The Bible and English Readers

Bibles were arguably the most circulated and studied books in medieval and early modern England. As such, they provide an invaluable archive for the histories of reading. Scripture was available in Latin to a wide group of educated readers both in the Vulgate and, after Erasmus’s translation in 1516, in an evolving series of Protestant Latin versions. The essays in this special issue explore what the bibles used by early readers can tell us about biblical reception, English religion, and literature.