13 Holy Writ and Lay Readers in Late Medieval Europe: Translation and Participation

Abstract

Cultural Dynamics in Late Medieval EuropeLate medieval and early modern Europe is characterized by a significant cultural transformation.As a result of this change, the dichotomy between the categories "religious" and "lay" and "Latin" and "vernacular" dissolved into a more diffuse situation and resulted in lay emancipation with regard to active participation in religious life.One of the most significant manifestations of this cultural transformation was the creation of new "reading communities" in addition to the traditional respublica clericorum,2 the learned community of literate intellectuals and religious (secular and regular clergy) who dominated cultural life through their control of Church institutions, schools and universities.Latin, the preferred language by the members of this respublica clerico rum, was thus the official (and dominant) language of culture, science and religion.3The new "reading communities" were formed by a non-Latinate, but generally literate, urban laity strongly involved in political, financial and commercial activities.The language of the members of this respublica laicorum, who were showing a growing interest in the organization of cultural activities and in the production of literary texts, was the vernacular, the traditional language of the illiterati and the laity.4The growing textual production in the vernacular involved a challenge from a linguistic and a cultural point of view.It meant that the vernacular was emancipated enough to be used for the production of literature, for the transmission of knowledge, and for religious matters.5 1 This paper is based on the results of the ERC-Starting Grant Research project "Holy Writ and Lay Readers.A Social History of Vernacular Bible Translations in the Late Middle Ages."The project (2008-2013) is funded by the European Research Council in Brussels.2 Mohrmann (1955) 43.These ideas have been further developed in Corbellini (2013a).3 For the changing relations between Latin and the vernacular languages, see: Van Uytfanghe (2003).4

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