Early Printed Books

by E. Gordon Duff

CHAPTER XII.

THE STUDY OF BOOKBINDING.

Too little attention has been paid, in this country at any rate, to the fact that some knowledge about early bookbinding is essential to the student of early printing. At first the printer was also a stationer and bookbinder, and the three occupations were hardly clearly defined or definitely separated within the first hundred years after the invention of printing. Books always required some kind of binding, and the early printer sold his books to the purchaser ready bound, though copies seem always to have been obtainable in sheets by such as wished them in that state. The binder ornamented his books in certain ways and with a limited number of stamps, and there is no reason why a careful study should not make his binding ornamentation as easily recognisable as his woodcuts or his type. Of course the majority of early bindings are unsigned, and therefore it is not often possible to assign particular bindings to particular men; but comparison may enable us to attribute them to particular districts and even to particular places, so that they may often afford additional evidence towards placing books which contain no information of their origin.

A very little attention paid to a binding might often result in most valuable information, and with the destruction of the binding the information disappears. Many years ago there came into the hands of a certain Mr. Horn a very valuable volume consisting of three block-books, the Biblia Pauperum, the Ars Moriendi, and the Apocalypse, all bound together, and in their original binding, which was dated. Incredible as it may seem, the volume was split up and the binding destroyed. Mr. Horn asserted from memory that the date was 1428; of the first three figures he was sure, and of the last he was more or less certain. Naturally the date has been questioned, and it has been surmised that the 2 must have been some other figure which Mr. Horn deciphered incorrectly. The destruction of the binding made it impossible that this question could ever be set at rest, and a very important date in the history of printing was lost absolutely.

In the last century no regard whatever seems to have been paid to old bindings, the very fact of their being old prejudiced librarians against them; if they became damaged or worn they were not repaired, but destroyed, and the book rebound. Nor did they fare better in earlier times. Somewhere in the first half of the seventeenth century all the manuscripts in the Cambridge University Library were uniformly rebound in rough calf, to the utter destruction of every trace of their former history.

Casley, in his catalogue of the manuscripts in the Royal Library, specially mentions a curious old binding, with an inscription showing that it was made at Oxford, in Catte Street, in 1467. Even the special note in the catalogue did not save this binding, which, if it had been preserved, would have been one of the earliest, if not the earliest, dated English example.

There is no need to multiply examples to show how widespread the destruction of old bindings has been as regards public libraries; indeed, their escaping without observation was their only chance of escaping without destruction, In private libraries much the same thing has happened. The great collectors of the period of Dibdin thought nothing worthy of notice unless ‘encased’ in a russia or morocco leather covering by Lewis or some bookbinder of the time. Nor are collectors of the same opinion now obsolete, for many of our better known binders can show specimens of rare and interesting old bindings which they have been ordered to strip off and replace with something new. Ignorance is the cause of much of what we lament. So many collectors are ruled entirely by the advice of their booksellers and binders, and these in their turn are influenced purely by commercial instincts. Collectors with knowledge or opinions of their own are beginning to see that the one thing which makes a book valuable (not simply in the way of pounds, shillings, and pence) is that it shall be, as far as possible, in its original condition. Our greatest books of the seventeenth century were issued in simple calf bindings, with no attempt at ornamentation but a plain line ruled down the cover about an inch from the back. If a collector wants modern ornamental bindings, let him put them on modern books, there only are they not out of place.

About the German binders, who necessarily concern us most at the time of the invention of printing, we know very little; but, on the other hand, there is a great deal to be learnt. Their bindings, both of pigskin and calf, are impressed with a large number of very beautiful and carefully executed dies, which could with a little care be separated into groups. Many of them, curiously enough, are very similar to some used on London and Durham bindings of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. There are the same palm-leaf dies and drop-shaped stamps containing dragons.

It is in Germany that the earliest dated bindings are found. A copy of the Eggesteyn forty-one line Bible, in the Cambridge University Library, has the date 1464 impressed on the metal bosses which protect the corners; and as the book is without a colophon, this date is of importance. A binder named Jean Richenbach dated all his bindings, and added, as a rule, the name of the person for whom they were bound. The earliest date we have for him is 1467, and they run from that year to 1475. Johannes Fogel is another name often found on early German bindings. A few printers’ names occur, such as Ambrose Keller, Veldener, Zainer, Amorbach. About the time of Koburger, great changes were introduced into the style of German binding, a harmonious design being produced by means of large tools, and the use of small dies given up. The custom was also introduced of printing the title on the side in gold. The panel stamp, so popular in other countries, was not much used in Germany for calf books; it is found, however, on innumerable pigskin and parchment bindings of the latter half of the sixteenth century. The earliest of the bindings of this class have often the boards of wood; at a later date they are almost invariably of paper or millboard. On early French books the work is finer, but as a rule less interesting; but the panel stamps, especially the early ones, are very good. A very large number are signed in full. One with the name of Alexandre Alyat, a Paris stationer, is particularly fine, as are also the series belonging to Jean Norins. The Norman binders produced work very like the English, no doubt because many of the books printed there were intended especially for the English market.