After encounting title pages, prologues, and other prefatory paratexts, readers would, in an ‘ideal’ reading situation, step across the paratextual threshold and enter the main text of the Bible. Whilst doing so, as this chapter will show, their reading behaviour continued to be directed and shaped by paratext. The paratextual elements discussed here include those that make up ‘the architecture of the page’ – printed marginalia, intertitles, summaries, woodcuts, and maps – as well as navigational devices that were placed at the beginning or end of the Bible and would facilitate readers in moving through the book in a non-linear manner. The latter concern tables of contents, liturgical reading aids, and topical registers. The main purpose of these various elements is twofold: they direct a reader’s understanding of the biblical text, and support, structure, and enable their navigation; between the margin and the main text, between reading schedules and biblical passages, and between the wish to read a certain Bible passage and the practice of actually doing so. In this chapter, I will explore how the active readership that is implied in the constructive paratext continued to be facilitated in the very practice of reading itself.
1 Printed Marginalia: Letters, Manicules, Cross-references, and Glosses
As discussed in section 2.1, on blank space, Liesvelt’s and Peetersen van Middelburch’s Bibles contain broad margins. These margins, however, are only partially blank. Both printers filled these spaces with various printed marginalia, from finding letters to contextualising glosses. With regard to the paratextual elements in early modern Bibles, printed marginal notes have been centralised in previous research. As devices of interpretation, glosses have been considered as aids of debate and persuasion from the printer-publisher to its reader. In Slights’ words, ‘just as there are no politically innocent texts, so too are there no politically neutral marginalia.’1
The marginalia in Liesvelt’s and Peetersen van Middelburch’s Bibles direct and invite the reader in various ways. King has made a useful distinction between marginalia that turn the reader’s attention inward to specific sections of the main text, and those that rather turn their view outward, to related texts or elements of information that supplement the main text of the book.2 Despite these differences, both kinds of marginalia create a constant dialogue between the margins, the main text, the reader, and broader worlds of textual and non-textual knowledge. They make the margins of the page into spaces of negotiation and transition, enabling readers to experience a multi-layered construction of meaning.3
1.1 A Broad Range of Printed Marginalia
In what follows, I will shortly describe the various marginalia that occupy the margins of Liesvelt’s and Peetersen van Middelburch’s Bibles, and their functions as interpretative or navigational aids. The first type to explore here are the capital letters ranging from A to G, known as ‘finding letters’, that are placed in the margins to indicate the various sections of each Bible chapter. The finding letter system was introduced in the thirteenth-century Dominican concordance, in accordance with the chapter and sub-division system of the biblical scholar and Canterbury archbishop Stephen Langton (1203).4 The reference system remained in use until the middle of the sixteenth century, when verse numbering was introduced. In Dutch Bibles, verse numbering first appeared in the Biestkens Bible of 1560.5
Finding letters were a common navigational device in early modern books. They were not only used in Bibles, but also introduced in large reference books, such as Erasmus’ Adages.6 The system of finding letters presented early modern readers with a relatively precise system that enabled efficient access and navigation within large codices. The size and placement of the letters in the broad margins of Liesvelt’s and Peetersen van Middelburch’s Bibles would help a reader quickly locate a specific passage. The letters are included in various other reference systems within these editions, such as the liturgical reading schedules, topical registers, and cross-references, This allowed readers to move fluently between the biblical text and these paratextual devices.
A second navigational aid in the margins of several Liesvelt and Peetersen van Middelburch Bibles is the printed pointing finger or manicule. The use of a pointing finger to draw a reader’s attention to certain passages adheres to a long tradition, dating back to at least the twelfth century.7 As developed within manuscript culture, the manicule or pointing index finger was used to help readers find their way within the textual structure as well as direct their attention to passages or sentences that the publisher considered worth noting. According to Sherman, the function and understanding of the manicule differs substantially from those of other forms of indicative symbols (such as asterisks, lines, or flowers). He argues that the pointing finger had a gestural function that related to the embodied practice of reading common in the Middle Ages and early modern period: ‘readers picked up their books with an acute awareness of the symbolic and instrumental power of the hand’.8 Reading with the help of one’s index finger, as young children still do, would have been much more common for adult readers of the early modern period than is the case today, and the omnipresence of the manicule in manuscript and printed books may be related to this embodied reading practice.
Manicules are printed in the margins of Peetersen van Middelburch’s complete Bible of 1541, Liesvelt’s New Testaments of 1534 and 1544b, and Peetersen’s New Testament of 1538. The manicules direct the reader to verses in the main text that are understood to be of particular importance. In Liesvelt’s New Testament 1544b, a manicule points, for instance, to the verse in which Christ shares the wine, his blood, with the disciples (Mark 14:23: ‘And he took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them, and they all drank of it’). Other verses that are highlighted by the presence of manicules are verses that stress the connections between the Old and the New Testament, such as Genesis 22:12 (‘… thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me’), which seems to emphasise a connection between Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac to God’s sacrifice of Christ. In some cases, the relations between the Old and New Testament have been emphasised more explicitly by the placement of a manicule and a cross-reference alongside each other. In Liesvelt’s 1544b New Testament, for example, a manicule is placed in the margin of Matthew 15:4 (‘For God commanded, saying, honour thy father and mother …’), just underneath several cross-references to the Old Testament, such as to Exodus 20:12 (‘Honour thy father and they mother …’) (fig. 22).
Printed manicules and cross-references in Matthew 15 in Jacob van Liesvelt’s New Testament (b) of 1544. Leiden University Library, Sem. Rem. 848
Furthermore, the manicules in Peetersen’s 1541 Bible direct readers not only to certain elements of the main text, but also to paratexts. In the book of Genesis, eighteen manicules are included, of which four direct readers to a marginal gloss. Chronographical glosses – i.e. glosses that provide insight in chronological and geographical contexts, as will be described later in this chapter – are often marked by marginal manicules.
Most passages that are highlighted with manicules do not have strong confessional implications. However, there are some exceptions. This is certainly the case with the presence of a printed manicule in the margin of Mathew 16:18 (‘And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my congregation’) in Liesvelt’s New Testament of 1544b.9 The emphasis on this passage underlines the deliberate Reformation-minded choice to translate ‘congregation’ rather than ‘church’ in this phrase.
As briefly mentioned above, the margins of Liesvelt’s and Peetersen van Middelburch’s Bibles also present cross-references to other places in the Bible (fig. 22). These exemplify the common early modern perspective on the Bible as a unity, an overarching and cohesive story of the history of the world, mankind, and salvation. Typological coherency – the idea that Old Testament events and persons functioned as prefigurations of Christ’s life and the Gospels – was a self-evident and pivotal aspect of early modern exegetical practices, and cross-references allowed each individual reader to participate in this interconnectivity. Cross-references would ‘invite the reader to situate particular events and circumstances within broad historical trends and patterns … among different eras of Christian history.’10 The cross-references enabled a reader to engage with a multitude of intertextual and intertemporal connections between multiple biblical stories, between various Bible books, and between the Old and the New Testament.
Cross-references are included in the margins of all of Liesvelt’s and Peetersen van Middelburch’s complete Bibles and New Testaments.11 They consist of an abbreviated reference to a certain Bible book, chapter number, and finding letter, in order to refer the reader to the right passage. In some cases, multiple cross-references are connected to a single verse. Within the Gospels, cross-references are installed not only to emphasise the connections with the Old Testament, but also to clarify the intersections between the Gospels, in particular between the synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. For instance, in Liesvelt’s 1542a Bible, the margin of Matthew 8:2 (‘And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him …’) contains two cross-references. The first refers to Mark 1:40 (‘A man with leprosy came to him and begged him on his knees’), the second to Luke 5:12 (‘And it came to pass, when he was in a certain city, behold a man full of leprosy …’). Both passages describe the same material as presented in Matthew 8:2 and, dipping into the tradition of Gospel harmonies, the cross-references underscore this connectivity.
The list of printed marginalia continues. In addition to the presence of finding letters, manicules, and cross-references, the margins of some New Testament editions house short descriptions of biblical passages. Whereas most of Liesvelt’s and Peetersen Van Middelburch’s Bibles contain a short summary above the heading of each chapter, in these New Testaments short content descriptions are located in the margins alongside the text.12 These descriptions summarise the gist of the textual passage they accompany, which usually is only a section of the Bible chapter. For example, in Peetersen’s New Testament of 1540, the margin alongside Matthew 1 contains three content descriptions. First, around Matthew 1:1, the margin summarises that the text discusses ‘Jesus’ lineage according to his humanity.’13 Then, at Matthew 1:18, the marginal note explains that the subsequent section concerns ‘How Joseph was given his wife Mary.’14 Lastly, the final section around Matthew 1:25 is summarised as ‘Jesus’ birth’.15
These marginal summaries usually do not convey statements of an outspoken confessional colour. For instance, in the Peetersen New Testament of 1540, the traditional translation of Matthew 3:2 as ‘do penance’ is not stressed in the accompanying summary, which only states: ‘Of John the Baptist’.16 However, Peetersen’s catholicising translation of Matthew 16:18 as ‘upon this rock I will build my church’ resonates slightly in the marginal description placed directly next to Matthew 16:18, which states: ‘Peter’s power’.17 When compared to, for instance, the marginal note on a similar theme in 1 Peter 2:5 in Liesvelt’s complete Bibles of 1542 (‘to be built on the rock, is to put our hope on Christ alone’) the marginal summary in Peetersen’s New Testament is clearly more traditional or even catholicising in character.18 Hence, besides the navigational effect such summaries could have in enabling easily detectable entries to the text, their content would undoubtedly also have influenced readers’ understandings and interpretations of the biblical text.19
The marginal element that has received the most attention in past scholarship, however, is undoubtedly the marginal gloss. From his 1532 complete Bible onwards, Liesvelt started including various types of marginal glosses that shaped readers’ interpretations of and approaches to the biblical text. The printer based these upon a concept tentatively introduced by Willem Vorsterman in 1531. Vorsterman included various general-historical annotations and a rare chronological annotation in the margins of his edition, but he did not pursue beyond the first half of Genesis. Liesvelt embraced the project developed by his colleague, and included contextualising glosses throughout the entire Bible. Peetersen van Middelburch, in turn, adopted Liesvelt’s marginalia in his 1535 complete Bible edition. In the meantime, Vorsterman responded to Liesvelt’s enterprise by publishing a fully glossed Bible in 1533–1534. These glosses are copied by Peetersen van Middelburch in his Bible edition of 1541.20
The marginal glosses vary in content and function. Firstly, some glosses provide word definitions or explain specific terminology. For instance, in Liesvelt’s 1534 complete Bible edition, in the margin of Exodus 38:8 (‘… of the looking glasses of the women assembling, which assembled at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation’) the word used for ‘women’ is explained: ‘[these] female leaders [heerinnen] were devout or religiously exceptional women’.21 Another example can be found in the margin of Matthew 23:5 (‘… they make broad heir phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments’) in Liesvelt’s New Testaments of 1534, 1541, and 1544b, where the word ‘phylacteries’ is explained: ‘Phylacteries are the letters into which Moses’ law is written down.’22
Secondly, the reader of Liesvelt’s and Peetersen van Middelburch’s Bibles is presented with a considerable number of chronological and historical glosses that situate biblical events within broader world history. These references denote how many years after the creation of the world and before the birth of Christ a certain event took place, and refer to contemporary developments in non-biblical and particularly classical history. On the title pages to his complete Bible editions, Liesvelt states that he used the Fasciculus Temporum and ‘the chronicles of the entire world’ (dye Cronike van alder werelt) to create these glosses. François and Corbellini have demonstrated that the Fasciculus Temporum, and in particular the Dutch edition printed by the Utrecht printer Johan Veldener in 1480, indeed served as Liesvelt’s main source.23
The inclusion of these glosses corresponds with the growing interest in biblical antiquarianism during the first half of the sixteenth century. As explained by Shalev, in order to create ‘a fully blown image of biblical societies’, biblical history was connected to scholars’ knowledge of the classical antiquities, geography, and material culture.24 Relying upon medieval traditions, non- biblical history was understood to be integrally joined with biblical history. Both strands of history were part of a unity of salvation and grace, ultimately divine in character. The chronological glosses in Liesvelt’s and Peetersen van Middelburch’s Bibles provide a broad range of historical information, especially concerning the classical history of Troy. For instance, in Liesvelt’s 1542a Bible, the following gloss is positioned in the margin of Judges 7:8–21:
Hercules and Jason powerfully siege the town of Troy and capture it. Laomedon, the king of Troy, was defeated and his daughter Iriona was captured and brought to Greece. 1273 years before the birth of Christ, in the 3925th year of the world.25
Here, the siege of Troy is presented as a contemporary event to the war between Gideon and the Midianites as described in Judges 7: whilst Hercules and Jason obtained victory over Troy, Gideon and his troops besieged the camp of the Midianites and made them flee the area. The simultaneity of these events emphasises, in a way, the often chaotic, violent circumstances that are presented in the book of Judges: the entire world is at war – from Israel to Troy – but those who have faith will ultimately secure their victory.
Readers of early sixteenth-century Bibles not only increasingly assigned value to applying biblical geography and chronology to their Scripture reading, but they also developed an interest in ‘a literal reading of the holy text’ and in aids that helped them gain ‘greater knowledge of Oriental languages and texts’ that lay at the basis of the biblical translation.26 A response to these developments is visible in Peetersen van Middelburch’s 1541 edition. In accordance with the paratextual apparatus of Willem Vorsterman’s Bibles, and announced in the prologue to this edition, Peetersen included marginalia that furnish an alternative translation of a textual section, based on the original source text. This alternative translation usually concerns several words or a short phrase, marked in the main text with an asterisk. For instance, in Genesis 1:20, the phrase ‘the crawling animals that have living souls’ is accompanied by an alternative translation in the margin: ‘th. [in Hebrew] crawling and living souls.’27 Similarly, a few references to the Greek sources are included in the New Testament, for instance in Matthew 5:22, where the margin provides the variant ‘in Greek: without a case’ next to ‘he should express judgment’.28
However, besides a space of study, the Bible was also ultimately a space of devotion. This is emphasised in the printed glosses that note the value of a certain biblical passage for prayer.29 In Liesvelt’s complete Bibles from 1532, 1534, and 1535, for instance, the word ‘prayer’ (Ghebet) is placed alongside Judith 13:4 (‘… Then Judith, standing by his bed, said in her heart: O Lord God of all power, look at this present upon the works of mine hands for the exaltation of Jerusalem’). Readers could hence approach the Bible text as a place of prayer, an archive of suitable texts to include in their own devotion. By taking on the role of Judith in this prayer and placing themselves in the first person singular perspective that is in direct dialogue with God, the devotee could become part of the communication between human and God. As an early modern reader appropriated the prayer of a biblical figure for their personal use, they could, as it were, engage in an already established dialogue between God and human.
Liesvelt and Peetersen van Middelburch also embellished their complete Bibles with theological marginalia that mark prophecies of Christ in the Old Testament. For instance, in Liesvelt’s 1534 edition, the gloss in the margin of Genesis 22:16 (‘… By myself have I sworn, saith the LORD, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son’) gives an interpretation of the words spoken by God to Abraham: ‘Here Christ is promised.’30 Similarly, alongside Genesis 49:10 (‘The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be’), the marginal gloss states that ‘the righteous [one] of whom Jacob prophesises is Christ.’31 Moreover, not only are certain biblical characters of the Old Testament connected to Christ, certain objects are as well. In Exodus 37:6 (‘And he made the mercy seat of pure gold …’), the gloss explains that ‘the mercy seat, that was the place from which God spoke to the children of Israel, which place was onto the Ark of the Covenant, which means Christ.’ Besides these references, other glosses provide explanations concerning the theological or moral meaning of certain sections. For instance, in Peetersen’s 1541 Bible, a gloss in the margin along Matthew 20:2, on the parable of the vineyard workers, explains that ‘this parable teaches us [that] our life is a persistent working in the vineyard of the Lord’.32 Outspokenly typological glosses, in which a certain event in the Old Testament is considered a narratological prefiguration of an aspect of the New Testament (e.g. Jonah and the whale as a foreshadowing of Christ’s burial and resurrection), generally seem absent in Liesvelt’s Bible editions, but can be found sporadically in Peetersen van Middelburch’s 1541 Bible. For instance, the typological gloss at the beginning of Exodus 3 in Peetersen van Middelburch’s 1541 Bible recalls that ‘this bush which burns but is not consumed, is a figure of our immaculate virgin, the mother of God, Mary.’33 Liesvelt did not include any glosses pointing towards this typological understanding of the burning bush in his Bible editions.
Such differences between Liesvelt’s Bibles and Peetersen van Middelburch’s Vorsterman-based 1541 edition confirm that the decisions printers made with regard to their glosses were not entirely confessionally neutral. Some marginal notes reflect and frame a certain confessional inclination, such as, for instance, the marginal note next to 1 Timothy 4:8 (‘… but godliness is profitable unto all things …’) in Liesvelt’s 1542 editions: ‘Godliness is the honour God is due, which is to trust in him alone’.34 However, such confessionally coloured marginalia are rare. Generally speaking, the printed marginalia in their Bibles generally ‘disclose a nuanced and multifaceted combination of eclectic features’ and mirror the fact that processes of confessionalisation were still unfolding.35
1.2 Navigating, Hyperlinking, and Generating Knowledge
The margins of the early modern page functioned as spaces of negotiation and transition. Navigational aids such as finding letters, cross-references, and manicules would take a reader by the hand in their movements through the book. These devices connect the text to paratext, and one textual section to another, providing suitable and meaningful entries for the reader to dive into the text. Interpretative devices such as marginal glosses could significantly shape readers’ understandings of the text as they defined complex terminology, provided chronological and historical contexts to deepen readers’ understanding of the biblical narrative, and pointed them towards certain confessional or theological interpretations of Scripture.
Marginalia encourage readers to actively navigate between the main text and the margins, and to engage with various interpretive systems and the intertextualities between them.36 Adopting the taxonomy developed by King, finding letters, manicules, cross-references, and content descriptions may be understood as inward references.37 These elements in the margin aid the reader in handling the interconnectivity of the Bible as a unity, point to elements that would be of particular importance, and smooth navigation through the book. The explanatory, chronological, theological, and multilingual glosses, then, point outwards from the main text: they supplement the text with contextual information and take the reader through the transformational space of the margin to a buzzing world of knowledge outside of Scripture. Readers are encouraged to include history, chronology, geography, confessional debates, and an awareness of the source text in their reading experience. They are invited to view the Bible as a thing that is crucially entangled with overarching knowledge structures that stretch across genres, times, and spaces.
In addition to supporting navigation across the individual page, marginalia also shape readers’ movements throughout the book. Cross-references, in particular, invite readers to actively shift from one place in the book to another and to combine both in their understanding of the text. Cross-references may be understood as hypertextual devices. The concept of hypertext is derived from its implementation in modern computer technology, and although the word originally merely described a certain digitally associative and connective application, it has developed into a broader theoretical concept. As McAleese has stressed, hypertext is in essence a system of coherence, logic and connection; hypertextual elements are ‘footnotes to distant places … [and] associated ideas.’38 The concept of hypertext as a way to link files and to enable ‘movement between those files in ways that are intended to be illuminating’, can also be applied to the study of the early modern book.39 In Liesvelt’s and Peetersen van Middelburch’s Bibles, the many cross-references create a complex and dynamic system of interlinkage. Rather than reading the biblical text as a continuous narrative, they facilitate an understanding of the book as a network of interrelated themes, events, and persons; as nodes of information and the relationships between them. In an embodied experience of this interconnectivity, a reader may place their fingers between the various pages referred to by the cross-references and open, as it were, several ‘tab pages’ in order to enable untroubled alternation between the different biblical passages.
2 Intertitles and Summaries
As printed marginalia inhabit the sides of the page, the white spaces above the columns and in between various Bible chapters are occupied by other paratexts that serve as instruments of navigation and hermeneutical devices. These paratextual elements include running titles, chapter headings, and short summaries. Genette categorises both running titles and chapter headings as intertitles: titles of textual sections that are positioned within the book itself.40 In contrast to the book’s title, intertitles are addressed only to those who actually browse through the book. They announce where a reader finds themselves in the book and eases navigation between various parts. Furthermore, intertitles serve as interpretative entries to the text. They indicate the beginning of a textual unity and provide insight into the contents of the following textual section. Although the chapter headings and running titles in Liesvelt’s and Peetersen van Middelburch’s Bibles simply present the name of the Bible book and the number of the chapter, the short summaries that are included in several of these Bibles function, in a way, as extensive, hermeneutical intertitles. These summaries provide a synopsis of the chapter’s content, usually in merely one or two phrases. They mark the most important themes and persons, indicate how a section connects to the chapters preceding or succeeding it, and in some cases provide an interpretative, sometimes confessionally coloured, framework through which the reader ought to enter the biblical passage.
2.1 Running Titles, Book and Chapter Headings, and Summaries
All Bible editions by Liesvelt and Peetersen van Middelburch contain running titles that continuously indicate to the reader in which Bible book and chapter they find themselves. Running titles allow a reader to ‘track their progress through or around the volume’ and to easily jump from one passage to another.41 In the New Testaments, the name of the Bible book is placed in the top margin of the left page, and the number of the presented chapter at the right. For instance, the running title at Matthew 2 in Peetersen’s New Testament of 1543 is: ‘St. Matthew Gospel [left page], the 2nd Chapter [right page].’42 In the complete Bibles, the book title and chapter are both placed at the top of every page. In Liesvelt’s 1526 Bible, they are even mentioned above each column.43 Running titles are also included in paratextual parts of the Bibles. For instance, in Peetersen’s 1541 complete Bible, the running title ‘Table on the entire Holy Scripture’is placed above the topical register.44
Furthermore, across the page, each new Bible book is announced by a incipit-like heading. Similarly to how explicits close a textual entity, as discussed in section 2.5, these incipits provide a verbal entry to the book, e.g. ‘Here begins the first book of Ezra.’45 Some headings provide supplementary information, for instance on alternative names for the book. An example is the incipit to the book of Exodus in Liesvelt’s 1542a Bible edition: ‘Here begins the book of departure which is called Exodus in Latin [and] Hellesmoth in Hebrew.’46 Moreover, within the Bible books, the beginning of each chapter is signalled by a chapter heading in a small font. These are placed above the chapter, in line with the text columns, and marked through indentation and, in some cases, with pilcrows, allowing readers to easily find these intertitles when browsing through the page.47 Furthermore, the beginning of each chapter is highlighted by an enlarged or decorated initial. These various elements clarify the structure of the text, enable easy access and navigation for the reader, and pull the gaze of any reader to these distinctive points within the text.
In addition, in almost all complete Bibles by Liesvelt and Peetersen, as well as in some of their New Testaments, short chapter summaries are positioned just above the chapter headings.48 These descriptions are usually merely a few lines long and briefly discuss the events, persons, or themes that play a central role in the following chapter. For instance, the description of Genesis 5 in Liesvelt’s 1532 Bible summarises that ‘here, Adam’s lineage is being narrated, as well as the ages of the men of his lineage until Noah’.49 In most cases, the summaries do not convey an evident confessional colour. There are, however, some exceptions. For instance, above Matthew 16 in Liesvelt’s 1532 Bible, the provided summary implies a Reformation-minded understanding of the chapter: ‘How Jesus said that he would build his church on the confession of faith.’50 Despite the use of ‘church’ rather than ‘congregation’, this phrase crucially notes that the church is built upon faith instead of upon Peter, let alone the pope.51
2.2 Enabling Navigation and Shaping Interpretation
The impact running titles, chapter headings, and summaries could have on early modern Bible readers relates to their function as navigational aids. These devices would assist readers that were flipping through the book, looking for a certain passage in the Scriptures. Printers’ choices regarding font, letter size, and white space ensure that the various intertitles can be effortlessly distinguished on the page and that the eye of the reader is rapidly drawn towards these devices. Moreover, whereas running titles, book headings, and chapter headings would allow readers to easily locate a certain text when they were already aware which chapter they were looking for, the short and descriptive summaries placed above the chapters could potentially support readers who gained an interest in specific biblical themes, persons, or events. For instance, a reader looking for the story of Noah’s ark might, through the summary, understand it to be found in Genesis 6: ‘How God destroyed the entire world with water because of humanity’s sins, despite Noah and the eight and one pair of all animals, and how he made the ark.’52 By browsing through the summaries, readers could find specific biblical stories or themes, regardless of their liturgical reading order.53
The summaries also create interpretative entries to the text, shaping readers’ perspectives on the contents of the text they would be about to enter. By defining the crucial themes, narratives, and conclusions of the chapter, these few lines could allow readers to quickly grasp the ‘hierarchies’ within the information and stories provided in a chapter. Whilst reading the text, they would recognise certain themes or events and possible linger on these passages, enhancing the chance that these elements would be remembered. Furthermore, the summaries assist in creating a sense of the overarching relevance of the chapter and of the connections between each of its various sections. This is evident in the summary Liesvelt provides for Leviticus 11, a chapter which specifies which animals and animal products are clean and unclean within Jewish law. The chapter is introduced by the summary ‘About the distinction between the clean and unclean animals’, which incites readers to immediately recognise the main aim of the chapter and to grasp the connections between the various animals it lists.54
Lastly, the inclusion of incipits, chapter headings, and summaries draws clear boundaries between two parts of text. Each chapter is distinctly presented as its own unity, an identifiable entity which does not merge with the entities around it. This not only influences where readers might start reading but also where they would stop, in particular when they would simultaneously encounter a concluding explicit at the end of a Bible book. The creation of this reading unity implies thematical or chronological homogeneousness, even if a single chapter actually portrays various events. These subtle elements in the arrangement of the book and the page may crucially and continuously remind the reader of how the various parts make the whole as well as of the wholeness of the parts.
3 Woodcuts and Maps
In addition to the textual elements on the page, readers of Liesvelt’s and Peetersen van Middelburch’s Bibles would be influenced and directed by ‘visual paratexts’. These could guide readers’ experiences by providing visual interpretations and commentaries on the Bible text, as well as by simply pulling and pushing the eye of the reader across the page.55 Liesvelt’s and Peetersen van Middelburch’s complete Bibles and New contain woodcuts of various sizes and types, placed throughout the biblical text. Both printers also included a large map in their complete Bible editions, placed at the beginning of Exodus and depicting the journey of the Israelites from Egypt to the Holy Land. Illustrations are not always taken into account in studies to paratext, but they do play an important role in visually and spatially mediating the interactions between the reader and the book.56 As the aim of the current part of this study is to analyse how the book may shape reader profiles, aid with navigation, and create structures of knowledge and interaction, woodcuts and maps should not be ignored.
The illustrative programme of sixteenth-century Dutch Bibles has closely been studied by, in particular, Bart Rosier, James Clifton, and Walter Melion.57 Their studies show that images were included not only to raise the value of the edition, but also to actively shape and impact practices of reading and interpretation. The presence of woodcuts or maps could invite readers to more closely read the text, enable them to participate emotionally, devotionally, or mentally in the biblical events depicted, help them memorise certain biblical stories, or simply remind them of the authoritative character of the Scriptures.58 These functions crossed confessional divides. The vast majority of Bible illustrations in the sixteenth-century Low Countries were used and shared among printers of different confessional orientations and do not display any features that point to a certain Protestant or Catholic interpretation of the biblical text.59
3.1 Illustrating Narratives, Persons, Spaces, and Objects
Liesvelt’s first complete Bible of 1526 already contained almost fifty woodcuts, the majority of which were used to illustrate the Old Testament. He copied these images from, amongst others, various editions of Martin Luther’s Old Testament of 1523 and 1524. Liesvelt’s complete editions of 1532, 1534, and 1535 contain even more illustrations, which are identical between these three editions. Some of the illustrations are made from the same woodblocks as those in his 1526 edition, but many are newly introduced. The most striking addition concerns the series of twenty-one Holbein-based woodcuts in Revelations.60 In 1538, Hansken van Liesvelt used partially the same illustrative programme, whilst also including various other woodcuts, both in the Old and the New Testament. The additional Old Testament illustrations are copies to the woodcuts in Hans Sebald Beham’s Biblische Historien (printed in 1533). The woodcuts in the New Testament were created by Lieven de Witte and developed originally for a Gospel harmony of Willem van Branteghem, printed by Matthias Crom in Antwerp in 1537 in both a Dutch and a Latin edition.61 Crom not only reused the woodblocks of these illustrations in several of his own Bible editions, but also temporarily lent them to Hansken van Liesvelt in 1538, who included them in his complete Bible. Jacob van Liesvelt’s editions of 1542, then, predominantly adopt the woodcuts from Hansken van Liesvelt’s edition.62
Despite the fact that Peetersen van Middelburch in the text and paratext of his complete Bibles closely follows Liesvelt’s and Vorsterman’s publications, the illustrative programmes differ from both examples. The woodcuts in the Old Testament of his 1535 complete Bible were copied after woodcuts in French Bibles printed by Merten de Keyser (in 1530 and 1534) and Vorsterman’s Bibles (of 1532 and 1533–1534). For his 1541 edition, Peetersen van Middelburch used the same woodblocks, whilst also including rough copies of the woodcuts in the Biblische Historien, similar to those included by Hansken van Liesvelt in 1538. For the New Testament in this edition, Peetersen van Middelburch created copies of the Lieven de Witte-illustrations.63
The New Testament editions by Liesvelt and Peetersen van Middelburch are illustrated as well. Liesvelt’s New Testaments of 1534 and 1535 contain four woodcuts depicting the evangelists, an illustration of St. Paul, a woodcut placed at the beginning of the Bible book of Acts which depicts the descent of the Holy Ghost, and the woodcut series in Revelations which was also included in the complete Bibles. The number of woodcuts is considerably higher in Liesvelt’s New Testaments of 1540, 1541, and 1544, which also include narrative-based illustrations in the Gospels.64 Peetersen van Middelburch’s New Testaments of 1538 and 1540 contain the same number and types of woodcuts as Liesvelt’s earlier editions. From 1541 onwards, the number of woodcuts grew, as Peetersen used the woodcuts from the New Testament in his complete Bible of 1541 for his separately printed New Testaments as well.65
The woodcuts in Liesvelt’s and Peetersen van Middelburch’s Bibles can generally be divided into three types: woodcuts that display a biblical event, woodcuts that portray biblical figures, and woodcuts that schematically depict spaces or objects. Each of these performs a different function in directing and informing the reader: narrative-based woodcuts could function as hermeneutic devices, portraits of biblical authors could convey a certain scholarly authority, and schematical depictions could create a better understanding of the spatiality and materiality of the described spaces and objects.
The first of these three types is most common. These woodcuts depict events described in the biblical text they accompany, hence providing the reader with a hermeneutical aid for grasping the meaning and implications of the text.66 Furthermore, their presence underlines the relevance of the depicted event and pulls the eyes of the reader to the textual section. Some of the narrative-based woodcuts depict a series of events within one illustration, and others provide a visual representation of a single, particularly important event.67 The latter is the case, for instance, in the woodcut placed at the beginning of the book of Job in Liesvelt’s 1526 edition. The illustration depicts Job, seated with little more than a cloth around his waist, who is being visited by three richly-dressed friends (fig. 23).68
Illustration at the opening of the book of Job in Jacob van Liesvelt’s complete Bible edition of 1526. Leiden University Library, 1497 A 11
In this edition, it is the only illustration in the book of Job. Hence, in addition to marking the beginning of the chapter, it frames the story that follows and centralises the scene it depicts. The illustrated event begins in Job 2:11, as Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophor collectively come to visit Job to comfort him and hear his story. The conversation between the four – Job laments on his sorrows and shares his doubts and beliefs, upon which the friends respond – dominates the Bible book of Job. The woodcut at the beginning of the book hence provides a visualisation of the space and situation from which the main part of the Bible book emerges. Moreover, the depiction of Job clearly echoes the imagery of the suffering Christ, hence visually stressing a possible (and common) typological interpretation of the Bible book.69
Although the woodcut at the beginning of Job depicts the main figure of the book, it differs substantially from the second type of woodcut that regularly occurs in Liesvelt’s and Peetersen van Middelburch’s Bibles: portraits of prophets, evangelists, and apostles. These portraits are not narrative based, but fully centre around the likeness of the biblical figure or author of the Bible book. Some of these portraits are supposed to be recognisable: the woodcuts of the four evangelists, for instance, depict each of them with their usual attributes. However, this does not apply to all portraits. In Liesvelt’s Bibles from 1532 onwards, three general portraits are used to visualise the likenesses of no fewer than ten different prophets.70 The men on the woodcuts each hold onto a book and raise their hand with a pointed finger, emphasising their learned character. Their ‘oriental’ clothing further affirms that they indeed are supposed to be seen as prophets, even though none of them exclusively depicts a specific person (fig. 24).71
Illustration at the opening of the book of Hosea in Jacob van Liesvelt’s complete Bible edition of 1534. Antwerp, Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library, F 46902
In the words of Van Leerdam, such portraits ‘are stock images, not tailored to fit a specific text nor intended to represent a specific individual.’72 Rather than serving as interpretational devices, these portraits in Liesvelt’s and Peetersen van Middelburch’s Bibles find their purpose in conveying a sense of learned authority and of historical trustworthiness.
A third category to be distinguished here is the woodcut which schematically or technically depicts spaces or objects. These woodcuts, which are already included in Liesvelt’s complete Bible edition of 1526 and remain part of each of his and Peetersen van Middelburch’s complete Bibles, are based on the illustrations in a 1481 edition of Nicholas of Lyra’s (ca. 1270–1349) well-known Postilla super totam Bibliam. This edition, printed by the Neurenberg printer Anton Koberger, contains approximately forty images and diagrams in order to illustrate and clarify complex descriptions in the text.73 The illustrations that are copied by Dutch Bible printers include depictions of the contents and structure of the Tabernacle and Solomon’s Temple as explained in Exodus and 1 Kings, of Aaron in his high priest garments as described in Exodus 28, and of the build-up of the camp of the Israelites as mentioned in Numbers 2.74 The depictions are technical and schematic, functioning as visual explanations of textual descriptions of liturgical objects and spaces, rather than representations of the textual narrative.75 For instance, the woodcut of the Tabernacle, included in Exodus 40, does not display any elements that point to actions of Moses or God in this chapter (fig. 25).
Woodcut depicting the Tabernacle in Exodus 40, in Jacob van Liesvelt’s complete Bible edition of 1534. Antwerp, Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library, F 47902
Rather, it shows in great detail each of the objects and their locations as described in the text, from the veil that covers the Ark (Exodus 40:3: ‘And thou shalt put therein the ark of the testimony, and cover the ark with the veil’) to the altar for offerings placed just before the entrance to the Tabernacle (Exodus 40:6: ‘And thou shalt set the altar of the burnt offering before the door of the tabernacle of the tent of the congregation’). The popularity of these architectural, schematic, and technical images connects to a broader growing interest in ‘scholarly’ images in books which developed from the later Middle Ages onwards.76
3.2 The Map of Exodus
A striking element in the visual programme of Liesvelt’s and Peetersen van Middelburch’s complete Bible editions is, moreover, the geographical map placed at the beginning of the book of Exodus (fig. 26).
Map of the Exodus, titled Die ghelegentheit ende die palen des lants van Beloften, in Jacob van Liesvelt’s complete Bible edition of 1535. Utrecht University Library, THO RAR 2–32
The map already appeared in Liesvelt’s first complete Bible in 1526 and remained part of the subsequent editions.77 The Exodus map was copied from the map in the German Old Testament printed by Christopher Froschauer in Zürich in 1525.78 Froschauer’s map, which was developed on the basis of Lucas Cranach’s woodcut wall map, was the earliest printed map to be included in a Bible.79 Liesvelt’s response to this initiative was fast. Within a year, he corrected the orientation of the map (which had been mirrored in Froschauer’s copy of Cranach’s original), added a title: ‘The location and the borders of the Land of Promise’ (Die ghelegentheit ende die palen des lants van Beloften), and included the map in his enterprise to print the first complete Dutch Bible edition.
The map of the Holy Land displays the Mediterranean coastline, from Egypt and the Nile on the bottom left, to Sidon and Damascus in the right upper corner. Mountain ranges, rivers, territories, and cities are indicated, and ships sail the Mediterranean Sea in the west and the Red Sea in the south. The journey of the Israelites is traced through the mountains of the Sinai Desert and ends near the Dead Sea. Some narrative-based elements of the route are depicted, such as the crossing of the Red Sea in the bottom left corner: the people of Israel cross the water between high walls of waves while being pursued by the Egyptian army. By retracing the route displayed, reader-viewers could immerse themselves in the chain of events in this journey of the Israelites. As a contextualising, visualising aid the map invites readers to not only chart the route, but also to mentally participate in the experiences of the people of Israel. Rather than necessarily providing a precise geographic representation of the Holy Land, the map functions as a reading aid to allow readers to thoroughly engage with the biblical text.80 Reading the map becomes an interpretative act, connected inherently to the narrative of the Exodus.81 The functionality of the map lies in the hands of the reader, both with regard to their ability to interpret and use the geographical depictions but also, not least, in a quite literal sense: the size of the map results in it being folded and needing a reader to physically open it.82
The inclusion of the map in Liesvelt’s and Peetersen van Middelburch’s Bibles relates to the growing interest in sacred geography throughout the sixteenth century. Biblical maps were provided to facilitate – and satisfy the wish for – a scholarly, literal reading of the Bible, one in which readers could gain insight in the geographic and historic backgrounds of the text.83 Furthermore, the reading behaviour that the Exodus map enables connects to the practices and insights displayed in other paratextual elements, in particular the chronographical and ‘multilingual’ marginalia and the schematic, technical Postilla woodcuts. These paratexts together create a book which becomes, in a way, an encyclopaedia of biblical, historical, and geographical knowledge through which the reader may navigate.
4 Table of Contents
Whereas paratextual elements such as marginalia, chapter headings, and illustrations impact readers’ movements across the page, other elements are primarily concerned with directing and facilitating readers’ navigation through the book in its entirety. This is the case for the various tables and registers that Liesvelt and Peetersen van Middelburch included in their Bibles. Firstly, in several of their editions, tables of contents are provided, usually placed between the Old and New Testaments or at the end of the work.84 These tables direct and enable readers in their browsing through the library of the Bible by allowing them to grasp the sequential order of the various elements.85 Furthermore, as discussed by Ann Blair, such devices might have supported readers in lightening their feelings of information overload.86 Tables of contents became popular around the thirteenth century, when an increasing number of major works opened or closed with a tituli list, listing all important headings in the work in order of appearance. In the words of the twelfth-century chronicler Godfrey of Viterbo, a list of contents could ‘[guide] to the desired port readers rowing through the seas’ of a work.87 As with many paratextual developments, the practice of listing the contents of the book was adopted by, and extended in, printed book culture.
4.1 The Sequence of Bible Books
Most complete Bible editions by Liesvelt and Peetersen van Middelburch, as well as several New Testaments by Liesvelt, contain lists of the Bible books of the New Testament.88 In the complete Bibles, this overview is positioned at the beginning of the New Testament, alongside Matthew 1. In some cases, the overview merely lists the names of the books, from Matthew to Revelation, in other Bibles the overview is enhanced with information on the number of chapters per book.89 For instance, in the 1532 Bible, the table of contents is titled: ‘These are the books of the New Testament and for each how many chapter that it has.’90 Following this caption, the list mentions the title of the Bible book and its number of chapters: ‘St. Matthew Gospel has 28 chapters / St. Mark Gospel has 16 chapters …’, et cetera.91
The order in which the Bible books appear, and thus how they are usually arranged in the tables of contents, is not confessionally neutral. In his 1522 New Testament, Martin Luther placed the Bible books of Hebrews, the Epistle of James, the Epistle of Jude, and Revelations at the end of his edition, in order to emphasise their disputed character. Jacob van Liesvelt followed the order presented by Luther in his complete Bibles of 1526 and 1542, as well as in his New Testaments. This fact is stressed particularly in the tables of contents in Liesvelt’s New Testaments of 1541 and 1544b, where, similarly to the way the contents are presented in Luther’s New Testament edition of 1522, the four disputed Bible books are placed underneath a blank line that separates them from the Epistles mentioned above (fig. 27).
List of contents in Jacob van Liesvelt’s New Testament of 1541. University of Groningen Library, A g 82
In Liesvelt’s complete Bibles of 1532, 1534, 1535, and 1538, the book of Hebrews is located earlier in the book, between the Epistle to Philemon and the two Epistles of Peter. Nevertheless, contrary to the Vulgate order, the book of James remains at the end of the Bible. The traditional sequence is, however, followed by Peetersen van Middelburch in his New Testament editions. In these editions, the letters of St. Paul are concluded with the Epistles to the Hebrews, upon which the apostolic letters of John, James, and Jude follow. The New Testament closes with the book of Revelations.
Intriguingly, in the case of Peetersen van Middelburch’s 1535 and 1541 complete Bibles, the table of contents is not entirely in agreement with the order in which the Bible books are actually placed. In both tables of contents, it is stated that the last four books are the Epistles of John, the Epistle of James, the Epistle of Jude, and Revelations. In the Bible of 1535, however, the last books in the edition are Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelations, thus following the Lutheran order that was also used by Liesvelt. The 1541 Bible follows the Vulgate order, in which both Hebrews and the Epistle of James are placed in their canonical order. The inconsistency between the table of contents and the actual order of the Bible books illustrates the eclectic, sometimes irregular, confessional colour of these Bibles. Furthermore, it displays how paratextual elements were sometimes simply copied from one edition to another, without paying careful attention to the implementability of these elements.
In Liesvelt’s New Testaments of 1534, 1541, and 1544b, the table of contents is positioned just before the beginning of the Book of Revelation. Hence, contrary to the complete Bible editions, the table of contents is placed here after the majority of the books it describes. Through its placement, the table of contents creates a clear distinction between the Gospels and Epistles on one side, and the Book of Revelations on the other. This distinction likely relates to the disputed character of Revelations, about which Luther wrote in his prologue to the Bible book in his New Testament of 1522: ‘I say what I feel: to me, there are several things missing from this book, which I therefore do not consider apostolic nor prophetic.’92
4.2 Enabling Movement and Creating Structural Understanding
Similarly to paratextual elements such as the running titles and summaries, content lists shape reading possibilities that can be non-linear and ‘creative’, i.e. they allow readers to start and stop reading at any place in the book, in accordance with their preferences. Rather than following a prescribed reading schedule, the content list could aid readers in developing their own, perhaps even spontaneous, course of action whilst browsing through the book. Interestingly, although the table of contents describes, in a way, the fixed sequential order of texts, it simultaneously and inherently facilitates the freedom of a reader to create their own path through the book, by doing so ‘undermining’ the fixity of the text.93
As mentioned, some of Liesvelt’s and Peetersen van Middelburch’s Bibles include the number of chapters in each Bible book in their tables of contents. This addition demonstrates that the table of contents connects to other paratextual elements, in particular the running titles and chapter headings. The combination of these elements would help readers to be aware of where they were within the book and if they, for instance, were approaching the conclusion of a Bible book when they flipped through the pages.94
Strikingly, Liesvelt’s and Peetersen van Middelburch’s Bibles do not contain any table of contents for the Old Testament. Although other navigational aids, such as intertitles and lay out related devices, are presented consistently throughout the book, it seems that listing the contents of the Old Testament was not considered profitable. This might relate to the fact that the Old and New Testaments were valued and understood considerably differently within early modern Christianity. The Old Testament’s importance lay for a large part in its prophesising and typological connection to the New Testament, whereas the New Testament actually testified to, and textually represented, Christ Himself.
5 Liturgical Reading Aids
Whereas many paratextual elements occur only in part of Liesvelt’s and Peetersen van Middelburch’s Bibles, a certain navigational device proves to be omnipresent across all editions: the liturgical reading schedule. This schedule features references to the biblical readings (lessons, pericopes) for Sundays and feast days, as well as important saints’ days. Contrary to lectionaries, which provide readers with the full text of the readings in liturgical order, these schedules were used in inherent conjunction with the biblical text itself.
From the sixth century onwards, every Mass was supposed to include at least two lectures: an Epistle reading, usually derived from the Epistles but sometimes also from Acts, Revelations, or the Old Testament, and a Gospel reading, taken from one of the four Gospels.95 Previous studies on the inclusion of liturgical reading schedules in biblical manuscripts and early printed books have shown that it was common for both Latin and vernacular Bibles to present their readers with a liturgical reading schedule.96 These schedules remained relatively constant over several centuries in content and form from the thirteenth century onwards.97
The addition of a liturgical reading schedule would allow for the appropriation of the book in liturgical and paraliturgical contexts. Although it has been argued that vernacular Bibles might have been used for reading along in Mass, in addition to the liturgical recitation in Latin, most scholars stress the use of these Bibles and their liturgical reading schedules for private study or devotion, or as a form of ‘re-enacting’ the collective ritual of Bible reading.98
5.1 ‘Table to Find the Epistles and Gospels’ and Liturgical References
The liturgical reading schedule in Liesvelt’s and Peetersen van Middelburch’s Bibles, usually located at the end of the book, consists of two parts. The first provides the Epistle and Gospel readings for all liturgical days throughout the year, from the first Sunday of Advent until the Friday following the 25th Sunday after Trinity (fig. 28).
Opening of the liturgical reading schedule in Jacob van Liesvelt’s complete Bible edition (a) of 1542. Leuven, Maurits Sabbe Library, P22.055.1/Fo BIJB 1542 A
As the heading of the schedule announces: ‘Here starts the table to find the Epistles and Gospels as these are kept within the church throughout the entire year.’99 The schedules generally list the pericopes for the Sundays, feast days, Wednesdays, Fridays, and some Saturdays. In the period of Lent, the readings for every day of the week are included. After this first part, a second presents ‘the Epistles and Gospels of the saints that are kept throughout the year on saints days,’ starting with St. Andrew’s day (30 November, at the beginning of Advent) and concluding with St. Catherine’s day (25 November).100 François already noted that this liturgical schedule, including its readings for saints’ days, is practically identical in the various Bibles across the confessional spectrum.101 All Bible editions issued by Liesvelt and Peetersen van Middelburch provide a reading schedule that follows the missal of Cambrai, the diocese to which Antwerp belonged.
The entries in the liturgical reading schedule mention the specific day and at least two references: the first to the Epistle reading, the second to the Gospel reading. The references consist of the incipit of the reading and the Bible book and chapter from which the lesson is taken on the right, and the accompanying finding letter of the pericope at the left. A short introduction to the schedule explains how the system is supposed to be used:
In order to easily find the Epistles and Gospels, look at the A, B, C, D that are placed in the margins of this book. You will always find, underneath that letter where the Gospel or Epistle starts, this sign +, and where it ends, this sign *.102
Although the way in which this table was designed goes back to manuscript traditions, the printer-publisher apparently assumed it to be appropriate to include this explanation at the beginning of the reading schedule.103
The New Testament editions of Liesvelt and Peetersen van Middelburch contain identical liturgical reading schedules. In order to enable readers to effectively use the navigational device, the New Testament editions also provide the full texts of the lessons taken from the Old Testament. References to these Old Testament readings are included in the liturgical reading schedule at the end of the book and short notes, placed in the margins at the beginning of each Old Testamentic reading, announce the day for which the pericope was destined. For instance, the first Old Testament text included in the New Testament editions is taken from Isaiah 7 and serves as ‘the Epistle on [the feast of] Mary’s Conception’ (8 December). Although Peikola has argued that this system, in which notes ‘spell out the liturgical occasion … either as part of the scriptural text or in the margin at the beginning of each pericope’ was becoming outdated by the end of the Middle Ages, both liturgical aids remained to be used in all Liesvelt’s and Peetersen’s New Testaments.104
5.2 Facilitating Paraliturgical Use
The liturgical reading schedule is a powerful tool that could direct and support readers’ navigational enterprise. When a reader combined the liturgical reading schedule with other paratextual and textual elements of the book, the Bible could become a fully self-contained lectionary, providing both the searching tools as well as the actual content of the readings. By appropriating the book in the facilitated liturgical manner, an individual reader would have been able to read in the vernacular what was read or sung in Latin at Mass. They could choose to read the biblical passages before, while, or after the service they attended. Furthermore, readers could use the liturgical texts in private devotional or meditational reading practices. Presented as coherent textual entities, the readings could serve as useful entries for contemplation and rumination of Christ’s life and the mysteries of the faith.
The reading practice that is facilitated by the liturgical reading schedule is an outspokenly discontinuous one. The continuity of liturgical and paraliturgical reading relies upon the structure of the religious year, rather than on reading the Bible as a linear narrative. In other words, contrary to resulting from the order of the book, the liturgical reading schedule reacts to the wish to accommodate a certain discontinuous reading practice. Moreover, the presence of reading schedules in all Bibles studied here underlines Stallybrass’ argument that neither discontinuous nor continuous Bible reading was strictly confessionally coloured.105 Both Liesvelt’s Luther-based Bibles as well as Peetersen van Middelburch’s Vorsterman-based, catholicising Bible of 1541 contain the same liturgical reading schedules.
Nevertheless, it is crucial to note that although the presence of reading schedules and related liturgical paratextual elements would have enabled and likely also stimulated discontinuous reading, it did not rule out continuous reading. Contrary to, for instance, editions that presented the Epistles and Gospels in liturgical order, which were in high demand at the end of the fifteenth and the early sixteenth century, the complete Bibles and New Testament editions could still be read in a non-liturgical, linear manner.106 Hence, rather than understanding the presence of liturgical reading schedules as a determining feature for (para)liturgical use, it can be considered one of the possible navigational reading systems the book allowed and enabled. In the end, it was up to the reader to decide whether or not to use the reading schedule and trace the liturgical route it facilitated.
6 Topical Register
In addition to the table of contents and the liturgical reading schedule, several complete Bible editions by Liesvelt and Peetersen van Middelburch contain a third ‘table’ to aid readers’ movements through the book.107 Whereas the liturgical reading schedule provided readers with a predetermined and relatively solidified prescription of navigational routes through the book, the index-like topical register would allow readers to personally create their own directions through various thematical entries within the register. The reader-oriented register consists of a list of alphabetically ordered topics that might spark a reader’s interest.
The topical register was first introduced in a Dutch complete Bible published by Willem Vorsterman in his 1533–1534. A similar list of alphabetically ordered topics, persons, and events had been printed before in the German Zurich Bible of 1531, which possibly inspired Vorsterman’s inclusion of the register, although the selection of topics, persona, and events differs substantially from that in the Zurich Bible.108 The introduction of the topical register in these Bibles corresponds with the larger picture of an increasing interest and use of indexes in early modern books.109 Furthermore, the topical registers in early modern Dutch Bibles relate to the genre of biblical concordances. Developed around the thirteenth century and later printed in both Latin and the vernacular, these concordances provided extensive, alphabetically organised lists of words or phrases found in the Bible and their location within the book, which allowed theologians or clerics to meticulously study the Scriptures.110 The ‘table to easily find the pivotal parts’ in Dutch Bibles from the first half of the sixteenth century opens up this approach to the biblical text for any of their readers.
6.1 A ‘Table to Easily Find the Pivotal Parts’
After Vorsterman’s inclusion of a topical register in his Bible of 1533–1534, the example was eagerly followed by Liesvelt in his complete Bible of 1534 and subsequent editions (fig. 29).
Topical register in Jacob van Liesvelt’s complete Bible edition of 1534. Antwerp, Hendrik Conscience Heritage Library, F 46902
Liesvelt adopted various entries from Vorsterman’s register, as well as adding his own. Peetersen van Middelburch, then, responded to these developments by copying Liesvelt’s and Vorsterman’s registers in his complete Bible editions. The topical registers consist of a list of biblical persons, events, facts, and concepts. Each entry is accompanied by one or more references to the corresponding place in the Bible. The reference system corresponds with the one used in the liturgical reading schedule: an abbreviated name of the Bible book, chapter number, and finding letter guide readers to the exact place of the item they are looking for.
Liesvelt not only adjusted the selection of persons, events, facts, and concepts, but also adapted the structure of the list. Whereas Vorsterman’s register consists of one alphabetical list containing references to both the Old and the New Testament, Liesvelt divided his register into two sections. The first part could be used to find ‘the pivotal parts of the Old Testament’, and ‘after that, one finds a table on the New Testament.’111 Each part is structured alphabetically, but underneath each letter in the register for the Old Testament the list of persons and concepts follows the chronology of their appearance in the Bible books. Hence, in Liesvelt’s version, references to Adam appear before those about Abraham, because Adam is mentioned earlier in Genesis. In the New Testament part of his register, Liesvelt does not continue with this system, and includes his references underneath each letter in a rather random, sometimes alphabetical order. Peetersen van Middelburch adopted Liesvelt’s register in his Bible from 1535. In his 1541 Bible, however, which largely follows the text and paratext of Vorsterman’s editions, the list is fully alphabetically ordered (so topics on Abraham appear before those on Adam) and references to the Old as well as to the New Testament are included within one register. The consistent alphabetical order of this version is emphasised in the heading of the register: ‘A table to easily find and have within reach all parts, histories, facts, and materials that are described to us in the entire scripture, according to an A-B-C-arrangement.’112
The entries in the lists are diverse. Many simply present a certain biblical story or event, allowing readers to quickly find certain well-known passages. Examples include ‘Goliath was defeated by David – 1 Kings 17, f-g’ (in Peetersen’s 1541 Bible) and ‘Thomas doubts Christ’s resurrection – John 20, f-g’ (in Liesvelt’s 1538 Bible).113 In addition, the list enables readers to search for specific persons and find out where in the Bible they are mentioned. Examples are the two Elizabeths mentioned in the register in Peetersen’s 1541 Bible: ‘Elizabeth, wife of Aaron – Exodus 7, d; Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist – Luke 1, c–d–f.’114 Other entries focus specifically on exceptional qualities of a certain person. For example, in Peetersen’s Bible of 1541: ‘Adam was 930 years old – Genesis 5, a.’115 Some some entries are of a more theological character. Several items disclose typological or prophesising understandings of the connections between the Old and the New Testament. This is the case with entries such as ‘Adam was a prefiguration of Christ – Romans 5, c’ (in Peetersen’s 1541 Bible) and ‘Christ’s birth was predicted, Isaiah 8, a’ (in Liesvelt’s 1535 Bible).116 Other items concern a theological interpretation of the Scriptures, e.g. ‘Life, truth, and the way is Christ – John 14, a’ (in Peetersen’s 1535 Bible).117
It is in such entries that a certain confessional colour sometimes shines through. This is particularly the case with regard to various entries that concern ‘grace’ (gratie) or ‘faith’ (ghelove). For instance, in Peetersen’s Bible of 1541: ‘It is by the grace of Christ Jesus that we will be saved, and not by works – Ephesians 2, a-b – John 1, b – If not, grace would not be grace – Romans 9, a’.118 This statement has a clear Reformation-minded character. However, slightly earlier, on the same page, another entry seems to contradict this statement: ‘If faith has no works, it will be of no avail, but it is idle and dead – James 2, a.’119 As François and Corbellini have emphasised, the theological principles presented in the topical registers are eclectic and broad-ranging within the confessional spectrum.120 Whereas one might expect fewer Reformation-minded references in the topical register of the Vorsterman-based Peetersen van Middelburch Bible of 1541 than in his Liesvelt-based Bible of 1535, this does not appear to be the case. For instance, the reference that argues that one can only be saved by the grace of Christ and not by works, as mentioned before, does not appear in his Bible of 1535. Inversely, the catholicising reference ‘faith without works is dead – James 2, a’ is included only in Liesvelt’s Bibles and Peetersen van Middelburch’s Bible of 1535.121
In Liesvelt’s complete Bibles and in Peetersen van Middelburch’s Bible of 1535, the topical register is followed by another overview, listing the abbreviations used to refer to certain Bible books. The list is, according to the introductory phrases that accompany the list, intended ‘for the simple reader who does not understand Latin, and who is not well-educated in the Holy Scripture.’122 The list contains one or two abbreviations of the name of a Bible book, as well as its full name, for instance Gen and Ge for ‘Genesis, or the book of the creation.’123 The overview closes with an explanation of the more complex references to Bible books that consist of two or more parts, such as 1 and 2 Maccabees. The explanation clarifies that:
If there are two numbers placed with a name, one before and one after, then the first number before the name always refers to the book of that name, in the Old Testament, but the Epistle [of that name] in the New Testament. And the following number always [refers to] the chapters, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament. As you indeed find in the beforementioned Old Testament: 3 Kings 8, that is the third book of Kings, the 8th chapter. And in the New Testament as follows: 1 Corinthians 15, that is the first Epistle to the Corinthians, the 15th chapter.124
The list of abbreviations follows the order of the Bible books as they appear within the editions. However, the overview refers to the story of Bel and the dragon and that of Susanna and the elders as separate Bible books after 2 Maccabees. Within the Bible editions, however, these narratives are presented as the thirteenth and fourteenth chapters of Daniel, and placed between Solomon’s Prayer and 1 Maccabees. Furthermore, both the list of abbreviations and the topical register use the title ‘Paralipomenon’ to refer to the Book of Chronicles, contrary to what is used in the intertitles within the Bible itself.
6.2 Creative and Discontinuous Bible Reading
The topical registers create opportunities for a distinctive form of discontinuous reading. In contrast to a non-linear reading practice that follows a prescribed order, the topical registers allow and need readers to creatively shape their own path through the book.125 The alphabetical order in which the entries are listed is essentially arbitrary, creating an overview in which items that are not conceptually connected to each other are positioned side by side. This results in a system that depends on the searching manners and selection techniques of its readers for its functionality and efficiency. Their demands and interests inherently shape the routes they take, both within the topical register and once they enter the main Bible text. In Duncan’s words, an index such as this ‘is reader-oriented, rather than text-oriented: if you know what you’re looking for, the letters of the alphabet provide a universal, text-independent system in which to look it up.’126
The variety of entries in the register serves diverse interests. Readers who would wish to read a certain well-known biblical story could easily find the part of their interest, whereas theologically interested readers could similarly search for references on specific prophecies or items that suited a certain confessional position. Moreover, through the diversity of entries, readers with various amounts of reading experience and levels of mastery of navigational techniques, might profit from the book’s paratextual elements. This is also confirmed through the inclusion of the list of abbreviations, which even comes with some instructions for use, implying that at least certain readers might not be familiar with it. The overview of abbreviations and the navigational aid of the topical register would allow theologically learned as well as inexperienced readers to discontinuously move through the book.
A final note to be made regarding these topical registers is that, although alphabetical sequences are thematically random, the ordering of the register does result in combinations that are meaningful, simply because references around the same names or words are found in close proximity to each other. In other words, although in Peetersen’s 1541 Bible, the side-by-side position of Dan, the son of Jacob, and the prophet Daniel may not be conceptually justified, the alphabetical order does also result in the fact that all nine references to Daniel are found together. Furthermore, the positioning of various references alongside creates an intertextual structure for readers to engage with and discover. When browsing through the many entries concerning David, for instance, they may start to recognise how both the Books of Kings and the Books of Chronicles are concerned with his life and deeds. In addition, the connections between several parts of the Bible are emphasised when multiple references are added to a single entry. The relation between the Gospels, for instance, is stressed in the entry ‘Christ was born – Matthew 1, d – Luke 2, a – John 1, b’ in the register in Peetersen van Middelburch’s 1541 Bible.127
Moreover, the possibility of unintentional interpretative results should not be ruled out. Although two consecutively positioned entries may not relate to each other thematically, the fact that a reader could approach them simultaneously creates a virtual connectiveness. The proximity of content-wise unrelated topics creates a certain ‘material intertextuality’: ‘an intertextuality based on physical rather than purely discursive proximity.’128 Readers may get distracted, change their mind, follow another lead, or – perhaps unconsciously – be affected in some way by the many references they skipped by.129
7 Conclusion
In the words of Roger Chartier, paratexts in early modern books ‘state and articulate a complex set of relations with power.’130 They shape, influence, enable, stimulate, and serve potential readers in multiple ways and on interpretational, structural, navigational, and practical levels. As this chapter aimed to demonstrate, the paratexts in Liesvelt’s and Peetersen van Middelburch’s Bibles did not merely serve as thresholds to the contents of the text, but also as constructive, facilitating forces that enabled and structuralised reading practices. Although the arrangement of the complete Bibles by both printers inherently created the possibility for linear, continuous readings of the biblical text (starting with Genesis and concluding with Revelation), the paratextual elements that are situated alongside the text of the Bible prove to generate reading practices that are discontinuous and reader-oriented.131
The non-linear reading strategies that these paratexts imply and enable are variant. Liesvelt’s and Peetersen van Middelburch’s editions – both their complete Bibles and New Testaments – provide readers with multiple devices to direct and structure liturgy-based reading practices. By integrating paratextual elements such as the liturgical reading schedule, the intertitles, and the finding letters, readers could approach the Bible edition as a (para)liturgical entity; as a flexible lectionary, available for daily use. In addition, navigational aids such as intertitles and finding letters could be connected to the references in the topical register, allowing readers to construct their own route through the book. The addition of this register to vernacular printed Bibles from 1533–1534 onwards is the greatest paratextual development within the corpus studied here. However, it was indeed an addition: it opened up new reading possibilities without dismantling any reading practices that earlier editions facilitated. Furthermore, proper use of the topical register required techniques similar to those already used for liturgical reading schedules regarding picking a reference and locating a biblical passage accordingly. The inclusion of the topical register could hence effectively serve as a navigational aid because it relied on techniques and approaches with which early modern readers were already familiar.
The paratexts could thus allow an early modern user of the book to ‘break up’ the Scriptures; to approach them not as a static and linear entity, but as a dynamic space in which they could navigate according to the liturgical order or their personal preferences. Simultaneously, however, these very paratexts functioned as agents in creating and shaping intertextuality and connectiveness throughout the book. Cross-references and the topical register, for instance, would remind readers of the many and meaningful connections between various parts of the Bible. This interconnectivity not only shapes the outline of the movements readers could make, but also assigns meaning to these movements. Searching for interpretational, structural, thematical, and personal connections between different sections of the Bible in a discontinuous approach to the book was beneficial because it would ultimately allow readers to grasp the divine complexity and intricacy of God’s Word.
The paratextual elements described in this chapter demand, structure, and enable a reader who is actively involved, one who fervently takes part in the dialogue between the book and the individual. Moreover, in order for reading schedules, intertitles, and marginalia to have an influential and operative voice themselves, these aids depend on readers who bring them into action. It is the reader through whom paratext is animated – even before the paratext could animate and influence the behaviour of the reader. For instance, the ability of the topical register to direct readers to a certain section of the biblical text would inevitably begin with a reader opening the register and, based on their personal preferences or previous reading experiences, determining which reference they wish to follow. Moreover, these references would be futile if not for the reader who would then actively need to combine the information provided in register with paratextual elements such as running titles, chapter headings, and finding letters. It is only because of and through these instances of active involvement of the reader that the register could possibly do that for which it was included by the printer-publishers: to direct those very readers and to help them navigate through the book. In other words: although the printer-publishers assigned meaning to their books, it would only be in the reader’s involvement that this meaning could come to life.
The interconnected system of various paratextual aids in Liesvelt’s and Peetersen van Middelburch’s Bibles facilitated the reader to use the Bible as a self-contained, independent tool for studious, devotional, and liturgical reading. As readers returned time and time again to the Scriptures, the paratexts in Liesvelt’s and Peetersen van Middelburch’s Bibles created a system which allowed, in Howley’s words, ‘each route through the forking paths of reading [to be] unique not just to every reader, but to every act of reading.’132 However, the question remains to what extent early modern readers indeed incorporated these paratextual structures into their practices and behaviour when they entered the book. Did they actively embrace the navigational and interpretational potentials fostered for them by the printer-publishers, or did they rather decide to ignore them? In the following sections, I will explore how the formative forces of these Bibles negotiated with the transformative forces of their self-willed readers.
William W.E. Slights, ‘“Marginall Notes that Spoile the Text”: Scriptural Annotation in the English Renaissance’, Huntington Library Quarterly, 55:2 (1992), pp. 255–278, p. 258.
See: John N. King, Foxe’s ‘Book of Martyrs’ and Early Modern Print Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 64.
See also: Helen Smith, ‘Matter in the Margins’, in Marie-Alice Belle and Brenda M. Hosington (eds.), Thresholds of Translation: Paratexts, Print, and Cultural Exchange in Early Modern Britain (1473–1660) (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), pp. 27–50, p. 28.
See also: Blair, Too Much to Know, pp. 38–39; Dennis Duncan, Index, A History of the: A Bookish Adventure (London: Penguin Random House, 2021), p. 77.
On the verse numbering in the Biestkens Bible, see: Anne Jaap van den Berg and Boukje Thijs, ‘Biestkensbijbel’, Met Andere Woorden. Kwartaalblad over Bijbelvertalen, 25:4 (2006), pp. 22–28, pp. 24–25; De Bruin, De Statenbijbel en zijn voorgangers, p. 157. The Biestkens Bible is available as a digital facsimile at https://www.bijbelsdigitaal.nl/biestkensbijbel-1560/.
See: Blair, Too Much to Know, pp. 153–158.
As Sherman states, little research has been done as to the history and theory of the manicule. The only relatively recent definition he found was in G. A. Glaister’s Encyclopedia of the Book (1979, reprinted in 2001). See: Sherman, Used Books, pp. 32–34.
Sherman, Used Books, p. 48.
JvL NT 1544b, Matthew 16:18: Ende ic segge u / Ghi sijt Petrus / ende op desen steen sal ic mijn ergaderinge timmeren.
King, Foxe’s ‘Book of Martyrs’, p. 64.
In the complete Bibles in particular, the cross-references create a closed but non-linear system of information and knowledge, in which the reader can find each referred Bible passage within the same book. The New Testament editions of Liesvelt and Peetersen, however, also contain many references to Old Testament passages, hence demanding that a reader would also have an Old Testament edition at hand in order to integrate the referred readings in their interpretation of the text.
This is the case in Liesvelt’s New Testaments of 1534, 1541, and 1544b, and Peetersen’s New Testaments of 1538, 1540, 1541, 1544, and 1546.
HPvM NT 1540, Matthew 1:1 (margin): Jesus afcoemst na der menscheyt.
HPvM NT 1540, Matthew 1:18 (margin): Hoe Joseph Mariam zijn huysurou ontfinck.
HPvM NT 1540, Matthew 1:24 (margin): Jesus geboorte. These content descriptions sometimes confirm the interconnectivity of the four Gospels. The phrase ‘Jesus’ birth’ in the margin of Matthew 1:25, for instance, is echoed in the marginal note ‘How Jesus was born’ (Hoe Jesus geboren wert) at Luke 2:1.
HPvM NT 1540, Matthew 3:2: Doet penitencie. HPvM NT 1540, Matthew 3:2 (margin): Van Joannes baptista.
HPvM NT 1540, Matthew 16:18: op desen steen sal ic timmeren mijn kercke. HPvM NT 1540, Matthew 16:18 (margin): Petrus macht.
JvL CB 1542b: Opten steen ghetimmert syn, is alle onse hope setten op cristum alleen. See also: Den Hollander, ‘De Liesveltbijbel’, p. 232.
In the words of Slights, ‘a simple summary of the contents of an intimidatingly dense paragraph could invite neophyte readers to enter … the ‘house’ of the text through … appropriate doorways.’ See: Slights, Managing Readers, p. 41.
On the development of the Dutch glossed Bible, see: François and Corbellini, ‘Shaping Religious Reading Cultures’, pp. 153–154, pp. 165–173.
JvL CB 1534, Exodus 38:8 (margin): Heerinnen waren deuote / oft geestelijcke bisonderde vrouwen.
JvL CB 1534, Matthew 23:5 (margin): Philacteria sijn brieuen daer Moises wet in geschreuen stont.
See: François and Corbellini, ‘Shaping Religious Reading Cultures’, pp. 155–156. Despite evident similarities, however, Liesvelt’s time calculations differ from the Fasciculus and other sources he probably used (such as the Novissimae hystoriarum omnium repercussiones, Venice, 1503). According to François and Corbellini, this is simply the result of ‘careless borrowing from the sources’ (155). A digitised facsimile of Veldener’s Fasciculus Temporum is available at: https://www.uu.nl/en/utrecht-university-library-special-collections/collections/early-printed-books/history-works/fasciculus-temporum-by-werner-rolevinck. This edition not only contained a translation of the Latin text, but was also supplemented with localised histories of various Dutch towns. See: Wilma Keesman, De eindeloze stad: Troje en Trojaanse oorsprongsmythen in de (laat)middeleeuwse en vroegmoderne Nederlanden (Hilversum: Verloren, 2017), pp. 468–469.
Zur Shalev, ‘Early Modern Geographia Sacra in the Context of Early Modern Scholarship’, in Kevin Klleen et al. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Bible in Early Modern England, c. 1530–1700 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), pp. 196–208, p. 198.
JvL CB 1542a, Judges 7:8–21 (margin): Hercules ende Jason belegghen dye stadt van Troien seer strenghelic ende winnense. Laodemon, die coninc van Troyen, wert verslagen ende sijn dochter Iriona werdt gevangen ende in Griecken ghevoert voor Cristus gheboorte MCC ende LXXIII jaer, tjaer der werelt III dusent IXc en XXV jaer. On the chronographical glosses in Liesvelt’s Bibles, see also: Hoff and Jongen 2020, 39–44; François and Corbellini, ‘Shaping Religious Reading Cultures’, pp. 153–156.
See: Shalev, ‘Early Modern Geographia Sacra’, p. 197.
HPvM CB 1541, Genesis 1:20: cruypende dieren die leuende sielen hebben. HPvM CB 1541, Genesis 1:20 (margin): th. cruypende ende leuende sielen.
HPvM CB 1541, Matthew 5:22 (margin): sonder sake. HPvM CB 1541, Matthew 5:22: die is des oordeels sculdich.
This practice is also reflected in books such as the Gulden Ghebedeboexken uut den ouden ende nyeuwe Testamente (Golden Prayerbook from the Old and New Testament), which was printed by Liesvelt (in 1532, USTC nr. 437610) and Peetersen van Middelburch (in 1538 USTC, nr. 437922, and 1540, USTC nr. 400658), amongst other printers. The book, a translation of Otto Brunfels’ Precationes biblicae, provides a wide range of biblical excerpts that readers could perform in order to practise ‘a good way to pray and praise God continuously’ (een goede manière om te bidden ende God altijt the ghebenedijen).
JvL CB 1534, Genesis 22:16 (margin): Hyer wordt Christus belooft.
JvL CB 1534, Genesis 49:10 (margin): Die Vrome is Christus daer Jacob af propheteert.
HPvM CB 1541, Genesis 20:2 (margin): Ons leuen te zijn en ghestadich wercken in den wijngaert des heeren: leert ons dese parabel. As with any of the marginal glosses in this edition, this gloss was taken from Willem Vorsterman’s Bible editions.
HPvM CB 1541, Exodus 3:1 (margin): Die bosch bernende ende niet verbernende is een figure van de onbeuleckte maechd ons des moeder Gods Maria.
JvL CB 1542b, Godsalicheyt is die eere diemen God sculdich is dat si in hem alleen te betrouwen. See also: Den Hollander, ‘De Liesveltbijbel’, p. 232.
François and Corbellini, ‘Shaping Religious Reading Cultures’, p. 149. On the subsequent steps in this development of confessionalisation, see: François, ‘Bible Production and Bible Readers’.
See also: Clark and Sheingorn, ‘Encountering a Dream-Vision’, p. 37; Slights, ‘Marginall Notes’, 257; Smith, ‘Matter in the Margins’, pp. 32–33.
King, Foxe’s ‘Book of Martyrs’, p. 64. See also: Smith, ‘Matter in the Margins’, p. 36.
Ray McAleese, Hypertext: Theory into Practice (Exeter: Intellect, 1999), pp. v–vi.
Thomas N. Corns, ‘The Early Modern Search Engine: Indices, Title Pages, Marginalia and Contents’, in Neil Rhodes and Jonathan Sawday (eds.), The Renaissance Computer: Knowledge Technology in the First Age of Print (London/New York: Routledge, 2000), pp. 95–105, p. 95. For a thorough application of the concept of hypertextuality to premodern books, see: Henrike Manuwald, ‘Navigating the Biblical Text: The Biblical Summary in Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, Cpg 110, Read as a Hypertext’, in Sabrina Corbellini, Wim François, and Renske A. Hoff, In Readers’ Hands: New Perspectives on Premodern Bibles in Europe (Leiden/Boston: Brill, to be published).
According to Genette, running titles function predominantly as ‘reminders, handy when one is reading and consulting the text’ (Genette, Paratexts, p. 316). Genette’s perspective, however, seems indeed to be that of a modern reader, by whom paratextual elements at the top or bottom of the page are seen as subordinate to the main text block. However, the impact of early modern intertitles – running titles in particular – exceeds their mere practical purposes. Early modern authors, publishers, and readers, Matthew Day argues, were well aware of the constructive role running titles may have had (see: Matthew Day, ‘“Intended to Offenders”: The Running Titles of Early Modern Books’, in Helen Smith and Louise Wilson (eds.), Renaissance Paratexts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 34–47, p. 43). The fact that the early modern readers of the Bibles under scrutiny in this study often corrected printing mistakes and typo’s in the running titles and chapter headings of their Bible copies, underlines that they were indeed keenly aware of their presence and content, as more than just ‘reminders.’ On readers’ responses to intertitles and their corrections of these, see section 5.2.
Claire M.L. Bourne, ‘Running Titles’, in Dennis Duncan and Adam Smyth (eds.), Book Parts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), pp. 191–208, pp. 194–195.
HPvM NT 1543, Matthew 2 (top margin): S. Matheus Euangelie / Dat .ii. Capittel.
In general, when subsequent chapters start at the same page, the running title mentions the latest. Hence, on the page on which part of Genesis 14, the entire chapter Genesis 15, and part of Genesis 16 can be found, the running title recalls ‘The book Genesis, the 16th Chapter’ (JvL CB 1532, Genesis 16 (top margin): Dat boeck Genesis / Dat .xvi. Capittel.)
HPvM CB 1541, topical register (top margin): Tafel op die gheheele / Heylighe Schriftuere.
JvL 1542b, at the beginning of 1 Ezra: Hier beghint dat eerste boeck Esdre.
JvL 1542b, at the beginning of Exodus: Hier beghint dat boeck der wtgancx datmen int Latijn noemt Exodus int Hebreusche Hellesmoth.
The chapter headings are marked with pilcrows in Jacob van Liesvelt’s complete Bibles of 1532 and 1534, his New Testaments of 1534 and 1541, and Hendrick Peetersen van Middelburch’s complete Bibles of 1535 and 1541 as well as his New Testaments of 1538, 1540, 1541b, 1543, and 1546. On paragraph marks, see also: Goran Proot, ‘The Use of Paragraph Marks in Early 16th-Century Flemish Editions’, The Collation: Research and Exploration at the Folger, 17 January 2014, https://www.folger.edu/blogs/collation/the-use-of-paragraph-marks-in-early-16th-century-dutch-editions/.
Liesvelt’s first complete Bible of 1526 does not contain chapter summaries. Liesvelt’s New Testaments 1535a, 1535b, 1540, and 1544a, and Peetersen’s New Testament 1541b do contain summaries above each chapter. As discussed before, other New Testaments contain short summaries in the margins.
JvL CB 1532, Genesis 5 (above chapter): Hier wort Adams geslachte verhaelt / ende dat ouderdom der mannen van sinen geslachte tot Noe toe. In the Bible books of the Song of Songs, Proverbs, and Psalms, not every chapter is individually summarised. One summary, for example, covers all chapters from Proverbs 10 to 31: ‘From this chapter until the 31st, countless many beautiful, lovely and wise proverbs are described, in which wisdom is taught very profitably, and which proves to shun all harmful foolishness’ (JvL CB 1542a, Proverbs 10 (above chapter): Van dit Capittel aen tot .xxxi. toe, worden bescreuen ontallijcke veel, schoone, lieflijcke ende wijse sproken, Inden welcken die wijsheyt met grooten profijte gheleert, Ende die dwaesheyt met hare schaden te schouwen bewesen wort.)
JvL CB 1532, Matthew 16 (above chapter): Hoe Jesus sprac dat hy sijn kercke timmeren soude op die belijdinghe des gheloofs.
See also: François and Corbellini, ‘Shaping Religious Reading Cultures’, p. 153.
JvL CB 1542a, Genesis 6 (above chapter): Hoe dat God om der menschen sonden wille die gheheele werelt liet vergaen metter watere / uutghenomen Noe met hem achte ende van allen dieren een paer / ende hoe hi dye arcke maken soude.
As Folkerts has argued, similar summaries were part of late medieval New Testament or Gospel manuscripts of the Devotio Moderna. See: Folkerts, ‘The Cloister or the City?’, pp. 184–188.
JvL CB 1534, Leviticus 11 (above chapter): Van dat ondersceyt der reynen ende onreinen dieren.
See also: Clark and Sheingorn, ‘Encountering a Dream-Vision’, pp. 3–4; Stephen Orgel, ‘Textual Icons: Reading Early Modern Illustrations’, in Neil Rhodes and Jonathan Sawday (eds.), The Renaissance Computer: Knowledge Technology in the First Age of Print (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 59–94.
On images as paratexts, see also: Hester Lees-Jeffries, ‘Pictures, Places, and Spaces: Sidney, Wroth, Wilton House, and The Songe de Poliphile’, in Helen Smith and Louise Wilson (eds.), Renaissance Paratexts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 185–203, pp. 186–187; Clark and Sheingorn, ‘Encountering a Dream-Vision’.
See: Rosier, De Nederlandse Bijbelillustratie; James Clifton and Walter S. Melion, Scripture for the Eyes: Bible Illustration in Netherlandish Prints of the Sixteenth Century (New York: Museum of Biblical Art, 2009).
The American printer-publisher Isaiah Thomas (1749–1831) called the illustrative plates in his Bible from 1791 ‘momentary appeals to the heart, through the medium of the eye’ (as quoted from his ‘Proposal … for Continuing the Publication of the Massachusetts Magazine’ (Massachusetts Magazine, February 1793, 4) (as quoted by: Sandro Jung, ‘Isaiah Thomas’s Illustrated Imprints in the 1790s: The Provenance, Uses, and Production of their Illustrations’, The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 115:2 (2021), pp. 137–166, p. 137). As phrased by Sandro Jung, he ‘understood illustrations as affective paratextual media that helped readers to comprehend the typographic text’ (Jung, ‘Isaiah Thomas’s Illustrated Imprints’, p. 138). Although Liesvelt and Peetersen van Middelburch do not reflect as explicitly on the supposed function of their illustrations, the perspective on images as ‘affective paratextual media’ might also be useful to understand how the illustrative programme of their Bibles impacted and shaped an intended reader.
See: Wim François, ‘The Early Modern Bible between Material Book and Immaterial Word’, in Grazyna Jurkowlaniec et al. (eds.), The Agency of Things in Medieval and Early Modern Art: Materials, Power and Manipulation (New York: Routledge, 2018), pp. 129–143, pp. 133–136; Rosier, De Nederlandse Bijbelillustratie, pp. 126–130.
On the Holbein-based woodcuts in Revelations, see: N. de Hommel-Steenbakkers, ‘Censorship or Self-Protection? Modifications in Apocalypse Illustrations in Sixteenth-Century Bibles Printed in the Low Countries’, in August A. den Hollander and Wim François (eds.), Infant Milk and Hardy Nourishment: The Bible for Lay People and Theologians in the Early Modern Period (Leuven: Peeters, 2009), pp. 191–221; Rosier, De Nederlandse Bijbelillustratie, pp. 48–55. On Hans Holbein the Younger’s illustrations, see also: David H. Price, ‘Hans Holbein the Younger and Reformation Bible Production’, Church History, 86:4 (2017), pp. 998–1040.
On the illustrations in this Gospel harmony, see also: Ilja Veldman and Karin van Schaik, Verbeelde Boodschap. De illustraties van Lieven de Witte bij ‘Dat leven ons Heeren’ (1537) (Haarlem/Brussels: Nederlands Bijbelgenootschap/Belgisch Bijbelgenootschap, 1989); Ilja Veldman, ‘Protestantism and the Arts: Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Netherlands’, in Paul Corby Finney (ed.), Seeing beyond the Word: Visual Arts and the Calvinist Tradition (Grand Rapids, Michigan/Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999), pp. 397–425, pp. 398–399.
See: Rosier, De Nederlandse Bijbelillustratie, pp. 6–7, pp. 14–15, pp. 18–20, pp. 22–23.
See: Rosier, De Nederlandse Bijbelillustratie, pp. 19–22. The repetition and reappearance of woodcuts between multiple and diverse editions not only creates a visual connection between these publications, but it might also remind readers, in the words of Franklin, ‘that each edition existed not only as an organic whole leaping fully formed from the press but also, from another point of view, as the temporary alignment of constituent parts, each lending its weight and associations.’ See: Alexandra Franklin, ‘Woodcuts’, in Dennis Duncan and Adam Smyth (eds.), Book Parts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), pp. 209–222, p. 222.
See: Rosier, De Nederlandse Bijbelillustratie, p. 15, p. 23.
See: Rosier, De Nederlandse Bijbelillustratie, pp. 17–18, p. 22.
See also: Clifton and Melion, Scripture for the Eyes, pp. 50–51.
On woodcuts that depict a series of events, see: Rosier, De Nederlandse Bijbelillustratie, pp. 88–90.
This woodcut displays visual similarities to two other woodcuts in this edition, namely the woodcut at the beginning of the book of Esther and the one at the beginning of the Psalms. Each of the woodcuts display a scene in which the main object (i.e. Job, Esther, and David) is sitting or kneeled down before other figures. Furthermore, each scene is placed in a decorative, gate-like architectural space. See also: Rosier, De Nederlandse Bijbelillustratie, p. 7.
On various early modern typological interpretations of the book of Job, see: Brownlee, Biblical Readings, pp. 79–112.
The choice to include a certain woodcut more than once probably relates in particular to financial motives. Creating or buying three woodblocks was simply cheaper and more convenient than making ten. See also: Rosier, De Nederlandse Bijbelillustratie, p. 108, p. 111.
See also: Rosier, De Nederlandse Bijbelillustratie, p. 115.
Andrea van Leerdam, ‘Talking Heads – the Visual Rhetoric of Recurring Scholar Woodcuts in a Sixteenth-Century Handbook on Chiromancy’, Jaarboek voor Nederlandse Boekgeschiedenis, 26 (2019), pp. 11–29, p. 21. Van Leerdam’s study focusses on similar portraits in early modern, scientific works. These share a function comparable to that of the portraits in Liesvelt’s and Peetersen van Middelburch’s Bibles.
USTC no. 747451.
See: Rosier, De Nederlandse Bijbelillustratie, pp. 66–67.
See also: François, ‘Typology – Back with a Vengeance!’, pp. 106–107. The pictural tradition of the Postilla illustrations goes back to manuscripts with De Lyra’s text. See: Bernice M. Kaczynski, ‘Illustrations of the Tabernacle and Temple Implements in the “Postilla in Testamentum Vetus” of Nicolaus de Lyra’, The Yale University Library Gazette, 48:1 (1973), pp. 1–11.
See also: Peter van der Coelen, ‘Illustratie en decoratie’, in Marieke van Delft and Clemens de Wolf (eds.), Bibliopolis: Geschiedenis van het gedrukte boek in Nederland (Zwolle/The Hague: Waanders Uitgevers/Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 2003), pp. 20–23.
There has been some debate about whether the map was originally part of this edition, as it disappeared from the majority of surviving copies. However, as argued by Den Hollander, the presence of the map is announced in the register of the gatherings at the end of the Bible. The register indicates that the map indeed ought to be included at the beginning of Exodus. See: August A. den Hollander, ‘Kaarten in zestiende-eeuwse Bijbels’, in Paul Gillaerts et al. (eds.), De Bijbel in de Lage Landen. Elf eeuwen van vertalen (Heerenveen: Royal Jongbloed, 2015), pp. 214–215; August A. den Hollander, ‘Biblical Geography: Maps in Sixteenth-Century Printed Bibles from the Low Countries’, Church History and Religious Culture, 99:2 (2019), pp. 137–150, p. 142.
A copy of this edition, including the Exodus map, is digitised by the Zentralbibliothek Zürich. See: https://www.e-rara.ch/zuz/content/zoom/10260362.
See: Smith and Ingram 1991, 25–26. The wall map by Cranach, which was published in the second half of 1523 at the earliest, was printed from six woodcuts and measured 60 × 60 cm. Cranach strongly relied upon already existing maps for the geographical build-up of his depiction, but he also included new elements. The most striking one is the inclusion of the route of the Israelites to the Promised Land. See: Den Hollander 2019, 137–141. Only several, incomplete copies of the map survive. A partial map, consisting of only the bottom two woodcuts, is owned by the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. See: Lida Ruitinga, ‘Die Heiligland-Karte von Lucas Cranach Dem Älteren: Das Älteste Kartenfragment Aus Der Kartensammlung Der Bibliothek Der Freien Universität in Amsterdam’, Cartographica Helvetica: Fachzeitschrift für Kartengeschichte, 9–10 (1994), pp. 40–41. For a more extensive discussion of the contents and history of Cranach’s wall map, see also: Armin Kunz, ‘Cranach as Cartographer: The Rediscoverd “Map of the Holy Land”’, Print Quarterly, 12:2 (1995), pp. 123–144.
On this map and its functions, see also: Den Hollander 2019, 147; Clifton and Melion, Scripture for the Eyes, p. 42; Morley Ingram, ‘Maps as Readers’ Aids’, p. 30; Smith and Ingram 1991, 25–26.
See also: Shalev, ‘Early Modern Geographia Sacra’, p. 197. On maps as exegetical tools, see: Pauline Moffitt Watts, ‘The European Religious Worldview and its Influence on Mapping’, in David Woodward (ed.), The History of Cartography, volume three: Cartopgraphy in the European Renaissance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), pp. 382–400, p. 387.
With regard to the involvement of readers in unfolding book parts, see: Suzanne Karr Schmidt, Interactive and Sculptural Printmaking in the Renaissance (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2017), pp. 56–81.
See also: Den Hollander 2019, 147. On the emerging interests in biblical geography and ‘biblical antiquarianism’, see: Peter N. Miller, ‘The “Antiquarianization” of Biblical Scholarship and the London Polyglot Bible (1653–57)’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 62:3 (2001), pp. 463–482; Zur Shalev, Sacred Words and Worlds: Geography, Religion, and Scholarship, 1550–1700 (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2011); Shalev, ‘Early Modern Geographia Sacra’; Pettegree, The Book in the Renaissance, pp. 285–290.
With regard to the positioning of tables of contents at the beginning or end of the book, temporal expectations and differences, as well as genre and language conventions, come into play. In modern books, tables of contents are usually part of the book’s front matter. See: Sherman, ‘The Beginning’, p. 66; Joseph A. Howley, ‘Tables of Contents’, in Dennis Duncan and Adam Smyth (eds.), Book Parts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), pp. 65–80, p. 68.
See: Blair, Too Much to Know, p. 135; Howley, ‘Tables of Contents’, p. 76.
See: Blair, ‘Reading Strategies’; Blair, Too Much to Know, p. 117.
As quoted in Blair, Too Much to Know, p. 135. Contrary to modern tables of contents, these lists (and printed lists of contents from the early modern period) did not necessarily provide page or folio numbers. Their functionality hence depended largely on the fact that their structure reflected the sequential order of the text.
From the complete Bible editions, only Liesvelt’s two editions of 1542 lack a table of contents. Lists of contents are more rare in New Testaments. They are included only in Liesvelt’s New Testaments of 1534, 1541, and 1544b.
Liesvelt’s complete Bible of 1526 and both Peetersen van Middelburch’s complete Bibles only list the names of the books. In the complete Bibles of Jacob van Liesvelt of 1532, 1534, 1535, and 1538, the list of Bible books is supplemented with the number of chapters per book.
JvL CB 1532, table of contents: Dit zijn die boecken des nieuwen Testmanets ende elck hoe vele Capittelen dattet heeft.
JvL CB 1532, table of contents: Sinte Mattheus Euangelium heeft .xxviii. capittelen / Sinte Marcus Euangelium heeft .xvi. capittelen.
Ich sage was ich fule: myr mangellt an disem buch nit eynerley, das ichs wider Apostolisch noch prophetisch hallte. Septembertestament Martin Luther, 1522 (https://www.deutschestextarchiv.de/book/view/luther_septembertestament_1522?p=395, consulted on 13-04- 2021). WA, DB 8:10. Translation: mine.
On this paradox, see also: Howley, ‘Tables of Contents’, pp. 76–79.
The relevance of this information is stressed by the hand-added addition of the number of chapters by a reader in Liesvelt’s New Testament of 1544b (Leiden, ULL, Sem.Rem.848). Apparently, the mere list of book titles was not sufficient for this reader.
See: Peikola, ‘Tables of Lections’, p. 325; Andrew Hughes, Medieval Manuscripts for Mass and Office: A Guide to their Organization and Terminology (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982), p. 85. On certain important liturgical days, one or more readings from the Old Testament could be added to these two.
Furthermore, editions of the Epistles and Gospels were as a rule constructed in such way that they could function as a lectionary, hence facilitating readers to follow the prescribed pericopes in the correct order. As has been noted by Folkerts, the popularity of the Epistles and Gospels surpassed the line between the Middle Ages and the early modern period. She argues that the liturgical or ‘paraliturgical’ reading of the Bible was more continuous than is often assumed in studies focussing primarily on complete Bible-reading. Folkert’s study of the popular Epistles and Gospels editions of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century proves that the interest in liturgically functional Bible editions remained pressing into the sixteenth-century, even within Protestant circles. According to Folkerts and Oostindiër, it is precisely the continuity of liturgical reading devices that created the lack of attention for this element in many studies on early modern Bibles. The focus has primarily been on new elements in the Bibles, such as Lutheran text interpretations and new forms of paratext. See: Folkerts, ‘The Cloister or the City?’, p. 184; Folkerts, ‘Middle Dutch Epistles and Gospels’, p. 53; Folkerts and Oostindiër, ‘New Bibles and Old Reading Habits’, pp. 176–177.
See: Peikola, ‘Tables of Lections’, p. 361; Folkerts, ‘The Cloister or the City?’, pp. 184–186; Manuwald, ‘How to Read’, p. 69.
See: Peikola, ‘Tables of Lections’, pp. 368–369.
JvL CB 1542a, liturgical reading schedule (heading): Hier beghint dye Tafele / om te vinden die Epistolen ende Euangelien / alsomen die binnen den gheheelen iare inder kercken houdt.
JvL CB 1542a, liturgical reading schedule on saints’ days (heading): die Epistelen ende Euangelien vanden heylighen die men binnen den iare op die heylighe daghen houdt.
François, Bijbelvertalingen in de Lage Landen, pp. 263–264. See also: François and Corbellini, ‘Shaping Religious Reading Cultures’, p. 148. In Peetersen van Middelburch’s complete Bible of 1541, the entry ‘Of Our Sweet Lady in the Advent’ (Van onse lieue vrouwe inden Advent) is missing. However, this seems to be a mistake, rather than a confessional or otherwise intentional change of the reading schedule.
JvL CB 1542a, liturgical reading schedule (introduction): Om lichtelijck te vinden die Epistolen ende Euangelien / So suldi sien op desen A B / C/ D/ die op die canten van desen boeck staen. Altijt onder dye lettere / daer dat Euangelie oft die Epistolen beghint / daer suldy vinden aldusdanighen teeken + Ende daert eynde neemt / aldusdanighen teeken *.
Peikola describes the structure of the liturgical table in late medieval Wycliffite Bibles as follows: ‘The reader of the manuscript, intent on finding the lection for a particular liturgical occasion, would first consult the table to learn the book, chapter, referential letter, and incipit for a given lection. Upon turning to the book and chapter specified in the table, the reader would look for the same letter in the manuscript margin to see where the lection begins. The incipit given in the table guides him or her to the exact opening words’ (Peikola, ‘Tables of Lections’, p. 358). This structure is very similar to those of the liturgical schedules in the Bibles here under scrutiny.
Peikola, ‘Tables of Lections’, pp. 360–361. The fact that such notes, that refer to the liturgical occasion for which a Bible section was prescribed, were also included in handwriting by book users, gives testimony to the continuous character of this practice. See section 5.2.
Stallybrass, ‘Books and Scrolls’, pp. 48–50.
The Universal Short Title Catalogue lists 67 editions of Dutch Epistles and Gospels (Epistelen ende Euangelien) between 1474 and 1650, of which about half were printed in Antwerp. Epistle and Gospel editions were the most common type of printed Bibles between 1477 and 1522. See also: Folkerts and Oostindiër, ‘New Bibles and Old Reading Habits’, p. 185.
Contrary to the liturgical reading schedule, this navigational tool is reserved exclusively for the complete Bible editions and does not appear in the New Testament editions. This likely relates to the studious character of this device.
See also: François and Corbellini, ‘Shaping Religious Reading Cultures’, p. 178.
See: Blair, Too Much to Know, p. 141. See also: Dennis Duncan, ‘Indexes’, in Dennis Duncan and Adam Smyth (eds.), Book Parts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), pp. 266–270. On the history and functionality of indexes, see in particular: Duncan, Index.
Latin concordances were printed from the first decades of the printing press onwards. During the second half of the sixteenth century, Dutch concordances were published, particularly in the Northern Low Countries. Examples are, amongst others, Een concordantie oft register der ganscher Bibel by Willem Gailliart (Emden, 1559, USTC No. 415349) and Den gantschen schat der heyliger Schriftueren, of bijbelsche concordantie by Willem Silvius (Leiden, 1579, USTC No. 421845).
JvL CB 1535, topical register (heading): In dese Tafel / Machmen lichtelic vinden die principael stucken des ouden Testaments. Daer na vintmen noch een Tafel des nieuwen Testaments.
HPvM CB 1541, topical register (heading): Een Tafel om ghereedt te vindene ende by der handt te hebbene alle stucken / hystorien / feyten ende materien / die in gheheel die heylighe scriftuere ons beschreuen worden / nae die ordinancie van ABC.
HPvM CB 1541, topical register: Goliath wert verslaghen van David – i. Reg. xvij. f. g. HvL CB 1538, topical register: Thomas twijfelt Christum verresen – Joan. xx /f/ g.
HPvM CB 1541, topical register: Elizabeth huysurou van Aaron. Exo. vi. d. // Elizabeth / moeder van Johannes baptist. Luc. i. c/d/f.
HPvM CB 1541, topical register: Adam was oudt neghen hondert ende dertich iaer. Genesis .v. a.
HPvM CB 1541, topical register: Adam was een figuer van Christo Roma .v. c. JvL CB 1535, topical register: Christus geboorte wert voorseyt. Jesaie. viii. a.
HPvM CB 1535, topical register: Leuen waerheyt ende den wech is Christus. Joan. xiiii. a.
HPvM CB 1541, topical register: Uut der gracien Christi Jesu werden wij salich / ende niet uut den wercken / Ephe. ij. a /b / Joan. i. b / Anders en waer gracie geen gracie / Roma. xi.a.
HPvM CB 1541, topical register: Gheloue heuet gheen wercken ten baet ons niet / maer is ydel ende doot / Jacob. ii. a.
François and Corbellini, ‘Shaping Religious Reading Cultures’, p. 178.
HPvM CB 1535, topical register: Geloue sonder wercken is doot. Jaco.ij.a.
JvL CB 1542a, list of abbreviations (heading): … voor den simpelen leser die gheen latijn en verstaet, noch oock inder heyligher scriften niet wel gheoffent en is.
JvL CB 1542a, list of abbreviations: Genesis, oft dat boeck der scheppinghen.
JvL CB 1542a, list of abbreviations: Als aen eenen naem twee ghetalen staen, deen voor ende dander achter, So beteekent deerste ghetal voor den name, altijt tboeck van dien name, int oude Testament, mer int nyeuwe Testament den Epistel, Ende het nauolgende getal altijt dye Capittelen, beyde int oude testament ende int nyeuwe, Ghelijck als ghi yewers wt dat oude Testament voortgehaelt aldus vint iij.Regum. viij. dat is int derde boeck der coningen int .viij. capittel, ende int nyeuwe Testament aldus. i.Corint. xv. Dat is inden eersten Epistel totten Corinthen int .xv. Capittel.
See also: François and Corbellini, ‘Shaping Religious Reading Cultures’, pp. 179–180.
Duncan, ‘Indexes’, p. 265.
HPvM CB 1541, topical register: Christus wert geboren / Math i d / Luc. ij a / Joan i. b.
Knight, Bound to Read, p. 16.
To a certain extent, this possibility of this arbitrary connectiveness has been regulated by Liesvelt’s choice to structure all entries in the Old Testament part of his register within a certain letter to the order of Bible books.
Roger Chartier, The Author’s Hand and the Printer’s Mind (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2014), p. 138.
As has been stressed by Folkerts and Oostindiër, the concept of complete Bibles and complete New Testaments as such was not a new invention. These books had already been available in manuscript. The shift to liturgically ordered, printed and handwritten Bible editions such as Epistles and Gospels evolved around 1477. See: Folkerts and Oostindiër, ‘New Bibles and Old Reading Habits’, pp. 185–186.
Howley, ‘Tables of Contents’, p. 79.