COUNCIL OF TOULOUSE - 1229 A.D Canon 14. We prohibit also that the laity should be permitted to have the books of the Old or New Testament; unless anyone from motive of devotion should wish to have the Psalter or the Breviary for divine offices or the hours of the blessed Virgin; but we most strictly forbid their having any translation of these books.
Source: Heresy and Authority in Medieval Europe, Edited with an introduction by Edward Peters, Scolar Press, London, copyright 1980 by Edward Peters, ISBN 0-85967-621-8, pp. 194-195, citing S. R. Maitland, Facts and Documents [illustrative of the history, doctrine and rites, of the ancient Albigenses & Waldenses], London, Rivington, 1832, pp. 192-194.
The Council of Tarragona of 1234, in its second canon:
“No one may possess the books of the Old and New Testaments in the Romance language, and if anyone possesses them he must turn them over to the local bishop within eight days after promulgation of this decree, so that they may be burned lest, be he a cleric or a layman, he be suspected until he is cleared of all suspicion.” (-D. Lortsch, Historie de la Bible en France, 1910, p.14.)
Suspicion?! Suspicion of what or for what?
There's not one indicator that the reason for not owning Scripture was out of concern for it's safe keeping or it's rarity.
Thanks. I do not understand why people find that so hard to understand. I loved history in school and still do especially from a genealogy pov. It was fascinating to learn history when ancestors lived it. I kinda learned more about the plague than I really wanted to. Whole towns died and no one was left to bury them.
“There’s not one indicator that the reason for not owning Scripture was out of concern for it’s safe keeping or it’s rarity.”
No indicator from whom, the sources you are reading? Do you know it would sometimes take a monk 30 years to write a Bible with the beautiful artistic script for its use in churches? Do you know monks often only completed 1 or 2 Bibles by hand in a lifetime? How can the reality of the world before about 1500 and the invention of the printing press be ignored?
Whatever councils said about the ownership of Bibles, few had Bibles because they were so exceedingly rare.
I’ve sometimes heard said that we don’t and didn’t need a church because the Holy Spirit would lead believers to truth without the Church. This ignores how difficult discernment is. The world, our own flesh, the devil, who often acts as an angel of light, are all competing with the voice of the Spirit.
The following is a true exchange witnessed by a third party:
Believer 1:”The Spirit told me He wants you to give me your (large) boat for ministry purposes.”
Believer 2:”Well, when He tells me the same thing, I’ll give it to you.”
Wait....what? Why would they need prohibit owning books. Catholics tell us all the time that they didn't have them anyway until after the printing press was invented. Silly popes!
Lest the oft told untruth that the CHURCH was merely trying to keep BAD translations out of the hands of people:
... but we most strictly forbid their having any translation of these books.