article of national faith which only the bold man dared to deny. It has
produced results which could never have been foreseen by the vain old
man Gerrit Thomaszoon, in whose conceit the fable originated. Haarlem
is dotted with [p359] monuments to the memory of Coster. Certain
days in June and July are observed as festivals in commemoration of
the invention. In the Hout, or Haarlem Wood, where Coster is said to
have received his first suggestion of types, an imposing cenotaph has
been placed. Carved on this stone are the arms of the sheriff Laurens
Janszoon, and the year 1423, which is offered as the date of this
suggestion. An acknowledgment of Coster as the inventor of typography
may be seen in the ancient cathedral of Haarlem, on a black marble
tablet, which was put in place during the month of June, 1824, by King
William I. In almost every well appointed public office or private
house of Haarlem is some pictorial recognition of Coster as the
inventor of printing.
[Illustration: The Statue on the New Monument to Coster.
[From Noordziek.]]
In the year 1851, an association of patriotic Hollanders placed
in front of the rebuilt Coster house a memorial stone with this
inscription: “The house of Coster: the birthplace of typography.” The
date of this birth is judiciously omitted. The tablet of the old Coster
house contained an inscription in honor of “Laurens Coster, sheriff,
of Haarlem, inventor of typography about the year 1430.” The vitality
of the legend has also been preserved by the issue of a great many
medals, prints and papers, and by the repeated assertion of the civic
authorities that Coster was the original and unquestionable inventor of
typography.
[p360]
XIX
The Downfall of the Legend.
The Vague Inscription on the Last Monument . . . Relics in the
Costerian Museum . . . Fac-simile of Janszoon’s Autograph . . . The
Coster Pedigree . . . Made by Gerrit Thomaszoon . . . Legend began
with the Pedigree . . . Pedigree has been Falsified, and is of No
Authority . . . Search by Van der Linde for Records concerning Coster
. . . Archives of the Town and Church of Haarlem represent Coster as a
Tallow-Chandler and Innkeeper . . . Coster living at Haarlem in 1483
. . . The Record of the Chair-Book . . . No Evidence that Coster was a
Printer . . . Lourens Coster has been Confounded with Laurens Janszoon
. . . Illustration of the House of Coster . . . Other Fac-similes of
Portraits of Coster . . . Their Curious Dissimilarity . . . Absurdity
of the Legend.
* * * * *
We see in a square at Haarlem the monument of the fictitious personage
Laurens Coster. It presents a sad figure. Behind this statue, sneering
in mockery, is another colossal monument, which dominates and
belittles it—a statue visible to us, but to Hollanders invisible—the
statue of Ridicule.
_Helbig._
* * * * *
In the year 1856, on the sixteenth day of July, the day accepted as the
anniversary of the invention, a statue of Coster was put up in Haarlem.
The tablets of the pedestal bear inscriptions which are thus translated
by Hessels:
LOURENS JANSZOON COSTER.
HOMAGE OF THE
NETHERLAND NATION.
MDCCCLVI.
INVENTOR OF
THE ART OF PRINTING
WITH
MOVABLE LETTERS
CAST OF METAL.
The date of the invention and the profession or position of the
inventor are omitted. We cannot ascertain from the monument whether
Coster was a sheriff or a sexton, whether he invented printing in 1423
or 1440. It may be inferred that there had been disagreements among the
eminent men who erected this work of patriotism, and that they could
not [p361] heartily accept the date of any version of the legend. On
this great occasion the Costerian Museum[212] of Haarlem was enriched
with a pedigree of the Thomaszoon family, an old document frequently
referred to by some defenders of the legend as an incontestable
evidence of its truth. The pedigree was, without doubt, a genuine
relic. Its dingy vellum surface, written over in many handwritings, was
surrounded by an embroidered border blackened with age. Its history
could be traced through three centuries. Gerrit Thomaszoon, the aged
descendant of Coster mentioned by Junius with such marked respect, was
the person by or for whom this pedigree was made in or about the year
1550.[213] This Gerrit Thomaszoon had kept an inn in the house once
occupied by Coster, and it is supposed that the pedigree was one of the
decorations of a wall in his house. There is a special significance in
this date of 1550.
[Illustration: Autograph of Laurens Janszoon.
[From Koning.]]
This pedigree, which describes Coster as the inventor of printing, was
written at least one hundred years after the discovery of the invention
and the death of the inventor. It was written when Cornelis, the only
eye-witness known to [p362] history, had been dead nearly thirty years.
It is, however, and too much stress cannot be laid on this fact, the
oldest document in which mention is made of Coster as a printer. There
are valid reasons for the belief that Coster’s merit as an inventor had
never been recognized in any way before the record was made on this
pedigree. When we consider the order of the dates, it is obvious that
it was from this much suspected document that Coornhert derived the
information he published in 1561. “The old, dignified and grey heads”
described by Van Zuren in 1561, “the aged and respectable citizens” of
Guicciardini (1566) and Junius (1568), were Gerrit Thomaszoon and his
friends, among whom we may properly include Gallius and Talesius. And
it may be added that the more circumstantial story of Junius was first
published when Gallius and Talesius were dead, and when there was no
man living who could controvert or modify any part of his story.
There can be no doubt that the legend began with this pedigree. It is
not at all probable that the vain old man Gerrit Thomaszoon, who was
proud of the ancestor in whose house he lived, kept his friends in
ignorance of it. It was not unknown to Junius. There is a similarity of
uncertainty between an ambiguous date (1440 or 1446) on this pedigree
and the mysterious circumlocution of Junius in his use of the words
“about one hundred and twenty-eight years ago,” or 1440, which is
enough to show that Junius had not only seen the pedigree, but that he
took it as an authority for this date. Whether Scriverius saw it cannot
be confidently maintained; he does not mention it. Gerard Meerman
knew of its existence, but he did not reprint it. He made use of it,
however, in the construction of a new genealogy of the Coster family,
in which he added and altered items in the most unwarrantable manner.
Koning studied it with diligence: he frequently alluded to it as a
document of the highest importance, but he did not reprint it, nor even
describe it in general terms.
The withholding of this pedigree from public examination, and the
evasion of its description by the authors who had [p363] examined
it, are suspicious circumstances. We see that men who wrote hundreds
of pages of speculations to support the claims of Coster—men who
translated and reprinted many columns of irrelevant chaff for the sake
of one little kernel of grain—willfully suppressed what they maintained
was a most convincing evidence of the truth of the legend. It was not
suppressed because it was too long: the entire pedigree can be printed
in two pages.
The reasons for withholding the pedigree were apparent when it was
put in the Museum. The reading of the words in the first row at once
produced the impression that its importance had been vastly overrated;
that its information was of little value; that it was almost worthless
as evidence of the priority of Dutch typography. Dr. Van der Linde, who
made a critical examination of the writing soon after it was placed in
the Museum, revealed the astonishing fact that the most important entry
had been falsified. This entry, which contains the only portion of any
interest in an inquiry concerning the invention of printing by Coster,
consists of the following lines:
“Sijn tweede wijff was Lourens “His [Thomas Pieterzoon’s] second
Janssoens Costers dochter die wife was Lourens Janssoen’s
deerste print in die werlt Coster’s daughter who brought
brocht Anno 1446.” the first print in the world in
the year 1446.”
The date first written was 1446, but in this column, and in others,
objectionable entries have been effaced and falsifications have been
attempted. The figure 6 has been partially rubbed out; it has been
replaced by a 0, so that the careless reader will construe the date as
1440. There can be no hesitation whatever on this point; the figures
first written surely were 1446. “We see here a fable arise before our
very eyes. A Haarlem citizen has a pedigree made for him, probably to
put it up in his inn. . . . . . But the frame wants lustre, and so the
pedigree is linked by the probably totally fictitious Lucye, the second
wife, to a Haarlemer—to a Haarlemer who (the awkwardness and naïveté of
the expression may not surprise [p364] us at all in such a product of
family vanity) brought the first print in the world.”[214]
We may waive all criticism of the faulty grammar of the pedigree and
proceed to more important matters. It may be conceded that the pedigree
was written by an ignorant man who intended to say that it was Coster,
and not his daughter, who brought the first print in the world. By
the word print Thomaszoon may have meant a playing card, the engraved
figure of a saint, a block-book, or a book made from movable types.
If he meant any product of xylographic printing, the statement is
totally false, and deserves no consideration. If he meant typography,
his failure to express that meaning is unfortunate. But his intention
is really of but little importance. A bald statement on a pedigree,
written by an ignorant and conceited man, about one hundred years after
the great event he professed to record, of the details of which he
obviously knew nothing, cannot be used to overthrow established facts
in the history of typography.
It is unsatisfactory in other points. The alteration of the date, and
the unexplained erasures have destroyed whatever validity the document
may have had. It may be put aside; as an authority it is worthless. Its
obscure notice of the invention of printing is but a frail foundation
for the colossal superstructure which Junius erected. It is plain that
Junius must have been conscious of its weakness as a basis for the
legend; he had doubts of its accuracy, and dared not refer to it. He
preferred the oral testimony of the dead Cornelis.
The discovery of this falsification induced Dr. Van der Linde to
make, “with a zeal and patience worthy of a better cause and of a
better reward,” a laborious investigation in the archives of the town
and church of Haarlem for authentic [p365] information concerning
Coster. He had cause to think that history had been falsified by other
historians of the legend. Through the study of the archives, Van
der Linde ascertained that there lived in Haarlem, in the fifteenth
century, a citizen whose name was Lourens Janszoon Coster, the son of
one Jan Coster who died in 1436. The results of the search were as
curious as they were unexpected, as will be fully understood after an
examination of this translation of the originals:
1441 . . On the evening of the 13th, settled with lou koster for 15
pounds and 12 pounds of oil, each pound an ancient butdrager, and 34
pence for soap and tallow candles, together 22 guilders 3 pence.
1441 . . Louwerijs Janssoen, for 72 pounds of candles, which have been
burnt by the guards in the town hall during the year—for each pound an
ancient butdrager.
1441 . . Louwerijs Jans, aforesaid, for the candles burnt in the tower
in honor of Our Lady, during this year, as was agreed with him.
1442 . . Lourijs Coster, paid for having repaired the lantern of Our
Lady in the tower.
1442 . . Lourijs Coster, for 40 pounds of tallow candles which the
guards in the town hall burnt; cost each pound an ancient butdrager.
1442 . . Paid to lou coster 8 guilders for oil and soap.
1442 . . To lou coster for soap, candles and other things, 15 pence.
1447 . . On the 14th day of March, paid to Louwerijs Coster for 5
pounds of candles burnt in the tower in honor of Our Lady.
There can be no mistake about the business of this man. The Lourens
Janszoon Coster described on the old pedigree as the famous man who
brought the first print in the world, and in _Batavia_ as a wealthy
citizen, a man of leisure and of enlarged mind, and the inventor
of engraving on wood and typography, was certainly an obscure
tallow-chandler, who sold oil and candles.[215] The anti-climax is
sufficiently absurd, but worse remains. The archives give us more than
a clue to the origin of Coster’s wine-flagons. It seems that, some time
[p366] after 1447, this Lourens Janszoon Coster gave up the business
of chandler in favor of his sister Ghertruit Jan Costersdochter, and
that he chose for his new occupation the duties of a tavern-keeper. Van
der Linde found this fact clearly stated in the treasury accounts of
the town of Haarlem.
1451 . . Lou coster[216] paid, for two menghelen of wine which were
sent to the burgomaster a year ago.
1454 . . A dinner was offered to the count of Oostervant on the 8th
day of October, 1453, at lou coster’s; indebted to him for it XVII
guilders.
1468 . . Louris Coster and other citizens are summoned to the Hague.
1474 . . Louris Janszoon Coster pays war taxes.
1475 . . Louris Janszoon Coster pays a fine for “buyten drincken” (to
drink beyond the premises).
1483 . . Received of Louris Janszoon Coster for ferry toll for his
goods when he left the town, 8 rex guilders.
We here see that the name of Louris Janszoon Coster was recorded in the
town-book for the last time under the date of 1483, when he paid ferry
toll for his goods, and was allowed to leave the town. It is not known
where he went or where he died, but it is plain that the story of his
death in 1439, as related by Meerman and Koning, must be untrue.
There might have been a doubt as to the identity of the chandler
with the innkeeper, if Van der Linde had not investigated in another
direction, and made gleanings from the books of an old association,
whose records are as trustworthy as those of the archives of the town
and the church. This association, which still exists, under the name of
the _Holy Christmas Corporation_, is thus described by Van der Linde:
It is one of those fraternities which had the lofty aim of eating and
drinking. This corporation is already very old, for it celebrated its
third jubilee in 1606. Its fifty-four brethren and sisters preserved
each a chair for their meetings. According to these statutes, these
chairs, if they were not disposed of by a last will, were inherited by
[p367] the eldest and nearest blood relation in the branch from which
they came . . . . The corporation remaining in existence, the right of
property in the chairs continued, by uninterrupted transmission, until
our time.
In the register of the names of the occupants of the chairs are found
the following entries under the heading of chair 29:
1421 . . Jan Coster, by . . . .
1436 . . Lourijs Coster, by inheritance.
1484 . . Frans Thomas Thomasz, by . . . .[217]
1497 . . Gerret Thomas Pieterz, by inheritance from his father.
1564 . . Cornelis Gerritz, by inheritance from his father.
1589 . . Anna Gerritsdr., by purchase from her cousin.
The names of the successive owners of chair 29 are continued in the
book, but they are of no interest in this inquiry.
The archives of the church and town of Haarlem contain the names
of other Costers, but there is no other Coster who will answer the
description of Junius and Thomaszoon. The Lourens Janszoon Coster of
the pedigree, the Louwerijs Janssoen (so called only after the year
1441) or Lourijs Coster of the archives, and the Lourijs Coster of
the chair-book are, without doubt, the different names of the same
man. This is the man who, according to Thomaszoon and Junius, brought
the first print in the world. But he appears as a printer only in the
pedigree. The archives and the chair-book do not so describe him; they
tell us nothing of his invention, nor of the alleged stealing of his
types, nor of his death in 1439. The town-book says that he was living
in 1483. In none of these documents does he appear as sheriff, sexton,
or treasurer.
It is obvious that the legend of Coster the printer rests entirely upon
the pedigree and its amplifications by Junius. [p368] But the pedigree
is of no authority. Its information is not confirmed by the records;
its falsifications and its suspected history compel every candid reader
to reject its evidence altogether. We have to accept in preference the
testimony of the archives, and have to admit that there is no credible
evidence that Coster printed anything at any time. The Lourens Janszoon
Coster of typographical history is as fictitious a personage as the
Cadmus of Greek mythology. He is really more fictitious, for he is the
representative of two men.
The revelations of Dr. Van der Linde show that Lourens Janszoon Coster
has been confounded with Laurens Janszoon or Louwerijs Janszoon,[218]
who was a man of some distinction, a wine merchant, innkeeper,
councilor, sheriff, treasurer and governor of the hospital. He is the
man of civic offices, of wealth and high social position, who has
been described by Koning. He is the man whom Meerman represented as
an [p369] unrecognized member of the noble family of Brederodes. But
he is, certainly, not the man described on the pedigree as the Coster
who brought the first print in the world. He is not the man described
by Junius who lived “about one hundred and twenty-eight years ago,” or
in 1440, for the records of the church of St. Bavo prove that Laurens
Janszoon died and was buried in 1439. It is not at all probable that
Thomaszoon or Junius made any mistake in the name, and that it was this
Louwerijs Janszoon who brought the first print in the world. There
is no more evidence in favor of Janszoon as an inventor of printing
than there is in favor of Coster. The most careful searching of the
records fails to bring to light any evidence that he was engaged in the
practice of printing.
That Lourens Coster kept a tavern may also be inferred from the fact
that the house he lived in was always known as a tavern. The engraving
of this house on the following page shows how the edifice appeared
in 1740. Junius said that it was a house of some pretension in 1568,
and that it stood on the market-place near the royal palace; but Van
Zuren had previously noticed it as a house falling to decay. In 1628,
Scriverius said that the house had been “changed and was divided among
three masters:” the part supposed to be the Coster residence was called
_The Golden Bunch of Grapes_, and it was even then used as a tavern.
When John Bagford first saw the house, in 1706, it was a cheese shop.
In 1761, Moses Van Hulkenroy, a printer, lived in part of it, and the
other part was occupied as an inn, then known as _The Golden Fleece_.
In 1813, the centre building was used as a public house. It fell
into ruins on the 13th of May, 1818, but it has since been rebuilt,
and a tablet inserted in memory of Coster. It is probable that this
house was an inn when Junius wrote _Batavia_, and that he refrained
from mentioning this circumstance lest it might degrade Coster. But
we now know that Coster, and Pieter Thomaszoon, his son-in-law, who
succeeded him in business, and that Gerrit Thomaszoon, the author
of the pedigree, were all innkeepers. The wine-flagons, to which
[p371] Junius points so triumphantly, were a proper portion of the
furnishings of an inn. To the modern reader, who has been informed
that a part of this house has always been a drinking tavern for the
refreshment of the men of Haarlem, these pewter mugs, or flagons, as
Junius names them, are not, as he would have us believe, indisputable
evidence that their first owner must have been a printer.
[Illustration: The House of Coster.
[From Seiz.]]
[Illustration: Laurens Janszoon Coster.
[From Maittaire.]]
The falsity of the legend is abundantly established by the
dissimilarity of the many engraved likenesses, which from time to time
have been presented as portraits of Coster. The earliest representation
of the alleged inventor was published by Scriverius,[219] not quite
two centuries after Coster is said to have died. The only attest to
the accuracy of the portrait is Scriverius himself, and it need not
be said that he is not a trustworthy witness. There have been many
variations of this well-known engraving. Van der Linde suggests that
this engraving by Scriverius may be a portrait of Gerrit Thomaszoon,
appropriated for the exigency. There is a peculiarity in the engraving
which plainly proves that the portrait could not have been painted
during the lifetime of Coster. The “true effigies of Laurenz” carries
in his right hand a matrix of the letter A of the Roman form, but
letters of Roman form were not used at Haarlem in 1440. Books
attributed to Coster have letters in the Gothic style. [p372]
In 1630, a new portrait of Coster was published by Adrien Rooman, with
Latin and Dutch verses attached. Boxhorn mentioned this engraving in
such a manner that strangers were led to believe it was a statue that
had been erected to Coster.
[Illustration: A Spurious Portrait by Van den Berg.
[From Koning.]]
[Illustration: A Portrait attributed to Van Oudewater.
[From Koning.]]
Jacob Van Campen was induced to make another painting of the grim
features in a more truly artistic style. His idealized head of Coster
was engraved by Cornelis Koning, whose reproduction of the painter’s
fancy has ever since been accepted as an authentic portrait.[220] The
round cap, the furred [p373] robe, and the matrix in the extended
hand, are the features of the Scriverius portrait; but the head is
that of another man. The stony face which Scriverius presented as the
image of Coster was somewhat softened by the pencil of Van Campen, but
after he had exhausted upon it all the resources of his art, it still
remained a grim and unsatisfactory head, a head without any expression
of genius or even of culture—the head of a hard innkeeper, but not of
an inventor. It was a biting satire upon the story of Junius, all the
more offensive because the portrait had as strong claim to authenticity
as the legend.
[Illustration: The Laurens Janszoon of Meerman.
[From Meerman.]]
Meerman refused to accept this head as a faithful portrait. He
produced a new likeness of the inventor, and claimed for it a superior
truthfulness. In the same year, 1765, Van Osten de Bruyn published an
engraving of the same head, with this explanation: “Laurens Janszoon,
sheriff, of the town of Haarlem, inventor of the noble art of printing
. . . after an old picture bought from William Corneliszoon Croon, the
last descendant of Laurens Janszoon, who died, unmarried, at Haarlem in
1724.” We find no vouchers for the authenticity of this portrait. Croon
was the man by [p374] or for whom the vellum pedigree was continued.
He was equally interested with the originator of the pedigree, Gerrit
Thomaszoon, in upholding the legend. Whether Croon was ignorant of
the fact that Laurens Janszoon, the sheriff, was not Lourens Janszoon
Coster, is not so clear; but it is clear that the portrait submitted by
Croon does not resemble the portrait furnished by Scriverius. Gockinga
asserts that the engraving made by Meerman (after Croon’s portrait) is
like the engraved head of Sir Thomas More of England. Van der Linde
says that the Coster of Meerman closely resembles the engraved portrait
of a once celebrated inquisitor, one Ruard Tapper of Enkhuizen.[221]
The Coster of Scriverius and the Coster of Meerman are certainly
different men.
Everywhere but in Holland[222] and Belgium, Dr. Van der Linde’s
exposure of the spuriousness of the legend has been accepted as the end
of all debate. Coster must hereafter be regarded as one of the heroes
of fiction and not of history. With the downfall of Coster, fall also
all the speculations concerning an early invention of printing[223] in
the Netherlands by an unknown or unnamed printer.
[p375]
XX
John Gutenberg at Strasburg.