There was no block-printing (for the verses on the seven virtues in the British Museum, and formerly in the Weigel Collection, are comparatively late), and with the one exception of the false date of 1468 in the first Oxford book, which we shall treat of later, there is nothing to confuse us in forming an absolutely clear idea of the introduction of the art into England, and its subsequent growth.
William Caxton, our first printer, was born, as he himself tells us, ‘in the Weald of Kent,’ but unfortunately he has given us no clue to the date; probably it was about 1420; and in 1438 he was apprenticed to Robert Large, a mercer of the city of London, who was Lord Mayor in 1439-40. His business necessitated his residence abroad, and he doubtless left England shortly after his apprenticeship, for in 1469 he tells us that he had been ‘thirty years for the most part in the countries of Brabant, Flanders, Holland, and Zetland.’ In 1453 he visited England, and was admitted to the Livery of the Mercers’ Company. About 1468 he was acting as governor to the ‘English Nation residing abroad,’ or ‘Merchant Adventurers’ at Bruges. After some six or seven years in this position, he entered the service of Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, sister of Edward IV. The greater leisure which this appointment afforded him was employed in literary pursuits. In March 1469 he commenced a translation of the Recueil des Histoires de Troyes, by Raoul le Fèvre, but it was not finished till 19th September 1471, when Caxton was staying at Cologne.
This visit to Cologne marks an interesting period in Caxton’s career, for it is most probable that it was there he learnt to print. Wynkyn de Worde tells us that the first book printed by Caxton was the Bartholomæus de proprietatibus rerum, and that it was printed at Cologne. It has been the general custom of writers to condemn this story as impossible, perhaps without sufficiently examining the facts.
W. de Worde says in his preface to the English edition—
‘And also of your charyte call to remembraunce
The soule of William Caxton the first prynter of this boke
In laten tongue at Coleyn, hymself to avaunce
That every well disposed man may thereon loke.’
