LECTURE IV.
THE BOOKBINDERS.
From the very earliest times the bookbindings produced in England were remarkable for their beauty and richness. The finest were of gold, ornamented with gems, but their value has led to their destruction, and I do not think that there is any early binding of this class now in existence. Leather was very soon recognised as a suitable material for book-covers, being easily worked and capable of receiving a considerable amount of ornament. The earliest leather binding known is on a beautiful little manuscript of St John’s Gospel, taken from the tomb of St Cuthbert, and now preserved in the library of Stonyhurst College. It is of red leather, and the centre of the side is ornamented with a raised ornament of Celtic design, while above and below are small panels filled with interlaced lines, executed apparently with a pointed tool and coloured yellow. This binding is generally considered to be of the tenth century, though there are some reasons for thinking that it may have been executed later, but if this is so the present binding must have been copied from an earlier one.
Excellent as the early work had been, that of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries is unsurpassed. The leather bindings executed at Durham for Bishop Pudsey between 1153 and 1195 are marvellous both for their detail and for their general effect. It was the custom of binders of this period to build up a bold and effective pattern covering the whole side of the book by means of a large number of dies, beautifully engraved with different designs. On the four volumes of Bishop Pudsey’s Bible, now in the Cathedral library at Durham, no less than fifty-one different dies are used, and when we remember that Bishop Pudsey was one of the great builders of the cathedral, it is not surprising that the ornamentation on the dies used in these bindings should resemble the carved work in the cathedral. There are in the Cathedral library seven of these early bindings, and, unfortunately, they have suffered a considerable amount of mutilation at a not very remote date, for visitors on payment of a small gratuity to the person who looked after the library were allowed to cut out with a penknife one of the stamps to keep as a curiosity. A few more Durham bindings, easily recognised by the dies, are scattered in different libraries in London and in France.
At Winchester, also, and London very beautiful work of the same class was produced, the circular form of decoration being very much made use of. Perhaps the finest piece of Winchester work now in existence is the binding of the Winchester Domesday Book in the library of the Society of Antiquaries, of which a facsimile was published in the illustrated catalogue of the exhibition of bookbindings at the Burlington Fine Arts Club. Some very fine work, too, probably executed at Winchester, is to be found on some manuscripts in the library of the Faculty of Medicine at Montpellier executed before 1146 for Henry, son of Louis VII of France.
The metal dies with which these bindings were stamped were practically indestructible, but it is curious to notice that they hardly ever appear to have been used after the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. In Westminster Abbey library is a copy of the Epistolae of Ficinus, printed in 1495, which has its covers ornamented with early Winchester stamps, and another binding worked with twelfth century dies is on a fifteenth century printed book in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
In all these early bindings one is especially struck with the extraordinary taste and balance in the decoration. The dies themselves are beautiful, and the pattern in which they are built up is also beautiful, and yet neither are unduly emphasised. In later bindings the die became smaller and less finely cut. It was not intended to be decorative in itself, but only to help to build up patterns, and the bindings in consequence lose much of their interest.
Oxford, I believe, is generally credited with clinging somewhat strongly to old traditions, and certainly its bookbinders did so in the fifteenth century. From the earliest times bookbinding had been considerably practised there and continued without a break, and no doubt that is why the old styles lingered for so long. The bindings produced there towards the end of the century form the connecting link between the old styles and the new. They represent the last survival of the early English school of work, that very distinctive English style which depended so much on the disposal of dies into large circles, or parallelograms one inside the other, such as we find in the Winchester and Durham bindings of the twelfth or thirteenth centuries. That this circular work was not the haphazard freak of a single binder we can see from the fact that several of the dies are wider at the top than at the bottom, so that when placed together side by side they would naturally work round to a circular form, like the stones forming the arch of a bridge. These dies are in many cases foreign in design and may have been introduced by Rood, the first printer, but the style of binding is essentially English. Some bindings of a rather similar appearance, though never with any circular ornament, were produced in the Low Countries. On nearly all Oxford bindings will be found little groups of three small circles, so small that they might have been done with the end of a watch-key, and arranged in a triangle. This ornament I have never seen on any but Oxford work. One habit connects the Oxford binders with those of the Low Countries, and that is their habit of always, when possible, lining the boards of the binding with leaves of vellum rather than paper. All the other English binders used paper generally for this purpose. It is owing to this custom of using vellum that many copies of Indulgences issued by the early printers have been preserved, for, as they were only printed on one side, the binder could paste them down with the printed side next the boards and the clean side outwards. An Oxford binding with an inscription stating that it was bound in “Catte Strete” in 1467 was formerly in the British Museum: the manuscript which it covered has been rebound and the old binding has disappeared.
Caxton, as one would naturally expect, followed the style of binding which he had become used to during his residence at Bruges, though it is interesting to notice that one at least of his dies was directly copied from early London work and applied in the same manner. His general method of covering the side of his binding was to make a large centre panel contained by a framework of dies or lines running about an inch from the edge of the side and intersecting each other at the corners as in the frame known as an Oxford frame. The large panel thus produced on the side was divided into lozenge-shaped compartments by diagonal lines running both ways from the frame, and in each of these compartments a die was stamped. The die most commonly found on his bindings is a square one with some fabulous winged monster engraved upon it, and this very die we find later in the hands of a stationer in London named Jacobi. The broad frame was often made up by repetitions of a triangular stamp, pointing alternately right and left, and containing the figure of a dragon. This stamp is interesting, not only because the use of a triangular stamp was very uncommon, but because it was an exact copy of one used by a London binder about the end of the twelfth century. Very few of Caxton’s own books in their original binding have come down to our time, but there is a copy of the second edition of the Liber Festivalis in the British Museum which was clearly bound by him, and the Boethius which was found in the Grammar School at St Alban’s was also in its original cover. The Royal Book formerly in the Bedfordshire General Library, and now in the collection of Mr J. Pierpont Morgan, is in an absolutely similar binding to the Liber Festivalis in the British Museum, ornamented with the same die, while the boards were lined with two waste copies of an Indulgence. Caxton’s bindings were invariably of leather; he never used vellum as many writers have stated. Blades, who was amongst the number, refers to a vellum-bound Caxton in the Bodleian, and states that it is the original binding; but had he examined the book more carefully he would have found that it was made up from two copies, and that the binding therefore could not well be original. Indeed the particular binding was put on in the seventeenth century while the book belonged to Selden. Selden’s bindings had good need to be flexible, for one of his customs did not tend to improve bindings. He used to buy his spectacles, like the youth in the Vicar of Wakefield, by the gross, and whenever he stopped reading a book he put in the pair he happened to be using to mark the place. It was quite a common thing, soon after his library came to the Bodleian, for spectacles to drop out of the books as they were taken incautiously from the shelves.
Of course the number of bindings which can with certainty be ascribed to Caxton is necessarily small, we can in the first place take only those on books printed by him, and which contain distinct evidence from the fragments used in the binding that they came from his workshop. By means of the stamps used on these we can identify others which have no other materials for identification. Caxton used sometimes wooden boards in his bindings and sometimes waste leaves of printed matter pasted together. These pads of old printing frequently yield most valuable prizes. The copy of Caxton’s Boethius, found by Blades in the library of the St Alban’s Grammar-school, had its boards made of printed matter, which, when carefully taken to pieces, were found to be made of fifty-six half-sheets of paper, forming portions of thirteen books printed by Caxton, three of which were quite unknown.
Caxton’s binding stamps passed with his printing material to his successor, Wynkyn de Worde. I found in a college library at Oxford a book with these stamps, evidently bound by De Worde, and the boards were lined with waste leaves of three books printed by him, one being unknown, and one by Caxton. De Worde’s bindings are the least easily identified of any in the fifteenth century, for beyond these few dies of Caxton’s there are none that can definitely be ascribed to him, and even the various bindings that might be ascribed to him from the fragments found in them vary so much in style and decoration that it seems impossible that they could have all come from one shop. Perhaps he had really no binding establishment of his own, but got such work as he required done by others.
Wynkyn de Worde, as we learn from his will, employed several binders. He left bequests to Alard, bookbinder, his servant, and to Nowel, the bookbinder in Shoe Lane. James Gaver, who was one of his executors, was one of the large family of Gavere, binders in the Low Countries, and though, when he took out letters of denization on his own account in 1535 he is described as a stationer, no doubt he was also a bookbinder. The square stamp with a dragon, which had belonged to Caxton and which must have passed to De Worde, found its way early in the sixteenth century with other dies of Caxton’s into the hands of another stationer, Henry Jacobi.
The bindings which were produced by Lettou and Machlinia, so far as we are able to identify them, are very plain. The sides are divided by diagonal lines into diamond-shaped compartments, and in each is stamped a small and uninteresting die. The Latin Bible in the library of Jesus College, Cambridge, which has every quire lined with slips of vellum, portions of two cut-up copies of Lettou’s Indulgence, and presumably bound by him, has its binding ornamented with diagonal lines within a frame formed of square dies containing the figure of a fabulous animal. In the diamond-shaped compartments formed by the diagonal lines is a small impressed cinquefoil. Another Lettou binding, on the copy of the Wallensis printed by him in 1481 in the Bodleian, is ornamented simply with diagonal lines, but has no small stamps.
There is another English binder of this time whose name we do not know, who produced some very good work. Bradshaw, I think, considered that he worked at Norwich. There are a number of his books in Cambridge libraries, and he used very often a red-coloured leather, which is common in Cambridge bindings. His dies are Low Country in type, and very much resemble those used at Oxford, but his work can be recognised by two peculiarities. He always ruled two perpendicular lines down the backs of his books, and always ornamented the ends of the bands, the bands being those ridges on the back where the leather covers the string or cord on which the quires are stitched. Where these bands ended on the sides he printed a kind of ornament of leaves. He also, like the Oxford binders, almost always lined his boards with vellum. His dies, about eighteen in number, are well engraved, one in especial representing two cocks fighting, being very finely executed.
Pynson’s earliest bindings are as a rule very plain. Like the other binders of the time he ruled diagonal lines across the sides of his books, and put a small die in each division. Sometimes he did not even use a die, but contented himself with plain lines, as, for instance, on the copy of his first dated book of 1492 in the British Museum. His bindings, like Machlinia’s, are very plain, and the dies used are small and poor.
Another binder, perhaps at St Alban’s, produced bindings not unlike Pynson’s, but he is identified by a small circular die which he used, which has on it the figure of a bird.
Another binder whose initials were W. G., but whose name we do not know, produced a large number of bindings in the fifteenth century. It is from his bindings that all the fragments of Machlinia’s Horae ad usum Sarum have been recovered, for he seems to have used up a copy for lining his boards, and luckily several books bound about that time have been preserved. Bradshaw found a curious case of the preservation of two volumes bound in the same workshop about the same time. In the library of St John’s College, Cambridge, is a copy of a book printed at Nuremberg in 1505, which has in its cover some leaves of early Oxford printing. In the library at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, is an exactly similar binding on a book printed at Lyons in 1511, which also contains some early Oxford leaves. Now it is clear that the same man must have bound these books about the same time, because we find in both, along with the refuse Oxford leaves, some leaves from one and the same vellum manuscript.
There is one English binder, who worked before the end of the fifteenth century, who is distinctly worthy of special mention on account of the striking originality of his method of decoration and designs. His name, unfortunately, we do not know, but as one of his most frequently used dies represents a balance or pair of scales it has been conjectured that this may be a rebus on his name, such as many binders used, and that he was called “Scales.” Two volumes executed by this binder are known, which were done for a certain William Langton, and the centre panel is ornamented with a rebus on the name Langton, the letters Lang over a barrel or tun, while the rest of the side is filled up with little stamps. This Langton may perhaps be identified with the William Langton who was a prebendary of Lincoln and afterwards of York at the end of the fifteenth century. Another even more curious binding by this same man is in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He has disposed his dies so as to form a large heraldic shield, covering the whole side of a folio volume, a style of adornment quite unique so far as I am aware, and as an ornament extremely effective, though I am afraid the heraldry is hardly sufficiently accurate to enable us to determine for whom the volume was bound.
The bindings that I have spoken of so far were all produced in a slow and laborious manner, as each die had to be impressed separately. Towards the end of the fifteenth century, however, when the printers in England began to issue books of a small size, a new system of binding was introduced, by which the labour of the binder was very considerably lessened, while the amount of decoration applied was increased.
The invention and use of the panel stamp, that is of a large stamp which should ornament the side of the book with one picture, was a great step forward. It was a great advantage commercially as it saved much time, and in some ways it was an advance artistically. By its means the whole side of the book was ornamented at once, instead of by a series of dies impressed one after the other. And as the working out of a binding had ceased to be its main point and the beauty of the die itself was more emphasised, this invention did away with the building up of a pattern altogether, and depended entirely on the excellence in design and workmanship of the stamp. Mr Weale assigns the date 1367 to the earliest panel stamp known to him, produced by a certain Lambertus de Insula at Louvain, but this is only because the manuscript on which it occurs bears that date. Without some further evidence I should be inclined to think this date rather too early, and would not date any panel stamp before the fifteenth century.
There is no doubt that the binders of the Low Countries were the earliest to introduce this style of binding, and they produced very excellent work; and the earliest panel stamps we find in use in England are Netherlandish in execution, either used in this country by foreign workmen, who had come over and settled, or obtained by native binders from abroad. The earliest stamps were no doubt for the most part of metal, and therefore practically indestructible, and we know that they often passed out of the hands of their proper owner and were used by other binders, even though the name of their original owner was engraved upon them. As an example I may mention a book-cover in the Douce collection in the Bodleian, on which two stamps are impressed side by side. One has the name John Guilibert, the other the inscription, “Omnes sancti angeli et archangeli dei, orate pro nobis. Ioris de Gavere me ligavit in Gandavo.” A still more marvellous example, and one almost certainly bound in England, is in the library of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. It has on the two covers, besides innumerable dies, no less than nine panels, two signed Woter Vanduffle, three signed Martinus de Predio, and four signed Jacobus, illuminator. The binding almost looks like a sample put out to show a specimen of every stamp and die in the establishment. The Woter Vanduffle stamp seems very early. I have in my own collection an English heraldic manuscript of about the middle of the fifteenth century or slightly earlier in its original binding impressed with the two panels of that binder.
In these earliest panels the inscription nearly always runs perpendicularly, either in the centre of the panel, cutting it in two, or at the side of the picture. One peculiarly distinctive feature of the earliest panels is the presence of four indentations, more or less deep and clearly defined at each corner. These were made most probably by the heads of the nails by which the metal plate was affixed to a block before used for stamping. These four marks never seem to occur in later panels, which, if they have any, have only two, considerably larger in size, one at the top and one at the bottom. It has long been a vexed question as to whether these stamps were made of metal or of wood, but it is probable that both materials were used, and that the majority of English stamps were of wood. As no heat was applied and the leather treated when it was damp and soft, a wooden stamp would be sufficiently strong, and I have found by experiment that soft leather takes an excellent impression from a wooden block. I have, however, in my own collection a binding struck from a broken plate, and the appearance of the break shows clearly that the stamp must have been of metal.
The earliest definitely English panel stamp is on a loose binding in Westminster Abbey library. It has on it the arms of Edward IV, with two small supporting angels. The rest of the binding is covered with small dies, one in the shape of a heart, the other a fleur de lys. It is a great pity that the book which was in this binding has been lost, as it might have contained some clue to information about the binding.
Wynkyn de Worde, in spite of his enormous business, does not seem to have ever used a panel with his name or device, at least so far not one has been found, but with other printers and stationers the case is different. Pynson used two panels. One is a copy of one of his devices, having his initials on a shield with the helmet and crest above, while around all is a floral border. The other has in the centre a large Tudor rose, surrounded by intertwined branches of vine leaves and grapes. This latter panel was a popular one, and several variations of it are to be found, all of which are probably of the fifteenth century.
The only copy at present known of the Pynson panel with his mark was acquired not long ago by the British Museum. I had known of the existence of the copy for some time, as it had belonged to a Manchester bookseller who had described it to me. He had sold the book, but had no record of the purchaser, and knew nothing of him further than that he lived in London. One day while I was working in the Museum a visitor came in with this identical book and offered it for sale. The book itself was a copy of the Abridgement of the Statutes of 1499. Herbert, in his Typographical Antiquities, describes a copy of the Imitation of Christ, printed by Pynson, which was in a similar binding, and perhaps that may still be in existence; but I am sorry to say that the collectors at the beginning of the present century ruthlessly destroyed all old bindings, and would not have anything on their shelves except bound in morocco or russia by Roger Payne or Charles Lewis. There is not one single old leather binding in the whole of the Spencer library, though we know that many of the books when bought were in their original covers.
Binding of Frederick Egmont.
Frederick Egmont, the stationer about whom I spoke in my last lecture, had several panels. The first has as its central ornament the Tudor rose, and round it are vine leaves and grapes. Round the whole is an arabesque floral border containing the initials and mark of Egmont. This design was common at the time, there being several other panels almost identical, one of which was used by Pynson. Another more important panel is an almost exact copy of the device of Philippe Pigouchet, the Paris printer. A wild man and woman, standing on either side of a tree covered with some kind of fruit, bear in one hand flowering boughs while with the other they assist in supporting a shield suspended by a belt from the branches above them. Upon the shield are Egmont’s mark and initials. The device of the wild man and woman was for some reason very popular at this time and for a short period afterwards. It was used by Bumgart at Cologne, and at Edinburgh by Walter Chepman and Thomas Davidson. It was used by Pigouchet and other Parisian printers, and by Peter Treveris, who printed in Southwark at the sign of the “Wodows,” and the references to it in colophons are very numerous. This panel of Egmont’s not only bears his mark and initials, but is inscribed on the lower margin, “Fredericus Egmondt me f[ecit].” Three copies only of this binding are known, a very fine copy at Caius, a poor copy at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and one in my own collection. Books which are stamped on the front with this panel generally have on the back a plainer panel containing three rows of arabesques of foliage surrounded by a border, having ribbons in the upper and lower portion inscribed with the names of the four Evangelists. This panel not infrequently occurs alone, without Egmont’s signed panel, and may have been left by him in England when he returned to France.
Nicholas Lecomte, the other foreign stationer settled in England in the fifteenth century, and of whom I spoke in my last lecture, also used panels with his initials and mark. He had not a pictorial panel, but a formal one of rather Low Country type. The centre of the panel is divided into two parts, each containing four spirals of foliage encircling the figures of beasts and birds, while around all is a border of grapes and vine leaves. At the bottom of the border are the initials N.C., with a mark which almost exactly corresponds with the initials and mark found in his device in the books printed for him. A very fine specimen of this binding is in the University Library.
The majority of the early panels are pictorial, and in some cases they are very elaborate and ornamental. The pair used by a binder whose initials were A. R. are especially fine. On one side is the salutation of Elisabeth with the Almighty and the Holy Ghost above, in the top corners are the Tudor emblems, the rose and portcullis. Round the whole is a diaper border with a shield in each corner, one the arms of St George, another of the City of London, a third with two cross swords, and a fourth with two cross keys. The panel on the other side has in the centre St John standing preaching to some people who sit in the foreground. On the left is St James, on the right King David, while the lower part is taken up with a picture of David and Bathsheba. This binding is very rare, and I know of only two examples, one in my own collection and one in the University Library. This binder had several other panels; there is one in the University Library with a figure of St Roche, and there are two on a book at Aberdeen with the Baptism of Christ, and the Annunciation.
It is curious that the subjects of these panels should have been invariably religious, scenes from the Bible or pictures of saints, and that we never find subjects from popular stories. The most frequent subject of all was, I think, the Annunciation, and then single figures of saints, St Barbara being one of the most popular. The binder very often used a panel with a figure of the saint after whom he was named. Nicolas Spering, who worked at Cambridge, has a panel with the picture of St Nicholas restoring to life the three children who had been killed and pickled by the innkeeper. Another binding which is probably English, though it might be French, has on one side St Barbara with her palm branch and three-windowed tower, and on the other the Mass of St Gregory. In the border there occurs a delightful little figure of a mermaid with a comb in one hand and a looking-glass in the other.
About 1500 a particular pair of panels came into great vogue amongst the bookbinders. One had upon it the arms of England, supported by the dragon and greyhound, the other the Tudor rose supported by angels. Round the rose runs a ribbon with the motto:—
Haec rosa virtutis de celo missa sereno
Eternum florens regia sceptra feret.
In the top corners we generally find shields with the arms of St George and of London, while in the base below the rose or shield occur the initials and marks of the binders. This general use of the royal arms together with the use of the arms of London points, I think, to some trade guild to which these binders belonged. Foreigners, though they might still use the royal arms, do not use the City arms, putting something else in the place, sometimes the French shield, sometimes merely an unmeaning ornament. It is a very popular but erroneous opinion held by a great many people that these bindings with the royal arms were produced for the king, Henry VII or Henry VIII as the case may be. It would be just as reasonable to imagine that all the shops with the royal arms over the door were private residences of the king. Of course, the fiction is kept up in order to increase the price of the books; “from the library of Henry VIII” looks well in catalogues. Even in the sumptuous work recently issued on the historic bookbindings in the Royal Library at Windsor this mistake has been repeated.
A very large number of these bindings exist, all very similar; but unfortunately, although in many cases they bear the binder’s initials and mark, we cannot discover his name; on the other hand again we know the names of many binders, but we cannot identify their work; the mere fact that the initials on a binding agree with the initials of a binder’s name does not of necessity determine that the particular binding was produced by that binder; a good deal more proof is necessary.
A certain number of these bindings have been settled as the work of a certain man in another way. When the binder was a printer, or a stationer of sufficient importance to have books printed for him, then we can identify the mark on his bindings by means of the mark used in the books.
For instance, to take an early example. We have bindings by Julian Notary, the printer, which bear his initials and mark, and the mark, of course, is the same as the one he uses in his books, while in them his name is in full. So again the work of Henry Jacobi, an important London stationer of the early sixteenth century, was traced by the mark which he uses in some of his books.
We know the names of a considerable number of early binders from the registers of the grant of letters of denization and other manuscript sources, but unfortunately we have no link between them and the bindings. In this country it was not necessary, as it was in some parts of the Low Countries, to register the design of a binding, and though many of the Low Country bindings look the same, you will find on examination that the detail varies and each design was protected.
The binder who is best known in connexion with these stamped bindings is John Reynes, whose work is by far the most commonly met with, and who is almost the only producer of stamped bindings mentioned by any early bibliographer. His best-known panel is called “Redemptoris mundi arma,” and consists of all the emblems of the Passion arranged in a heraldic manner upon a shield. Reynes was certainly employed as a binder by Henry VIII, as we know from early accounts, and so far as I have seen all the copies of the king’s Assertio septem sacramentorum, which remain in their original binding, were bound by him. It is fortunate that Reynes put his mark and name in one printed book, otherwise we should not have been able to identify him as the binder. He had also two very well-executed panels, one depicting the fight of St George and the dragon, and the other the Baptism of Christ.
The period during which these panel stamps were produced in England was roughly the forty years from 1493 to 1534. The passing of the Act against foreign workmen in the latter year had no doubt a good deal to do with the falling off of the work, but the invention of a binding tool called a roll seems to have finally put an end to the use of the panel. The roll was a tool made in the form of a wheel, which saved a very great deal of time in ornamenting the sides of a book, and which was used very widely in England during the sixteenth century. At first when the roll was broad and well cut, as the earliest examples almost always were, it produced a very satisfactory appearance, but it soon became narrower and more finely cut, and therefore showing to much less advantage on the side of a large book, and finally about the end of the century its use was almost entirely given up.
Almost the earliest and the finest of the roll bindings were those produced by the Cambridge stationers. Nicholas Spering beside his panel had several fine rolls which contain his initials and mark.
Naturally the foreign booksellers who sent books over to England found it to their advantage to put them into popular bindings, such as would attract purchasers, and many of these bindings have a distinctly English character. The exploits of St George and St Michael are favourite subjects, and are often treated in a most decorative manner. There is one specially fine example dating from about 1500, and probably Rouen work, which has St George on one side and St Michael on the other. The binder has not put his initials, but his device, which occurs on one side, is a head on a crowned shield. It is worth noticing that the material of which these foreign bindings are made is often sheepskin rather than calf, which is nearly always used in English work. One binder, whose initials were A. H. and who used the Tudor rose, though without the arms of London, produced very good work, but almost always on this sheepskin, which was not a suitable leather for giving a clear impression.
It is very interesting to watch how in the later panel bindings the lettering gradually deteriorated and became simply part of the ornament. I have three panels, all copied one from the other, and in the first the legend running round the panel is quite clear and correct. In the second the letters are confused, though the general appearance of each separate word is preserved and they can be read. In the last example letters and words are all run together, and the general result is wholly unreadable.
So, too, the old style of work with the pictures of saints or Biblical scenes was given up about 1530 for bad Renaissance patterns of pillars and classical heads, which are so uninteresting, not to say ugly, that we can hardly regret the speedy disuse of the panel stamp.
Now it must always be remembered that in England at any rate very few of these early bindings are signed, and that therefore to assign particular bindings to particular men is not often possible, but comparison may enable us to attribute them to particular districts, and even to particular places. What is wanted is that every small point about these bindings should be studied carefully and compared in different examples, because it is mainly by circumstantial evidence that we can arrive at any knowledge about them. We must class our bindings by a system similar to that lately adopted for identifying criminals. The presence or absence of one particular point merely divides a number of bindings into two divisions. This point, taken in conjunction with a second point, narrows the field immensely, and we can soon put the bindings into groups more or less accurately.
Anyone who works at all amongst old bindings will soon begin to note points which are common to certain bindings, and which most probably mean a certain thing. For instance, anyone working at the subject would soon perceive that as a rule octavo or quarto books in an English binding have three bands to the back, that is three projecting ridges on which the leaves are stitched, while foreign bindings have four or more. Of course this is not an absolute rule but it will be found correct in nine cases out of ten. To take another local instance. A very great number of early Cambridge bindings, and some that may have been produced at places not far distant, are remarkable for the curious red colour of the leather used. The binding has the appearance of having been painted over with red, and then the red almost all rubbed off again. This is probably caused by some peculiarity in the process of tanning or dressing. Whenever I see this curious red colour I promptly put down the binding as a Cambridge one, and a more careful examination generally proves it to be correct.
If the boards of the binding have a groove running down the edge you may be fairly certain that the book inside is printed in Greek. If a binding has four clasps, one at the top and bottom as well as two in their usual place, you may be sure that the binding is Italian. Most of these old bindings had clasps or ties of ribbon to keep them shut, but in nearly all cases these have disappeared, and the reason is this. In the early times books were always put on the shelves back first and with the fore edge to the front, on which was written the title of the book. Naturally, when readers wanted to take down a book they pulled at it by the clasp or ribbon till that came off, just as now-a-days when books are placed backs outwards the ordinary reader pulls them out by the top of the back, till that comes off. In many cases the ribbons were of alternate colours, a white opposite a green and a green opposite a white. Of course as soon as books were put in the shelves with the backs outwards the use of ribbons was discontinued, for it was awkward to push into its place a book with two large bows of ribbon in front. The use of ribbons you will notice has been lately revived by some faddists who have no sense of the fitness of things.
These bindings that we have been considering were of course what we should call trade bindings or publishers’ bindings. Very few people seem to have had books especially bound for them, and those kind of bindings had generally gilded ornaments upon them, which are not found on early stamped work. The custom of impressing coats of arms on books did not begin until about 1535, when it was started by some Scottish collectors, the earliest known armorial stamp having been used by William Stewart, Bishop of Aberdeen.
The books specially bound for Henry VIII were ornamented in what was called the Venetian manner, that is with tools obtained perhaps from Venice, but clearly cut in imitation of those used by Aldus for his bindings; the binder of these books was the well-known stationer, Thomas Berthelet.
While these bindings and their designs afford valuable bibliographical information, the materials employed in making the bindings are also often of great importance. The boards were often made of refuse printed leaves pasted together, and were always lined, after the binding was completed, with leaves of paper or vellum, printed or manuscript. To show you how important these fragments may be, I may mention that of the books printed in England or for England in the fifteenth century no less than fifty-three are known only from fragments obtained from bindings. The great find of Caxton fragments made by Blades at St Alban’s I have mentioned before. Not long ago I took to pieces the boards of a primer of Edward VI and obtained the title and some other leaves of Constable’s Epigrams, printed by Pynson in 1520, and of which but one perfect copy is known, four leaves of a Whitinton’s Grammar printed by W. de Worde, eight leaves of an early Abridgement of the Statutes, probably printed by Middleton, a perfect copy of an unknown edition of the Ordynaunce made in the time of ye reygne of kynge Henry VI to be observed in the Kynge’s Eschequier by the offycers and clerkes of the same for takyng of fees of ye kynges accomptis in the same courts, printed by Middleton, and last an unknown broadside ballad relating to the burning of Robert Barnes in 1540, printed for Richard Bankes by that little-known printer, John Redman, who put his name only to one or at the most two known books.
From a binding in Westminster Abbey some years ago came two leaves of an unknown early Cambridge book, Lily’s De octo orationis partium constructione, edited by Erasmus, and lately at Oxford Mr Proctor found in a binding in New College some fragments of a Donatus Melior on vellum, printed by Caxton, a hitherto unknown book. As Bradshaw said over twenty years ago: “It cannot be any matter of wonder that the fragments used for lining the boards of old books should have an interest for those who make a study of the methods and habits of our early printers with a view to the solution of some of many difficulties still remaining unsettled in the history of printing. I have for many years tried to draw the attention of librarians and others to the evidence which may be gleaned from a careful study of these fragments; and if done systematically and intelligently it ceases to be mere antiquarian pottering or aimless waste of time.”
Of course the majority of fragments found in bindings are of no value, and should not be moved; indeed, fragments should never be taken out of bindings unless it is absolutely necessary, for by doing so the binding is almost certain to suffer some injury.
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To study effectively the early English book a certain knowledge about these early bindings is required, for the printer, as we have seen, was probably his own binder. What I said about the stationers applies also to the binders, their history is an almost unworked subject, new details are found from time to time, but we have no work on the subject to which we can add them, and our knowledge at present consists mostly of isolated facts. Bradshaw, writing twenty years ago, spoke of the subject as still in its infancy, and I am afraid that English bibliographers cannot boast of much progress. This is not, perhaps, to be much wondered at when we consider how few are willing to work on in the steady, quiet way which he practised and taught. We can do no better than follow in the path that he pointed out, add fact to fact, and detail to detail, avoiding vain theories and idle speculations, so that whatever advance we make in our knowledge of the subject, whether it be much or little, it may at any rate be accurate, and serve as a secure foundation for the work of the future.
PART II.
1501-1535.