See page [79.]
actually printed by him, on which certain stamps impressed in gold occur with great frequency. Several of these stamps are peculiar, and all of them bear the characteristics of being designed by the same artist, one who quite understood the art of designing curves for bookbindings. There is now little doubt that these bindings issued from Berthelet’s workshop, and they may be safely considered to be his workmanship.
Unfortunately none of the bindings attributed to Berthelet are signed. There are numerous instances of signed bindings made in England both before and during his time, but these are always on panel stamps, which in all probability were seldom made by Englishmen. The fashion of signing a binding outside has indeed been seldom followed here, although it has been common on continental bindings for a long period. When English workmen have signed their bindings it has generally been by means of a small paper ticket pasted on the inside, or in very small letters or initials impressed at the lower edge of the inside of the boards.
Most of the bindings of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries had silken ties fixed to the front edges of the boards. This peculiarity was probably a survival of an old custom which prevailed during the Middle Ages, when books were largely written on vellum, which is very apt to curl; the ties helped the thick, heavy boards to counteract this tendency. The ties on Berthelet’s bindings are now nearly all rubbed off, but signs of them can be traced in most cases.
In default of a signed binding, we are driven, in Berthelet’s case, to probability only with regard to fixing some standard by which to judge his work. The stamps used on all the books printed by Berthelet which are still in their original bindings are fortunately few in number, and nearly all these stamps are found on the first binding described in my list below. The gilding on this binding is bad, and evidently the work of a beginner, and I think it is the first English book ornamented with actual gold-tooling. It is dedicated to Henry VIII. and belonged to him, and my theory is, that the king desired Berthelet to try the new form of decoration on one of his own books, to be marked with his own heraldic devices and special royal badges. Berthelet doubtless considered the gold-tooling, which at that time he alone understood here, was a more distinguished manner of marking his work than the commoner plan of signing his name, as the foreign workmen were in the habit of doing on their large panel stamps.
The finest of Berthelet’s bindings are all royal; those he made for private owners are rarely very highly ornamented. It is not known what kind of binding he executed before the time of his appointment as royal printer; indeed, it is quite possible that he did not begin binding until about that period; i. e., 1530. The chief official printing that he did was in the form of statutes, proclamations, single sheets, and other publications, which required no binding; but following the fashion of his time, when he did print an actual book, it is highly probable that he also bound it. The stamps he used on his earliest bindings were new to English work, and it seems probable that if they were not actually sent over to him from Italy he cut them closely resembling some Italian model. They were not used after his death, and this disuse of a binder’s stamps after his own time is always something of a mystery. Stamps cut in metal for gilding designs on leather are very strong, and as the work they have to do is very light, they would, as a matter of fact, last much longer than they appear to if they were not destroyed purposely. Most great binders seem to have taken steps to insure the discontinuance of the use of their special stamps after their death, and so it is usually conceded that if the general design as well as the special stamps on any binding are similar to those found on any acknowledged work of a particular binder, this binding must then be his own work. Of course, other matters must be in proper accordance with such attribution,—leather, date, and heraldic marks, if any. Also in the case of a binder who produced much work, the fact of a binding having issued from his workshop would entitle it to be called his work, although his own hand may never have touched it.
The most important works in which figures and notices of Berthelet’s bindings will be found are Mr. H. B. Wheatley’s book on the “Remarkable Bindings in the British Museum,” London, 1889, in which five specimens are figured in colour, none of them attributed to Berthelet, and they are all very bad plates; in Mr. R. R. Holmes’s fine book on “Specimens of Royal Bookbinding from the Royal Library, Windsor Castle,” London, 1893, in which two examples are figured, being fine plates in colour by Mr. Griggs, which two plates, with one other, are reproduced in the illustrated Catalogue of the Exhibition of Bookbindings held at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in 1891; Mr. W. Y. Fletcher’s “English Bookbindings in the British Museum,” London, 1895, in which several of Berthelet’s finer bindings are naturally included, all shown in splendid colour plates by Mr. Griggs; and in my own monograph on “Royal English Bookbindings,” published in 1896, in which there is one bad colour plate and one excellent half-tone (both by Evans) of acknowledged Berthelet bindings. Besides these few there are no good plates to be found; indeed, colour plates of bookbindings have been a source of much tribulation to authors until late years, when Mr. William Griggs, chromo-lithographer to the queen, has made a special study of their production, with the result that he can now produce the finest work of the kind to be found anywhere.
The immense majority of bookbindings made since the introduction of printing into England are in some sort of leather, and there is a very wide difference between the most elaborately decorated leather binding and the usual rich Mediæval bindings in precious metals, which they virtually superseded. In Berthelet’s bill, quoted in the second chapter, will be found one or two entries which remind us that there really was a sort of connecting link between these two widely divergent schools of book decoration. This link is to be found in the embroidered bindings, some of which, in all probability bound by Berthelet, still remain. These bindings, without being intrinsically valuable, are very ornamental indeed, and as far as appearance goes, they may well have given satisfaction even to the magnificent taste of Henry VIII., without adding to their beauty the strong temptation of being worth relegating to the melting-pot. In the bill already quoted we find entries of books bound in velvet and in satin, and as a fact we also find among Henry VIII.’s books some which not only fit the descriptions to some extent, but having curves and designs upon them which, allowing for the unavoidable differences due to the material, strongly resemble some of Berthelet’s curves as used on leather. The velvet bindings, some of which remain that belonged to Henry VII., also take their place as very decorative work; these are adorned in many cases with enamels, a form of ornamentation having, in common with embroidery, a strong claim to preservation because of its beauty, although equally of no intrinsic value. There is nothing to connect these earlier bindings with Berthelet. The one or two embroidered bindings which I venture to attribute to him, and describe below in their chronological order, have certainly in two instances some evidence to that effect inherent in themselves, inasmuch as they have on their edges Berthelet’s usual legend painted in gold.