Paraphrases of Gregory the Great's dictum permeate scholarship on the medieval Bible, arguing that the Bible was known to the laity through image, through sermons or liturgy. This book traces the mechanisms and impact of such mediated knowledge. It demonstrates - through an extensive survey of biblical manuscripts, court records, sermon collections, visual images and liturgical rites - how the Bible assumed rhythm and image, locations and gestures; how means of transmission shared space and time, and complemented one another in shaping popular and elite perceptions of the biblical text. The...

How did people learn their Bibles in the Middle Ages? Did church murals, biblical manuscripts, sermons or liturgical processions transmit the Bible in the same way?
This book unveils the dynamics of biblical knowledge and dissemination in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century England. An extensive and interdisciplinary survey of biblical manuscripts and visual images, sermons and chants, reveals how the unique qualities of each medium became part of the way the Bible was known and recalled; how oral, textual, performative and visual means of transmission joined to present a surprisingly...