Receiving God's Word Before the Printing Press

[LivingWordUnity]

Before the printing press was invented, when each Bible had to be individually hand written by monks, how did the masses receive the word of God especially considering that the majority of the population did not know how to read? What kind of role did stained glass windows play in this?

[djconklin]

From a one course study on architecture and worship:

In the "dark ages" and Mediaeval period the stained glass windows were an important teaching tool for the illiterate masses.

The neat part about it, however, is what did they do before they had stained glass windows? It appears that while they could not read or write they had better memories than we have today. In one case that I read about, Augustine herad some reading the book of Romans. So he went outside his house to see who it was. The found that the guy was blind! In another case (apparently apocryphal tho'!) the priest was reading from Jerome's new (at that time) Latin translation of the OT. The priest was reading from Jonah and supposedly Jerome says that an "ivy" covered Jonah giving him shade. The audience then supposedly, said "No! Gourd, gourd!"