The next book to be noticed, the Dialogue or Communyng between the Wise King Solomon and Marcolphus, is very interesting, being the only English edition of this version of a widespread and popular story. It tells how Solomon, seated on his throne, is confronted by Marcolphus, a misshapen rustic who answers with a certain coarse wit the questions put to him by the king. Later on the king visits Marcolphus, who in his turn comes to reside at court, but his behaviour there is so insolent that the king can hardly put up with it. After a series of escapades Marcolphus is banished from the court, and finally sentenced to be hanged. He is allowed as a favour to choose his own tree, and consequently he wanders with his guards through the Vale of Josaphath to Jericho, over Jordan, through Arabia and the wilderness to the Red Sea, but “never more could Marcolf find a tree that he wold choose to hang on.” The curious result of this is that he went home and lived happily ever afterwards.
The book itself has only one illustration, which is used twice, on the recto and verso of the title-page, representing Marcolphus and his wife Polycana standing before Solomon, who is seated upon his throne. This cut found its way over to England, and was used by several successive printers for editions of Howleglas.
The only copy known of Solomon and Marcolphus is in the Bodleian, and was in a volume of tracts bequeathed with his library by Thomas Tanner, Bishop of St Asaph. The volume contained originally five separate pieces. Two by Wynkyn de Worde, the Three Kings of Coleyne and the Meditations of St Bernard, two by Caxton, the Governayle of Health and the Ars moriendi, and the Solomon and Marcolphus. I am sorry to say that the two Caxtons have been cut out of the volume and bound separately.
The last of the four books to be noticed is the edition of the Chronicles of England. While the Chronicles were being printed Gerard Leeu died, or perhaps it would be more correct to say was murdered. One of his workmen named Henric van Symmen, who was also a type engraver, struck work and determined to set up in business on his own account. This led to a quarrel, and blows succeeded words. The workman, it appears, in the course of the quarrel struck Leeu a blow on the head, and this proved so serious that he lay very ill for three days and then died. The workman was promptly secured and brought up for trial for the killing of his master, but it was probably considered that he had received a certain amount of provocation, and his punishment took the form of a fine. He was sentenced to pay into the Duke of Burgundy’s exchequer the sum of forty guelden. Gerard Leeu seems to have been a good master and a kindly man if we may judge from the colophon put to the Chronicles: “Enprentyd In the Duchye of Braband in the towne of Andewarpe In the yere of our lord M.cccc.xciii. By maister Gerard de Leew a man of grete wysedom in all maner of kunnyng: 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 haue mercy. Amen.”
The book contains no illustrations beyond a woodcut of the arms of England on the title-page.
Leeu seems to have intended to print more English books, for the type in which all but the Chronicles are printed was a special fount cut in imitation of English type, with a curious lower-case d for use when that letter occurred at the end of a word. His death, so soon after the cutting of the type, put an end to all such plans. The custom, however, of printing English books at Antwerp revived at the very beginning of the sixteenth century, for Adrian van Berghen printed an edition of Holt’s Lac Puerorum, and John of Doesborch issued a whole series of English popular books, some of them remarkably curious.
Among the stationers who came to England from abroad the most important was certainly Frederick Egmont. He was probably a Frenchman, but his printing was mainly done in Venice, and he seems to have been the agent of the Venetian printer Johannes Hertzog de Landoia. From this Venetian press came a large number of service books for English use, editions of the Breviary and Missal. The Sarum Horae on the other hand is only represented by one edition, issued about 1494, of which only a few leaves are known.
Egmont during his earliest years as a stationer was connected with no press except that of Hertzog, and we do not know of any books by this printer produced for any other English stationer, so that as regards liturgical books for English use known to us only from fragments we are justified, I think, in attributing to Egmont as stationer such as we can determine from their type to have been printed by Hertzog.
The first book in which his name occurs is an edition of the Breviary according to the use of York, of which the only known copy is in the Bodleian, having been originally in the great liturgical collection of Richard Gough. It is a small thick octavo of 462 leaves, and was issued in May, 1493. Two if not three editions of the Sarum Breviary in octavo were printed about this same time, but we know of their existence only from fragments discovered in bindings. Fragments of one edition are in a binding in the library of St John’s College, Cambridge, of another in a binding at Lambeth, while some leaves of probably a third edition are in the library of Corpus Christi College, Oxford.
In 1494 Egmont had commissioned Hertzog to print for him two editions of the Sarum Missal, one in folio, the other in octavo. The folio edition is of great rarity, but there is a beautiful though slightly imperfect copy in the Sandars collection in the University Library. The title-page is wanting and also the leaf containing the engraving of the Crucifixion which should precede the Canon of the Mass. In the imprint we are told that the book was finished on the 1st of September, 1494, by John Hertzog de Landoia for Fredericus de Egmont and Gerardus Barrevelt. This Gerardus Barrevelt was clearly a partner of Egmont’s as their initials occur together in the device on the title-page. This device is remarkable for the delicacy of its execution. It consists of a circle divided by a perpendicular line produced beyond the top of the circle, the projection being crossed by two bars. In the left-hand half of the circle are the initials and mark of Egmont, in the right those of Barrevelt. The whole is enclosed in a square frame, and the background contains sprays of leaves. It so resembles in style and appearance the mark used by the printer John Hertzog that we may be pretty certain it was cut under his supervision at Venice.