Right! I have a book on medieval manuscripts somewhere....it tried to calculate how much a full Bible would have cost in the High Middle Ages. I forget most of the details, but it basically came out to about as much as a house.
Yet they had the “catechism of the poor” in those beautiful paintings and stained glass windows.
It gets difficult to pin down because prior to mercantalism currency was in a perpetual state of massive inflation and deflation. However, what you said is about a Bible costing as much as a house is probably accurate, but remember that well over 90% of the population COULD NOT AFFORD A HOUSE, they lived in a hut made of mud and straw that they built on land they didn't own. Also, keep in mind that the average person had no disposable income and no savings to speak of.
Just as difficult is the fact that the average person lived nowhere near a monastary where books were inscribed. If a person somehow managed to save the money, they would have to WALK for several days through territory which was seldom safe. Then they would have to pay for the Bible and wait for several years for it to be completed, how the monks would ever let a person with no address know that their book is ready is beyond me.
The feudal system in western Europe did not really begin to break down until the Black Death turned the economy upside down and changed things forever. This is when people started moving to cities and larger towns and mercantalism developed and with it a middle class began to emerge. Less than a century later Gutenberg's printing press came into being and within a few decades Bibles WERE available for the middle class, but before this it was an impossibility.
James White gives a good summary of what Sola Scriptura means:
“The doctrine of sola scriptura, simply stated, is that the Scriptures and the Scriptures alone are sufficient to function as the regula fide, the “rule of faith” for the Church. All that one must believe to be a Christian is found in Scripture and in no other source. That which is not found in Scripture is not binding upon the Christian conscience.
To be more specific, I provide the following definition: The Bible claims to be the sole and sufficient rule of faith for the Christian Church. The Scriptures are not in need of any supplement. Their authority comes from their nature as God-breathed revelation. Their authority is not dependent upon man, Church or council. The Scriptures are self-consistent, self-interpreting, and self- authenticating.
The Christian Church looks at the Scriptures as the only and sufficient rule of faith and the Church is always subject to the Word, and is constantly reformed thereby.”
So where do you get the idea that every believer must possess a Bible? I agree it is an admirable goal, but it is entirely possible for scripture “to be the sole and sufficient rule of faith for the Christian Church” without every believer holding a copy in his or her hand.
The problem for the Catholic Church is that many of its controversial teachings are contrary to scripture - Purgatory, indulgences, primacy of the Pope.