Liber vagatorum

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Beggar family on the way to the city. Title page of the Liber vagatorum (1510)

The Liber vagatorum is a synopsis of the beggar types and their “working techniques” in the early modern period and was intended to be presented to the common people who were mostly ignorant of reading. Its large print run was made possible by printing with movable type.

The Liber vagatorum consists of three parts. In the first, 28 different types of beggars are presented, in the second comments on the first part are made and two real cases of false begging are mentioned. The third part consists of a "Vocabularius", a dictionary of the Rotwelschen . The vocabulary is a mixture of words from various secret crooks and vagabond languages. The "Rotwelsch" is a historical construction that was so accepted by the opponents of the speakers, but never existed uniformly.

The booklet, first published in Pforzheim in 1510 , has long been attributed to Pamphilus Gengenbach , Sebastian Brant and other writers of that time. The Lower Rhine edition (also published around 1510) contains a foreword by the translator to the 3rd part, which says that "a hospital master up to the Ryn weten hefft de dan dit bock to Pfortzen in the first booklet print [...]" (es a hospital master on the Rhine who had commissioned the printing of the first issue in Pforzheim). Matthias Hütlin held this office between 1500 and 1524 and can therefore be considered the author of the book. However, this can probably never be definitively proven, since the only other reference to the author can be found in the Liber vagatorum itself; an “expertus in trufis” is committed to authorship.

In 1450 the "Basel Council Mandate Against the Gilen and Lamen" was published. This also provides a detailed list of Rotwelschen vocabulary; the vocabulary part of the Liber vagatorum is largely based on the vocabulary published there. According to Girtler (1998, p. 28) "some words were misspelled or misunderstood, so that the Liber Vagatorum represents a deterioration compared to its model."

In 1528 Martin Luther published the work under the title: From the false beggars and bureaucracy new (Girtler 1998, p. 28).

Another edition is published under Liber vagatorum. Order the beggar. The Rothwelsch Grämatick vnnd barlen der Wandererschaff, thereby geuopt the Wyfshulmen etc .; to Basel by Rudolph Deck , Ulm 1535 mentioned as a rare or only specimen.

literature

  • Heiner Boehncke ; Rolf Johannsmeier: The book of the vagabonds - players, whores, people cheat . Prometh Verlag, Cologne 1987
  • Roland Girtler : Rotwelsch. Böhlau, Vienna, Cologne, Weimar 1998, ISBN 3-205-98902-3
  • Robert Jütte : Image and social reality of beggars and crooks at the beginning of modern times: social, mentality and linguistic history Studies on the Liber vagatorum (1510). Cologne, Vienna: Böhlau 1988. ISBN 3-412-00288-7
  • Angelika Kopečný: Travelers and Vagabonds - their story, survival skills, signs and roads. Klaus Wagenbach Publishing House, Berlin 1980
  • Frieder Schanze: The older prints of the Liber vagatorum. In: Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 70 (1995), pp. 143–150 ISSN  0072-9094 ( Digisites (with costs) )

Web links

Commons : Liber Vagatorum  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Request and Request, 1862, p. 64 , accessed on June 16, 2014, access for subscribers only