728 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
semination of religion and intelligence is tersely and quaintly expressed by the martyrologist, F'oxe, in these words : ^ —
Either the pope must abolish printing or he must seek a new world to reign over, for else, as the world stands, printing will abolish him. The pope and all the cardinals must understand this, that through the light of printing the world begins now to have eyes to see and heads to judge. . . . God hath opened the press to preach, whose voice the pope is never able to stop with all the puissance of the triple crown. By jjrinting as by the gift of tongues and as by the singular organ of the Holy Ghost, the doctrine of the Gospel sounds to all nations and countries under heaven and what God reveals to one man, is dispersed to many and what is known to one nation is opened to all.
Note. — Both Janssen and Abbot Gasquet spend much pains in the attempt to show that the mediaeval Church was not opposed to the circulation of the Bible in popular versions or the Latin Vulgate. The proofs they bring forward must be regarded as strained and insufficient. They ignore entirely the vast mass of testimony on the other side, as, for example, the testimony involved in the popular reception given to the German and English Scriptures when they appeared from the hands of the Reformers and the mass of testimony given by the Reformers on the subject. Gasquet endeavors to break the force of the argument drawn from Arundel's edict, but he has nothing to say of the demand Wyclif made for the popular dissemination of the Bible, a demand which implied that the Bible was withheld from the people. Dr. Barry, who belongs to the same school, in the Camhr. Mod. Hist., I. G40, speaks of "the enormous extent the Bible was read in the loth century" and that it was not "till we come within sight of the Lutheran troubles that preachers, like Geiler of Kaisersberg, hint their doubts on the expediency of imrestrained Bible-reading in the vernacular." What is to be said of such an exaggeration in view of the fact that the vast majority of Bibles were in Latin, a language which the people could not read, that Geiler died in 1510, seven years before Luther ceased to be a pious Augustinian monk, and that he did very much more than hint doubts ! lie expressed himself unreservedly against Bible-reading. Janssen-Pastor, — I. 23 sqq., 72 sqq., VIL 5:^5 sqq. — have a place for stray testimonies between 1180-1.520 in favor of the popular reading of the Scriptures, but, so far as I can see, do not refer to the warnings of Brant, Geiler and other.s against their use by laymen, and the only reference they maketoBertholdt's notorious decree is to the clause in which the archbishop emphasizes the divine art of printing, divina qucedam ars imprimendi, L 15.
1 Book of Martyrs, V. 355.
§ 78. POPULAR PIETY. 729
§ 78. Popular Piety.
During the last century of the Middle Ages, the religious life of the laity was stimulated by some new devices, especially in Germany. There, the effort to instruct the laity in the matters of the Christian faith was far more vital and active than in any other part of Western Christendom.
The popular need found recognition in the illustrations, furnished in many editions of the early Bibles. The Cologne Bible of 1480, the Liibeck Bible of 149-4 and'the Venice Bible of Malermi, 1497, are the best examples of this class of books. Fifteen of the 17 German Bibles, issued before the Reformation, were illustrated.
A more distinct recognition of this need was given in the so-called hihlia pauperum^ — Bibles for the p^or, — first single sheets and then books, containing as many as 40 or 50 pictures of biblical sceges.^ In the first instance, they seem to have been intended to aid priests in giving instruction. Side by side, they set scenes from the two Testaments, showing the prophetic types and their fulfilments. Thus the circumcisions of Abraham, Jacob and Christ are depicted in three separate pictures, the priest being represented in the very act of circumcising Christ. Explanations in Latin, German or French accompany the pictures.
An extract will give some idea of the kind of information furnished by this class of literature. When Adam was dying, he sent Seth into the garden to get medicine. The cherub gave him a branch from the tree of life. When Seth returned, he found his father dead and buried. He planted the branch
1 Ed. Reuss : D. deutschen Hlstorienbibeln vor d. Erfindung d. BUcherdrucks, 1855. — J. T. Berjeau : Biblia pauperum, Lond. , 1859. — Laib u. Schwarz : D. Biblia pauperum n. d. Original in d. Lyceumsbibl. zu Constanz, Zurich, 1867. — Th. Merzdorf : D. deutschen Historienbibeln nach 40 Hdschriften, Tiib., 1870, 2 vols. — R. Mutlier : D. dltesten deutschen Bilderbibeln, 1883. — Talk: Z>. Bibel am Ausgange d. MA, p. 77 sqq. — Biblia patiperum n. d. Wolfenb'dttel Exemplare jetzt in d. Bibl. nationale, ed. P. Heintz, mit Einleitung uber d. Etitstehiing d. biblia pauperum, by W. L. Schreiber, Strass., 1903. — Artt. Bilderbibel, in Herzog, III. 214 smd Histo7-ienbibel, in Herzog, VIII. 155 sqq. and Bib. pauperum, in Wetzer-Welte, II. 776 sq. — Reuss : Gesch. d. N. T., 524 sqq.