Acknowledgments
With deep gratitude we would like to thank all the people who contributed to the publication of Lay Readings of the Bible in Early Modern Europe, and above all the scholars who generously sought to answer with their expertise the question we put before them, on the role that lay readings of the Bible played in the shaping of European political, social, and cultural modernity.
Nothing would have been possible without the support of LE STUDIUM Loire Valley Institute for Advanced Studies, who selected our research proposal to develop into a full project, “The Laity and the Bible. Religious Reading in Early Modern Europe”. We are thus especially grateful to the former Director of Le Studium Nicola Fazzalari, the Scientific Manager Aurélien Montagu, and the General Secretary Sophie Gabillet, for the enthusiasm with which they welcomed our project and all the help which they gave us. In its critical first year, the project was carried out at the Centre d’Études Supérieures de la Renaissance at the University of Tours, which is why we extend our gratitude to the former Director Philippe Vendrix for his constant encouragement, the administrative staff for their kind assistance, and all our colleagues for many fruitful discussions.
We also owe a particular debt to Sabrina Corbellini who led the European research project “New Communities of Interpretation. Contexts, Strategies and Processes of Religious Transformation in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe” (Cost Action IS1301, 2013–2017), which gave us the chance to consider our work with input from a wide panel of specialists in medieval and early modern Biblical hermeneutics from across Europe.
Last, but not least, we would like to thank the editorial board of the Intersections series for accepting our publication proposal, especially Prof. John Thompson for his valuable feedback and advice. We would also like to warmly thank Gera van Bedaf and Ivo Romein for diligently guiding us through the production process.