In 382 AD, Pope Damasus I commissioned the scholar Jerome to revise the Old Latin translations of the Bible based on original Hebrew and Greek texts. Working primarily from the city of Bethlehem, Jerome spent over two decades crafting what became known as the Vulgate, a Latin version written in the common language of the day. The Vulgate became the definitive, authoritative scriptural text of the Catholic Church throughout the Middle Ages, standardizing theology, liturgy, and ecclesiastical communication across Europe for over a millennium.

Jerome's majestic Latin phrasing profoundly shaped the vocabulary, metaphors, and rhetorical cadences of Western European literature. Medieval and Renaissance poets, including Geoffrey Chaucer and the authors of early English religious lyrics, relied entirely on the Vulgate's poetic phrasing for their scriptural references.