This volume investigates written communication before and after the introduction of printing in England.

1. Introduction: Script, print and history Alexandra Walsham and Julia Crick; Part I. Script, Print and Late Medieval Religion: 2. Publication before print: the case of Julian of Norwich Felicity Riddy; 3. Printing, mass communication and religious reformation: the Middle Ages and after David d'Avray; 4. Print and pre-Reformation religion: the Benedictines and the press in early Tudor England James G. Clark; Part II. Script, Print and Textual Tradition: 5. Law and text: legal authority and judicial accessibility in the late Middle Ages Anthony Musson; 6. The art of the unprinted: transcription and English antiquity in the age of print Julia Crick; 7. The authority of the word: manuscript, print and the text of the Bible in seventeenth-century England Scott Mandelbrote; Part III. Script, Print and Speech: 8. The functions of script in the speech community of a late medieval town, c.1300-1550 Andrew Butcher; 9. The sound of print in early modern England: the broadside ballad as song Christopher Marsh; 10. Communicating with authority: the uses of script, print and speech in Bristol 1640-1714 Jonathan Barry; Part IV. Script, Print and Persecution: 11. Preaching without speaking: script, print and religious dissent Alexandra Walsham; 12. Publish and perish: the scribal culture of the Marian martyrs Thomas S. Freeman; 13. Print, persecution and polemic: Thomas Edwards' Gangraena (1646) and Civil War sectarianism Ann Hughes; 14. Epilogue Margaret Aston.