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diff --git a/33413-8.txt b/33413-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8193440 --- /dev/null +++ b/33413-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5094 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Story of Books, by Gertrude Burford Rawlings + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Story of Books + +Author: Gertrude Burford Rawlings + +Release Date: August 13, 2010 [EBook #33413] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF BOOKS *** + + + + +Produced by Adrian Mastronardi, Jana Srna and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + + + + + + [ Transcriber's Note: + Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as + possible, including inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation; + changes (corrections of spelling and punctuation) made to the + original text are listed at the end of this file. + + Italic text has been marked with _underscores_. + Bold text has been marked with =equals signs=. + Greek text has been transliterated and marked with +plus signs+. + ] + + + + + THE STORY OF BOOKS + + + + +The Useful Knowledge Library + + +PLANT LIFE. By Grant Allen. + +ARCHITECTURE. By P. L. Waterhouse. + +THE STARS. By G. F. Chambers, F.R.A.S. + +THE SOLAR SYSTEM. By George F. Chambers, F.R.A.S. + +FOREST AND STREAM. By James Rodway. + +THE MIND. By Prof. J. M. Baldwin. + +THE RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD. By the Rev. E. D. Price, F.G.S. + +EXTINCT CIVILIZATIONS OF THE EAST. By Robert E. Anderson, M.A., F.A.S. + +THE CHEMICAL ELEMENTS. By M. M. Pattison Muir, M.A. + +A PIECE OF COAL. By E. A. Martin. + +THE EARTH IN PAST AGES. By H. G. Seeley, F.R.S. + +BIRD-LIFE. By W. P. Pycraft. + +GEOGRAPHICAL DISCOVERY. By Joseph Jacobs. + +PRIMITIVE MAN. By Edward Clodd. + +THOUGHT AND FEELING. By Frederick Ryland, M.A. + +THE BRITISH RACE. By John Munro. + +GERM LIFE. By H. W. Conn. + +ANIMAL LIFE. By B. Lindsay. + +COTTON PLANT. By F. Wilkinson, F.G.S. + +ECLIPSES. By G. F. Chambers, F.R.A.S. + +ELECTRICITY. By J. Munro. + +WEATHER. By G. F. Chambers, F.R.A.S. + +WILD FLOWERS. By Rev. Prof. Henslow. + + LONDON: HODDER AND STOUGHTON + + + + +[Illustration: EARLY PRINTERS AT WORK.] + + + + + THE + STORY OF BOOKS + + BY + GERTRUDE BURFORD RAWLINGS + + Author of "The Story of the British Coinage" + + HODDER AND STOUGHTON + PUBLISHERS, LONDON + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAP. PAGE + + I. Introductory 9 + + II. The Preservation of Literature 13 + + III. Books and Libraries in Classical Times 26 + + IV. Books in Mediæval Times 36 + + V. Libraries in Mediæval Times 56 + + VI. The Beginning of Printing 70 + + VII. Who Invented Moveable Types? 81 + + VIII. Gutenberg and the Mentz Press 89 + + IX. Early Printing 103 + + X. Early Printing in Italy and some other Countries 110 + + XI. Early Printing in England 118 + + XII. Early Printing in Scotland 131 + + XIII. Early Printing in Ireland 138 + + XIV. Book Bindings 144 + + XV. How a Modern Book is Produced 159 + + Postscript 164 + + Index 166 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + Early Printers at Work Frontispiece + + PAGE + + Page from the Book of Kells 38 + + Part of Page from the Book of Kells 39 + + Page from the Lindisfarne Gospels 44 + + Page from the Biblia Pauperum 76 + + Type of the Mentz Indulgence 95 + + Page from the Mazarin Bible 98 + + Type of the Mazarin Bible 99 + + Type of the Subiaco Lactantius 111 + + Type of the Aldine Virgil, 1501 114 + + Type of Caxton's Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres, + Westminster, 1477 123 + + Boys Learning Grammar 125 + + Caxton's Device 127 + + Type of Wynkyn de Worde's Higden's Polychronicon, London, 1495 129 + + Myllar's Device 132 + + Title Page of O'Kearney's Irish Alphabet and Catechism 140 + + Upper Cover of Melissenda's Psalter 149 + + + + +THE STORY OF BOOKS + + + + +CHAPTER I + +INTRODUCTORY + + +The book family is a very old and a very noble one, and has rendered +great service to mankind, although, as with other great houses, all its +members are not of equal worth and distinction. But since books are so +common nowadays as to be taken quite as matters of course, probably few +people give any thought to the long chain of events which, reaching from +the dim past up to our own day, has been necessary for their evolution. +Yet if we look round on our bookshelves, whether we measure their +contents by hundreds or by thousands, and consider how mighty is the +power of these inanimate combinations of "rag-paper with black ink on +them," and how all but limitless their field of action, it is but a step +further to wonder what the first books were like. Given the living, +working brain to fashion thoughts and create fancies, to whom did it +first occur to write a book, what language and characters and material +did he use, when did he write, and what did he write about? And although +these questions can never be answered, an attempt to follow them up +will lead the inquirer into many fascinating bye-ways of knowledge. It +is not, however, the purpose of these pages to deal at length with the +ancient history of the _manuscript_ book, but, after briefly noticing +the chief links which connect the volumes of to-day with primeval +records, to present to the reader a few of the many points of interest +offered by the modern history of the _printed_ book. + + * * * * * + +=The Beginning of Writing.=--Books began with writing, and writing began +at the time when man first bethought himself to make records, so that +the progenitor of the beautiful handwriting and no less beautiful print +of the civilised world is to be looked for in the rude drawing which +primeval man scratched with a pointed flint on a smooth bone, or on a +rock, representing the beast he hunted, or perhaps himself, or one of +his fellows. The exact degree of importance he attached to these +drawings we cannot hope to discover. They may have been cherished from +purely æsthetic motives, or they may have served, at times, a merely +utilitarian end and acted, perhaps, as memoranda. However this may be, +these early drawings are the germs from which sprang writing, the parent +of books, and liberator of literature, that great force of which a book +is but the vehicle. How these drawings were gradually changed into +letters, in other words, the story of the alphabet, has been already +told in this series by Mr Edward Clodd, and therefore we need not deal +further with the subject here. + +Writing once learned, and alphabets once formulated, the machinery for +making books, with the human mind as its mainspring, was fairly in +motion. "Certainly the Art of Writing," says Carlyle, "is the most +miraculous of all things man has devised.... With the art of Writing, of +which Printing is a simple, an inevitable and comparatively +insignificant corollary, the true reign of miracles for mankind +commenced." That these words only express the feeling of our far away +ancestors, a cursory glance into the mythology of various peoples will +prove. For wherever there is a tradition respecting writing, that +tradition almost invariably, if not always, connects the great invention +with the gods or with some sacred person. The Egyptians attributed it to +Thoth, the Babylonians and Assyrians to Nebo, the Buddhists to Buddha, +the Greeks to Hermes. The Scandinavians honoured Odin as the first +cutter of the mysterious runes, and the Irish derived their ogham from +the sacred Ogma of the Tuatha de Danaan. And it is noteworthy how, from +time immemorial, writing, and the making of books, have been considered +high and honourable accomplishments, and how closely they have ever been +connected with the holy functions of priesthood. + + * * * * * + +=Materials for Writing and Books.=--The early forms of books were +various, and, to modern eyes, more or less clumsy. Wood or bark was one +of the oldest substances used to receive writing. Stone was no doubt +older still, but stone inscriptions are outside our subject. The early +Greeks and Romans employed tablets of soft metal, and wooden leaves +coated with wax, when they had anything to write, impressing the +characters with a stilus. Thus Pausanius relates that he saw the +original copy of Hesiod's _Works and Days_ written on leaden tablets. +The wooden leaves, when bound together at one side, foreshadowed the +form of book which is now almost universal, and were called by the +Romans _caudex_, or _codex_ (originally meaning a tree-stump), in +distinction to the _volumen_, which was always a parchment or papyrus +roll. The oldest manuscript in existence, however, is on papyrus, which, +as is well known, was the chief writing-material of the ancient world. +Although the discovery that skins of animals, when properly prepared, +formed a convenient and durable writing-material, was made at a very +early date, the papyrus held its own as the writing-material of literary +Egypt, Greece, and Rome, until about the fourth or fifth century of our +era. + +The books of Babylonia and Assyria took the form of thick clay tablets +of various sizes. The wedge-shaped characters they bore were made by +impressing the wet, soft clay with a triangular-pointed instrument of +wood, bone, or metal. The tablet was then baked, and as recent +discoveries prove, rendered exceedingly durable. It is a matter of +conjecture as to whether the form of the original documents of the Old +Testament was that of the Babylonian tablets, or of the Egyptian papyrus +rolls, or of rolls of parchment. Perhaps all three were employed by the +various biblical writers at different times. + +It is stretching a point, perhaps, to include among writing materials +the tablets of bamboo bark which bore the earliest Chinese characters, +since the inscriptions were carved. The Chinese, however, soon discarded +such primitive uses, and the paper which is so indispensable to-day was +invented by them at a very early date, though it remained unknown to +Europe until the Arabs introduced it about the tenth century, A.D. One +of the earliest extant writings on paper is an Arabic "Treatise on the +Nourishment of the Human Body," written in 960 A.D., but it seems to +have been printing which really brought paper into fashion, for paper +manuscripts are rare compared with those of parchment and vellum. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE PRESERVATION OF LITERATURE + + +It is easier to find the beginning of writing than the beginning of +literature. Although we know for certain that the ancient nations of the +world had books and libraries, that they preserved traditions, stored +records and knowledge, and assisted memory by means of their tablets, +their monuments, and their papyri, we shall probably never know when the +art of writing was first applied to strictly literary purposes, and +still less likely is it that we shall ever discover when works of the +imagination were first recorded for the edification of mankind. It is +not very rash, however, to assume that as soon as the art had developed +the ancients put it to much the same uses as we do, except, perhaps, +that they did not vulgarise it, and no one wrote who had not something +to write about. But we are not without specimens of antique literatures. +Egypt has preserved for us many different specimens of her literary +produce of thousands of years ago--historical records, works of religion +and philosophy, fiction, magic, and funeral ritual. Assyria has +bequeathed to us hundreds of the clay books which formed the great royal +library at Nineveh, books of records, mythology, morals, grammar, +astronomy, astrology, magic; books of reference, such as geographical +tables, lists of temples, plants, birds, and other things. In the Old +Testament we have all that now remains of Israelitish writings, and the +early literatures of China and India are also partly known to us. After +these the writings of Greece and Rome are of comparatively recent +origin, and moreover, they are nearer to us in other respects besides +the merely chronological. The literature of Greece, dating from the far +Homeric age, grew up a strong and beautiful factor in Greek life, and +Rome, drawing first her alphabet and then her literature from the land +before which she stooped, even while she conquered it, passed them on as +an everlasting possession to the peoples of the western world. The fact +of the literary pre-eminence of Greece partly helps to explain why Greek +manuscripts form the bulk of the early writings now extant. + +In considering how early literature has been preserved, therefore, we +are hardly concerned with Egyptian papyri or cuneiform tablets, but +with the writings of Greece and Rome, or writings produced under Greek +or Roman influence. And it is curious that while the libraries and books +of older nations have survived in comparatively large numbers, there +should be no Greek literary manuscripts older than about 160 B.C., and +even these are very fragmentary and scarce. The earliest Latin document +known is dated 55 A.D., and is an unimportant wax tablet from Pompeii. +For this lack of early documents many causes are responsible, and those +who remember that it is not human beings only who suffer from the +vicissitudes inseparable from existence will wonder, not that we have so +few ancient writings in our present possession, but that we have any. +The evidence of many curious and interesting discoveries of manuscripts +made from time to time goes to show that accident, rather than design, +has worked out their preservation, and that the civilised world owes its +present store of ancient literature more to good luck than good +management, to use a handy colloquialism. It is true, of course, that in +early days there were many who guarded books as very precious things, +but in times of wars and tumults people would naturally give little +thought to such superfluities. Fire and war have been the agencies most +destructive of books, in the opinion of the author of _Philobiblon_, but +carelessness and ignorance, wanton destruction and natural decay, are +also accountable for some part of the great losses which have wasted so +large a share of the literary heritage, and although we are deeply +indebted to monastic work for the transmission of classic lore as well +as of Christian compositions, we can hardly conclude that the monkish +scribes wrote solely for the benefit of posterity. Their immediate +purpose, no doubt, and naturally so, was much narrower, and identified +the service of God with the enrichment of their houses. Besides, they +did not hesitate to erase older writings in order that they might use +the parchment again for their own, whenever it suited them to do so. + +Before noting some of the ways by which ancient literature has come down +to the present day, let us for a moment transport ourselves into the +past, and see how a wealthy Roman lover of letters would set about +gathering a collection of books. Having no lack of means, all that is +best in the literary world will be at his service. He will first take +care that the works of every Greek writer which can possibly be +obtained, as well as those of Roman authors, are represented in his +library by well-written papyrus rolls containing good, correct texts. If +he can obtain old manuscripts or original autographs of famous writers, +so much the better; but whereas ordinary volumes will cost him +comparatively little, on these he must expend large sums. If a book on +which he has set his heart is not to be purchased, he may be able to +obtain the loan of it, so that it may be transcribed for him by his +_librarius_ or writing-slave. If he can neither borrow nor purchase what +he desires, he may commission the bookseller to send for it to +Alexandria, where there is an unrivalled store of books and many skilled +scribes ready to make copies of them. + +But it is not easy to estimate with any degree of certainty the quantity +of literary material available, say, at the time of the establishment of +the first public library in Rome, which was probably about 39 B.C. Books +were common and booksellers flourished. Greek and Roman writings were +preserved on papyrus, not neglected or lost, and the various parts of +what we now call the Old Testament probably existed in the Hebrew +synagogues. We may, perhaps, assume that the Roman book collector, did +he choose to take the necessary trouble, might add to his collection +some of the writings of ancient Egypt. But no doubt Greek and Latin +authors only are of value in his eyes. At this point it is dangerous to +speculate further, and we must leave the imaginary Roman, and, advancing +to our own time, where we are on surer ground, ask what remnants of old +records and literature have come down to us, and how have they been +preserved? + +It will be disappointing news, perhaps, to those to whom the facts are +fresh, that no original manuscript of any classical author, and no +original manuscript of any part of the Bible, Old Testament or New, has +yet come to light. Nothing is known of any of these documents except +through the medium of copies, and in some cases very many copies indeed +intervene between us and the original. For instance, the oldest Homeric +manuscript known, with the exception of one or two fragments, is not +older than the first century B.C., and the most ancient Biblical +manuscript known, a fragment of a Psalter, is assigned to the late third +or early fourth century A.D. The earliest New Testament manuscript +extant, the first leaf of a book of St Matthew's Gospel, is also no +older than the third century. It is curious, too, that no ancient Greek +manuscripts have been found either in Greece or Italy excepting some +rolls discovered in the ruins of Herculaneum. One reason for this is no +doubt the fact that when Roman armies assailed Athens and other Greek +cities they despoiled them not only of their statues and works of art, +but of their books as well. These went to furnish the libraries of Rome, +though it is probable that certain of them found their way back to +Greece in company with some of Rome's own literary produce when +Constantine set up his capital and founded a library at Byzantium. +Another means by which Greek manuscripts left the country was afforded +by the eagerness of Ptolemy II. to extend the great library of +Alexandria, to which end he bought books in all parts of Greece, and +particularly in Athens and Rhodes. + +The Roman libraries did not survive the onslaughts of the barbarians, +who seem to have carried out a very thorough work of destruction in the +Eternal City. But it is not unlikely that in some cases books, among +other portable treasures, were carried away when their owners sought +refuge in less troubled localities, such as Constantinople or +Alexandria. Still, the fact remains that the contents of the Roman +libraries have disappeared, and that for the ancient manuscripts now in +our possession we are indebted to the tombs, the temples, the +monasteries, and the sands of Egypt. Sometimes--to show the strange +adventures of some of these manuscripts--the cartonnage cases in which +mummies of the later period were enclosed, were made of papyrus +documents, which apparently had been treated as waste paper and put to +all sorts of undignified uses. The two oldest classical papyri known, +consisting of fragments of Plato's _Phoedo_ and of the _Antiope_ of +Euripides, were recovered from mummy-cases, and are supposed to date +from the third century B.C. Other important Greek texts which have been +preserved by Egypt are Aristotle's _Constitution of Athens_, the _Mimes_ +of Herodas, the _Odes_ of Bacchylides, the _Gospel_ and _Apocalypse_ of +Peter, the Book of Enoch, &c. + +But here we have to take into consideration a new and important factor +in literary as in other matters--the spread of Christianity. With such +obvious exceptions as the cuneiform records, or the Egyptian writings, +and similar remains, the bulk of the manuscripts (as manuscripts, not as +compositions) is the work of (Christian) religious houses, and it is +easy to see that we owe much to the labours of the monks and +ecclesiastics who have transmitted to us not only the earliest and most +valuable works of the Church's own writers, but also the chief part of +the literature of Greece and Rome. As Mr Falconer Madan says in his +_Books in Manuscript_, "the number and importance of the MSS. of Virgil +and the four Gospels is greater than of any other ancient authors +whatever," and it is safe to assume that all these Gospel MSS., and +perhaps all the Virgil MSS. also, were the handiwork of churchmen. + +As an example of the manuscript treasures yielded by Egypt may be +instanced the find at Behnesa, a village standing on the site of the +Roman city of Oxyrhynchus, one of the chief centres of early +Christianity in Egypt. Here, in 1896, Mr B. P. Grenfell and Mr A. S. +Hunt, searching for papyri on behalf of the Egypt Exploration Fund, +lighted upon one of the richest hunting-grounds yet discovered. The +result of their excavations was that about 270 boxes of manuscripts were +brought to England, while 150 of the best rolls were left at the Cairo +Museum. I am unable to give the size of the boxes, but Professor +Flinders Petrie's statement that "the publication of this great +collection of literature and documents will probably occupy a decade or +two, and will place our knowledge of the Roman and early Christian age +on a new footing," will testify to the extent and importance of the +find. + +In this collection the document which excited most interest was a +papyrus leaf bearing some scraps of Greek, to which the name of +LOGIA +IÊSOU+, or Sayings of our Lord, has been given. This leaf is at present +assigned to a date between 150 and 300 A.D. The Logia are eight in +number, and while three of them are closely similar to certain passages +in the Gospels, the rest are new. Another valuable document was the +fragment of St Matthew's Gospel alluded to above, which, written in the +third century, is a hundred years older than any New Testament +manuscript hitherto known. Classical documents also were found in great +numbers, and included a new _Ode_ of Sappho, which, however, is +unfortunately imperfect. It was transcribed probably about the third +century A.D. + +Many Coptic, Syriac, and Arabic manuscripts have been recovered from the +numerous monasteries of Palestine, Asia Minor, and Egypt. Several +travellers who have managed to overcome the suspicion of the monks and +their unwillingness to open their literary hoards to strangers, or to +part with any of the volumes, have found immense numbers of books hidden +under dust and rubbish in vaults and cellars or stowed away in chests, +where they were probably thrust at some time when danger threatened +them. Books written in these monasteries themselves in earlier days, or +brought thither from other monasteries further east, have thus lain +forgotten or neglected for centuries, or, if they were noticed at all, +it was only that they might be put to some ignoble use. Thus some were +found acting as covers to two large jars which had formerly held +preserves. "I was allowed to purchase these vellum manuscripts," says +the author of _Monasteries of the Levant_, "as they were considered to +be useless by the monks, principally, I believe, because there were no +more preserves in the jars." In another case some large volumes were +found in use as footstools to protect the bare feet of the monks from +the cold stone floor of their chapel. + +As we have already seen, Christian scribes not only preserved the +writings of the Fathers of the Church, as well as the Holy Scriptures, +but also directed much of their attention to the classic works of poetry +and philosophy. In every monastery from Ireland to Asia Minor, from +Seville to Jerusalem, the work of transcribing and transmitting sacred +and secular literature was carried on, and had we at the present day one +half of the fruits of this labour we should be rich indeed. But we have +also seen that many causes have contributed to the destruction of old +writings, of which carelessness and ignorance are by no means the least. +The well-known story of Tischendorf's discovery of the oldest copy of +the New Testament in existence,[1] in a basket of fuel at a monastery +near Mount Sinai is but a single example, and that a modern one, of the +dangers to which these ancient books were liable, and to which they too +often fell victims. The danger was long ago recognised, however, and a +canon of the third Council of Constantinople, held in 719 A.D., enacted +"That nobody whatever be allowed to injure the book of the Old and New +Testament, or those of our holy preachers and doctors, nor to cut them +up, nor to give them to dealers in books, or perfumers, or any other +person to be erased, except they have been rendered useless by moths or +water or in some other way. He who shall do any such thing shall be +excommunicated for one year." The same Council also ordered the burning +of heretical books. + + [1] The Codex Sinaiticus, now at St Petersburg. + +With the revival of learning in the fourteenth century there came an +awakened interest in ancient writings. They were eagerly sought for in +the monasteries of Europe, and the learned of Italy were especially +instrumental in recovering the neglected classical works. It has been +said that almost all the classical authors were discovered or +rediscovered either in Italy or through the researches of Italians. +Petrarch, with whose name the Renaissance is inseparably associated, and +a contemporary of our Richard de Bury, took great pains to form a +collection of the works of Cicero, whose _Epistles_ he was fortunate +enough to rescue from destroying oblivion. He tells us that when he met +strangers, and they asked him what he desired from their country, he +would reply, "Nothing, but the works of Cicero." He also sent money to +France, Germany, Spain, Greece, and England that these books might be +bought for him, and if while travelling he came across any ancient +monastery he would turn aside and explore its book treasures. + +Poggio Bracciolini, a learned Italian of the fifteenth century, has also +made himself famous by his ardent pursuit of the remains of classical +literature, and by aiding the interest in them which the Renaissance had +awakened. He searched Europe for manuscripts to such good purpose that +he unearthed a valuable text of Quintilian's _Institutes_, "almost +perishing at the bottom of a dark neglected tower," in the monastery of +St Gall, and recovered many other classical writings by his industry, +including some of the _Orations_ of Cicero; Lucretius; Manilius, and +others. He also rescued the writings of Tertullian. + +We may perhaps believe that even by this time the surviving treasures of +the old storehouses of literature have not yet been all brought to +light. Renan discovered in the large collection of manuscripts still +preserved in the monastery of Monte Casino in Italy, some unpublished +pages of Abelard's _Theologia Christiana_, and other valuable finds +besides, and it is quite possible that many more surprises are awaiting +an enterprising and diligent searcher. + +But although the monasteries had so large a share in the work of the +preservation of literature, the monks themselves wrought harm as well as +good, for in their zeal to record sacred compositions they frequently +destroyed older and often more valuable documents by scraping off the +original writing and substituting other. This was done for economy's +sake, when writing material was costly, and parchments thus treated are +known as palimpsests. Owing to this reprehensible practice, many +literary treasures have been irretrievably lost. Our Anglo-Saxon +literature, for instance, is not represented by any contemporary copies. +The Anglo-Norman writers had a contempt for the old English manuscripts, +and turned them into palimpsests without the slightest idea that there +could be any value in them, and attached far more importance to the +writing they themselves were about to make. Thus it happens that we are +in the same position with regard to Anglo-Saxon literature as with +regard to classical authors. No original documents exist, and it is +known to us solely through copies, single copies, in most cases. +Beowulf, for instance, is represented only by a manuscript of the first +half of the eleventh century, and Caedmon by a manuscript of the tenth +century. + +With the invention and spread of the knowledge of printing, however, the +risk of loss was greatly reduced. Such ancient writings as came into the +printer's hands were given a fresh lease of life which in many cases was +of indefinite length, or rather, of practically eternal duration. But +the fact of being printed was not invariably a safeguard. Some of the +works of the early printers have disappeared completely, and many are +represented only by single copies. The strange history of the British +Museum copy of the famous _Book of St Albans_, will serve to show the +vicissitudes with which the relics of the past have to contend in their +journey down the ages. + +At the end of the last century the library of an old Lincolnshire house +was overhauled by someone who disdainfully turned out of it all unbound +books, and had them destroyed. A few of the condemned books, however, +were begged by the gardener. Among them was the Book of St Albans. At +the gardener's death his son threw away some of the rescued volumes, but +kept the "Book." At the son's death, his widow sold such books as he had +left, to a pedlar, for the sum of ninepence. The pedlar re-sold them to +a chemist in Gainsborough for shop-paper, but observing the strange +wood-cuts in the "Book," the chemist offered it to a stationer for a +guinea. The stationer would not purchase, but said he would display it +in his window as a curiosity. Here it attracted attention, and five +pounds was offered for it by a gentleman in the neighbourhood. The +stationer, finding the volume an object of desire, gave the chemist two +pounds for it and eventually sold it to a bookseller for seven guineas. +Of this bookseller the Right Hon. Thomas Grenville bought it for seventy +pounds, and bequeathed it to the British Museum with the rest of his +magnificent library. This story I give on the authority of Mr Blades, +who also, to instance the way in which books travel about and turn up in +odd places, relates that a brother of Bishop Heber's, who had been for +years seeking for a book printed by Colard Mansion, but without success, +one day received a fine copy from the bishop, who had bought it from a +native on the banks of the Ganges. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +BOOKS AND LIBRARIES IN CLASSICAL TIMES + + +In literary Greece and Rome, so far as we can tell from the somewhat +meagre information handed down to us, literature was pursued for her own +sake, and filthy lucre did not enter into the calculations of authors, +who appear to have been satisfied if their works met with the approval +of those who were competent to judge of them. Literature walked alone, +and had not as yet entered into partnership with commerce. The writing +of books for pecuniary profit is a wholly modern development, and even +now it is more often an aspiration than a realisation. + +In those days, when an author desired to make known a work, he would +read it aloud to an invited party of friends. This reading of original +compositions became in time a common item of the programme provided by a +host for the entertainment of his guests, and it is not difficult to +imagine that such a custom was often subjected to grave abuse, from the +guests' point of view. Later, the private reading developed into the +public lecture. Lectures of this kind became very frequent in Rome, and +we are told that it was looked upon as a sort of festival when a +fashionable author announced a reading. But we are also told that some +of the audience often treated a lecturer of mediocre merit with scant +courtesy, entering late and leaving early, and frequently they who +applauded most were those who had listened least. The public reading is +recorded of a poem composed by Nero. It was read to the people on the +Capitol, and the manuscript, which was written in letters of gold, was +afterwards deposited in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. + +If a work happened to attract attention by reason of its author's +reputation or its own merit, it was copied by students or others who had +heard and admired it. This was the only way in which literary +productions could be dispersed and made known to the public at large, or +a collection of books be gathered together. As the literary taste +developed, those who were sufficiently wealthy kept slaves whose sole +business it was to copy books, which books might be either the original +works of their master, who by this means disseminated his compositions, +or the works of others, for the benefit of their master's library. +These slaves, being of necessity well educated and skilful scribes, were +purchased at high prices and held in great esteem by their owners. But +obviously it was only the rich who could command such service, and +ordinary folk had to resort to the bookseller. + +The booksellers of Athens and Rome were those who made copies of books, +or employed slaves to make them, and sold or let them on hire to those +who had need of them. The author had no voice in these matters. There +was nothing to prevent anyone who borrowed or otherwise got possession +of his work from making copies of the manuscript if he chose, and making +money from the copies if he could. "Copyright" was a word unknown in +those days, and for centuries after. The booksellers advertised their +wares by notices affixed to the door-posts of their shops, giving the +names of new or desirable works, and sometimes read these works aloud to +their friends and patrons. Their shops were favourite places of resort +for persons of leisure and literary tastes. + +Copyists of books retained a high place in the order of things literary +until the introduction of printing, and without their labours we should +know nothing of ancient literature, seeing that no original manuscript +of any classical author has survived. And apart from its purely literary +value, which is variable, the work of the early mediæval scribes in many +instances reaches a high artistic standard, and exhibits marvellous +skill in an accomplishment now numbered among the lost arts. + +On the subject of libraries, as on all literary matters in ancient +times, hardly any solid information is available. But we know that Egypt +was to the fore in this respect as in so many others. Yet of all the +collections of books which, since they are frequently alluded to in the +inscriptions, she undoubtedly possessed, stored in her kings' palaces +and her temple archives, there is only one which is mentioned in +history, and that by a single historian. According to Diodorus Siculus, +this library was made by Osymandyas, who was king of Egypt at a date +which has not been precisely determined. He tells us that its entrance +exhibited the inscription: "Place of Healing for the Soul," or, as it +has been variously rendered, "Balsam for the Soul," or, "Dispensary of +the Mind." Although doubt has been thrown on the perfect accuracy of the +historian in introducing the name of Osymandyas in this connection, +modern Egyptologists have identified the plan of the library with a hall +of the great "palace temple" of Rameses II., the "Ramesium" or +"Memnonium" at Thebes. The door-jambs of this hall utter their own +testimony to its ancient use, for they bear the figures of Thoth, the +god of writing, and Saf, a goddess who is accompanied by the titles +"Lady of Letters" and "Presider over the Hall of Books." Astle, in _The +Origin and Progress of Writing_, says that the books and colleges of +Egypt were destroyed by the Persians, but Matter, on the other hand, in +_L'École d'Alexandrie_, declares that the temple archives were in +existence in the Greek and Roman periods. Probably Astle's statement is +not intended to be as sweeping as it appears. + +Babylonia and Assyria also had their libraries. According to Professor +Sayce (_The Higher Criticism and the Monuments_) they were "filled with +libraries, and the libraries with thousands of books." The royal library +already referred to as furnishing so rich a treasure of cuneiform +tablets, was begun by Sennacherib, who reigned 705-681 B.C., and +completed by Assur-bani-pal, who reigned about 668-626 B.C. + +There were libraries, too, in Palestine, in early days, but we know +nothing of them. They may have been archives or places where records +were kept, rather than libraries as we understand the term. The name of +Kirjath-sepher, a city near Hebron, means "city of books," and survives +from pre-Israelitish times. By the Jews, records and "the book of the +law" were preserved in the temple. + +Almost as scanty are the accounts of the libraries of ancient Greece. +The tyrant Pisistratus, 537-527 B.C., has been credited, traditionally, +with the establishment in Athens of the first public library, but +although he encouraged letters and the preservation of literature there +is no good reason for accepting the tradition as authentic. + +But of all libraries those of Alexandria were the largest and most +celebrated, and yet, notwithstanding their eminence, the accounts +relating to them are confused and contradictory. Alexandria, which, +although situated in Egypt, was a Greek and not an Egyptian city, was +founded by Alexander the Great in 332 B.C., and rapidly rose to a high +position. Its buildings, its learning, its luxury, and its books, became +world-famous. The first library was established by Ptolemy Soter, a +ruler of literary tastes, about 300 B.C., and was situated in that part +of the city known as the Bruchium. Copyists were employed to transcribe +manuscripts for the benefit of the institution, and it is said that +under Ptolemy Euergetes all books brought into Egypt were seized and +sent to the library to be transcribed. The copies were returned to the +owners, whose wishes were evidently not consulted, in place of the +originals, which went to enrich the store in the great library. + +Ptolemy Philadelphus is said to have supplemented Soter's library by +another, which was lodged in the Temple of Serapis, but it has been +conjectured, with more probability, that the Serapeum collection began +with the temple archives, to which the Ptolemies made additions from +time to time; these additions, as some have affirmed, including part of +Aristotle's library. But here, also, contradictions are encountered, and +it seems impossible to say exactly whether this statement refers to +Aristotle's autograph writings, or to copies of them, or to manuscripts +of other authors' works formerly in his possession. + +It was Ptolemy Philadelphus, we are told by Galen, who gave the +Athenians fifteen talents, a great convoy of provisions, and exemption +from tribute, in exchange for the autographs and originals of the +tragedies of Æschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. + +Two other libraries also helped to make up the glory of Alexandria; one +in the Sebasteum, or Temple of Augustus, and one in connection with the +Museum. The latter, however, was a much later foundation. The museum or +university itself, had been instituted by Ptolemy Soter, and though it +was quite distinct from the library which is associated with his name, +there was doubtless some relationship between the two. Her museum and +libraries, and the encouragement she offered to learning, combined to +set Alexandria at the head of the literary world, and to make her "the +first great seat of literary Hellenism" (Jebb). She was also the centre +of the book industry, that is, of the reproduction of books, as +distinguished from their first production. This was owing in a large +measure to the number of professional copyists attracted by the +facilities afforded to them, and to the fact that the papyrus trade had +its headquarters here. + +Another famous library of this period was that of the Kings of Pergamus, +founded by Attalus I., who reigned from 241 to 197 B.C. Between Pergamus +and Alexandria there was vigorous competition. In the end, however, +Alexandria had the satisfaction of seeing her rival completely humbled, +for Antony presented the books of Pergamus, stated to have been about +two hundred thousand in number, to Cleopatra, who added them to +Alexandria's treasures. At least, so says Plutarch, but Plutarch's +authority for the statement was Calvisius, whose veracity was not above +suspicion. + +How the enormous accumulation of manuscripts gathered by Alexandria came +to perish so utterly is not clear. The Romans accidentally fired the +Bruchium when they reduced the city, but according to several accounts +there were still a goodly number of books remaining at the time of the +Saracen invasion in 638 A.D. The story of the Caliph Omar's reply to a +plea for the preservation of the books is well known. "If they contain +anything contrary to the word of God," he is reported to have said, +"they are evil; if not, they are superfluous," and forthwith he had them +distributed among the four thousand baths of the city, which they +provided with fuel for six months. But several authorities doubt this +story, and assert that long before Omar's time the Alexandrian libraries +had ceased to exist. + +Though very far from being as full as could be wished, the accounts of +libraries in Rome are more numerous than any relating to libraries in +other parts of the ancient world. Besides the collections of books made +by private persons, which in one or two instances were generously opened +to the public by the owner, there were the imperial libraries, and the +more strictly public libraries. Among the emperors whose names are +especially associated with the gathering and preservation of books are +Augustus, Tiberius and Trajan. Julius Cæsar had formed a scheme for the +establishment of a public library, but it is not clear whether it was +ever carried out or no. Domitian, to replace the library in the Capitol, +which had been destroyed, sent scholars abroad to collect manuscripts +and to copy some of those at Alexandria. Under Constantine the Roman +public libraries numbered twenty-nine, and were very frequently lodged +in the temples. + +Last in point of date come the libraries of Byzantium, the city which +the Emperor Constantine in 330 A.D. made the capital of the eastern +portion of the empire, and named after himself. He at once began to +gather books there, and his successors followed his example. Thus +various libraries were established, and those which survived the fires +which occurred from time to time in the city, existed until its capture +by the Turks in 1452. On this occasion, and also after the assault by +the Crusaders in 1203, the libraries probably suffered. It is said, too, +by some that Leo III. wantonly destroyed a large number of books, but +the assertion cannot be proved. Among the lost treasures of +Constantinople was "the only authentic copy" of the proceedings of the +Council of Nice, held in 325 A.D. to deal with the Arian heresy. + +The ultimate fate of the imperial library at Constantinople yet remains +a problem. Some are of opinion that it was destroyed by Amurath IV., and +that none but comparatively unimportant Arabic and other Oriental +manuscripts make up the Sultan's library. Some believe that, in spite of +repeated assertions to the contrary on the part of Turkish officials and +others, there somewhere lies a secret hoard, neglected and uncared for, +perhaps, but nevertheless existent, of ancient and valuable Greek +manuscripts. The Seraglio has usually been considered to be the +repository of this hoard, and access to the Seraglio is very difficult +and almost impossible to obtain. In the year 1800 Professor Carlyle, +during his travels in the East, took enormous pains and used every means +in his power to reach the bottom of the mystery surrounding the +Seraglio treasures. He was assured by every Turkish officer whom he +consulted on the subject that no Greek manuscripts existed there; and +when by dint of influence in high quarters and much patience and +perseverance he at length gained permission to examine the Seraglio +library, he found that it consisted chiefly of Arabic manuscripts, and +contained not a single Greek, Latin, or Hebrew writing. The library, or +such part of it as the Professor was shown, was approached through a +mosque, and consisted of a small cruciform chamber, measuring only +twelve yards at its greatest width. One arm of the cross served as an +ante-chamber, and the other three contained the book-cases. The books +were laid on their sides, one on the other, the ends outward. Their +titles were written on the edges of the leaves. + +The result of the Professor's researches went to confirm the belief held +by so many that no Greek manuscripts had survived. On the other hand, +the jealousy and suspicion of the Turks would render it at least +possible that despite the apparent straightforwardness with which Mr +Carlyle was treated, there were stores of manuscripts which were kept +back from him. + +A final touch of mystery was given to this fascinating subject by a +tradition concerning a certain building in Constantinople which had been +closed up ever since the time of the Turkish conquest in the fifteenth +century. Of the existence of this building Professor Carlyle was +certain. The tradition asserted that it contained many of the former +possessions of the Greek emperors, and among these possessions +Professor Carlyle expected that the remains of the imperial library +would be found, if such remains existed. + +Of other libraries of olden times, such as those of Antioch and Ephesus, +or those in private possession in the country houses of Italy and Gaul, +and which perished at the hands of the barbarians, it is not necessary +to speak more fully. It is sufficient to point out that they existed, +and that though we possess few details as to their furniture or +arrangement, we are justified in concluding that the latter, at any +rate, were luxuriously appointed. It must not be inferred, however, that +all the books which disappeared from these various centres were of +necessity destroyed. Many, and particularly some of the Byzantine +manuscripts, were dispersed over Europe, and survive to enrich our +libraries and museums of to-day. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +BOOKS IN MEDIÆVAL TIMES + + +The books of the Middle Ages are a special subject in themselves, since +they include all the illuminated manuscripts of Ireland, England and the +Continent. We can therefore do little more than indicate their +historical place in the story of books. + +We have only to look at a mediæval illuminated manuscript to understand +how books were regarded in those days, and with what lavish expenditure +of time and skill the quaint characters were traced and the ornaments +designed and executed. And having looked, we gather that books, being +rare, were appreciated; and being sacred, were reverenced; and that it +was deemed a worthy thing to make a good book and to make it beautiful. +Sometimes the monkish artist's handiwork had a result not foreseen by +him, for we read that when St Boniface, the Saxon missionary who gave +his life to the conversion of Germany, wrote to ask the Abbess Eadburga +for a missal, he desired that the colours might be gay and bright, "even +as a glittering lamp and an illumination for the hearts of the +Gentiles." It is easy to imagine how the brilliant pages would attract +the colour-loving barbarians, and prepare the way for friendly advances. + +It is probable that the custom of ornamenting books with drawings was +derived from the Egyptians by the Greeks, and from the Greeks by the +Romans, among whom decorated books were common, although they are known +to us chiefly by means of copies preserved in Byzantine and Italian +manuscripts of a more recent period. These, and a few examples dating +from the time of Constantine, exhibit a style evidently derived from +classical models. + +A survey of mediæval books properly begins with the early Irish +manuscripts, which stand at the head of a long and glorious line +stretching, chronologically, from the seventh century of our era to the +fifteenth. Although it is not known where the art was born to which +these wonderful productions of Celtic pen-craft owe their origin, it is +Ireland, nevertheless, which has provided us with the earliest and +finest examples of this work, the marvels of skill and beauty which, +summed up, as it were, in the Book of Kells, the Book of Durrow, and +others, set the Irish manuscripts beyond imitation or rivalry. + +[Illustration: PAGE FROM THE BOOK OF KELLS (_reduced._)] + +[Illustration: PART OF PAGE FROM THE BOOK OF KELLS (_exact size._)] + +Most of these books are Psalters, or Gospels, in Latin, while the +remainder consist of missals and other religious compilations, and of +them all the Book of Kells is the most famous. It was written in the +seventh century, and probably indicates the highest point of skill +reached by the Irish artist-scribes, or as regards its own particular +style of ornamentation, by any artist-scribes whatever. It is a book of +the Gospels written (in Latin) on vellum, and the size of the volume, of +the writing, and of the initial letters is unusually large. The leaves +measure 13œ x 9œ inches. The illustrations represent various incidents +in the life of Christ, and portraits of the Evangelists, accompanied by +formal designs. Ornamentation is largely introduced into the text, and +the first few words of each Gospel are so lavishly decorated and have +initial letters of such size that in each case they occupy the whole of +a page. + +The book just described was preserved at Kells until the early part of +the seventeenth century. It then passed into Archbishop Ussher's +possession, and finally into the library of Trinity College, Dublin, +where it is now treasured. + +Of course it is impossible to give here a reproduction of a page of this +marvellous book in its proper size and colours. Our illustrations, +however, may convey a little idea of the accuracy and minuteness of the +work, which, it is hardly necessary to say, was done entirely by hand, +and will serve as a text for a brief summary of the chief features of +Irish book art. The design here shown is composed of a diagonal cross +set in a rectangular frame, having in each angle a symbol of one of the +four Evangelists. The colours in this design, as reproduced by Professor +Westwood in his _Miniatures and Ornaments of Anglo-Saxon and Irish +Manuscripts_, principally consist of red, dark and light mauve, green, +yellow, and blue-grey. The animals depicted are quaint, but not +ridiculous, and the figure of St Matthew, in the upper angle of the +cross, though stiff and ungraceful, is less peculiar than other figures +in the book. The Irish artist was always more successful in designing +and executing geometrical systems of ornamentation than in representing +living figures. + +The interlacing, which forms a large part of the design under +consideration, is a characteristic of Celtic work. The regularity with +which the bands pass under and over, even in the most complicated +patterns, is very remarkable, and errors are rarely to be detected. The +spirals which occupy the four panels at the ends and sides of the frame +are also typical of this school of art. The firmness and accuracy of +their drawing testify to the excellent eyesight as well as to the steady +hand and technical skill of the artist. + +The prevailing feature of Celtic ornament as shown in illuminated +manuscripts is the geometrical nature of the designs. The human figure +when introduced into the native Irish books is absurdly grotesque, for +its delineation seems to have been beyond the artist's skill, or, more +correctly, to have lain in another category, and to have belonged to a +style distinct from that in which he excelled. At a later period, figure +drawing became a marked characteristic of English decorated manuscripts, +and English artists attained to a high degree of skill in this branch of +their art. + +Bright colours were employed in the Irish manuscripts, but gold and +silver are conspicuous by their absence, and did not appear in the +manuscripts of these islands until Celtic art had been touched by +continental influence. + +The tradition that the Book of Kells was written by the great St Columba +himself, reminds us that at this period nearly all books were the +handiwork of monks and ecclesiastics, and in all monasteries the +transcribing of the Scriptures and devotional works was part of the +established order of things. Columba, we know, was a famous scribe, and +took great pleasure in copying books. He is said to have transcribed no +less than three hundred volumes, and all books written by him were +believed to be miraculously preserved from danger by water. As an +instance of this, Adamnan relates the following story:-- + +"A book of hymns for the office of every day in the week, and in the +handwriting of St Columba, having slipt, with the leathern satchel which +contained it, from the shoulder of a boy who fell from a bridge, was +immersed in a certain river in the province of the Lagenians (Leinster). +This very book lay in the water from the Feast of the Nativity of our +Lord till the end of the Paschal season, and was afterwards found on the +bank of the river" uninjured, and as clean and dry as if it had never +been in the water at all. "And we have ascertained as undoubted truth," +continues Adamnan, "from those who were well informed in the matter, +that the like things happened in several places with regard to books +written by the hand of St Columba;" and he adds that the account just +given he received from "certain truthful, excellent, and honourable men +who saw the book itself, perfectly white and beautiful, after a +submersion of so many days, as we have stated." + +By Irish missionaries the art of book writing was taught to Britain, +chiefly through the school of Lindisfarne, where was produced the famous +Lindisfarne Gospels, or Book of St Cuthbert. This magnificent work, +which is one of the choicest treasures of the British Museum, was as +highly esteemed by its contemporaries as by ourselves, though perhaps +not for quite the same reasons. Tradition has it that when Lindisfarne +was threatened by the Northmen and the monks had to fly, they took with +them the body of St Cuthbert, in obedience to his dying behest, and this +book. They attempted to seek refuge in Ireland, but their boat had +scarcely reached the open sea when it met a storm so violent that +through the pitching of the little vessel the book fell overboard. +Sorrowfully they put back, but during the night St Cuthbert appeared to +one of the monks and ordered him to seek for the book in the sea. On +beginning their search, they found that the tide had ebbed much further +than it was wont to do, and going out about three miles they came upon +the holy book, not a whit the worse for its misadventure. "By this," +says the old historian, "were their hearts refreshed with much joy." And +the book was afterwards named in the priory rolls as "the Book of St +Cuthbert, which fell into the sea." + +[Illustration: PAGE FROM THE LINDISFARNE GOSPELS (_reduced._)] + +This notable volume is an excellent example of Celtic book art in the +beginning of its transition stage, a stage which marks the approach to +the two schools which were the result of the combination of Celtic and +continental influences in the hands of intelligent and skilful +Anglo-Saxon scribes--the Hiberno-Saxon and the English schools. It +contains the four Gospels written in Latin, and arranged in double +columns, each Gospel being preceded by a full-page formal design of +Celtic work and a full-page portrait of the Evangelist. The conjunction +of these two distinct styles of ornament forms one of the chief points +of interest in the book. The formal designs of interlaced, spiral, and +key patterns, so characteristic of Celtic work, show its near kinship +to the Irish books, while the portraits prove an almost equally close +connection with Roman and Byzantine models. There is reason to believe +that the classical element is due to the influence of an Italian or +Byzantine book or books brought to Lindisfarne by Theodore, Archbishop +of Canterbury, and his friend Adrian, an Italian abbot, when the +archbishop visited the island for the purpose of consecrating Aidan's +church. + +The Lindisfarne Gospels accompanied St Cuthbert's body to Durham in 995, +but rather more than a century later was restored to Lindisfarne, and +remained there until the monastery which had replaced St Aidan's +foundation was dissolved at the Reformation. It is then lost sight of +until it reappears in the famous Cotton Library, with which it is now +possessed by the nation. + +The English school of illumination had its chief seat at Winchester. Its +work is characterised by its figure drawing, and while the foliage +ornament introduced, together with the gold which was largely used in +the Winchester manuscripts, indicate continental influence, the +interlaced and other patterns are derived from the Irish school. Of this +class of manuscript the Benedictional of Æthelwold, in the Duke of +Devonshire's library, may serve as a typical example. It was written for +Æthelwold, Bishop of Winchester, by his chaplain Godemann, towards the +end of the tenth century. Were it practicable to offer the reader a +reproduction of one of its pages, it would be seen that it exactly +illustrates what has just been said. Its figure drawing and foliated +ornamentation are among its most striking features. + +The Norman Conquest opened up the English school of art more widely to +continental influence, with the result that towards the end of the +thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth centuries the English +manuscripts were unsurpassed by any in Europe. As a typical specimen of +the illuminations of this period, we may with propriety select one which +has been described by Sir Edward Maunde Thompson as "the very finest of +its kind," and "probably unique in its combination of excellence of +drawing, brilliance of illumination, and variety and extent of +subjects." It is a Psalter dating from the fourteenth century, and known +as Queen Mary's Psalter, because a customs officer of the port of +London, who intercepted it as it was about to be taken out of the +country, presented it to the Queen in 1553. This magnificent book is now +in the British Museum. + +During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries a large number of Bibles and +Psalters were written, and made up the greater part of the book-output +of the larger monasteries, to which we are indebted for all our fine +pieces of manuscript work. Indeed, most of the decorated manuscripts of +this period are occupied with the Scriptures, services, liturgies, and +other matters of the kind, and on such the best work was lavished. +Later, however, the growing taste for romances and stories induced a +corresponding tendency to decorate these secular manuscripts too, and +some very fine work of this class was produced, especially in France. +The books of the chronicles of England and of France, written in the +fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, were also largely adorned with +painted miniatures. + +Nearly all the writing of Europe was done in the religious houses. In +most of the larger monasteries there was a scriptorium, or writing-room, +where Bibles, Psalters, and service books, and patristic and classical +writings were transcribed, chronicles and histories compiled, and +beautiful specimens of the illuminator's art carefully, skilfully, and +lovingly executed. + +Books, however, were not only written in the monasteries, but read as +well. The rule of St Benedict insisted that the steady reading of books +by the brethren should form part of the daily round. Archbishop +Lanfranc, also, in his orders for the English Benedictines, directed +that once a year books were to be distributed and borrowed volumes to be +restored. For this purpose, the librarian was to have a carpet laid down +in the Chapter House, the monks were to assemble, and the names of those +to whom books had been lent were to be read out. Each in turn had to +answer to his name, and restore his book, and he who had neglected to +avail himself of his privilege, and had left his book unread, was to +fall on his face and implore forgiveness. Then the books were +re-distributed for study during the ensuing year. This custom was +generally followed by all the monasteries of Lanfranc's time. + +Richard Aungervyle, Bishop of Durham, born in 1281 at Bury St Edmund's, +and therefore usually known as Richard de Bury, gives a vivacious +picture of the attitude of a book-lover of the Middle Ages in his +_Philobiblon_, or _Lover of Books_. He there sings the praises of books, +and voices their lament over their ill-treatment by degenerate clerks +and by the unlearned. He also tells how he gathered his library, which +was then the largest and best in England. _Philobiblon_ is written in +vigorous and even violent language, and is worth quoting. + +Books, according to this extravagant eulogy, are "wells of living +water," "golden urns in which manna is laid up, or rather, indeed, +honeycombs," "the four-streamed river of Paradise, where the human mind +is fed, and the arid intellect moistened and watered." "You, O Books, +are the golden vessels of the temple, the arms of the clerical militia, +with which the missiles of the most wicked are destroyed, fruitful +olives, vines of Engedi, fig-trees knowing no sterility, burning lamps +to be ever held in the hand." + +Then the books are made to utter their plaint because of the indignity +to which they are subjected by the degenerate clergy. "We are expelled +from the domiciles of the clergy, apportioned to us by hereditary right, +in some interior chamber of which we had our peaceful cells; but, to +their shame, in these nefarious times we are altogether banished to +suffer opprobrium out of doors; our places, moreover, are occupied by +hounds and hawks, and sometimes by a biped beast: woman, to wit ...; +wherefore this beast, ever jealous of our studies, and at all times +implacable, spying us at last in a corner, protected only by the web of +some long-deceased spider, drawing her forehead into wrinkles, laughs us +to scorn, abuses us in virulent speeches, points us out as the only +superfluous furniture in the house, complains that we are useless for +any purpose of domestic economy whatever, and recommends our being +bartered away forthwith for costly head dresses, cambric, silk, +twice-dipped purple garments, woollen, linen, and furs." + +After this terrible picture of feminine ignorance and malevolence, it is +refreshing to turn to the achievements of the pious Diemudis, by way of +contrast. Diemudis was a nun of Wessobrunn in Bavaria, who lived in the +eleventh century. Nuns are not often referred to as writers, but of this +lady it is recorded that she wrote "in a most beautiful and legible +character" no less than thirty-one books, some of which were in two, +three, and even six volumes. These she transcribed "to the praise of +God, and of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, the patrons of this +monastery." + +Although the greater part of the book-writing of this time was done in +the monasteries and by monks and ecclesiastics, there were also secular +professional writers, a class who had followed this occupation from very +early days. They consisted of antiquarii, librarii, and illuminators, +though sometimes the functions of all three were performed by one +person. They were employed chiefly by the religious houses, to assist in +the transcription and restoration of their books, and by the lawyers, +for whom they transcribed legal documents. The antiquarii were the +highest in rank, for their work did not consist merely of writing or +copying, but included the restoration of faulty pages, the revision of +texts, the repair of bindings, and other delicate tasks connected with +the older and more valuable books which could not be entrusted to the +librarii or common scribes. On the whole, the production of books was +more of an industry in those days than we should believe possible, +unless we admit that the Dark Ages were not quite as dark as they have +been painted. "There was always about us in our halls," says Richard de +Bury, who no doubt was a munificent patron of all scribes and +book-workers, "no small assemblage of antiquaries, scribes, bookbinders, +correctors, illuminators, and generally of all such persons as were +qualified to labour in the service of books." + +Books of a great size were frequently monuments of patience and +industry, and sometimes half a lifetime was devoted to a single volume. +Books therefore fetched high prices, though they were not always paid +for in money. In 1174 the Prior of St Swithun's, Winchester, gave the +Canons of Dorchester in Oxfordshire, for Bede's Homilies and St +Augustine's Psalter, twelve measures of barley, and a pall on which was +embroidered in silver the history of St Birinus' conversion of the Saxon +King Cynegils. A hundred years later a Bible "fairly written," that is, +finely written, was sold in this country for fifty marks, or about £33. +At this period a sheep cost one shilling. In the time of Richard de Bury +a common scribe earned a halfpenny a day. About 1380 some of the +expenses attending the production of an _Evangeliarium_, or book of the +liturgical Gospels, included thirteen and fourpence for the writing, +four and threepence for the illuminating, three and fourpence for the +binding, and tenpence a day for eighteen weeks, in all fifteen +shillings, for the writer's "commons," or food. + +The book-writers or copyists became, later, the booksellers, very much +as they did in old Rome. Sometimes they both wrote and sold the books, +and sometimes the sellers employed the writers to write for them, or the +writers employed the sellers to sell for them. Publishers as yet did not +exist. Practically the only method of publication known consisted of the +reading of a work on three days in succession before the heads of the +University, or other public judges, and the sanctioning of its +transcription and reproduction. The booksellers were called +"stationers," either because they transacted their business at open +stalls or stations, or perhaps from the fact that _statio_ is low Latin +for _shop_; and since they were also the vendors of parchment and other +writing-materials, the word "stationer" is still used to designate those +who carry on a similar trade to-day. As early as 1403 there was already +formed in London a society or brotherhood "of the Craft of Writers of +Text-letter," and "those commonly called 'Limners,'" or Illuminators, +for in that year they petitioned the Lord Mayor for permission to elect +Wardens empowered to see that the trades were honourably pursued and to +punish those of the craft who dealt disloyally or who rebelled against +the Wardens' authority. This petition was granted. By 1501 the Company +of Stationers was established, and it is highly probable that this was +only the Brotherhood of Text-writers and Limners under the more general +designation. + +The well-known names of Paternoster Row, Amen Corner, Ave Maria Lane, +and Creed Lane still remain to show us where the London stationers who +sold the common religious leaflets and devotional books of the day had +their stalls, close to St Paul's Cathedral, and in some cases even +against the walls of the Cathedral itself, and where, too, the makers of +beads and paternosters plied their trade. And Londoners at least will +not need to be reminded that at this very moment Paternoster Row is +almost entirely inhabited by sellers of books, religious and otherwise. +There is also a queer open-air stall on the south side which serves to +carry on the ancient tradition of the place. + +Societies similar to that of the Text-Writers and Limners of London also +existed on the Continent, and especially at Bruges, in which city +literature and book-production flourished under the patronage of +Philippe le Bon, Duke of Burgundy, who himself gave constant employment +to numerous writers, copyists, translators, and illuminators in the work +of building up his famous library. The members of the Guild of St John +the Evangelist in Bruges represented no less than fifteen different +trades or professions connected with books and writing. They included: + + Booksellers, + Printsellers, + Painters of vignettes, + Painters, + Scriveners and copiers of books, + Schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, + Illuminators, + Printers, + Bookbinders, + Curriers, + Cloth shearers, + Parchment and vellum makers, + Boss carvers, + Letter engravers, + Figure engravers. + +Of course, the printers here mentioned would at first be block-printers +only, as will be shown presently. And it is worth noticing that in all +this long list, which cannot be called at all exclusive, there is no +mention of authors. + +The mediæval booksellers were not all permitted to ply their trade in +their own way. Since the supply of books for the students depended on +them, the Universities of Paris, Oxford, and elsewhere deemed it their +duty to keep them under control, having in view the maintenance of pure +texts and the interests of the students, at whose expense the +booksellers were not to be permitted to fatten. By the rules of the +University of Paris the bookseller was required to be a man of wide +learning and high character, and to bind himself to observe the laws +regarding books laid down by the University. He was forbidden to offer +any transcript for sale until it had been examined and found correct; +and were any inaccuracy detected in it by the examiner, he was liable to +a fine or the burning of the book, according to the magnitude of his +error. The price of books was also fixed by the University, and the +vendor forbidden to make more than a certain rate of profit on each +volume. Again, the bookseller could not purchase any books without the +sanction of the University, for fear that he might be the means of +disseminating heretical or immoral literature. Later, it was made +obligatory on him to lend out books on hire to those who could not +afford to buy them, and to expose in his shop a list of these books and +the charges at which they were to be had. The poor booksellers, thus +hedged about with restrictions, often joined some other occupation to +that of selling manuscripts in order to make both ends meet, but when +this practice came to the notice of the University they were censured +for degrading their noble profession by mixing with it "vile trades." +But presumably no such rules as the above hampered the booksellers of +non-university towns, such as London. + +The control assumed by the Universities over the book trade presently +extended to interference with original writings and a censorship of +literature. With the introduction of printing and the consequent +increase of books and of the facilities for reproducing them this +censorship was taken up by the Church. + +Ecclesiastical censorship, however, was not the outcome of the +Universities' assumption of control over the book trade. It sprang from +the jealousy of the clergy, who opposed the spread of knowledge among +the people--some, perhaps, because they knew that knowledge in ignorant +hands is dangerous, and others because they feared their own prestige +might suffer. This feeling existed before printing, though printing +brought it to a head. For instance, in 1415 the penalty in this country +for reading the Scriptures in the vernacular was forfeiture of land, +cattle, body, life, and goods by the offenders and their heirs for ever, +and that they should be condemned for heretics to God, enemies to the +Crown, and most errant traitors to the land. They were refused right of +sanctuary, and if they persisted in the offence or relapsed after a +pardon were first to be hanged for treason against the King and then +burned for heresy against God. Thus the clergy upheld and encouraged a +censorship of the press. As early as 1479 Conrad de Homborch, a Cologne +printer, had issued a Bible accompanied by canons, etc., which was +"allowed and approved by the University of Cologne," and in 1486 the +Archbishop of Mentz issued a mandate forbidding the translation into the +vulgar tongue of Greek, Latin, and other books, without the previous +approbation of the University. Finally, in 1515, a bull of Leo X. +required Bishops and Inquisitors to examine all books before they came +to be printed, and to suppress any heretical matter. + +The Vicar of Croydon, preaching at St Paul's Cross about the time of the +spread of the art of printing, is said to have declared that "we must +root out printing or printing will root out us." But an ecclesiastical +censorship over the English press was not established until 1559, when +an Injunction issued by Queen Elizabeth provides that, because of the +publication of unfruitful, vain, and infamous books and papers, "no +manner of person shall print any manner of boke or paper ... except the +same be first licenced by her maiestie ... or by .vi. of her privy +counsel, or be perused and licensed by the archbysshops of Cantorbury +and Yorke, the bishop of London," etc. The Injunction extended also to +"pampheletes, playes, and balletes," so that "nothinge therein should be +either heretical, sedicious, or vnsemely for Christian eares." Classical +authors, however, and works hitherto commonly received in universities +and schools were not touched by the Injunction. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +LIBRARIES IN MEDIÆVAL TIMES + + +During the rule of the Arabs in Northern Africa and in Spain, thousands +of manuscripts were gathered together in their chief cities, such as +Cairo and Cordova, and many Arabic-Spanish and Moorish writings have +been preserved in the Escurial Library, though a large part of this +library was burnt in 1671. With these exceptions, the collections of +books belonging to the various religious houses were practically the +only libraries of early mediæval times. These collections, to begin +with, were very small; so small, indeed, that there was no need to set +apart a special room for them. Library buildings were not erected till +the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries, when the accumulation of books +rendered them necessary, and those which are found in connection with +old foundations will always prove to have been added later. It is said, +however, that Gozbert, abbot of St Gall in the ninth century, who +founded the library there by collecting what was then the large number +of four hundred books, allotted them a special room over the +scriptorium. But as a rule the books were kept in the church, and then, +as the number increased, in the cloisters. The cloister was the common +living-room of the monks, where they read and studied, and carried out +most of their daily duties. The books were either stored in presses, +though no such press remains to show us upon what pattern they were +built, or in recesses in the wall, probably closed by doors. Two of +these recesses may be seen in the cloisters at Worcester. In Cistercian +houses, says Mr J. W. Clark, to whose Rede Lecture (1894) I am indebted +for these details, this recess developed "into a small square room +without a window, and but little larger than an ordinary cupboard. In +the plans of Clairvaux and Kirkstall this room is placed between the +chapter-house and the transept of the church; and similar rooms, in +similar situations, have been found at Fountains, Beaulieu, Tintern, +Netley, etc." The books were placed on shelves round the walls. When the +cloister windows came to be glazed, so as to afford better protection +from the weather for the persons and things within the cloister, they +were occasionally decorated with allusions to the authors of the books +in the adjacent presses. + +Sometimes _carrells_ were set up in the cloister, a carrell being a sort +of pew, in which study could be conducted with more privacy than in the +open cloister. The carrell was placed so that it was closed at one end +by one of the cloister windows and remained open at the other. Examples +still survive at Gloucester. + +The arrangement of the libraries which were subsequently added to most +of the larger monasteries in the fifteenth century is unknown, as none +of the furniture or fittings seem to have come down to the present day +either in this country or in France or Italy. But Mr Clark thinks that +the collegiate libraries will give us the key to the plan of the +monastic libraries, since the rules relating to the libraries of Oxford +and Cambridge were framed on those which obtained in the "book-houses" +of the religious foundations. From these collegiate libraries we gather +that it was customary to chain the books, so that they might be +accessible to all and yet secure from those who might wish to +appropriate them temporarily or otherwise. The shelf to which the +volumes were fastened took the form or an "elongated lectern or desk," +at which the reader might sit. Pembroke College and Queens' College, +Cambridge, had desks of this type, which was also in use on the +Continent. In some places the desks were modified by the addition of +shelves above or below. + +Mr Falconer Madan, in his _Books in Manuscript_, quotes the following +account, which he translates from the Latin register of Titchfield +Abbey, written at the end of the fourteenth century, and which shows the +care and method with which the books were kept: "The arrangement of the +library of the monastery of Tychefeld is this:--There are in the library +of Tychefeld four cases (_columnæ_) in which to place books, of which +two, the first and second, are in the eastern face; on the southern face +is the third, and on the northern face the fourth. And each of them has +eight shelves (_gradus_), marked with a letter and number affixed on the +front of each shelf.... So all and singular the volumes of the said +library are fully marked on the first leaf and elsewhere on the shelf +belonging to the book, with certain numbered letters. And in order that +what is in the library may be more quickly found, the marking of the +shelves of the said library, the inscriptions in the books, and the +reference in the register, in all points agree with each other. Anno +domini, MCCCC." Then is shown the order in which the books lie on the +shelves. Briefly, the sequence of subjects and books is as +follows:--Bibles, Bibles with commentary, theology, lives of saints, +sermons, canon law, commentaries on canon law, civil law, medicine, +arts, grammar, miscellaneous volumes, logic and philosophy, English law, +eighteen French volumes, and a hundred and two liturgical volumes. +Titchfield Abbey owned altogether over a thousand volumes. + +The monastic librarian, as we should call him, was known as the +_armarius_, since he had charge of the _armaria_ or book-presses. He +frequently united this office to that of precentor or leader of the +choir, for at first the service-books were his chief care. It was his +business to make the catalogue, to examine the volumes from time to time +to see that mould or book-worms or other dangers were not threatening +them, to give out books for transcription, and to distribute the various +writing-materials used in the scriptorium or writing-room. He had also +to collate such works as were bound to follow one text, such as Bibles, +missals, monastic rules, etc. To these duties he often added that of +secretary to the abbot and to the monastery generally. + +Many catalogues of monastic libraries are extant, and several belonging +to continental foundations were compiled at a very early period. Of the +library of St Gall, founded by the Abbé Gozbert in 816, a contemporary +catalogue still exists. The St Gall library contained four hundred +volumes, a large number for those days, and, moreover, was provided with +a special room, a chamber over the scriptorium. It is not easy to see +why in this and other cases of the co-existence of a library and a +scriptorium one room was not made to do duty for both. But to return to +the catalogues. Another early example is that of the Abbey of Clugni, in +France, made in 831, and forming part of an inventory of the Abbey +property. The Benedictine Abbey of Reichenau, on the Rhine, had four +catalogues compiled in the ninth century--two of the books in the +library, one of certain transcriptions made and added thereto, and one +of additions to the library from other sources. Among English monastic +book-lists, there is one of Whitby Abbey, which appears to have been +made in 1180, and the library of Glastonbury Abbey, which excited the +wonder and admiration of Leland, and which was started by St Dunstan +round a nucleus of a few books formerly brought to the Abbey by Irish +missionaries, was catalogued in 1247 or 1248. Catalogues of the books at +Canterbury (Christ Church and St Augustine's monastery), Peterborough, +Durham, Leicester, Ramsey, and other foundations are also known, and +these, with the notices of Leland, form our only sources of information +as to these various literary storehouses. + +As regards their contents, the Scriptures, missals, service-books, and +similar manuscripts formed the larger part of the monastic libraries, +but besides these they included copies of patristic and classical works, +devotional and moral writings, lives of saints, chronicles, books on +medicine, grammar, philosophy, logic, and, later, romances and fiction +were admitted into this somewhat austere company. The catalogue of the +"boc-house" of the monastery of St Augustine at Canterbury, written +towards the close of the fifteenth century, names many romantic works, +including the _Four Sons of Aymon_, _Guy of Warwick_, _The Book of +Lancelot_, _The Story of the Graal_, _Sir Perceval de Galois_, _The +Seven Sages_, and others, and of some of these there is more than one +copy. + +Books were frequently lent to other monasteries, or to poor clerks and +students. It was considered a sacred duty thus to share the benefits of +the books with others; but sometimes the custodians of the precious +volumes, aware of the failures of memory to which book-borrowers have +ever been peculiarly liable, were so averse from running the risk of +lending that the libraries were placed under anathema, and could not be +lent under pain of excommunication. But the selfishness and injustice of +such a practice being recognised, it was formally condemned by the +Council of Paris in 1212, and the anathemas annulled. Anathemas were +also pronounced against any who should steal or otherwise alienate a +book from its lawful owners. + +But as even in mediæval days there were those who loved books better +than honesty, the loan of a volume was accompanied by legal forms and +ceremonies, and the borrower, whatever his station or character, had to +sign a bond for the due return of the work, and often to deposit +security as well. Thus, when about 1225 the Dean of York presented +several Bibles for the use of the students of Oxford, he did so on +condition that those who used them should deposit a cautionary pledge. +Again, in 1299, John de Pontissara, Bishop of Winchester, borrowed from +the convent of St Swithun the _Bibliam bene glossatum_, i.e. the Bible +with annotations, and gave a bond for its return. And in 1471, when +books had become much more common, no less a person than the King of +France, desiring to borrow some Arabian medical works from the Faculty +of Medicine at Paris, had not only to deposit some costly plate as +security, but to find a nobleman to act as surety with him for the +return of the books, under pain of a heavy forfeit. + +Many of the great monastic libraries owed their origin to the liberality +of one donor, usually an ecclesiastic. Among other libraries destroyed +by the Danes was the fine collection of books at Wearmouth monastery, +made by Benedict Biscop, the first English book collector, who was so +eager in the cause of books that he is said to have made no less than +five journeys to Rome in order to search for them. Part of his library +was given to the Abbey at Jarrow, and shared the same fate as the books +at Wearmouth. + +One of the earliest English libraries was that of Christ Church, _i.e._ +the Cathedral, at Canterbury. On the authority of the Canterbury Book, a +fifteenth century manuscript preserved at Cambridge, this library began +with the nine books said to have been brought from Rome by St Augustine. +These nine books were a Bible in two volumes, a Psalter, a Book of +Gospels, the Lives of the Apostles, the Lives of the Martyrs, and an +Exposition of the Gospels and Epistles. This collection was enriched by +the magnificent scriptural and classical volumes brought from the +continent by Archbishop Theodore in the seventh century. Under +Archbishop Chicheley, in the fifteenth century, this library was +provided with a dwelling of its own, built over the Prior's Chapel, and +containing sixteen bookcases of four shelves each. At this time a +catalogue was already in existence, made by Prior Eastry at the end of +the thirteenth or beginning of the fourteenth century, and records about +three thousand volumes. + +The monastery of St Mary's at York owned a library which was founded by +Archbishop Egbert. Egbert's pupil Alcuin, whom Charlemagne charged with +the care of the educational interests of his empire, soon after taking +up his residence at St Martin's at Tours, desired the emperor to send to +Britain for "those books which we so much need; thus transplanting into +France the flowers of Britain, that the garden of Paradise may not be +confined to York, but may send some of its scions to Tours." + +Richard de Bury, the famous old book collector or bibliomaniac to whom +reference has already been made, bequeathed his books, which outnumbered +all other collections in this country, to the University of Oxford, +where they were housed in Durham College, which he had endowed. He has +left an interesting account of how he gathered his treasures, which may +fitly be quoted here. Aided by royal favour, he tells us, "we acquired a +most ample facility of visiting at pleasure and of hunting as it were +some of the most delightful coverts, the public and private libraries +both of the regulars and the seculars.... Then the cabinets of the most +notable monasteries were opened, cases were unlocked, caskets were +unclasped, and astonished volumes which had slumbered for long ages in +their sepulchres were roused up, and those that lay hid in dark places +were overwhelmed with a new light.... Thus the sacred vessels of science +came into the power of our disposal, some being given, some sold, and +not a few lent for a time." The embassies with which he was charged by +Edward III. gave him opportunity for hunting continental coverts also. +"What a rush of the flood of pleasure rejoiced our hearts as often as +we visited Paris, the paradise of the world!... There, in very deed, +with an open treasury and untied purse-strings, we scattered money with +a light heart, and redeemed inestimable books with dirt and dust." +Richard de Bury also furthered his collection by making friends of the +mendicant friars, and "allured them with the most familiar affability +into a devotion to his person, and having allured, cherished them for +the love of God with munificent liberality." The affability and +liberality of the good bishop attained their object, and the devoted +friars went about everywhere, searching and finding, and whenever he +visited them, placed the treasures of their houses at his disposal. +Although the mendicant orders were originally forbidden property of any +kind, this rule was afterwards greatly relaxed, especially as regards +books, and in Richard de Bury's time the friars had amassed large +libraries and were well-known as keen collectors. + +In France it was not an uncommon practice for a monastery to levy a tax +on its members or its dependent houses for the increase of its library, +and in several houses it was customary for a novice to present writing +materials at his entry and a book at the conclusion of his novitiate. As +early as the close of the eleventh century Marchwart, Abbot of Corvey in +North Germany, made it a rule that every novice on making his profession +should add a book to the library. + +The monastic libraries met their doom at the time of the Reformation and +of the suppression of the religious houses. Nearly all the books at +Oxford, including the gifts of Richard de Bury, were burnt by the mob, +and under Elizabeth the royal commissioners ordered the destruction of +all "capes, vestments, albes, missals, books, crosses, and such other +idolatrous and superstitious monuments whatsoever." Since those who +ought to have been more enlightened classed missals and books among +idolatrous and superstitious monuments, it is not to be wondered at that +the ignorant and undiscriminating mob should glory in their wanton +destruction. Books that escaped the fire or the fury of the mob were put +to various uses as waste paper. They were employed for "scouring +candlesticks and cleaning boots," for the wrapping up of the wares of +"grocers and soap-sellers," and were exported by shiploads for the use +of continental bookbinders. On the continent, too, fire, wars, plunder, +and suppression dispersed or destroyed many of the monastic collections. + +A comparatively recent instance of book destruction caused by the fury +of the rabble is afforded by the great losses undergone by Bristol +Cathedral library in the riots which took place in connection with the +passing of the Reform Bill. The palace was set on fire, and the library, +which was lodged in the Chapter-house, was brought out and most of the +volumes hurled into the flames. Others were thrown into the river, into +ditches, and about the streets, and although about eleven hundred were +subsequently recovered from second-hand clothes dealers and marine +stores, only two copies and one set remained intact. + +As a natural consequence of the revival of learning in the fourteenth +century, private libraries began to increase in size and in number, and +the collection of books was no longer left to monks and priests. King +John of France gathered a little library, some say of only twenty +volumes, which laid the foundation of the great Royal Library, now the +Bibliothèque Nationale. These he bequeathed to his son, Charles V., who +increased the number to nine hundred, for his known fondness for books +and reading obtained for him presentation volumes from many of his +subjects. His books included works of devotion, astrology, medicine, +law, history, and romance, with a few classical authors. Most of them +were finely written on vellum, and sumptuously bound in jewelled and +gold-bedecked covers. They were lodged in three rooms in the Louvre, in +a tower called "La Tour de la libraire." These rooms had wainscots of +Irish [bog?] oak, and ceilings of cypress "curiously carved." According +to Henault, the library of the Louvre was sent to England by the Duke of +Bedford while Regent of France, and only a few volumes afterwards found +their way back to Paris. + +One of the finest libraries of this period was possessed by Philippe le +Bon, Duke of Burgundy. It contained nearly two thousand volumes, mostly +magnificent folios clothed in silk and satin, and ornamented with gold +and precious stones. Books were now the fashion, the fashionable +possessions, the fashionable gifts, among those who were wealthy enough +to afford them. Louis de Bruges, Seigneur de la Gruthyse, was another +famous collector, whose books were no less splendid in their size, +beauty and costliness, than those of the Duke of Burgundy. His +collection was afterwards added to the Royal Library, and some of its +treasures still exist in the Bibliothèque Nationale. + +The rich and cultured of Italy were also busily collecting books and +forming libraries. A library was made by Cardinal Bessarion at a cost of +thirty thousand sequins, and afterwards became the property of the +church of St Mark at Venice. Venice already possessed a small collection +of books given to it by Petrarch, but the gift was so little thought of +that it lay neglected in the Palazzo Molina until some of the volumes +had crumbled to powder, and others had petrified, as it were, through +the damp. + +Of English collectors of this period Richard de Bury was the most +famous. As has already been stated, he possessed the largest number of +books in the country, and these he bequeathed to the University of +Oxford. The Aungervyle Library, as it was called, was destroyed at the +Reformation. Guy de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, also had a very fine +collection. He preferred romances, however, to theology or law, and his +library contained many such works. At his death he bequeathed it to the +Abbey of Bordesley, in Worcestershire. + +The English kings had not as yet paid much attention to books. Eleven +are mentioned in the wardrobe accounts as belonging to Edward I., and +not until the time of Henry VII. was any serious consideration given to +the formation of the Royal Library. + +Among the more famous continental book collectors of a later period were +Matthias Corvinus, King of Hungary, and Frederick, Duke of Urbino. The +library of the King of Hungary perhaps excelled all others in its size +and splendour. It is said to have contained nearly fifty thousand +volumes, but only a comparatively small number survived the barbarous +attack of the Turks, who stole the jewels from the bindings and +destroyed the books themselves. The Duke of Urbino's library was +scarcely less magnificent, and was distinguished by its completeness. +All obtainable works were represented, and no imperfect copies admitted. +The duke had thirty-four transcribers in his service. + +After the monastic libraries had been destroyed, and when old ideas were +beginning to give place to new, the restrictions formerly placed on the +reading of the Scriptures by the people at large were withdrawn. In an +Injunction, dated 1559, Elizabeth ordered that the people were to be +exhorted to read the Bible, not discouraged, and she directed the clergy +to provide at the parish expense a book of the whole Bible in English +within three months, and within twelve months a copy of Erasmus' +Paraphrases upon the Gospels, also in English. These books were to be +set up in the church for the use and reading of the parishioners. The +chain is not mentioned in the Injunction, but was probably adopted as a +matter of course. Chained books in churches thus became common, and +besides the Bible, very generally included copies of Fox's _Book of +Martyrs_ and Jewel's _Apology for the Church of England_. The chained +books at St Luke's, Chelsea, consist of a Vinegar Bible, a Prayer Book, +the Homilies, and two copies of the _Book of Martyrs_. + +The custom of chaining books, as we have seen, was followed in the +college libraries, and obtained also in church libraries in England and +on the continent. Among the still existing libraries whose books are +thus secured are those of Hereford Cathedral and Wimborne Minster in +England, and the church of St Wallberg at Zutphen, in Holland. The last, +however, was not always chained, and thereby hangs a tale. Once upon a +time the Devil, having a spite against the good books of which it was +composed, despoiled it of some of its best volumes. The mark of his +cloven hoof upon the flagged floor gave the clue to the identity of the +thief, whereupon the custodians of the books had them secured by chains +sprinkled with holy water, by which means the malice of the Evil One was +made of none effect. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE BEGINNING OF PRINTING + + +The germs of the invention which, in spite of Carlyle's somewhat +slighting reference, has proved itself hardly less momentous in the +world's history than the conception of the idea of writing, are to be +found in the stamps with which the ancients impressed patterns or names +upon vases or other objects, or in the device and name-bearing seals +which were in common use among the nations of antiquity. But these +stamps and seals could be used only to impress some plastic material, +not to make ink or other marks upon paper; and for the first example of +printing, as we understand the word, we must look to China, where, it is +said, as early as the sixth century, A.D., engraved wooden plates were +used for the production of books. The Chinese, however, kept their +invention to themselves, or at any rate it spread no further than Japan, +until many years later; and although in the tenth century the knowledge +of printing was carried as far as Egypt, Europeans seem to have made the +discovery for themselves, quite independently of help from the East, +both as regards block-printing and the use of moveable type. + +In Europe, as in China, the first printing was done by means of a block, +that is, a slab of wood on which the design was carved in relief, and +from which, when inked, an impression could be transferred to paper or +other material. This process is known as block-printing, and in Europe +was principally used for the production of illustrations, the text, +which came to be added later, being accessory and subordinate to the +picture. + +The first European block-prints are pictures of saints, roughly printed +on a leaf of paper and usually rudely coloured. Heinecken, whose _Idée +general d'une Collection complette d'Estampes_ (1771) is still a +standard work, is of opinion that pictures of this class were first +executed by the old makers of playing-cards, and that the playing-cards +themselves were printed from wood and not drawn separately by hand. In +this case the cards should rank as the earliest examples of +block-printing, or wood-engraving. Heinecken has not been alone in +entertaining this opinion, but, on the other hand, there are some who +consider that the portraits represent the first woodcuts, and that the +early playing-cards were drawn and painted by hand. + +The single-leaf portraits of saints were produced chiefly, or perhaps +solely, in Germany, and examples are now rare. It is curious that most +of those which have survived to the present day have been found in +German religious houses, pasted inside the covers of old books, and thus +shielded from the destruction to which their fragile nature rendered +them liable. One specimen, which has the reputation of being the +earliest extant with which a date can be connected, is the well-known St +Christopher, which represents the saint carrying the child Christ over a +stream, after an old legend. This specimen bears the date 1423, and was +discovered pasted in the cover of a mediæval manuscript in the monastery +at Buxheim, in Swabia, and is now in the John Rylands Library at +Manchester. The date, however, may be only that of the engraving of the +block, and not the year of printing. A theory was put forward by Mr +H. F. Holt, at the meeting of the British Archaeological Association in +1868, that this St Christopher, so far from being the earliest known +specimen of printing of any sort, belonged to a period subsequent to +the invention of typography, and that the date 1423 refers only to the +jubilee year of the saint, and not to the execution of the print. He +also held that the block-books, to which we refer below, were not the +predecessors of type-printed books, as they are usually considered to +be, but merely cheap substitutes for the costly works of the early +printers. But these theories, though not disproved, do not receive the +support of bibliographers in general. + +Another early woodcut is the Brussels Print, which is in the Royal +Library at Brussels. It is ostensibly dated 1418, but although this date +is accepted by some, it has most probably been tampered with, and +therefore the position of the print is at least doubtful. It is of +Flemish origin, and represents the Virgin and Child, accompanied by SS. +Barbara, Catharine, Veronica and Margaret. Other prints exist which are +not dated, and it is quite possible that some of these may be older than +the St Christopher, though no definite statements as to their date can +be made. It is certain, however, that the art of block-printing was +known in the closing years of the fourteenth century, and that it was +practised thenceforward until about 1510, that is, some years after the +invention of typography. In many manuscripts of the period, printed +illustrations were inserted by means of blocks, either to save time, or +because the scribe's skill did not extend to drawings. + +These early woodcuts were the forerunners of the better known +block-books, which also, according to Heinecken, were at first the work +of the card-makers. Block-books consisted of prints accompanied by a +descriptive or explanatory text, both text and illustration being +printed from the same block. Since they were intended for the moral +instruction of those whose education did not fit them for the study of +more elaborate works, they generally deal with Scriptural and religious +subjects. The earliest of all the block-books was the _Biblia Pauperum_, +or "Bible of the Poor," so called because it was designed for the +edification of persons of unlearned minds and light purses, who could +neither have afforded the high prices demanded for ordinary manuscript +copies, nor have read such copies had they owned them. The _Biblia +Pauperum_, however, exactly met their want. It is not so much a book to +read, as a book to look at. It has a text, it is true, but the text is +subordinate to the pictures. + +The _Biblia Pauperum_ is on paper, as paper was cheaper than vellum and +considered quite good enough for the purpose. One side only of each leaf +was printed, two pages being printed from one block, and the sheets +folded once and arranged in sequence, not "quired" or "nested." The +resulting order was that of two printed pages face to face, followed by +two blank pages face to face. The illustrations are of scenes from +sacred history, and portraits of Biblical personages, accompanied by +explanatory Latin or German texts in Gothic characters. The original +designer and compiler of this favourite block-book is unknown, but he +certainly worked on lines laid down by some much older author and +artist, for manuscript works of similar nature existed at least as +early as the beginning of the fourteenth century. The earliest known +instance of a composition of the kind, however, is a series of enamels +on an antependium or altar-frontal in the St Leopold Chapel at +Klosterneuburg, near Vienna, which originally contained forty-five +pictures dealing with Biblical subjects, arranged in the same order as +in the _Biblia Pauperum_, and which were executed by Nicolas de Verdun, +in 1181. Some attribute the inception of the _Biblia Pauperum_ to +Ansgarius, first Bishop of Hamburg, in the ninth century, others to +Wernher, a German monk of the twelfth century, but it seems unlikely +that the point will ever be decided. The _Biblia Pauperum_ is usually +supposed to have been first printed xylographically in Holland, and +type-printed editions were issued later from Bamberg, Paris and Vienna. + +To modern eyes the illustrations of this book are strange and wonderful +indeed. "The designer certainly had no thought of irreverence," says De +Vinne, "but many of the designs are really ludicrous. Some of the +anachronisms are: Gideon arrayed in plate-armour, with mediæval helmet +and visor and Turkish scimitar; David and Solomon in rakish, +wide-brimmed hats bearing high, conical crowns; the translation of +Elijah in a four-wheeled vehicle resembling the modern farmer's +hay-wagon. Slouched hats, puffed doublets, light legged breeches and +pointed shoes are seen in the apparel of the Israelites who are not +represented as priests or soldiers. Some houses have Italian towers and +some have Moorish minarets, but in none of the pictures is there an +exhibition of pointed Gothic architecture." + +[Illustration: PAGE FROM THE BIBLIA PAUPERUM (SECOND EDITION).] + +Our illustration gives a reduced representation of a page from the +second edition of the _Biblia Pauperum_, dating from about 1450. The +middle panel shows Christ rising from the tomb, and the wonder and fear +of the Roman guards; the left-hand panel shows Samson carrying off the +gates of the city of Gaza, and the right-hand panel the disgorging of +Jonah by the whale. The upper part of the text shows how that Samson and +Jonah were types of Christ, and the four little figures represent David, +Jacob, Hosea, and Siphonias (Zephaniah), the texts on the scrolls being +quotations from their words. + +The accompanying rhymes are as follows:-- + + Obsessus turbis: Sampson valvas tulit urbis. + Quem saxum texit: ingens tumulum Jesus exit. + De tumulo Christe: surgens te denotat iste. + + (In the midst of crowds, Samson removes the gates of the city. The + anointed Jesus, whom the stone covered, rises from the tomb. This + man [Jonah] rising from the tomb, denotes Thee, O Christ!) + +Another very popular block-book, of German origin, was the curious +compilation known as _Ars Moriendi_--the Art of Dying--or, as it is +sometimes called, _Temptationes Demonis_, or Temptation of Demons. It +describes how dying persons are beset by all manner of temptations, the +final triumph of the good, and the sad end of the wicked, with suitable +emotions on the part of the attendant angels, and the hideous demons by +which the temptations are personified. This work was greatly in vogue in +the fifteenth century, and after the invention of type-printing was +reproduced in various parts of France, Italy, Germany and Holland. + +The only block-book without illustrations was the _Donatus de octibus +partibus orationis_, or Donatus on the Eight Parts of Speech, shortly +known as Donatus. It was _the_ Latin grammar of the period, and was the +work of Donatus, a famous Roman grammarian of the fourth century. Large +numbers were printed both from blocks and from type, but xylographic +fragments are scarce, and none are known of any date before the second +half of the fifteenth century. Yet it is believed that probably more +copies of this work were printed than of any other block-book whatever. +Besides its lack of illustrations, the xylographic Donatus is unique +among block-books from the fact that it was printed on vellum and not on +paper, and (another unusual feature) on both sides of the leaf. Vellum +was dear, and had to be made the most of, and no doubt was used only +because a paper book would have fared badly at the hands of the +schoolboys. + +Only one block-book is known to have been printed in France, and that is +_Les Neuf Preux_, or the Nine Champions. The nine champions are divided +into three groups: first, classical heroes--Hector, Alexander and Julius +Cæsar; next, Biblical heroes--Joshua, David and Judas Maccabæus; and +lastly, heroes of romance--Arthur, Charlemagne and Godefroi of Boulogne. +The portraits of these celebrities are accompanied by verses. This +block-book dates from about 1455. + +Other block-books were the _Speculum Humanæ Salvationis_, _the +Apocalypse of St John_, _the Book of Canticles_, _Defensorium Inviolatæ +Virginitatis Beatæ Mariæ Virginis_, _Mirabilia Romæ_; various German +almanacks, and a _Planetenbuch_, this last representing the heavenly +bodies and their influence on human life. The last of the block-books, +so far as is known, was the _Opera nova contemplativa_, which was +executed at Venice about 1510. + +From one point of view the _Speculum Humanæ Salvationis_, or Mirror of +Salvation, is the most curious of its kind. It is looked upon as the +connecting link between block-books proper and type-printed books. Its +purpose seems to have been to afford instruction in the facts and +lessons of the Christian religion, beginning with the fall of Satan. It +is founded on an old and once popular manuscript work sometimes ascribed +to Brother John, a Benedictine monk of the thirteenth or fourteenth +century. Four so-called "editions" of the _Speculum_ are known, two of +which are in Latin rhyme, and two in Dutch prose, all four having many +points in common and standing apart from the later and dated editions +afterwards produced in Germany, Holland, and France. + +In these early copies the body of the work consists of a text printed +from moveable types, with a block-printed illustration at the head of +each page. But one of the Latin editions is remarkable for having twenty +pages of the text printed from wood blocks. How and why these +xylographic pages appear in a book whose remaining forty-two pages are +printed from types is a mystery. They are inserted at intervals among +the other leaves, and for this and other reasons it is considered +improbable that they were printed from blocks originally intended for a +block-book, to help to eke out a not very plentiful stock of type. +Moreover, no entirely xylographic _Speculum_ exists to lend colour to +such a theory. + +The time and place of origin of the _Speculum_ are unknown, and +bibliographers are not agreed as to the order in which the several +"editions" appeared. But such evidence as exists points to Holland as +the home of the printed _Speculum_, and those who believe that Coster of +Haarlem invented typography, credit him with having produced it. + +Block-books are nearly all of German, Dutch, or Flemish workmanship. As +a rule the illustrations are roughly coloured by hand. The method by +which they were printed is generally supposed to have been that of +laying a dampened sheet of paper on the inked block, and rubbing it with +a dabber or frotton until the impression was worked up. But De Vinne, in +his _History of Printing_, says that there are practical reasons against +the correctness of this view, and considers it more probable that a rude +hand-press was used. + +Those who wish to see some modern examples of block-printing may be +referred to the books printed by the late William Morris at the +celebrated Kelmscott Press at Hammersmith. The title-pages and initial +words of these volumes were executed by means of wood blocks, and are as +beautiful examples of block-printing as the texts of the works they +adorn are of typography. All the Kelmscott printing, whose history, +though most interesting, is nevertheless outside the present subject, +was done by hand presses. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +WHO INVENTED MOVEABLE TYPES? + + +The wood-block, however, was merely a stepping-stone to the greatest of +all events in the history of printing, the invention of moveable types; +that is, of letters formed separately, which, after being grouped into +words, and sentences, and paragraphs, could be redistributed and used +again for all sorts of books. Here once more our Chinese friends were +ahead of the rest of the world, for, more than four centuries before +German printers existed, Picheng, a Chinese smith, had shown his +countrymen how to print from moveable types made of burnt clay. But the +process which was to prove of such untold value to those who employed +the simple Roman alphabet was almost useless to the Chinese, since the +immense number of their characters rendered the older method the less +tedious and cumbersome of the two. In China and Japan, therefore, the +use of moveable types was of short duration. In Europe, however, when +the art of printing from moveable types once became known, the case was +very different. + +Once upon a time, as a magnate of the city of Haarlem was walking in a +wood near the city, he idly cut some letters on the bark of a beech +tree. It then suddenly occurred to him that these letters might be +impressed upon paper; whereupon he made some impressions of them for the +amusement of his grandchildren. This, we have learned from our youth up, +is how the art of printing came to be discovered. But unfortunately, +this legend is not to be relied upon. As a matter of fact, the first +inventor of printing is unknown, and even as regards moveable types it +is impossible to say with absolute certainty when or by whom the idea +was first conceived. Daunon, in his _Analyse des Opinions diverses sur +l'origine de l'Imprimerie_, tells us that no less than fifteen towns +claim to be the birthplace of printing, and that a still larger number +of persons have been put forward as its inventors, from Saturn, Job, and +Charlemagne downwards. The arguments for or against the pretensions of +Saturn, Job, and Charlemagne, and, indeed, of the majority of the +personages whose names have been mentioned in this connection, do not +call for notice. For although the first printer is not known, many +believe that they can point him out with tolerable certainty, and in the +fierce battle which has raged round the question of the identity of the +inventor of moveable types, two names alone have been used as the +respective war-cries of the opposing armies. One is Johann Gutenberg of +Mentz, and the other, Laurenz Coster of Haarlem. + +Although the balance of opinion is now, and always has been, in favour +of Gutenberg, the battle has been long and furious. The diligence of the +disputants in collecting data in support of their theories has been +equalled only by the vigour and ferocity with which some of their number +have maintained their opinions. Each side has charged the other with +forging evidence, and ink and abuse have been freely poured out in the +cause of typographical truth. Yet though sought for during several +centuries, no conclusive proof has been discovered by either side; +typographical truth remains in her well, and the identity of the +inventor of moveable types seems almost as hard to determine as that of +the man in the iron mask or the writer of the letters of Junius. The +partisans of Coster have been as eminent and as able as those of +Gutenberg, and thus the unlearned enquirer finds it difficult to declare +for one rather than the other, without investigating for himself all the +ins and outs of this involved subject. Even then, without some previous +bias in one or the other direction, he would probably find himself +halting between two opinions. Such an investigation is obviously out of +the question here, and even were it practicable it could hardly be +lipped that where so many doctors disagree our modest effort would +produce any valuable result. We shall therefore do no more than briefly +set forth some of the chief arguments on either side as fairly as may +be, but without attempting an exhaustive examination of the evidence, +first, however, declaring ourselves as followers of the majority and +partisans of Gutenberg, by way of sheet anchor. + +Those who advocate the claims of Holland against Germany largely base +their belief on the existence of various printed books and fragments of +Dutch origin, undated, and affording no clue to the time and place at +which they were printed, or to their printer, whether Coster or another. +It is much more likely, they say, that these were the first rude +attempts at typography, and that they gave the idea to the Mentz +printers, who forthwith improved upon it, than that the Mentz printers +should have given the idea to the Dutch, who, so far from improving upon +it, produced these clumsy imitations of fine German work. And Mr +Hessels, who made a complete examination of the evidence in favour of +Gutenberg, was unable to say either that Gutenberg invented +type-printing, or that he did not invent it. On the other hand, "it is +certainly possible," say the writers of the _Guide to the British +Museum_, "that actual printing may have been previously executed in +Holland; although, to our minds, the improbability of the printers who +are asserted to have produced _Donatus_ and the _Speculum_ from moveable +types ten years before Gutenberg having produced nothing but the like +kind of work for nearly twenty years after him outweighs all the +arguments which have been advanced in support of their claim. It is at +all events certain that, without some very direct and positive evidence +on the other side, mankind will continue to regard Gutenberg as the +parent of the art, and Mainz as its birthplace." + +Within recent years a claim for the honour of the invention has been put +forward on behalf of quite another part of the world. Some early +fifteenth century documents discovered at Avignon make unmistakable +references to printing, and not to xylography, and from them we learn +that Procopius Waldfoghel, a silver-smith of Prague, was engaged in +printing at Avignon in 1444, and had undertaken to cut a set of Hebrew +types for a Jew whom he had previously instructed in the art of +printing. No specimens of his work are known, and it is therefore +impossible to say exactly to what process these records refer, but it +has been conjectured that it may have been some method of stamping +letters from cut type, and not from cast type by means of a press. + +Since Coster is the hero of the well-known story quoted above, and since +as regards our present purpose there is less to be said of him than of +Gutenberg, we will briefly recapitulate what is known about him, and the +foundations on which his fame as a typographer rests, before dealing +more at length with Gutenberg and the Mentz press. + +It does not seem easy to account for the existence of what the partisans +of Gutenberg contemptuously term the Coster legend. It has been +conjectured, somewhat plausibly, that Haarlem's jealousy of the +superiority and fame of Mentz and its printers began very early, and +arose from the narrow vanity of those Haarlemers who imagined that the +first printing press in Haarlem must necessarily be the first printing +press in the world. However this may be, the legend arose, and waxed +strong, and many believed in it. + +Laurenz Janssoen, or Coster, was born in Haarlem about 1370. He is said +to have held various high offices, such as sheriff, treasurer, officer +of the city guard, and especially that of Coster to the great church of +Haarlem. Coster means sacristan or sexton, but the position was one of +far greater honour than is now associated with it. But another account, +which is supported by all the available records, represents him as a +tallow-chandler, and subsequently as an innkeeper, and if he had +anything at all to do with the great church, it was only that he +supplied it with candles. But whether chandler or coster, nothing is +heard of him as a printer until 1568, more than a hundred years after +his alleged success in printing from types--in itself a strange fact, +since if Coster were the inventor, why were the Mentz printers allowed +to appropriate all the credit to themselves, unchallenged by Coster's +kinsfolk or countrymen, and supported by the opinions of sixty-two +writers, including Caxton, the chronicler Fabian, Trithemius, and the +compilers of the Cologne and Nuremberg chronicles? It is true that "few +sometimes may know when thousands err," but silence is no proof of +truth, and if Coster's representatives possessed the truth, how came +they to withhold it from a deluded world? + +Although Coster is not named till 1568, the claims of Haarlem to be the +birthplace of printing had been put forward (for the first time) some +years earlier by Jan Van Zuyren in a work on the Invention of +Typography, of which only a fragment remains. The claims of Haarlem, he +says, "are at this day fresh in the remembrance of our fathers, to +whom, so to express myself, they have been transmitted from hand to hand +from their ancestors." Thus, though probably writing in all good faith, +Van Zuyren bases his statements on nothing better than tradition. "The +city of Mentz," he goes on to say, "without doubt merits great praise +for having been the first to publish to the world, in a becoming garb, +an invention which she received from us, for having perfected and +embellished an art as yet rude and imperfect.... It is certain that the +foundations of this splendid art were laid in our city of Haarlem, +rudely, indeed, but still the first." + +Coornhert, an engraver, and a partner of Van Zuyren, repeats the same +statements, and on the same basis, in the preface to a translation of +Cicero which he published in 1561, but is acute enough to see that the +case for Haarlem is nearly hopeless. "I am aware," he says, "that in +consequence of the blameable neglect of our ancestors, the common +opinion that this art was invented at Mentz is now firmly established, +that it is in vain to hope to change it, even by the best evidence and +the most irrefragable proof." He proceeds to declare his conviction of +the justice of Haarlem's claim, because of "the faithful testimonies of +men alike respectable from their age and authority, who not only have +often told me of the family of the inventor, and of his name and +surname, but have even described to me the rude manner of printing first +used, and pointed out to me with their fingers the abode of the first +printer. And therefore, not because I am jealous of the glory of +others, but because I love truth, and desire to pay all tribute to the +honour of our city which is justly her due, I have thought it incumbent +upon me to mention these things." Yet it is strange that he did not +think it incumbent upon him to mention the name and surname of the +inventor, since he had been told them so often. + +Hadrian Junius, said to have been the most learned man in Holland after +Erasmus, is the first to give to the world the fully-developed legend of +Coster. This he does in his _Batavia_, which was finished in 1568 and +published posthumously twenty years later. It is he who first mentions +Coster by name, and gives the story of the walk in the woods. He relates +how Coster devised block-printing, and calling in the help of his +son-in-law, Thomas Peter, produced the block-book _Speculum Humanæ +Salvationis_, and then advanced to types of wood, then to types of lead, +and finally to types of lead and tin combined. Prospering in his new +art, he engaged numerous workmen, one of whom, probably named Johann +Faust, as soon as he had mastered the process of printing and of casting +type, stole his master's types and other apparatus one Christmas Eve, +and fled to Amsterdam, thence to Cologne, and finally to Mentz. For all +this Junius also adduces no better authority than hearsay, but +nevertheless it is his statements which have brought Coster to the front +and given him such reputation as he now enjoys. + +No books bearing Coster's name are known, though this in itself is no +argument against him, for the name of Gutenberg himself is not found in +any of his own productions. It is not only highly improbable that Coster +was the first printer, but also doubtful whether he printed anything at +all. But those who think otherwise consider that the idea of printing +occurred to him about 1428 or 1430, and that he executed, among other +books, the _Biblia Pauperum_, the _Speculum_, the _Ars Moriendi_, and +_Donatus_. + +The people of Holland still retain their faith in Coster. Statues have +been erected, medals struck, tablets put up, and holidays observed in +his honour. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +GUTENBERG AND THE MENTZ PRESS + + +Johann or Hans Gutenberg was born at Mentz in or about the year 1400. +His father's name was Gensfleisch, but he is always known by his +mother's maiden name of Gutenberg or Gutemberg. It was customary in +Germany at that time for a son to assume his mother's name if it +happened that she had no other kinsman to carry it on. Of Gutenberg's +early life, of his education or profession, we know nothing. But we know +that his family, with many of their fellow-citizens, left Mentz when +Gutenberg was about twenty years of age, on account of the disturbed +state of the city. They probably went to Strasburg, but this is +uncertain. In 1430 Gutenberg's name appears among others in an amnesty, +granted to such of the Mentz citizens as had left the city, by the +Elector Conrad III., but apparently he continued to live in Strasburg. +Two years later he visited Mentz, probably about a pension granted by +the magistrates to his widowed mother. This is practically all that is +known of the earlier part of Gutenberg's life. + +It is curious that nearly all the recorded information concerning +Gutenberg is in connection either with lawsuits or with the raising of +money. From the contracts for borrowing or repaying money into which he +entered, we gather that he was always hard pressed, and that his +invention ran away with a good deal of gold and paid back none. +Gutenberg cast his bread on the waters, and it is we who have found it. + +The first known event of his life which directly concerns our subject is +a lawsuit brought against him by Georg Dritzehn. Mr Hessels implies, +though he does not actually state, that he suspects the authenticity of +the records of this trial. But no proof of their falsity can be adduced, +and the integrity of the documents otherwise remains unquestioned. They +cannot now, however, be subjected to further examination, for they were +burnt in 1870 at the time of the siege of Strasburg. + +The action in question was brought against Gutenberg in 1439 by Georg +Dritzehn, the brother of one Andres Dritzehn, deceased, for the +restitution of certain rights which he considered due to himself as his +brother's heir. From the testimony of the witnesses as set down in the +records of the trial, we gather that Gutenberg had entered into +partnership with Hans Riffe, Andres Dritzehn, and Andres Heilmann; and +one of the witnesses deposed that Dritzehn, on his death-bed, asserted +that Gutenberg had concealed "several arts from them, which he was not +obliged to show them." This did not please them, so they made a fresh +arrangement with Gutenberg and further payments into the exchequer, to +the end that Gutenberg "should conceal from them none of the arts he +knew." + +Again, Lorentz Beildeck testified that after Andres Dritzehn's death, +Gutenberg sent him to Claus, Andres' brother, to tell him "that he +should not show to anyone the press which he had under his care," but +that "he should take great care and go to the press and open this by +means of two little buttons whereby the pieces would fall asunder. He +should, thereupon, put those pieces in or on the press, after which +nobody could see or comprehend anything." + +Besides this, Hans Niger von Bischoviszheim said that Andres Dritzehn +applied to him for a loan, and when witness asked him his occupation, +answered that he was a maker of looking-glasses. Later on, a pilgrimage +"to Aix-la-Chapelle about the looking-glasses" is mentioned. + +By these records, from Mr Hessels' translation of which the above +quotations are taken, two things at least are made clear. First, that +Gutenberg was in possession of the knowledge of an art unknown to his +companions, which he was desirous of keeping to himself, and which those +not in the secret wished to learn; and secondly, that a press +containing some important and mysterious "pieces," which was not to be +exhibited to outsiders until the pieces had been separated, played a +prominent part in this secret work. The "looking-glasses," apparently, +were imaginary, and intended for the misleading of too curious +enquirers. But it has been ingeniously suggested that the word +_spiegel_, or looking-glass, was a cryptic reference to the _Spiegel +onser Behoudenisse_, or _Mirror of Salvation_, and that Gutenberg and +his assistants were engaged in preparing the printed _Speculum_ for sale +at the forthcoming fair held on the occasion of the pilgrimages to +Aix-la-Chapelle in 1439. This part of his plan, however, was frustrated +by the postponement of the fair for a year. + +It is hardly to be doubted that the researches privately conducted in +the deserted convent of St Arbogastus, where Gutenberg dwelt, concerned +the great invention usually linked with his name. Were this probability +an absolute certainty, then Strasburg might successfully dispute with +Mentz the title of birthplace of the art of printing. But to what stage +Gutenberg carried his labours in the old convent, or how far he +proceeded towards the goal of his ambition, is not known, though it has +been conjectured that possibly he and those in his confidence got as far +as the making of matrices for types, and that perhaps even the types +used for the earliest extant specimens of type-printing were cast there, +although not used until Gutenberg had returned to Mentz. On the other +hand, there are many who think that matrices and punches are due to the +ingenuity of Peter Schoeffer, to whom reference is made below. + +When Gutenberg left Strasburg for Mentz is not known, but he was in the +latter city in 1448, as is testified by a deed relating to a loan which +he had raised. His constant pecuniary difficulties resulted in his +entering into partnership, in 1450, with the goldsmith Johann Fust, or +Faust, a rich burgher of Mentz, who contributed large loans towards the +working expenses, and was evidently to share in the profits of the +press. Fust or Faust, the printer of Mentz, has sometimes been +identified with the Faust of German legend. The dealings in the black +art related of the one have also been ascribed to the other by various +story-tellers, some of whom say that in Paris Faust the printer narrowly +escaped being burnt as a wizard for selling books which looked like +manuscripts, and yet were not manuscripts. The first printed letters, it +should be observed, were exactly copied from the manuscript letters then +in vogue. + +The first really definite recorded event in the history of Gutenberg's +printing was a lawsuit brought against him by Fust, in 1455, when +Gutenberg had to give an account of the receipts and expenditure +relating to his work, and to hand over to Fust all his apparatus in +discharge of his debt. The partnership was of course dissolved, +Gutenberg left Mentz, and Fust continued the printing assisted by Peter +Schoeffer. Schoeffer was a servant of Fust's, who had further associated +himself with the establishment by marrying Fust's daughter, and to him +some attribute the improvement of the methods then employed by devising +matrices and punches for casting metal types. It has even been suggested +that this device of his, communicated to Fust, induced the latter to rid +himself of Gutenberg by demanding repayment of his advances when +Gutenberg was unable to meet the call, and that having gained possession +of his partner's apparatus, he was able, with the help of Schoeffer and +his inventions, to carry on the work to his own profit and glory. But it +is difficult to know whether to look upon Fust as a grasping and +treacherous money-lender, or as a prudent and enterprising man of +business. However this may be, at the time of the lawsuit the work of +years was already perfected, printing with moveable types was now an +accomplished thing, and the great Mazarin Bible, if not finished, was at +any rate on the point of completion. + +The earliest extant specimens of printing from types, however, are +assigned to the year 1454. These are some Letters of Indulgence issued +by Pope Nicholas V. to the supporters of the King of Cyprus in his war +with the Turks. They consist of single sheets of vellum, printed on one +side only, and measuring _c._ 11 x 7 inches. They fall into two classes, +of each of which there were various issues; that is to say, (1) those +containing thirty lines, and (2) those containing thirty-one lines. The +thirty-line Indulgence is printed partly in the type used for the +Mazarin Bible. The thirty-one-line Indulgence is partly printed in type +which is the same as that used for books printed by Albrecht Pfister at +Bamberg, and for a Bible which disputes with the Mazarin Bible the +position of the first printed book. Who printed these Indulgences is not +certainly known. Both emanated from the Mentz press, and it is not +unreasonable to believe that both were executed by Gutenberg, since the +Mazarin Bible is most probably his work, and since the types used by +Pfister were perhaps at one time possessed by Gutenberg. Still, the +point is not clear, and the more general view is that they were the work +of two different printers. Some attribute the thirty-line Indulgence to +Schoeffer, on the ground that some of its initial letters are reproduced +in an Indulgence of 1489 known to be of Schoeffer's workmanship. Yet +there seems no reason why Schoeffer in 1489 should not have made use of +Gutenberg's types--indeed, it is very probable that he had every chance +of doing so, as may be seen from the above account of the dissolution of +partnership between Gutenberg and Fust. + +[Illustration: TYPE OF THE MENTZ INDULGENCE (30-line, _exact size_).] + +Those who assign the thirty-line specimen to Schoeffer consider the +thirty-one-line specimen to be Gutenberg's work. "And though we have no +proof of this," says Mr E. Gordon Duff, who holds this view, "or indeed +of Gutenberg's having printed any book at all, there is a strong weight +of circumstantial evidence in his favour." It may be taken for granted, +then, although proof is wanting, that Gutenberg printed at least one of +these Indulgences, and perhaps both. In any case, these are the first +productions of the printing-press to which a definite date can be +assigned. Some of them have a printed date, and in other copies the date +has been inserted in manuscript. The earliest specimens of each class +belong to the year 1454. + +The next production of the Mentz press, as is generally believed, is the +beautiful volume known as the Gutenberg Bible, or the Mazarin Bible, +because it was a copy in the library of Cardinal Mazarin which first +attracted attention and led bibliographers to enquire into its history. +It illustrates a most remarkable fact--that is, the extraordinary degree +of perfection to which the art of printing attained all but +simultaneously with its birth. Even though we cannot tell how long +Gutenberg experimented before producing this book, it is none the less +amazing that as a specimen of typographic art the Mazarin Bible has +never been excelled even by the cleverest printers and the most modern +and elaborate apparatus. It was probably not begun before 1450, the year +when Gutenberg and Fust joined forces, and was completed certainly not +later than 1456. This latter date is fixed by a colophon written in the +second volume of the copy in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, which +informs us that "this book was illuminated, bound, and perfected by +Heinrich Cremer, vicar of the collegiate church of St Stephen in Mentz, +on the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, in the year of our +Lord 1456. Thanks be to God. Hallelujah." A similar note is affixed to +the first volume. + +It is believed by competent authorities that this and all very early +printed books were printed one page at a time, owing to an inadequate +supply of type, a process exceedingly slow and productive of numerous +small variations in the text. The work of printing the Mazarin Bible was +in all probability interrupted to allow of the execution of the more +immediately needed Letters of Indulgence, in certain parts of which, as +we have said, some of the types used in the Mazarin Bible are employed. + +We must not omit to mention here another Bible issued from Mentz about +this time. It has thirty-six lines to a column, and is therefore known +as the thirty-six line Bible, in distinction to the forty-two line or +Mazarin Bible. It exhibits a larger type, and is regarded by some as the +first book printed at the Mentz press, and, for all that can be proved +to the contrary, it is so. Although the point is still undecided, this +volume may at any rate be safely regarded as contemporary with the +Mazarin Bible. + +[Illustration: PAGE FROM THE MAZARIN BIBLE (_reduced_).] + +The Mazarin Bible is in Latin, and printed in the characters known as +Gothic, or black letter. These were closely modelled on the form of the +handwriting used at that time for Bibles and kindred works. It is in two +volumes, and each page, excepting a few at the beginning, has two +columns of forty-two lines, and each is provided with rubrics, inserted +by hand, while the small initials of the sentences have a touch of red, +also put in by hand. Some copies are of vellum, others of paper. But +henceforward the use of vellum declines. + +[Illustration: TYPE OF THE MAZARIN BIBLE (_exact size_).] + +The Mazarin Bible is usually considered to be the joint work of +Gutenberg and Fust. Mr Winter Jones has conjectured that the metal types +used in early printing were cut by the goldsmiths, and that Fust's +skill, as well as his money, were pressed into Gutenberg's service. But +if, as some have thought, Fust provided money only, while Gutenberg was +the working partner, then Fust would hardly have been concerned in its +actual production until 1455, when he and Gutenberg separated. Even +then--supposing the book to have been still unfinished--it is quite +possible that Schoeffer did the work. But no one is able to decide the +exact parts played by those three associated and most noted printers of +Mentz; conjecture alone can allot them. + +Gutenberg returned to Mentz in 1456, and made a fresh start, aided +financially by Dr Conrad Homery. Here again we are confronted with a +want of direct evidence, and can point to no books as certainly being +the work of Gutenberg. But there are good reasons for believing that +under this new arrangement he printed the _Catholicon_, or Latin grammar +and dictionary, of John of Genoa; the _Tractatus racionis et +conscientiæ_ of Matthæus de Cracovia; _Summa de articulis fidei_ of +Aquinas; and an Indulgence of 1461. There is a colophon to the +_Catholicon_ which may possibly have been written by Gutenberg, which +runs as follows:-- + +"By the assistance of the Most High, at Whose will the tongues of +children become eloquent, and Who often reveals to babes what He hides +from the wise, this renowned book, the _Catholicon_, was printed and +perfected in the year of the Incarnation 1460, in the beloved city of +Mentz (which belongs to the illustrious German nation, whom God has +consented to prefer and to raise with such an exalted light of the mind +and free grace, above the other nations of the earth), not by means of +reed, stile, or pen, but by the admirable proportion, harmony, and +connection of the punches and types." A metrical doxology follows. + +A few other and smaller works have also been believed to have been +executed by Gutenberg at this time, but with no certainty. + +In 1465 Gutenberg was made one of the gentlemen of the court to +Adolph II., Count of Nassau and Archbishop of Mentz, and presumably +abandoned his printing on acceding to this dignity. In 1467 or 1468 +Gutenberg died, and thus ends the meagre list of facts which we have +concerning the life and career of the first printer. + +To nearly every question which we might wish to ask about Gutenberg and +his work, one of two answers has to be given--"It is not known," or +"Perhaps." He does not speak for himself, and none of his personal +acquaintance, or his family, if he had any, speak for him. We have no +reason to believe that his work brought him any particular honour, and +certainly it brought him no wealth. It has been suggested, however, that +the post offered to him by the Archbishop was in recognition of his +invention, since there is no other reason apparent why the dignity was +conferred. But we may well conclude this account of Gutenberg with De +Vinne's words, that "there is no other instance in modern history, +excepting, possibly, Shakespeare, of a man who did so much and said so +little about it." + +Fust, the former partner of Gutenberg, died in 1466, leaving a son to +succeed him in the partnership with Schoeffer, and Schoeffer died about +1502. Of his three sons (all printers), the eldest, Johann, continued to +work at Mentz until about 1533. + +The most notable books issued by Fust and Schoeffer were the Psalter of +1457, and the Latin Bible of 1462. The Bible of 1462 is the first Bible +with a date. The Psalter of 1457 is famous as being the first printed +Psalter, the first printed book with a date, the first example of +printing in colours, the first book with a printed colophon, and the +first printed work containing musical notes, though these last are not +printed but inserted by hand.[2] The colour printing is shown by the red +and blue initials, but by what process they were executed has been the +subject of much discussion. They are generally supposed to have been +added after the rest of the page had been printed, by means of a stamp. +The colophon is written in the curious Latin affected by the early +printers, and Mr Pollard offers the following as a rough rendering:-- + +"The present book of Psalms, adorned with beauty of capitals, and +sufficiently marked out with rubrics, has been thus fashioned by an +ingenious invention of printing and stamping, and to the worship of God +diligently brought to completion by Johann Fust, a citizen of Mentz, and +Peter Schoffer of Gernsheim, in the year of our Lord, 1457, on the Vigil +of the Feast of the Assumption." + + [2] The first printed musical notes appear in de Gerson's + _Collectorium super Magnificat_, printed at Esslingen in 1473 by + Conrad Fyner. + +These two printers also produced, in 1465, an edition of the _De +Officiis_ of Cicero, which shares with the _Lactantius_, printed in the +same year at Subiaco, near Rome, by Sweynheim and Pannartz, the honour +of exhibiting to the world the first Greek types, and with the same +printers' Cicero _De Oratore_, that of being the first printed Latin +classic, unless an undated _De Officiis_, printed at Cologne by Ulrich +Zel about this time, is the real "first." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +EARLY PRINTING + + +Wherever typography originated, it was from Mentz that it was taught to +the world. The disturbances in that city in 1462 drove many of its +citizens from their homes, and the German printers were thus dispersed +over Europe. Within a little more than twenty years from the time of the +first issue from the Mentz printing-press, other presses were +established at Strasburg, Bamberg, Cologne, Augsburg, Nuremberg, +Spires, Ulm, Lubeck, and Breslau; Basle, Rome, Venice, Florence, Naples, +and many other Italian cities; Paris and Lyons; Bruges; and, in 1477, at +Westminster. + +Before the end of the fifteenth century eighteen European countries were +printing books. Italy heads the list with seventy-one cities in which +presses were at work, Germany follows with fifty, France with +thirty-six, Spain with twenty-six, Holland with fourteen; and after +these England's four printing-places--Westminster, London, Oxford, and +St Albans--make a somewhat small show. Some other countries, however, +had but one printing-town. With the possible exception of Holland, +England and Scotland are the only countries which are indebted to a +native and not (as in every case save that of Ireland) to a German for +the introduction of printing. + +The early printers were more than mere workmen. They were usually +editors and publishers as well. Some of them were associated with +scholars who did the editorial work: Sweynheim and Pannartz, for +instance, the first to set up a press in Italy, had the benefit of the +services of the Bishop of Aleria, and their rival, Ulric Hahn, enjoyed +for a while the assistance of the celebrated Campanus. Aldus Manutius, +too, the founder of the Aldine press at Venice, though himself a +literary man and a learned editor, availed himself of the help of +several Greek scholars in the revising and correcting of classical +texts. The exact relations of these editors to the printers, however, +is not known. The English printer, Caxton, who also was a scholar, +usually, though not invariably, edited his publications himself. + +The first printers were also booksellers, and sold other people's books +as well as their own. Several of their catalogues or advertisements +still exist. The earliest known book advertisements are some issued by +Peter Schoeffer, one, dating from about 1469, giving a list of +twenty-one books for sale by himself or his agents in the several towns +where he had established branches of his business, and another +advertising an edition of St Jerome's _Epistles_ published by Schoeffer +at Mentz in 1470. An advertisement by Caxton is also extant, and being +short, as well as interesting, may be quoted here. It is as follows:-- + + If it plese ony man spirituel or temporel to bye ony pyes,[3] of two + and thre comemoracios of salisburi vse enpryntid after the forme of + this preset lettre whiche ben wel and truly correct, late hym come + to westmonester in to the almonesrye at the reed pale and he shal + haue them good chepe. + + Supplico stet cedula. + + [3] The Pye, or Pica, directed how saints'-days falling in Lent, + Easter, Whitsuntide, and the octave of Trinity, were to be observed + with respect to the "commemorations" of these seasons. + +The date of this notice is about 1477 or 1478. Other extant examples of +early advertisements are those of John Mentelin, a Strasburg printer, +issued about 1470, and of Antony Koburger, of Nuremberg, issued about +ten years later. In 1495 Koburger advertised the Nuremberg Chronicle. + +Early printed books exhibit a very limited range of subject, and were +hardly ever used to introduce a new contemporary writer. Theology and +jurisprudence in Germany, and the classics in Italy, inaugurated the new +invention, and lighter fare was not served to the patrons of printed +literature until a later date. Italy made the first departure, and took +up history, romance, and poetry. France began with the classics, and +then neglected them for romances and more popular works, but at the same +time became noted for the beautifully illuminated service-books produced +at Paris and Rouen, and which supplied the clergy of both France and +England. England, who received printing twelve years after Italy and +seven years after France, made more variety in her books than any. +Caxton's productions consist of works dealing with subjects of wider +interest, even if less learned and improving--romances, chess, good +manners, _Æsop's Fables_, the _Canterbury Tales_, and the _Adventures of +Reynard the Fox_. + +From what sort of type the Bible usually considered to be the first +printed book was produced is not known. Some competent authorities think +that wooden types were used. Others are in favour of metal, and like the +late Mr Winter Jones, scout the notion of wooden types and consider them +"impossible things." But Skeen, in his _Early Typography_, declares that +hard wood would print better than soft lead, such as Blades hints that +Caxton's types were made of, and to illustrate the possibility of wooden +types prints a word in Gothic characters from letters cut in boxwood. +The objections made to types of this nature are that they would be too +weak to bear the press, could never stand washing and cleaning, and +would swell when wet and shrink when dried. Some have thought that the +early types were made by stamping half-molten metal with wooden punches, +and so forming matrices from which the types were subsequently cast. + +As we have already noticed in connection with the Mazarin Bible, the +forms of the types were copied from the Gothic or black letter +characters in which Bibles, psalters, and missals were then written. +When Roman type was first cut is uncertain. The "R" printer of +Strasburg, whose name is unknown, and whose works are dated only by +conjecture, may have been the first to use it. It was employed by +Sweynheim and Pannartz in 1467, and by the first printers in Paris and +Venice. It was brought to the greatest perfection by Nicolas Jenson, a +Frenchman working in Venice. Caxton never employed it, and it was not +introduced into England until 1509. In that year Richard Pynson, a +London printer and a naturalised Englishman, though Norman by birth, +used some Roman type in portions of the _Sermo Fratris Hieronymi de +Ferrara_, and in 1518 he produced _Oratio Ricardi Pacaei_, which was +entirely printed in these characters. + +Had the idea of the title-page, in the modern sense of the term, a very +obvious idea, as it seems to us, occurred to the first printers, we +should not have to sharpen our wits on the hundred and one doubtful +points with which the subject of early bibliography bristles. To-day, +the title-page not only introduces the book itself, but declares the +name of the writer and the publisher, and the time and place of +publication. But during the first sixty years of printing title-pages +were rare, and the old methods followed by the scribes in writing their +manuscript books still obtained. The subject matter began with "Incipit" +or "Here beginneth," etc., according to the language in which the work +was written, and such information as the printer considered it desirable +to impart was contained in the colophon, or note affixed to the end of +the book. + +More often than not these colophons are irritatingly reticent, and +withhold the very thing we want to know. At other times they are +informing, and in some cases amusing. Dr Garnett has suggested that as a +literary pastime some one might do worse than collect fifteenth-century +colophons into a volume, for the sake of their biographical and personal +interest, but I am not aware that his idea has been carried out. Two +colophons have already been quoted here, the first printed colophon (see +p. 103) and one which is possibly from the pen of Gutenberg (see +p. 101). A quaint specimen found in a volume of Cicero's _Orationes +Philippicæ_, printed at Rome by Ulrich Hahn, about 1470, descends to +puns. It is in Latin verse, and supposed by some to have been written by +Cardinal Campanus, who edited several of Hahn's publications. It informs +the descendants of the Geese who saved the Capitol, that they need have +no more fear for their feathers, for the art of Ulrich the _Cock_ +(German _Hahn_ = Latin _Gallus_ = English _Cock_) will provide a potent +substitute for quills. A colophon to Cicero's _Epistolæ Familiares_, +printed at Venice in 1469 by Joannes de Spira, declares with pardonable +pride that he had printed two editions of three hundred copies in four +months. + +The first book with any attempt at a title-page is the _Sermo ad Populum +Predicabilis_, printed at Cologne in 1470 by Arnold Therhoernen, but a +full title-page was not generally adopted till fifty years later. The +first English title-page is very brief, and reads as follows:-- + + A passing gode lityll boke necessarye & behouefull agenst the + Pestilence. + +This gode lityll boke, written by Canutus, Bishop of Aarhaus, was +printed in London about 1482 by Machlinia. A later development of the +title-page was a full-page woodcut, headed by the name of the work, as +in the =Kynge Richarde cuer du lyon=, printed in 1528 by Wynkyn de +Worde. The same woodcut does duty in another of the same printer's books +for Robert the Devil. + +Early title-pages in Latin sometimes render the names of familiar places +of publication in a very unfamiliar form. London may appear as Augusta +Trinobantum, Edinburgh as Aneda, Dublin as Eblana. Some towns are easily +recognised by their Latin names, such as Roma or Venetiæ; others are +less obvious, such as Moguntia, or Mentz; Lutetia, or Paris; Argentina, +or Strasburg. Several places had more than one Latin form of name. +London, for example, was also Londinum, and Edinburgh, Edemburgem. + +Pagination, or numbering of the pages, was first introduced by Arnold +Therhoernen, in the same book in which he gives us the first title-page, +and to which reference has already been made. He did not place the +figures at the top corner, however, but in the centre of the right hand +margin. + +The practice of printing the first word of a leaf at the foot of the +leaf preceding, as a guide for the arrangement of the sheets, was first +employed by Vindelinus de Spira, of Venice, in the _Tacitus_ which he +printed about 1469. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +EARLY PRINTING IN ITALY AND SOME OTHER COUNTRIES + + +The new invention found more favour in Italy than in any other country, +for more presses were established there than anywhere else. The +printers, however, were all Germans, and before 1480 about 110 German +typographers were at work in twenty-seven Italian cities. They kept the +secrets of their trade well to themselves, and not till 1471 was any +printing executed by an Italian. In May of that year the _De Medicinis +Universalibus_ of Mesua was executed at Venice by Clement of Padua, who +accomplished the truly wonderful feat of teaching himself how to print. +Another Italian, Joannes Phillipus de Lignamine, printed at Rome some +time before July 26, 1471, and it is therefore uncertain whether he or +Clement of Padua was the first native printer of Italy. + +The first press established in Italy was that set up in the Benedictine +monastery of St Scholastica at Subiaco, a few miles from Rome, by two +German typographers, Conrad Sweynheim and Arnold Pannartz. There they +issued Cicero's _De Oratore_ in 1465, the first book printed in Italy. +In their petition to the Pope, referred to below, they say that they +had printed a _Donatus_, presumably before the Cicero, but no such work +is known, and some have thought it was only a block-book. In the same +year they issued the works of Lactantius, "the Christian Cicero," the +first dated book executed in Italy. It is also one of the earliest books +to adopt a more elaborate punctuation than the simple oblique line and +full stop in general use. The _Lactantius_ has a colon, full stop, and +notes of admiration and interrogation. Both these books are printed in a +pleasing type which is neither Gothic nor Roman, but midway between the +two. + +[Illustration: TYPE OF THE SUBIACO LACTANTIUS (_exact size._)] + +Two years later Sweynheim and Pannartz removed to Rome, where their +countryman, Ulric Hahn, was already at work, and prosecuted their +business with so much energy, and apparently so little prudence or +regard to the works of other printers, that at the end of five years +they had printed no less than 12,475 sheets which they could not sell, +and were in such financial straits that they petitioned the Pope for +assistance for themselves and their families. Whether they obtained it +is unknown, but the partnership was soon after dissolved, and the name +of Pannartz alone appears in books of 1475 and 1476. When these two +printers died is uncertain. + +Venice was the next city of Italy to take up the new art. There, in +1469, Joannes de Spira, or John of Spires, executed Cicero's _Epistolæ +ad Familiares_. He obtained a privilege from the Venetian Senate with +regard to his productions, and, more than that, a monopoly of +book-printing in Venice for five years. He died, however, less than a +year later, and his monopoly with him. His brother Vindelinus carried on +his work, and was succeeded by Nicolas Jenson, a Frenchman, who, from a +technical point of view, was perhaps the most skilful and artistic of +early typographers. + +The most famous printer of Venice, however, and the most famous printer +of Italy, and perhaps of the world, is Aldus Manutius, born in 1450, but +his fame rests less on his actual printing, which, though good, is not +unequalled, than upon the efforts he made for popularising literature, +and bringing cheap, yet well-produced books within the reach of the +many. He saw that the works printed in such numbers by the Venetian +printers, who paid attention to quantity and cheapness and altogether +ignored the quality of their productions, were faulty and corrupt, and +that textually as well as typographically there was room for +improvement. He applied himself to the study of the classics, above all +to the Greek, hitherto neglected or published through Latin +translations, and secured the assistance of many eminent scholars, and +then, having obtained good texts, turned his thoughts to type and +format. The types he cast for his first book, Lascaris' _Greek Grammar_, +were superior to the Greek types then in use. Next he designed a new +Roman type, modelled, so it is said, upon the handwriting of Petrarch. +It called forth admiration, and won fame under the name of the "Aldino" +type. Its use has continued to the present day, and it is known to +almost everyone as _Italic_. It was cut by Francesco de Bologna, who +was probably identical with Francesco Raibolini, that painter-goldsmith +who signed himself on his pictures as _Aurifex_, and on his gold-work as +_Pictor_. + +The advantage of the Aldino type, at the time of its invention, when +type was large and required a comparatively great deal of space, was +that its size and form permitted the printed matter to be much +compressed, while losing nothing in clearness. The book for which it was +used could be made smaller, and printed more cheaply. In 1501 Aldus +inaugurated his new type by issuing a _Virgil_ printed throughout in +"Aldino." It occupied two hundred and twenty-eight leaves, and was of a +neat and novel shape, measuring just six by three and a half inches. +This book, which was sold for about two shillings of our money, marks +Aldus as the pioneer of cheap literature--literature not for the wealthy +alone, but for all who loved books. A proof of the popularity of the new +departure is afforded by the fact that the _Virgil_ was immediately +forged, that is to say, reproduced in a number of exceedingly inferior +copies, by an unknown printer of Lyons. + +[Illustration: TYPE OF THE ALDINE VIRGIL, 1501 (_exact size._)] + +The Aldine mark, which appears on Aldus' edition of Dante's _Terze Rime_ +in 1502, and on nearly all the numerous works subsequently issued from +this famous press, is a dolphin twined about an anchor, and the name +ALDVS divided by the upper part of the anchor. This device continued to +be used after the death of Aldus Manutius in 1515 by his descendants, +who carried on the work of the press until 1597. + +France was somewhat late in availing herself of the advantages offered +by the new art, although Peter Schoeffer had had a bookseller's shop in +Paris. In 1470, Guillaume Fichet, Rector of the Sorbonne, invited three +German printers--Ulric Gering, Michael Friburger and Martin Cranz--to +come and set up a printing-press at the Sorbonne. The first work they +produced there was the _Epistolæ_ of Gasparinus Barzizius. For this and +a few other volumes they used a very beautiful Roman type, but after the +closing of the Sorbonne press in 1472 they established other presses +elsewhere in Paris and adopted a Gothic character similar to that of the +contemporary French manuscripts, and therefore more likely to be popular +with French readers. + +The first work printed in the French language, however, is believed to +have been executed, chiefly, at any rate, by an Englishman, probably at +Bruges, five years later, that is, about 1476. The book was _Le Recueil +des Histoires de Troyes_, the Englishman was William Caxton. Caxton also +printed at the same place, and about the year 1475, the first book in +the English language--a translation of _Le Recueil_. In both these works +he may have been assisted by Colard Mansion, believed by some to have +been his typographical tutor, though so eminent an authority as Mr +Blades holds that _Le Recueil_ was printed by Mansion alone, and that +Caxton had no hand in it. As with so many other questions concerning +early typography, there seems to be no means of deciding the point. + +The first work in French which was issued in Paris was the _Grands +Chroniques de France_, printed by Pasquier Bonhomme in 1477. + +Holland and the Low Countries can show no printed book with a date +earlier than 1473, while the celebrated city of Haarlem's first dated +book was produced ten years later. But printing was very possibly +practised in these countries at an earlier period, and some undated +books exist which those who ascribe the invention of typography to +Holland consider to have been executed by Dutch printers before any +German books had been given to the world. Those who stand by Germany of +course think otherwise. + +In the year just named--1473--Nycolaum Ketelaer and Gerard de Leempt +produced Peter Comestor's _Historia Scholastica_ at Utrecht, and Alost +and Louvain also started printing. The types of John Veldener, the first +Louvain printer, have a great resemblance to those used by Caxton, and +have led some to believe that Veldener supplied Caxton with the types he +first used at Westminster. About the same time, Colard Mansion, noted +for his association either as teacher or assistant with Caxton, is +supposed to have introduced printing into Bruges. His first dated book +was a _Boccaccio_ of 1476, and he continued to print until 1484, when he +issued a fine edition, in French, of Ovid's _Metamorphoses_. After this +nothing more is known of him. Blades thinks that his printing brought +him financial ruin, and suggests that he may have joined his old friend +Caxton at Westminster, and helped him in his work, but this is only +conjecture. We have already seen that it was from Colard Mansion's press +that the first printed books in the English and French languages were +produced. + +The first Brussels press was established by the Brethren of the Common +Life, a community who had hitherto made a speciality of the production +of manuscript books. At what date they began to print in Brussels is +uncertain, but their first dated book, the _Gnotosolitos sive speculum +conscientiae_, is of the year 1476. The Brethren also had an earlier +press at Marienthal, near Mentz, and subsequently set up others at +Rostock, Nuremberg, and Gouda. + +The Elzevirs belong to a somewhat later period than that with which we +are concerned in these chapters, but a name so famous in +bibliographical annals as theirs cannot well be passed over. The first +of the Elzevirs was Louis, a native of Louvain, who in 1580 established +a book-shop in Leyden, gained the patronage of the university, and +opened an important trade with foreign countries. Certain of his sons +and successors became printers as well as booksellers, and produced work +of the highest excellence. Some of them opened shops or set up presses +at Amsterdam, The Hague, and Utrecht, and also established agencies or +branches elsewhere, and extended their trade all over Europe. The +history of the partnerships between different members of the family, and +of the sixteen hundred and odd publications which they printed or sold, +is a complicated subject upon which there is no need to enter here. The +last of the Elzevirs, a degenerate great-great-grandson of the first +Louis Elzevir, was Abraham Elzevir of Leyden, who died in 1712, leaving +no heir, and at whose decease the press and apparatus were sold. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +EARLY PRINTING IN ENGLAND + + +The first name on the list of early English printers, it is hardly +necessary to say, is that of Caxton. In his _Life and Typography of +William Caxton_, the late Mr Blades has told all there is to be known of +Caxton's life, and a great deal about Caxton's work; and although as +regards the latter half of the subject there are authorities who dissent +from some of the theories he advances, Mr Blades' monograph remains the +standard work on the matter of England's first printer and the +recognised source of information concerning him and his books. + +But notwithstanding Mr Blades' industry and learning, our knowledge of +the early part of Caxton's life is very scanty, and is derived mainly +from what Caxton himself tells us in the prologue to his first literary +production, the English translation of the French romance by Le Fevre, +entitled _Le Recueil des Histoires de Troyes_, or, Anglicised, _The +Recuyell of the Histories of Troye_. Speaking of his boldness in +undertaking the work, he refers to the "symplenes and vnperfightness +that I had in both langages, that is to wete in frenshe and in englissh, +for in france was I neuer, and was born & lerned myn englissh in kente +in the weeld where I doubte not is spoken as brode and rude englissh as +is in ony place of englond." He was born probably in 1422 or 1423, and +further than this we know nothing of him till his apprenticeship to +Robert Large, a London mercer. Large died before Caxton's term of +apprenticeship expired, and the next we hear of young Caxton is that he +was living on the Continent, probably at Bruges. At the time he wrote +the prologue from which quotation has just been made, that is about +1475, he had been for thirty years "for the most parte in the contres of +Braband, flanders, holand, and zeland." Yet notwithstanding so long a +residence in the Low Countries, he describes himself as "mercer of ye +cyte of London." + +As a wool merchant in Bruges he prospered, and in time rose to be +Governor of the Company of Merchant Adventurers, or "The English +Nation," and in that capacity probably dwelt at the _Domus Angliæ_, the +Company's headquarters in Bruges. In 1468, and while holding this +honourable and important position, he began his translation of _Le +Recueil_, but soon laid it aside, unfinished. Two years later he took it +up again, but by this time he had resigned the governorship, and was +engaged in the service of the Duchess of Burgundy, sister of Edward IV. +of England. When or why he took this position, and in what capacity he +served the Duchess, is not known, but it was her influence which brought +about the completion of his literary work and indirectly caused the +subsequent metamorphosis of the mercer into the typographer. In the +prologue to _The Recuyell_ he relates that the duchess commanded him to +finish the translation which he had begun, and this lady's "dredefull +comandement," he says, "y durste in no wyse disobey because y am a +servant vnto her sayde grace and resseiue of her yerly ffee and other +many goode and grete benefetes." + +_The Recuyell of the Histories of Troye_, when finished, immediately +found favour in the eyes of the English dwellers in Bruges, who, +rejoiced to have the favourite romance of the day in their own tongue, +demanded more copies than one pair of hands could supply. So because of +the weariness and labour of writing, and because of his promise to +various friends to provide them with the book, "I haue practysed & +lerned," he tells us, "at my grete charge and dispense, to ordeyne this +said book in prynte after the maner & forme as ye may here see, and is +not wreton with penne and ynke, as other bokes ben, to thende that every +man may haue them attones." + +Where Caxton gained his knowledge of printing is a matter of dispute. Mr +Blades holds that he was taught by Colard Mansion, the first printer of +Bruges, others that he learned at Cologne. Mr Blades adduces in support +of his view the similarity of the types of Mansion and Caxton, the +reproduction in Caxton's work of various peculiarities to be observed in +Mansion's, the improbability that Caxton would have travelled to Cologne +to get what was already at hand in the city where he lived, and the +absence in his work "of any typographical link between him and the Mentz +school." For the Cologne theory Wynkyn de Worde, who carried on the work +of Caxton's printing-office at Westminster after the latter's death, +supplies some foundation in his edition of Bartholomæus _De +Proprietatibus Rerum_, where he says: + + "And also of your charyte call to remembraunce + The soule of William Caxton, the first prynter of this boke + In laten tongue at Coleyn, hymself to avaunce, + That every well-disposed man may thereon loke." + +As usual there is something to be said on both sides, but leaving this +debateable ground we will only add that the _Recuyell of the Histories +of Troye_, translated by himself from the French, is generally +considered to be the first book printed by Caxton, perhaps with +Mansion's help, and probably at Bruges, and in or about the year 1475. +It is also the first printed book in English. It was followed about 1476 +by the French version of the same work, and by the famous _Game and Play +of the Chesse Moralised_. This was once believed to be the first book +printed on English soil, but it is now assigned to Caxton's press on the +Continent, probably at Bruges. + +About 1476 Caxton returned to England, and set up his press at +Westminster. It has been asserted that he worked in the scriptorium, but +it is not known that Westminster Abbey ever had a scriptorium. Others +have thought that he printed in some other part of the Abbey. His +office, however, was situated in the Almonry, in the Abbey precincts, +and was called the Red Pale, but it is now impossible to identify the +place where it stood. In 1477 Caxton produced _The Dictes or Sayengis of +the Philosophres_, the first book, so far as is known, ever printed in +England. + +[Illustration: TYPE OF CAXTON'S DICTES OR SAYENGIS OF THE PHILOSOPHRES, +WESTMINSTER, 1477 (_exact size._)] + +The Westminster printer was patronised by the king and by the mighty of +the land, and also by the Duchess of Burgundy, and with his pen, as well +as with his press, he sought to supply the books and literature which +the taste of the time demanded. "The clergy wanted service-books," says +Mr Blades, "and Caxton accordingly provided them with psalters, +commemorations and directories; the preachers wanted sermons, and were +supplied with the 'Golden Legend,' and other similar books; the +'prynces, lordes, barons, knyghtes & gentilmen' were craving for 'joyous +and pleysaunt historyes' of chivalry, and the press at the 'Red Pale' +produced a fresh romance nearly every year." From his arrival at +Westminster about 1476 until his death about 1491--the date is not +exactly known--Caxton was continually occupied in translating, editing, +and printing, though beyond the prologues, epilogues, and colophons to +his various publications he composed little himself, his principal work +being the addition of a book to Higden's _Polychronicon_, bringing that +history down to 1460. His translations number twenty-two. + +The long list of his printed works includes a _Horæ_, printed about +1478, and now represented only by a fragment, which is of great interest +as being probably the earliest English-printed service-book extant. It +was found in the cover of another old book, and is now in the Bodleian +Library. + +Other books printed by Caxton were the _Canterbury Tales_; _Boethius_; +_Parvus et Magnus Catho_, a mediæval school-book, the third edition of +which contains two woodcuts, probably the earliest produced in England; +_The Historye of Reynart the Foxe_, translated from the Dutch by Caxton; +_A Book of the Chesse Moralysed_, a second edition of the _Game and Play +of the Chesse_, printed by Caxton abroad; _The Cronicles of Englond_; +_The Pylgremage of the Sowle_, believed to have been translated from the +French by Lydgate; Gower's _Confessio Amantis_; _The Knyght of the +Toure_, translated by Caxton from the French; _The Golden Legend_, +consisting of lives of saints compiled by Caxton from French and Latin +texts; _The Fables of Esope_, etc., translated by Caxton from the +French; Chaucer's _Book of Fame_; _Troylus and Creside_; Malory's _Morte +d'Arthur_; _The Book of Good Manners_, translated by Caxton from the +French of Jacques Legrand; _Statutes of Henry VII._, in English, the +"earliest known volume of printed statutes"; _The Governal of Helthe_, +from the Latin, author and translator unknown, the "earliest medical +work printed in English"; _Divers Ghostly Matters_, including tracts on +the seven points of true love and everlasting wisdom, the Twelve Profits +of Tribulation, and the Rule of St Benet; _The Fifteen Oes and other +Prayers_, printed by command of "our liege ladi Elizabeth ... Quene of +Englonde, and of the ... pryncesse Margarete," and the "prouffytable +boke for mannes soule and right comfortable to the body and specyally +in aduersitee and trybulacyon, whiche boke is called _The Chastysing of +Goddes Chyldern_." + +Between seventy and eighty different books, besides indulgences and +other small productions, are attributed to Caxton's press, and the works +just named will serve to give an idea of their diversity and range. Some +of the most popular were printed more than once; of the _Golden Legend_, +for example, three editions are known, and of the _Dictes or Sayings_, +the _Horæ_, and _Parvus et Magnus Catho_, and several others, two +editions are known. There is also a strong probability that many of +Caxton's productions have been lost altogether, since thirty-eight of +those yet extant are represented either by single copies or by +fragments. + +[Illustration: BOYS LEARNING GRAMMAR, from Caxton's "Catho" and "Mirrour +of the World."] + +Caxton, according to Mr Blades, used six different founts of Gothic +type, but Mr E. Gordon Duff, in his _Early English Printing_, credits +him with eight founts. His books are all printed on paper, with the +exception of a copy of the _Speculum Vitæ Christi_ in the British +Museum, and one of the _Doctrinal of Sapyence_, in the Royal Library at +Windsor Castle. + +The well-known device of Caxton was not used by him till 1487. It is +usually understood to stand for W.C. 74, but its exact meaning is not +known. Blades believes that it refers to the date of printing of _The +Recuyell_, the first product of Caxton's typographical skill. + +[Illustration: CAXTON'S DEVICE.] + +In 1480, three or four years after Caxton had settled at Westminster, +John Lettou, a foreigner of whom little is known, established the first +London printing-press.[4] His workmanship was particularly good, and he +was the first in this country to print two columns to the page. He +subsequently took into partnership William de Machlinia, and according +to the colophon of their _Tenores Novelli_ the office of these two +printers was located in the Church of All Saints', but this piece of +information is too vague to assist in the identification of the spot. +Machlinia is afterwards found working alone in an office near the Flete +Bridge. His later books were printed in Holborn. + + [4] It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that at this period + Westminster was quite distinct from London. + +A well-known name is that of Wynkyn de Worde, a native of Holland, and +at one time assistant to Caxton. At Caxton's death he became master of +the Red Pale, and issued a number of books "from Caxton's house in +Westminster," including reprints of several of Caxton's publications. He +made use of some modified forms of Caxton's device, but he also had a +device of his own, which first appears in the _Book of Courtesye_ +printed some time before 1493. He printed, among other works, the +_Golden Legend_, the _Book of Courtesye_, Bonaventura's _Speculum Vitæ +Christi_, Higden's _Polychronicon_, which appeared in 1495 and is the +first English book with printed musical notes; Bartholomæus' _De +Proprietatibus Rerum_, which appeared about 1495 and is the first book +printed on English-made paper, and which has already been noticed as the +authority for supposing that Caxton learned printing at Cologne; the +_Boke of St Albans_, the _Chronicles of England_, _Morte D'Arthur_, _The +Canterbury Tales_, etc., etc. He also issued a host of sermons, +almanacs, and other minor works. + +[Illustration: TYPE OF WYNKYN DE WORDE'S HIGDEN'S POLYCHRONICON, LONDON, +1495 (_exact size._)] + +In 1500 Wynkyn de Worde moved from Caxton's house in Westminster to +the Sign of the Sun, in Fleet Street, and presently opened another place +of business at the Sign of Our Lady of Pity, in St Paul's Churchyard. + +About a year after Caxton had established himself at the Red Pale, and +had issued the _Dictes or Sayengis_, and two years before the city of +London had attained to the dignity of a printing-press, typography began +to be practised at Oxford, but by whom is not known, though very +possibly by Theodore Rood of Cologne. The first Oxford book was the +_Exposicio in Simbolum Apostolorum_ of St Jerome, a work which happens +to be dated 1468, and has thereby led some to assign to Oxford the +credit of having printed the first book in this country. But that date +is now acknowledged to be a printer's error for 1478. A similar misprint +led to a similar error as to the first book printed in Venice. The +_Decor Puellarum_, executed by Nicolas Jenson, purports to have appeared +in 1461, and thus was at one time supposed to be the first book printed +in Venice, but the date is now recognised as a misprint for 1471, which +leaves John of Spires the first Venetian printer and his _Epistolæ +familiares_ of Cicero, 1469, the first Venetian printed book. + +Cambridge was more than forty years later than Oxford in providing +herself with a printing-press. + +In the same year that London began to print appeared the first books +from the press at the Abbey of St Albans, namely, _Augustini Dacti +elegancie_, and the _Nova Rhetorica_ of Saona. As both were printed in +1480 it is uncertain which is the earlier. This press was probably +started in 1479, but of the printer nothing is known, except that when +Wynkyn de Worde reprinted the _Chronicles of England_ from a copy +printed at St Albans, he refers to him as the St Albans "scole mayster." +The famous _Bokys of Haukyng and Huntyng, and also of Cootarmuris_, +commonly known as the Book of St Albans, written by the accomplished +Juliana Berners, prioress of the neighbouring nunnery of Sopwell, was +printed at the monastery in 1486, and reprinted ten years later by +Wynkyn de Worde. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +EARLY PRINTING IN SCOTLAND + + +Scotland was one of the last of the countries of Europe to appreciate +the advantages of typography so far as to possess herself of a +printing-press. She was also, as we have pointed out in a previous +chapter, the only one, save England, and possibly Holland, to have the +art of printing brought to her by one of her own sons and not by a +foreigner. + +The first Scottish printer was Andrew Myllar, an Edinburgh bookseller, +who imported books from England and from France, and who, in the latter +country, learned how to print. Two books are extant which were printed +for him on the continent, probably at Rouen by Laurence Hostingue, and +these are worth noticing. The first may speak for itself, through its +colophon, of which the following is a translation:--"The Book of certain +'Words Equivocal,' in alphabetical order, along with an interpretation +in the English tongue, has been happily finished. Which Andrew Myllar, a +Scotsman, has been solicitous should be printed, with admirable art and +corrected with diligent care, both in orthographic style, according to +the ability available, and cleared from obscurity. In the year of the +Christian Redemption, One thousand five hundred and fifth." The second +book is an _Expositio Sequentiarum_, or Book of Sequences, of the +Salisbury use, printed in 1506. + +[Illustration: MYLLAR'S DEVICE.] + +In 1507 Myllar was taken into partnership by Walter Chepman, and +fortified by a royal privilege these two set up the first Scottish +printing-press, with plant and types and workmen brought by Myllar from +France. Chepman furnished the capital and Myllar the knowledge. Their +press was situated at the foot of Blackfriars Wynd in the Southgate in +Edinburgh. The privilege sets forth that Myllar and Chepman have "at our +instance and request, for our plesour, the honour and proffit of our +Realme and Liegis, takin on thame to furnis and bring hame ane prent, +with all stuff belangand tharto, and expert men to use the sammyn for +imprenting within our Realme the bukis of our Lawis, actis of +parliament, cronicles, mess bukis," etc. + +It is believed that the favour and encouragement shown to Myllar and +Chepman by the King was the result of the influence of William +Elphinstone, Bishop of Aberdeen, who had prepared a Breviary, _Breviarum +Aberdonense_, which he wished to be used by his countrymen to the +exclusion of the Salisbury Missal, and that the real purpose of the +promotion of the first printing-press in Scotland was the printing of +this work. For the privilege goes on to say: "And alis it is divisit and +thocht expedient be us and our consall, that in tyme cuming mess bukis, +efter our awin scottis use, and with legendis of Scottis sanctis, as is +now gaderit and ekit be ane Reverend fader in God, and our traist +consalour Williame bischope of abirdene and utheris, be usit generaly +within al our Realme alssone as the sammyn may be imprentit and +providet, and that na maner of sic bukis of Salusbery use be brocht to +be sauld within our Realme in tym cuming." Anyone infringing this decree +was to be punished and the books forfeited. + +But the earliest work of the Southgate press consisted of literature of +a lighter sort, and, when dated at all, is dated 1508, while the +Breviary did not make its appearance till later. These early +productions, which survive only in fragments, included _The Porteous of +Noblenes_, _The Knightly Tale of Golagros and Gawane_, _Sir Eglamoure of +Artoys_, _The Maying or Disport_ of Chaucer, and several others. _The +Maying or Disport_ of Chaucer is the most perfect specimen remaining, +and its exact date can be ascertained from its colophon, which reads as +follows:-- + + Heir endis the maying and disport of Chaucer. Imprentit in the + southgait of Edinburgh be Walter chepman and Androw myllar the + fourth day of aprile the yhere of God M.CCCCC. and viii yheris. + +The _Maying and Disport_ is better known as the _Complaynt of a Lover's +Life_, or the _Complaynt of the Black Knight_. + + * * * * * + +Strange to say, we hear no more of Myllar after this. But Chepman comes +forward again in connection with the Breviary (though it is uncertain +whether he was its printer), and probably printed some other books which +have been lost. The Breviary is a small octavo in two volumes, the first +of which appeared in 1509 and the other in 1510. It is printed in red +and black Gothic characters. The conclusion of the Latin colophon to the +second volume may be rendered as follows:-- + +"Printed in the town of Edinburgh, by the command and at the charge of +the honourable gentleman Walter Chepman, merchant in the said town, on +the fourth day of June in the year of our Lord 1510." + +The next Scottish printer, so far as is known, was a certain John Story, +though only an _Office of Our Lady of Pity_, accompanied by a legend on +the subject of the relics of St Andrew, remains to testify to us of his +existence. It was printed "by command of Charles Steele," and Dr Dickson +dates it at (perhaps) about 1520. + +Rather more than twenty years later, Thomas Davidson became King's +Printer in Edinburgh. His only dated work was _The Nevv Actis And +Constitvtionis of Parliament Maid Be The Rycht Excellent Prince Iames +The Fift Kyng of Scottis 1540_. The title-page of this book consists of +a large woodcut of the Scottish arms, above which is the title in four +lines printed in Roman capitals. This book also displays all three forms +of type--black letter, Roman, and Italic. Its colophon, which is printed +in Italics, is as follows:-- + +_Imprentit in Edinburgh, be Thomas Davidson, dweling abone the nether +bow, on the north syde of the gait, the aucht day of Februarii, the zeir +of God. 1541. zeris._ + +But there is some of Davidson's undated work which is earlier than this, +though it is not known for certain when he began to print. Of these +undated publications, _Ad Serenissimum Scotorum Regem Iacobum Quintum de +suscepto Regni Regimine a diis feliciter ominato Strena_ is notable as +affording the earliest example of the use of Roman type by a Scottish +printer, for its title is printed in these characters. Only one copy is +known, and that is in the British Museum. Opinions differ as to its +date, but the majority assign it to the year 1528. + +Davidson's most important production, however, was his beautiful folio +edition of Bellenden's translation of Hector Boece's work, _The hystory +and croniklis of Scotland_. This, says Dr Dickson, is "an almost +unrivalled specimen of early British typography. It is one of those gems +which the earlier period of the art so frequently produced, but which no +future efforts of the press have surpassed or even equalled." It has a +title-page similar to that of the _Nevv Actis_, but the title itself is +printed in handsome red Gothic characters. Dr Dickson, to whose learned +_Annals of Scottish Printing_ (completed, on account of the author's +ill-health, by Mr J. P. Edmond) I am indebted for the details of early +Scottish typography given above, assigns this book to the year 1542. + +Having seen the printing-press fairly set to work in Scotland, it will +not be necessary here to notice its later productions. But before +closing the chapter it will be interesting to observe that Edinburgh was +the place of publication of the first work printed in the Gaelic +language. This was Bishop Carswell's translation of the Scottish +Prayer-Book, which was printed in 1567 by Roibeard (Robert) Lekprevik. +It is in the form of Gaelic common at that time to both Scotland and +Ireland, and therefore as regards language it forestalls the _Irish +Alphabet and Catechism_, Dublin, 1571, to which reference is made below. +The type of Carswell's Prayer-Book, however, is Roman. The following is +a translation of its title-page, made by Dr M'Lauchlan:-- + + FORMS OF + Prayer and + +administration of the sacraments and catechism of the Christian faith, +here below. According as they are practised in the churches of Scotland +which have loved and accepted the faithful gospel of God, on having put +away the false faith, turned from the Latin and English into Gaelic by +Mr John Carswell Minister of the Church of God in the bounds of Argyll, +whose other name is Bishop of the Isles. + + No other foundation can any man lay save that which is laid even + Jesus Christ. + + 1 Cor. 3. + + Printed in dún Edin whose other name is Dún monaidh the 24th day of + April 1567, + + By Roibeard Lekprevik. + +Lekprevik, whose first work, so far as is known, was produced in 1561, +printed not only in Edinburgh, but also in Stirling and St Andrews, at +different times. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +EARLY PRINTING IN IRELAND + + +In heading a chapter "Early Printing in Ireland," one is somewhat +reminded of the celebrated chapter on snakes. As a matter of fact, +however, there is no real analogy. Ireland was very slow to adopt the +printing-press, and made little use of it when she did adopt it, yet it +would not be quite accurate to say that there was no early printing in +Ireland. But it can truthfully be said that Ireland's early printing was +late--late, that is, compared with that of other countries. + +The first typographical work known to have been produced in Ireland is +the Book of Common Prayer--the First Prayer-Book of Edward VI.--which +was printed in Dublin in 1551 by Humfrey Powell. Powell was a printer in +Holborn Conduit in 1548, and in 1551 went to Dublin and set up as King's +Printer. A "Proclamation ... against the rebels of the O'Conors.... +Imprynted at Dublyn, by Humfrey Powell, 16th August, 1564," seems to be +the only other known specimen of his Dublin printing. + +The colophon of the first book printed on Irish ground is as follows:-- + + Imprinted by Humfrey Powell, Printer to the Kynges Maiestie, in his + hyghnesse realme of Ireland, dwellyng in the citee of Dublin in the + great toure by the Crane. + + _Cum priuilegio ad imprimendum solum_ + Anno Domini + M.D.LI. + +This Prayer-book is exceedingly rare. The British Museum possesses no +copy, but has to content itself with photographs showing the title, +colophon, etc., of that in the library of Trinity College, Dublin. +Emanuel College, Cambridge, has one which formerly belonged to +Archbishop Sancroft. Cotton, in his _Typographical Gazetteer_, says that +Powell's Prayer-book is most creditable to the early Irish press. It is +in the English language, and printed in black letter. + +The first book printed in the Gaelic language, though in Roman type, has +already been spoken of. The first Gaelic type was exhibited to the world +in a tiny volume of fifty-four pages printed at Dublin in 1571, and +entitled _Irish Alphabet and Catechism_. This was compiled by John +O'Kearney, and contained the elements of the Irish language, the +Catechism, some prayers, and Archbishop Parker's articles of the +Christian rule. The following is a facsimile of the title-page to which +a translation is added:-- + + Irish Alphabet and Catechism. + + Precept or instruction of a Christian, together with certain + articles of the Christian rule, which are proper for everyone to + adopt who would be submissive to the ordinance of God and of the + Queen in this Kingdom; translated from Latin and English into Irish + by John O'Kearney. + + Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord? + Arise, cast us not off for ever. + + Ps. xliv. ver. 23. + + Printed in Irish in the town of the Ford of the Hurdles, at the cost + of Master John Usher, alderman, at the head of the Bridge, the 20th + day of June 1571. + + With the privilege of the great Queen. + + 1571 + +[Illustration: TITLE-PAGE OF O'KEARNEY'S IRISH ALPHABET AND CATECHISM +(_slightly reduced_)] + +This book was produced by John O'Kearney, sometime treasurer of St +Patrick's Cathedral, and his friend Nicholas Walsh, chancellor of St +Patrick's and afterwards Bishop of Ossory, and the John Usher who +defrayed the expense was then Collector of Customs of the port of +Dublin. Its appearance was considered a momentous event by those +concerned with it, for great benefits were anticipated for the Irish +people as soon as "their national tongue and its own dear alphabet" were +reduced to print, as O'Kearney states at some length in the preface. He +also tells us that the types from which this volume was printed were +provided "at the cost of the high, pious, great, and mighty prince +Elizabeth." + +In this connection it is worth while to notice two extant records, one +among the State Papers (Irish Series) and the other among the Acts of +the Privy Council. From the first, made some time in December 1567, we +gather that Queen Elizabeth had already paid £66. 13s. 4d. "for the +making of carecters for the testament in irishe," and that this +Testament was not yet in the press. The second (August 1587) states that +the New Testament was translated into Irish by Walsh and O'Kearney, but +"never imprynted, partlie for want of proper characters and men of that +nacion and language skillful in the mystery of pryntyng," and partly on +account of the cost. + +I can find no other record of the provision of a fount of Irish types at +the Queen's expense, and having no more definite information at hand on +this point, and taking into consideration the contents of the book--an +Irish alphabet, and directions for reading Irish, and a catechism, etc. +(by way of exercise?)--its diminutive size and the imperfection of its +print, I venture the suggestion that O'Kearney's work was printed as a +trial of the new types given by the Queen and intended for printing the +New Testament. This view is supported by the first words of the preface: +"Here, O reader, you have the first value and fruit of that great +instructive work, which I have been producing and devising for you for a +long time, that is, the faithful and perfect type of the Gaelic tongue." +The conclusion seems to be that the types were inadequate for the +larger work, and that for some reason there was a difficulty about +supplying more or finding anyone to undertake the printing. + +The preface further says, after requesting corrections and amendments as +regards the typography: "And it is not alone that I am asking you to +give this kind friendly correction to the printing, but also to the +translation or rendering made of this catechism put forth as far back as +1563 of the age of the Lord and [which] is now more correct and +complete, with the principal articles of the Christian faith associated +therewith." This has led some to think that there was an earlier edition +of the _Alphabet and Catechism_. But it seems plain that O'Kearney +refers to the Catechism only, not to the whole book, and equally plain +that the 1563 work, whatever it was, was not printed in Irish type, or +there would have been no special occasion to glorify the 1571 _Alphabet +and Catechism_. Since nothing is known of the _Catechism_ of 1563, it is +very possible that it existed only in manuscript and never went to +press. + +I have gone into this matter of the _Irish Alphabet and Catechism_ of +1571 somewhat at length, because I am not aware that it has ever yet +received detailed attention. The quotations I have given from the +preface are from an anonymous manuscript translation inserted in the +British Museum copy. + +O'Kearney's _Irish Alphabet and Catechism_ is so rare that only three +copies are known to exist: one being in the British Museum, one in the +Bodleian Library, and one in the library of Lincoln Cathedral. The +fount of types from which it was printed was not quite correct; for +instance, the small Roman "a" is used, and an "H" is introduced, a +letter foreign to the Gaelic alphabet. + +During the seventeenth century, and even later, most of the Irish books +were sent to be printed on the continent or in England. Several books by +Irish authors, chiefly catechisms, works on the language, and +dictionaries, bear the names of Louvain, Antwerp, Rome or Paris, such as +the _Catechism_ of Bonaventure Hussey, printed at Louvain in 1608, and +reprinted at Antwerp in 1611 and 1618. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +BOOK BINDINGS + + +A book as we know it is usually contained in a case or cover intended +primarily for its protection. The fastening together of the different +sections of the book, and the providing it with a cover, and, +incidentally, the decoration of that cover, come under the head of +bookbinding, or bibliopegy, as the learned call it. The process of +binding consists of two parts: first, the arrangement of the leaves and +sections in proper order, their preparation for sewing by beating or +pressing, the stitching of them together, and the fastening of them into +the cover. This is called "forwarding." The other half of the work is +the lettering and decoration of the cover, and is called "finishing." +With the decoration of the cover only can we concern ourselves here. + +The art of binding books is far older than the art of printing. The +first known attempt to provide a cover by way of protection for a +document was made by the workman who devised a clay case for the clay +tablet-books of Babylonia, but this is as far from our notion of +bookbinding as the tablets themselves are from our notion of books. Nor +do the Roman bindings, which consisted of coloured parchment wrappers, +come much nearer the modern conception. The ivory cases of the +double-folding wax tablets or diptychs, too, of the second and third +centuries, A.D., are also outside the pale, strictly speaking, but they +deserve mention on account of the beautiful carving with which they are +decorated, and on which some of the finest Byzantine art was expended. + +One of the earliest bookbinders or book-cover decorators whose name has +come down to us was Dagæus, an Irish monk, and a clever worker in +metals. Among the many beautiful objects in metal wrought in the old +Irish monasteries were skilfully designed covers and clasps for the +books which were so highly prized in the "Isle of Saints." Nor were +covers alone deemed sufficient protection from wear and tear. Satchels, +or polaires, such as that mentioned in Adamnan's story of the miraculous +preservation of St Columba's Hymn-book, were in common use for conveying +books from place to place. Very few specimens now remain, but there is +one at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, containing an Irish missal, +and another, which is preserved at Trinity College, Dublin, together +with the _Book of Armagh_, to which it belongs, is thus described by the +Rev. T. K. Abbott, in the _Book of Trinity College_:-- + +"An interesting object connected with the _Book of Armagh_ is its +leather satchel, finely embossed with figures of animals and interlaced +work. It is formed of a single piece of leather, 36 in. long and 12œ +broad, folded so as to make a flat-sided pouch, 12 in. high, 12Ÿ broad, +and 2Œ deep. Part of it is doubled over to make a flap, in which are +eight brass-bound slits, corresponding to as many brass loops projecting +from the case, in which ran two rods, meeting in the middle, where they +were secured by a lock. In early times, in Irish monastic libraries, +books were kept in such satchels, which were suspended by straps from +hooks in the wall. Thus it is related in an old legend that 'on the +night of Longaradh's death all the book-satchels in Ireland fell +down.'" + +In Ireland, too, specially valuable volumes were enclosed in a +book-shrine, or cumhdach; and although, like the satchels, these +cumhdachs are not bindings in the proper sense of the word, yet since +they were intended for the same purpose as bindings, that is, the +protection of the book, it will not be out of place to speak of them +here. + +The use of bookshrines in Ireland was very possibly the survival of an +early custom of the primitive Church. It seems to have been applied +chiefly, if not always, to books too precious or sacred to be read. We +are told that a Psalter belonging to the O'Donels was fastened up in a +case that was not to be opened; and were it ever unclosed, deaths and +disasters would ensue to the clan. If borne by a priest of unblemished +character thrice round their troops before a battle, it was believed to +have the power of granting them victory, provided their cause were a +righteous one. + +Cumhdachs were also used in Scotland, but no Scottish examples have +survived. The oldest cumhdach now existing is one in the Museum of the +Royal Irish Academy, which was made for the MS. known as Molaise's +Gospels, at the beginning of the eleventh century. It is of bronze, and +ornamented with silver plates bearing gilt patterns. Another +book-shrine, made for the Stowe Missal a little later, is of oak, +covered with silver plates, and decorated with a large oval crystal in +the middle of one side. The Book of Kells once had a golden cumhdach, we +are told, or, more correctly, perhaps, a cumhdach covered with gold +plates; but when the book was stolen from the church of Kells in 1006 it +was despoiled of its costly case, with which the robbers made off, +leaving the most precious part of their booty, the book itself, lying on +the ground hidden by a sod. + +One of the earliest bookbinders in this country was a bishop, Ethilwold +of Lindisfarne, who bound the great Book of the Gospels that his +predecessor Eadfrid had written. For the same book Billfrið the +anchorite made a beautiful metal cover, gilded and bejewelled. The +Lindisfarne Gospels still exists, but the cover which now contains it, +though costly, is quite new. Like most ancient book covers the original +one has been lost, or destroyed for the sake of its valuable material. + +Among the earlier mediæval bindings those of the Byzantine school of art +rank very high. They were exceedingly splendid, for gold was their +prevailing feature, and jewels and enamel were also lavished upon them. + +The ordinary books of the middle ages were usually bound in substantial +oak boards covered with leather, and often having clasps, corners, and +protecting bosses of metal. In the twelfth century the English leather +bindings produced at London, Winchester, Durham and other centres, were +pre-eminent. Miss Prideaux instances some books which were bound for +Bishop Pudsey, and which are now in the cathedral library of Durham, as +"perhaps the finest monuments of this class of work in existence." The +sides of these volumes are blind-tooled; that is, the designs are +impressed by means of dies or tools with various patterns and +representations of men and of fabulous creatures, but not gilded. + +Certain volumes, however, were treated with particular honour, either at +the expense of a wealthy and book-loving owner, or for the purpose of +presentation to some great personage, and for these sumptuous bindings +the materials employed were various and costly. A Latin psalter which +was written for Melissenda, wife of Fulk, Count of Anjou and King of +Jerusalem, has a very wonderful French binding. The covers are of wood, +and each bears a series of delicate ivory carvings of Byzantine work. +The upper cover shows incidents in the life of David, and symbolical +figures, and the lower cover scenes representing the works of Mercy, +with figures of birds and animals. Rubies and turquoises dotted here +and there help to beautify the ivory. This book is in the British +Museum. + +[Illustration: UPPER COVER OF MELISSENDA'S PSALTER (_reduced_).] + +Another specimen in the same collection may be taken as an example of +the use of enamel as a decoration for bindings. This is a Latin +manuscript of the Gospels of SS. Luke and John, which is enclosed in +wooden boards bound in red leather. In the upper cover is a sunk panel +of Limoges enamel on copper gilt, representing Christ in glory. The work +is of the thirteenth century. These enamelled bindings were often +additionally decorated with gold and jewels. + +A curious little modification of the ordinary leather binding was +sometimes made in the case of small devotional works. The leather of the +back and sides was continued at the bottom in a long tapering slip, at +the end of which was a kind of button, so that the book might be +fastened to the dress or girdle. Slender chains were often used for the +same purpose. + +About the time of the invention of printing, leather bindings began to +be decorated with gold tooling. Tooling is the name given to the designs +impressed upon the leather with various small dies so manipulated as to +make a connected pattern. When the impressions are gilded the dull +leather is brightened and beautified in proportion to the skill and +taste expended by the workman. The art of gold tooling is believed to +have originated in the East, and to have been brought to Italy by +Venetian traders, or, as it has also been suggested, through the +manuscripts which were dispersed at the fall of Constantinople. In any +case, it was in Italy that it was first adopted and brought to +perfection, and other European countries learned the art from Italian +craftsmen. Chief among the early Italian gilt bindings are those made of +the finest leathers and inscribed THO. MAIOLI ET AMICORVM. Nothing +whatever is known of Thomasso Maioli, except that he had a large library +and spared no expense in clothing his books in bibliopegic purple and +fine linen. + +What Maioli appears to have been among Italian book-collectors, Jean +Grolier, Vicomte d'Aguisy, was among French bibliophiles. He held for a +time the post of Treasurer of the Duchy of Milan, and while in Italy he +collected books for his library and made the acquaintance of Aldus +Manutius. Many of the Aldine books are dedicated to him, for Aldus +occasionally stood in need of financial aid and found in Grolier a +generous and practical patron of literature. Some of the famous bindings +which distinguish Grolier's books were executed in Italy, others in +France, where Italian bookbinders were then teaching their art to the +native workmen. They display the same style of design that decorates the +books of Maioli, and Maioli's benevolent inscription too, Grolier +adapted to his own use, and stamped upon certain of his books IO. +GROLIERII ET AMICORVM. The exact signification of these words is +obscure. At first sight they might appear to refer delicately to the joy +with which the owner of the book would place it at the disposal of his +friends, but this does not accord with what is known of the character +of book-lovers. Perhaps their only meaning is that Maioli and Grolier +were at all times ready to please their friends and to gratify +themselves by exhibiting their treasures. But since several copies of +the same work are known to have been bound for Grolier--for instance, +five copies of the Aldine Virgil--it has been suggested that he +occasionally made presents of his books, though he drew the line at +lending them. + +Grolier's copy of the _De Medicina_ of Celsus, which is in the British +Museum, is bound in a somewhat different style from that usually +associated with his name. It is in brown leather; blind-tooled except +for some gold and coloured roundels in different parts of the device. In +the centre of both covers is a medallion in colours, that on the upper +cover representing Curtius leaping into the abyss in the Forum, and that +on the lower cover representing the defence of the bridge by Horatius. +This is an Italian binding. + +Although it was Italy who first improved upon the usual methods of +mediæval binding, and from her that France took lessons in this new and +better way of clothing books, it was France who was destined to bring +the art to its highest excellence. Having learned her lesson, she +perfected herself in it, and the workmen of the sixteenth and +seventeenth centuries, such as Geoffroy Tory, Nicholas, Clovis, and +Robert Eve, and Le Gascon, carried French bookbinding into the very +first rank, where it may be considered to remain to this day. + +Some of the finest French examples extant are those which were executed +for Henry II. and Diana of Poitiers, Duchess of Valentinois. Both were +ardent bibliophiles, and both indulged in very sumptuous bindings for +their books. Some of the chief treasures in our great libraries to-day +are the beautiful volumes which Henry presented to the duchess, and +which are ornamented with the royal lilies of France, accompanied by the +bows and arrows and crescents which were Diana's own badges and the +initials of the king and the duchess. + +Catherine de Medicis also was an enthusiastic book collector, which may +surprise those who think that a person who is devoted to books is +necessarily harmless. Some of her books she brought to France as part of +her dowry, others she acquired by fair means or foul as was most +convenient, and to their bindings she paid particular attention and kept +a staff of bookbinders in her employ. + +To such a pitch of extravagance did the bibliophiles of the period go in +the binding of their books, that in 1583 Henry III. of France decreed +that ordinary citizens should not use more than four diamonds to the +decoration of one book, and the nobility not more than five. The king +himself, however, was as extravagant as any of his subjects, at any rate +as regards the designs he favoured. Many of his books are clad in black +morocco, bearing representations of skulls, cross-bones, tears, and +other melancholy emblems. He developed his taste for these strange +decorations, it is said, when, as Duke of Anjou, he loved and lost Mary +of Clèves. + +The early printers at first executed their own bookbinding, but +presently left it to the stationers. It was generally only the larger +works which they thought worth covering, and the small ones were simply +stitched. Antony Koburger, of whom mention has already been made, bound +his own books and ornamented them in a style peculiarly his own. Caxton +bound his according to the prevailing fashion, with leather sides, plain +or blind-tooled with diagonal lines, forming diamond-shaped compartments +in each of which is stamped a species of dragon. + +About the sixteenth century it became fashionable to have one's books + + "Full goodly bound in pleasant coverture + Of damask, satin, or else of velvet pure," + +as a writer of the time expresses it, and this style naturally lent +itself to the needleworked decoration. This decoration was especially +favoured in England, and the ladies of the period executed some very +fine pieces of embroidery as "pleasant covertures" for their books, +using coloured silks and gold and silver thread on velvet or other +material. One of the earliest embroidered bindings covers a description +of the Holy Land, written by Martin Brion, and dedicated to Henry VIII. +It is of crimson velvet, with the English arms enclosed in the Garter, +between two H's, and the Tudor rose in each corner, and it is worked in +silks, gold thread, and seed pearls. Queen Elizabeth is said to have +preferred embroidered bindings to those of leather, and to have been +very skilful in working them. The copy of _De Antiquitate Britannicæ +Ecclesiæ_, which the author, Archbishop Parker, presented to the Queen, +has a cover which is very elaborately embroidered indeed. It is of +contemporary English work, and is thus described in the British Museum +_Guide to the Printed Books exhibited in the King's Library_:-- + +"Green velvet, having as a border a representation of the paling of a +deer park, embroidered in gold and silver thread; the border on the +upper cover enclosing a rose bush bearing red and white roses, +surrounded by various other flowers, and by deer; the lower cover has a +similar border, but contains deer, snakes, plants and flowers; the whole +being executed in gold and silver thread and coloured silks. On the back +are embroidered red and white roses." Embroidered bindings remained in +fashion during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and plain +velvet, too, was often used, sometimes with gold or silver mounts. + +The old Royal Library, which was given to the nation by George II., +contains a large number of sumptuous bookbindings; and that our +Sovereigns were not unmindful of the welfare of their literary treasures +may also be gathered from various entries in the Wardrobe Books and from +other documents. Thus, we read that Edward IV. paid Alice Clavers, "for +the makyng of xvj. laces and xvj. tassels for the garnysshing of divers +of the kinge's bookes ijs. viijd."; and "Piers Bauduyn, stacioner, for +bynding gilding and dressing of a booke called _Titus Livius_ xxs., for +binding gilding and dressing of a booke of the _The Holy Trinity_ +xvjs.," and so on. Again, in the bill delivered to Henry VIII. by Thomas +Berthelet, his majesty's printer and binder, are found such entries as +these:-- + +"Item delyvered to the kinge's highnes the vj. day of January a Psalter +in englische and latine covered with crimoysyn satyne, 2s." + +"Item delyvered to the kinge's hyghnes for a little Psalter, takyng out +of one booke and settyng in an other in the same place, and for gorgeous +binding of the same booke xijd.; and to the Goldesmythe for taking off +the claspes and corners and for setting on the same ageyne xvjd." + +Among the various styles which may be classed as fancy bindings may be +instanced the seventeenth century tortoise-shell covers with silver +mounts and ornaments, which have a very handsome effect, and the mosaic +decoration of the same period. This mosaic decoration was made by +inlaying minute pieces of differently coloured leathers, and finishing +them with gold tooling. It was work which called for great dexterity in +manipulation, and in skilful hands the result was very pretty and +graceful. + +Even from this slight sketch it will be seen that bookbindings have +always presented unlimited opportunities for originality on the part of +the worker, as regards both design and material. Wood and leather, gold +and silver, ivory and precious stones, coloured enamels, impressed +papier-mâché, gold-tooled leather and embroidered fabric, pasteboard and +parchment, have all been pressed into the service, and the subject of +bookbindings is a fascinating branch of book history. But from their +nature bindings are difficult to describe in an interesting manner, and +words can hardly do justice to them without the aid of facsimile +illustrations. + +The ordinary bindings of to-day are practically confined to two styles, +the cloth and the leather, and those combinations of leather and cloth +or leather and paper which make the covers of half-bound and +quarter-bound volumes. Cloth binding, the binding of the nineteenth +century, is an English invention, and came into use in 1823. On the +Continent books are still issued in paper covers and badly stitched, on +the assumption that if worth binding at all, they will be bound by the +purchaser as he pleases. But although the English commercial cloth +binding is often charged for far too highly, no one can deny its +convenience, and its superiority over the paper undress of foreign +works. Moreover, it is the homely, everyday garb of the great majority +of our favourite volumes, and though, no doubt, it is delightful to +possess books sumptuously bound, book-lovers of less ambition, or of +lighter purses than those who can command such luxuries, are not very +much to be pitied. There is something characteristic about a book in a +cloth cover which it loses when it dons the livery of its owner's +library. Cloth is not only more varied in texture, but admits of greater +freedom and variety of design than does leather, so there is something +to be said in its favour in spite of the contention that direct +handicraft is preferable to handicraft which works through a machine, +and that one of a batch of bindings printed by the thousand is not to +be compared with a single specimen of tooled leather which has cost a +pair of human hands hours of careful toil. The little libraries with +which so many of us have to be contented owe their bright and cheerful +appearance to the cloth covers of the books, in which each book stands +out with modest directness, wearing its individuality instead of losing +it in a crowd of neighbours dressed exactly like itself. In a series +uniformly bound, however, a family likeness is not only admissible, but +pleasing. It gives an idea of unison among, perhaps, widely differing +individuals. But the unison which is becoming to a family makes a +community monotonous. + +On the other hand, something stronger than cloth is necessary when books +are to be subjected to special wear and tear, and desirable when a +volume is to be particularly honoured or when the library it is to enter +is large and important. Protection is the first purpose of a binding, +and endurance its first quality, and the experience of centuries has +shown that the walls in the fairy-tale were right when they said, + + "Gilding will fade in damp weather, + To endure, there is nothing like LEATHER." + +In which, perhaps, the book-lover will see a parable. For, after all, +the book is the thing, and the cover a mere circumstance, and those who +wish to make books merely pegs to hang bindings upon deserve to have no +books at all. Yet it is right that though the binding should not be +raised above the book, it should be worthy of the book, and much of the +cheap and good literature which is now within the reach of all who care +to stretch out their hands for it, is clothed in a manner to which no +exception can be taken on any score. Those who have not realised how +charming some of the modern bookbindings can be, should consult the +winter number of _The Studio_ for 1899-1900. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +HOW A MODERN BOOK IS PRODUCED + + +A description of the methods by which a modern book is produced has to +begin at the second stage of the proceedings. The processes of the first +stage, including the writing of the book and the arrangements between +the publisher and the author, differ, of course, in individual cases. +The processes of the second stage, however, are common to a large +proportion of the books produced at the present day, though it will be +easily understood that they can be dealt with but summarily in this +chapter, and that as regards detail much variation is possible. + +The second stage in the history of a modern book may be said to begin +with the overhauling which the manuscript receives at the hands of the +printer's "Reader," who goes over it with the view of instructing the +compositor regarding capitals, punctuation, chapter headings and other +details. Although these are considered minor and merely clerical details +which are frequently neglected or misused in writing, it is essential +that they be carefully attended to in print. Many examples can be given +of amusing misprints and alterations of meaning caused by even such a +trifle as the misplacing of a comma. When this overhauling is completed +the manuscript is ready to be sent to the composing room where the types +are set up. + +From experience the printer knows that many authors get a different +impression of what they have written when they see it in type from what +they had when they read it in manuscript, and it frequently happens that +alterations on proof are very numerous in consequence. When either from +this or any other cause numerous alterations are anticipated, the matter +is first set up in long slips called "galleys," and not put at once into +page form. As soon as a few of those galleys are composed an impression +called a "proof" is taken from the types so set, and this proof is +passed to a reader whose duty is to see that a correct copy is made of +the manuscript, and that the spelling is accurate and the punctuation +good. This is a work commanding considerable intelligence and +experience, as the number of types required for a printed page is very +great, and even the most expert compositor cannot avoid mistakes. This +marked proof is returned to the compositor to make the necessary +corrections. Fresh proofs are got till no further errors are detected, +when a final proof is pulled and sent to the author, who makes such +alterations as he may desire. + +When the corrected proofs are returned by the author they are given to +the compositor, who makes the required alterations in the type. After +this a revised proof is submitted. When the author is satisfied that the +reading is as he wishes he returns the proofs, and the galleys are now +made into page form. If it is not expected that the author will make +many changes the types are arranged in page shape before any proofs are +shown to him, and the work goes through somewhat more quickly. + +When the types are divided into pages they are placed in sets or +"formes," each forme being secured in an iron frame called a "chase," +which can be conveniently moved about. Each chase is of a size to +enclose as many pages as will cover one side of the sheet of paper to be +used in printing. Fifty years ago only one or two sizes of paper were +made, and the size of sheet generally used for books was that which +allowed eight pages of library size on one side, hence called "octavo" +size, or when folded another way allowed twelve pages, hence "twelvemo" +or "duodecimo." Other sizes occasionally used are called "sixteenmo" or +"sextodecimo," "eighteenmo" or "octodecimo," etc. + +With larger sized printing machines now driven by steam or electricity, +there is greater variety in the size of formes and papers used in +printing. In all cases, however, the number of pages laid down for one +side of paper must divide by four. The pages are set in the chase in +special positions, so that when the sheet is printed on both sides and +folded over and over for binding they will appear in proper sequence. + +When only a small edition of a book is wanted the printing is generally +done direct from the types, but when a large number of copies is +required or frequent editions are expected, stereotype or electrotype +plates are made. By this means the types are released for further use +and other advantages obtained. + +Stereotype plates are cakes of white metal carrying merely the face of +the types, and were formerly made by taking from the types a mould of +plaster of Paris. They are now formed by beating or pressing a prepared +pulp of papier-mâché into the face of the lettering. The mould thus +obtained is dried and hardened by heat, then molten metal is run into it +of requisite thickness. This plate after being properly dressed is +fitted on a block equal in height to the type stem, and takes the place +in the frame or chase that would have been occupied by the types. + +The process of stereotyping is fairly quick and economical, but +electrotypes are better suited for higher class work and are much more +durable. In this process an impression is taken from the type on a +surface of wax heated to the necessary degree of plasticity. When the +wax mould has cooled and hardened it is placed in a galvanic current, +where a thin coat of copper is deposited on its face. This coat is then +detached from the mould and backed with white metal to give it the +requisite body and stiffness and the electrotype is now, like the +stereotype, a metal plate which can be fixed on a block and secured in a +frame ready for the printing machine. + +It is outside the scope of this work to describe minutely the +marvellous machinery used in printing. It is interesting to know that +the first printers had no machine but a screw handpress by which they +laboriously worked off their books page by page, and that even so late +as the middle of the nineteenth century all books with scarcely an +exception were printed at handpresses which enabled two men to throw off +about two hundred and fifty copies of a comparatively small-sized sheet +in the hour. Now the machines commonly in use, attended by only a man +and a lad, throw off from a thousand to fifteen hundred copies in an +hour of a sheet four or even eight times the old size. + +Books are almost universally printed on what is called the flat-bed +machine, so-called because the types or plates are placed on an iron +table which with them travels to and fro under a series of revolving +rollers constantly being fed with a supply of ink which they transfer to +the types or plates. Immediately these get beyond the inking rollers +they pass under a revolving cylinder with a set of grippers attached, +which open and shut with each revolution. These grippers take hold of +the sheet of paper and carry it round with the cylinder. When it comes +in contact with the types or plates travelling underneath, the +impression or print is made. Some machines complete the printing of the +sheet on both sides at one operation. In others the sheet is reversed +and is printed on the other side by passing through a second time. In +either case the sheet forms only a section of a book; the complete +volume is made up of a number of these sections, folded and collated in +proper order in the bindery. There they are sewn together and fixed in +the case or cover. + +For illustrated books the pictures were formerly produced by engraving +on wood, but they are now chiefly photographed from the artist's drawing +on a light sensitive film spread on a metal plate, and etched in by +acids. In whatever way produced, when printed with the text they are +always relief blocks which are placed in proper position in the chase +alongside the types or plates. Coloured illustrations are produced by +successive printings. Special illustrations are frequently produced +separately by other processes and inserted in the volume by the binder. + +Machines of a different construction, such as the rotary press, and +capable of a very much higher rate of production, are in use for +printing newspapers and periodicals with a large circulation, but these +do not properly come into consideration when telling how a modern book +is made. + +[_The above chapter has been kindly contributed by the printers of this +volume._ + + _G. B. R._] + + + + +AUTHOR'S POSTSCRIPT. + + +In our endeavour to note the chief points in the history of books, and +in considering the manifold interests which are bound up with their +bodies, we have had to neglect their minds. To have tried even to touch +upon the vast subject of literature in our story would have been as +futile as an attempt to transport the ocean in a thimble. For literature +consists of all that is transferable of human knowledge and experience, +all that is expressible of human thought on whatever matter in heaven or +earth has been dreamed of in man's philosophy. And though our aggregate +of knowledge be small, it is vastly beyond the comprehension of one +individual being. + +Of the influence of books, and their manifold uses, also, this is not +the place to speak. Moreover, even had the theme been unheeded by abler +pens, no one who loves books needs to be told to how many magic portals +they are the keys, while he who loves them not would not understand for +all the telling in the world. + + + + +INDEX + + +A. + +Aberdeen Breviary, 133-135. + +Advertisements, early booksellers', 105. + +Alcuin, 63, 64. + +Aldus Manutius, 104, 113, 115, 151. + +Aleria, Bp. of, 104. + +Alexandria, 16, 30-32. + +Alost, 117. + +Alphabet, the, 10. + +Amsterdam, 118. + +Antiquarii, 49. + +Antwerp, 144. + +Arabs, the, 13. + +Assyria, 12, 14, 30. + +Assyrians, 11. + +Augsburg, 104. + +Aungervyle, R. (_see_ Richard de Bury). + +Ave Maria Lane, 52. + +Avignon, 85. + + +B. + +Babylonia, 12, 30, 145. + +Babylonians, 11. + +Bamberg, 75, 94, 103. + +Basle, 104. + +Benedict Biscop, 63. + +Beowulf, 24. + +Berthelet, Thomas, 156. + +Bible, the, 17. + +---- Mazarin or Gutenberg, 94-100. + +---- thirty-six-line, 97. + +---- Mentz, 1462, 102. + +Biblia Pauperum, 74-77, 89. + +Bibliothèque Nationale, 67, 68. + +Bindings, 144, 159. + +Block-books, 73, 80. + +Block-printing, 71. + +Bonhomme, Pasquier, 116. + +Book of Durrow, 39. + +---- Kells, 39-41. + +---- St Albans, 25, 128, 131. + +---- St Cuthbert (_see_ Lindisfarne Gospels). + +Book, production of modern, 159. + +Bookbinding, 144-159. + +Books, adventures of, 144. + +---- beginning of, 10. + +---- chained, 58, 69, 70. + +---- heretical, 22. + +---- in classical times, 26. + +---- in monasteries, 21-24, 47, 145. + +---- not to be destroyed, 22. + +---- ornamenting of, 37. + +---- prices of, 50, 53. + +---- sizes of, 161. + +Booksellers, 28, 29, 51-54. + +Bordesley Abbey, 68. + +Breslau, 104. + +Brethren of the Common Life, 117. + +Breviary, Aberdeen, 133-135. + +Bruges, 52, 104, 116, 117, 119-122. + +Brussels, 117. + +"Brussels" Print, 73. + +Byzantium, 18, 34. + + +C. + +Caedmon, 24. + +Cambridge, 58, 130, 139, 145. + +Campanus, 104, 108. + +Canterbury, 45, 61, 63. + +Carrells, 57. + +Carswell's Prayer-book, 137. + +Catalogues, early booksellers', 105. + +---- monastic library, 59-61. + +Catechism, Irish Alphabet and, 137, 139-144. + +Caxton, 85, 105-107, 116-126, 128, 154. + +Censorship, Ecclesiastical, 54, 55. + +---- University, 54. + +Chelsea, 70. + +Chepman, Walter, 133. + +China, 14, 71, 81. + +Clairvaux Abbey, 57. + +Clement of Padua, 110, 111. + +Clugni, Abbey of, 60. + +Cologne, 103, 104, 121. + +Colophons, 108. + +Copyists, 27, 28, 31, 32, 49, 51, 52. + +Copyright, 28. + +Corvey, Abbot of, 65. + +Coster, Laurenz, 80, 82-89. + +Cranz, Martin, 115. + +Creed Lane, 53. + +Cumhdachs, 146, 147. + + +D. + +Davidson, Thomas, 135. + +Dictes or Sayengis, 122, 126. + +Diemudis, 49. + +Donatus, 78, 79, 112. + +Dorchester, 50. + +Dublin, 109, 137-139, 141, 146. + +Durham, 45, 61, 148. + + +E. + +Edinburgh, 109, 110, 131, 133, 135, 137, 138. + +Egypt, 12, 14, 18, 20, 21, 29-31, 71. + +Electrotype plates, printing from, 162. + +Elizabeth, Queen, 125, 141, 142, 154. + +Elzevirs, the, 117, 118. + +England, 23, 36, 104, 106, 118. + + +F. + +Faust or Fust, 88, 92, 93, 100, 102, 103. + +Fichet, Guillaume, 115. + +Florence, 104. + +Fountains Abbey, 57. + +France, 23, 77, 78, 104, 115, 131, 133, 151, 152. + +Friburger, Michael, 115. + + +G. + +Game and Playe of the Chesse, 122, 124. + +Gering, Ulric, 115. + +Germany, 23, 65, 72, 77, 83, 104, 106, 116. + +Glastonbury Abbey, 60. + +Gloucester, 58. + +Greece, 12, 14, 15, 18, 19, 23, 30. + +Greeks, the, 11. + +Grolier, Jean, 151, 152. + +Guild of St John the Evangelist, 52. + +Gutenberg, 82-85, 89-92, 101, 102. + + +H. + +Haarlem, 80-82, 85-87, 116. + +Hahn, Ulric, 104, 108, 109, 112. + +Herculaneum, 18. + +Hereford Cathedral, 70. + +Holborn, 128, 138. + +Holland, 75, 77, 80, 83, 89, 104, 116, 119, 128, 131. + +Hostingue, Laurence, 131, 132. + + +I. + +Illuminators, 49, 51, 52. + +Ireland, 36, 38, 104, 138, 146. + +Irish Alphabet and Catechism, 137, 139, 143. + +Italy, 22, 23, 36, 77, 104, 106, 110, 111, 113, 150, 151. + +Italic type, 114. + + +J. + +Japan, 71, 81. + +Jenson, Nicolas, 107, 113, 130. + +Junius, Hadrian, 88. + + +K. + +Kelmscott press, 80. + +Ketelaer, Nycolaum, 116. + +Kirkstall Abbey, 57. + +Klosterneuburg, 75. + +Koburger, Antony, 106, 154. + + +L. + +Lanfranc, 47. + +Latin document, earliest, 15. + +Latin names of towns, 109. + +Leempt, Gerard de, 116. + +Lettou, John, 126. + +Leicester, 61. + +Lekprevik, Roibeard, 137, 138. + +Leland, 61. + +Leyden, 118. + +Libraries, ancient, 28-36. + +---- collegiate, 58. + +---- monastic, 56-65. + +Librarii, 16, 49. + +Lignamine, J. P. de, 111. + +Lindisfarne Gospels, 42-45, 147. + +Lincoln Cathedral, 143, 144. + +Literature, Anglo-Saxon, 24. + +---- beginning of, 13. + +---- of Greece, 14, 15, 19. + +Literatures, antique, 14. + +London, 51, 52, 54, 104, 109, 110, 120, 127, 148. + +Louvain, 117, 118, 144. + +Lubeck, 104. + +Lyons, 104, 115. + + +M. + +Machlinia, William de, 109, 128. + +Maioli, Thomasso, 151, 152. + +Mansion, Colard, 116, 117, 121, 122. + +Manuscript, oldest Biblical, 17. + +---- oldest Homeric, 17. + +---- oldest New Testament, 18, 20. + +Manuscripts, Arabic, 21. + +---- Arabic-Spanish, 56. + +---- Byzantine, 37. + +---- Classical, 17, 20. + +---- Coptic, 21. + +---- of Four Gospels, 19. + +---- Greek, 14, 15, 18. + +---- Hiberno-Saxon, 43. + +---- Illuminated, 36-46. + +---- Irish, 37, 39-41, 44. + +---- Italian, 37. + +---- Moorish, 56. + +---- printed illustrations in, 73. + +---- Syriac, 21. + +---- Winchester, 45. + +---- of Virgil, 19. + +Marienthal, 117. + +Mentelin, John, 105. + +Mentz, 82, 87, 88, 90, 92, 93, 96-98, 100, 101, 109, 117, 121. + +Monasteries, books in, 21-24, 145, 146. + +Monastic writing, 15, 19, 21, 22, 24, 46, 47, 49. + +Morris, William, 80. + +Musical notes printed, 103, 128. + +Myllar, Andrew, 131-135. + + +N. + +Naples, 104. + +Netley Abbey, 57. + +New Testament, 17, 22. + +Nineveh, 14. + +Nuremberg, 104, 106, 117. + + +O. + +O'Kearney, John, 139, 141-143. + +Old Testament, 12, 14, 17. + +Omar, Caliph, 33. + +Oxford, 53, 58, 62, 64, 65, 104, 130. + +Oxyrhynchus, 20. + + +P. + +Paternoster Row, 51, 52. + +Palestine, 21. + +Palimpsests, 24. + +Pannartz (_see_ Sweynheim). + +Papyrus, 12. + +Paris, 53, 62, 75, 93, 104, 106, 107, 109, 144. + +---- Council of, 62. + +Philobiblon, 15, 47, 48. + +Peterborough, 61. + +Petrarch, 23, 68, 113. + +Pfister, Albrecht, 94, 95. + +Poggio Bracciolini, 23. + +Powell, Humfrey, 138. + +Printed illustrations in MSS., 73. + +Printers as editors and publishers, 104. + +---- as booksellers, 105. + +---- as bookbinders, 154. + +Printing, 11, 70-144. + +---- in colours, 102. + +---- machines for, 161, 162, 164. + +Psalter, Melissenda's, 148-150. + +---- Mentz, 1457, 102. + +---- Queen Mary's, 46. + +Publication, mediæval, 51. + +Publishers, 51, 104. + +Pye or Pica, 105. + +Pynson, Richard, 107. + + +R. + +"R" Printer, 107. + +Ramsey Abbey, 61. + +Reichenau Abbey, 60. + +Richard de Bury, 23, 47, 50, 64, 65, 68. + +Romans, 11. + +Rome, 12, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 28, 103, 104, 106, 108, 109, 111, 112, 131. + +Rood, Theodore, 130. + +Rostock, 117. + +Rouen, 106, 131. + +Royal Library of England, 68, 155. + +---- of France, 67. + + +S. + +Satchels or Polaires, 145, 146. + +Schoeffer, Peter, 93, 94, 100, 102, 105. + +Scandinavians, 11. + +Scotland, 104, 131, 147. + +Seraglio library, 34, 35. + +Sopwell, 131. + +Spain, 23, 104. + +Speculum Humanæ Salvationis, 78-80, 88, 89, 92. + +Spira, John de, 109, 112, 130. + +---- Vindelinus de, 110, 113. + +Spires, 104. + +---- John of (_see_ Spira). + +St Albans, 104, 130, 131. + +St Andrews, 138. + +St Boniface, 37. + +St Columba, 41, 145. + +"St Christopher" Print, 72. + +St Gall, Abbey of, 23, 60. + +St Paul's Cathedral, 52. + +Stationers, 51, 154. + +---- Company of, 51. + +Stereotype plates, printing from, 162. + +Stirling, 138. + +Story, John, 135. + +Strasburg, 89, 90, 92, 93, 103, 105, 107, 110. + +Subiaco, 103, 111. + +Sweynheim and Pannartz, 103, 104, 107, 111, 112. + + +T. + +Tablets, 11, 12, 145. + +The Hague, 118. + +Theodore, Abp., 45, 63. + +Therhoernen, Arnold, 109, 110. + +Tintern Abbey, 57. + +Titchfield Abbey, 58, 59. + +Title-page, 107-109. + +Tooling, 150. + +Type or Types, Aldino, 113, 114. + +---- Caxton's, 126. + +---- Early, 107. + +---- Gaelic or Irish, 139, 141-143. + +---- Gothic, 107, 115. + +---- Greek, 103. + +---- Italic, 114. + +---- Moveable, 81-89. + +---- Roman, 107, 115. + +---- Subiaco, 112. + +---- Scottish printers', 135, 136. + +---- Wood and metal, 106, 107. + + +U. + +Ulm, 104. + +Usher, John, 141. + +Utrecht, 117, 118. + + +V. + +Veldener, John, 117. + +Venice, 68, 104, 107, 109, 110, 112, 113, 130. + +Vienna, 75. + +Virgil, Aldine, 114, 115, 152. + + +W. + +Waldfoghel, Procopius, 85. + +Walsh, Nicholas, 141, 142. + +Westminster, 104, 117, 121-123, 128. + +Whitby, 60. + +Wimborne Minster, 70. + +Winchester, 45, 50, 62, 148. + +Woodcuts, early English, 124. + +Worcester, 57. + +Writers of Text Letter, 51. + +Writing, 10, 11. + +Wynkyn de Worde, 121, 128, 131. + + +Z. + +Zel, Ulric, 103. + +Zutphen, 70. + + + TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH. + + + + + [ Transcriber's Note: + + The following is a list of corrections made to the original. The first + line is the original line, the second the corrected one. + + Type of Mentz Indulgence 95 + Type of the Mentz Indulgence 95 + + canon of the third Council of Constantinople, held in 719, A.D., enacted + canon of the third Council of Constantinople, held in 719 A.D., enacted + + The result of the professor's researches went to confirm the belief held + The result of the Professor's researches went to confirm the belief held + + writings were transscribed, chronicles and histories compiled, and + writings were transcribed, chronicles and histories compiled, and + + manner of person shall print any manner of boke or paper .. except the + manner of person shall print any manner of boke or paper ... except the + + at which the reader might sit. Pembroke College and Queen's College, + at which the reader might sit. Pembroke College and Queens' College, + + of Tychefield four cases (_columnæ_) in which to place books, of which + of Tychefeld four cases (_columnæ_) in which to place books, of which + + Klosterneuberg, near Vienna, which originally contained forty-five + Klosterneuburg, near Vienna, which originally contained forty-five + + half of the fifteen century. Yet it is believed that probably more + half of the fifteenth century. Yet it is believed that probably more + + established at Strasburg, Bamberg, Cologne, Augsberg, Nuremberg, + established at Strasburg, Bamberg, Cologne, Augsburg, Nuremberg, + + debateable ground we will only add that the _Recuyell of the Historyes + debateable ground we will only add that the _Recuyell of the Histories + + first English book with printed musical notes; Bartholomæus _De + first English book with printed musical notes; Bartholomæus' _De + + in the English tongue, has been happily finished. Which Androw Myllar, a + in the English tongue, has been happily finished. Which Andrew Myllar, a + + fourth day of apile the yhere of God M.CCCCC. and viii yheris. + fourth day of aprile the yhere of God M.CCCCC. and viii yheris. + + [Illustration: TITLE-PAGE OF OKEARNEY'S IRISH ALPHABET AND CATECHISM + [Illustration: TITLE-PAGE OF O'KEARNEY'S IRISH ALPHABET AND CATECHISM + + hooks in the wall. Thus it is related in an old legend that "on the + hooks in the wall. Thus it is related in an old legend that 'on the + + down." + down.'" + + Augsberg, 104. + Augsburg, 104. + + Klosterneuberg, 75. + Klosterneuburg, 75. + + Psalter, Melissanda's, 148-150. + Psalter, Melissenda's, 148-150. + + Speculum Humanæ Salvationis, 78-80, 88, 89 92. + Speculum Humanæ Salvationis, 78-80, 88, 89, 92. + + Tooling, 150, + Tooling, 150. + + ] + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Story of Books, by Gertrude Burford Rawlings + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF BOOKS *** + +***** This file should be named 33413-8.txt or 33413-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/4/1/33413/ + +Produced by Adrian Mastronardi, Jana Srna and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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