WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Ceaseless

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◈ The Medieval Heretic King is Too Good at Developing ◈

Chapter 48: The Information Revolution

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"Raise your head, Johannes von Gutenberg."

With that quiet declaration, the blade lightly tapped his shoulder.

Johannes, who had been kneeling on one knee, looked up, deeply moved. His eyes were red and bloodshot.

Only a few days ago, he had been a fugitive fleeing creditors and wallowing in the gutters. Now, he had been granted the extraordinary position of Royal Minister of Technology of Bohemia.

Johannes's original surname was Gensfleisch.

Literally translated, it meant goose meat.

Even if he came from a noble family, it was a rather ridiculous name for a great inventor destined to change the world.

So I bestowed upon him the name his family would possess in the future, the very name that would become famous throughout history.

Gutenberg.

It meant good mountain.

There could be no name more fitting for a man who would build a mountain range of knowledge.

As I sheathed my sword, I said, "Save your gratitude for later. You don't have much time."

"I understand. Within a month... no, I'll show you results even sooner than that."

"Good. Your workshop has been prepared in the Sternberg domain, not Prague."

I looked out the window at Prague, chimney smoke rising over the city.

"Prague has too many people. That means too many eyes and ears. Your invention is top secret. Until it's complete, not even a rat can be allowed to learn about it."

Prague was already overcrowded.

The population density was high, and spies of the Emperor or the Papacy could be lurking anywhere.

Sternberg, on the other hand, was a fortress I could control completely. It was the ideal location, where a vast industrial complex was already taking shape.

"The Royal Steelworks are there. You will find lead, antimony, and skilled blacksmiths in abundance. Instead of running around Prague looking for materials, you'll only have to reach out your hand to obtain the finest alloys."

"The Royal Steelworks... There could be no more perfect heaven for an engineer."

Johannes’s, or rather Gutenberg’s, eyes shone with anticipation.

He already seemed able to smell the heat of the Blast furnace and the scent of freshly cast movable type.

"I have soldiers waiting outside to escort you to Sternberg. Leave at once."

"Yes, Your Majesty! I will return with a printing press made for Your Majesty!"

Gutenberg bowed deeply once more before leaving the audience chamber.

There was a grim resolve in his retreating figure, no less than that of a general heading to war.

I had given the genius inventor capital, technology, and motivation in perfect measure.

Now, even if it meant staying awake all night, Gutenberg would make a printing press before the deadline.

The door closed, and silence returned.

'The hardware is taken care of. Is it time to deal with the software next?'

If you made guns, you needed bullets. If you made cannons, you needed cannonballs.

It was time to prepare what the printing press would produce.

"Konrad."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Bring in the theologians."

* * *

A short while later, the doors to the audience chamber opened, and three men entered.

The first to catch my eye was Jan Rokycana.

Young and calm, with intelligent eyes, he was the next leader of the moderate Utraquists, always seeking common ground.

Beside him stood Jan Želivský, who looked like a starving wolf.

He wore worn priestly robes, but his eyes burned brightly. A Taborite agitator and fanatic who looked ready to lead a mob against the city council at any moment.

Last was Jan Příbram, who openly looked uncomfortable between the other two.

A rigid conservative scholar from Prague University, he despised the Pope's corruption as much as he loathed Želivský's radicalism.

These three were the leading figures in Hussite theology of their age.

I clicked my tongue inwardly.

'Why is everyone in this country named Jan?'

Jan Hus, Jan Žižka, Jan Rokycana, Jan Želivský...

There was a joke that if you threw a stone while walking down the street, there was a fifty percent chance it would hit a man named Jan.

The three theologians bowed deeply as soon as they saw me.

"We greet Your Majesty the King!"

Their manner told me my standing had changed considerably.

Only a few months ago, they had glared at me suspiciously and raised their voices in the Prague City Council.

But after I defeated the Emperor's crusaders and openly defied the Pope's excommunication, my authority had become absolute even to them.

Whether willingly or not, they acknowledged me as Bohemia's sole ruler.

"Sit, all of you."

The three sat stiffly.

They were bitter enemies who could no more mix than water and oil, yet royal authority had forced them into the same room.

Příbram looked at Želivský with contempt, as though he were an ignorant fanatic. Želivský, in turn, plainly saw Příbram as a coward little better than a Catholic spy. Rokycana merely watched them with an awkward expression.

As expected, fiery-tempered Želivský broke the silence first.

"Your Majesty, why have you summoned me together with such... old-fashioned bookworms? I barely have enough hours in the day as it is, tending to the lost lambs Your Majesty entrusted to me last time."

"Ah, the prisoners from the last war?"

There were tens of thousands of crusader prisoners.

I had put them to work in the mines of Silesia and entrusted their management to Želivský.

"Right. Are they doing well? Has their conversion been progressing?"

At my question, Želivský's eyes instantly gleamed with a strange heat.

His earlier dissatisfaction vanished, leaving only the joy of a fanatic who had witnessed a miracle.

"Oh, Your Majesty. Conversion is far too weak a word! That Ladder of Salvation you taught us about. That system is working miracles inside the mines!"

"Ah..."

Resting my chin on my hand, I swallowed a bitter smile.

I had dressed it up with the grand name Ladder of Salvation, but what I had actually taught them was the most vicious and efficient sales tactic of twenty-first-century capitalism.

Multi-level marketing.

"Sounds like it's working well."

"Working well doesn't begin to describe it! We promised that if they truly repented and brought three unbelievers into the Hussite fold, we would halve the weight of their cross, their labor. The mines were turned upside down!"

Želivský spoke passionately, spittle flying.

"Whenever a new prisoner enters the mines, the existing prisoners fight to claim them first! They teach doctrine all night and try to persuade them, supposedly to save their comrades' souls... No, to gain even one more as their own spiritual disciple. It brings tears to my eyes!"

Overcome with emotion, he made the sign of the cross.

"What else could this be but the work of the Holy Spirit? One prisoner has even become a gold-ranked missionary already and earned an overseer's armband!"

"......"

I nodded as though moved, but inwardly I broke into a cold sweat.

'As expected, nothing works better than stimulating human desire.'

If I had beaten them and forced them to convert, they would have rioted.

But offer them the sweet temptation that bringing three people under them would let them stop working and rest, and they turned into fanatical missionaries on their own.

Either way, labor productivity rose, the prisoners memorized Hussite doctrine by heart, and management costs fell. It was a win for everyone.

"Ahem. I'm glad the results have been good. You've worked hard."

"Thank you! At this rate, before winter arrives, I can turn them all into the most devout Hussite missionaries in Europe, and the best at spreading the faith!"

At Želivský's confident cry, Příbram shook his head with a sickened expression.

I clapped my hands to change the mood.

"All right, that's enough about the prisoners. I brought three men of such different dispositions together today because I intend to entrust you with a very important task."

My voice lowered, and all three focused on me.

Rokycana asked cautiously, "What important task do you mean, Your Majesty?"

I looked slowly over them and declared firmly, "A Bible translation."

A strange silence spread through the room.

Jan Příbram adjusted his glasses and spoke.

"Your Majesty, forgive me, but the Bible translation was already completed by our predecessors. Master Jan Hus perfectly translated the Latin Bible into our Czech language, and we Hussites already read that Bible."

"Yes. It was one of Master Jan Hus's great works during his lifetime. But I don't need a Czech Bible."

I placed my hand on the thick Latin Bible resting on the desk.

"I need a Bible written in the language of Germany."

"A German Bible...?"

All three looked shocked.

Želivský in particular reacted so fiercely that he looked ready to leap from his chair.

"Your Majesty! The Germans are crusaders! They are enemies who seek to kill us. How can you offer sacred words in the language of our enemies? Why would you cast pearls before swine?"

Příbram also looked troubled.

"His words are harsh, but he has a point. Translating the Bible into the language of the Empire could... appear to be surrender or compromise."

"Surrender? You're mistaken, Příbram."

I smiled faintly.

"Imagine it. The German Bibles we print spreading through every alley in the heart of the Empire."

I made a motion as though gripping the air.

"If farmers in Saxony, merchants in Nuremberg, and low-ranking knights in Frankfurt could read and interpret God's words themselves, without the priesthood acting as intermediaries, what do you think would happen then?"

"That would..."

Rokycana swallowed dryly. His eyes trembled with awe.

"The collapse of the clerical class... The Church's monopoly on authority would be shaken to its roots. They would realize they could meet God without priests."

"Exactly. Remember the Hussite cause, the Four Articles of Prague. 'All believers have the freedom to read the Bible in their native language.' There are no exceptions, whether they are Bohemians, Germans, or even Italians in Rome."

"Dear God..."

Rokycana breathed the words like a sigh.

"This... is a spiritual war."

"Precisely."

But that alone was not enough.

Simply letting people read the Bible would not cause a revolution.

What they read mattered.

"It isn't enough to simply translate Latin into German. The process requires very careful... adjustments."

"What sort of adjustments?"

"We need to correct the nuance."

Questions appeared on the three theologians' faces.

"The Divine Right of Kings. Papal infallibility. The basis for indulgences. Blind feudal obedience. The compulsory nature of tithes... We will strip away every bit of rotten authority that the Roman Catholic Church has used the Bible to justify for centuries."

Příbram's brow furrowed.

"Your Majesty! That distorts the Bible! Even if our cause is righteous, we cannot revise God's word to suit our tastes. That is what heretics do!"

"Distortion? That's what the Catholics did. What I intend is correction."

The corner of my mouth rose.

"Where in the Bible does it say the Pope should rule above the Emperor? Where does it say Peter's successor should adorn himself with gold and sell indulgences? Where does it say a king may treat his people like slaves?"

Příbram's eyes began to waver at my questions.

Želivský clenched his fist and shouted, "Nowhere! Not in a single line!"

The rebellious spirit in his chest began to burn.

"Jesus was a friend to the poor. He said he came not to be served, but to serve! All of that is a lie created by Rome's swindlers!"

I spun a quill between my fingers.

"Želivský is right. Saint Jerome was a great scholar, but he was Roman. And he worked alone. Since he was human, he made mistakes too. For example... Exodus 34:29."

I looked at Příbram.

"How does the Vulgate describe Moses's face when he descended Mount Sinai?"

"Cornuta esset facies sua."

Příbram answered immediately.

"It says that his face had horns."

"Right. Horns. Because Jerome mistranslated the Hebrew karan, meaning to shine, as keren, meaning horn. Because of that one mistake, artists spent a thousand years sculpting Moses with devil-like horns."

I set the quill down with a sharp tap.

"Is that truth? No. It is an error. A lie born from ignorance."

The three theologians fell silent, because they knew I was right.

It was a well-known textual problem, but they had never dared challenge the authority of the Vulgate.

"We return to the source. Ad Fontes. I have prepared Jewish scholars from the ghetto. They understand the original Hebrew texts better than any Christian."

"Jews?"

Želivský frowned.

"You would bring them into sacred work on the Bible?"

"They will assist in verifying the Old Testament's linguistic accuracy."

"But...!"

"This is work to restore the Bible to its original, complete state. We need truth, not old customs."

Želivský seemed dissatisfied, but he could not refute my logic in the end.

I leaned forward and lowered my voice.

More secretly. More dangerously.

"And while correcting the nuance... we should also reconsider how power is described."

"Power, Your Majesty?"

"The Vulgate was written within the Empire, for the Empire. It therefore often uses words that seem flattering to earthly tyrants, words like Rex, king, or Dominus, lord."

I met each of their eyes.

"Consider how we translate the word master. What if, instead of an authoritarian word that evokes feudal lords, we used words like leader or teacher? And what if, rather than demanding blind submission with words like obey, we used the active word follow?"

Rokycana and Příbram's eyes widened.

As scholars, they immediately understood the destructive power of my words.

"That one subtle word will change the consciousness of those who read it. They will realize that kings and nobles are not divinely ordained absolute rulers, but simply people entrusted with the duty of serving their subjects."

I was ordering them to weaponize the Bible.

It meant creating a German text that would do more than spread the Gospel. It would quietly gnaw away at the legitimacy of the Holy Roman Emperor and the feudal lords themselves.

Dangerous. In Rome's eyes, it was obvious heresy.

And that was exactly what the three theologians truly wanted.

Želivský was the first to smile.

"To smash the idols of false kings with the Lord's words... My goodness, Your Majesty. I like this. I like it very much."

Příbram straightened his clothes and sighed.

"If we correct Jerome's philological errors through the original Hebrew texts... it would have academic value as well. There is no justification for opposing the pursuit of truth."

Rokycana looked from one man to the other, then slowly nodded to me.

"It will take time, Your Majesty. To translate the entire book..."

"There are Jewish scholars. We also have a Czech Bible to consult. And you will have my full support."

I added in a confident tone, "Don't worry about money or manpower. Focus only on creating a perfect result."

The three men silently met one another's eyes for a moment.

Moderates, radicals, conservatives.

Three perspectives that seemed incapable of mixing came together at the single focal point of revolution.

Their hesitation was brief, and their resolve was heavy.

Before long, as though they had made a promise, they bowed deeply at the same time.

"We will carry out Your Majesty's command."

Footnotes:

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