[Cronos]

Its called the DARK AGES..

Yup, a Protestant term, completely forgetting that from the time of the fall of the Western Roman Empire until the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire, many great things happened -- the conversion of the German, Nordic and Slavic peoples, advances in science and medicine and literature.

When you say "the roman catholic church locked scripture up in Latin in the Vulgate.. ", that is SO funny, do you KNOW why they call it as the Vulgate? vulgar, like Latin for, like, common. Like, get it? A Bible for the Common Man in the common language, Latin -- Latin, the common language for all of Western Europe until well into the second millenium. Do you think English existed? There was no English until the 12th/13th century and even then it doesn't resemble our current language (try reading Canterbury Tales sometime). What about French? Italian? Spanish? Derived from Latin, they hardly got their little distinctions until the second millenium.

[hosepipe]

[.. Latin, the common language for all of Western Europe until well into the second millenium. ..]

Not true.. for many hundreds of years ONLY RC priests knew Latin.. even in Italy..

[kosta50]

Cronos to hosepipe: When you say "the roman catholic church locked scripture up in Latin in the Vulgate.. ", that is SO funny, do you KNOW why they call it as the Vulgate? vulgar, like Latin for, like, common. Like, get it? A Bible for the Common Man in the common language, Latin -- Latin, the common language for all of Western Europe until well into the second millenium

Yeah, we call it "vernacular" nowadays, but English could be called "vulgar" as in "common" since it's the language of the world. Does that make KJV vulgar too? I believe it is. Always have. :)

Why even Luther and Calvin used Latin! That's because the other languages were not developed enough even for prose, let alone liturgical concepts.