Caxton's first piece of work in 1480 was a broadside Indulgence, issued by John Kendale by authority of Sixtus IV., to all persons who would contribute towards the defence of Rhodes, which was being besieged by the Turks. The copy in the British Museum, which is the only one at present known, is filled in with the names of Symon Mountfort and Emma, his wife, and is dated the last day of March. Another example which was in existence about 1790, but has now disappeared, was filled in with the names of Richard and John Catlyn, and dated April 16th. This Indulgence begins with a wood-cut initial letter, the first to be used in England.
John Kendale, in the proclamation of Edward IV. of April, 1480, which relates to this appeal for assistance, is styled "Turcopolier of Rhodes and locum tenens of the Grand Master in Italy, England, Flanders, and Ireland," and he was at a later date implicated in a plot against the King's life. He is the subject of the earliest known existing contemporary English medal, which was struck in 1480. No sooner had Caxton issued this Indulgence, which is printed in the large No. 2* type, and very unsuitable for that kind of work, than the rival printer, John Lettou, issued two editions printed in his small, neat type. This attracted Caxton's attention, and he immediately set to work on a new small type, No. 4, which came into use soon afterwards.
Two books only in this new type are without signatures, so that they may presumably be taken to be the earliest; these are a Vocabulary in French and English, and a Servitium de Visitatione Beatae Mariae Virginis. The first is a small folio of 26 leaves, of which the first is blank, and consists of words and short phrases in the two languages, arranged in opposite columns. It is an uninteresting book to look at, but must have been useful, for it was reprinted in the fifteenth century both by Wynkyn de Worde and Richard Pynson, and also in the early sixteenth. Four copies are known, in Bamburgh Castle, Ripon Cathedral, the Rylands Library, and an imperfect copy in the Duke of Devonshire's library.
The second book, the Servitium, has, I think, been always wrongly described. All that now remains of it are seven leaves in the British Museum, the last being blank; and the whole book was considered to have consisted of a quire of eight leaves, the first being wanting. The Servitium was a special service intended to be incorporated into the Breviary and Missal. The Pope had announced it in 1390, but it was not until 1480 that the Archbishop of Canterbury received from the Prolocutor a proposal to order the observance of July 2d as a fixed feast of the Visitation, "sub more duplicis festi secundum usum Sarum, cum pleno servitio." The book would therefore contain the full service for the day itself, the special parts for the week days following (except the fourth which was the octave of SS. Peter and Paul), and the service for the octave. Almost the whole of the principal service, which would have occupied a considerable space, is wanting, so that it may be assumed that the book consisted originally of at least two quires, or sixteen leaves. An edition of the Psalter must have been printed about this time, and is perhaps the first book in which Caxton made use of signatures; it is at any rate the only one, with the exception of Reynard the Fox, in which he went so far wrong as to necessitate the insertion of an extra leaf in one quire. This book, a quarto of 177 leaves, has a handsome appearance, as it is printed throughout with the formal church-type No. 3, the only complete book in which this type alone is used. The only copy known is in the British Museum, to which it came with the Royal Library, having belonged at one time to Queen Mary, whose initials are on the back of the binding.
An edition of the Book of Hours of Salisbury use was printed about the same time in the same type, but nothing remains of it now except two fragments found in the binding of a Caxton Boethius in the Grammar School at St. Alban's, and since purchased by the British Museum. It was a quarto of the same size as the Psalter, and a full page contained 20 lines.
On the 10th of June, 1480, Caxton finished his first edition of the Chronicles of England, a folio of 182 leaves, which, as he says in his preface, "Atte requeste of dyverce gentilmen I have endevourd me to enprinte." Though mainly derived from the ordinary manuscript copies, the history has been brought down to a later date, and this continuation may very well have been written by Caxton himself. In August of the same year, the Description of Britain was issued. It is taken from Higden's Polycronicon, and was clearly intended to form a supplement to the Chronicles, with which it is commonly found bound up. More copies of it appear to have been printed than of the Chronicles, for it is found also with the second edition of the Chronicles, though it was not reprinted.
John Lidgate's poem, Curia Sapientiae, or The Court of Sapience, a poem in seven-line stanzas, containing descriptions of animals, birds, and fishes, with a survey of the arts and sciences, was published about this time. It is a folio of 40 leaves, of which the first and last two are blank. Three copies only are known, all of which are in public libraries.
THE MIRROUR OF THE WORLD