Exhibit 504

Convocation of Canterbury on the Great Bible (Wilkins, Concilia III, 860), 1542-43

Exhibit 504 · Convocation record (in abridged translation)

Convocation of Canterbury on the Great Bible (Wilkins, Concilia III, 860), 1542-43

The Archbishop, speaking for the king, told Convocation that the English Old and New Testaments needed reform; a majority resolved that the Great Bible could not be retained until duly purged and compared with the Latin Bible commonly read in the English Church; committees were set to examine it.

Source: Convocation of the Province of Canterbury
Date: January-February 1543
Grade: Primary record
Document: https://archive.org/details/recordsofenglish00polluoft
Accessed: 2026-11-09
Cited by: Findings citing this exhibit
Note: Pollard, Records of the English Bible (1911), Record XLV, pp. 272-74 (Pollard's abridged translation of Wilkins's Latin); wording not quoted.

Cited by

Finding REL-2.4: Primary record Between 1530 and 1543 the English Crown, by proclamation, injunction and statute, prohibited English Scripture, then required an English Bible in every parish church, then barred women, artificers, apprentices, journeymen, servingmen of yeoman rank or under, husbandmen and laborers from reading it.