Page 50 - Communication Processes Volume 3 Communication Culture and Confrontation

From the Popular to the People 25

abundant than the usual channels of information (rumour, street
songs, private letters, announcements by town criers, ringing of bells,
processions of penitents, and so on).
One of the famous Pléiade (leading literary group) poets Jacques
Peletier contemplated the design of a right and clear method sufficient
to secure a fair quality for vulgar publications through regulating
poetry, music, grammar, mathematics, medicine and even spelling.
What would happen next when all kinds of people felt like writ-
ing their piece of literature—captain, vicar, trader, craftsman—and
started publishing their books? But how could the elite rule over
aesthetics, scientific or doctrinal truth, if everyone could get their books
printed and when vernacular language placed it at the disposal of many
and hardly educated sections of the urban population?
With a vernacular Bible, every layman was able to experience that
he was entitled to read the Gospel and find his way to salvation under
the inspired direction of the Holy Spirit, when for decades doctors in
theology, with the strong assistance of secular authorities, were try-
ing to keep for themselves the monopoly of biblical exegesis, denying
to ignorants and manual workers in particular the right and capacity to
do so. Right intelligence cannot come from a pure and vulgar know-
ledge of the words, but from the special avocation of those who dedicate
themselves to study them, stated a representative of the Catholic estab-
lishment. A young Protestant pastor replied that the Pope and doctors
in theology prohibit the reading to anyone but themselves, lest they are
led to submit their life to the Gospel, give their belongings to the poor
and start working with their hands. They, therefore let a poor artisan
read sweet love stories and nonsensical books, dance and play cards,
but considered him a heretic if he read the Gospel. Still the Lord and
the Fathers of the Church told believers to look for and find out the
Scriptures, to keep reading them especially before the sermon for them
to follow it better. The same pastor stated that sole reading cannot lead
to the path of truth. Before coming to censorship and punishment,
Protestant orthodoxy demanded from laymen that they place their
personal reading under the direction of a duly trained pastor.
As a matter of fact, nothing can prevent laymen from direct access to
the Scriptures. Two hundred years ago the monopoly of the clergy was
protected by language, Latin and limited technical means. Since the
end of the fourteenth century, the vernacular Bible could be found here
and there in some lay families. But with the first printing presses, even