[45] Including perhaps the four sets of decorative capitals attributed to Holbein, one ornamental, the others representing a Dance of Peasants, Children, and a Dance of Death.
CHAPTER XII
PRINTING IN ENGLAND (1476-1580)[46]
Something has already been written about the earliest English books on the scale to which they are entitled in a rapid survey of European incunabula. We may now consider them more in detail as befits a book written in English.
| XXVII. WESTMINSTER, CAXTON, C. 1490 THE FIFTEEN OES. |
William Caxton, a Kentishman, born about 1420, had been brought up as a mercer in the city of London, and the relations between the English wooltraders and the clothmakers of Flanders being very intimate, he had, as he tells us himself, passed thirty years of his life (in round numbers the years from twenty years of age to fifty) “for the most part in Brabant, Flanders, Holland, and Zealand.” During the last few years of this time he had held the important position of Governor of the English merchants at Bruges, but about 1469 he surrendered this in order to become secretary to Edward IV’s sister, Margaret, wife of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. Some years before this, Raoul Lefèvre, chaplain to the Duke’s predecessor, had compiled an epitome of the histories of Troy, Le Recueil des histoires de Troye, and in March, 1469, Caxton amused himself by beginning to translate this into English. Dissatisfied with the result he laid it on one side, but was bidden by his patroness, the Duchess, to continue his work. This he finished on 19 September, 1471, while staying at Cologne. According to a distinct statement by Wynkyn de Worde, whom (at least as early as 1480) he employed as his foreman, Caxton printed at Cologne “himself to avaunce” the first Latin edition of the De Proprietatibus Rerum, a kind of encyclopaedia “on the properties of things,” by an English friar of the thirteenth century named Bartholomew. Now the first edition of this work is undoubtedly one printed at Cologne about 1471 or 1472 at an anonymous press which Bradshaw called that of the printer of the 1473 edition of the Dialogi decem Auctorum, and Mr. Proctor, less happily, that of the printer of the Flores Sancti Augustini, an undated book in the same type. The De Proprietatibus Rerum is certainly slightly earlier than either of these, and there are some typographical differences which suggest that between the completion of the one book and the beginning of the other two the press may have changed masters. The De Proprietatibus is by far the largest book of the whole group, and being by, or credited to, an English author, it is highly probable that the well-to-do ex-Governor of the English merchants became temporarily a member of the firm for its production and shared in the venture. This is the natural meaning of Wynkyn de Worde’s statement that Caxton was the “first prynter of this boke,” and is quite as likely to be true as the supposition that he took part in printing it as a kind of amateur journeyman to advance himself in the art. It may be noted, moreover, that the books of this anonymous press belong to the less advanced school of printing at Cologne, a school technically several years behind that of Ulrich Zell, and this takes the force out of the objection raised by William Blades, that if Caxton had learnt printing at Cologne, he must have printed better when he made his start.
Caxton does not seem to have followed up this beginning at all quickly, and it was not till printing had been brought much nearer to Bruges by the starting of presses at Alost in 1473 and at Louvain in 1474 that he was stirred to action. The first printer at Louvain was Jan Veldener, who worked there from 1474 to 1477, and Mr. Gordon Duff conjectures that Caxton may have received some help from him. There is no doubt, however, that his partner at Bruges was Colard Mansion, a skilled calligrapher, who continued printing there till 1484, when he fled from the town, leaving his rent unpaid. Caxton’s own account in the Recuyell of the Histories of Troye of how he came to start is that
for as moche as in the wrytyng of the same my penne is worn, myn hande wery and not stedfast, myn eyen dimmed with ouer-moche lokyng on the whit paper ... and also because I haue promysid to dyuerce gentilmen and to my frendes to adresse to hem as hastily as I myght this sayd book. Therfore I haue practysed & lerned at my grete charge and dispence to ordeyne this saide book in prynte after the maner & forme as ye may here see.