Sweet Consolation

Abstract

Chapter 1 considers how printers persuaded readers to buy religious books other than primers, which might well have seemed non-essential. Focusing on the period up to 1525, it considers the sale of books that supported the laity in understanding the most basic aspects of their faith and those that guided them beyond the rote prayers of the Pater noster and Ave Maria into deeper practices of meditation and contemplation. It argues that de Worde recognized the spiritual ambitions of his contemporaries and the desire for a deeper knowledge of God amongst the laity. While the 1520s would see that channelled into demand for scriptural translation, in the first quarter of the century de Worde offered readers a richer relationship with God through contemplative practices.