LIBER VAGATORUM
HE 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:—
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 [Pg xvii]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.
I should state, however, before proceeding further, that a metrical version of the Liber Vagatorum, in 838 verses, appeared about 1517-18, written by Pamphilus Gengenbach, including a vocabulary of the beggars’ cant. Although Karl Gödecke, in his work, Ein Beitrag zur Deutschen Literatur Geschichte der Reformations zeit (Hannover, Carl Rümpler, 1855), has stated that Gengenbach’s poetical version preceded the smaller prose account, it is impossible, upon examining the two publications, to agree with him on this point. Gengenbach’s book certainly did not appear till after 1517, and the direct copies from the Liber Vagatorum, in matter and manner, are too frequent to admit for one moment of the supposition of their being accidental. The cant terms, too, are incorrectly given, and altogether the work bears the appearance of hasty and piratical compilation. It never met with that popularity which the author anticipated, and probably never crossed the frontiers of Switzerland.
The latest prose edition of the Liber Vagatorum was issued towards the close of the seventeenth century. The title ran:—Expertus in truffis. Of False Beggars and their knaveries. A pretty little book, made more than a century and a half since, together with a Vocabulary of some old cant words that occur therein, newly edited. Anno 1668 (12o. pp. 160).