The Council of Trent and Vernacular Bible Reading: What Happened in the Build-Up to and during the Fourth Session (1546)?

Abstract

WimFrançois/Violet Soen 450 Years Later.Louvain'sContribution to the Ongoing Historiographyonthe Council of Trent On 4December, 1563, asolemn Mass at the Cathedral,and asubsequent jubilant procession, marked the closure of the Councilo fT rent. Accordingt oc ontemporaryobservers, attendees uttered cries of joyand shed tears of relief. Two days later, ambassadors signed all protocolsand put an end to eighteen years of deliberations, spread over three separate assembly periods that begani n1 545. This Councilw ould provetohaveanenormous impact on early modern developments in religion, politics and culture, both in Europe and beyond. The last major conference devoted to the Council dates back to its quadricentenary in 1963, when asymposium wasorganized in Trent and presided over by the dis-tinguishedChurchhistorian Hubert Jedin , who had made the study of this famous Church gathering his lifelong scholarly passion. 1 Since then,t he CouncilofT rent has repeatedly appeared on the research agenda in avariety of academic disciplines that include history,Churchhistory, theology, arthistory and musicology. 2 Thus, Trent's450 year anniversary caused the Council to once again attract an impressives hare of scholarlya ttention, as several academic conferences were organized,not onlyinTrent and Louvain (Leuven), but also in Freiburg im Breisgau, Lille and Braga. 3