John Bale lived for almost sixty-eight years and our knowledge about his life is sufficiently detailed to allow us to be aware of its complexity. From his autobiographical writings and other sources we perceive a busy and enterprising man who experienced much in a period of intense social, political, cultural, and religious change. He was affected by these changes but he also contributed to them and I propose to examine his participation and his varied achievements by considering the many different audiences he addressed. I use the word ‘audiences’ because he is still well known for his dramatic works, but these are only a part of a much wider output in the pursuit of which he appealed to and addressed many readers of different types with different objectives. Moreover, the length of Bale’s working life meant that changes occurred in what he needed to say to those receiving his works. It is also true that people do not always read in the same way and the nature of Bale’s changing recipients proves illuminating. This approach reveals a degree of continuity and coherence in what he produced. Though his primary concern was salvation and the way to achieve it, his writings were aimed at readers of many types and they were conceived in markedly different circumstances. These aspects are reflected in the physical characteristics of his work, as we shall see, and Bale was interested in such matters as layout and illustration. We can perceive that Bale was addressing more than one target at the same time, introducing an aspect of simultaneity into the process of communication.
In order to keep track of how his written works fitted in to the many changes he experienced, I first outline the salient features of his life story. We can then review how the content of his work was directed to different recipients and consider how he sought to manage the preparation and presentation of his work by looking at the physical aspects of his books and manuscripts.
World History
