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Exhibit 501

Second Royal Injunctions of Henry VIII (Cromwell), 1538

Exhibit 501 ยท Royal injunctions

Second Royal Injunctions of Henry VIII (Cromwell), 1538

the charges of which boke shal be ratablie born between you the parson, and the parishners aforsaid, that ys to say, the one half by yowe, and th'other half by them

Every parish must set up an English Bible of the largest volume in the church, with the cost shared half by the parson and half by the parishioners, and must not discourage anyone from reading or hearing it, while referring the explanation of obscure places to men of higher judgment.

Source
Thomas Cromwell, vicegerent for Henry VIII
Date
September-October 1538
Quoted from
Pollard, Records of the English Bible (1911), Record XLIII, p. 262 n. (from Reg. Cranmer fol. 99b; Wilkins III, 815); also Gee and Hardy no. LXIII, pp. 275-76
Grade
Primary record
Document
https://archive.org/details/recordsofenglish00polluoft
Accessed
2026-11-09
Cited by
Findings citing this exhibit
Note
Gee and Hardy date the Second Injunctions to 1538 (Cromwell's letter of 30 September; Cranmer's mandate of 11 October); Wilkins prints them under 1536, which Pollard calls probably two years too early. A parallel quote read: 'discorage no man pryuely or apertly from the readinge or hearing of the same Bible'.

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.