This article demonstrates that deaf men and women were integrated into early modern communities through use of sign language, and that Protestant concerns about preaching and hearing promoted sign language as a legitimate form of communication. Historians have believed that the Protestant emphasis on preaching excluded deaf people from heaven. However, not only did contemporaries believe that deaf people could be saved, but debates on this topic prompted a wider assessment of the nature of hearing loss and sensory knowledge. Discussions about deafness therefore had implications for all congregations, as English preachers used well-known manual gestures from rhetorical texts to make their sermons accessible for both the ‘spiritually’ and the ‘physically’ deaf. The experiences of deaf people in early modern England demonstrate the importance of religious practices in shaping perceptions of disability and impairment. By focusing on deaf parishioners, it is possible to explore some of the impacts of the Reformation on ideas of embodiment while modifying literary accounts of the representation of disability in the period. A little-known part of early modern history, the role of preachers in the evolution of signed languages for the deaf offers new perspectives on Reformation history and the growing field of disability history.

中文翻译：

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手语：聋人早期现代讲道和手语

这篇文章表明，聋人通过使用手语融入了早期现代社区，并且新教徒对讲道和听力的关注促进了手语作为一种合法的交流形式。历史学家认为，新教对讲道的重视将聋人排除在天堂之外。然而，不仅同时代的人相信聋人可以得救，而且关于这个话题的辩论也促使人们对听力损失和感官知识的性质进行更广泛的评估。因此，关于耳聋的讨论对所有会众都有影响，因为英国传教士使用修辞文本中众所周知的手势来使“精神上的”和“身体上的”聋人都能接受他们的布道。现代早期英格兰聋人的经历证明了宗教习俗在塑造对残疾和损伤的看法方面的重要性。通过关注聋人教区居民，可以探索宗教改革对体现思想的一些影响，同时修改该时期残疾表征的文学描述。作为早期现代历史中鲜为人知的一部分，传教士在聋人手语演变中的作用为宗教改革历史和不断发展的残疾历史领域提供了新的视角。