adsertionum). Florus the Deacon, however, provides crucial extra information. While Hincmar gives the impression that Gottschalk went to Quierzy more or less to be publicly punished, Florus’ account suggests that Gottschalk, at least as far as he, Gottschalk, was concerned, went to engage in dispute. He may even have been buoyed up with the hope of convincing his audience of bishops and abbots from the ecclesiastical province of Rheims, including Paschasius Radbertus of Corbie and Gottschalk’s own abbot from Orbais (in the diocese of Soissons), that he was justified in his views. Florus tells us that what Gottschalk had to burn were the sections from the Bible and patristic writings that vindicated his opinions and that he had brought with him to the synod. Gottschalk’s reference collection sounds very much like the dossiers assembled at other councils (not least Nicaea II in 787) compiled from authoritative writings to support views maintained in discussion.

Odo of Sully, Bishop of Paris (1200-8), decreed in his statutes that each parish priest within his diocese should have a book called a manuale, which should contain the ordo of service for extreme unction, the catechism, baptism, and everyday things. His prescription is the earliest mention in the episcopal legislation that a parish priest should have one particular book dedicated to the liturgy for all the services associated with pastoral care. But codices concerned with the sacerdotal rites for the cura anitnarum have a history which goes back to the late ninth and tenth centuries. These early ritualia were often combined with the monastic collectar, as in the mid-tenth-century Durham Collectar. There are also some examples from the late tenth and eleventh centuries of ritualia made for the secular clergy. Odo of Sully was thus providing his powerful support to an existing practice rather than instituting a new form of service book. This paper investigates further the context in which these early examples of ‘parish’ rituals were compiled, beginning with the Carolingian background.

One day early in the thirteenth century a wandering scholar broke his journey at the Benedictine monastery of Prüfening near Regensburg in Bavaria. Of the books this scholar was carrying, one Liebhard, a monk of the monastery, was especially fascinated by a copy of Peter the Chanter’s Distinctiones Abel, a dictionary of the Bible for the preacher’s use and a prominent example of the recently developed literary genre of biblical distinctiones. Unfortunately, soon afterwards the scholar resumed his interrupted journey, and was not willing to leave the book behind at Prüfening, so Liebhard was unable to copy the full text but could only take down excerpts, which he later completed with texts from other sources. The result, which he called Horreum formicae (the ant’s harvest), still extant in at least two manuscripts, combines the approach of the masters of the Parisian schools with that of monastic theology. It is, therefore, an excellent example of a process ongoing throughout the whole twelfth century: the transfer of knowledge from the centres of learning in the north of France (Laon, Chartres, Paris) and of Italy (Bologna) towards the periphery of medieval Europe, resulting in the reception and critical discussion of new concepts and ideas, a process most readily visible in the distribution of books. This paper offers a preliminary sketch of this process with special emphasis on medieval Bavaria and Austria.

When discussing the thirteenth-century concept of Christian unity, Jack Watt asserted, ‘Too little is as yet known of the interaction of theological and canonical thought to be able to say with precision just what the canonists contributed to this development among more abstract thinkers and what they received from it.’ Thirty-five years on this comment largely remains true for our knowledge of the inter-relation of theology and canon law in the thirteenth century. Little attention has been paid to the impact of theology on canon law, and even less to canon law on theological thinking. G.R. Evans claimed, ‘Canon law glosses tend to be conservative and less theologically sophisticated than contemporary theological work.’ That comment could be seen as an explanation for how little attention has been paid to the theological content of canonical writing. However, canon law glosses were written principally to investigate law. The area of ‘sophistication’ was different. Yet, this is not to say that there was no interest in theological questions and their possible solutions on the part of the canonists. All canon lawyers had a theological education, and they cited biblical references to support their arguments extensively. This paper aims to show that the use and understanding of contemporary medieval theology had an important impact on the writing of thirteenth-century canon lawyers, which should not be readily overlooked by modern scholars.

These words were written twenty years ago, for a conference at the Library of Congress in 1980 on ‘Literacy in historical perspective’. Since then, these themes have been addressed in several lectures and research papers at conferences, and I would stand by the main ideas expressed in that passage. Monks had indeed given extraordinary prestige to books and in particular to the illuminated liturgical book, which is a medieval invention. By the thirteenth century such books were being adapted for lay use and ownership, typically in Books of Hours. However, it is mistaken to say that lay use ‘began’ then, as the aristocracy – particularly in Germany – had been familiar with prayer books for centuries. In the twelfth century, Hildegard of Bingen was said to have learned only the Psalter ‘as is the custom of noble girls’. A Psalter for lay use dating from c.1150, which belonged to Clementia von Zähringen, has been preserved. It contains a full-page portrait of a lady – presumably Clementia herself – at folio 6v between the end of the Calendar and the Beatus page beginning the Psalms. This book has 126 folios in its present state (possibly one folio is missing at the end) and it measures 11 cm X 7 cm, no larger than a woman’s hand. The biography of Marianus Scotus, the eleventh-century Irish hermit who settled at Regensburg, describes how he wrote for poor widows and clerics ‘many little books and many Psalter manuals’ (‘multos libellos multaque manualia psalteria’). The diminutive form ‘libellos’ and the adjective ‘manualia’ emphasise that these manuscripts were small enough to hold in the hand, like Clementia von Zähringen’s book.

Historians tend to approach books primarily as vehicles for ideas, sources for the thought of the individuals and groups who wrote and read the words on the pages inside. They rarely pause to consider their significance as physical artefacts and items of material culture. This paper brings the format, appearance, and practical function of Bibles, prayer books, and other small devotional works to the very centre of our attention. It suggests that close scrutiny of the diminutive size and artistically crafted covers of some of the copies that survive yields fresh insights into the shape and texture of piety in late medieval and early modern England. The following investigation is heavily indebted to the findings of researchers in the specialized field of the history of bookbinding, a field once light-heartedly described as ‘a humble auxiliary discipline … not entirely useless and undoubtedly innocuous’. Yet, as we shall see, situated against the backdrop of developments in Tudor and Stuart embroidery and jewellery, domestic furnishing and female fashion, decorated bookbindings provide us with a unique and interesting reflection of the values and preoccupations of pre- and post-Reformation society.

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me: because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek.’ When Jesus stood up to read these verses from Isaiah at the start of his public ministry, as he began to reveal himself as the Word in the synagogue of Nazareth, the book ‘he had opened’ at the reading desk was one of the Torah scrolls, brought out for him from the Ark of the Law, the imposing reserve which is, from age to age, the most sacred part of any synagogue. Holy Scripture has always been a public book, a treasure for each synagogue, and for the commonwealth of the Christian community sacred as text and object. But the mystical sanctity of the Bible, and holy books in general, has raised a perennial problem. Precious books have usually been hedged round by restrictions to protect them from the profane, even at the cost of obscuring the public approach which is a necessary part of assembled worship. In this episode in the life of Christ, when the listeners grew too ‘filled with wrath’ for him to continue, we meet the deep and recurrent tension between the community’s need to hear the Word, and the conflicting desire to shield its essential sanctity, which accompanied the book from Judaism in transition to the Christian Church.

‘Those folk are all men [and women] of my kidney who delight in miracles and fictitious marvels, whether hearing or telling about them’, exclaimed Erasmus’s Folly. As for saints,

Reformers saw such cults as detracting from the centrality of Christ in Christian devotion. One of the reforming factors of anticlericalism in the early sixteenth century was the search for a more direct route to salvation, a more direct line to God than through the mediating authority of the perhaps all too earth-bound priest. Increasingly often in pre-Reformation Europe the mediating influence of Mary or of a favourite saint was felt to be more effective than that of the priest. Both lay and religious found Mary, the mother of God, more accessible than a judgemental Christ. Despite the teaching of the Church, Mary did appear to come between Christ and his people, as often illustrated by the iconography of the Madonna of Mercy upon whose mantle the arrows rained down by Christ or God the Father were broken.

The size of books has always mattered – for manuscript books as well as printed books. It makes a great difference to the fate of its contents and eventual influence whether the page is in a heavy folio or a portable pamphlet. Differences of format affected authority and influence and had a direct bearing on the circulation of ideas, the critical lift-off that could take place when vocalization took the silent word into mouths and minds away from the lettered page. This may seem self-evident, but even so, given the recognized role of the book in the Reformation (or reformations) of the sixteenth century, some reflections on this aspect seem worthwhile. The revelatory quality of the book in this period is here approached first by looking at the role of small lap books, and then by considering the challenge in England to the accepted order of books, when the great lectern book of Scripture was first laid open for general reading in church naves.

The illicit influx of William Tyndale’s vernacular New Testament and other reforming works into England in the late 1520s was considered an affront to the ecclesiastical authorities and an encouragement to lay heretical thought. No one was more vitriolic in condemnation than Thomas More, the lawyer-turned-polemicist, who was to become Chancellor from 1529. He declared, ‘Nothynge more detesteth then these pestylent bokes that Tyndale and suche other sende in to the realme, to sette forth here theyr abomynable heresyes.’ As Chancellor, More was renowned for his zealous persecution of heretics and booksellers, which he justified as a moral and legal imperative in order to uphold the Catholic faith. He also wrote several works, initially at the request and licence of Bishop Tunstall in March 1528, and thereafter in reply to the treatises of Tyndale and other Antwerp exiles. These writings provide tantalizing insights into the activities of Tyndale and the Christian Brethren as seen through the eyes of their chief protagonist. It was not only the New Testament, emanating from Cologne and Worms, that worried More, but Tyndale’s polemical works from the printing press of Johannes Hoochstraten in Antwerp, especially The Parable of the Wicked Mammon, The Obedience of a Christen Man, and The Practice of Prelates. Fellow exiles, such as George Joye, John Frith, and Simon Fish, were also writing popular and doctrinal works, including A Disputation of Purgatorye, The Revelation of Antichrist, David’s Psalter, and A Supplication for the Beggars. Thomas More regarded William Tyndale, the Antwerp exiles, and their ‘Brethren’ in England as the most active producers and distributors of vernacular heretical books. However, his perceptions of the Brethren, their sympathizers, and their organization have been under-utilized by historians, who often rely more on the post-contemporary reflections of John Foxe. There perhaps remains the suspicion that More was conveniently coalescing all sedition under a single banner as a rhetorical device, or due to prejudice and unfounded conspiracy theories. Indeed, The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer outlined a smuggling network as an attempt to demoralize Tyndale’s supporters, by describing how various individuals had renounced their doctrines and betrayed their fellows. These were his tools of polemics, but More’s testimonies should not be dismissed as the mere delusions of a staunch anti-heretical zealot. He had studied the reforming works and interrogated significant figures in the Brethren. His conspiracy theories, it can be argued, were based on fact.

Bernardino Ochino was one of the less famous and more unpredictable of the Protestant refugees whom Thomas Cranmer invited to England in 1547. He remained in the limelight throughout Edward VI’s reign, largely because of his writing. A study of the English publication of his works throws some light on the complex interaction between English books and European Protestantism. Collinson’s comment that ‘English theologians were as likely to lean on Bullinger of Zurich, Musculus of Berne or Peter Martyr as on Calvin or Beza’ is important here. In Edward VI’s reign they leant quite confidently on more unsteady props, of whom Ochino was one.

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.