After Bruges comes Brussels, where but one press was established before 1500. This was set up by the Brothers of the Common Life, who must have found their old industry of copying manuscripts seriously interfered with by the competition of the new art. They therefore started a press at their house, called ‘Nazareth,’ and in 1476 issued their first dated book, the Gnotosolitos sive speculum conscientiæ, by Arnoldus de Gheilhoven, a large folio of 472 leaves. From 1476 to 1484[30] they worked industriously, producing about thirty-five books, only one of which clearly states who and what the printers were. This is the Legenda Henrici Imperatoris et Kunigundis Imperatricis of 1484, where we read in the colophon: ... ‘impresse in famosa civitate bruxellensi per fratres communis vite in nazareth’.... There is no doubt that, as types come to be studied and recognised, more books will be found printed by this Brotherhood. Other establishments of the same Order had practised, or were shortly to practise, the art of printing. That at Marienthal, important in the history of printing, had been at work for some years; others at Rostock, Nuremberg, and Gouda were to follow; while, as we have seen, if we are to believe M. Madden, the monastery at Weidenbach was the instructor of all the more noted printers of Europe. The similarity in appearance between the Brussels type and that of Ther Hoernen at Cologne is very striking, and has deceived even M. Van der Meersch, Ther Hoernen’s bibliographer. The distinguishing mark of this type, or the one most readily to be distinguished, is a very voluminous capital S in the later books.
[30] A book of 1487 is quoted by Lambinet, but the date has probably been either misprinted or misread.
Gerard Leeu, the first printer at Gouda, is the most important of all the Low Country printers of the fifteenth century. His first book was issued in 1477, a Dutch edition of the Epistles and Gospels; and five other books followed in the same year. His first illustrated book, the Dialogus creaturarum moralisatus, was issued in 1480. About the middle of the year 1484 he removed to Antwerp, and printed there till 1493. In that year, while the Chronicles of England were being printed, a letter-cutter named Henric van Symmen, one of Leeu’s workmen, struck work. In a quarrel which followed, Leeu was struck on the head, and died after three days’ illness. The workman who gave the blow was fined forty gulden, not a very heavy punishment for manslaughter. At the end of the Chronicles the workmen put the following colophon: ‘Enprentyd ... by maister Gerard de Leew, a man of grete wysedom in all maner of kunnying: whych nowe is come from lyfe unto the deth, which is grete harme for many a poure man. On whos sowle god almyghty for hys hygh grace have mercy. Amen.’
Leeu must have employed a good deal of labour, for he printed a very large number of books; Campbell gives about two hundred, and his numbers are always being added to. But what makes Leeu especially interesting to us is the fact of his printing English books. Of these, he issued seven between 1486 and 1493—a Grammar, two Sarum Service-books, and four other popular books which will be noticed later.
Another interesting printer who was settled at Gouda was Gotfried de Os, whom Bradshaw considers to have been identical with Govaert van Ghemen. He began to print at Gouda in 1486, but about 1490 removed to Copenhagen, printing at Leyden on his way. Before he went there he parted with some of his printing materials, type, initial letters, and woodcuts, which came into the hands of W. de Worde, and were used in England.
Five other towns in the Netherlands possessed printing presses before 1480—Deventer (1477), Delft (1477), St. Maartensdyk (1478), Nÿmegen (1479), and Zwolle (1479).
At Deventer there were only two printers, R. Paffroed and J. de Breda; but between them they printed at least five hundred books, about a quarter of the whole number issued in the Netherlands in the fifteenth century.
At St. Maartensdyk in Zeeland only one book was printed, Der zyelen troeste, the work of a printer named Peter Werrecoren, in November 1478. Of this book only one copy is known, preserved in the library of the abbey of Averbode. In the colophon the printer apologises for the short-comings of his book, saying that it is his first, and that he hopes by the grace of God to improve. We have, however, no record of his ever printing again. Nÿmegen had also but one printer, Gerard Leempt, who issued four books, Zwolle, where Peter van Os of Breda printed from 1479 onwards, is an interesting place in the history of printing, for there, in 1487, appeared portions of the original blocks of the Biblia Pauperum used to illustrate a Dutch edition of the Epistles and Gospels, and in 1494 a block from the Canticum Canticorum. Peregrinus Barmentlo, the only printer at Hasselt, was at work from 1480 to 1490. He seems to have had some connection with Peter van Os, as was only natural from the situation of Hasselt and its nearness to Zwolle; and we find the cuts of one printer in the hands of the other.
Arend de Keysere commenced to print at Audenarde in 1480, his first book being the Sermons of Hermannus de Petra. By April 1483 he had moved from Audenarde and settled at Ghent, where he remained till his death in 1489. His wife, Beatrice van Orrior, continued to print for a short time, but no copy is known of any of her productions. At a later date she married again, her husband being a certain Henry van den Dale, who is mentioned in the St. Lucas-gilde book at Bruges as a printer in that town in 1505-6.
In the fifteenth century more printers were settled in Antwerp than in any other Netherlandish town. The first to settle there was Matthew van der Goes, and his first book is dated 29th April 1482. In the same year he issued the Bœck van Tondalus vysioen, which has the misprinted date 1472, and has for that reason been sometimes quoted as the first book printed in the Low Countries, or more often as the first book printed with signatures. We have already spoken of Gerard Leeu, who was the next to settle at Antwerp; and shortly after his appearance in 1484, Nicolas Kesler of Basle opened a shop there for the sale of his books. There are said to be three books with Kesler’s name, and the name of Antwerp given as the town; and though his press at Basle was at work without a break from 1486 onward, still in 1488 his name appears amongst the list of members of the St. Lucas-gilde at Antwerp. It is very probable, as Campbell suggests, that Kesler was entered as a member to enable him to sell his books in Antwerp. The most interesting among the remaining printers of the town was Thierry Martens, who began to print in 1493, and stayed till 1497. His various movements have been spoken of before. Leyden, Ghent, Kuilenburg, and Haarlem all started presses in 1483. The first printer of Haarlem, Bellaert, seems to have obtained his materials for the most part from Leeu, both type and woodcuts; but the town cannot have been a flourishing one from a printer’s point of view; for, though another workman, Joh. Andreæ, printed a few books in 1486, both presses disappear after that year. At Bois-le-duc, Gerard Leempt, from Nÿmegen, printed a few books between 1484 and 1490. In 1495 the Canons of St. Michael’s in den Hem, near Shoenhoven, began to print books in order to obtain means to rebuild their convent, which had been destroyed by fire the year before. They printed one or two editions of the Breviary of different uses, but the rest of their books were all in the vernacular. Schiedam was the last town in the Netherlands where printing was practised before 1500, and there, about 1498, an unknown printer issued a very remarkable book.