William Tyndale Strangled and burned for translating the Scriptures http://greatsite.com/timeline-englis...m-tyndale.html Tyndale refused to translate the word "ekklesia" into the word "church," instead (and much more accurately) translating it as "congregation?" http://www.bible-truth.org/Ekklesia.html The God's Outlaw (The Story Of William Tyndale)‏ - YouTube
Translating the bible wasn't the real crime Breaking the church's monopoly of controlling accessibility to the contents of the bible was. If any parishioner could read the bible in their own common language and come to their own conclusions concerning the meaning of the Bible's contents, what use were priests who were the custodians and interpreters of the "holy mysteries"??? Translating the bible was a dangerous heretical idea at the time....a threat that the Church could not ignore...a case of burning the bible translator instead of the bible!
Battle For The Bible - The English Bible - Wycliffe, Tyndale This video was taken from a TV episode of Secrets of the Dead, on PBS. It is rare to find an accurate representation of Christianity by the media. This episode starts with discussion of early church manuscripts and how the Roman Catholic Church kept the World ignorant of the Bible text by reading it in Latin. This involves the martyrdom of John Wycliffe, William Tyndale, and Thomas Cranmer. Battle For The Bible - The English Bible - Wycliffe, Tyndale, Cranmer‏ - YouTube
More often than not The church largely kept their own lower level clerics ignorant also....many village priests in the Middle Ages, knew barely enough Latin to deliver by rote the necessary portions of church services and catechisms, but not a great deal much more than that. Many present day sunday school students probably have more theological knowledge than the priesthood in general had in those times.