In Front | The Regulation of Bibles in the Middle Ages

Ultimately, it was the perceived threat of heresy, of false teaching or misreadings of the Bible, that led to prohibitions like that declared at the Council of Toulouse. Vernacular translation spread in the Middle Ages, at times by Christian groups with different ideas about the meaning of the Bible and key theological issues than had been agreed on in early church creeds and councils. 

Two major targets for these prohibitions were the Cathars and Waldensians, both considered heretical by the church. Each of these groups had viewpoints that set them at odds with church authorities. Among other things, Cathars rejected almost all of the Hebrew Bible on the grounds that it was attributable to an “evil God” opposed to the God of the New Testament in cosmic dualism. 

They attributed the New Testament to the benign God and the Old Testament to the malign God, and rejected the whole of the latter except for certain passages quoted in the New Testament.

The Waldensians developed their own hierarchies of church authority and rejected official Church views on indulgences and purgatory. 

The church viewed both of these groups, and others, as dangerous to its accepted teachings. And Christianity, even in its so-called “heretical” sects, was still a “religion of the book.” The best way to control heresy, in the opinion of many officials, was to control the book—the Bible in its distribution and translation. However we feel about medieval prohibitions of lay possession of the Bible and vernacular translations, it is important that we understand these prohibitions for what they were. They restricted the Bible, but their target was something else—misreadings of the Bible and so-called “heretical” theology. 

References and quotes: Peter of les Vaux-de-Cernay, The History of the Albigensian Crusade (trans. W. A. Sibly and M. D. Sibly), 1998, p. 11;
A. Patschovsky, “The Literacy of Waldensianism,” Heresy and Literacy, 1000-1530, ed. P. Biller and A. Hudson, 1994, p. 116;
Edward Peters, Heresy and Authority in Medieval Europe: Documents in Translation, 1991, p. 195;
P. Biller, “The Cathars of Languedoc and written material,” Heresy and Literacy, 1000-1530, ed. P. Biller and A. Hudson, 1994.