Your post is disinformation on a grand scale. Possession of the Bible per se was never illegal, except in one area in southern France in the 13th century, which prohibition lasted for about 50 years.
Possession of Protestant bibles was illegal in England for a period of time leading up the reformation ... whereupon possession of Catholic bibles or anything else Catholic became illegal.
Personal Bible ownership was scarce prior to the invention of the printing press for the simple reason that a Bible (if you could even read it) cost about what a moderately-priced new car costs today.
I don’t have a problem with you disagreeing. You’re wrong, but what the heck. It’s your right to be wrong.
As for the cost, I’m sure that may have been true, but the fact still remains that the church did not allow scripture to be held by the common man.
Read from the article, “Without the clergy guiding them, and with religion still a very important factor in the average person’s life, their fate rested in their own hands, Simpson said.”
The clergy claimed the scriptures would be dangerous in the hands of the general populace.
I would also add that the RCC--and the secular rulers of kingdoms-- discouraged and/or forbade the Bible in the vernacular that quickly became obvious in the early years of the 16th century - the sudden and widespread appearence of "strawberry preachers" ,as they were called in Britain. Suddenly every man became a Doctor of Divinity and Biblical authority. Fully certain that his interpretation of Scripture was the only way, even to the extent to questioning not only the validity of popes, but kings (and private property, monogamy, etc.) as well.
The Bible is/can be a complicated work. Reluctance to have this work printed in the language of "the People" was driven not by pettiness -- a convenient myth -- but to give order to religious credo, and explanation to its contents.