Vulgate - Influence On Western Culture

Influence On Western Culture

For over a thousand years (c. AD 400–1530), the Vulgate was the definitive edition of the most influential text in Western European society. Indeed, for most Western Christians, it was the only version of the Bible ever encountered. The Vulgate's influence throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance into the Early Modern Period is even greater than that of the King James Version in English; for Christians during these times the phraseology and wording of the Vulgate permeated all areas of the culture.

Aside from its use in prayer, liturgy and private study, the Vulgate served as inspiration for ecclesiastical art and architecture, hymns, countless paintings, and popular mystery plays.

Read more about this topic:  Vulgate

Famous quotes containing the words influence, western and/or culture:

    The Spirit of Place [does not] exert its full influence upon a newcomer until the old inhabitant is dead or absorbed. So America.... The moment the last nuclei of Red [Indian] life break up in America, then the white men will have to reckon with the full force of the demon of the continent.
    —D.H. (David Herbert)

    Westron wind, when will thou blow?
    The small rain down can rain.
    Christ, that my love were in my arms,
    And I in my bed again.
    —Unknown. Western Wind (l. 1–4)

    The aggregate of all knowledge has not yet become culture in us. Rather it would seem as if, with the progressive scientific penetration and dissection of reality, the foundations of our thinking grow ever more precarious and unstable.
    Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)