HKB
what language these beggars used to employ, is shown us in Johann Knebel’s Chronicles, the MSS. of which are preserved in the Library of the City and University of Bâle.”
These MSS. are very curious. They contain the proceedings of the Trials at Basle,[2] in Switzerland, in 1475, when a great number of vagabonds, strollers, blind men, and mendicants of all orders, were arrested and examined. Johann Knebel was the chaplain of the cathedral there, and wrote them down at the time. From the reports of these trials it is believed the Liber Vagatorum was compiled; and it is also conjectured that, from the same rich source, Sebastian Brant, who just at that period had established himself at the University of Basle, where he remained until 1500, drew the vivid description of beggars and begging, to be found in his Ship of Fools.[3]
Knebel gives a long list of the different orders of beggars, and the names they were known by amongst themselves. This account is similar to, only not so spirited as that given in the Liber Vagatorum. The tricks and impostures are very nearly the same, together with the cant terms for the various tribes of mendicants. Knebel, speaking of the manner in which the tricks of these rogues were first found out, says:—“At those times a great number of knaves went about the country begging and annoying people. Of these several were caught, and they told how they and their fellow-knaves were known, and when and how they used to meet, what they were called, and they told also several of their cant words.”
The Liber Vagatorum, or The Book of Vagabonds, was probably written shortly after 1509, that year being mentioned in the work; it is the earliest book on beggars and their secret language of which we have any record,—preceding by half a century any similar work issued in this country.
Nothing is known of the author other than that it was written by one who styled himself a “Reverend Magister, nomine expertus in truffis,”—which proficiency in roguery, as Luther remarks, “the little book very well proves, even though he had not given himself such a name.”
None of the early impressions bears a date, but the first edition is known to have been printed at Augsburg, about the year 1512-14, by Erhart Öglin, or Ocellus.[4] It is a small quarto, consisting of 12 leaves.
The title:—
+Liber Vagatorum; Der Betler Orden:+
is printed in red. The title-page of this, as of most of the early editions, is embellished with a woodcut,—a facsimile of which is given in this translation. The picture, representing a beggar and his family, explains itself. At the foot of the title is printed, in black:—Getrucht zu Augspurg durch Erhart Öglin. The little book was frequently reprinted without any other variations than printers’ blunders (one edition having an error in the first word, Lieber Vagatorum) until 1528, when Luther edited an edition,[5] supplying a preface, and correcting some of the passages. In 1529 another edition, with Luther’s preface, appeared at Wittemberg,[6] and from this, comparing it occasionally with the first edition by Ocellus, the present English version has been made. Nearly all the editions contain the same matter; nor do those issued under Luther’s authority furnish us with additional information. With regard to the Vocabulary, however, I have made, in a few instances, slight variations, as given in two editions of the Liber Vagatorum, preserved in the Library at Munich. Wherever there was a marked divergence in style I have adopted that as my text which seemed to be the most characteristic for the fifteenth and the commencement of the sixteenth centuries, and which is mostly to be found in the better class MSS. and works of that period.