Letterings often appear on the sides of bindings of the Tudor period, mottoes, initials and names. Towards the end of the sixteenth century a few bindings are found on which are semis of triple dots. This is the beginning of the style which reached its ultimate form in the next century. Also small triangular corner stamps occur now and then. These also developed and eventually became one of the most characteristic marks of Jacobean bindings.
When James VI. of Scotland came here as our James I. he may have brought with him John Gibson, who was his binder in Scotland. Lists of books bound by this binder still exist, but no book or binding mentioned by him has so far been identified. But there are some remarkable books among those which were certainly bound for James I. which are not like the general type of his bindings, and it is likely enough that these may be Gibson’s work. The style is a very fine one, and the workmanship strong and good, but not, in my opinion, correct enough to have been done by a foreign binder. The same binder did some of the re-binding for Henry Prince of Wales, and one of its characteristics is a dotted fillet of double lines.
Fig. 108.—The book stamp of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester.
Fig. 109.—The book stamp of Lord Burleigh.
It is probable that many of the richer bindings of the early seventeenth century were the work of John and Abraham Bateman, the king’s printers and binders, but, in spite of lists, this is again only speculation. There is no doubt that about this time many bindings were made which would now be called trade bindings as apart from art bindings. Trade bindings often enough follow art bindings at a respectable distance, and they are rarely made on original lines.
Fig. 110.—English binding by Thos. Berthelet, 1537, with the title on the sides.