case approaches zero and is never more than 7%. These findings are radically inconsistent with the a
priori judgements rendered by David Kathman and other devoted partisans of the Stratfordian mythos.
For the Continental writers, since comparative data could not be found in published sources, a
different method had to be employed. With the assistance of concordances, I attempted to identify every
occurrence of any of the eighty-one Shakespeare Diagnostic verses in the works of these two writers.
Partly for methodological reasons, the contrast between these writers and Shakespeare is not so striking as
is the contrast between de Vere and the other writers in the first set of comparative trials, even though I
relied upon data gleaned through my own investigation. Of eighty-one Shakespeare Diagnostics 16 are
found in Montaigne and 23 in Rabelais. These results may be explained as likely the consequence of two
distinct factors. In the first place, since we sampled single occurrences of Bible references without regard
to their frequency of occurrence, a much lower threshold of evidentiary relevance was imposed. This was
a necessity of the limiting fact that no published lists of the Bible references of these two writers enabled
collation of a list of "Montaigne Diagnostics" or "Rabelais Diagnostics.” To the best of my knowledge, in
fact, the items sampled in the corresponding tables on these two writers are in fact singular occurrences
of Shakespeare Diagnostics (with the exception of SD #23, “cherubim,” to which Rabelais makes five
references).
Even admitting this circumstance, however, the large number of Shakespeare Diagnostics found in
Rabelais, in particular, is striking. By all appearances, the Biblical references of Rabelais are closer to
those of Shakespeare than any of the other four writers used for comparison in this study. This result is
paradoxical from the Stratfordian point of view. Oxford, however, was a known enthusiast of continental
culture and literature who may well have read and enjoyed Rabelais. In other words, these findings are
probably the result of a shared cultural heritage -- that of the continental neo-Platonists and theological
controversialists of 16th century European culture (including figures such as Ficino, Pico della Mirandola,
Erasmus and Calvin) which would have attracted the common attention of these two worldly comic
artists.
In conclusion, I hope it is now clear that the most useful basis for proceeding to assess the historical
significance of the de Vere annotations -- de semper dubitandum est -- is to view them in relation to the
structured -- and, as we shall see, idiosyncratic -- field of Shakespeare's own Biblical references.
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