chapter 12

, asserts the Immaculate Conception because many animals are produced without mating. St. Jerome and [p222] St. Gregory expound the same doctrine. Fifty-four illustrations follow, each explained by a proposition that enunciates with great formality some of the marvels of natural science. We are told of bees without fathers, of birds impregnated by the bill, of geese born from trees, of asbestos that burns forever, of pearls made fruitful by the dew, of the phœnix restored by fire, and of many other absurdities. The authorities cited seem to have been selected with a truly catholic spirit: we find among them Valerius Maximus, Peter Comestor, Terence, Boethius, Job, Livy, and Isidore.

One edition of this work contains an imprint in sprawling and almost unreadable characters, which bibliographers interpret as the letters F. W. 1470. The letters F. W. were no doubt the initials of Frederich Walther of Nordlingen.

The quality of the science taught in this _History of the Blessed Virgin_ enables us to form a just idea of the real value of the scholastic philosophy then regarded as the perfection of wisdom. The silly speculations set forth in the book were the husks upon which a devout people were fed.

AN EXERCISE ON THE LORD’S PRAYER.

This is the translated title of a thin block-book of ten leaves, which was intended to explain the Lord’s Prayer by illustration. The blocks are printed in brown ink on one side of the paper. The _Exercise_ is in the popular form of dialogue.

In the illustration No. 1, the monk _Frater_ begs the angel _Oratio_ to teach him the Lord’s Prayer. And these are the lessons that are taught:

2. _Our Father who art in Heaven._ Christ, the Monk, and the Angel kneel.

3. _Hallowed be thy name._ The Monk, the Angel, Christ, and the Church represented by a female figure, are kneeling. On the right the Virgin and Holy Child.

4. _Thy kingdom come._ A representation of Purgatory: in the upper part, the wicked surrounded by flames; in the lower part, Jews and Pagans in the fiery lake.

5. _Thy will be done._ The Almighty in the clouds, and before him the Angel and the Monk kneeling. On the right, a good Christian and an Angel. In the centre, two bad men who are rejecting the Eucharist. In the foreground, the Jews and Pagans throw down the cup and are pouring out its contents.

_Scroll in No. 5._ Frater and Oratio kneeling before God. ‹f›Fiat voluntas tua sicut in cœlo et in terra.‹/f› Let Thy will be done in Heaven as on earth. . . . _The Angel to the right._ ‹f›Qui stat videat ne cadat.‹/f› Let him who may stand take heed lest he fall . . . _The Good Christian._ [p223] ‹f›Gratia Dei sum id quod sum.‹/f› Thanks to God that I am what I am. . . . _The Jews._ ‹f›Quis est Jesus filius fabri?‹/f› Who is Jesus but the son of the carpenter? _The Pagans._ ‹f›Quis noster dominus est?‹/f› Who is our Lord? . . . . _The Bad Christians._ ‹f›Ducamus in bonis dies nostros.‹/f› We guide ourselves to salvation.

6. _Give us this day our daily bread._ In the centre, three loaves of bread on a table, around which is Charity, robed as a queen, with three other figures. On one side the Monk and Angel kneeling; on the other, a Knight in armor.

7. _Forgive us our trespasses._ Christ standing on the altar, the blood pouring from his side in a basin, from which several persons fill their cups.

8. _Lead us not into temptation._ The disobedient, proud, gluttonous and avaricious surround a table. Death carries away the foremost.

9. _Deliver us from evil._ A representation of Hell. The disobedient man in the power of the Devil. The damned making supplication to the Almighty.

10. _Amen._ A view of Paradise, with the happiness of the blessed. [p224]

[Illustration: Fac-simile of the Fifth Illustration of the Exercise on the Lord’s Prayer.

Engraving in the original print is 7-1/8 by 7-1/2 American inches.

[From Holtrop.]]

Santander says that the book bears all the marks of the highest antiquity. Holtrop says that there is one copy of this work in which the Latin text is translated, and explained by engraved lines in Flemish at the bottom of each cut. Guichard describes a series of engravings on wood, consisting of eight designs like those just described, with a manuscript text in Flemish. It is, without doubt, a Flemish book. Of the many extraordinary commentaries which have been made on the _Lord’s Prayer_, this, surely, is the most singular perversion. The prayer which begins with a recognition of the brotherhood of mankind, which tells us to believe in the all-embracing love of the Father, which teaches lessons of dependence, forgiveness and protection, is made the text for a denunciation of Jews and Pagans, and for the teaching of doctrinal notions about the Eucharist.

THE BOOK OF KINGS.

In this book, two separate illustrations, with their explanatory text, are printed together on each page. The _Book of Kings_ might, therefore, be classified among the block-books without separate pages of text, but it really has a text of unusual length for a book of this class. In other features, it resembles the block-books previously described; its twenty pages are printed on one side of the leaf; the illustrations face each other, and are in the customary brown ink. The designs are rudely drawn, and are as full of anachronisms in architecture as the illustrations of the _Bible of the Poor_, but the architecture most frequently shown is in the pointed Gothic style. The engraving is coarse; every object is cut in bold and heavy outline; tints and shading lines are timidly used, and always in a crude manner. It was obviously intended that the illustrations should be developed by painting or by stenciling. The letters are drawn and engraved with more care than the pictures, but they are irregular in size and form. One of the peculiarities of the lettering is the final cross given to the small letter _t_, a peculiarity which is frequently [p226] noticed in some of the typographic work of Dutch printers. The leaves were not nested in sections one within another as was customary: each sheet of two leaves was engraved, printed and folded separately, so as to make a book of ten sections.

[Illustration: An Illustration from the Book of Kings.

Original is 7 by 8-3/4 inches.

[From Sotheby.]]

The book was intended to illustrate the more important events of the life of David as recorded in the books of _Samuel_, and in the _First_ and _Second Books of Kings_. The fac-simile on the preceding page illustrates Hannah presenting Samuel to the priests in the house of the Lord, and Samuel called by the Lord out of sleep. Sotheby classifies it with the block-books of Holland, but Falkenstein attributes it to Germany.

THE GROTESQUE ALPHABET.

This is a curious block-book of twenty-four pages, of the original edition of which not one perfect copy is known. The leaves of the copy now on the shelves of the British Museum are 3-3/4 inches wide and 6 inches high. Sotheby, who has carefully examined its construction, says that the twenty-four pages were printed in sections of eight pages on three sheets of paper, with a thin watery ink of a sepia tint. The margins and blanks have been written on with an ink of nearly the same color as that of the printed cuts.

Another copy of this work has been found at Basle, in which, on the letter A (not found in the London copy), may be seen the date 1464. Another copy, in a library at Dresden, has the same date. Renouvier says that these copies, by German engravers, and of inferior execution, are transfers of the original, which was engraved in the Netherlands.

The history of the book in the British Museum is unknown, but it has many evidences of long use in English hands. The cover or binding consists of a double fold of thick parchment, upon the inside of which, between the folds, is written in large English characters, “Edwardus Lowes.” On one side of the last leaf is the rough draft of a letter in the English language. The writing, which is found in scraps all over the book, is of [p227] the period of Henry VIII. Upon a sword-blade in the cut of the letter L is written in small characters the word London. In another place in the same cut are letters which are read by some as _Westmistre_—by others as _Bethemsted_. It is full of English writing, but it has not been proved that the cuts are the work of an English engraver. Chatto says of them:

[Illustration: Letter K of Grotesque Alphabet.

Original is 3-1/2 by 4-5/8 inches.

[From Holtrop.]]

——They were neither designed nor engraved by the artists who designed and engraved the cuts in the _Apocalypse_, the _History of the Virgin_ and the _Poor Preachers’ Bible_. . . . With respect to drawing, engraving and expression, the cuts of the _Alphabet_ are decidedly superior to those of every block-book, and generally to all wood engravings executed before the year 1500, with the exception of such as are by Albert Durer, and those contained in the _Hypnerotomachia_, printed by Aldus at Venice in 1499. . . . I perceive nothing in them to induce me to suppose that they were the work of a Dutch artist; and I am as little inclined to ascribe them to a German. The style of the drawing is not unlike what we see in illuminated French manuscripts of the middle of the fifteenth century; and as the only two engraved words which occur in the volume are in French, I am rather inclined to suppose that the artist who made the designs was a native of France. The costume of the female to whom the words are addressed appears to be French; and the action of the lover kneeling seems almost characteristic of the nation. No Dutchman [p228] certainly ever addressed his mistress with such an air. He holds what appears to be a ring as gracefully as a modern Frenchman holds a snuff-box, and upon the scroll before him are engraved a heart, and the words which he may be supposed to utter: _Mon ame_—My soul.[119]

The real object of this book is not apparent. The figures were not engraved for the purpose of teaching the alphabet, for the designs are quaint, elaborate, and above the comprehension of young children. When the book was first made, the letters had a significance which seems to have been forgotten.

THE APOSTLES’ CREED.

[Illustration: A Page from the Apostles’ Creed.

Original is 5-3/8 by 8-1/8 inches.

[From Dibdin.]]

This is the title given to a lost block-book, of which only seven leaves remain. The annexed illustration is a reduced fac-simile of the page that tells the story of the Resurrection. The four angels about the circle are sounding the last trump, and the dead are coming forth from their graves. The figures in the lower corners are those of Zacharias and Judas. In this book, and in nearly all the block-books, the subjects most frequently presented are those that illustrate the marvelous and terrible. The designs have merit, but the letters are badly engraved. The pictures are explained by a few lines in German. The [p229] copy of the book described by Dibdin has on the fly-leaf the written memorandum V. W. 1471, but it is not probable that this writing has any reference to the date of printing.

THE EIGHT ROGUERIES.

[Illustration: A Page from the Eight Rogueries.

Original is 4 by 5-3/8 inches.

[From Falkenstein.]]

This is a small block-book of eight leaves. Weigel places it among the earliest specimens of engraving on wood. The language in which the pictures are explained is High German. The pictures illustrate the Go-between, the Liar, the Cheat, the Counterfeit Goldsmith, the Cheating Merchant, the Church Robber, the Cheating Rope-maker, the Blacksmith that sells iron for steel. The designs are rude, but they are full of spirit and character, and the cutting of the figures has been done with ability and intelligence. The paper was printed on one side only and in dull brown ink. This book was found in the neglected library of an old South German monastery, in the heart of the neighborhood in which we find the earliest notices of printers and painters of images. As it is the only block-book of a decidedly non-religious character, it may be ascribed to some maker of playing cards, who practised the art of engraving before it was placed under the control of the Church.

[p230]

XII

Block-Books of Images with Text.

The Antichrist, with Fac-simile . . . How to Remember the Evangelists, with Fac-simile . . . How to Die Becomingly, with Fac-simile . . . Other Editions of this Work . . . Chiromancy of Doctor Hartleib, with Fac-simile . . . German Planetarium and Calendar, with Fac-simile . . . Wonders of Rome, with Fac-simile . . . Pomerium Spirituale, with Fac-simile . . . Temptations of the Devil, with Fac-simile . . . Life of St. Meinrat, with Fac-simile . . . Dance of Death, with Fac-simile . . . Mechanical Peculiarities of the Block-Books . . . All of Religious Character . . . Made for Priests, but seen by the People . . . Not Adapted to the Needs of the People . . . The Period of the Block-Books . . . Made in Germany and the Netherlands . . . Dates and Printers of the Books Unknown . . . Probably Made in the First Quarter of the Fifteenth Century . . . An Established Business before the Invention of Typography.

* * * * *

This, that is written in this little book, ought the priests to learn and teach to their parishes: and it is also necessary for simple priests that understand not the Scriptures, and it is made for simple people . . . . by cause that for to hear examples stirreth and moveth the people that ben simple more to devotion than great authority of science.

_Caxton’s Preface to the Doctrinal of Sapyence._

* * * * *

Der Endkrist, or the Antichrist. This book seems to have been written to warn men against the snares of heresy. Two distinct editions are known; each was printed from a different suite of blocks and by a different printer. The copy about to be described has thirty-eight leaves, twenty-six of which are devoted to the life of Antichrist, and eleven to a separate treatise known as the _Fifteen Signs_, which was bound up with the _Antichrist_, and of which it seems to be the proper sequel. The book is printed on one side of the leaf, in brown ink, and the illustrations face each other. The text begins with the words, “Here beginneth of Antichrist, taken and drawn out of many books, how and of whom he [p231] shall be born.” After a half-page wood-cut, which represents with needless grossness the birth of Antichrist, follow other engravings illustrating the more notable events of his life.[120] The fac-simile on the following page gives a correct notion of the lawlessness of the designs[121] of the book. It is obvious that they were not made by the artist who drew the illustrations for the _Bible of the Poor_ or for the _Canticles_. The text which explains the wood-cuts is in the German language, but it is in a very careless form of German writing. [p233]

[Illustration: Fac-simile, reduced, of a Page of the Antichrist.

[From Heineken.]]

The thirty-eight leaves of one edition are made up in one section. This bungling method of making up a book is sufficient evidence that the printer or engraver who placed these pages together had no education in practical book-making. But the bad method shown in the plan does not prove that the book is of great age. The copy under notice contains, in the German language, the imprint of _Junghannis, priffmaler_, or painter of cards, Nuremberg, 1472. Whether this Junghannis was the designer, printer or engraver is not known.

HOW TO REMEMBER THE EVANGELISTS.

This block-book[122] was, no doubt, intended for men, but a modern observer would say that it had been made for children. The time-honored method, still used for the child’s alphabet, A was an apple, is the method of the _Ars Memorandi_. Compared with the block-books previously noticed, it is a book of high merit. It is a thin folio of thirty pages, fifteen of which contain a text of very large, clumsily drawn and compactly arranged letters within a rule-bordered frame; the remaining fifteen pages have full-page illustrations. The edition from which the annexed illustration was copied is in brown ink.

[Illustration: Fac-simile of a Page of the Ars Memorandi.

Engraving in the original print is 6-3/4 by 9-1/4 American inches.

[From Heineken.]]

The designs are more eccentric than those of any known block-book, but the designer has shown no artistic ability in the grouping of his figures. The four Evangelists are symbolized—St. John by an eagle, St. Matthew by an angel, St. Luke by a bull, St. Mark by a lion—but they are presented to us in uncouth attitudes, and are surrounded or overlaid by some of the familiar objects frequently mentioned in the Gospels. These objects are numbered with Arabic figures referring to explanations in the text. The dove, for it must be so considered, although it looks like an owl, perched on the head of the symbolized St. John, may be accepted as the emblem of the Deity. The two heads beside the eagle are to be understood as those of Moses and of Christ. The musical instruments, a lute and three bells, on the breast of the eagle, indicate the contents [p235] of the second chapter, the marriage at Cana. The fish recalls the pool of Bethesda. The numeral 3 points to the conversation with Nicodemus; the water-bucket and the crown refer to the woman of Samaria at the well; the five loaves and the two small fishes to the feeding of the multitude. The cross in the circle is the consecrated wafer of the Roman Catholic Church. The letters in the pages of text are unusually large; they are clearly cut, but are so compactly arranged that they frequently interfere with each other. The descriptive text is in Latin, but of very objectionable grammar and orthography. The knowledge it conveys of the Gospel is imperfect to the last degree, as may be more clearly seen in the following literal translation of the text provided for this illustration.

The Gospel of St. John has twenty-one chapters. _First Chapter._ In the beginning was the Word, from the eternity of the Word and the Trinity. _Second Chapter._ Nuptials were made in Cana of Galilee, and how Christ overturned the tables of all the money-changers. _Third Chapter._ But there was a man among the Pharisees named Nicodemus. _Fourth Chapter._ How Jesus asked the Samaritan woman to give him to drink near the well of Jacob, and about the law. _Fifth Chapter._ About the miracle in the fish pool, when Jesus told the lame man, Take up thy bed and walk. _Sixth Chapter._ About the feeding with five loaves and two fishes, and about the Eucharist.

The _Ars Memorandi_ is considered by Schelhorn as one of the oldest of block-books, “if not the first, among the first.” Von Aretin says that “it is worthy of observation that this book, one of the earliest of its kind, should be devoted to the improvement of the memory, when it was to be rendered of little consequence by the art of printing.”

HOW TO DIE BECOMINGLY.[123]

At least ten distinct xylographic editions of this popular block-book have been identified, seven of which are in Latin and three in German. The text of the book is substantially the same in all editions, but the designs are dissimilar, and the engraving and printing are of unequal merit. Some copies are in black and others in brown ink; some are printed on [p236] one side and others on both sides of the paper. The origin of the book is not known, but it was a popular work long after types had been invented; before the year 1500, it had been printed either from types or from blocks, in Nuremberg, Paris, Rome, Florence, Verona, Lyons, Utrecht, Delft and Zwoll.

The edition about to be described, which Heineken names as the fourth, is a folio of twenty-four leaves. It is printed in brown ink, on one side, with printed pages facing each other. Eleven pages have illustrations, and thirteen pages are given to the text. The book is made up in workmanlike manner, in four sections of six leaves. The illustrations are crowded; the figures are grouped inartistically; the engraving is coarse.

[Illustration: Fac-simile of a Page of the Ars Moriendi.

Engraving in the original print is 6-1/2 by 8-3/4 American inches.

[From Heineken.]]

The object of the book is to present the temptations that beset the dying. The first illustration represents the dying man as tempted by devils concerning his faith. The next illustration shows the good angels who enable him to remain steadfast. In like manner he is tempted by devils to despair, to impatience (in which the moribund is vigorously kicking an attendant), to vainglory, and to avarice; but through help of the angels, he triumphs over all his adversaries. The ninth illustration, which is reproduced on the following page, shows the dying man as resisting the last assaults of three emissaries of the devil. The vigorous action of these hideous goblins is in marked contrast with the composure of the relatives, who stand at a respectful distance. The horse and hostler show that the man on the death-bed was rich. The moral of the design is the vanity of riches. One of the devils, the one at the head of the bed, maliciously suggests, _Provideas amicis_—you should provide for your friends. Another devil, pointing to the house, calls out with grim irony—_Intende thesauro_—pay attention to your treasures. This illustration is followed by another in which a ministering angel exhorts the dying man to discard the devil’s advice, and not leave his property to his relatives, but to give it to the church. In the last illustration, the spirit of the dying man exhales from his mouth in the shape of a manikin, which is received by the angels. The [p238] baffled devils make some frightful contortions and then depart. It is not a pleasant book. But the hideousness of the devils in the illustrations is not so revolting as the craftiness of the author who devised these ghastly scarecrows. The ostensible purpose of the book was the preparation of men for another world; its real object was the aggrandizement of the church, and for this purpose the writer of the book recommended the sacrifice of the desire to provide for one’s family. It does not increase our respect for the piety or intelligence of the people to learn that this book was popular for more than a century.

The xylographic editions of this work which contain the names of the printers are in the German language. One of them has these words, _Hans Sporer_, 1473; another has the imprint of _J. W. Presbrm_, of Nuremberg; another is dated Leipsic, 1496. One of the typographic editions, dated 1473, is attributed to John Gensberg, of Rome; another, dated 1478, bears the imprint of Ratdolt, of Venice. An edition with a typographic text was printed in 1488 by Peter Van Os, of Zwoll, the same printer who last owned the blocks of the _Bible of the Poor_. In this edition the words in the scrolls are in the Flemish language, and the text is in Latin. The use of Flemish in the engraved blocks seems to warrant the belief that there must have been an earlier edition, entirely xylographic, but no such edition has been discovered.

THE CHIROMANCY OF DOCTOR HARTLIEB.

This is a folio of fifty-two pages, badly printed, in dark gray ink, on both sides of the paper. The designs are puerile and the engraving is coarse. The text of the book is in the German language. Some copies of the book contain at the foot of one page and outside of the border the name

‹f›jorg ſchapff zu augſpurg‹/f›

Other copies of the book have, in the same position, the name ‹f›irog ſcapff zu augſpurg‹/f›. The spelling is different, [p239] and the shapes of the letters are different. No satisfactory explanation can be offered for these differences in books that are supposed to be printed from the same blocks. It may be that the name, inserted in a very exposed place, broke down under impression, and was carelessly re-engraved. This variation is a specimen of some of the perplexing changes to be found not only in block-books but even in early typographic books. The name is usually read as George Schapff, of Augsburg, who is supposed to have been the engraver and printer of the book in 1448. The workmanship is not to his credit: Chatto says “more wretched cuts were never chiseled out by a printer’s apprentice as a head-piece to a half-penny ballad.”

The matter is worthy of the manner. The book professes to teach the science of palmistry, or the telling of fortunes by wrinkles in the palm of the hand. The first page contains the title, in large letters, over a piece of ornamental border and lattice-work. The page that follows contains this dedication:

“The hereinafter written Book of the Hand was made German by Doctor Hartlieb, through the Prayer and Bidding of the serene high-born Princess Dame Anna, _née_ Brunswick, and Wife of the virtuous, blessed Prince, Duke Albert, Duke of Bavaria and Count of Voburg. This has come to pass on the Friday after the Conception of Mary, the most glorious Virgin. 1448.”

The language is not clear: the date here given may be that of the translation, or of the engraving, or of the printing. The rudeness of design and engraving might lead an ordinary observer to the conclusion that the book was printed at an earlier date than 1448; but the insertion of a separate title-page, the printing of the pages on both sides of the paper, and the method of gathering the book in sections of eight leaves, teach us that the book should have been printed at a later date, when these improvements were in general use.

[Illustration: Fac-simile of a part of a Page of the Chiromancy of Doctor Hartlieb.

[From Heineken.]]

Doctor Hartlieb apprises his readers that he foretells the destiny of man by his right, and that of woman by her left hand. For this purpose he furnishes, on as many pages, forty-four large illustrations of the human hand, each covered with [p241] mystical characters, that are almost illegible by reason of bad printing. The illustration annexed, which is the first in the book, is intended to represent events that happen to people who have certain marks upon the palms of their hands. At one end of the picture are hanging and murder; at the other end, a kind deity is showering gold on the head of a bewildered peasant.

The childish book is an illustration of the intelligence of the ordinary reader of the period. It may be that the restrictive phrase, ordinary reader, is not warranted, for Doctor John Hartlieb was probably an honored graduate from a medieval university, and the Princess Anna, no doubt, was more carefully educated than the ladies of her court. Chiromancy was considered a science. Adrien Sicler dedicated a book on this subject to Camille de Neuf-Ville, Archbishop of Lyons and Primate of France. Books on chiromancy were printed at Lyons in 1492, at Strasburg in 1534, and at Bologna in 1504. The church tolerated the books of palmistry which did not interfere with the doctrine of moral responsibility, and which did not teach astrology or magic arts.

GERMAN PLANETARIUM AND CALENDAR.

[Illustration: An Illustration from the Calendar of John of Gamundia.

[From Berjeau.]]

These are two distinct works, which were often printed and bound together. The _Planetarium_, which is in German, describes, through a text in rhyme and by engraved illustrations, the influence of the planets on the destinies of mankind. The _Calendar_, which is in Latin, occupies but four pages, and contains at the end of the month of February the inscription, _Magister Johannes Gamundia_.[124] On another page is found the [p242] date 1468. There is a copy of the German _Planetarium_ in the British Museum which contains only twelve printed pages. Berjeau describes it as a small quarto, and says, that although it is printed on both sides of the paper, it presents the appearance of impression by the frotton. The fac-simile illustration that is given underneath represents the influences of the planet Mercury. The artist before the easel is painting a Madonna; his servant is mixing colors with a muller; in the middle of the print is an organ-maker; to the right is a copyist; at his back are two gourmands; in the foreground is a sculptor at work on a statue; to the left is a goldsmith before his anvil. The descriptions of these works that have been given by the early German bibliographers are not clear. They represent the book as consisting of twenty-six pages printed on one [p243] side of the sheet, with the blank pages pasted together. The size of the page, the color of the ink, and the method used in gathering the sheets are not stated. It seems that there were at least two editions of each work, one in German and one in Latin, and that portions of the different editions were sometimes bound up in one book. Von der Hagen says that the first page of the copy examined by him contained an imperfect impression of one of the pages of the _Antichrist_.

THE WONDERS OF ROME.

[Illustration: A Page from the Wonders of Rome.

Original is 3-1/4 by 5-5/8 inches.

[From Sotheby.]]

This small quarto of one hundred and eighty-four engraved pages is an example of patience in obscure letter-cutting that is more characteristic of China than of Europe. The text is in German, and is fairly printed in black ink on both sides of the paper. The book is enlivened by a few illustrations which have small merit as designs. The _Wonders of Rome_ is an ecclesiastic’s description of the more important shrines of the holy city, with their consecrated relics. The first page of the book contains an engraving of the handkerchief of Saint Veronica, which, according to the legend, was placed on the face of Christ to wipe away the blood that dripped from the crown [p244] of thorns, and received therefrom the impress of his features. Under this design the papal arms and the triple crown, the crossed keys, and the letters S. P. Q. R. The arms of the pope are those of Pope Sixtus IV, who occupied the papal chair from 1471 to 1484, within which period it is supposed that the book was engraved and published for German readers.

POMERIUM SPIRITUALE, OR SPIRITUAL NURSERY.

[Illustration: An Illustration from the Pomerium Spirituale.

Original is 4-7/8 by 5 inches.

[From Holtrop.]]

The rightful place of this work is among the manuscripts that are partly written and partly printed, for its pictures were engraved and its text was written. The book contains [p245] twenty-six leaves of small folio, made up in one section. At the beginning of each of its twelve written chapters is the impression of an engraving on wood. The date 1440 is found in two of the engravings. The only known copy of this book is held by the Royal Library of Brussels. It is a curious circumstance that this copy, possibly in its original binding, which contains a printed date earlier than that of any other block-book, should also contain two printed leaves of the _Bible of the Poor_. Holtrop says that the book was composed by Henry Bogaert, canon of a monastery near Brussels, who was born in 1382 and died in 1469. He was the author of many small religious books, of which the _Exercise on the Lord’s Prayer_ is one. The illustrations of this book and of the _Pomerium Spirituale_ were probably made at the same time and by the same engraver.

THE TEMPTATIONS OF THE DEVIL.

[Illustration: A Fragment of the Temptations of the Devil.

Original is 10 inches wide.

[From Koning.]]

This is not a book, but a print on a single sheet eleven inches wide and sixteen inches high. It differs from the image prints in the pettiness of its cuts and the abundance of its text, for which reason it may properly be described among the block-books with text. The nature of the work is clearly set forth in the preface, _The Temptations of the Devil, as he tempteth men to the Seven Mortal Sins_. The Devil, who, with a claw-hook in his hand, stands in the corner to the left, has beneath him the list of these seven sins. The tempted man is [p246] the monk near the centre of the print, who supplicates the aid of the angel, who hastens to his rescue. Below the angel are appropriate quotations from the Scriptures, which show that this print is but a medieval paraphrase of the story of Christ tempted by the Devil, as related by St. Matthew. It was engraved and printed in the form of a placard, that it might be fastened against a wall for the contemplation of the devout. The illustration shows only a portion of the upper part of this curious print, of which the British Museum has the only known copy. It is supposed to have been printed in the Netherlands.

THE LIFE OF ST. MEINRAT.

[Illustration: A Page from the Life of St. Meinrat.

Original is 3-1/8 by 5-7/8 inches.

[From Dibdin.]]

This book, which has an introduction of two pages in German, and forty-eight pages of illustrations, with brief descriptions below the pictures, tells the story of two bad men who murdered St. Meinrat, and who were immediately thereafter pursued by two crows. The illustration here presented represents the murderers on their way to execution, accompanied by the unrelenting crows. On the pages that follow are engravings of the murderers suffering under torture; it is shown how they were dragged at the heels of horses, and were broken and burnt on the wheel. The moral [p247] of this story is unmistakable: it is an awful crime to kill an ecclesiastic. The publication of so large a book to enforce so plain a truism is an intimation that some of the laity needed forcible illustrations of the danger of abusing the clergy.

THE DANCE OF DEATH.

[Illustration: A Page from the Heidelberg Dance of Death.

Original is 5-1/2 by 8-1/4 inches.

[From Dibdin.]]

Of this block-book of twenty-seven large pages, only two copies are known; one of them, which is in the Heidelberg library, is entirely xylographic, with a text in German; the other copy, in a Munich library, has also a text in German, but it is in manuscript. For each edition a different suite of blocks was used. Nothing is known about the printer of either book, nor about the date of its execution. The designs are really meritorious, and the engraving is obviously the work of a man who had experience in his art, but the merit of the work has been overshadowed by the superior designs of Holbein and the more masterly engravings of Lutzelberger. The characters or personages in this block-book are the same as those in the famous painting once at Basle.

* * * * *

These descriptions of the more famous block-books may be sufficient to show their paltriness from a literary point of view, and their rudeness as specimens of printing, but the [p248] books described are not enough in number to give us a correct notion of the activity of the early block-printers. It is probable that many books have been lost and forgotten; but we have, however, enough to warrant the belief that block-printing was an industry of some repute even as early as 1430.

One mechanical peculiarity of the block-books deserves a specific notice: all the block-books were printed on paper. The printers soon discovered that vellum was an intractable material, and they preferred paper as much for its convenience as for its cheapness. An apparent dislike of black ink is equally noticeable; the color in different books varies from a blackish gray to a dingy brown. But their most characteristic feature is the method of printing upon one side of the sheet. One chronicler says that the leaves were so printed that the blank sides might be pasted together. That this is not the true reason is apparent when we discover that very few of the books have pasted leaves. It is more reasonable to suppose that the earlier block-printers could not print on both sides of the paper. It is plain that they could not produce a neat impression even on one side—could not regulate the force of the impression, which was so harsh and violent that it sometimes spread the ink, and deeply indented the paper. As the margins are uneven, we have to infer that the printers could not place the sheets with uniform accuracy upon the blocks. Consequently, they could not print in register, and place the second page truly on the back of the first. Some authorities say that the paper was printed dry, but this is only a conjecture, made to suit the theory of printing by the frotton. The paper must have been dampened, for it was very thick, and as strong and as coarse as modern manila wrapping; it could not have been legibly printed until it had been softened.

With few exceptions, the block-books are of a religious character; but the religion taught is dogmatic and doctrinal more than devotional. We may safely assume that they were written by ecclesiastics in high station for the instruction of the ignorant monks, mendicant friars, and “unable curates.” [p249] Illiterate priests, to whom the descriptions or the legends of the pictures had been read, must have understood their historical and spiritual meaning, and must have found the pictures an aid to the memory, and suggestive of topics for preaching. Although made for priests, they were not beyond the reach of the people. As far back as the twelfth century, an English abbot sternly forbade, under penalty of excommunication, the lending of any books, “neither the large books with pictures, nor the small books without pictures.” But the mandate was disregarded. Sooner or later, the books found their way to the hands of laymen, whose ignorance of Latin did not prevent them from admiring the pictures; and this admiration must have inspired many a reader with the desire to learn the strange language and to own the coveted book.

The _Life of St. Meinrat_ is the only book which seems to have been written especially for the people. There are two, the _Antichrist_ and the _Exercise on the Lord’s Prayer_, which were, apparently, written to furnish suggestions to preachers against heresy. There was need for books of this character. The church was fermenting with dissent; a very large portion of the people had abandoned the old faith, and there was a general complaint among all priests that the churches were neglected. To recover this lost allegiance, and as an antidote to infidelity and heresy,[125] the church gave its assent to the circulation of image prints and block-books among the laity.

The poverty of the spiritual diet prepared for men who hungered for instruction and who leaned to heresy cannot be passed by without notice. It is strange that, in an age of [p250] growing disbelief, nothing was written for the people which can now be considered as of importance. We look in vain over the earlier block-books for a copy, in any language that the common people could read, of a book containing appropriate selections from the Scriptures. The _Lord’s Prayer_ was published but once, published in Latin, and strangely perverted from its true purpose. The _Ten Commandments_, in block-book form, were printed in German, but not before the last quarter of the sixteenth century. We find no selections from the _Psalms_ or _Evangelists_. The stories of the _Bible_, always with a Latin text, were obviously prepared, not to teach lessons of piety to the people, but to instruct the priests in the mysteries of dogmatic theology. All are orthodox: there is no block-book that has the slightest taint of heresy.

It does not appear that any of these block-books were made by monks. The block-printers of a later period were laymen, and men of no note, and it seems probable that the earlier books, without names, places or dates, were also made by laymen, by the printers of cards and images. It is possible that they were made at the instance, and perhaps under the direction, of the ecclesiastics. But we find no evidences that they were printed in monasteries; the lazy habits and coarse tastes of the monks, and their general avoidance of every form of mechanical labor as beneath their sacred calling, make this conjecture inadmissible.[126]

The literary merit of the block-books was small, and their shabby mechanical execution made them contemptible. To readers accustomed to handle great books of tinted vellum, admirably written in letters that are yet as sharp and legible as modern types, these miserable little pamphlets on dingy paper, and with muddy letters, scarcely deserved the name of books. By the educated readers of the fifteenth century they [p251] were rated as literary rubbish. Professors in the universities looked on them with the same contemptuous spirit which men of letters afterward manifested toward early newspapers. The attempts of early printers to furnish these poor substitutes for books to common people, so far from receiving any encouragement from scholars, met with their disdainful neglect. There were, indeed, a few praiseworthy exceptions, but the scholarship of the middle ages took sides with rank, in upholding all the conventional distinctions of society. They wished illiterate people to understand that books were the right of the educated only.[127]

The period in which block-books were printed cannot be fixed within exact limits. They did not go out of fashion when types were invented: the illustrated block-book _Opera Nova Contemplativa_, the Italian adaptation of the _Bible of the Poor_, was printed in Venice about 1512; but block-books of inferior merit were made after this date. Berjeau describes one, the _Innocentia Victrix_, probably engraved in China at the order of the Jesuits, which was printed in 1671. But these books are really the last specimens of a dying art; in the sixteenth century, they were practically obsolete. The period of their greatest popularity may be fixed between the years [p252] 1440 and 1475. As we approach the latter date, we find block-books containing the names and places of the printers. We see that they were made at Ulm, Nuremberg, and Augsburg,—the towns which have the earliest records of manufacturers of playing cards,—in the district in which old image prints like the _St. Christopher_ have been oftenest discovered. It is probable that block-books were printed in Southern Germany at or near the time when the _St. Christopher_ was printed, but we have no positive proof that any block-book was printed in 1423. The German book with earliest printed date is the _Chiromancy_, but its date of 1448 is not certainly the date of printing.

The evidences in favor of an early practice of block-book printing in the Netherlands are, in some features, even more incomplete. No early Dutch or Flemish block-book reveals the name of its printer. There are not many notices in old Flemish town-books concerning card-makers, or printers or painters of images. Yet there was, without doubt, an early practice of block-printing in the Netherlands. The Dutch traditions about early printing are more circumstantial than those of Germany; the _Brussels Print_ dated 1418 is older by five years than the print of _St. Christopher_; the date of 1440 as printed in the wood-cuts of the _Exercise on the Lord’s Prayer_ is eight years earlier than the date of the _Chiromancy_.

The books themselves do not tell us, neither directly nor indirectly, whether they were first printed in Flanders or in Germany. They have been critically examined by many able men, but the unbiased reader will not fail to note that most inquirers have found only what they wanted to find. To the German critic, all the early block-books are German; to the Dutch critic, they are surely Dutch. To recite the arguments advanced by partisans, or even to state the facts wrested to the support of the arguments, would provide a tedious task for the reader. Nor would the fullest presentation of the facts lead to certain knowledge. The language oftenest found in the block-books is Latin, the language of the Church and of [p253] scholars in all countries during the middle ages, and it gives us no clue to the place where they were printed. The paper-marks have been carefully scrutinized, in the hope that they would reveal the manufacture of the paper at some date or in some place, but reasonings made from paper-marks are now regarded as uncertain and of no practical value. We learn nothing through the study of the shapes or fashion of the engraved letters, for German-like characters have been found in block-books known to be Dutch, and peculiarities supposed to be Dutch have been found in German books. Nor can we glean anything of real value from a critical examination of the designs, which could have been copied from manuscripts, or drawn in one country and printed in another.

The only mechanical feature which leads to positive conclusions as to age is the manner in which they were printed. The books printed in black ink and on both sides of the paper were certainly printed after the invention of typography, and by typographic apparatus. The books in brown ink and on one side of the paper are of an earlier period. There is a peculiar rudeness about the books in brown ink which is not to be found in typographic work, a rudeness which we know began with the makers of cards or printers of images. If we consider, as we must, that the block-books are only collections of image prints, which were put in the form of books as soon as paper became cheap and popular, we may conclude with confidence that they could have been made, and probably were made, in the first quarter of the fifteenth century.

The great popularity of the block-books even after 1450, when types had been invented, proves that the business of making them was then firmly established, and that it was not checked by the superior advantages offered by types. It is obvious that the block-printers of 1450 had long practice in the older method, that they were firmly attached to it, and would not abandon it in favor of the new invention. Their preference for the older method of xylography is very plainly shown by the numerous editions of the _Donatus_.

[p254]

XIII

The Donatus, or Boy’s Latin Grammar.

A Very Old Book . . . A Favorite with the Early Xylographers . . . Frequently Printed . . . Scarcity of Fragments . . . Printed by Typographic Process . . . Printed before and after Invention of Typography . . . Testimony of the Cologne Chronicle . . . Of Accursius . . . Of Scaliger . . . Of Sweinheim and Pannartz . . . Fac-simile of a German Donatus . . . Of a Dutch Donatus . . . The Arrangement of Words in the Donatus . . . Obscurity of the Letters . . . Fac-simile of a Dutch Horarium . . . Xylographic Editions are Imitations of Typographic Editions . . . Irregularities of Engraved Letters . . . The Donatus a Relic of the Past . . . Shows the Retrogressive Tendencies of the Teachers of the Period . . . The Pettiness of all Block-Books . . . An Evidence of the Limitations of Xylography.

* * * * *

Although the art of printing, as has been said, was discovered at Mentz, in the manner as it is now generally used, yet the first prefiguration was found in Holland, in the Donatuses which were printed there before that time. And from these Donatuses the beginning of the art was taken.

_Cologne Chronicle of 1499._

* * * * *

The only block-book without pictures of which we have any knowledge is the _Donatus_,[128] or _Boy’s Latin Grammar_. It received its name from its author, Ælius Donatus, a Roman grammarian of the fourth century, and one of the instructors of St. Jerome. The block-book is but an abridgment of the old grammar: as it was usually printed in the form of a thin quarto, it could, with propriety, be classified among primers rather than with books. When printed in the largest letters, it occupied but thirty-four pages; when letters of small size were used, it was compressed within nine pages. As the most popular of small works, and one constantly needed in every [p255] preparatory school, it met the conditions then required by the early publisher: it could be engraved at little cost, and the printed copies could be sold in very large quantities. How many xylographic editions of the book were printed has never been ascertained, but we are led to believe that the number was large when we learn that more than fifty editions were printed from types before the year 1500.

Fragments of the xylographic _Donatus_ are scarce, and they are, for the most part, in a shabby condition. Many of them are the remnants of badly printed leaves which were rejected as spoiled by the printer. If it had not been for the frugal habits of the binders, who used them as stiffeners in the covers of books, we should have few specimens of this book. These waste leaves were put to this use because they were printed on parchment and had more strength than paper. And here we have to notice a remarkable difference between the block-books of images and the xylographic _Donatus_.

All the block-books are printed on paper, and the greater part are printed on one side of the sheet in brown ink. All copies of the xylographic _Donatus_ are printed on parchment, on both sides of the leaf, and in black ink. Parchment was, no doubt, selected to adapt the book to the hard usage it would receive from careless school-boys, but the method of printing in black ink and on both sides is the typographic method, which was not in use, so far as we can learn, before the middle of the fifteenth century. We have to conclude that all copies of the _Donatus_ printed in this manner were printed after the invention of types. The most trustworthy authorities say that there is no known fragment of an engraved _Donatus_ that can be attributed to the first half of the fifteenth century.

In the manufacture of this grammar, the block-book printers competed successfully with type-printers for many years. But typography improved while xylography declined; at the end of the fifteenth century, the copies made from type were decidedly superior. The engraved copies of the book were gradually cast aside as rubbish, for they contained no pictures, [p256] and had no features to justify their preservation. We cannot wonder that copies of the engraved _Donatus_ are scarce, but we must not infer from their present scarcity that they were not common before the year 1450. It is probable that more copies were printed of this than of any pictorial block-book; although we find no copies, we have trustworthy evidences that the _Donatus_ was printed before types were made.

That the _Donatus_ was engraved and printed before the invention of typography is distinctly stated in the book now known as the _Cologne Chronicle_, which was published in that city by John Koelhoff, in the year 1499. The name of the author is unknown, but he writes with the confidence of a clear-minded thinker and a candid chronicler. He says that the following statement was communicated to him, by word of mouth, “by Master Ulric Zell, of Hanau, now a printer in Cologne, through whom the art was brought to Cologne.”

Although the art [of printing], as has been said, was discovered at Mentz, in the manner as it is now generally used, yet the first prefiguration was found in Holland, in the _Donatuses_ which were printed there before that time. From these _Donatuses_ the beginning of the said art was taken, and it was invented in a manner much more masterly and subtle than this, and became more and more ingenious.[129]

Mariangelus Accursius, a learned Italian of the fifteenth century, made a similar acknowledgment of the indebtedness of the men whom he regarded as the inventors of typography to the unknown printers of the _Donatus_ in Holland. He says:

John Fust, a citizen of Mentz, and the maternal grandfather of John Schœffer, was the first who devised the art of printing with types from brass, which he subsequently invented in lead. Peter Schœffer, his son, added many improvements to the art. The _Donatus_ and _Confessionalia_ were printed first of all, in the year 1450. But the suggestion [of typography] was certainly made by the _Donatuses_ that had been printed before in Holland, from wooden blocks.

This extract first appeared in an _Appendix to the Library of the Vatican_, which was written by Angelo Rocca, and [p257] published at Rome in 1591. Rocca says that this statement is in the handwriting of Mariangelus Accursius, who affixed his name to it. On this page it is not necessary to point out the many errors of Accursius about the origin of the invention at Mentz; it is enough to show that he believed that the _Donatus_ was printed in Holland before types were made in Germany. It is not known, however, whether he acquired this information from the _Cologne Chronicle_ or from another source.

Joseph Justus Scaliger, an eminent scholar of the sixteenth century, says that printing was invented in Holland, and that the first block-book with text was a breviary or manual of devotion. It seems that this book was like the _Horarium_, of which a fac-simile will be shown on an advanced page.

Printing was invented at Dordrecht, by engraving on blocks, and the letters were run together as in writing. My grandmother had a psalter printed after this fashion with a cover two fingers thick. Inside of this cover was a little recess in which was placed a little crucifix of silver. The first book that was printed was a breviary or manual, and one would have thought that it had been written by hand. It belonged to the grandmother of Julius Cæsar Scaliger. A little dog destroyed it, much to his vexation, for the letters were conjoined, and had been printed from a block of wood, upon which the letters were so engraved that they could be used for this book and for no other. Afterward was invented a method of using the letters separately.

This record is of interest for its specification of Dordrecht in Holland as the birthplace of block-books, but it does not give any date, nor the name of the first printer. As it has not been corroborated by the testimony of any other chronicler, it is now regarded by the historians of typography as imperfect evidence—incorrect, probably, in its assertion of the priority of the breviary, but trustworthy so far as it shows that this learned antiquarian had some really valuable evidences concerning a very early practice of block-printing in Holland.

Sweinheym and Pannartz, the German printers, who introduced typography in Rome, and published more books than they could sell, in the year 1472 petitioned Pope Sixtus IV [p258] for relief. In the catalogue accompanying their petition they describe this _Donatus_ as the “Donatus for Boys, from which we have taken the beginning of printing.” Their language is not clear, for it may be interpreted as the first book printed by Sweinheym and Pannartz, or as the first book made by the art of printing.

[Illustration: Fac-simile of part of a Block of the Donatus in the National Library at Paris.

[From Lacroix.]]

The National Library at Paris has two very old xylographic blocks[130] of this book, which some bibliographers suppose were made about the middle of the fifteenth century. The letters on these blocks were more carefully drawn and sharply engraved than the letters of any known block-book. The wood is worm-eaten, but the letters are neat and clear, and do not show any evidences of wear from impression.

One of these blocks has been attributed to John Gutenberg, for its letters resemble those of the _Mazarin Bible_. It [p259] has been conjectured that this block may have been one of Gutenberg’s earlier experiments in printing. Apart from the similarity of the characters, there is no warrant for this conjecture. This similarity is entirely insufficient as evidence; it is not even proof of age. The block was probably engraved during the last quarter of the fifteenth century.

[Illustration: Fac-simile of the Fragment of an early Donatus.

[From Koning.]]

Koning, author of a treatise on early printing in Holland, has given in his book the fac-simile, which is here copied, of a fragment of a leaf from a xylographic _Donatus_. It was taken from the cover of a book printed by Gerard Leeu, of Antwerp, in 1490. Koning says that the fashion of the letters in this book is like that of letters in the manuscripts of Holland during the fifteenth century, and that they closely resemble the engraved letters of one edition of the _Ars Moriendi_. Holtrop gives a fac-simile of the entire page of a xylographic _Donatus_ with similar letters, which he claims as a piece of early Dutch printing.

The arrangement of words in Koning’s fac-simile of this fragment cannot be passed by without notice. The words are more readable than those of many block-books, but I have reset a small portion in modern type, that they might be more clearly contrasted with the modern method of composition. The words that do not appear in the mutilated fragment given by Koning are restored from the perfect copy of Holtrop.

THE OLD METHOD.

‹f›Lego legis legit. & plr legim’‹/f› ‹f›legitis legu’t Ptito ipfco legeba’‹/f› ‹f›legebas legebat, & plrlegebam’‹/f› ‹f›legebatis legeba’t‹/f›

THE MODERN METHOD.

Present Tense. Imperfect Tense. _Singular._ _Plural._ _Singular._ _Plural._ Lego, Legimus, Legebam, Legebamus Legis, Legitis, Legebas, Legebatis, Legit, Legunt, Legebat, Legebant. [p260]

This fac-simile gives an imperfect notion of the abbreviations, the blackness and obscurity of a page of the _Donatus_, but it is a fair specimen of the forbidding appearance of all the printed work of the fifteenth century. The illustration of the modern method of arranging the same letters shows the superior perspicuity of modern types and of modern typographic method. Not every reader of this age has a just idea of the extent of his obligation to what may be called the minor improvements of typography. It may be safely said that many men owe much of their scholastic knowledge to the systematic arrangement and the inviting appearance of modern types and books. The school-boy who glances over this fac-simile will quickly see the depth of the quagmire from which he has been delivered by the invention of types.

[Illustration: Fac-simile of an early Dutch Horarium.

[From Koning.]]

To support his theory that this fragment of the _Donatus_ is but a part of one of the many copies of the book which were printed in Holland before the invention of typography, Koning submits the fac-simile of a page from an old _Horarium_, or manual of devotion, which was copied by him from the original block. He says that this block once belonged to Adrien Rooman, a Haarlem printer of the seventeenth century, who had received it from one of the descendants of Coster. That Coster engraved or printed this block is highly improbable, but it is, without doubt, a [p261] very old piece of engraving. It can be fairly attributed to the fifteenth century, but no good evidence has been adduced to show that it was made before the invention of types. The block is practically worn out: the letters have been so flattened by impression that many of them are illegible.

It must here be noticed that the letters of this _Horarium_ do not interlock, as they do in many of the block-books. A ruled line drawn between the printed lines will show only a few and unimportant interferences of letters. This evenness in lining, which is properly regarded as one of the peculiarities of typography, seems out of place in an early block-book. But it is not confined to the _Horarium_. There are copies of the xylographic _Donatus_ that closely resemble typographic editions of the same period. They agree, line with line, page with page, and almost letter for letter, with the typographic model. That these xylographic copies were made from the engraved transfers of some typographic model is proved not only by the uniformity and parallelism of the letters, but by the square outline to the right of every page. These peculiarities are never produced in the workmanship of men who draw letters on a block.

It is not strange that the block-book printers should have imitated the work and the mannerisms of the typographers. It was easier to transfer the letters than to draw them; easier to cut the letters for a book of twenty or thirty pages than to cut the punches, make the moulds, and cast and compose the types. The blocks having been engraved, the block-printer had the superior advantage. His blocks, like modern stereotype plates, were always ready for use. He could print a large or small edition at pleasure. And what was of much more importance, he could print more legibly from his smooth plates of wood than the amateur typographer could from his uneven surface of lead.

The significance of the fact that letters were engraved by block-printers after typographic models will be more plainly seen when we examine the editions of the _Speculum Salutis_, [p262] a book which has been claimed by Dutch historians as the first production of the newly invented art of typography.

The irregular manner in which all the early xylographers drew and engraved letters on the block is fairly shown in this fac-simile of the imprint of Conrad Dinckmut, of Ulm, who affixed it to a _Donatus_ printed by him in 1480. It will be seen that parallel lines ruled between the printed lines would interfere with almost every ascending or descending letter.

[Illustration: Reduced Fac-simile of the Imprint of Conrad Dinckmut.

[From De la Borde.]]

The _Donatus_ clearly shows the retrogressive tendencies of the teachers of that age. It was originally written for scholars who spoke in Latin, and who, when the book was first placed in their hands, knew the meaning of almost every word. In the fifteenth century Latin was a dead language, but the book that had been written a thousand years before received no modification adapting it to the capacities of the German or Dutch boys, to whom Latin was as strange as Chinese.[131] The [p263] rules and the explanations, as well as the text, were in Latin. The boy who began to study the book was compelled to translate the words and rules before he knew the simplest elements of the language. The difficulty of the task will be understood if we imagine an American boy beginning the study of German, not with a German grammar in which the explanations are in English, but with the grammar that is now used in the schools of Germany. We find no trace of any other school-book in the form of a block-book. There was no other book of equal popularity. To the scholar of the middle ages there was no science that could be compared with Latin; there was no knowledge like that of the words of the dead language. Words were held of more value than facts. The teachers of the fifteenth century clung to this obsolete book, and compelled their pupils to go through the same barren course of study that had been used in the fifth century. In this fixed purpose we see something more than the force of habit: there was a general unwillingness to make the acquisition of knowledge in any way attractive.

The limitations of xylography are plainly set forth in this review of the more famous block-books. During the first half of the fifteenth century, labor was cheap, skill in engraving was not rare, paper was in abundant supply, the art of block-printing was known all over civilized Europe, and there was a growing demand for printed work, but this rude art of block-printing was limited to the production of pictures. It was never applied to the production of books of size or merit. The _Wonders of Rome_, with its text of one hundred and sixty-eight pages, is its most ambitious attempt; but large as this work may seem when it is put in contrast with other block-books, it is really insignificant when compared with the works of the first typographers.

[p264]

XIV

The Speculum Salutis, or the Mirror of Salvation.

Its Popularity as a Manuscript Book . . . Made for Mendicant Friars . . . Description of the Text . . . Fac-similes of Wood-cuts on First and Last Pages . . . Its Curious Theology . . . Four Editions of the Book . . . Their Peculiarities . . . Twenty Engraved Pages in one Edition . . . Strange Blemishes . . . Opinions of Bibliographers concerning the Date and Printer . . . Text of the Book Printed from Types . . . Fac-simile of the Types . . . Different Bodies of Types in Different Editions . . . Engraved Pages were Transferred from Types . . . Book Printed in Four Kinds of Ink . . . By Two Methods of Impression . . . Types and Cuts could not be Printed together . . . Opinions about the Quality of the Presswork . . . Strange Faults of Presswork . . . All Editions were Printed in Holland . . . Wood-cuts used for the last time by Veldener in 1483 . . . Not Probable that Veldener Printed the Earlier Editions . . . Veldener did not use the Types . . . The Speculum is the Work of an Unknown Printer.

* * * * *

Everything about the book is uncertain. It may be that the book was printed from engraved blocks. There are persons who say that it was engraved; there is a librarian who says that it was written by hand. . . . . I submitted the book to a type-founder, to an engraver, and to a printer, who decided that the book was printed with movable metal types that had been cast in a mould.

_André Chevillier._

* * * * *

The _Speculum Salutis_[132] was popular as a manuscript for at least two centuries before the invention of typography. Heineken describes a copy in the imperial library of Vienna, which he attributes to the twelfth century. He says, such was the popularity of the work with the Benedictines that almost every monastery possessed a copy of it. Of the four manuscript copies owned by the British Museum, one is supposed to have been written in the thirteenth century, another copy is in the Flemish writing of the fifteenth century. The printed [p265] book contains forty-five chapters of barbarous Latin rhymes, the literary merit of which is clearly enough set before us in Chatto’s faithful translation of four lines of the preface:

‹f›Predictum prohemium huius libri de contentis compilaui‹/f› ‹f›Et propter pauperes predicatores hoc apponere curaui‹/f› ‹f›Qui si forte nequierunt totum libri sibi comparare‹/f› ‹f›Possunt ex ipso prohemio si sciunt historias predicare.‹/f›

This preface of contents, stating what this book’s about, For the sake of all poor preachers I have fairly written out. If the purchase of the book entire should be above their reach, This preface yet may serve them, if they know but how to preach.[133]

In many features, the _Speculum_ resembles the _Bible of the Poor_. As the designs are in the same style, and as the engravings show the same mannerisms, it has been supposed that both books were made by the same printer; but this conjecture is opposed by many facts and probabilities.

The illustration at the beginning of this chapter is a fac-simile of the upper part of the first pictorial page. In the compartment to the right may be seen the Fall of Lucifer. The rebellious angels having been transformed into devils, and by swords and spears thrust over the battlements of Heaven, are falling into the jaws of Hell, which is here represented, in the conventional style of medieval designers, as the mouth of a hideous monster filled with forks of flame. In the next compartment is the Creation of Eve in the garden of Eden. Here we see that the designer has modified the biblical narrative to suit his own notions: Eve is not formed from the rib of Adam, but is emerging from his side. At the bottom of this picture is this legend in abbreviated Latin, God created man after his own image and likeness. [p267]

[Illustration: Fac-simile of the Upper Part of the First Pictorial Page of the Speculum Salutis.

[From Heineken.]]

An illustration on the last page of the book represents the Parable of the Ten Virgins, to which is added the legend, The Kingdom of Heaven is likened unto Ten Virgins. The five foolish virgins are sadly descending into the mouth of the monster that represents Hell. Another illustration represents the prophet Daniel interpreting the writing on the wall.

Hessel’s free translation of a large portion of the preface is really needed to show the theological teachings of the book.

[Illustration: Fac-simile of the Upper Part of the Last Page of the Speculum Salutis.

[From Heineken.]]

This is the preface of the _Spieghel onser behoudenisse_, which will teach many people righteousness, and to shine as the stars in eternal eternities. It is for this reason that I have thought of compiling, as an instruction for many, this book, from which those who read it will give and receive instruction. I presume that nothing is in this life more useful to a man than to acknowledge his Creator, his condition, his own being. Scholars may learn this from the Scriptures, and the layman shall be taught by the books of the laymen, that is by the pictures. Wherefore I have thought fit, with the help of God, to compile this book for laymen to the glory of God, and as an instruction for the unlearned, in order that it may be a lesson both to clerks and to laymen. It will be sufficient to explain the matter briefly. I mean first to show the fall of Lucifer and the angels. Then the fall of our first parents and their posterity. Thereupon, how God delivered us by his assuming flesh, and with what figures he whilom prefigured this assuming. It is to be observed that many histories are given in this work, which could not be explained from word to word, for a teacher does not want to explain more of the histories than he thinks necessary for their meaning. And in order that this may be seen better and clearer, I give this parable. . . . . There was an abbey, in which stood a large oak, which, on account of the narrowness and smallness of the town, they were compelled to cut down. When it was cut down, the workmen came together, and each of them chose whatever he thought would suit his trade. The smith cut off the undermost block, which he thought suitable for a forge; the shoemaker took the bark for making leather; the swineherd, the acorns for feeding pigs; the carpenter, the straight wood for a roof; the shipwright, the crooked wood; the miller digs the roots up, as they are fit, on account of their solidity, for the mill; the baker uses the thin twigs for his oven; the sexton of the church, the leaves for decorating the church at festivals; the butler, the branches for barrels and mugs; the cook, the chips for the kitchen. . . . . Just now, as here every one chose his liking from the hewn tree, so they do with Holy Writ. The same method has been followed regarding the histories which will be explained. Every teacher collects from them what he thinks proper and useful. I shall follow the same way with regard to this work, leaving out altogether some part of the histories, that it may not offend those who will hear and read it. Let us also observe that Holy Writ is like soft wax, which assumes the shape of all forms impressed upon it. Does, for instance, the stamp contain a lion? the soft wax will contain the same; and if it bears an ear, the soft wax will bear the same figure. So one thing signifies, sometimes the Devil, and sometimes Christ. However, we ought not to be astonished at this manner of the Scriptures, for divers significations may be ascribed to the divers performances of a thing or a person. When David, the king, committed both adultery and [p269] man-slaughter, he represented not Christ but the Devil. And when he loved his enemies, and did them good, he bore within him the figure of Christ and not of the Devil. . . . . This is why I have noticed these remarkable things here, for I thought it useful to those who study the Holy Scriptures, that they should not judge me, if they happened to find such things in this book, for the manner of translation and exposition is so. O good Jesus, give me works and a Christian devotion which may please thee.

* * * * *

Equally curious is the explanation of the marriage of the mother of God with Joseph. It appears from this, that it was not thought superfluous to justify a fact somewhat strange in regard to the doctrine of the supernatural incarnation of the second person of the Godhead. The author of the _Speculum_ assigns eight reasons for this marriage. The first was, that Mary should not be suspected of unchastity; the second, that she might want the help of a man during her travels as well as elsewhere; the third, that the Devil might not become aware of the incarnation of Christ; the fourth, that Mary could have a witness of her purity; the fifth, that God wished that his mother should be married; the sixth, to prove the sanctity of marriage; the seventh, to prove that marriage is no impediment to blessing; the last, that married people should not despair of their salvation. Catholicism had already brought the world to the possibility of that despair. Van der Linde, _Haarlem Legend of the Invention of Printing_, p. 4.

The _Speculum_ was printed at different times and places during the fifteenth century,[134] but the copies of greatest value are those which belong to four correlated editions—two in Latin, and two in Dutch—all without date, name, or place of printer. In these four editions the illustrations are obviously impressions from the same blocks; but each edition exhibits some new peculiarity in the shape or disposition of the letters. Those who favor the theory of an invention of typography in Holland maintain that these letters are the impressions of the first movable types, and that the curious workmanship of the book marks the development of printing at the great turning-point in its progress when it was passing from xylography to typography. As important conclusions have been drawn from the peculiarities of each edition, it is necessary that they should be described with precision. The order in which the four editions were actually printed is not certainly known. Six eminent bibliographers have arranged them in as many different orders. The order assigned to them here [p270] is purely conjectural, but it is based on the supposition that that should be the first edition in which the wood-cuts show the sharpest lines, and that the last in which the types and wood-cuts show the strongest marks of wear.

The _First Edition_ is in Latin. Each copy of the book is made up of sixty-three leaves of small folio printed upon one side of the paper, but with printed pages facing each other, after the style of the block-books. The space occupied by the printed page is about 7-3/4 inches wide, and 10-1/4 inches high. The preface, in rhyme, is composed in broad measure, and occupies five pages. The fifty-eight pages of text that follow are also in rhyme; but they are made up with two columns to the page. At the top of each page is an engraving on wood, containing, on one block, two distinct designs, separated from each other by the pillar of an architectural frame-work. At the bottom of each design, and engraved upon the same block, is a line in Latin, which explains the design, and which serves as the text for the verses underneath. The letters of the preface and the text are impressions from Pointed Gothic types of the Flemish style. Every line of verse begins with a capital letter. The only mark of punctuation is the period, but it is rarely used. The book is without title, paging-figures, signatures, or catch-words. The wood-cuts are in brown, and the types in black ink. The brown ink is a water color which can be partially effaced by rubbing with a moist sponge; the black ink is an oil color, for it has stained the paper with the pale greenish tinge of badly prepared oil. As the back of every printed wood-cut is smooth and shining, while the back of every type-printed page is rough and deeply indented, it is obvious that the types of the text were not only printed with a different ink, but by a separate impression, and, perhaps, by a process different from that employed in printing the pictures. The two pages that appear on the same sheet were printed together, as may be inferred from their irregularities; if one page is out of register, or out of square, its mated page is out of register to the same degree. The engravings were printed [p271] before the types, as is clearly proved by the discovery that on some pages the types slightly overlap the cuts.[135]

The _Second Edition_ is in Latin, and is like the first, with this odd exception: twenty pages of the text are printed from engraved blocks of wood. These xylographic pages are distributed in irregular order, as if by accident, as will be shown by the italic figures, which represent these pages, in the following table.

First Second Third Fourth Fifth Section Section of Section of Section of Section of of Six Fourteen Fourteen Fourteen Sixteen Leaves. Leaves. Leaves. Leaves. Leaves.

–5 . _6–19_. 20–33 34–47 48–63 1–4 . _7–18_. ._21–32_. 35–46 49–62 2–3 8–17 ._22–31_. 36–45 50–61 . _9–16_. 23–30 37–44 ._51–60_. ._10–15_. 24–29 38–43 52–59 ._11–24_. 25–28 39–42 53–58 ._12–13_. ._26–27_. 40–41 54–57 55–56

It should be noticed that the xylographic pages, as well as the typographic pages, are always found in couples. The types are those of the first edition, but there are [p272] variations in the composition and spelling of words, which prove that they must have been recomposed for this edition.

The _Third Edition_ is in Dutch prose. The types are like those of the previous editions, with the exception of pages 49 and 60, which are printed in types of a smaller body. The face of the smaller types has all the peculiarities of the types of the earlier editions, and is apparently the work of the same letter-cutter. In the few known copies of this edition there are differences in typographic arrangement which show that types were altered between the first and the last impression.

The _Fourth Edition_ is also in Dutch prose. All known copies of this edition are so badly printed that they have the appearance of spoiled or discarded sheets. Many authors have supposed that this must have been the first edition, and, perhaps, the first experiment with types; but a closer examination proves that the bad printing is owing, not so much to ignorance and to inexperience as to worn types and careless presswork—that this edition is really the last. The copy that is preserved by the city of Haarlem shows, in the handwriting of the sixteenth century, this inscription in Dutch: “The _Speculum Salutis_, the earliest production of Lourens Coster, the inventor of typography, who printed at Haarlem about the year 1440.” Between the second and the third leaf has been inserted a portrait of Lourens Coster, “engraved by Vandervelde after Van Campen,” with the words, in Latin, “Lourens Coster, of Haarlem, first inventor of the typographic art about the year 1440.” Underneath this inscription is a Latin verse by Scriverius, in which he extols Coster as indisputably the inventor of typography. As the writing, the portrait, and the inscription were added a long time after the book had been printed, these additions cannot, consequently, be accepted as evidences of any real value.

Junius, the historian of Holland, writing in 1568, was the first to call attention to the _Speculum_. He noticed but one edition: it is not probable that he knew of the others. He said it was made by Coster from types of wood, in Haarlem, [p273] before the year 1440. Scriverius, a Dutch author, writing in 1628, said that it was printed by Coster from founded or cast types in or about 1428. Heineken, a German bibliographer, intimates that the blocks of the _Speculum_ were engraved, and that the two Latin editions were printed in Germany after the invention of typography; but he concedes, rather grudgingly, that the Dutch editions were printed in Holland. Santander says that the book was printed in the Netherlands, but not before the year 1480.

The disagreements of bibliographers concerning this book have not been restricted to controversies about its date and printer. Some have said that there were no types in any of the editions, and that the letters, like the pictures, were cut on solid blocks of wood. This error is almost pardonable. The superficial observer of our own time will say that the characters of this book are not types, but badly engraved letters. They seem to lack the most distinguishing feature of types. The letters are not at all alike, as may be seen in the accompanying fac-simile. The variations in the shapes of the letters are so frequent that a modern printer would at once decide that the dissimilar letters could not have been cast in the same matrix. This is a curious defect, but it can be shown that the letters are types, and founded types. “The existence of a positive fact,” says Chatto, “can never be affected by any arguments which are grounded on the difficulty of accounting for it.” It is plain, however, that the types of the book were carelessly made by an inexpert type-maker, and perhaps by a clumsy method now out of use. Instead of making all the types of one character from one punch or original, the printer of this book made them from two, four, or six punches or originals. At this point it is not necessary to consider why so many punches were made. It is enough to say that there is real uniformity in the midst of all this diversity—that each letter is a duplicate, more or less faithful according to the wear it has received, of its own original. Careful tracings on transparent paper have been repeatedly made of a selected letter [p274] for the purpose of testing its agreement or disagreement with letters of the same kind on other pages, and the comparison establishes the fact that the letters are founded types.[136]

The errors of the _Speculum_ are those of types. They show the inversion of letters in positions which preclude the possibility that they could have been formed upon engraved blocks. The occasional occurrence of a _c_ for an _e_, of an _n_ for a _u_, of an _ſ_ for an _f_, and the “turning upside down” of other letters, are examples of errors which can be made only by compositors.

The unequal perspicuity of the letters in the _Speculum_ is that of unequally worn types. Of two adjoining letters, one will be distinct, black, and deeply indented in the paper; the other will be of dull color, and of indistinct outlines. The distinct letter is a new and high type, which has received the full force of impression; the indistinct letter is an old and worn type which has been touched but feebly by impression. If all the letters had been engraved on one plate, they would have been of equal height, and should have been equally legible, or nearly so, under impression.

The four editions of the _Speculum_ are, of themselves, presumptive evidence that each edition was printed from types. It is improbable that the printer would re-engrave blocks for a second edition when those of the first were in existence. If the first edition had been printed from types, and the types had been distributed, as is customary, the printer was obliged to reset them in order to make the second edition.

These four editions were certainly the work of the same printing office, and, without doubt, of the same printer, for [p275] the engravings are the same, and the types, ink, paper, and workmanship have similar defects and peculiarities. The first edition shows pages of types only; the next edition has types and blocks, but the types are like those of the first; then comes a third edition in the same types, but with two pages of types differing somewhat as to body and face; lastly an edition entirely in the old types, in a worn condition. Each edition has more or less connection with the others.[137]

[Illustration: English.

Two-line Brevier.]

The body or dimension of the types used in the _Speculum_ approximates the size known to all British and American printers as English; but it is rather larger than any of the modern standards. It is really intermediate between the body English and the little-used body of Two-line brevier or Columbian.[138]

The appearance of twenty engraved pages in the second edition of the _Speculum_ cannot be explained with satisfaction. Bernard thinks that these pages are the relics of an earlier edition engraved, or at least attempted, on wood, which, for some unknown reason, were temporarily substituted for types. [p276] No trace of this imaginary edition has been discovered. It has been claimed that the engraver of these xylographic blocks was the probable inventor of typography. It is supposed that he matured the ideas he had cherished about movable types when he was engraving and printing the first edition of the book; that when he became fully convinced of their feasibility, he stopped the engraving of the blocks, and finished the work with types which were made for the purpose. This hypothesis is not reasonable. If the printer of the book suddenly abandoned blocks for types, the change would be abruptly marked in his work. The twenty pages at the beginning of the book would be xylographic, and all following would be typographic. But it will be perceived that the twenty pages are scattered, without any order, throughout the book. Instead of being the relics of an earlier edition, it is demonstrable that these xylographic blocks were cut from transfers obtained from a typographic edition. A traced drawing upon transparent paper, taken with accuracy from the first edition of the _Speculum_, and carefully laid over a corresponding xylographic page in the second edition, will show an agreement in the length of lines, in the abbreviation of words, and in the copying of little errors or blemishes, which could have been produced only by means of transferred drawing.[139] With this fact before us, the supposition of the priority of an engraved edition of the book is untenable. Dutch authors say that these xylographic blocks corroborate a Hollandish legend, in which it is stated that the materials of the printer of the _Speculum_ were stolen. They suppose that the first typographer was obliged to engrave [p278] these twenty blocks to complete his imperfect edition. This hypothesis does not accord with other facts: the appearance of three successive editions of the book, each with a text of types, proves that the practice of typography was continued.

[Illustration: Fac-simile of part of a Page of the Speculum Salutis.]

The provision of black ink for the types and brown ink for the cuts seems unnecessary, but Van der Linde’s explanation of this peculiarity is plausible. He says that the oily black ink used on the types may have been rejected for the cuts because its greasy surface interfered with the brush of the colorist. It does not appear that the inquiry has ever been made, whether the brown ink of block-books was always brown. It is probable that this brown ink was once black. The variability of the color, so frequently remarked in all block-books, is the certain indication of a faded black writing ink. It was the fluidity of this writing ink that prevented its use on the types of the _Speculum_; the fluid collected in globules on the metal, spreading under impression, and blotting the paper. Oily ink was required for a surface of metal.

The unequal indentation of the letters indicates that the types were not of a uniform height. Nor is it probable that the engravings at the head of every page were always truly flat and of precisely the same height as the types. They were pieces of flat boards, which must have warped with every change from heat to cold, or from dampness to dryness.[140] In these irregularities we find the probable reason for the employment of two distinct methods of impression. Two impressions were needed as much as two kinds of ink. [p279] The types required strong, and the wood-cuts weak impression. If the impression had been graduated to suit the wood-cuts, the print of the types would not have been visible; if enough impression had been given to face the types, the wood-cuts, if in the same form, would have been crushed.

The quality of the presswork of the _Speculum_ has been strangely misrepresented. Sotheby, who tries to establish the priority of Dutch printing, says that the ink in one edition is brilliant; that its types have great beauty and sharpness; that its presswork is equal in clearness to that of Gutenberg’s Bible. In this high praise no other author joins: most critics say it is but a shabby piece of presswork. The Dutch authors, who wish to show the imperfections of typography in its infancy, call especial attention to the illegibility of the fourth edition in Dutch, which they claim as the first, and for that reason they rate it as an unusually clumsy piece of printing. Van der Linde says that the presswork of the _Speculum_ does not differ materially from that of many books printed in the Netherlands during the last quarter of the fifteenth century.[141]

The wood-cuts were printed by the unknown process then made use of by all block-printers; the types were printed on a press which was fitted with at least one of the appliances of a well-made printing press; but the two editions in Latin, which are in verse, with lines of irregular length, show typographical blemishes of an extraordinary nature. In the blank spaces at the ends of the short lines are found impressions of letters never intended to be seen or read—of letters that do [p280] not belong to the text—of letters not printed with ink, but embossed or jammed in the paper. On some pages entire words are found. These words and letters, which are always found within the square of the printed page, and in line with the types printed in black, are, undeniably, embossings of types from the same font. The printer who critically examines these embossed letters will be convinced that the types making them were used as bearers at the ends of the short lines, to shield adjacent types from hard impression: he will also know that they were printed on a press provided with a frisket.[142]

The period in which the early editions of the _Speculum_ were printed will be the subject of the next chapter, but it may here be told when the wood-cuts were destroyed. In the year 1483, one John Veldener, then a printer at Culembourg, printed two editions of the _Speculum_, in the Dutch language, and in small quarto form. One edition contained 116 and another 128 illustrations, printed from the wood-cuts that had been previously used in the four notable editions. To make these broad wood-cuts, which had been designed for pages in folio, serve for pages in quarto, Veldener cut away the architectural frame-work surrounding each illustration, and then sawed each block in two pieces. Mutilated in this fashion, it was impossible afterward for any printer to use these blocks in the production of an edition in folio like any of those that have been previously described. Veldener’s editions were not made by the method used by the printer of the earlier editions: the types and the wood-cuts were printed together, [p281] in black ink and upon both sides of the leaf. The blocks were badly worn before they were mutilated: the finer lines of the engraving are flattened out, and retain too much ink, producing an effect of blackness and muddiness not shown in the impressions of the earlier editions. The fault is certainly in the cuts, and not in the presswork, for Veldener was an able printer. The wood-cuts printed by him in other books, at Louvain and at Utrecht, show neater presswork, although they are of feeble design and meanly engraved.[143]

Although Veldener made use of the wood-cuts, he did not use any of the types of the _Speculum_. His book types are well known: as they are of different bodies and faces, they may be regarded as conclusive evidence that Veldener was not the printer of the early editions. It is probable that he bought from the printer of the first editions, or from his successors, the wood-cuts only. We may suppose that the types were worn out, and that the punches and matrices were also worn out or obsolete, for we find no traces of them in the books of any later printer. We have, therefore, to attribute all the books in which these types are found to a printer who preceded Veldener. We do not know the name of this printer, nor can we fix the date when he began to print, but it is evident that he was one of the earliest if not the first typographic printer in the Netherlands.

[p282]

XV

The Works and Workmanship of an Unknown Printer.

The Speculum not the Work of an Experimenter . . . Improbable that this was his only Typographic Book . . . Twelve Books, Eight Faces of Types and Forty-two Editions attributed to him or his Successors . . . Hessel’s Classification of these Types . . . Fac-simile of the Types of the Speculum . . . Fac-simile of the Fables of Lorenzo Valla . . . Fac-simile of the Peculiarities of Criminal Law . . . Fac-simile of the Epitaphs of Pope Pius II . . . The Donatus . . . Fac-simile of the Abecedarium . . . The Eight Faces of Types were made by the same Printer . . . An Indication that he Wore out Types rapidly . . . That he Sold many Books . . . Trivial Character of the Books . . . His Types not Made of Wood . . . Illustrations of Types of Wood . . . Their Impracticability Demonstrated . . . Books not made from Cut Types . . . Cause of the Dissimilar Appearance of the Types . . . Were Founded . . . The Press of the Unknown Printer . . . Its Defects . . . Indications of the Use of a Frisket.

* * * * *

If any shall suggest, that some of the Enquiries here insisted upon (as particularly those about the Letters of the Alphabet) do seem too minute and trivial for any prudent man to bestow his serious thoughts and time about, such persons may know that the discovery of the true nature and cause of any the most minute thing doth promote real knowledge, and therefore cannot be unfit for any Man’s endeavours.

_Bishop Wilkins_, 1668.

* * * * *

If the printer of the _Speculum_ was the rightful inventor of typography, his workmanship, as shown in the different editions of the book, clearly proves that he had passed the shoals of experiment, and was on the broad sea of successful practice. We can see, even without the help of the legends or chronicles, that he cut punches, made moulds and founded types of different faces and bodies; that he compounded ink in a proper manner, and printed his types upon a press constructed for the needs of his work; that he was successful both as a publisher and a printer. He practised printing not for amusement, nor in the way of scientific experiment, but as a business. Rude as his workmanship may appear, it fairly included all departments of the art: it was not experimental, but practical typography. [p283]

With these facts before us, it would seem proper to pass at once to the examination of the statements that have been made about the supposed printer of the book. But an examination at this point would be premature, for we have not, as yet, all the facts that are required. The four editions of the _Speculum_ do not furnish enough evidence. It is not reasonable to suppose that two or three distinct fonts of type were made for no other purpose than the printing of four editions of this book. It is probable that the printer printed other books. But the early chronicles of Dutch printing tell us very little about these books. They are not only meagre in their recital of the more important facts connected with the invention, but are notoriously incorrect in their description of the minor details. They are unsafe guides. The books themselves, which reveal, to some extent, the process by which they were printed, are now regarded as of higher authority. We can accept the chronicles only so far as they corroborate the internal evidences of the books. It is proper that the books should be examined first.

The number of these books is greater than has been supposed, even by those who have favored the Dutch version of the invention of typography. Forty-three editions of twelve different works, printed from eight faces of types, are now attributed to the unknown printer of the _Speculum_ or to his successors. In eleven works, the types resemble those of the _Speculum_, but the books are different as to character. They are in the form of small quarto or octavo, and are entirely destitute of illustrations. They are without name or place of printer, and, with one exception, are without date; they have no literary and no historical value; they differ but little, in a mechanical point of view, from numerous undated works of similar nature that have been assigned by bibliographers to the latter part of the fifteenth century. The places where these books or their fragments were found, and some of their peculiarities of workmanship, furnish evidences of value in an inquiry concerning their printer. [p284]

These books have been carefully classified according to their types, by J. H. Hessels, the translator in English of Van der Linde’s _Haarlem Legend_, from which work the classification following has been copied. The types have been specified by numbers, and have been arranged according to the order in which they are described by Holtrop in his _Monuments typographiques_. It is not pretended that the order of these numbers indicates the order in which the types were made; numbers have been assigned to them only for convenience in reference and for the purpose of accurate classification.

TYPE I. In this character[144] the four notable editions of the _Speculum_ were printed. In the same character were found the relics of six editions of the _Donatus_. The single leaf by which one edition of this book was identified, was pasted in a volume which once belonged to Sion Convent, at Cologne, and which contained several treatises printed by Ulric Zell, of Cologne. One of these treatises is dated 1467. Another leaf, now in the city hall of the city of Haarlem, was found in the original binding of an account book for the year 1474, which book was kept in the cathedral of that city. The account books of this church for the years 1476, 1485 and 1514, contain cuttings of leaves from the same edition. The first entry in the record of 1474 is to this effect: “_Item._ I have paid six Rhine florins to Cornelis the binder, for the binding of books.”[145] Fragments of other little books printed in the types of the _Speculum_ have been found:

An abridgment of the Liturgy, then known as the _Little Book of the Mass_,[146] a small quarto, with pages of twelve lines. [p285]

A Dutch version of the _Seven Penitential Psalms_, in the form of a very small quarto, containing but eleven lines to the page, printed on vellum, on one side only of the leaf. The only known copy of this work was found in Brussels.

Fragments on vellum of three editions of the _Doctrinal of Alexander Gallus_, a Latin grammar in rhyme, noticed by Van der Linde as the shabby compilation, by a priest of Brittany who lived in the thirteenth century, of the old Latin grammar of Priscianus. One of these fragments was found within the lining of a book printed at Deventer in 1495.

Four leaves of the _Couplets of Cato_, a small quarto which was then very popular in the schools.

[Illustration: Type II. Fac-simile of the Small Types in the Third Edition of the Speculum.

[From Holtrop.]]

TYPE II. The Dutch edition of the _Speculum_, which is described in this book as the third, contains, on pages 49 and 60, types which resemble those of other editions, and which seem to be the workmanship of the same letter-cutter. As these types are of a smaller face and body, they must have been founded in another mould. No fragments of any book in this smaller type have been found.

[Illustration: Type III. Fac-simile of the Types of the Fables of Lorenzo Valla.

[From Koning.]]

TYPE III. The types of this face are newer, but they resemble those of Type II; some capitals are identical, but others have differences which establish it as a distinct face. As it is of a larger body, it must have been founded in a [p286] different mould. A book which contains the _Fables of Lorenzo Valla_ and the _Witty Speeches of Great Men_, two little works of some popularity in the fifteenth century, is the only known specimen of this type. The paper of this book, which is like that of the _Speculum_, contains many of the strange blemishes, previously described, of useless letters embossed in the white lines and near the margins. As the written preface of the author is dated May, 1438, it is apparent that the book must have been printed subsequently to this date.

[Illustration: Type IV. Fac-simile of the Types of the Peculiarities of Criminal Law.

[From Koning.]]

TYPE IV. Of this face, the fragments of four copies, and presumably of four distinct editions, of the _Donatus_ have been found. This type, which does not closely resemble the faces previously described, was founded on a body a little larger than Paragon. The largest book in this type is a treatise on the Roman Law, apparently an abridgment of the fifth book of the _Pandects of Justinian_. It is described in the preface as _The Peculiarities of Criminal Law, by Lewis of Rome_. This treatise, which consists of forty-four pages, is printed in the form of small folio, twenty-six lines to the page. It was the largest book and contains the largest type of the unknown printer. [p287]

TYPE V. The forty-fifth page and all subsequent pages of the book previously described are devoted to a _Treatise and Epitaphs by Pope Pius II_, and a _Eulogy on Lorenzo Valla_. In these names we find sure indications of the probable age of the book: Cardinal Piccolomini or Æneas Sylvius was made Pope Pius II in the year 1458; Lorenzo Valla died in 1457. The book must have been written and printed after these dates. The workmanship of this part of the book is of superior character: the types were fairly founded on a body about the size of Great-primer; they were decently printed in good black ink and on both sides of the paper, but the remarkable defect of embossed letters which has been noticed as one of the blemishes of the _Speculum_ is also noticeable in this book.

This Type V seems to have been more frequently used than any other type in the list, but it was always on petty books or pamphlets. One book printed in it has only twenty-four pages, but it is made up of four distinct tracts: _William of Saliceto on the Health of the Body_; _Torquemada on the Health of the Soul_; _A Treatise on Love, etc., by Pope Pius II_; _The Iliad of Homer_, or more definitely, a commendation of the _Iliad_. Two editions of this book have been discovered. A fragment of one edition was found in the binding of a work printed by Jan Andrieszoon, of Haarlem, in the year [p288] 1486. Another book in the same type, which consists of ten leaves, contains an abridgment or an epitome of the _Iliad_, with a preface by Pius II in praise of Homer. Of this book two editions were printed. Six editions of the _Donatus_, four editions of the _Doctrinal of Alexander Gallus_, and one edition of the _Couplets of Cato_ were also printed in this type.

[Illustration: Type V. Fac-simile of the Types of the Epitaphs of Pope Pius II.

[From Koning.]]

TYPE VI. An edition of the _Donatus_, twenty-seven lines to the page, is the only known book in this type, which was founded on Great-primer body.

TYPE VII. Four leaves of a _Donatus_ on vellum, taken from the binding of a book printed in Strasburg in the year 1493, and belonging to a convent in North Brabant, are all that is known of this type, which closely resembles the character described as Type V.

TYPE VIII.[147] Impressions from this face of type have been found in the fragments of only two books. Two broad bands of parchment printed upon one side only with the text of a [p289] _Donatus_, which were discovered in the cover linings of a manual of devotion, printed at Delft in 1484, are the only known relics of one of these books. The types are barbarous, of singularly ungraceful cut, of uneven height and out of line, evidently founded by a man who had no skill in type-founding. They are printed in pale ink which is readily removed by the application of water. The presswork is as slovenly as the type-founding, but the composition was done with some care and intelligence. The lines of type are nearly even as to length, and the words, when broken, are properly divided in syllables. It is evident that the compositor knew how to space and divide words, but the font of type that he used was not provided with hyphens or marks of punctuation. The fashion of the letter is in the Dutch style as may be seen in the final _t_ with the perpendicular bar.

The other fragment in this type is a little pamphlet of eight pages, printed on parchment and upon one side only. It is described by some as a _Horarium_, or a little book of prayers; by others as an _Abecedarium_, or a child’s primer. It contains the Alphabet (all the small letters but not the capitals), the Lord’s Prayer, the Ave Maria, the Apostles’ Creed, and two prayers. The Alphabet has the _k_, a letter that was not used in the Latin language; it has no _w_, this letter being formed by the union of the two characters _v_. Holtrop says that the types seem to have been made for the Dutch language.

The “turning upside down” of four letters on the second page of this little work proves that the letters are impressions from movable types.

Line 2. _Paue_ should be Pane.

Line 3. _Cotidiaun_ should be Cotidianu.

Line 5. _uobis_ should be nobis.

Line 6. _uostra_ should be nostra.

This little tract was discovered in 1751 by the celebrated type-founder Enschedé, of Haarlem, in a manuscript breviary of the fifteenth century, among the books of the descendants of John Van Zuren, a printer of Haarlem in 1561.

If barbarous type-founding and shabby printing could be accepted as conclusive evidence of the superior antiquity of [p290] the book in which these faults occur, the _Abecedarium_ should be the oldest piece of printed matter. One cannot imagine a printed book with more slovenly workmanship. Its types present all the irregularities of the _Donatus_ previously described. The pages have but nine lines of types to each page, yet they are very crooked. This crookedness was partially produced by an unskillful fastening, or locking-up of the types, but it is plain that the types were of irregular size as to body, and that the letters were badly adjusted upon the bodies. Some types are high and others low to paper, and there are types that are legible at one end of the face and not at the other. The presswork is wretched: we see the evidences of too weak and badly distributed ink and of uneven impression. The text shows many faults of composition in the division of syllables. To the observer who is not an expert in typography, the workmanship of the book seems that of a man who had no experience in any department of printing: the faults do not appear to be those of a badly taught printer, but those of an experimenter.

[Illustration: First Page.

The Enschedé Abecedarium.

[From Holtrop.]]

[Illustration: Second Page.

The Enschedé Abecedarium.

[From Holtrop.]]

For this reason the _Abecedarium_ has been claimed by the Dutch historians of typography as the first production of the inventor of the art. They say that it was printed before any edition of the _Speculum_, and probably in the first quarter of the fifteenth century. A closer [p291] examination of the book does not lead to this conclusion: the printer of the book was, no doubt, a careless workman, but he had been taught the trade. The fragments of the tract are in four pieces, but they were printed in one form of eight pages, and by one impression. This artificial arrangement of the pages, in the arbitrary position which allows them to be folded together in regular order, reveals an expertness in little technicalities on the part of this early printer which is somewhat unexpected. The method of printing sheets imposed in forms of eight pages was not in fashion before it was adopted by Aldus Manutius, of Venice, in his edition of Virgil dated 1501. It is not an invention of the first, but of the last quarter of the fifteenth century, to which period this book belongs.[148]

The types of the book were not set up by an experimenter or ignoramus. The comparatively even outline to the right of every page shows that the compositor tried to space out his lines and to give every page an appearance of uniform squareness. As full and even-spaced lines are not to be found in any edition of the _Speculum_, nor in any of the first books of the early printers, we may conclude that the _Abecedarium_ was printed at a later date, when this improvement had been adopted by all printers.

It has been maintained that the book must be very old, because it is printed on one side only, after the fashion of the block-printers. This is an improper inference, for each fragment has the appearance of a spoiled impression which was rejected before the sheet had been perfected by printing on the other side. The unfilled space for the initial letter shows that the work on the sheet was never completed. [p292]

The eight faces of types show their relation to each other, not only by common features, but by the occasional appearance of two faces in one book. That they were never used by any printer of Germany, nor by any known printer of the Netherlands, is acknowledged even by those who dispute their age. That they were founded and used in the Netherlands, and probably in Holland, may rightfully be inferred from the language of two editions of the same book, from the Dutch fashion of the letters in all the books, and from the fact that all existing copies or fragments of works in these types have been discovered in the Netherlands. That they were the work of one printer, or of the successors of that printer, is highly probable. But this admission involves difficulties. These eight faces of types were founded on as many different bodies: four of these faces are on bodies nearly the size of English; two of them are on bodies about the size of Great-primer. The modern printer is at a loss to imagine why his unknown predecessor should have cut so many punches and made so many fonts of types with faces closely resembling each other, yet so unlike that they could not be used together. His perplexity is increased when he discovers, after careful measurement, that each face on English body and each face on Great-primer body was cast in a new or different mould. It would seem that the unknown printer of the _Speculum_ not only incurred the needless expense of cutting new punches and making new moulds for every new font of types, but that he intentionally introduced in his printing office bodies so nearly alike that they could not, in the shape of single types, be distinguished apart.

The questions at once arise, Why were so many faces and bodies of types that could be readily mistaken for each other, and were so liable to be mixed together, allowed in one office? Why were so many punches cut for such trivial differences of face, and so many moulds made for such slight differences of body? These questions can be answered only by conjectures fairly derived from the remarkable workmanship of the books. [p293] The harsh indentation of the types in the paper shows very clearly that the types were roughly used, and that they wore out rapidly. We can see, also, that the method of making types was as imperfect as the method of obtaining impression. It is possible that the matrices and moulds wore out as fast as the types, but they could not have been renewed if they had not been made by a much quicker and cheaper method than that of modern type-founders. It is not at all probable that these different types were in use together. We may suppose that as soon as a font of types was worn out, it was replaced by another font, which may have been cast from new matrices and a new adjustment of mould. A new font made in imitation of the old one, but made without scientific method, and without regard to exact accuracy, would show the difference in face and body which seems so strange to the modern printer.

These eight fonts of type seem all the more unnecessary when we consider the trivial nature of the unknown printer’s works.[149] The _Speculum_ is the only book of respectable size; the others are so diminutive that they could be classified as pamphlets. They were cheaply made, adapted, apparently, to the wants of school-boys, and were probably sold for small sums. It is evident that the books met with ready sale. We find four editions of the _Speculum_ in two faces of type and in two languages; nineteen editions of the _Donatus_ in six faces of type; six editions of the _Doctrinal_ in two faces; and twelve editions of other books.

From the character of the books, one might judge that they had been printed for the use of some school, and at the suggestion, or under the direction, of the authorities of the church. The _Abecedarium_ was a primer for small children. The books most frequently published, the _Donatus_ and the _Doctrinal_, were those most needed by very young scholars. [p294] The _Couplets of Cato_, the curt treatise on the _Roman Law_, and the _Praise of the Iliad_, are, in size and subject, the books that would be suitable for a boy’s school in the middle ages. The _Treatises_ of Saliceto and Torquemada, the _Witty Sayings of Great Men_ and the _Eulogy_ of Pope Pius II, may also be included in the list of books that were intended to be used in schools for the teaching of morals. The character of these works is more juvenile than that of any other typographic printer of that century. Whoever compares them with the ponderous theological works that were printed by Mentel, Gutenberg and Schœffer, and by numerous printers in Germany, and subsequently in the Netherlands, will at once see that this unknown printer made books for boys where other printers made books for men. Probably he could secure no other buyers. His workmanship was so rude that it could not be sold to an intelligent or critical reader. His process was suitable only for the cheapest work and the simplest tastes.

[Illustration: 1. Experimental Letters Drawn on Wood.

[From De la Borde.]]

[Illustration: 2. Experimental Letters Drawn on Wood.

[From De la Borde.]]

[Illustration: 3. Types made from the Experimental Letters.[150]

[From De la Borde.]]

It is unnecessary to prove that the types of these books, like the types of the _Speculum_, were founded in a mould. They show the same features, and must have been made by the same process. It is, however, necessary to show that neither these types, nor [p295] any types made in the infancy of the art, could have been cut on wood or metal. There is a tradition, which has found its way in many popular treatises on typography, and even in encyclopædias, that the first types were cut or sawed out of wood. We are told that separate letters, drawn at graduated distances, were engraved on blocks of wood, and that a saw cutting through the intervening spaces separated the fixed letters and made movable types. According to Meerman, the uncouthness of the types of the _Abecedarium_ is fully explained by the acceptance of this tradition. It is necessary, at the outset, to show the impracticability of these imaginary types of wood. This can be done in no better way than by presenting the illustrations of Leon De la Borde, one of the most eminent defenders of the theory. In these engravings, we see how the letters were drawn on the blocks, how lines were marked out to guide the saw that cut them apart, and how the dissected letters were recombined in new positions. But this illustration really proves the reverse of what was intended: it proves that types may be cut out of wood, but that they cannot be used after they have been cut. In this third illustration, the lines of type are separated by leads,[151] but the types stand more unevenly in line than the letters of any xylographic book. It is obvious to every printer that they could not have been printed at all, if they had not been [p296] leaded. As an imitation, the illustration is of no value, for it illustrates a method of arranging types which was never practised by the unknown printer, whose types were always composed without leads. This pretended demonstration must be put aside as a complete failure.[152]

Those who have written in defense of types of wood have failed to see that the cutting of the faces is the least difficult part of the work. The real difficulty is in the cutting of the bodies—in making bodies so accurate that they can be interchanged with facility, in all kinds of combinations, without showing distortion in the line of the face. In small types made of wood this accuracy is not possible. Even if it were possible to cut them, it would be impossible to use them. No care could keep them from warping. Types must be wet with ink, and they must be cleansed with lye or water; they must be exposed to changes from heat to cold, from dampness to dryness. Under these influences, the little skewers of wood, for so they must be regarded, would soon be twisted out of shape, and unfitted for future service. It is in this liability to warp that types of wood fail most signally. It is not enough that they can be made to serve for one experiment; the only demonstration of practicability that a printer can accept is [p297] that of repeated distribution and recomposition, a feat which has never been done. That types of wood were tried by the inventor of typography is probable; that single leaves were printed, experimentally, is possible; but the statement that any printer used them repeatedly in the printing of books, cannot be admitted. No book was ever printed in Europe with small types of wood. It is time, says Van der Linde, that criticism made a bonfire of these imaginary types.[153]

The hypothesis of types of wood has been given up reluctantly. It was considered that the singular variety of letters, so noticeable in all the books of the unknown printer, and so contrary to the usage of the modern type-founder, could have been produced only by engraving the types. A demonstration of the impracticability of bodies of wood seemed to [p298] destroy with it the only reasonable explanation of the greatest peculiarity of these types. To place this imaginary method of making types on unassailable ground, Meerman offered a modification of the theory. He supposed that the first printers of Germany founded little cubes of metal, with truly squared bodies, upon one end of which the faces were subsequently engraved. The misconstruction of the language of a chronicler of the sixteenth century—who, in trying to explain the process of making types, carelessly placed the cutting of the punch after the founding of the type—seemed a full warrant for this conjecture. It is, however, but a conjecture: there is no credible authority for the statement that the printers first cast the bodies and then cut the faces. Cut types, if made at all, were made only in the way of preliminary experiment. The method is as impracticable as it is absurd. “He must have been an imbecile,” says Bernard, “who could not see that the process of founding in a mould which made the body would also make the face.”

The allusions to letter-cutting that are so frequent in all the earlier notices of type-making can be readily explained. The cutting is not that of types used for printing, but of the punches by which the printing types were made. The types of the early printers were made by two classes of workmen: he who poured the melted metal was the founder; he who made the model letters was the cutter. Performing the more artistic and the more difficult part of the work, the punch-cutter was properly regarded as the maker of the types.

The variety of faces in the types of the unknown printer can be explained in a much more satisfactory manner than by attributing them to the accidental slips or deviation of the graving tool. The letters of the manuscript books of that century were not uniform; it was not necessary that printed letters should be uniform. The fashion of the day did not require it. On the contrary, it did seem desirable that the letters should be printed with the variety of shapes to which readers were accustomed. Whether this variety of shape in [p299] type was the result of design, of accident, or of necessity need not now be considered; in this place it is enough to say that all the early printers made many varieties of the letters which they most frequently used.[154] It should, however, be noticed that this apparent taste for variety of form was confined to the small or lower-case letters. Two forms of a capital letter are rarely found in the same book, but the same form of capital is occasionally used with two faces of lower-case types that are decidedly different.

The dissimilarity of the small types has been made greater by faults of type-founding and of presswork. In all copies of the _Speculum_ the careful observer will see the impressions of types with imperfect faces. There are many half-formed letters, with little peculiarities of appearance which can be satisfactorily explained only by the conjecture that the types in leaving the mould, carried with them the impress of defects in the matrices. We can see that the types were unequal in height, and that the over-high types have been flattened out under impression. This flattening-out of the soft metal has produced a strange appearance of compactness, making letters that were really separate seem connected. The ink, which [p300] was sometimes thin and gray and sometimes thick and strong black, was applied by an imperfect method which has filled the counters of some letters until they are almost illegible, while it has not fairly covered the faces of other letters. The singular irregularities of a collection of types, apparently new on one page and worn-out on another, which have provoked the astonishment of many critics, are chargeable, not to the condition of the types, but to faulty methods of inking and impression. Few persons have a proper notion of the changes that can be given to the appearance of the best modern types by substituting wet for dry paper, hard for light impression, and thin for thick ink.[155]

How the types of these and of other early books were founded cannot be learned from the vague descriptions of the early chroniclers of typography. We have to conjecture the process from the workmanship of the books. The discrepancies in the bodies and the imperfections of the faces indicate that the process was rude and unscientific, and that the mould was not of metal. It is possible that the maker of these types followed the example of other founders in metals, and made types in moulds of sand.[156] There are some peculiarities in his types which almost confirm this conjecture. The difficulty encountered in fitting matrices to these moulds, or in adjusting the mould of the face of the letter in proper position on the body, a difficulty that calls for no explanation, may be the reason why the types are so often out of line, crookedly set on body and of irregular height to paper. The feebleness of the sand mould, its liability to damage, and the necessity for its frequent renewal are, possibly, the reasons why we find in the [p301] impressions of the unknown printer types of so many bodies, and with such singular defects.[157] The rounded edges, spotted stems and deficient lines of many of the letters seem the faults of types unskillfully founded in moulds of sand, from metal insufficiently hot, poured in without the force that is needed to make it penetrate all the finer lines of the matrix.[158]

Koning, the author of a prize essay on the invention of typography by Coster, expresses his belief in the theory that the types of the _Speculum_ were made from punches of wood and were founded in matrices of lead. His belief in the use of these rude implements is based on the well known fact that matrices of lead were frequently used by the earlier German and Dutch printers. Enschedé of Haarlem had in his type-foundry matrices of lead, which he claimed were used by Peter Schœffer in the fifteenth century. Firmin-Didot, the eminent [p302] type-founder of Paris, says that punches of wood and matrices of lead were used in his type-foundry for the casting of large ornamental types even as late as the beginning of the present century. His description is as curious as it is instructive.

. . . I have often made use of this process, . . . which is to sink in lead, a character cut on wood, at the instant when, melted by heat, the lead is about to harden. Matrices of lead made by this process are subsequently justified for height and for lining, like other matrices. Then, by the ordinary process of stereotyping, one may take from this matrix, a duplicate in metal, which, after having been dressed, is replaced in the matrix in lead, and fitted up to a mould. The melted metal poured in this mould, not only makes the body of the type, but at the same time solders itself to the stereotype [nested in the matrix] which makes the face of the type. By this process one may take from a matrix in lead, a type as perfect as that which is obtained in the ordinary manner. But these matrices in lead will only make a limited number of stereotypes. . . . By taking the precaution to cool occasionally a matrix in lead, one can obtain from sixty to eighty types, without being obliged to re-enter the old matrix with the punch of wood, or to make a new matrix from the same punch. For vowels, and for the letters that are more frequently used, it is necessary to increase the number of matrices. But whenever the punch re-enters the matrix, the form of the punch undergoes some alteration from the effects of the pressure and the heat. It often happens that the punch is burned during the little time that it is buried in the hot metal. It then becomes necessary to re-engrave the punch. These are the reasons why differences in shape are to be found in the letters that are most frequently used.[159]

Whether the types of the unknown printer were founded entirely in sand, or in matrices of lead, cannot be positively determined from the appearance of the letters, for it seems that either method of founding would produce types showing similar defects. It is prob