[Canadaka]

ridenrain ridenrain:

The church also was the driving force behind schools, because they felt it was important that members could read the bible. This basic education for all was one of the main reasons why the west is as successful as it is.

From what i've heard 'The Church' in the medival ages didn't want people to be educated and be able to read the bible themselfs. Or maybe it was more a thing about the bible being translated into different languages like english. Either way it delayed possible progress.

[ShepherdsDog]

The Church wanted their members to be highly educated. The Church established the first universities and jealously collected and horded knowledge. An uneducated populace is easier to control. Those who tried to translate the Bible from Latin and Greek into the regional tongues were usually guests of honour at burnings. Mind you, even if the bible was translated into English, french, German, or any other language in Europe the peasantry(and most of the nobility) were just as illiterate in their own tongue as they were in Greek and Latin.

[ridenrain]

The Gutenberg Bible started printing in the 1450's and the midevil period ended in the 1500's. There's be no point in teaching folks to read the bible if they couldn't own one of their own. It would take the mass bible printing of the 1800's to really give purpose to the church schools.

[ShepherdsDog]

The Protestant Reformation was what led to mass printing of the Bible, as Protestants saw the Bible as the final authority on religious matters not the Pope and his cardinals, archbishops and bishops. each person was expected to try and under stand what was considered the word of God and come to a personal relationship with their Creator. The Protestant clergy were often, but not always, the driving force behind the growth of the middle class and the spread of literacy. The Jesuits often came into conflict with Rome because they were proponents of educating the masses.

If you look at the division between Catholic and Protestant nations,you could see that the Protestant nations developed faster, had a more affluent and better educated middle class. The Protestant work ethic coupled with increased literacy were responsible for this. Even today you can see that the most developed Western nations grew from Protestant societies or nations with large influential Protestant minorities. Catholic nations(especially ones with a strong Dominican influence) developed far more slowly and Orthodox nations even slower.