Considerable doubt has been thrown on the authorship of Christine de Pisan, but apparently unjustly. In the prologues of many manuscripts, and in Caxton's edition, the writer apologizes as a woman for treating of such warlike subjects, and appeals to the goddess Minerva, saying, "I am, as thou wert, a woman Italian."
A complete copy should contain 144 leaves, the first being blank, and over twenty copies are known. A perfect copy in the Cambridge University Library contains a manuscript note showing that it was bought in 1510 for three shillings and eight pence.
THE INDULGENCE OF 1489
(see page [73])]
In 1489, also, Caxton issued two editions of an Indulgence of John de Gigliis, or rather a license to confessors, giving them power to grant indulgences to any Christian person in England or Ireland who should contribute four, three, two, or even one gold florin to assist a crusade against the Turks. These Indulgences are of peculiar interest, as they were printed in a new type of Caxton's, the smallest which he ever cut, and of which he never again made use. The first to draw attention to them was Archdeacon Cotton, who in the second part of his "Typographical Gazetteer" mentions one which he had found in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, and which he considered to be a product of the early Oxford press. Henry Bradshaw, the University Librarian at Cambridge, obtained a photograph of it, and at once conjectured from the appearance of the type that it must have been printed by Caxton. He immediately communicated this discovery to Blades, who, however, refused to accept it as the work of Caxton's press without some further and more convincing proof, and never even alluded to either the type or Indulgence in later issues of his book. The necessary proof was soon afterwards found, for Bradshaw discovered at Holkham an edition of the Speculum Vitae Christi, printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1494, which had the side-notes printed in this type, and as De Worde inherited all Caxton's materials, this fount must have belonged to him.
The Statutes of the first, third, and fourth years of Henry VII. may also be put down to the end of 1489, for the fourth year of Henry VII. ended on August 21, 1489, and the Statutes would no doubt be printed at once.
With the exceptions just given, none of Caxton's books printed between May, 1487, and his death in 1491 bear any date, so that although all may be approximately dated, their exact order cannot be determined. One very common error in the method of arranging Caxton's books may be pointed out here, which arises from the method adopted by Blades. In his Life of Caxton the books are arranged according to types, which would be an excellent plan if the use of one type had been discontinued as soon as a newer one was made. This, however, was not the case, for several were often in use at one time, and thus Blades's system, though correct in one way, is very misleading to a superficial reader. For instance, Caxton started at Westminster with types Nos. 2 and 3, and both are used in his first books, but Blades puts the books in type No. 3 after all those in type No. 2, and thus the Sarum Ordinale, certainly one of the earliest books printed in England, comes thirty-sixth on his list, and while one book with the printed date of 1481 is number 33, another with the printed date of 1480 is number 39. It will thus be seen that Blades's arrangement was not a chronological one, though most writers have made the mistake of thinking so, and have followed it as such, as may be seen, for instance, in the list appended to Caxton's life in the Dictionary of National Biography, which blindly follows Blades's arrangement without any reference to his system or mention of the types.