Vernacular Books and Their Readers in the Early Age of Print (c. 1450–1600)

This volume explores various approaches to study vernacular books and reading practices across Europe in the 15th-16th centuries. Through a shared focus on the material book as an interface between producers and users, the contributors investigate how book producers conceived of their target audiences and how these vernacular books were designed and used. Three sections highlight connections between vernacularity and materiality from distinct perspectives: real and imagined readers, mobility of texts and images, and intermediality. The volume brings contributions on different regions, languages, and book types into dialogue.Contributors include Heather Bamford, Tillmann Taape, Stefan Matter, Suzan Folkerts, Karolina Mroziewicz, Martha W. Driver, Alexa Sand, Elisabeth de Bruijn, Katell Lavéant, Margriet Hoogvliet, and Walter S. Melion.

Anna Dlabačová, Ph.D. (2014), is Assistant Professor at Leiden University and PI of the project ‘Pages of Prayer: The Ecosystem of Vernacular Prayer Books in the Late Medieval Low Countries, c. 1380-1550’ (ERC Starting Grant).Andrea van Leerdam, Ph.D., is a book historian at Utrecht University with a particular interest in the materiality of early printed books, early modern reading practices, and visual culture. She has previously worked as a humanities communications advisor.John J. Thompson is Professor emeritus at Queen’s University, Belfast and honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Glasgow. He has written widely on late medieval and Early Modern English book history with a particular focus on significant transitional episodes in pre and post Reformation English textual cultures.