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While it may be true that most Roman Catholics were illiterate, (there is no cite for that, but anyway) perhaps the reason for that was the serfdom didn't need to know how to read given that most of their time was taken up serving their feudal lords and making sure they had enough to eat themselves and try to stay warm. Also, during this time books of any sort were very expensive as they had to be either hand copied or made on presses that had non-movable type (so that only a few hundred copies could be made before a new plate was made). Only in the fifteen century, ''after'' Gutenberg invented movable type, did publishing costs plummet. Hence a deluge of Bibles hit the market and people of modest means could afford to own one, (even then, it still it took a couple of generations until the populous was literate enough that demand for written materials made publishing a worthwhile occupation for the "middle class".)
While it may be true that most Roman Catholics were illiterate, (there is no cite for that, but anyway) perhaps the reason for that was the serfdom didn't need to know how to read given that most of their time was taken up serving their feudal lords and making sure they had enough to eat themselves and try to stay warm. Also, during this time books of any sort were very expensive as they had to be either hand copied or made on presses that had non-movable type (so that only a few hundred copies could be made before a new plate was made). Only in the fifteen century, ''after'' Gutenberg invented movable type, did publishing costs plummet. Hence a deluge of Bibles hit the market and people of modest means could afford to own one, (even then, it still it took a couple of generations until the populous was literate enough that demand for written materials made publishing a worthwhile occupation for the "middle class".)
Also...It was only after books were cheap enough that mandatory public education started in earnest. [[User_talk:U2| U2]] 12:03, 20 July 2007 (EDT)
Also...It was only after books were cheap enough that mandatory public education started in earnest. [[User_talk:U2| U2]] 12:03, 20 July 2007 (EDT)
:I have rewritten the section to avoid the needless inflammatory nature, but please add whatever information you believe is noteworthy. We could always use improvement. ;-) Thanks [[User:Learn together|Learn together]] 12:19, 20 July 2007 (EDT)