William Caxton

by E. Gordon Duff

The Weald was largely inhabited by the descendants of the Flemish families who had been induced by Edward III. to settle there and carry on the manufacture of cloth. Privileged by the king, the trade rapidly grew, and in the fifteenth century was one of great importance. This mixture of Flemish blood may account in certain ways for the "brode and rude Englissh," just as the Flemish trade influenced Caxton's future career.

In the prologue to Charles the Great, Caxton thanks his parents for having given him a good education, whereby he was enabled to earn an honest living, but unfortunately does not tell us where the education was obtained, though it would probably be at home, and not in London, as some have suggested. After leaving school Caxton was apprenticed to a London merchant of high position in the year 1438. This is the first actual date in his life which we possess, and one from which it is possible to arrive with some reasonable accuracy at his age.

Although then, as now, it was customary for a man to attain his majority at the age of twenty-one, there was also a rule, at any rate in the city of London, that none could attain his civic majority, or be admitted to the freedom of the city, until he had reached the age of twenty-four. The period for which a lad was bound apprentice was based on this fact, for it was always so arranged that he should issue from his apprenticeship on attaining his civic majority. The length of servitude varied from seven to fourteen years, so it is easy to calculate that the time of Caxton's birth must lie between the years 1421 and 1428. When we consider also that by 1449 he was not only out of his apprenticeship, but evidently a man of means and position, we are justified in supposing that he served the shortest time possible, and was born in 1421 or very little later.

The master to whom he was bound, Robert Large, was one of the most wealthy and important merchants in the city of London, and a leading member of the Mercers' Company. In 1427 he was Warden of his Company, in 1430 he was made a Sheriff of London, and in 1439-40 rose to the highest dignity in the city, and became Lord Mayor. His house, "sometime a Jew's synagogue, since a house of friars, then a nobleman's house, after that a merchant's house, wherein mayoralties have been kept, but now a wine tavern (1594)," stood at the north end of the Old Jewry. Here Caxton had plenty of company,—Robert Large and his wife, four sons, two daughters, two assistants, and eight apprentices. Only three years, however, were passed with this household, for Large did not long survive his mayoralty, dying on the 4th of April, 1441. Amongst the many bequests in his will the apprentices were not forgotten, and the youngest, William Caxton, received a legacy of twenty marks.

On the death of Robert Large, in April, 1441, Caxton was still an apprentice, and not released from his indentures. If no specific transfer to a new master had been made under the will of the old, the executors were bound to supply the apprentices with the means of continuing their service. That Caxton served his full time we know to have been the case, since he was admitted a few years later to the Livery of the Mercers' Company, but it is clear that he did not remain in England. In the prologue to the Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, written in 1471, he says: "I have contynued by the space of xxx yere for the most part in the contres of Braband, Flandres, Holand, and Zeland"; and this would infer that he finished his time of apprenticeship abroad.

About 1445 or 1446 Caxton had served his time, and he became a merchant trading on his own account, and apparently with considerable success, a result naturally to be expected from his conspicuous energy. By 1450 he was settled at Bruges, and there exists in the town archives the report of a lawsuit in which he was concerned in that year. Caxton and another merchant, John Selle, had become sureties for the sum of £110 owed by John Granton, a merchant of the Staple of Calais, to William Craes, another merchant. As Granton had left Bruges without paying his debt, Craes had caused the arrest of the sureties. These admitted their liability, but pleaded that Craes should wait the return of Granton, who was a very rich man, and had perhaps already repaid the debt. The verdict went against Caxton and his friend, who were compelled to give security for the sum demanded; but it was also decreed that should Granton, on his return to Bruges, be able to prove that the money had been paid before his departure, the complainant should be fined an amount double that of the sum claimed.

In 1453 Caxton paid a short visit to England in company with two fellow-traders, when all three were admitted to the Livery of the Mercers' Company.

For the next ten years we can only conjecture what Caxton's life may have been, as no authentic information has been preserved. All that can be said is, that he must have succeeded in his business and have become prosperous and influential, for when the next reference to him occurs, in the books of the Mercers' Company for 1463, he was acting as governor of that powerful corporation, the Merchant Adventurers.

This Company, which had existed from very early times, had been formed to protect the interests of merchants trading abroad, and though many guilds were represented, the Mercers were so much the most important, both in numbers and wealth, that they took the chief control, and it was in their books that the transactions of the Adventurers were entered.

In 1462 the Company obtained from Edward IV. a larger charter, and in it a certain William Obray was appointed "Governor of the English Merchants" at Bruges. This post, however, he did not fill for long, for in the year following we find that his duties were being performed by Caxton. Up to at least as late as May, 1469, he continued to hold this high position. His work at this period must have been most onerous, for the Duke of Burgundy set his face against the importation of foreign goods, and decreed the exclusion of all English-made cloth from his dominions. As a natural result, the Parliament of England passed an act prohibiting the sale of Flemish goods at home, so that the trade of the foreign merchants was for a time paralyzed. With the death of Philip in 1467, and the succession of his son Charles the Bold, matters were entirely changed. The marriage of Charles with the Princess Margaret, sister of Edward IV., cemented the friendship of the two countries, and friendly business relations were again established. The various negotiations entailed by these changes, in all of which Caxton must have played an important part, perhaps impaired his health, and were responsible for his complaint of a few years later, that age was daily creeping upon him and enfeebling his body.