Early Printed Books

by E. Gordon Duff

PAGE FROM SARUM BREVIARY.
(Printed at Cologne.)

Now, there is a Latin edition, evidently printed at Cologne about the time that Caxton was there, in a type almost identical with that of N. Gotz or the printer of the Augustinus de fide; and it was in conjunction with a very similar type, in 1476, that the ‘gros bâtarde’ type, which is so intimately connected with Caxton, first appeared. Though Caxton worked in partnership with Colard Mansion about 1475-77, he had probably learnt something of the art before; and, taking into consideration his journey to Cologne, the statement of Wynkyn de Worde, and the typographical connexion between the Bartholomæus and Caxton’s books, we may safely say that the story cannot be put aside as without foundation. It is not, of course, suggested that Caxton printed the book by himself, but only that he assisted in its production. He was learning the art of printing in the office where this book was being prepared, and his practical knowledge was acquired by assisting to print it.

Another Cologne book which may have been printed for Caxton, or produced through his means, is the first edition of the Breviary according to the use of Sarum. Unfortunately we only know of its existence through a few leaves in the libraries at Oxford, Cambridge, Lincoln, and Paris, and have therefore no means of knowing by whom it was printed, or whether it had any colophon at all. It is a quarto, printed in two columns, and with thirty-one lines to the column. Such a book would hardly have been printed without the help of an English stationer,—and who more likely than Caxton?

In 1477 an eventful change took place in Caxton’s career. ‘On June 21, 1476, was fought the bloody battle of Morat between the Duke of Burgundy and the Swiss, which resulted in the ruin of the Burgundian power. In the following January, the Duke, while engaged in a murderous battle at Nanci, was overpowered and fell, covered with wounds, stubbornly fighting to the last. Caxton’s mistress was now no longer the ruling power at the court of Bruges. The young daughter of the late Duke succeeded as the reigning sovereign, and the Dowager Duchess of Burgundy resigned her position at court, retiring into comparative privacy on a handsome jointure. Caxton’s services as secretary would now be no longer required by the Duchess in her altered position.’[31]

[31] Who was Caxton? By R. Hill Blades. London, 1877.

Early, therefore, in 1477, Caxton returned to England, and set up his press in the Almonry at Westminster. On 18th November of the same year he finished printing the Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophers, the first book printed in England. Copies of this book vary, some being without the imprint. This was followed by an edition of the Sarum Ordinale, known now only from fragments, and the curious little ‘cedula’ relating to it, advertising the ‘pyes of two or three commemorations.’

The productiveness of Caxton’s press in its earliest years was most remarkable, for we know of at least thirty books printed within the first three years. A good many of these, however, were very small, the little tracts of Chaucer and Lydgate containing but a few leaves each. These were the ‘small storyes and pamfletes’ with which, according to Robert Copland, Caxton began his career as printer. On the other hand, we have the History of Jason (150 leaves), The Canterbury Tales (374 leaves), Chaucer’s Boethius (94 leaves), the Rhetorica Nova of Laur: Gulielmus de Saona (124 leaves), the Cordyal (78 leaves), the second edition of the Dictes or Sayengis (76 leaves), and the Chronicles of England (182 leaves).

The starting of Lettou’s press in London, in 1480, may probably account for some of the changes introduced by Caxton in that year. His first indulgence, printed this year in the large type, was at once thrown into the shade by the editions of the same indulgence issued by Lettou in his small neat letter, which was much better adapted for such work. Lettou also in this year used signatures, Caxton doing the same. The competition caused Caxton to make his fount of small type, and to introduce many other improvements. It was about this time that he introduced woodcuts into his books; and the first book in which we find then is the Mirrour of the World. The cuts in this volume may be divided into two sets, those given for the first time by Caxton, and those copied from his predecessors. The first are ordinary woodcuts, the second what we should call diagrams. The woodcuts are of the poorest design and coarsest execution. Several are of a master with four or five pupils, others of single figures engaged in scientific pursuits. The diagrams are more or less carefully copied from the MSS.: they are numbered in the table of contents as being eight in part I., nine in part II., and ten [X. being misprinted for IX.] in part III. Of the eight belonging to part I., Nos. 2 and 3 are put to their wrong chapters, and consequently No. 4 is omitted altogether. The diagrams to part II. are wrongly drawn, and in some cases misplaced. The nine diagrams to part III. are the most correct. Some writers have contended that the cuts in Caxton’s books are from metal and not from wood-blocks; but some of them which are found in use at a considerably later date show marks of worm holes; a conclusive proof of the material being wood.

To the year 1480 we can ascribe seven books, almost all in the new type, No. 4. These are the French and English phrase-book, Lidgate’s Curia Sapientiæ, the Chronicles of England, and the Description of Britain; and three liturgical books, the De Visitatione B.M.V., the Psalterium, and a Horæ ad usum Sarum, the two latter printed in type 3. Of the Horæ, but a few leaves are known, which formed part of the wonderful find of fragments in the binding of a copy of the Boethius at St. Albans Grammar School. This volume was found by Mr. Blades in 1858, and from the covers were taken no less than fifty-six half sheets of printed paper, proving the existence of three works from Caxton’s press quite unknown before, the Horæ above mentioned, the Ordinale, and an indulgence of Pope Sixtus IV.

About 1481 appeared the first English edition of Reynard the Fox; and in that year two other books, both dated, Tully of Old Age, and the Siege of Jerusalem.