Click on one of the link blocks below to access a page. Pages range from general information about the topic and search strategies to recommendations for resources in specific subtopics. You may need to log on to your academic institution in order to access specific databases. This guide is not meant to be exhaustive, and suggestions for improvement are always welcome.

It is only recently that translation has been recognized as a form of writing/content production. However, as anyone who has used Google Translate knows, translation can never be a neutral activity. A translator must make choices about the best words to use, and therefore is able to shape how that original work is received among their audience. Translation has, at times, been deemed a more appropriate form of literary production for women than direct authorship, making it an area ripe for new work by literary and historical scholars of women’s writing.

This guide is assembled with a mind towards women’s religious translation, and is situated within the field of theological history. There is much to be studied of Englishwomen’s translations of classical works during the English Renaissance. However, this guide chooses for its frame the Reformation: a period of significant religious change within Christianity in Europe. During this period, the texts women translated were influential, as they sought to promote specific theological ideas and thinkers within their spheres of influence.

Amanda Bourne is a librarian, priest, and historian. She is the author of “Shamfastnes Would Rather Haue Supprest”: Discretio Spirituum, Modesty Topoi, and the Paratexts of Early Modern Englishwomen Translators, published in Magistra in 2022. She is a firm believer that women have always been (and continue to be) a force of change in the church and the world, and we just need to keep digging to find them.