The result was that science , culture , and human rights — and even the exploration of any religious doctrine not authorized by Church authorities — were frozen for a “ dark ” thousand years .
Even the discussion or examination of religion — including Catholicism — was banned for everybody except those ordained by the Church .
As the Church Council of Toulouse ruled in their Canon 14 , published in 1229 AD :
“ We prohibit also that the laity should not be permitted to have the books of the Old or New Testament ; we most strictly forbid their having any translation of these books .”
The Council of Tarragona of 1234 , in its 2nd canon , similarly ruled that :
“ No one may possess the books of the Old and New Testaments , and if anyone possesses them he must turn them over to the local bishop within eight days , so that they may be burned …”
In 1380 , John Wycliffe was the first to translate the New Testament into English . Two decades after his death the Archbishop of Canterbury , Thomas Arundel , ordered Wycliffe ’ s bones exhumed and publicly burned because of that “ sin ”; his ashes were then cursed and thrown into the Swift river .
William Tyndale was the second man to try what Wycliffe had been condemned for ; he was ordered strangled to death and his body burned in 1535 for the dual heresies of translating the Bible into English and supporting the Protestant Reformation , which Martin
The Trial Lawyer x 79