"Bishop's Bible Illustrations" by Margaret Aston

CITATION: Aston, Margaret. The Church and the Arts: Papers Read at the 1990 Summer Meeting and the 1991 Winter Meeting of the Ecclesiastical History Society. Ed. Diana Wood. Oxford, UK: Published for the Ecclesiastical History Society by Blackwell Publishers, 1992. Print.
Understanding

• Question: How did the Elizabethan Church and Continental artists develop the illustrations in the Bishops' Bible?
• Answer: Archbishop Parker suffered frequent delay in the production of the '68 and '72 editions due to the Continental circulation of borrowed woodcuts; only after significant delay in '72 did Parker commission new illustrations.
• Method: Aston essentially composes a narrative covering the majority of editions between 1565 and 1576. Archivally, Aston connects the '68 and '72 editions to the Biblische Figuren des Alten und Newen Testaments, gantz künstlich gerissen by Virgil Solis.
• Assumptions:
• Sententiae: In the first place we might wonder whether the change of illustrations resulted from puritanical censorship. We know the view of some of the censors, for the Second Admonition to Parliament in 1572 included an acid comment on pictures in the 15688 Bishops' Bible. ... namely, when the Lord spoke from the fire in Mount Horeb, 'ye sawe no maner of image'; to which Bishop Alley's note read: 'Meaning that plagues hang over them that wold make any image to represent God by'. (271-2)

Overstanding

• Assessment: Aston's detailed examination of the illustrations is commendable--particularly for crossing language lines and investigating Virgil Solis' printed legacy.
• Synthesis: I haven't yet read much on the Bishops' Bible, but Aston's description of the interaction between English publishers and Continental toolmakers generally anticipates with the description outlined by Darnton in "What is the History of the Book? Revisited."
• Application: The application is pretty profound: the Established church is clearly involved with print ornamentation at the highest levels, and the relevant executives were willing to "play ball" with secular Continental books, even on a loaned basis. The arrangement seems to indicate a naive understanding of the Continental book trade. English authorities would be unlikely to make a similar deal after the Buckingham cartoons caricatured an English authority in the Continental print.