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DEFENDING THE BRIDE
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Did the Catholic Church chain the Bible to prevent people from reading it ?
As for the accusation about chaining the Bible, it is true that the Catholic Church did chain the Bible at one time. However, when a person studies the context of that time period he can see that the Church did so for the opposite reason that She is accused of doing so.
Before the invention of the printing press Bibles were hand copied by a scribe on to vellum, animal skin. It is estimated that it took 250 sheep to make a Bible. The cost of the vellum was not cheep either. Also, the scribes were some of the best educated individuals of that time period. So a person can imagine the relative cost of employing one of today’s most educated individuals for the length of time that it would take to transcribe a complete Bible. Therefore, one can see the tremendous cost involved with making a Bible. The Church chained some Bibles, not to keep them from people, but to ensure their access to all. This is comparable in modern times to how phone books are chained for the same reason in phone booths. (Even after the invention of the printing press with movable type in 1455 AD the cost of a Bible equaled to a clerk's wages for about three years. See THE SMITHSONIAN BOOK OF BOOKS by M. Olmert page 113.)
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