Involving Readers. Practices of Reading, Use, and Interaction in Early Modern Dutch Bibles (1522-1546)

In the words of the Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986): “The book is not a closed entity: it is a relation, an axis of innumerable relationships.” The book does not simply exist, but is created and shaped by the ongoing dialogue between makers and readers, text and context, time and space. This idea forms the backbone of this dissertation. In this study, I display the textual and material interactions between early modern Dutch Bibles and their readers.

            The research corpus exists of 189 surviving copies of Dutch Bibles printed by the Antwerp printers Jacob van Liesvelt and Henrick Peetersen van Middelburch between 1522 and 1546. Among their Bible editions are not just editions of the entire Bible, but also separate editions of the New Testament and the letters of the apostles. Previous studies about sixteenth-century Bibles have mainly been concerned with the textual elements of Bible translations and the connectivity of the text, as well as of paratextual elements such as prologues and marginal commentaries, with confessional developments. In this thesis, I turn the attention towards the use of these Bibles by their readers. In order to illustrate the interactions between the book and the reader, this dissertation has been structured around two main issues: how the book could shape and influential an envisioned reader and how the actual, historic reader could shape and influence the book.

            This study applies two important approaches that were developed within the scholarly field of the history of reading. Influenced by the work of philosophers, literary scholars, and book historians such as Michel de Certeau, Roger Chartier, Stanley Fish, Robert Darnton, and Roger Stoddard, a discipline developed over the course of the late 20th century, in which the reader was no longer considered a passive recipient of the text, but a active contributor in the dynamics of textual culture. The first approach that is centralized within this thesis concerns the so-called paratext. This concept, developed by the French literary scholar Gérard Genette, is used to describe the texts in the book that are not the main text, such as headings, prologues, the name of the printer-publisher, and marginal commentaries. By closely studying the presence, content, and characteristics of the paratext, one may gain insight into the envisioned reading public and the types of book use that the author, printer, or publisher aimed to facilitate. The second research approach put forward in this study considers book use by looking at the traces of use left by readers in their books. By leaving traces such as ownership inscriptions, annotations, and markings, readers connect themselves and their activities to the material book. By positioning both approaches alongside each other, it becomes evident to what extent readers of early modern Bibles were directed by the paratextual choices of printers-publishers, or rather proceeded beyond that.

In chapter 1, the introduction, I discuss the historical context, the historiographical backgrounds, and the delineation of the research corpus. The paratextual analysis then follows in chapter 2 and 3. A distinction, be it a diffuse one, is made between ‘constructive paratext’ and ‘directive paratext’. Paratextual elements that shape and influence the reader before or after they read the biblical text, are considered constructive elements. Paratextual elements that aid readers’ navigation and support them when they dive into the Scriptures, are understood as directive elements.

            Chapter 2 discussed the first of these two paratextual types. Blank pages, title pages, prologues, calendars and almanacs, and ‘terminal paratext’ (i.e. paratextual elements used to close off a textual unity, such as the explicit or colophon) create a textual, visual, and material framework for the reader, a programmed entrance to the text. Chapter 3 continues with the directive paratextual elements in Van Liesvelt’s and Peetersen van Middelburch’s Bibles: printed glosses in the margins, summaries, woodcuts, maps, tables of content, liturgical reading schedules, and topical registers. These elements support the early modern reader in a discontinues, non-linear approach to the biblical text: the reader did not need to begin reading in Genesis and end with Revelations, but could move freely through the book and select passages that were of particular importance to them, by applying the paratextual elements. Furthermore, almanacs, prologues, glosses, and maps invite readers to view the Scriptures not as a self standing entity, but rather in connection to a knowledge network of geography, history, and astrology.

            Previous research about paratext in early modern Bibles has revealed that printers used paratextual elements to advertise their editions and attract readers of a certain confessional denomination. The analysis of the paratextual elements in Van Liesvelt’s and Peetersen van Middelburch’s Bibles confirms this idea, but also shows that the confessional colour of the paratextual elements is often rather eclectic, and that paratextual elements remained important after the purchase of a book, as it shaped and facilitated book use. Moreover, printers created suble differences between the paratextual programmes of their complete Bible editions and New Testaments: the readers of the complete editions were particularly pointed towards a scholarly consideration of the biblical text, whereas the separate editions of the New Testaments positioned the Bible reading in a liturgical, daily context. However, this distinction is not strict: a liturgical reading schedule, for instance, was included in the New Testament as well as in the complete Bible editions.

            The paratextual programme of the Bibles created a ‘horizon of expectations’ for the early modern reader entering the book: it provided a sense of genre, of reading approaches, and of the wider textual, scholarly, and religious context in which the Bible ought to be understood. The content and design of the title page, the arguments made in the prologues, and the presence of topical registers and marginal glosses created, in particular in the complete Bibles, a feeling of learnedness, study, and reliability. In addition, paratextual elements in the complete Bibles and New Testaments could stimulate an active involvement of its readers in collecting and combining various elements and knowledge fields. Furthermore, paratext served readers’ efficient navigation through the book. Paratextual elements enabled readers to ‘break up’ the text in separate, accessible elements. By using the almanac, the reading schedule, the running headings, and the chapter titles, for instance, the reader could carve out a liturgy-based route through the many pages of the book.

The paratext in Van Liesvelt’s and Peetersen van Middelburch’s Bibles offered the readers an extensive, detailed, and structured framework for approaching the text. In the diversity of reading possibilities presented and facilitated by the paratext, however, the reader played a central role: they would decide how to apply the paratextual apparatus, which paratexts to combine, to follow the references or not, or to simply try to ignore the paratext as much as possible. The issue regarding the actual implementation of these reading possibilities in readers’ practices is therefore crticially assessed in the remaining part of the dissertation, by studying traces of reading and use in the surviving copies of Van Liesvelt’s and Peetersen van Middelburch’s Bibles. As explained in chapter 4, these traces can be divided in five general categories: ownership marks (such as names or library stamps), marks (such as underlining or rubrication), annotations (such as liturgical annotations or cross references), accidental traces (such as stains or damage), and other traces and adaptations (such as added textual or visual material, or traces of restoration practices). Whilst these various traces of reading and use can be encountered across the research corpus, some prove to be connected to specific types of editions in particular. Colouring and rubrication, for instance, is encountered more often in smaller Bible editions, such as New Testaments, and theological annotations are found almost exclusively in the complete Bible editions. This suggests a difference in reading practices that complies with the paratextual differences between these types of editions. Moreover, the reader traces – in particular the ownership inscriptions – emphasise the diversity of the reading public. Among the historic owners were priests, countesses, tailors, and merchants. A considerable number of Bibles also proves to have been used within an institutional context, such as a convent or seminary.

            Chapter 5 continues the discussion of reading traces with regard to those that provide insight into the dynamic interactions between the reader and the text or paratext of the book. Readers, firstly, prove to reflect upon the textual and paratextual content of the book within their annotations, corrections, or additions. They used the information structures offered in the printed glosses and extended these with more information, in which they, for instance, referred to ecclesiastical authorities. Readers also implemented their own references to and markings of the biblical text, for instance by including handwritten cross-references or underlining. Furthermore, they regularly responded to the confessional characteristics of the text, for instance regarding the controversial translation of certain Bible verses. Besides reflecting upon the printed text and paratext, readers also prove to have been active in shaping and optimizing navigational systems, adding text, paratext, and images, and facilitating their own liturgical or devotional use of the Bible. Readers were, in other words, not only recipients of the textual and paratextual directions, but also actively engaged in shaping the book for their own benefit.

            Besides reading text and paratext, users had plenty other opportunities to interact with the book. Chapter 6 concerns the interactions of the reader with the book as a material object. Ownership inscriptions and genealogical annotations, in which record was kept of the births and deaths within the family, display the value users granted to leaving ‘something of themselves’ within the physical book and how they used empty spaces to shape and safe-keep intergenerational relations and emotional experiences. Besides the universal Word of God, the Bible became, in their hands, a space of personal and family identity as well. In addition, user traces such as accidental ink stains, burning holes, dried flowers, or rusty imprints of objects such as glasses prove that the early modern Bible was an inherently material object – a collection of paper pages in a sturdy binding – that could be used in ways that surpassed the reading of text and paratext and the viewing of woodcuts.

Whereas the paratextual programmes of Jacob van Liesvelt’s and Henrick Peetersen van Middelburch’s Bibles shaped and facilitated an extensive but nevertheless fixed reading programme, the traces in surviving copies show that readers approached their books as movable and adaptable objects. They were aware of the opportunities to shape their book with pen, ink, scissors, and glue, and actively expanded the reading possibilities within the book based on their personal preferences. They eagerly applied the paratexts in doing so, but simultaneously developed practices of reading and use that were not yet facilitated by the paratextual programme. The functions of the Bible as an object of study and space of passages read in the liturgy are indeed confirmed by readers’ actions, but the book also proves to have been an object of prayer and meditation, a symbol and place of safe-keeping for family histories, a paper space for doodles or calculations, or a flower press. In this diversity, the Bible was a dynamic and changeable object, on textual, paratextual, visual, and material levels.

            The diversity in the approaches and adaptations by book users relates to a crucial aspect in the life of the book: time. Whereas the printed paratext and the reading opportunities it facilitates were decided upon by printers at the moment of publication, reader traces show that these objects were often read, used, and optimized across decades or even centuries. Readers brought contemporary discussions and developments into the book by adapting its text, paratext, and images in accordance with confessional developments, or by including new elements such as verse numbering or detailed maps. Layers of traces, use, and interactions built within the book; from the printed, early sixteenth-century paratext to the pencil note of a twentieth-century curator. The book is an object that is in constant flux and that, at the same times, guarantees in its materiality a certain level of stability. In other words: the early modern Bible was a textual, paratextual, visual, and material anchor that had the potential to be appropriated, adapted, digested, or cherished by one reader after the other.