The meaning of ‘movements of popular lay devotion’
The meaning of ‘movements of popular lay devotion’
The passage below is from The Library A Fragile History by Andrew Pettegree.
The rise of these lay scriptoria was prompted by an increasing appetite for the ownership of books, whether for work, study or the lavish display of wealth. It is important to realise that the invention of printing did not create this demand; instead, the market was fuelled by universities and schools, movements of popular lay devotion and the steady growth of cities, where a bourgeois class emerged as a significant economic and political force to challenge that of the nobility and the church. The mass production of student texts and pious literature, not least the ubiquitous Book of Hours, was a harbinger of a massive increase in book ownership that in turn prepared the way for experiments with the printing press in the middle of the fifteenth century.
In this paragraph I want to ask what ‘movements of popular lay devotion’ means.
To me it suggests pious lay people tried to believe in what it is the Bible said not entirely through priests’ sermon but through directly reading Bible on their own. And those movements led to the mass production of pious literature and eventually the invention of the printing press.
(Am I right?)
Thanks in advance.
Top answer
Stenka25 To me it suggests pious lay people tried to believe in what it is the Bible said not entirely through priests’ sermon but through directly reading Bible on their own. And those movements led to the mass production of pious literature and eventually the invention of the printing press. That sounds about right, except it seems that even after the printing press became established, there were people making manuscripts by hand (some of them even copying writers like Chaucer).
- Stenka25 To me it suggests pious lay people tried to believe in what it is the Bible said not entirely through priests’ sermon but through directly reading Bible on their own.
- And those movements led to the mass production of pious literature and eventually the invention of the printing press.
- That sounds about right, except it seems that even after the printing press became established, there were people making manuscripts by hand (some of them even copying writers like Chaucer).
- I would guess that the making of manuscripts had become a religious ritual in and of itself which could occur outside the monasteries.
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Stenka25To me it suggests pious lay people tried to believe in what it is the Bible said not entirely through priests’ sermon but through directly reading Bible on their own. And those movements led to the mass production of pious literature and eventually the invention of the printing press.
That sounds about right, except it seems that even after the prin
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