These MSS. are very curious. They contain the proceedings of the Trials at Basle,[2] in Switzerland, in 1475, when a great number of vagabonds, strollers, blind men, and mendicants of all orders, were arrested and examined. Johann Knebel was the chaplain of the cathedral there, and wrote them down at the time. From the reports of these trials it is believed the _Liber Vagatorum_ was compiled; and it is also conjectured that, from the same rich source, Sebastian Brant, who just at that period had established himself at the University of Basle, where he remained until 1500, drew the vivid description of beggars and begging, to be found in his _Ship of Fools_.[3] Knebel gives a long list of the different orders of beggars, and the names they were known by amongst themselves. This account is similar to, only not so spirited as that given in the _Liber Vagatorum_. The tricks and impostures are very nearly the same, together with the cant terms for the various tribes of mendicants. Knebel, speaking of the manner in which the tricks of these rogues were first found out, says:—“At those times a great number of knaves went about the country begging and annoying people. Of these several were caught, and they told how they and their fellow-knaves were known, and when and how they used to meet, what they were called, and they told also several of their cant words.” The _Liber Vagatorum_, or _The Book of Vagabonds_, was probably written shortly after 1509, that year being mentioned in the work; it is the earliest book on beggars and their secret language of which we have any record,—preceding by half a century any similar work issued in this country. Nothing is known of the author other than that it was written by one who styled himself a “Reverend Magister, nomine expertus in truffis,”—which proficiency in roguery, as Luther remarks, “the little book very well proves, even though he had not given himself such a name.” None of the early impressions bears a date, but the first edition is known to have been printed at Augsburg, about the year 1512-14, by Erhart Öglin, or Ocellus.[4] It is a small quarto, consisting of 12 leaves. The title:— +Liber Vagatorum; Der Betler Orden:+