ABSTRACT
The Protestant Reformation provides a remarkable backdrop for the historical study of literacy. While many of the practices and attitudes which characterize Renaissance literacy were born in the Middle Ages, the Reformation offers a potent symbol of the transition from institutional forms of literacy to personal ones. Certainly the culmination of earlier events initiated the dramatic reconceptualization and expansion of literacy identified with the Protestant faith. The increasing vernacularization of English written culture changed the very language of reading, and the invention of the printing press reshaped the substance and the context of public discourse. This chapter focuses predominantly on individuals with indirect relationships with the written word. Tradesmen, laborers and women as a whole lived in a predominantly oral world, and Foxe's accounts reflect the series of negotiations and accommodations required to bring the individual into a relationship with the text.
