Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/69

ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 57 translations up to 1509, and of twenty-five German ver- sions of the Gospels and Epistles up to 1518. Between this period and the separation of the Churches at least fourteen complete editions of the Bible were published in High German, and five in the Low German dialect. 1 The first High German edition was brought out in 1466 by Johann Mendel, of Strasburg; then followed one Strasburg edition in 1470, two of Augsburg in 1473, an edition entirely in the Swiss dialect in 1474, two more Augsburg editions in 1477 and another in 1480, one Nuremberg edition in 1483, another of Strasburg in 1485, and four more of Augsburg respectively in 1487, 1490, 1507, and 1518. By the beginning of the sixteenth century a sort of German ' Vulgate ' had crystallised into shape." 2 Like the German catechisms and manuals of devotion generally, these Bibles were illustrated with numerous woodcuts, in order, as the publisher of the Cologne Bible expressed it, ' that the people might be the more readily induced to a diligent study of Holy Writ,' We have a mass of evidence to show that this was the prevailing motive in this extensive multiplica- tion of copies of the Scriptures. The compiler of the Basle ' Gospel Book,' for instance, speaks as follows in urging the necessity of reading and studying the Bible : ' We shall have to render a strict account to God of 1 Kehrein, Deutsche Bibeliibersetzung vor Luther, pp. 33-53 ; Hain, Nr. 3129 to 3143 ; Alzog, pp. 65, 66. According to the best authorities* the first translation of the Bible into High German was printed by Eggestein at Strasburg in 1466. The last is that of Silvanus Otmar, printed in Augsburg. The first translation into Low German appeared in Delf in 1477 (Van der Linde, p. 105), the first Saxon vei-sion at Lubeck in 1494. 2 Geffcken, pp. 6-10 ; Maier, In der Tubingen Quartelschrift, pp 56-694.