[Cronos]

Mr Rogers --> common men not getting their hands on scripture
Jvette --> it is ridiculous to say that the Church avoids scripture in light of the considerable effort she had put forth for its preservation
Mr Rogers --> hid scripture, and didn’t want it to get into the hands of common men

Mr. Rogers, I dispute your statement. Let's view it in light of history:
Literacy levels

Before the 1400's, the vast majority of people in Europe were illiterate as most people never had the opportunity to learn to read because there were few schools and books. Although some people at every level of society could read, most literate people belonged to the upper classes.

In the 1440's, the German printer Johannes Gutenberg became the first European to print a book from movable type. As a result, reading material was eventually mass-produced in Europe and inexpensive books became more widely available. One of the first books printed in Europe was the Bible. During the 1500's, the Protestant Reformation and Roman Catholic Counter Reformation spurred people's desire to read the Bible for themselves.

The literacy rate in Europe can be judged by the literacy rate in France in 1700 which was just 30%. From wikipedia

In 12th and 13th century England, the ability to read a particular passage from the Bible entitled a common law defendant to the so-called benefit of clergy provision, which entitled a person to be tried before an ecclesiastical court, where sentences were more lenient, instead of a secular one, where hanging was a likely sentence. This opened the door to literate lay defendants also claiming the right to the benefit of clergy provision, and - because the Biblical passage used for the literacy test was invariably Psalm 51 (Miserere mei, Deus... - "O God, have mercy upon me...") - an illiterate person who had memorized the appropriate verse could also claim the benefit of clergy provision.[23]

As Roman authority disappeared in the west, cities, literacy, trading networks and urban infrastructure declined. Where civic functions and infrastructure were maintained, it was mainly by the Christian Church. Augustine of Hippo is an example of one bishop who became a capable civic administrator.

Saint Benedict wrote the definitive Rule for western monasticism during the 6th century, detailing the administrative and spiritual responsibilities of a community of monks led by an abbot.[9] The style of monasticism based upon the Benedictine Rule spread widely rapidly across Europe, replacing small clusters of cenobites. Monks and monasteries had a deep effect upon the religious and political life of the Early Middle Ages, in various cases acting as land trusts for powerful families, centres of propaganda and royal support in newly conquered regions, bases for mission, and proselytization. They were the main outposts of education and literacy.

From here

The center of life throughout Europe in the Middle Ages was the Roman Catholic Church. For the better part of the period the church was the most powerful institution in all of Europe and the only one to span the separate kingdoms. The church was the keeper of knowledge and learning, maintaining books and literacy at a time when most people could not read

Or the best article I've read is from sarah woodbury

What it means to be literate is not an absolute standard even now. This was even more true in the Middle Ages when the majority of the population couldn’t read at all, a certain percentage could read and not write, and the only way to be ‘literate’ at the time was if a person could read Latin. Literacy in other languages didn’t count.

“A Companion to Britain in the Later Middle Ages“makes the argument that literacy in England began increasing starting in 1100, after which all the kings were literate in Latin and French, although there was again a difference between reading and writing. By 1500, he estimates the literacy among males still did not exceed 10-25%.

During the early centuries of Christianity, the world of Latin literacy changed from one where a significant percentage of the population was literate and all governmental and business affairs were carried out in writing, to one where written literacy shrank to occupy the enclaves of Christianity which spread like little islands in non-literate barbarian cultures and select writing offices of the new barbarian royalty. These latter were most likely in no way separate from the monasteries, but a specialised extension of their literate functions.

Note this -- By 1500, he estimates the literacy among males in England still did not exceed 10-25%. --> we can extrapolate that to all of Europe and settle on say 15% for all of Northern Europe (the main centres of learning were still in Italy). The fact is that most didn't read the Bible because most (85%) did not know how to read and it didn't really matter as books were not available (no printing press) or reasonably priced (since they were copied by hand they cost more than a few years of labor)

Secondly, most of those 15% who COULD read and write did so in Latin, so reading the Latin Vulgate was pretty do-able for the literates in Europe

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Between the fall of W Roman Empire 430 and the 1500s the division wasn't between those who could read Latin and those who couldn't, but between those who could read Latin and those who couldn't read at all.

As a result of widespread illiteracy, the masses had to learn biblical truths in other ways, and these were richly provided by the Church. Monks and priests taught Bible stories. Sacred dramas, paintings, statues, frescoes, and stained glass windows were used as were passion plays.

Far from trying to keep the Bible from the laity, the Catholic Church used every means at its disposal to educate the faithful in the truths of Holy Writ.

There were vernacular translations of scripture too --> you can see this in the preface of the 1611 Authorized Version (the King James Version), which says that "to have the Scriptures in the mother tongue is not a quaint conceit lately taken up, either by the Lord Cromwell in England [or others] . . . but hath been thought upon, and put in practice of old, even from the first times of the conversion of any nation."

St. Thomas More wrote in the sixteenth century that "the whole Bible was long before his [Wycliffe's] day, by virtuous and well-learned men, translated into the English tongue; and by good and godly people, and with devotion and soberness, well and reverently read." The Venerable Bede died in 735 as he was finishing the translation of the Gospel of St. John. A manuscript containing a complete Anglo-Saxon interlinear translation of the Book of Psalms, dating from 825, is still preserved in what is known as the Vespasian Psalter.

King Alfred the Great also undertook the work of translating the psalms into the vernacular English of his time. The abbot Aelfric about 990 translated many parts of both the Old and the New Testaments into English.

Misuse of the sacred text by the Albigensians in France, by the Lollards in England, by the Hussites in Bohemia, and by other heretics compelled the Church to adopt a conservative attitude as we see in the history of early first century heresies

[Mr Rogers]

There were a few small parts translated into English prior to Wycliffe, and one even was large enough to include the Gospels. However, there was no attempt to translate the entire Bible into the current form of English until Wycliffe, and he undertook it because he believed it undermined the Catholic Church - a view the Catholic Church seemed to agree with, since it went to such lengths to prevent its spread.

As for literacy rates, I don’t care if it was 5% or 75%. That there was a hunger for reading the Bible is proved by the willingness to copy and spread Wycliffe’s translation in spite of the risk. People don’t risk their lives or wealth to get a book they cannot read.

Ditto with Tyndale’s translation, which was printed, smuggled in and distributed at great risk. People don’t do that for something they cannot read.

The first Bibles printed by printing presses were the sort far too expensive for most people to afford. Wycliffe’s hand copied Bibles (and extracts, since many could not afford an entire Bible) were cheaper, and Tyndale’s were intended to be a cheap as possible for the widest distribution possible.

Nor was the problem just literacy and cost. When King Henry finally agreed to have a Bible published, he ordered it distributed (and chained for security) to every church. This allowed those who could read to come and see for themselves what scripture said.

“Since the Wyclif Bible conformed fully to Catholic teaching, in practice, there was no way that the ecclesiastical authorities could distinguish it, and accordingly the many manuscripts of the Wyclif version were mistakenly believed to demonstrate an unauthorized Roman Catholic version of the New Testament dating from about 1400; a view endorsed and repeated by many Catholic commentators, including Thomas More.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_English_Bible_translations

“Misuse of the sacred text by the Albigensians in France, by the Lollards in England, by the Hussites in Bohemia, and by other heretics compelled the Church to adopt a conservative attitude as we see in the history of early first century heresies”

IOW, basing their doctrine on scripture instead of Sacred Tradition threatened the Catholic Church, which chose to try to keep scripture out of the hands of commoners as a matter of policy.

As Tyndale wrote in The Obedience of a Christian Man:

“They will say haply, the scripture requireth a pure mind and a quiet mind; and therefore the lay-man, because he is altogether cumbered with worldly business, cannot understand them. If that be the cause, then it is a plain case that our prelates understand not the scriptures themselves: for no layman is so tangled with worldly business as they are. The great things of the world are ministered by them; neither do the lay-people any great thing, but at their assignment. ‘If the scripture were in the mother tongue,’ they will say, ‘then would the lay-people understand it, every man after his own ways.’ Wherefore serveth the curate, but to teach him the right way? Wherefore were the holy days made, but that the people should come and learn? Are ye not abominable schoolmasters, in that ye take so great wages, if ye will not teach? If ye would teach, how could ye do it so well, and with so great profit, as when the lay-people have the scripture before them in their mother tongue? For then should they see, by the order of the text, whether thou jugglest or not: and then would they believe it, because it is the scripture of God, though thy living be never so abominable...If they will not let the lay-man have the word of God in his mother tongue, yet let the priests have it; which for a great part of them do understand no Latin at all, but sing, and say, and patter all day, with the lips only, that which the heart understandeth not.”

http://www.godrules.net/library/tyndale/19tyndale7.htm

The problem wasn’t that the Catholic Church COULD not, it was that it WILLED not. As a matter of policy, the Church was opposed to commoners learning the scripture in English (or German, where Luther’s translation helped so much).

“The sermons which thou readest in the Acts of the apostles, and all that the apostles preached, were no doubt preached in the mother tongue. Why then might they not be written in the mother tongue? As, if one of us preach a good sermon, why may it not be written? Saint Jerom also translated the bible into his mother tongue: why may not we also? They will say it cannot be translated into our tongue, it is so rude. It is not so rude as they are false liars. For the Greek tongue agreeth more with the English than with the Latin. And the properties of the Hebrew tongue agreeth a thousand times more with the English than with the Latin. The manner of speaking is both one; so that in a thousand places thou needest not but to translate it into the English, word for word; when thou must seek a compass in the Latin, and yet shall have much work to translate it well-favoredly, so that it have the same grace and sweetness, sense and pure understanding with it in the Latin, and as it hath in the Hebrew. A thousand parts better may it be translated into the English, than into the Latin...

... They will say yet more shamefully, that no man can understand the scriptures without philautia , that is to say, philosophy. A man must be first well seen in Aristotle, ere he can understand the scripture, say they.

Aristotle’s doctrine is, that the world was without beginning, and shall be without end; and that the first man never was, and the last shall never be; and that God doth all of necessity, neither careth what we do, neither will ask any accounts of that we do. Without this doctrine, how could we understand the scripture, that saith, God created the world of nought; and God worketh all things of his free will, and for a secret purpose; and that we shall all rise again, and that God will have accounts of all that we have done in this life!...

... Howbeit, my meaning is, that as a master teacheth his apprentice to know all the points of the mete-yard; first, how many inches, how many feet, and the half-yard, the quarter, and the nail; and then teacheth him to mete other things thereby: even so will I that ye teach the people God’s law, and what obedience God requireth of us to father and mother, master, lord, king, and all superiors, and with what friendly love he commandeth one to love another; and teach them to know that natural venom and birth-poison, which moveth the very hearts of us to rebel against the ordinances and will of God; and prove that no man is righteous in the sight of God, but that we are all damned by the law: and then, when thou hast meeked them and feared them with the law, teach them the testament and promises which God hath made unto us in Christ, and how much he loveth us in Christ; and teach them the principles and the ground of the faith, and what the sacraments signify: and then shall the Spirit work with thy preaching, and make them feel. So would it come to pass, that as we know by natural wit what followeth of a true principle of natural reason; even so, by the principles of the faith, and by the plain scriptures, and by the circumstances of the text, should we judge all men’s exposition, and all men’s doctrine, and should receive the best, and refuse the worst. I would have you to teach them also the properties and manner of speakings of the scripture, and how to expound proverbs and similitudes. And then, if they go abroad and walk by the fields and meadows of all manner doctors and philosophers, they could catch no harm: they should discern the poison from the honey, and bring home nothing but that which is wholesome.

But now do ye clean contrary: ye drive them from God’s word, and will let no man come thereto, until he have been two years master of art...

...Finally, that this threatening and forbidding the lay people to read the scripture is not for the love of your souls (which they care for as the fox doth for the geese), is evident, and clearer than the sun; inasmuch as they permit and suffer you to read Robin Hood, and Bevis of Hampton, Hercules, Hector and Troilus, with a thousand histories and fables of love and wantonness, and of ribaldry, as filthy as heart can think, to corrupt the minds of youth withal, clean contrary to the doctrine of Christ and of his apostles: for Paul saith, “See that fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, be not once named among you, as it becometh saints; neither filthiness, neither foolish talking nor jesting, which are not comely: for this ye know, that no whoremonger, either unclean person, or covetous person, which is the worshipper of images, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.” And after saith he, “Through such things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of unbelief.” Now seeing they permit you freely to read those things which corrupt your minds and rob you of the kingdom of God and Christ, and bring the wrath of God upon you, how is this forbidding for love of your souls?...” — William Tyndale, The Obedience of a Christian Man