Reddit reviews The Heliand: The Saxon Gospel

Absolutely correct; and besides taking over a year of labour, Bibles back then were written on parchment, requiring the skin of over a thousand head of cattle.

A definitive Latin translation of the Bible was made by St Jerome in the late 4th Century, and became the only Bible most people in Western Europe knew as knowledge of Greek declined. Few people could read, much less afford to own a full Bible (psalters were more widespread); and those who could were able to read Latin. So some vernacular translations (not to mention verse retellings of the Gospel like the Heliand) were made, but there really wasn't a huge market for vernacular Bibles.

On the other hand, some vernacular Bibles were suppressed by the Church in some places. That isn't because the Catholic Church secretly knows its teachings are opposed to Scripture and wanted to keep people from finding out. Those translations were produced and used by heretical movements like the Cathars and the Waldensians. (Note: some anti-Catholics believe that groups such as these were really evangelicals, that they represent a true Christian church that had persisted underground since the time of the apostles, and evidence of what they really believed is part of a massive Roman Catholic cover-up.) However, there is no evidence that there was ever an official decision to universally ban vernacular translations.

Of course, it was once illegal for much of the laity in England to read the Bible. The so-called Act for the Advancement of True Religion was passed under Henry VIII in 1543, after the schism from Rome.

Oh, do I ever have a book for you.

The Our Father is described therein as being mightier than any of the Norse pagan spells. If you’ve ever wanted to read the Gospel story in the form of a 9th century Norse epic poem, look no further.