English printers' ornaments

by Henry R. Plomer

The next border of which we have any trace in an English book was in the hands of William de Machlinia, another foreigner who had settled in London. Between 1483–85 he printed a small Book of Hours according to the Sarum use, of which only a few leaves remain. Seven of these are in the British Museum, and they show that some parts of the work were ornamented with a woodcut border to each page, probably of French origin. The design is somewhat similar but much more simple than that used by Theodoric Rood, consisting of spirals of flowers and foliage only. This border passed into Richard Pynson’s hands when he took over Machlinia’s business. In the last year of his life William Caxton made a notable departure from his usual custom by placing a decorative border, consisting of four pieces, round each page of The Fifteen Oes, a collection of prayers intended to be issued with a Book of Hours.

These blocks have met with unmerited censure in some quarters. They appear to me to be both cleverly designed and to show no little skill on the part of the woodcutter. They were probably French work, as blocks similar to them may be seen in service books printed by Jean du Pré in Paris. As stated above, each border consisted of four pieces, each different, and no less than eight separate sets of designs were used throughout the book. Their main features were spirals of flowers and foliage, varied by the introduction of birds and grotesque animals, as though the artist had gone to some bestiary, as books on natural history were then called, for inspiration.

In some of the smaller cuts a grotesque human face is seen, such as masons were fond of carving on the misericords of churches and cathedrals. In one instance a child is shown holding the spray, and the pose of the figure is quite good. Another of the blocks shows a winged figure kneeling on one knee and holding a huntsman’s horn with both hands, and here again the attitude is not without grace. Again, take the drawing of the passion flower in the same block, which shows feeling as well as a desire for truth on the part of the artist. Moreover, he was a born humorist, as witness the block showing the gryphon and the bird, which reminds one of passages in Alice Through the Looking Glass.

It was the printer’s workman—for I decline to believe that Caxton set up these pages—not the artist who was at fault, and who was responsible for their clumsy and slovenly appearance. No attempt was made to space them out in order to make them meet, and not a few were put in upside down. Had the printer shown as much skill as the artist there would be little to find fault with. This border passed into the possession of De Worde, who used it as a whole, or parts of it, in several books.

The next fifteenth century border found in English printed books occurs in an edition of the Horæ ad usum Sarum, printed in 1497 by Julian Notary, Jean Barbier, and an unidentified printer whose initials were I. H., and who is supposed to have been Jean Huvin of Rouen. These three printers had set up in London the previous year, and the Horæ in question was commissioned by Wynkyn de Worde. All that remains of this book is a fragment of four leaves preserved in the Bodleian Library, but they show that each page was surrounded by a border of printed ornaments. These were part of a stock of some twenty or five and twenty blocks which the printers would appear to have obtained from France, nearly all of them being afterwards used in two remarkable borders found in books printed by Notary early in the next century, and a description is therefore postponed until I come to that period.

To the printer Richard Pynson belongs the credit of producing the most sumptuously decorated book that appeared in England in the fifteenth century. Pynson’s excellent work as a printer had brought him to the notice of many learned men, and amongst his patrons was Cardinal John Morton. Morton was an Oxford man, and filled many high offices before he became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1486. He was a lover of books, and in 1500 he commissioned Pynson to print a Missal that should equal in beauty of letterpress and decoration anything of that kind that had been produced on the Continent. We cannot doubt that he financed Pynson during the preparation of this work, and we may go even further and say that the decorative work seen in it is largely English. By the kindness of Dr Cowley, librarian of the Bodleian, and with the help of the Oxford University Press, a page from this splendid specimen of Pynson’s craftsmanship forms the frontispiece to the present volume. The Missal was a small folio, printed in a bold, handsome type of black letter in double columns. Each page was surrounded by a border which, as will be seen from the illustration, consisted of four pieces. In some respects this border resembles that of Theodoric Rood, to which indeed Pynson may have gone for his model. On the other hand, the work is somewhat reminiscent of certain French service books.

The bottom panel, with its rebus of Morton, was probably of native work. Not only are the spirals differently treated to those in the side panels, but the flowers and fruit are also of a different character. The page is, in fact, as nearly perfect as the skill of the printers and woodcutter could make it.

During the first eighteen years of the sixteenth century some interesting borders are met with in books printed in England.

In the year 1503 Wynkyn de Worde printed an edition of Æsop’s Fables in quarto, and he surrounded the title with a made-up border that is typical of the slovenly way in which he often did his work. The outer border consists of two pieces, evidently parts of what had at one time been one block, of which the left-hand portion retained its original form, but the other half had at some time been damaged, and a part of the lower corner had gone altogether, giving the whole an uneven appearance. Further, in order to fill up the space between the illustration at the top and outer border, two smaller pieces, but of different sizes and design, were inserted. The general design in these blocks is spirals of flowers and foliage, the flowers being apparently pinks, or carnations, and daisies.

The printer used this border in exactly this same state on the title-page of Nychodemus Gospell, which he printed in 1511; but in the edition of 1518 of that work the border had undergone a strange transformation. The whole of the top and the right-hand portion had gone, the top being occupied with a heavy block upon which the title was cut in white letters on a black ground, while the right-hand side was filled up with (1) A block from the Fifteen Oes; (2) Four lozenges; (3) Two pieces of ‘ribbon’ ornament; (4) One piece of twisted ornament; (5) A fleuron.