10. Gothic type, or “Lettre de Forme,” said to have been engraved circa 1480.

(From the original matrices in the Enschedé foundry.)

The Gothic letter employed by the inventors of printing for the Bible, Psalter, and other sacred works, was an imitation of the formal hand of the German scribes, chiefly monastic, who supplied the clergy of the day with their books of devotion. This letter, as a typographical character, took the name of LETTRE DE FORME, as distinguished from the rounder and less regular manuscript-hand of the Germans of the fifteenth century, which was adopted by Schoeffer in the Rationale, the Catholicon, and other works, and which became known as LETTRE DE SOMME. The pointed Gothic, or LETTRE DE FORME, a name[100] generally supposed to have reference to the precision in the figure of the old ecclesiastical character (although some authorities have considered it to be a corrupt, rather than a standard form of handwriting), preserved its character with but little variation in all the countries to which it travelled. It is scarcely necessary to detail its first appearance at the various great centres of European typography, except to notice that in Italy and France it came later than the Roman.[101] In England it appears first in Caxton’s type No. 3,[102] and figures largely in nearly all the presses of our early printers. De Worde was, in all probability, the first to cut punches of it in this country, and to produce the letter which henceforth took the name of “English,” as being the national character of our early typography. De Worde’s English, or as it was subsequently styled, Black-letter, was for two centuries and a half looked upon as the model for all his successors in the art; indeed, to this day, a Black-letter {54} is held to be excellent, as it resembles most closely the character used by our earliest printers. The Black being employed in England to a late date, not only for Bibles, but for law books and royal proclamations and Acts of Parliament, has never wholly fallen into disuse among us. The most beautiful typography of which we as a nation can boast during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, is to be found in the Black-letter impressions of our printers. The Old English was classed with the Roman and Italic by Moxon as one of the three orders of printing-letter; and in this particular our obligations to the Dutch are much less apparent than in any other branch of the printing art. Indeed, the English Black assumed characteristics of its own which distinguished it from the LETTRE FLAMAND of the Dutch on the one hand, and the FRACTUR of the Germans on the other. It has occasionally suffered compression in form, and very occasionally expansion; but till 1800 its form was not seriously tampered with. Caslon was praised for his faithful reproduction of the genuine Old English; other founders, like Baskerville, did not even attempt the letter; the old Blacks were looked upon as the most useful and interesting portion of James’s foundry at its sale[103]; and the Roxburgh Club, those Black-letter heroes of the early years of this century, dismissed all the new-fangled founts of modern founders in favour of the most venerable relics of the early English typographers. Of these newfangled Blacks, it will suffice to recall Dibdin’s outburst of righteous indignation—“Why does he (i.e., Mr. Whittingham), and many other hardly less distinguished printers, adopt that frightful, gouty, disproportionate, eye-distracting and taste-revolting form of Black-letter, too frequently visible on the frontispieces of his books? It is contrary to all classical precedent, and outrageously repulsive in itself. Let the ghost of Wynkin de Worde haunt him till he abandon it!”[104]

[Μ] 11. Philosophie Flamand, engraved by Fleischman, 1743. (From the matrices in the Enschedé foundry.)

The LETTRE DE SOMME of the Germans, which, as we have seen, was adopted by Schoeffer in 1459, became in the hands of the fifteenth century printers a rival to the Gothic. Whether, as some state, it was derived from the Gothic, or was a distinct hand used by the lay scribes, we need not here discuss. Its name has been generally supposed to owe its origin to the fact that among the earliest works printed in this character was the Summa fratris S. Thomas de Aquino.[105] {55} Others derive the name from the carelessly formed letters used in books of account. This letter developed in considerable variety among the early presses of the fifteenth century. Its main characteristics being that of a round Gothic,[106] or at least of a Gothic shorn of its angles, it lent itself readily to the influence of the Roman, and we find it, as in the case of the first Italian books, merging into that character; while in the case of many of the German and Netherlands presses we find it occasionally absorbing that character, adopting its form frequently in the capitals, and “Gothicising” it in the lower-case. But to arrive at an accurate idea of the changes and varieties of the LETTRE DE SOMME, it is necessary to study carefully the productions of the various presses and schools of typography in which it was used. In England it appeared, as might be expected, in some of the early works of the first Oxford press,[107] whither it was brought from Cologne. But it never took root in the country, and was speedily rejected for the national Gothic, only to reappear as an exotic or a curiosity.

SECRETARY.

The SECRETARY, or GROS-BÂTARDE, was the manuscript-hand employed by the English and Burgundian scribes in the fifteenth century. It was, therefore, only natural that Caxton, like his typographical tutor, Colard Mansion of Bruges, should adopt this character for his earliest works, in preference to the less familiar Gothic, Semi-Gothic, or Roman letter. The French possessed a similar character, which, according to Fournier, was first cut by a German named Heilman, resident in Paris about 1490. But several years before 1490 the Gros-Bâtarde was in use in France; in some cases the resemblance between the French and English types being remarkable. The Rouen printers, who executed some of the great law books for the London printers early in the sixteenth century, used a particularly neat small-sized letter of this character. Like the Semi-Gothic, the Secretary, after figuring in several of the early London and provincial presses, yielded to the English Black-letter, and after about 1534 did not reappear in English typography. It developed, however, several curious variations; the chief of which were what Rowe Mores describes as the SET-COURT, the BASE SECRETARY, and the RUNNING SECRETARY. Of the first named, James’s foundry in 1778 possessed two founts, come down from Grover’s[108]; but as the old deformed Norman law hand which they represented was abolished by law in 1733, the matrices, which at no time appear to have been much used, {56} became valueless. The name COURT HAND has since been appropriated for one of the modern scripts. Its place was taken in law work by the ENGROSSING hand, which Mores denominates as Base Secretary. Of this character, the only fount in England appears to have been that cut by Cottrell about 1760.[109] The RUNNING SECRETARY was another law hand, described by Mores as the law Cursive of Queen Elizabeth’s reign. It was similar to the French Cursive, of which Nicolas Granjon in 1556 cut the first punches at Lyons. Granjon’s letter at first was called after its author, but subsequently became known as LETTRE DE CIVILITÉ, on account of its use, so Fournier informs us, in a work entitled la Civilité puerile et honnête, to teach children how to write. Plantin possessed a similar character in more than one size, which he made use of in dedications and other prefatory matter. The English fount in Grover’s foundry appears to have been the only one in this country.

[Μ] 12. Lettre de Civilité, cut by Ameet Tavernier for Plantin, circa 1570. (From the matrices in the Enschedé foundry.)