The Catholic Church has never forbidden reading the Bible except
forbidden versions such as KJB.
In the Dark to the Middle ages, we must remember that
everything was written by hand and were available at Convents
and Monasteries. When the printing press came in it changed
all of that.
All the great classics such as Iliad were hand written for
centuries before the advent of the printing press. In
ancient times, some people had such great memories that
these classics were handed down orally.
Despite all the technological progress of our day, you will
not find a single person that can memorize a book.
Majority of books today are trash.