From the speaker: The lecture is based on my forthcoming book (Fall 2014, Northern Illinois U Press), in which I explore the history of the medieval belief that St. Jerome invented the Glagolitic letters of the Slavs and translated the Bible and the Roman liturgy into Slavonic. I investigate the emergence of this legend in Dalmatia and the circumstances of its spread to Bohemia and Poland. Now largely forgotten, the legend of the Slavic descent of St. Jerome was used by political and religious leaders from Rome to Bohemia and beyond for nearly five hundred years until it was debunked by eighteenth-century scholars. I examine this belief within the context of wider European historical and theological thought and show that it had an effect far beyond the Slavic world.