Entitled, ‘Tyndale, Erasmus, and How to Read the Bible’,this year’s Renaissance Lecture takes place onThursday 31 Marchat6pminRutherford Lecture Theatre 1, and will be given byProfessor Brian Cummings.

In September 2015, a newly discovered manuscript of an English translation of Erasmus was acquired by the British Library (BL Add. MS 89149). It is of Erasmus’s seminal workEnchiridion militis Christiani. The translation is dated to 1523, making it the earliest known translation of Erasmus into English. In this lecture, I will investigate the manuscript, and also shed new light on William Tyndale’s putative part in the translation of this work, and the development of Tyndale’s landmark translation of the New Testament. In the process, I will re-examine the debate about literal and figurative meaning in scholasticism and humanism, before and after the Reformation, and the significance of Erasmian humanism to early Protestantism.

Brian Cummingsis 50th Anniversary Professor at the University of York, in the Department of English and Related Literature.

All are welcome to attend the lecture and there will be a wine reception afterwards.