The Book of Vagabonds and Beggars, with a Vocabulary of Their Language

by Unknown

MARTIN LUTHER

HAT Luther should have written a Preface to so undignified a little work as The Book of Vagabonds seems remarkable. At this period (1528-9) he was in the midst of his labours, surrounded with difficulties and cares, and with every moment of his time fully occupied. The Protest of Spires had just been signed by the first Protestants. Melancthon, in great affliction at the turbulent state of affairs, was running from city to city; and all Germany was alarmed to hear that the dreaded Turks were preparing to make battle before Vienna. Yet, the centre of all this agitation, engaged in directing and assisting his followers, Luther found time to write several popular pieces, and kept, we are told, the book-hawkers of Augsburg and Spires busy in supplying them to the people. These Christian pamphlets, D’Aubigné informs us, were eagerly sought for and passed through numberless editions. It was not the peasants and townspeople only who read them, but nobles and princes. Luther intended[Pg xx] that they should be popular. He knew better than any man of his time how to captivate the reader and fix his attention. His little books were short, easy to read, full of homely sayings and current phrases, and ornamented with curious engravings. They were generally written, too, in Latin and German, to suit both the educated and the unlettered. One was entitled, The Papacy with its Members painted and described by Dr. Luther. In it figured the Pope, the cardinal, and all the religious orders. Under the picture of one of the orders were these lines:—

“We can fast and pray the harder,

With an overflowing larder.”

“Not one of these orders,” said Luther to the reader, “thinks either of faith or charity. This one wears the tonsure, the other a hood, this a cloak, that a robe. One is white, another black, a third gray, and a fourth blue. Here is one holding a looking-glass, there one with a pair of scissors. Each has his playthings.... Ah! these are the palmer-worms, the locusts, the canker-worms, and the caterpillars which, as Joel saith, have eaten up all the earth.”[7]

In this style Luther addressed his readers—scourging the Pope, his cardinals, and all their emissaries. But another class of “locusts” besides these appeared to him to require sweeping away,—these were the beggars and vagabonds who imitated the Mendicant Friars in wandering up and down the country, with lying tales of distress, either of mind or body. As he says in his Preface, explaining the reason of his connection with the book, “I thought it a good thing that such a work should not only be published, but that it should become known everywhere, in order that men can see and understand how mightily the devil rules in this world; and I have also thought how such a book may help mankind to be wise, and on the look out for him, viz. the devil.”

Luther further adds—not forgetting, in passing, to give a blow to Papacy—“Princes, lords, counsellors of state, and everybody should be prudent, and cautious in dealing with beggars, and learn that, whereas people will not give and help honest paupers and needy neighbours, as ordained by God, they give, by the persuasion of the devil, and contrary to God’s judgment, ten times as much to vagabonds and desperate rogues,—in like manner as we have hitherto done to monasteries, cloisters, churches, chapels, and Mendicant Friars, forsaking all the time the truly poor.”

This was Luther’s object in affixing his name to the little book. He saw that the Friars, Beggars, and Jews were eating up his country, and he thought that a graphic account of the various orders of vagrants, together with a list of their secret or cant words, issued under the authority of his name, would put people on their guard, and help to suppress the wretched system.

Luther’s statement as to his own experience with these rogues is very naïve—“I have myself of late years,” he remarks, “been cheated and slandered by such tramps and liars more than I care to confess.”

Both priests and beggars regarded him with a peculiar aversion, and many were the nicknames and vulgar terms applied to him. The slang language of the day, therefore, was not unknown to Luther.

At page 204 of Williams’ Lectures on Ecclesiastical History, 4to. (apparently privately printed for the use of the students of St. Begh’s College,) is the following foot-note:—

Of the violence with which Luther’s enemies attacked his character, and strove to render his name and memory odious to the people, we have an example in the following production of a French Jesuit, Andreas Frusius, printed at Cologne, 1582:—

Elogium Martini Lutheri, ex ipsius Nomine et Cognomine.
Depinget et dignis te nemo coloribus unquam;
Nomen ego ut potero sic celebrabo tuum.

Magnicrepus Ambitiosus Ridiculus Tabificus Impius Nyctocorax Ventosus Schismaticus Lascivus Ventripotens Tartareus Heresiarcha Erro Retrogradus Vesanus Sacrilegus

Mendax Atrox Rhetor Tumidus Inconstans Nebulo Vanus Stolidus Leno Vultur Torris Horrendus Execrandus Reprobus Varius Satanas

Morofus Astutus Rabiosus Tenebrosus Impostor Nugator Vilis Seductor Larvatus Vinosus Tempestas Hypocrita Effrons Resupinus Veterator Sentina

Morio Apostata Rabula Transfuga Iniquus Noxa Vulpecula Simia Latro Vappa Tarbo Hydra Effronis Rana Vipera Sophista

Monstrum Agaso Raptor Turpis Ineptus Nefandus Vecors Scurra Lanista Voluptas Tyrannus Hermaphroditus Eriunis Rebellis Virus Scelestu

Magnicrepus Ambitiosus Ridiculus Tabificus Impius Nyctocorax Ventosus Schismaticus Lascivus Ventripotens Tartareus Heresiarcha Erro Retrogradus Vesanus Sacrilegus

Mendax Atrox Rhetor Tumidus Inconstans Nebulo Vanus Stolidus Leno Vultur Torris Horrendus Execrandus Reprobus Varius Satanas

Morofus Astutus Rabiosus Tenebrosus Impostor Nugator Vilis Seductor Larvatus Vinosus Tempestas Hypocrita Effrons Resupinus Veterator Sentina

Morio Apostata Rabula Transfuga Iniquus Noxa Vulpecula Simia Latro Vappa Tarbo Hydra Effronis Rana Vipera Sophista

Monstrum Agaso Raptor Turpis Ineptus Nefandus Vecors Scurra Lanista Voluptas Tyrannus Hermaphroditus Eriunis Rebellis Virus Scelestu

Each column is an acrostic of the name Martinvs Luthervs, making 80 scurrilous epithets.