A Marginal Note Cost Him His Life

In those days the most prolific printer of Dutch-language Bibles was Jacob van Liesvelt. He published a total of 18 Bible editions in Dutch. In 1526 he printed a complete Dutch Bible. That Bible appeared four years before the first complete printed Bible in French and nine years before the publication of the first complete printed Bible in English! Van Liesvelt’s Bible was mainly based on Luther’s as-yet-unfinished German Bible.

Van Liesvelt’s final Dutch edition, of 1542, contained woodcuts and new marginal notes. For instance, next to Matthew 4:3, a woodcut pictured the Devil as a bearded monk with a rosary and goat’s feet. However, it was the marginal notes in particular that aroused the ire of the Catholic Church. One note​—which read “Salvation comes through Jesus Christ alone”—​was used as a basis for condemning Van Liesvelt to death. Although Van Liesvelt argued that his Bible had been printed with the ecclesiastical imprimatur Cum gratia et privilegio, he was beheaded in Antwerp in 1545.

[Picture on page 20]

Jacob van Liesvelt’s book stand