Thus the Caxton collection presented no less than sixteen Catholic Bibles and Psalters in German printed before Luther’s time; and as translations were not made on the spur of the moment, there must have been in existence many translations in manuscript, some of which never found their way into print at all. These sixteen volumes, publicly exhibited at once and together in London, are as many refutations of the Protestant fables and legends.
“Prior to the discovery of America,” says Stevens, “no less than twelve grand patriarchal editions of the entire Bible, being of several different translations, appeared from time to time in the German language; to which add the two editions by the Otmars of Augsburg, of 1507 and 1518, and we have the total number of no less than fourteen distinct large folio pre-Reformation or ante-Lutheran Bibles. No other language except the Latin can boast of anything like this number.”
The collection shows, too, that Bibles in the vernacular were not confined to Germany. It could show some in other languages:
628, Bible, Italian, 316, 331 folios. Venice, N. Jenson. 1471.
649, Bible, Italian. Venice, Bolognese, 1477.
652, New Testament, French. Lyons, Buyer, 1477.
653-4, Old Testament, Dutch. Delf, Zoen, 1477.
669, Psalms, Dutch, Delf. 1480.
688, Bible, Italian. Venice, 1487.
690, Bible, Bohemian. 1488.