The History of the Reformation...The Little Red Bible Chained to the Wall (Part 5)

Mr. Lucky,

You wrote: "May I suggest you polish your skills relating to civil discourse?"

Yes, you may suggest it. I think it is far more important, however, to expose error for what it is. If something is dumb, then it is. If something is dishonest, then it is. I see no reason, whatsoever, to label things as they actually are.

"Martin Luther entered the seminary at age 21, yet you seem apoplectic at his claim to have been 20 when he first read the Bible. Is there a reason?"

Yes, it is physically impossible that that is true. No one, growing up in prosperous Saxony, attending good schools, visiting cathedrals, going to university 40 years after the invention of moveable type printing not too far away, and having spent a good time in libraries could have NOT seen a Bible until age 20 (which would be in 1503). Even while at university he must have seen one before 1503. There were more than 1300 students at Erfurt when Luther attended. None had a Bible? Not a single professor? Only one copy on campus? Nonsense.

Look at this: "Two of the Bibles were purchased by Scheide's father, John H. Scheide, including the Gutenberg Bible, which was printed in Mainz about 1455-1456 and was the first substantial book to be printed from moveable types in Europe. Forty-nine copies of the 158 or 180 printed there are conflicting reports survive. The Scheide copy, printed on paper, originally was sold in the university town of Erfurt, where it was finely illuminated and bound. Its first owner probably was the Dominican convent in Erfurt where the Bible remained until 1873, when it was brought to the United States by collector George Brinley. The invoice from London book dealer Henry Stevens advised Brinley's New York agents to "let none of Uncle Samuel's Custom House OfficialsÖsee it without first reverentially lifting their hats." John Scheide acquired the Bible in 1924."

Still think Luther never saw a Bible before he was 20?

Go to Eisleben -- Luther's home town -- and what do you find in his rebuilt home? A museum of Bibles that were printed BEFORE the Reformation. No, I'm not kidding.

The simple fact is that Luther made things up for dramatic effect. He was melodramatic at times.

Don't believe in myths!

Oh, I don't know such as Low German. I am Upper Bavarian, no Low German spoken there. :)

My mother is also Oberbayerische.

So auch ist meine Grossmutter.

The Catholic Church just past the extra Bibles around during Mass in the 15th century for everyone to follow along.

There were no extra Bibles; a Bible in those days cost the equivalent of 8-10 thousand dollars. That would have been a bit like car dealers passing out keys to new cars at parties.

Most people who were (a) literate; and (b) not dirt-poor had a book called a "primer," which contained a psalter, other parts of the Bible, the Mass, and various devotions, etc.

The idea the people were ignorant of the Bible before the Reformation is somewhat silly. (Although many people were illiterate, and so obviously couldn't actually read a Bible, but they could be, and were, taught big parts of the content through plays/skits, songs, etc.)

Oh, and it was Luther's confessor who told him to read Romans and Galatians when Luther expressed his concern that he couldn't "do enough" to get back into God's good graces. Just one of the many facts of the story your preacher omits from his "history".

Addedum: It should be also pointed out in the eight century the Catholic Church mandated Bibles be only in the Latin Vulgate format. Latin was only taught through the Church

In the eighth century Harley, this was flatly impossible. The 8th was before the great schism, and thus half of Christendom would been using Greek exclusively in liturgy and in their Scriptures, to say nothing of Coptic or Syriac versions. The eastern half of the Church never used the Vulgate.

Latin was only taught through the Church.

Public education hadn't yet been invented, if that's what you mean. Everyone who was educated studied Latin in school; it wasn't some kind of secret code. All of the education in the universities was conducted in Latin.

And even the uneducated knew church Latin. They knew what "Benedicamus Domino" meant, and "Miserere me Deus", and "mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa". And they knew what you were saying when you said "Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum. Adveniat regnum tuum, fiat voluntus tua, sicut in caelo et in terra ..."

Classic urban legend. There are so many hoary tales told about and by Luther in his Table Talk--all professional historians of the period know that one has to take the Table Talk with heaping spoonsful of salt. This presbyterian parson swallows D'Aubigne's polemical hagiography lock-stock-and-barrel.

There were no extra Bibles; a Bible in those days cost the equivalent of 8-10 thousand dollars.

I agree with you. I was being sarcastic to vladimir998 who seems to have a idea that everyone had Bibles. You may wish to past this along.

The idea the people were ignorant of the Bible before the Reformation is somewhat silly. (Although many people were illiterate, and so obviously couldn't actually read a Bible, but they could be, and were, taught big parts of the content through plays/skits, songs, etc.)

I think you make a valid point. I don't think the author claims otherwise. It's stated Luther was familar with parts of the scripture but never understood the whole story. I think that was indicative of many people at that time. They couldn't read. They didn't have Bibles. But undoubtedly they went to Mass.

But bear in mind that many of them attended mass very infrequently due to the hardship of their lives. In one of these articles it talked about how they would hold mass only four times a year due to the effects of the Black Plague. They certainly must have had an understanding of some sort but it was limited simply because they infrequently attended Church.

Actually, on this point Harley, for once, is half-right. He just doesn't understand the point of the mandating of the Vulgate. In the Carolingian renaissance of the 8thc Charlemagne instructed clerics to standardize the text of the Bible. The Vulgate had long been dominant but variant readings from the Old Latin and other versions were floating around. Charlemagne wanted standardization. He mandated textual criticism, trying to produce a standard, critical edition of the Latin text.

So it wasn't "Latin" versus "German"--no one wrote anything in German at the time. Even the German version of the Gospels, the Heliand, was transmitted orally and written down later, like Beofwulf or the Dream of the Rood. Germanic languages, Anglo-Saxon etc. were oral languages, poems and songs and homilies were composed in them but not written down until the 10th or later centuries.

That the Bible in the West was in Latin was simply a matter of course. NO one who could read could not read Latin. No other written language existed in the West. It was not the Vulgate that was being mandated but a corrected, standard, clean, precise, accurate text that was being mandated. These guys were pioneering the same methods of textual criticism (not higher criticism) that even the Fundamentalists accept as legitimate: Charlemagne was telling his "professors" (the best scholars of his day) to produce a more accurate version of the Bible's text. That it would be in Latin was a foregone conclusion. No one could have imagined it being in any other language.

So the point Harley was using the fact to demonstrate is absurd but the fact is true. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Harley made a true statement but the point he thought he was proving by it is false and absurdly false. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

In one of these articles it talked about how they would hold mass only four times a year due to the effects of the Black Plague.

Priests died at a higher rate than lay people during the Plague, because they invariably came in contact with dying plague victims when they administered the last rites.

Actually, I would be considered only a halfer but my husband, who is 100% Oberbayerische, tells me that through marriage to him my Scottish half is transubstantiated.

Harley,

You wrote:

"I agree with you. I was being sarcastic to vladimir998 who seems to have a idea that everyone had Bibles."

I never said anything of the kind. I said there were too many Bibles for Luther's myth to be true.

"But bear in mind that many of them attended mass very infrequently due to the hardship of their lives. In one of these articles it talked about how they would hold mass only four times a year due to the effects of the Black Plague."

Oh, please! The Black Death, at its worst attack, lasted from 1348 to 1352 with occasional flare ups into the seventeenth century. You make it sound like there were only a few Masses in some places for CENTURIES. Simply not true.

You wrote:

"So it wasn't "Latin" versus "German"--no one wrote anything in German at the time. Even the German version of the Gospels, the Heliand, was transmitted orally and written down later, like Beofwulf or the Dream of the Rood."

I'm not so sure about the Heliand being oral before written. Murphy seems to say otherwise in his edition (page xiii).

"Germanic languages, Anglo-Saxon etc. were oral languages, poems and songs and homilies were composed in them but not written down until the 10th or later centuries."

Yes and no. Beowulf was written earlier than that.

"That the Bible in the West was in Latin was simply a matter of course. NO one who could read could not read Latin."

I don't know how that myth got started, but it is clear that Germanic peoples had their own written languages and there were people who could read and NOT read Latin. How many vikings read Latin? Few, but we know they read Runes. Even much later, in a thoroughly Christian nation like France, there were people who read the local dialects, but knew no Latin. I think this idea that no one could read unless they could read Latin is way over blown.

"No other written language existed in the West."

Gothic? Ogam? Runes?

"It was not the Vulgate that was being mandated but a corrected, standard, clean, precise, accurate text that was being mandated."

But it wasn't mandated as the only Bible. That's the point. It was mandated for use by the clergy.

"These guys were pioneering the same methods of textual criticism (not higher criticism) that even the Fundamentalists accept as legitimate: Charlemagne was telling his "professors" (the best scholars of his day) to produce a more accurate version of the Bible's text. That it would be in Latin was a foregone conclusion. No one could have imagined it being in any other language."

Well, the official version would have been in Latin yes. There were vernacular versions in England and other places.

"So the point Harley was using the fact to demonstrate is absurd but the fact is true."

No, the fact is not true. He said that Latin was mandated. It wasn't. 1) Charlemagne was not the Church, 2) Mandating a Bible for the Frankish clergy is not what Harley described, 3) What Harley described never happened.

"Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Harley made a true statement but the point he thought he was proving by it is false and absurdly false. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing."

He has a little knowledge? I haven't seen it yet. Seriously though, he was wrong. What he said happened, never happened.

My chronology was a bit skewed; I was thinking more in terms of surviving manuscripts. But my main point holds. That runic inscriptions existed, that Ulfilas translated the Bible into old Gothic etc. are exceptions that prove my rule. The Gothic of Ulfilas's Bible was no longer being spoken in the 8thc. In the situation that obtained in Charlemagne's empire in the late 8th, Latin simply was the only literary written language. Of course people could write down what they heard in German, using Latin alphabet, mimicking strictly phonetically how the words sounded. But they did not employ the Germanic languages as written languages. Did an orally composed poem get written down occasionally? Yes. But the "occasionally" part only shows that the literary written Language was Latin. Did some homilies preached orally get written down? Yes for preservation. Did they circulate as a means of putting them in the hands of non-Latin reading public? Absolutely not. When something was written down, like the Heliand, it was so that a Latin-literate priest or possibly a minimally Latin-literate nobleman could take it with him and "read" it, employing the literacy skills he had learned in Latin. Ulfilas's Bible functioned in the same way. It was not a mass-market paperback Bible for the Gothic-reading public. It was a text for preachers to employ as they, thinking in Greek, preached and evangelized among the Goth-speaking pagans.

In short, no one able to read a Germanic written text (Anglo-Saxon, Saxon, Frankish) was able to read that text without first having learned to read in Latin. Most people, having learned Latin, did their reading in Latin and that was that, translating as necessary into the vernacular. For some purposes, writing something down in the vernacular made sense and it was done, but it was done by those already literate in Latin.

This meant that for the most part, monks and clerics who knew Latin did what reading of such occasional vernacular texts as existed. Your average Joe German Peasant who was illiterate never learned solely to read German. This was true well into the high Middle Ages. In the 12th century things began to change. In the late Middle Ages, yes, direct vernacular reading was taught, beginning first with people engaged in commerce, for pragmatic reasons--not peasants.

You can see this in the vernacular manuscripts that have survived--they spell German words in phonetic ways that vary depending on the dialect. In Bavarian manuscripts what would be spelled Kirche in modern German might be spelled Kirchghe--the writer hears an intense guttural "ch" with his ear and mimics it with Latin letters. The same word in North Germany manuscript will be Kirk or perhaps Kirck" because the "ch" is pronounced in a clipped way there. This shows that people learned letters and thought letters with minds shaped and by Latin literacy.

That's why those poets who began to write in English or Italian or German or French in the 12thc were significant. They were responding to a growing lay demand for literature in the vernacular. Lower nobles in most cases would not have been Latin literate though in the more established Gallo-Roman areas, many probably were. But no one was Frankish-literate without first having been literized via Latin.

". . . it is clear that Germanic peoples had their own written languages and there were people who could read and NOT read Latin. How many vikings read Latin? Few, but we know they read Runes. Even much later, in a thoroughly Christian nation like France, there were people who read the local dialects, but knew no Latin. I think this idea that no one could read unless they could read Latin is way over blown.

I dealt with runes in my previous post. What you describe is true for the later period (as you admit here) but simply was not true in the 8thc. Frankish, Bavarian etc. were not functioning literary languages. On important occasions, like the oath dividing the empire, yes, a copy of the oral oath was made. But it was made by officials trained in Latin who wrote phonetically and it was made as a special aide-de-memoire. That there was a functioning Germanic literary culture simply is false for the 8thc. For the 12th, perhaps 11th in some places, it's a whole different ball game.

I wrote: "It was not the Vulgate that was being mandated but a corrected, standard, clean, precise, accurate text that was being mandated."

To which you replied: "But it wasn't mandated as the only Bible. That's the point. It was mandated for use by the clergy." Yes it sure was mandated as the "only" Bible. Why else do you think it was mandated? So that a standard version would exist, so that errors could be eliminated, so that everyone was on the same page when preaching and writing.

Did Germanic translations of portions of the Bible exist in monasteries? Yes. Did homilies in the vernacular get written down and kept in monasteries, yes. But in the Latin West in the 8thc, I'm sorry, there was no functioning, usable full text of the Bible in Germanic languages. No one wanted one, no one needed one. The average person did not get his information by reading. He got it from listening to those who could read. When those who preached the Bible preached to average people, they preached in the vernacular and translated from the Latin text of the Bible. They did not put into the hands of the people a German bible because it would have been as useless to people as a Latin Bible. They may have made written translations of the Bible or parts of it for their own purposes and may have read from these on occasion to others, but this was all seen as an adjunct. Literacy was Latin; the vernaculars flourished, but orally--until the later period.

Why else did Caedmon seem so unusual? And how do we know the story of Caedmon anyway? Because a learned monk named Bede wrote it down in his Latin history of the church in England, as a miracle, a marvel, a curiosity. Caedmon did not lead to a whole movement of Anglo-Saxon literacy. Aelfric's sermons survived, Alfred translated Boethius, Gregory the Great etc. into Anglo-Saxon, in the late 9thc. Who read them? People who had enough Latin literacy to know how to read but for whom reading Latin was a strain--like noblemen, for instance. Alfred's translations, the Heliand etc. are evidence that people could write in Germanic languages, employing Latin letters and Latin-learned literacy, but they did this as an ad hoc, adjunct to Latin-literacy. Those engaged in this were already members of the elites, at the edge of the highly skilled Latin-literate. These exceptions are interesting, paved the way for the real vernacular movement of the 12thc but they are isolated, forerunners of what was to come. In the 8thc century, none of this was happening. In the late 9thc, the beginnings of a verncular literacy are emerging. By the 11thc century and 12thc it's coming into its own.

But we started with the 8thc, the 700s. What I wrote originally holds for the 8thc, not the 4th or 5th (Ulfilas), not the 10th or 12th, but the 8th. Well, the official version would have been in Latin yes. There were vernacular versions in England and other places

You wrote:

"My chronology was a bit skewed; I was thinking more in terms of surviving manuscripts. But my main point holds. That runic inscriptions existed, that Ulfilas translated the Bible into old Gothic etc. are exceptions that prove my rule. The Gothic of Ulfilas's Bible was no longer being spoken in the 8thc."

Do we know that? The Visigothic kingdom of Spain fell only in 711 for instance.

"In the situation that obtained in Charlemagne's empire in the late 8th, Latin simply was the only literary written language."

Yes, but EUROPE was not made up of only Charlemagne's empire.

"Of course people could write down what they heard in German, using Latin alphabet, mimicking strictly phonetically how the words sounded. But they did not employ the Germanic languages as written languages."

Then we are back to denying the existence of Beowulf?

"Did an orally composed poem get written down occasionally? Yes. But the "occasionally" part only shows that the literary written Language was Latin. Did some homilies preached orally get written down? Yes for preservation. Did they circulate as a means of putting them in the hands of non-Latin reading public? Absolutely not."

The only reason to preserve in the Middle Ages was "to use". If it was written in the native language then it was meant to be read by such readers. You seem to forget Alfred the Great and his translations. Again, you are essentially denying that any of that happened.

"When something was written down, like the Heliand, it was so that a Latin-literate priest or possibly a minimally Latin-literate nobleman could take it with him and "read" it, employing the literacy skills he had learned in Latin."

But that is irrelevant. Th epoint is that it was written in the vernacular for vernacular readers. The idea that it was written in the vernacular for people who didn't really read the vernacular but then could stumble through it because of their knowledge of Latin letters is simply a stretch to say the least.

"Ulfilas's Bible functioned in the same way. It was not a mass-market paperback Bible for the Gothic-reading public."

Uh, HELLO! NOTHING was really mass market in the fourth century. No one claimed it was. Now you are mischaracterizing what I said. Criticize me if you will, but at least criticize what I actually wrote.

"It was a text for preachers to employ as they, thinking in Greek, preached and evangelized among the Goth-speaking pagans."

I think that is essentially true, but then again I never brought up Ulfilias and you are ignoring what I did bring up.

"In short, no one able to read a Germanic written text (Anglo-Saxon, Saxon, Frankish) was able to read that text without first having learned to read in Latin."

And again, that is simply false. The Vikings are perfect proof of that -- before and after their conversion !

"Most people, having learned Latin, did their reading in Latin and that was that, translating as necessary into the vernacular. For some purposes, writing something down in the vernacular made sense and it was done, but it was done by those already literate in Latin."

Can you prove that the author of Beowulf knew Latin? And Ulfilas knew Greek and not Latin as far as we know. And how is it that we know of the southern French peasants who read books in the local dialects and were only shepherds with no formal schooling in the fifteenth century?

"This meant that for the most part, monks and clerics who knew Latin did what reading of such occasional vernacular texts as existed. Your average Joe German Peasant who was illiterate never learned solely to read German. This was true well into the high Middle Ages. In the 12th century things began to change. In the late Middle Ages, yes, direct vernacular reading was taught, beginning first with people engaged in commerce, for pragmatic reasons--not peasants."

And again, you are ignoring what we know from Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie.

"You can see this in the vernacular manuscripts that have survived--they spell German words in phonetic ways that vary depending on the dialect. In Bavarian manuscripts what would be spelled Kirche in modern German might be spelled Kirchghe--the writer hears an intense guttural "ch" with his ear and mimics it with Latin letters. The same word in North Germany manuscript will be Kirk or perhaps Kirck" because the "ch" is pronounced in a clipped way there. This shows that people learned letters and thought letters with minds shaped and by Latin literacy."

Nice, but irrelevant. No one here was questioning the Latin influence. The problem is you are ignoring evidence -- completely ignoring evidence -- for the argument I actually made and are merely creating a strawman of what I didn't argue for.

"That's why those poets who began to write in English or Italian or German or French in the 12thc were significant. They were responding to a growing lay demand for literature in the vernacular. Lower nobles in most cases would not have been Latin literate though in the more established Gallo-Roman areas, many probably were. But no one was Frankish-literate without first having been literized via Latin."

Again, DUH! And now can you actually deal with what I said rather than ignore the argument?

You wrote:

"I dealt with runes in my previous post. What you describe is true for the later period (as you admit here) but simply was not true in the 8thc. Frankish, Bavarian etc. were not functioning literary languages."

Old English was. And once again, you have ignore and dodged that point.

"On important occasions, like the oath dividing the empire, yes, a copy of the oral oath was made. But it was made by officials trained in Latin who wrote phonetically and it was made as a special aide-de-memoire. That there was a functioning Germanic literary culture simply is false for the 8thc. For the 12th, perhaps 11th in some places, it's a whole different ball game."

Hellooooo! 1) Old English is a Germanic language. 2) I never said anything about "literary culture".

"To which you replied: "But it wasn't mandated as the only Bible. That's the point. It was mandated for use by the clergy." Yes it sure was mandated as the "only" Bible. Why else do you think it was mandated?"

I don't think it was mandated at all by any authority that had the power to do so in the Church. No matter what Charlemagne pushed on the Church in Frankish lands is not the Church or the limits of Europe. I am still waiting to see Harley produce evidence for this Bible mandate from the church. Did it ever happen? No. Does it matter what Charlemagne did? No: 1) Charlemagne was not the Church, 2) Frankish empire was not Europe, but only part of it. You and Harley have completely ignored these obvious points.

"So that a standard version would exist, so that errors could be eliminated, so that everyone was on the same page when preaching and writing."

And we still aren't talking about "everyone" since "everyone" was not Frankish.

"Did Germanic translations of portions of the Bible exist in monasteries? Yes. Did homilies in the vernacular get written down and kept in monasteries, yes. But in the Latin West in the 8thc, I'm sorry, there was no functioning, usable full text of the Bible in Germanic languages. No one wanted one, no one needed one."

Yes, people wanted them, but they were extremely difficult to produce for all sorts of reasons. What was the name of the monk who thought about translating the Bible but decided against it because of the work involved. Hmmm...can't think of it. I don't think it was Otfrid. It used to be posted at Medieval Sourcebook.

"The average person did not get his information by reading. He got it from listening to those who could read. When those who preached the Bible preached to average people, they preached in the vernacular and translated from the Latin text of the Bible. They did not put into the hands of the people a German bible because it would have been as useless to people as a Latin Bible."

You are mostly right, but are still overstating the point with no evidence whatsoever.

"They may have made written translations of the Bible or parts of it for their own purposes and may have read from these on occasion to others, but this was all seen as an adjunct. Literacy was Latin; the vernaculars flourished, but orally--until the later period."

"Why else did Caedmon seem so unusual?"

Ever read about Caedmon? If you had then you would know why he seemed unusual.

"And how do we know the story of Caedmon anyway? Because a learned monk named Bede wrote it down in his Latin history of the church in England, as a miracle, a marvel, a curiosity. Caedmon did not lead to a whole movement of Anglo-Saxon literacy."

Who said he did? Again, why are you implying that anyone said that? Why are you ignoring evidence presented to you?

"elfric's sermons survived, Alfred translated Boethius, Gregory the Great etc. into Anglo-Saxon, in the late 9thc. Who read them? People who had enough Latin literacy to know how to read but for whom reading Latin was a strain--like noblemen, for instance. Alfred's translations, the Heliand etc. are evidence that people could write in Germanic languages, employing Latin letters and Latin-learned literacy, but they did this as an ad hoc, adjunct to Latin-literacy. Those engaged in this were already members of the elites, at the edge of the highly skilled Latin-literate. These exceptions are interesting, paved the way for the real vernacular movement of the 12thc but they are isolated, forerunners of what was to come. In the 8thc century, none of this was happening. In the late 9thc, the beginnings of a verncular literacy are emerging. By the 11thc century and 12thc it's coming into its own.
But we started with the 8thc, the 700s. What I wrote originally holds for the 8thc, not the 4th or 5th (Ulfilas), not the 10th or 12th, but the 8th. Well, the official version would have been in Latin yes. There were vernacular versions in England and other places"

It's obvious you just love to write and write about things that aren't even in dispute while implying they are. At the same time you ignore all evidence that goes against your argument and spend your time creating strawmen. So what would be the point of arguing with you if you won't do it honestly? Does someone have to write that in Latin for you to understand?

I did not ignore your argument. Your evidence was from later than the 8th c. or much earlier or from the non-Western areas. I gave the evidence to support my claims and to counter yours. When someone does not accept the validity of your arguments it does not mean he's ignoring them. He disagrees with them as you disagree with his. But now I will ignore you, having not ignored your argument.

I wrote: "On important occasions, like the oath dividing the empire, yes, a copy of the oral oath was made. But it was made by officials trained in Latin who wrote phonetically and it was made as a special aide-de-memoire. That there was a functioning Germanic literary culture simply is false for the 8thc. For the 12th, perhaps 11th in some places, it's a whole different ball game."

You replied: "Hellooooo! 1) Old English is a Germanic language. 2) I never said anything about 'literary culture;".

In this exchange, you do exactly what you accuse me of doing: claiming to change the terms of the argument, inventing a straw man(the claim that "literary culture" is different from written literature) and evading my point (I recognized written Old English for the later period but not for the 8thc; you "refute" me by claiming I'm so dumb as not to know Old English is Germanic, which was not the point--the chronology was, but you do not address that).

But then, you would never do what you accuse others of, now, would you?