CONTENTS AND LIST OF PLATES

PAGE

General Introduction,
By Alfred W. Pollard.

[ix]

ENGLISH EMBROIDERED BINDINGS
By Cyril Davenport.


Chapter I.—Introductory,

[1]
PLATES.
1. Embroidered Bag for Psalms. London, 1633, [17]
2. Embroidered Cover for New Testament. London, 1640, [18]

Chapter II.—Books Bound in Canvas,

[28]
PLATES.
3. Prayers of Queen Katherine Parr. 13th-century MS.,[29]
4. The Miroir or Glasse of the Synneful Soul. MS. by the Princess Elizabeth. 1544, [32]
5. Prayers of Queen Katherine Parr. MS. by the Princess Elizabeth. 1545, [33]
6. Christian Prayers. London, 1581, [37]
7. Psalms and Common Praier. London, 1606,[38]
8. Bible, etc. London, 1612, [39]
9. Sermons by Samuel Ward. London, 1626-7, [41]
10. New Testament, etc. London, 1625-35, [42]
11. The Daily Exercise of a Christian. London, 1623, [44]
12. Bible. London, 1626, [45]
13. Bible, etc. London, 1642, [48]
14. Bible. London, 1648, [49]

Chapter III.—Books Bound in Velvet,

[52]
PLATES.
15. Très ample description de toute la terre Saincte, etc. MS. 1540,[52]
16. Biblia. Tiguri, 1543, [54]
17. Il Petrarcha. Venetia, 1544, [55]
18. Queen Mary's Psalter. 14th century MS., [57]
19. Christopherson, Historia Ecclesiastica. Lovanii, 1569,[Frontispiece]
20. Christian Prayers. London, 1570, [59]
21. Parker, De antiquitate Ecclesiæ Britannicæ. London, 1572, [60]
22. The Epistles of St. Paul. London, 1578, [63]
23. Christian Prayers, etc. London, 1584, [65]
24. Orationis Dominicæ Explicatio, etc. Genevæ, 1583,[67]
25. Bible. London, 1583, [68]
26. The Commonplaces of Peter Martyr. London, 1583, [69]
27. Biblia. Antverpiæ, 1590, [70]
28. Udall, Sermons. London, 1596, [71]
29. Collection of Sixteenth-Century Tracts, [72]
30. Bacon, Opera. Londini, 1623, [75]
31. Bacon, Essays. 1625, [76]
32. Common Prayer. London, 1638, [77]
33. Bible. Cambridge, 1674, [78]

Chapter IV.—Books Bound in Satin,

[80]
PLATES.
34. Collection of Sixteenth-Century Tracts, [80]
35. New Testament in Greek. Leyden, 1576, [81]
36. Bible. London, 1619, [84]
37. Emblemes Chrestiens. MS. 1624, [85]
38. New Testament. London, 1625, [86]
39. New Testament and Psalms. London, 1630, [89]
40. Henshaw, Horæ Successivæ. London, 1632,[90]
41. Psalms. London, 1633, [91]
42. Psalms. London, 1635, [92]
43. Psalms. London, 1633, [94]
44. Bible. London, 1638, [96]
45. Psalms. London, 1639, [98]
46. The Way to True Happiness. London, 1639, [99]
47. New Testament. London, 1640, [101]
48. Psalms. London, 1641, [103]
49. Psalms. London, 1643, [105]
50. Psalms. London, 1643, [106]
51. Psalms. London, 1646, [108]
52. Bible. London, 1646, [109]

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

It would certainly be unreasonable to complain that printing with movable types was not invented at a time better suited to our national convenience. Yet the fact that the invention was made just in the middle of the fifteenth century constituted a handicap by which the printing trade in this country was for generations overweighted. At almost any earlier period, more particularly from the beginning of the fourteenth century to the first quarter of the fifteenth, England would have been as well equipped as any foreign country to take its part in the race. From the production of Queen Mary's Psalter at the earlier date to that of the Sherborne Missal at the later, English manuscripts, if we may judge from the scanty specimens which the evil days of Henry viii. and Edward vi. have left us, may vie in beauty of writing and decoration with the finest examples of Continental art. If John Siferwas, instead of William Caxton, had introduced printing into England, our English incunabula would have taken a far higher place. But the sixty odd years which separate the two men were absolutely disastrous to the English book-trade. After her exhausting and futile struggle with France, England was torn asunder by the wars of the Roses, and by the time these were ended the school of illumination, so full of promise, and seemingly so firmly established, had absolutely died out. When printing was introduced England possessed no trained illuminators or skilful scribes such as in other countries were forced to make the best of the new art in order not to lose their living, nor were there any native wood-engravers ready to illustrate the new books. I have never myself seen or heard of a 'Caxton' in which an illuminator has painted a preliminary border or initial letters; even the rubrication, where it exists, is usually a disfigurement; while as for pictures, it has been unkindly said that inquiry whence they were obtained is superfluous, since any boy with a knife could have cut them as well.