Religion Popular/elite religion Foundation argument is P. Burke, who argues that between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries, across Europe, the gulf between elite and popular culture widened, as activities such as carnivals and fairs which the elite had formally patronised became associated with the rude and unlettered masses. In the case of early modern England, the Protestant movement might be characterised as ostensibly 'elite', in that Protestants associated themselves with literacy, attacked leisure activities often associated with the poor, and might resultantly appear at odds with a 'common' culture. If we are to give Burke's argument due respect, we need to assess this in terms of development, Literacy is the most obvious aspect to begin with. Protestantism was indeed a religion of the Book, George Swinnock asked in 1663 'how many for want of reading have lost their precious souls' ?. Protestant polemic contrasted their practice with ignorance associated with Catholic oral culture and ritual, Abbot described the spoken word as the 'sandy foundation' on which the rotten buildings of Catholicism rest. Teaching was stressed however, this was an ideology of improvement, not exclusion. Richard Baxter in his Christian Directory saw it as every Protestant's obligation to teach their children to read, lest they deprive them of salvation. Literacy was not considered vital in all aspects, rather the reading of religious texts was stressed. Thus John Penry wrote to his wife from gaol, he assumed that someone else would have to read his letter to her, but also that she could read the bible. William Maldon, a twenty-year-old apprentice from Essex reported that various poor men of Chelmsford bought the New Testament for themselves and sat reading, he claimed that many would flock around them to hear them read. Using literacy and illiteracy as a simple binary misses the point of what the Protestants were trying to accomplish. Cheap print was used to relay Protestant teachings, these were, in the mid-fifteenth century, often pictorial, they were written in 'black letter' print, which was easier to read and to understand, and as Tessa Watts has indicated, such works could be put up on alehouse walls, and sung. Catechisms were introduced in the late sixteenth century as a practical means by which to teach a wider stratum of society the essential reading skills, 400 were published in 1640. We should be wary of assigning too simple of a correlation between literacy, religiosity and status. Robert Blair even made a point of claiming to have learned from the simple people he converted, and to have prayed regularly with a group of husbandmen. We should not assume that Protestantism was at odds with what we might consider popular cultural expression. Early Protestantism was concerned with plays as possible vehicles for false religion, not with the plays themselves. Bishop Stpehen Gardiner complained that his colleagues were being lampooned by Protestant dramatic satirists. John Bale's 'A newe comedy or enterlude concerning thre lawes' printed in 1562 casted hypocrisy as a Franciscan friar, and sodomy as a