Biblia Pauperum

Biblia Pauperum is a Latin term signifying Bible of the Poor. The work known under this title is one of the earliest specimens of "block books" printed before the invention of movable type. The printing of it has been attributed to Laurens Koster, of Harlem, Germany, between 1410 and 1420. It is a picture book designed to teach the leading events of human salvation through Christ, from both the Old and New Testaments. Each picture is accompanied by an explanatory text or sentence in Latin. The work seems to have been invented to aid the Mendicant friars of the Middle Ages in their work among the poor, hence the name, "Bible of the Poor." A similar and contemporaneous work, but on a more extended scale, and with the legend or text in rhyme, was called Speculum Humana Salvationis, i. e., the "Mirror of Salvation." Before the Reformation these two books were the chief text-books used, especially by monks, in preaching, and they took the place of the Bible, which was a sealed book to the illiterate of that age. Many manuscripts of the Biblia Pauperum and of the Mirror of Salvation, several as old as the thirteenth century, are preserved in different languages.

The pictures from these works were copied in sculpture, wall and glass painting, altar pieces, etc., and a knowledge of the source whence they were derived is of importance to the art student of any age.