_DEVELOPMENT._
Costume, that sure guide of the historian and the antiquary, is perhaps
nowhere more discernible than in literature, not merely in the dress
of language and expression, but also in the visible exponents of that
dress--writing and printing. Thus, a manuscript or a printed book
may, by the character of its writing or printing alone, be ascribed
to a determinate era. In other words, a careful investigation of the
mode of construction will, in most cases, enable us to determine
the approximate age of any book, from the early manuscript to the
machine-printed volume of the present day.
In tracing the early development of printing, we are able to note those
successive deviations from the form of its parent, Caligraphy, which
were necessitated by the peculiarities of the new art. Commencing
simply as a substitute for manuscript, it was naturally a close
imitation thereof, and hence the first printers laboured under many
inconveniences, which were shaken off as the capabilities of the new
discovery became better understood. These changes often afford the only
satisfactory evidence of the place and date of printing, as well as of
the printer’s name. We propose, therefore, as an aid to chronological
arrangement, to notice the points of similarity between the earliest
printed books and manuscripts, especially with reference to the
productions of Colard Mansion and William Caxton, and then to trace
the novelties, purely typographical, introduced by the printers.
1. There was a selection of material. The scribe naturally wrote his
choicest productions on fine vellum, carefully sorted in order to
secure evenness in tone and quality; and with the same idea the early
printers sorted out their paper before beginning to print. This is
frequently seen when two or three copies of the same book are compared
together. One is found to be printed entirely on thick, while another
is wholly on thin paper--one has no defects, whereas another is made
up of what the modern stationer calls “outsides.” The two copies of
Caxton’s “Knyght of the Toure” preserved in the British Museum present
a remarkable instance of this plan of selection.
2. It was a common practice with the scribes, when employing paper for
their books, to use parchment for the inmost sheet of every section.
The object of this was to give a firm hold to the thread of the binder,
and thus strengthen the volume, but the alternation of paper and
parchment did not present a pleasing appearance to the eye. Caxton
adopted a modification of this plan, and instead thereof pasted a strip
of vellum down the centre of the section. In books which have had the
good fortune to escape the modern bookbinder, the observer may still
see either the slips themselves or their traces in the brown stains
left by the paste.
3. When commencing a book, the scribes had a custom of passing over
the first leaf, and beginning on the third page, probably with the
intention of protecting the first page from soiling during the
execution and binding of the work. This practice was followed in the
early works which issued from the presses of Flanders and of England,
but unfortunately, in most of these books, on which an expensive modern
binding has been placed, the blank leaf has been rejected as too coarse
for a flyleaf, thus causing many volumes, although really perfect as
regards the print, to be described by bibliographers as wanting the
title-page.
4. The scribe necessarily wrote but one page at a time, and, curiously
enough, in this the early printers also assimilated their practice.
Whether from want of sufficient type to set up the requisite number of
pages, or from the small size of the platen of the early presses, there
is certain evidence of the first books from Caxton’s press having been
printed page by page. Thus, in all the books printed with type No. 1,
instances are found of pages on the same side of the sheet being out
of parallel, which could not occur if two pages were printed together.
A positive proof of the separate printing of the pages may, however,
be seen in a copy of “The Recuyell of the Histories of Troye,” in the
Bodleian Library; for there the ninth recto of the third quinternion
has never been printed at all, while the complimentary page, which
falls on the same side of the sheet, has been properly printed. A
variation in the colour of the ink, though often very noticeable,
is not a sure proof that the two pages so differing were printed
separately, as that may have occurred through imperfect inking.
5. Many bibliographers, neglecting the study of manuscripts, and
confining their examination of early books to the products of the
printing press, have written and argued as if “signatures” were an
invention of printers. This is an erroneous idea. It was as necessary
for the scribe to mark the sequence of the sheets which he wrote as for
the typographer to mark the order of those which he printed; because
when the sheets, whether manuscript or printed, had to be bound, it
was an absolute necessity for the binder to have every sheet signed,
for the signatures were his only guide in the collation of the volume.
There would seem to have been, for a long time, an antipathy to these
useful little signposts, which, being needed only so long as the book
remained unbound, were placed by the scribe as near as possible to the
bottom of the leaf, that they might disappear under the plough of the
binder. This is what has happened in the great majority of cases, but
in every instance of the manuscript being preserved uncut they may
still be seen.
It is interesting to notice the manner in which the early printers
adopted and afterwards modified this custom of the scribes. As it was
very inconvenient for them to print signatures of one or two letters
away from the solid page, at the extreme margin of the sheet, and as
the idea of disfiguring the text by making them a part of it was
objectionable, they continued the old practice for some time, and
actually signed every sheet by hand with pen and ink after it was
printed. The uncut copy of “The Recuyell,” at Windsor Castle, is an
example of a book with manuscript signatures at the extreme foot of
every sheet. After some time, however, the prejudice was overcome, and
the signatures were printed close up to the bottom line of the page.
They were first introduced at Cologne in 1472 and adopted by Caxton in
1480.
6. The upper portion of the first written leaf of a manuscript was
frequently left blank, for an illustration by the vignette-painter.
Space was also left at the beginning of every chapter, and sometimes of
every sentence, for an illuminated initial. For many years the early
printers likewise followed this plan, every book they issued requiring
the hand of the illuminator to complete it. This illumination was a
distinct branch of trade, and the workmen employed in it did nothing
but paint in the initials and paragraph marks. Through carelessness or
ignorance a wrong initial was occasionally painted in, but as far as
possible to prevent this, both scribes and printers inserted a small
letter as a guide, which was usually covered over by the coloured
capital.
7. When transcribing a book, it was seldom thought a matter of any
importance to add the date of transcription and the writer’s name,
though occasional instances of this are found. It was probably a
like feeling which made the early printers follow a practice which
has caused the modern bibliographer much doubt on many chronological
points of the greatest interest. So needless was it thought to inform
the reader when, where, or by whom a book was printed, that out
of twenty-one works known to have issued from the press of Colard
Mansion at Bruges, not more than five have a date affixed to them,
and of nearly one hundred publications assigned to Caxton’s press,
considerably more than two-thirds appear without any indication of the
year of imprint.
8. The similarity, amounting almost to identity, between the printed
characters of the early typographers and the written ones of their
contemporaries, must also be noted. It was this similarity which
probably first gave rise to the now admitted fable of Fust selling his
bibles at Paris as manuscripts, his impeachment before the parliament
as a sorcerer, and the necessity he was under of revealing his secret
to save his life.
The first printer, when he set about forming his alphabet, could not
have been troubled as to the shape he should give his letters. The
form which would naturally occur to him would be that to which both
he and the people to whom he hoped to sell his productions had been
accustomed. It is not therefore at all wonderful, that the types used
in the earliest printed books should closely resemble the written
characters of the period, nor that this imitation should be extended to
all the combinations of letters which were then in use by the scribes.
Thus the bibles and psalters which appeared in Germany, among the first
productions of the press, were printed in the characters used by the
scribes for ecclesiastical service-books, while the general literature
was printed in the common bastard-roman. There is nothing whatever to
support the assertion frequently met with, that the first printers made
their books purposely like the old manuscripts in order to deceive
purchasers into paying a good price for them. This view truly is the
genuine outcome of the nineteenth century.
When Sweynheym and Pannartz, emigrating from Germany, took up their
abode in the famous monastery of Subiaco, near Rome, they cut the
punches for their new types in imitation of the Roman letters
indigenous to the country, without an idea that they could do anything
else. In the dominions of the Duke of Burgundy, where the labours
of the scribes had been most extensively encouraged, the same plan
was pursued. Colard Mansion, the first printer at Bruges, was also a
celebrated caligrapher, and the close resemblance between his printed
books and the best manuscripts of his time is very marked. The same
character of writing was also in use in England, and Caxton’s types
accordingly bear the closest resemblance to the handwriting in the
Mercers’ books, and to the volumes of that period in the Archives at
Guildhall. Nevertheless Dibdin thus censures Caxton for not adopting
Roman types:--“That perfect order and symmetry of press-work, so
immediately striking in the pages of foreign books of this period,
are in vain to be sought for among the volumes which have issued
from Caxton’s press; and the uniform rejection of the Roman letter
so successfully introduced by the Spiras, Jenson, and Sweynheym and
Pannartz is, unquestionably, a blemish on our printer’s typographical
reputation.”
9. The short spacing of the early printers also deserves
remark.[2]--The uneven length of the lines, so noticeable in
manuscripts, was a necessity, as the writer could not forecast the
space between the words so as to make all the lines of an even length.
But it certainly was no necessity with the printer; for although in
this respect the time-honoured custom of the scribes was followed
for a few years, the improved appearance which evenness gave to the
work was soon observed, and thus a typographical step in advance was
established. At Mentz and Cologne this occurred at a very early stage.
The first Psalter, printed in 1457, and the Mazarine Bible of 1455
show, now and then, lines slightly deficient in length, as do some of
the earliest productions of Ulric Zel; but this rudeness soon gave way
to a systematic plan of spacing the lines to one even length. In the
early specimens from the Bruges and Westminster presses, the practice
of placing all the spare space at the end of the lines, instead of
dividing it between the words, gives a very rude appearance to the
page, and in these books it is carried to a greater extent than in
the works of any German, Italian, or French printers. Colard Mansion
abandoned this practice in 1479, and Caxton in 1480.
It will be apparent, from the foregoing remarks, that the books of our
first printers bore no slight resemblance to manuscripts, and indeed,
until quite recently, a copy of the Mazarine Bible, in the Library
of Lambeth Palace, was so regarded;[3] but this resemblance was soon
modified, in many particulars, to suit the requirements of typography.
The execution of manuscript capitals being both tedious and expensive
led to the early introduction of large letters engraved on wood,
which were either printed in black at the same impression as the
other portion, or in red by a subsequent operation. Colard Mansion
seems never to have adopted them, although several of his books
are illustrated by large and numerous woodcuts. Caxton inserted
illustrations engraved on wood in two or three books before 1484, the
date of “Æsop,” in which woodcut initials first appear.
Title-pages, likewise, are purely typographical in their origin, the
scribes having been content with heading their page with “Hic incipit”
and the name of the treatise. Caxton followed the usage of the scribes
in this particular; for, with one exception only, and at the very end
of his career, where the title of the book is printed alone in the
centre of the first page, his books appear without any title-page
whatever.
Wynken de Worde adopted the use of title-pages immediately
after the death of his master, but Machlinia of London, and the
schoolmaster-printer of St. Alban’s, never used them.
These minute details may appear, at first sight, to be hardly worthy
of record; but when we remember that two-thirds of Caxton’s books are
without any date, and that, by careful examination of the workmanship,
we can trace the printer gradually developing the changes from
manuscript to typographical character, we appreciate the existence of
a mass of technical evidence which, like the strata of the earth, or
the mouldings of a cathedral arch, affords chronological data quite
independent of any other source, and enables us, with a near approach
to accuracy, to determine the age of any undated book. To this evidence
may be added some other important signs which sometimes bear witness
to the date when a book was printed. Such are the size of the printed
page, its depth and width, the number of lines in a page, the number
of sheets in a section, and, above all, the sequence in the use of
various types. In Caxton’s books this sequence is very remarkable, as
will be seen by the annexed table, where only books with fixed dates
are entered, so that the reader may form his own judgment as to the
chronological order of the above-mentioned peculiarities.
Some interesting facts may be gathered from this table.
1. The types used by Caxton bear a definite chronological relation to
one another. Type No. 1 goes out of use, and is succeeded, in 1477,
by No. 2. Type No. 3 is principally employed for headlines during the
use of Nos. 2 and 4. In 1480 type No. 4 makes its appearance, but
not till No. 2 is about to disappear. In 1483 type No. 4* supersedes
its predecessor, and, in its turn, makes way for Nos. 5 and 6, which
close the list. If the books were added which give the dates of their
translation, which almost always coincide with those of their printing,
the result would be the same.
2. All the books printed before 1480 were with lines of an uneven
length, whilst all printed subsequently were spaced out evenly.
3. Signatures and even spacing of the lines were synchronous
improvements, and both, when once adopted, were never afterwards
abandoned. In the signatures themselves a curious fact may be
noted--that whereas the custom of Caxton was generally to use letters
and Roman numerals, as ~b j~, for his signatures, yet in the three
years 1481 to 1483, and at no other period, he used Arabic numerals,
thus ~b~ 1, or 2 1.
┌────────────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ │ Date of Printing. │
│ │ │ No. of Type. │
│ │ │ │ Length of Line. │
│ │ │ │ Inches. │
│ │ │ │ │ Lines spaced out to │
│ │ │ │ │ the end or not. │
│ │ │ │ │ │ Length of Page.
│ │ │ │ │ │ Lines. │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ Sig.│ │
│ Title. │ │ │ │ │ │ │Init|
├────────────────────────┼─────────────────┼───────┼────┼─────┼────┼─────┼────┤
│ The Recuyell │ Before 1477 │ 1 │ 5 │ No │ 31 │none │none│
│ The Game of Chess, │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ 1st ed. │ Do. │ 1 │ 5 │ No │ 31 │none │none│
│ The Life of Jason │ Do. │ 2 │ 5 │ No │ 29 │none │none│
│ Dictes, 1st ed. │ Nov. 18th, 1477 │ 2 │ 5 │ No │ 29 │none │none│
│ Moral Proverbs │ Feb. 20th, 1478 │ 2 │ In Metre.│ 28 │none │none│
│ Cordyale │ Mar. 24th, 1479 │ 2 & 3 │ 5 │ No │ 29 │none │none│
│ Chronicles, 1st ed. │ June 10th, 1480 │ 4 │ 4¾ │ Yes │ 40 │roman│none│
│ Reynard, 1st ed. │ June 6th, 1481 │ 2 │ 4¾ │ Yes │ 29 │arab.│none│
│ Tulle │ Aug. 12th, 1481 │ 2 │ 4¾ │ Yes │ 29 │arab.│none│
│ Godfrey │ Nov. 20th, 1481 │ 4 │ 4¾ │ Yes │ 40 │arab.│none│
│ Polycronicon │ July 2d, 1482 │ 4 │ 4¾ │ Yes │ 40 │arab.│none│
│ Chronicles, 2d ed. │ Oct. 8th, 1482 │ 4 │ 4¾ │ Yes │ 40 │arab.│none│
│ Pilgrimage of the Soul │ June 6th, 1483 │ 4 │ 4¾ │ Yes │ 40 │roman│none│
│ Liber Festivalis, │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ 1st ed. │ June 30th, 1483 │ 4* │ 5 │ Yes │ 38 │roman│none│
│ Confessio Amantis │ Sept. 2d, 1483 │ 4 │ 2¾ │ Yes │ 46 │arab.│none│
│ Knight of the Tower │ Jan. 31st, 1484 │ 4* │ 5 │ Yes │ 38 │roman│none│
│ Æsop │ Mar. 26th, 1484 │ 4* │ 4¾ │ Yes │ 38 │roman│wood│
│ King Arthur │ July 31st, 1485 │ 4* │ 3¼ │ Yes │ 26 │roman│wood│
│ Charles the Great │ Dec. 1st, 1485 │ 4* │ 4¾ │ Yes │ 38 │roman│wood│
│ Paris and Vienne │ Dec. 19th, 1485 │ 4* │ 2⅜ │ Yes │ 39 │roman│wood│
│ Book of Good Manners │ May 11th, 1487 │ 5 │ 4¾ │ Yes │ 34 │roman│wood│
│ Directorium │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ Sacerdotum, 2d ed. │ ---- 1489 │ 6 │ 4¾ │ Yes │ 31 │roman│wood│
│ Art and Craft │ June 15th, 1490 │ 6 │ 4¾ │ Yes │ 31 │roman│wood│
│ Eneydos │ June 22d, 1490 │ 6 │ 4¾ │ Yes │ 31 │roman│wood│
│ Fayts of Arms │ July 14th, 1490 │ 6 │ 4¾ │ Yes │ 31 │roman│wood│
└────────────────────────┴─────────────────┴───────┴────┴─────┴────┴─────┴────┘
KEY
Heading “Sig.” = “Signatures.”
Heading “Init” = “Initials.”
Under “Lines spaced out to the end or not”: No = “not”, Yes = “spaced out”
Under “Sig.”: roman = “rom. num.”, arab. = “arab. figs.”
We may further add that the use of the paragraph mark (ℂ) never appears
before 1483; that the great device makes no appearance till 1487, the
printed date to the third edition of the “Dictes” notwithstanding; and
that initials in wood first appear in the “Æsop” in 1484.
By the application of these tests to the undated books we are enabled
to assign each of them, with tolerable certainty, to a particular
period.
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[2] We may here observe, that bibliographers often misuse the word
“justification” when referring to the practice of placing all the
space at the end of lines. The printer’s term “justification” does not
necessarily refer to the spacing out of the words in a line. Every line
in a page must be “justified” or made of the normal length, and the
last line in a paragraph, containing perhaps no more than one word,
must be justified equally with the full-length line. Short lines are
justified with quadrats, or pieces of metal, which fill up the line,
but, being lower than the type, do not print. What is called “short,”
or “bad,” or “imperfect justification,” is sure to reveal itself, to
the dismay of the compositor, by allowing the faulty line to drop out
when the “forme,” or mass of type, is lifted. The probable reason why
Colard Mansion and Caxton did not space their lines to an even length
is, that at that time they had not begun to use the _setting-rule_.
This useful little slip of metal enables each letter as it is picked
up by the compositor to be passed along on an even surface to its
destination, instead of catching in every unevenness or burr of the
previous line. Its absence would entail many obstructions to the
spacing-out of lines, and render the plan of leaving all the spare
space at the end, which was actually adopted by Caxton, at once more
easy, expeditious, and free from accident.
[3] In 1856, an old established bookseller, in one of our largest
cathedral towns, marked a copy of Caxton’s “Statutes of Hen. VII” as an
old MS., _and sold it for 2s. 6d._! See also the remarks on Verard’s
“Euryalus et Lucrece,” in the Catalogue of the Harleian MSS., Vol. III,
No. 4392.
[Illustration]