For the first time, an English farmer could walk into his parish church and read God's words in his own language. Henry VIII—the same king who'd broken with Rome partly over his divorce—now ordered every church to chain a Bible in English where anyone could see it. The chains weren't to keep people out. They were to keep the books in. Each Great Bible cost roughly what a laborer earned in two months, and they kept disappearing. By 1541, the revolution Henry wanted to control was already slipping from his hands. Literacy became dangerous.
May 6, 1541
485 years ago
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