THE BOOK OF VAGABONDS
AND BEGGARS.
THE
WITH A VOCABULARY OF THEIR LANGUAGE.
EDITED BY
MARTIN LUTHER
IN THE YEAR 1528.
NOW FIRST TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH, WITH
INTRODUCTION AND NOTES,
BY
JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN.
LONDON:
JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN, PICCADILLY.
1860.
PREFACE.
Sa picture of the manners and customs of theVagabond population of Central Europe beforethe Reformation, I think this little book, theearliest of its kind, will be found interesting. The fact ofLuther writing a Preface and editing it gives it at oncesome degree of importance, and excites the curiosity of thestudent.
In this country the Liber Vagatorum is almost unknown,and in Germany only a few scholars and antiquariesare acquainted with the book.
In translating it I have endeavoured as much as possibleto preserve the spirit and peculiarities of the original.Some may object to the style as being too antique; butthis garb I thought preserved a small portion of the originalPg viquaintness, and was best suited to the period when it waswritten.
For several explanations of old German words, andother hints, I am indebted to a long notice of the LiberVagatorum, which occurs in the “Wiemarisches Jahrbuch,”10te, Band, 1856,—the only article of any momentthat I know to have been written on the little book.
With respect to the facsimile woodcut, as it was toolarge to occupy a place on the title, as in the original (of4to. size), it is here given as a frontispiece.
Perhaps some apology is required for the occasional useof plain-spoken, not to say coarse words. I can only urge,in justification of their adoption, that the nature of thesubject would not admit of their being softened,—unlessindeed at the expense of the narrative. As it is, I havesent forth this edition in very much more refined languagethan the great Reformer thought necessary when issuingthe old German version.
J. C. H.
Piccadilly,
June 1, 1860.
CONTENTS.
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