Of all the block-books, that which is now commonly called “BIBLIA PAUPERUM,”--the Bible of the Poor,--is most frequently referred to as a specimen of that kind of printing from wood-blocks which preceded typography, or printing by means of moveable characters or types. This title, however, has given rise to an error which certain learned bibliographers have without the least examination adopted, and have afterwards given to the public considerably enlarged, at least, if not corrected.[II-54] It has been gravely stated that this book, whose text is in abbreviated Latin, was printed for the use of the _poor_ in an age when even the _rich_ could scarcely read their own language. Manuscripts of the Bible were certainly at that period both scarce and costly, and not many individuals even of high rank were possessed of a copy; but to conclude that the first editions of the so-called “Biblia Pauperum” were engraved and printed for the use of the poor, appears to be about as legitimate an inference as to conclude that, in the present day, the reprints of the Roxburghe club were published for the benefit of the poor who could not afford to purchase the original editions. That a merchant or a wealthy trader might occasionally become the purchaser of “Biblia Pauperum,” I am willing to admit,--though I am of opinion that the book was never expressly intended for the laity;--but that it should be printed for the use of the poor, I cannot bring myself to believe. If the poor of Germany in the fifteenth century had the means of purchasing such books, and were capable of reading them, I can only say that they must have had more money to spare than their descendants, and have been more learned than most of the rich people throughout Europe in the present day. If the accounts which we have of the state of knowledge about 1450 be correct, the monk or friar who could read and expound such a work must have been esteemed as a person of considerable literary attainments. [Footnote II-54: “It is a manual or kind of Catechism of the Bible,” says the Rev. T. H. Horne, “for the use of young persons and of the common people, whence it derives its name _Biblia Pauperum_,--_the Bible of the Poor_,--who were thus enabled to acquire, at a comparatively low price, an imperfect knowledge of some of the events recorded in the Scripture.”--Introduction to the Critical Study of the Scriptures, vol. ii. p. 224-5. The young and the poor must have been comparatively learned at that period to be able to read cramped Latin, when many a priest could scarcely spell his breviary.]