Whilst yes, there were different translations of the Bible into different langauges - just how many times were the populace given them?
Wycliffes English translation of the Scriptures was give to at least 1000 members of the English speaking public.
Pope St. Gregory I (died 604 AD)
The Emperor of heaven, the Lord of men and of angels, has sent you His epistles for your lifes advantageand yet you neglect to read them eagerly. Study them, I beg you, and meditate daily on the words of your Creator. Learn the heart of God in the words of God, that you may sigh more eagerly for things eternal, that your soul may be kindled with greater longings for heavenly joys.
[Letters, 5, 46. (EnchBibl 31)]
St. Bonaventure (1221-1274 AD)
In his day, there where no public schools and only the wealthy could afford private tutors. Therefore, most people could not read or write. St. Bonaventure had composed a copy of Biblia Pauperum which means the Bible of the poor. It contained a collection of pictures illustrating the important events of the Old Testament. It also contained parallel scenes in the New Testament and it showed how the Old Testament prefigured and was fulfilled in the Life and Teachings of Jesus Christ in the New Testament. This helped the people to learn Gods Word by showing them the important stories of both the Old and New Testament. He was canonized a Saint by Pope Sixtus IV in1482 AD. He was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Sixtus V in 1588 AD.
Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903 AD)
The solicitude of the apostolic office naturally urges and even compels us
to desire that this grand source of Catholic revelation (the Bible) should be made safely and abundantly accessible to the flock of Jesus Christ
...For sacred Scripture is not like other books. Dictated by the Holy Ghost, it contains things of the deepest importance, which in many instances are most difficult and obscure. To understand and explain such things there is always required the 'coming' of the same Holy Ghost; that is to say, His light and His grace...It is absolutely wrong and forbidden either to narrow inspiration to certain parts only of holy Scripture or to admit that the sacred writer has erred... and so far is it from being possible that any error can co-exist with inspiration, that inspiration is not only essentially incompatible with error, but excludes and rejects it as absolutely and necessarily as it is impossible that God Himself, the supreme Truth, can utter that which is not true.
[Providentissimus Deus ( Nov. 18, 1893)]
He also encouraged the reading of Holy Scripture by granting an indulgence to those who read it for at least 25 minutes.
Pope St. Pius X (1903-1914 AD)
Nothing would please us more than to see our beloved children form the habit of reading the Gospels - not merely from time to time, but every day.
Pope Benedict XV (1914-1922 AD)
He repeated St. Jerome's statement:
Ignorance of Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.
He expressed his desire that,
... all the children of the Church, especially clerics, to reverence the Holy Scriptures, to read it piously and meditate on it constantly. He reminded them that,
...in these pages is to be sought that food, by which the spiritual life is nourished unto perfection...
Pope Pius XII 1943 AD
Our predecessors, when the opportunity occurred, recommended the study or preaching or in fine the pious reading and meditation of the sacred Scriptures.
...This author of salvation, Christ, will men more fully know, more ardently love and more faithfully imitate in proportion as they are more assiduously urged to know and meditate the Sacred Letters, especially the New Testament...
[Divino Afflante Spiritu]
He also granted indulgences (a blessing of God's grace) to those who read Scripture. (1 Cor. 4:1.)
HISTORY of the CHRISTIAN CHURCH Phillip Schoff Protestant Historical Scholar
CHAPTER VI. Schoff
Fortunately, the weakness of the empire and the want of centralization prevented the execution of the prohibition of Protestant books, except in strictly papal countries, as Bavaria and Austria. But unfortunately, the Protestants themselves, who used the utmost freedom of the press against the Papists, denied it to each other; the Lutherans to the Reformed, and both to the Anabaptists, Schwenkfeldians and Socinians.756 Protestant princes liked to control the press to protect themselves against popery, or the charges of robbery of church property and other attacks. The Elector John Frederick was as narrow and intolerant as Duke George on the opposite side.
Obviously, the Church preferred that Catholics read bibles which reflected the orthodox Catholic interpretation of the Word of God. The misuse of the Gospel against the Church established by Christ himself is as Pope Leo XII noted nothing less than satanic. Interpretation of Church history or tradition, is as cloudy as the Protestants understanding of the Scriptur
7TH CENTURY THE FIRST TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE IN TO FRENCH LANGUAGE: FrenchVersions of the Psalms and the Apocalypse, and a metrical rendering of the Book of Kings, appeared as early as the seventh century.(9) In 1223 (A. D.)a complete translation was made under the Catholic King Louis the Pious. This was 320 years before the first Protestant French version. (7) Up to the fourteenth century, many Bible histories were produced.
7TH CENTURY, THE FIRST GERMAN VERSION: The history of Biblical research in Germany shows that of the numerous partial versions in the vernacular some go back to the seventh and eighth centuries. It also establishes the certainty of such versions on a considerable scale in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and points to a complete Bible of the fifteenth in general use before the invention of printing.(9)
These two leaf are from different Bibles in French. They were both hand copied about the year 1250 (AD.) and are written in a very fine, regular, hand : The initials at the beginning of every chapter are very elaborate! 7TH CENTURY, SPACES PLACED BETWEEN THE WORDS: In the seventh Century, Irish and English monks began to leave space between the words as they copied the biblical texts by hand, before this all the letters ran together making a entire book look like one giant word. (19)
8TH CENTURY,THE FIRST TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE IN TO ENGLISH LANGUAGE: By Aldhelm, the Bishop of Sherborne, and Bede. A 9th century translation of the Bible in to English (Anglo-Saxon the dialect of its time) was made by Alfred. A tenth century translation in to English was made by Aelfric.(7) , By 1361 a translation of most of Scripture in the English dialect (Anglo-Norman) of its time had been executed.(3) This was twenty years before Wycliffe's 1381 translation (3)
This image is of the "Vespasian Psalter" a eighth century Catholic translation of the Book of Psalm in to English8TH - 9TH CENTURY, THE USE OF THE FORM OF WRITING CALLED "MINUSCULE": As the breakdown of Oriental commerce took papyrus out of the western market in compelled to use of parchment, the factor of economy became increasingly potent. To get more words on page, the scribe had two use smaller letters and squeeze them close together. Some, to preserve their distinct shapes, were extended above the line, some below. The ultimate result was a form of writing called "Minuscule" little letters, with capitals inserted for emphasis. It is this system which is still use today. This grammatically was a major change from the "Majuscule" which consisted of only large letters as used by the Greeks, Romans, and Jews. (16)
This is a close up of a leaf from a Latin Bible it hand copied minuscule script about the year 1260 (AD.). This leaf originates from Northern France (probably Paris)9TH CENTURY, THE FIRST SLAVIC TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE: The Catholic Saints Cyril and Methodius preached the Gospel to the Slavs in the second half of the ninth century, and St. Cyril, having formed an alphabet, made for them, in Old Ecclesiastical Slavic, or Bulgarian, a translation of the Bible from the Greek. Toward the close of the tenth century this version found its way into Russia with Christianity, and after the twelfth century it underwent many linguistic and textual changes. A complete Slav Bible after an ancient codex of the time of Waldimir (d. 1008) was published at Ostrog in 1581.(9)
1170 A.D. THE FIRST PARALLEL ENGLISH LANGUAGE BIBLE: Eadwine's Psalterium triplex, which contained the Latin version accompanied by Anglo-Norman and Anglo-Saxon renderings, appeared it became the basis of all subsequent Anglo-Norman versions.(3)
This leaf (circa 1260AD) has been written by hand in Latin, in black ink using miniature gothic texture on animal vellum. Rubricated initials and marginalia can be seen in red and blue. It was originally owned by William Foyle of Beeligh Abbey England.
THIRTEENTH CENTURY, THE FIRST DIVISION OF CHAPTERS: It was the British Catholic Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, St. Stephen Langton (died 1228), was first to tabulate scripture into Chapters, and we follow his arrangement to this day: some 1,163 chapters in the Old Testament, and only 260 in the New Testament." (4)
THIRTEENTH CENTURY, THE FIRST TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE IN TO SPANISH LANGUAGE: Under King Alfonso V of Spain. (7)
1230 A.D. THE FIRST CONCORDANCE: A concordance of the Latin Vulgate Bible was compiled by the Dominican Friar Hugo of Saint Cher. (5)
1300 A.D. THE FIRST TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE IN TO NORWEGIAN LANGUAGE: The earliest and most celebrated is that of Genesis-Kings in the so-called Stjórn ("Guidance"; i.e., of God) manuscript in the Old Norwegian language, probably to be dated about 1300. Swedish versions of the Pentateuch and of Acts have survived from the fourteenth century and a manuscript of Joshua-Judges by Nicholaus Ragnvaldi of Vadstena from c. 1500. The oldest Danish version covering Genesis-Kings derives from 1470. (11)
1454 A.D. THE FIRST PRINTED BIBLE: A Catholic named Gutenberg caused great excitement when in the fall of that year he exhibited sample pages at the Frankfurt trade fair. Gutenberg quickly sold out all of the 180 copies of his Latin Vulgate Bible even before the printing was finished. (6)
