The Catholic Church and the Vernacular Bible in the Low Countries: A Paradigm Shift
in the 1550’s?
As a point of departure for this paper, two dates will be distinguished that, at first sight, seem
to be simply a reversal of numbers: 1546 and 1564. Both dates, however, may stand as
symbol for the changed attitude of the Catholic Church in relation to Bible reading in the
vernacular. In April 1546, during its fourth session, the Council of Trent did not pronounce a
judgment regarding the permissibility of Bible translations in the vernacular, despite the
lobby-work of both proponents and adversaries of a prohibition. The Council fathers had thus
tacitly confirmed the prevailing customs of the local churches. On 9 May 1546, the Louvain
theologians issued an Index of Forbidden Books, in which several Bible editions that were
seen as unreliable were censured. At once contacts were established that led to the
publication of an authorized Dutch (1548) and a French (1550) Vulgate translation.
Nevertheless, there are indications that the Louvain theologians became severer in the
fifties of the sixteenth century. This becomes in the first place clear from the project to
censure Erasmus’ works that was drafted at the Louvain Faculty, and that was intended to be
taken by the Louvain representatives to the Council of Trent in 1552. This censure campaign
had to be carried on discretely, because the humanist, and his writings, continued to be under
the Emperor’s protection. In the Royal Library in Brussels, a manuscript is preserved in
which the Louvain theologian John Henten has jotted down his own statements censuring
Erasmus’ works, and these are probably accompanied by remarks made by one or more of his
colleagues. Several statements also targeted Erasmus’ plea for Bible reading in the
vernacular.
Furthermore, in the second half of 1552, or perhaps during the course of 1553, a
dramatic meeting took place at which the Louvain Faculty of Theology formulated a
recommendation to Emperor Charles, suggesting that he promulgate a general prohibition
against the reading of Bibles in the vernacular, a recommendation that the Emperor appears
to have ignored. In the same year – 1553 – a revised edition of the Louvain Bible was
published by the Louvain printer, Antonis-Maria Bergaigne. In the context of a growing
rejection of vernacular Bible reading in Louvain theological circles, the name Giovanni a
Bononia emerges, a Sicilian aristocrat and theologian whose brief, but not unimportant, role
at the Faculty has almost completely disappeared from historical consciousness. Bononia
gave vent to his reticence regarding Bible reading in the vernacular in a short treatise,
included as a kind of appendix to his book De aeterni Dei praedestinatione published in
1555. This short treatise has never been the subject of research, but has to be considered as
one of the first expositions exclusively devoted to the topic of Bible reading in the vernacular
written in the milieu of the Louvain theologians. In the years 1555-56, Fadrique Furió Ceriol,
a Spanish biblical humanist resident in Louvain, likewise published a work with the telling
title Bononia, sive de Libris sacris in vernaculam linguam convertendis, libri duo. The book
offers a detailed description of a debate on vernacular Bible translations between Bononia
(opponent) and Furió (proponent).
It is also clear that the intellectual evolution evident among theologians in the Low
Countries cannot be isolated from what was going on in Rome. The reinforcement of central
authority within the Catholic Church in Rome after the Council of Trent, was also succeeded
by a number of Roman measures related to vernacular Bible reading, which were to apply
increasing pressure on the local ecclesial authorities. Pope Paul IV decided in 1559, for
example, that the publication, purchase, possession and/or reading of vernacular Bibles was
only to be permitted with the agreement of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, a reinforcing
measure that was nevertheless quickly mitigated. The fourth of ten regulae, included in the
Index of Trent promulgated by Pius IV in 1564, in the wake of the Council, was however
particularly radical and far-reaching. This fourth rule made the reading of the Bible in the
vernacular dependent on the authorisation of the local bishop. The Louvain theologian Josse
Ravesteyn (or Tiletanus), among others, defended Trent’s decision in this regard in his
Apologiæ… a work that aimed at responding to the criticism of Martin Chemnitz. Although
there has always been a discussion about the question of whether the fourth rule of Trent had
been implemented in the (Catholic part of the) Low Countries, it is striking that the
production of vernacular Bibles gradually slowed down in the aftermath of Trent, to come to
a complete standstill in the last two decades of the sixteenth century. It was Jan Moerentorf
who published one more edition of the Louvain Bible in 1599, which was actually a revision
on the basis of the Sixto-Clementine Vulgate of 1590-92. The question must also be asked for
which audience the ‘lay’ Bible after Trent could be intended.
Wim François graduated as a doctor of theology (Ph.D./S.T.D.) at the Catholic University
of Leuven, with a dissertation on Vernacular Bible Translations in the Low Countries
(1477-1553): A Church Historical and Theological Approach (2004). This dissertation
was awarded the Msgr. Charles De Clercq-prize for its “important original contribution to
the religious history of Flanders”.
François is currently research professor of the Special Research Fund of the Catholic
University of Leuven (Belgium). His field of research is the history of Church and theology
in the Early Modern Era (1450-1650). He is, more specifically, investigating the place of
vernacular Bible reading in the life of the faithful in the period concerned. In addition, he is
doing research into the Bible commentaries edited by the Louvain and Douai theologians
during the Golden Age of Catholic biblical scholarship (1550-1650), with a particular focus
on the Augustinian inspiration of the said commentaries. He has published several articles
and book chapters with regard to the topics concerned. His book on The Catholic Church and
the Dutch Bible: From Devotio Moderna to the Council of Trent is accepted for publication
in Brill’s Series in Church History. He is also involved in the research group Biblia sacra, a
network of researchers investigating the Bible in the late Middle Ages and the Early Modern
Era.
Key publications
––, ‘The Antwerp Printers Christoffel and Hans (I) van Ruremund, Their Dutch and English
Bibles, and the Intervention of the Authorities in the 1520/30’s’, Archiv für
Reformationsgeschichte/Archive for Reformation History, 101 (2010), 7-28.
––, ‘Die volkssprachliche Bibel in den Niederlanden des 16. Jahrhunderts. Zwischen
Antwerpener Buchdruckern und Löwener Buchzensoren’, Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte,
120/2 (2009), 187-214.
––, ‘Vernacular Bible Reading and Censorship in Early Sixteenth Century. The Position of
the Louvain Theologians’, in A.A. DEN HOLLANDER – Mathijs LAMBERIGTS (eds.), Lay Bibles
in Europe. 1450-1800 (Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium, 198),
Leuven, Peeters, 2006, 69-96.