First, what manner of man was he, and of what origin?
About four miles northeast of Tunbridge, in Kent, is the village of Hadlow, part of which is covered by the manor of Causton. It is supposed, but it is by no means certain, that from this manor sprang the family whose name Causton, Cauxton, or Caxton, preserves the memory of their former holding. Long before the birth of William Caxton the manor, if the family ever held it, had passed out of their hands. He says, himself, that he was born in the Weald of Kent. The Weald covers a large area; but he does not tell us any more, and it is not possible to get any closer information. In this part of the country he was born—somewhere. And in this part of the country there is a manor bearing his name. Can we safely conclude that a territorial name means that the family were once Lords of the Manor? Certainly not. There is, however, reason to believe that he came of a City family, and one long and honorably known in the City; for the name of Caxton or Causton frequently occurs in the City records. In the year 1303 Aubin de Caustone, haberdasher, was appointed one of a committee to make scrutiny into the manufacture of caps by methods and of materials forbidden by law. In 1307 William de Causton is one of those who sign a letter addressed to the Bishop of Chester by the City Fathers. In 1327 John de Causton, Alderman, is one of a Board of Arbitrators between certain disputing trade companies; and he represented the city at the council of Northampton in 1337, for which service he received the sum of sixty pounds. In 1331 John de Caxton and Thomas de Caxton were butchers—the latter, one regrets to find, obstructing the street with his stall at the Poultry, for which his meat was forfeited. In 1334 William de Causton, living in the parish of St. Vedast, was an Alderman. In the year 1348 there were seven of the name who paid their fees as liverymen of the Mercers’ Company. In 1364 Alice, wife of Robert de Causton, who appears to have been a vintner, was sentenced to the “thewe,” for thickening the bottom of a quart pot with pitch, so that he who ordered a quart of wine got short measure. This deplorable incident is the only one which tarnishes the honor of the Caustons or Caxtons. In 1401 William de Causton is apprenticed to Thomas Gedeney. In 1414 John Causton is a butcher. In 1424 Stevyn Causton is a liveryman of the Mercers. The family of Causton or Caxton, therefore, were largely engaged in various branches of trade in London during the whole of the fourteenth century. Whether William Caxton’s father was himself a citizen and freeman, and if so, how the son came to be born in the Weald of Kent, is not known. As the boy was apprenticed to the very richest merchant in the city, and admitted a member of the wealthiest company, it is quite certain that his people were of some consideration in the city: to be received into the house of a great merchant as an apprentice, to be admitted into the Company of Mercers, proves beyond a doubt City connections of an honorable kind. Either Caxton’s father or his grandfather must have been a man of weight and distinction.
“I was born and learned my English in Kent in the Weald, where I doubt not is spoken as broad and rude English as in any place of England.” These are his own words. In another place he writes, concerning his own style, “whereof I humbly and with all my heart thank God, and also am bounden to pray for my father’s and mother’s souls, that in my youth set me to school, by which, by the sufferance of God, I got my living—I hope truly.” The Weald, in which he apparently spent his childhood, was at this time largely peopled by the descendants of the Flemish cloth-workers brought over to England by Edward IV. He therefore heard as a child the Flemish language, or at least English with a large mixture of Flemish words, a fact which perhaps had something to do with his subsequent residence in Bruges. But where he went to school, what he learned there, and at what age he was taken from his lessons, he does not tell us.
He was born, I am sure, in the year 1424. It seems very clear that the usual age of apprenticeship was fourteen; and Caxton was certainly apprenticed in the year 1438, and since the age of admission to the City freedom was twenty-four, ten years were passed in servitude: a long time, but not too long to learn the various branches of a merchant’s work, and to acquire the habits of obedience which afterward are transformed into the habit of authority.
It has been said that his master was the richest merchant of his time. He was Robert Large, Mercer, Warden of the Company in 1427, Sheriff in 1430, and Lord Mayor in 1440. When this great man received an apprentice he was receiving either the son of a personal friend or of someone whom he desired to oblige. It is significant that at the same time Large received another apprentice, the son of a brother mercer, named Harrowe, and that Harrowe received as apprentice another Caxton—Robert, perhaps brother of William, but concerning him nothing is discoverable.
Robert Large occupied a house already historic; it was situated at the northeast corner of Old Jewry. In the thirteenth century the Jews who lived in that quarter built for themselves a synagogue; in the year 1262 there was a popular outbreak of hatred against the Jews, and a terrible massacre, in the course of which their synagogue was plundered and taken from them. In the year 1271 Henry III. gave the place as a House to a new order of Mendicant Friars called Fratres de Pœnitentiâ Jesu, or Fratres de Saccâ.
This was a short-lived but extremely interesting Order growing out of the Franciscans. It was founded in 1231, or, as is also stated, in 1241. St. Francis, as we know, founded the Gray Friars, Fratres Minores; his disciple, St. Clara, founded the Clares, or Sorores Minores, and the Pœnitentiarii, or Fratres de Pœnitentiâ Jesu, or Fratres de Saccâ, were established shortly afterward. The Order contained both men and women; the brothers and sisters might be married; they might also hold property. They came over to England in the year 1257, and very soon possessed nine Houses, viz.: at Lynne, where Prior was the Head of the English Branch; at London, Canterbury, Cambridge, Norwich, Worcester, Newcastle, Lincoln, and Leicester. The Council of Lyons, in 1274, passed an edict permitting only four orders of Mendicants. This edict seems to have been a deathblow to the Fratres de Pœnitentiâ: they languished and obtained little support—perhaps the people had no belief in friars who held property and were married. In 1305 Robert Fitzwalter obtained the permission of the King to assign their house to him, which was done, and the Penitential Friars disappeared from history. A hundred years later Robert Large obtained the house and held his Mayoralty in it; as did Lord Mayor Clipton in 1492. It was afterward turned into a tavern called the Windmill.
In this house Caxton began his apprenticeship. He did not finish it here, because, unfortunately, in the year 1441 Robert Large died.
As there is no document in which a man reveals himself so much as in a will, wherein may be found his religion, his superstition, his love, his hatred, his charity, the whole heart and soul of a man, I transfer to these pages a part of Robert Large’s will, by which you may understand what manner of man was this rich merchant, Caxton’s master, from whom he received his ideas of honorable trade.
He begins, after the usual preamble, by leaving money to the High Altar of his Parish Church; to the structure of the church; to buy vestments for the church; the endowment of a chaplain to say mass daily. He then gives money to his widow and children; for the poor of the Mercers’ Company; for a vestment in the Mercers’ Chapel; to the four orders of Mendicants; to the Crutched Friars; for bedding in the Hospitals of St. Bartholomew and St. Mary Spital; to the parish church of Shallerton, where his father was buried; to the parish church of Allerton, where his ancestors were buried; to his servants and apprentices sums of money varying from one mark to twenty marks,—there are five apprentices, including William Caxton, who gets the larger sum,—then there are more bequests to churches. To the poor of Coleman Street ward he gives twenty pounds. His soul thus cared for by so many gifts and bequests,—a thing that no one in that age could possibly neglect,—and his children and servants remembered, the testator applies himself to things practical and worldly. And here we observe what a practical citizen of the times most desired. He gave 400 marks toward the completion of an aqueduct lately begun in the City; he gave 100 marks toward the repairs of London Bridge; he gave 300 marks to the cleansing of Walbrook; also 100 marks to ten poor girls of good character on their marriage; also £100 to be divided among poor servants in Lancashire and Warwickshire; also £20 to be distributed by his executors where it might be most needed; also 5 marks for bedding at the Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem; also 40 shillings for bedding for St. Thomas’s Hospital, and £6 for bedding at the Lepers’ Houses of Hackney, St. Giles, and St. George of Southwark. Also 100 shillings for the prisoners in Newgate, and 100 shillings for the prisoners in Ludgate.