Whatever knowledge of Scripture the people in the Middle Ages possessed was confined to those who could read Latin.  Catholic writers claim this was at that time the universal language of Europe, but they wisely add:  “among the educated.”  One of them says:  “Those who could read Latin could read the Bible, and those who could not read Latin could not read anything.”  Exactly.  And now, to prove the wide diffusion of Bible-knowledge in their Church before Luther, these Catholic writers should give us some exact data as to the extent of the Latin scholarship in that age.  Fact is, the Latin tongue acted as a lock upon the Scriptures to the common people.  Hence arose the desire to have the Bible translated into the vernacular of various European countries.

This desire Rome sought to suppress with brutal rigor.  The bloody persecutions of the Waldensians in France, which almost resulted in the extirpation of these peaceful mountain people, of the followers of Wyclif in England, whose remains Rome had exhumed after his death and burned, of the Hussites in Bohemia, were all aimed at translations of the Bible into the languages which the common people understood.

In July, 1199, Pope Innocent III issued a breve, occasioned by the report that parts of the Bible were found in French translation in the diocese of Metz.  The breve praises in a general way the zeal for Bible-study, but applies to all who are not officially appointed to engage in such study the prohibition in Ex. 19, 12. 13, not to touch the holy mountain of the Law.

During the reign of his successor, Honorius III, in 1220, laymen in Germany were forbidden to read the Bible.

Under Gregory IX the same prohibition was issued, in 1229, to laymen in Great Britain.

In the same year the crusades against the Albigenses were concluded, and the Council of Toulouse issued a severe order, making it a grave offense for a layman to possess a Bible.

In 1234, the Synod of Tarragona demanded the immediate surrender of all translations of the Bible for the purpose of having them burned.

In 1246, the Synod of Baziers issued a prohibition forbidding laymen to possess any theological books whatsoever, and even enjoining the clergy from owning any theological books written in the vernacular.

Eleven years after Luther’s death, in 1557, Pope Paul IV published the Roman Index of Forbidden Books, and, with certain exceptions, prohibited laymen from reading the Bible.

Not until the reign of King Edward VI was the “Act inhibiting the reading of the Old and New Testament in English tongue, and the printing, selling, giving, or delivering of any such other books or writings as are therein mentioned and condemned” (namely, in 34 Hen.  VIII.  Cap. 1) abrogated.

The Council of Trent ordered all Catholic publishers to see to it that their editions have the approval of the respective bishop.

Not until February 28, 1759, did Pope Clement XIII give permission to translate the Bible into all the languages of the Catholic states.