The Medieval Vernacular Bible in French as a Flexible Text: Selective and Discontinuous Reading Practices

Abstract

This chapter presents historical source material, much of it unpublished, that confirms the hypothesis that in fourteenth and fifteenth-century France the vernacular Bible was a text that was often read in different forms. In order to demonstrate this flexibility of the Bible in French during the late Middle Ages, it retraces the most characteristic forms in which the biblical text circulated during this period: first, specific parts of the Bible; second, the biblical lessons that were read during Sunday Mass; third, the life of Christ and the Passion based on the Gospels; and finally collections of biblical quotations with moral guidelines. The chapter argues that vernacular Bibles in different formats were closely connected to selective and discontinuous reading practices applied to Sacred Scripture, with a manifest predilection for certain parts of the text and its message: the biblical pericopes, the life and Passion of Christ, and moral guidelines. Keywords:France; Gospels; selective and discontinuous reading practices; vernacular Bible