Heineken appears to have been the first who gave to this book the name “Biblia Pauperum,” as it was in his opinion the most appropriate; “the figures being executed for the purpose of giving a knowledge of the Bible to those who could not afford to purchase a manuscript copy of the Scriptures.”[II-58] This reason for the name is not, however, a good one: for, according to his own statement, the only copy which he ever saw with the title or inscription “Biblia Pauperum,” was a manuscript on vellum of the fourteenth century, in which the figures were drawn and coloured by hand.[II-59] Meerman, however, though without adopting the title, had previously noticed the same manuscript, which in his opinion was as old as the twelfth or thirteenth century. As the word “Pauperum” formed part of the title of the book long before presumed cheap copies were printed from wood-blocks for the use of the poor, it could not be peculiarly appropriate as the title of an illumined manuscript on vellum, which the poor could as little afford to purchase as they could a manuscript copy of the Bible. In whatever manner the term “poor” became connected with the book, it is clear that the name “Biblia Pauperum” was not given to it in consequence of its being printed at a cheap rate for circulation among poor people. It is not indeed likely that its ancient title ever was “Biblia Pauperum;” while, on the contrary, there seems every reason to believe that Heineken had copied an abridged title and thus given currency to an error. [Footnote II-58: Idée Générale, p. 292, note.] [Footnote II-59: Camus, speaking of one of those manuscripts compared with the block-book, observes: “Ce dernier abrégé méritoit bien le nom de BIBLIA PAUPERUM, par comparison aux tableaux complets de la Bible que je viens d’indiquer. Des ouvrages tels que les tableaux complets ne pouvoient être que BIBLIA DIVITUM.”--Notice d’un Livre imprimé à Bamberg en 1462, p. 12, note. 4to. Paris, 1800.] Heineken says that he observed the inscription, “Incipit Biblia Pauperum,” in a manuscript in the library at Wolfenbuttel, written on vellum in a Gothic character, which appeared to be of the fourteenth century. The figures, which were badly designed, were coloured in distemper, and the explanatory text was in Latin rhyme. It is surprising that neither Heineken nor any other bibliographer should have suspected that a word was wanting in the above supposed title, more especially as the word wanting might have been so readily suggested by another work so much resembling the pretended “Biblia Pauperum” that the one has frequently been confounded with the other.[II-60] In the proemium of this other work, which is no other than the “Speculum Salvationis,” the writer expressly states that he has compiled it “propter pauperes predicatores,”--for _poor_ preachers.