THE OLD - Old Wirral.com

OLD BIBLES AND BOOKS
seceding Calvinists, the source of the antisacramental
movement which deepened
eventually into Puritanism, that we owe
the Genevan Bible, a version which had so
wonderful a success that no fewer than
160 editions passed into circulation.
This popularity was largely due to the
adoption of Roman type instead of the
Black Letter, in which all English Bibles
had previously been printed, and to the
division of the chapters into verses, which
superseded the older method of placing
letters of the alphabet down the sides of
the page. Apparently though, some of
the sales, at least in Scotland, were en-
forced, J. R. Dore stating that the Privy
Council passed a law " that each householder
worth 300 merks of yearly rent,
and all substantious yeomen and burgesses
esteemed as worth £500 in land and goods,
should have a Bible in the vulgar tongue,
under the penalty of £lO," i.e. double the
price at which the book was authorised to
be sold and four times that at which it
could be bought. To enforce this enactment,
searchers were appointed to go from
house to house throughout Scotland, and
each householder was required to produce
a Bible or pay the penalty. And, as it
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