Dr. Thomas Madden

Well, they did chain it, yes.

What?

But the reason was because, well, first of all, there were no Bibles on the pulpit.

You know, a...

The missiles would be up there.

But the thing is, in the Middle Ages, books are extremely expensive.

There's no paper in the Middle Ages, and there's no printing press.

So everything that is written down has to be written by hand and by professionals.

And because there's no paper, it means that every leave in a book is parchment, which is animal skin.

It takes vast herds of animals to produce a single book.

So they are immensely expensive.

For that reason, you often would chain them, because otherwise someone would steal them and sell them off.

I mean, they're worth a fortune.

It also means that the vast majority of people in the Middle Ages, well over 90% of the people in the Middle Ages, were illiterate.

including nobles, because there was nothing for them to read.

I mean, the writing— There's no point in learning how to read.

No, right.

Yeah, there's nothing for them to read.

I mean, when you think of the feudal system, it's all swearing to God.

It's oral oaths.