... steeped as they would have been ...

[constantinusphilo]

The famous first line, “Call me Ishmael,” had perhaps a deeper meaning to nineteenth-century American readers, steeped as they would have been in the Bible.

From Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell

Does 'steeped as they would have been' mean 'steeped as they probably were?' What sort of mood and tense is this?

 

[jutfrank]

The use of would is predictive (or you could say 'expectative'). The perfective aspect expressed through have been gives a past meaning. So we're saying something about how we expect a typical contemporary reader of that time to be—steeped in the Bible.