So it wasn't "Latin" versus "German"--no one wrote anything in German at the time. Even the German version of the Gospels, the Heliand, was transmitted orally and written down later, like Beofwulf or the Dream of the Rood. Germanic languages, Anglo-Saxon etc. were oral languages, poems and songs and homilies were composed in them but not written down until the 10th or later centuries.
That the Bible in the West was in Latin was simply a matter of course. NO one who could read could not read Latin. No other written language existed in the West. It was not the Vulgate that was being mandated but a corrected, standard, clean, precise, accurate text that was being mandated. These guys were pioneering the same methods of textual criticism (not higher criticism) that even the Fundamentalists accept as legitimate: Charlemagne was telling his "professors" (the best scholars of his day) to produce a more accurate version of the Bible's text. That it would be in Latin was a foregone conclusion. No one could have imagined it being in any other language.
So the point Harley was using the fact to demonstrate is absurd but the fact is true. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Harley made a true statement but the point he thought he was proving by it is false and absurdly false. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
You wrote:
"So it wasn't "Latin" versus "German"--no one wrote anything in German at the time. Even the German version of the Gospels, the Heliand, was transmitted orally and written down later, like Beofwulf or the Dream of the Rood."
I'm not so sure about the Heliand being oral before written. Murphy seems to say otherwise in his edition (page xiii).
"Germanic languages, Anglo-Saxon etc. were oral languages, poems and songs and homilies were composed in them but not written down until the 10th or later centuries."
Yes and no. Beowulf was written earlier than that.
"That the Bible in the West was in Latin was simply a matter of course. NO one who could read could not read Latin."
I don't know how that myth got started, but it is clear that Germanic peoples had their own written languages and there were people who could read and NOT read Latin. How many vikings read Latin? Few, but we know they read Runes. Even much later, in a thoroughly Christian nation like France, there were people who read the local dialects, but knew no Latin. I think this idea that no one could read unless they could read Latin is way over blown.
"No other written language existed in the West."
Gothic? Ogam? Runes?
"It was not the Vulgate that was being mandated but a corrected, standard, clean, precise, accurate text that was being mandated."
But it wasn't mandated as the only Bible. That's the point. It was mandated for use by the clergy.
"These guys were pioneering the same methods of textual criticism (not higher criticism) that even the Fundamentalists accept as legitimate: Charlemagne was telling his "professors" (the best scholars of his day) to produce a more accurate version of the Bible's text. That it would be in Latin was a foregone conclusion. No one could have imagined it being in any other language."
Well, the official version would have been in Latin yes. There were vernacular versions in England and other places.
"So the point Harley was using the fact to demonstrate is absurd but the fact is true."
No, the fact is not true. He said that Latin was mandated. It wasn't. 1) Charlemagne was not the Church, 2) Mandating a Bible for the Frankish clergy is not what Harley described, 3) What Harley described never happened.
"Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Harley made a true statement but the point he thought he was proving by it is false and absurdly false. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing."
He has a little knowledge? I haven't seen it yet. Seriously though, he was wrong. What he said happened, never happened.