ABSTRACT
Translation, an act and art of creation, throws into sharp relief vexing questions about the interpretability of language. Religious debate was the pulse of early modern society, throbbing throughout the three centuries of upheaval which 'in the course of time transformed the way in which the descendants of Reformation and Counter-Reformation Europeans viewed themselves, their society and their place in the world around them'. John E. Booty, Jewel's twentieth-century biographer, sets up a historical context by referring matter-of-factly to royal visitations 'erasing the remnants of Romish superstition from the cathedrals and parish churches of England'. The translator of Jewel's work is Lady Anne Cooke Bacon, the second-born of the five daughters of Sir Anthony Cooke and Lady Anne Cooke, one of 'the wealthiest ten or twelve families in Essex'. Bacon is acutely aware of the cumulative, accretive power of language.
