AT THE SIGN OF THE RED PALE.
To write upon Westminster and not to speak of Caxton would be indeed
impossible. As well write of America and forget Columbus. Even at the
risk of doing over again what has already been done by the antiquary, as
Blades, or by the historian, as Charles Knight; even though one may have
found little to add to the investigations and discoveries of those who
have gone before, we must still speak of Caxton, because through his
agency was effected the change--that of printing for manuscript--which
has proved the most momentous, the most far-reaching, the most fruitful
of all the changes and inventions and discoveries of modern days. The
Reformation threw open the door for freedom of thought; the Renaissance
restored to the world the literature and the philosophy of the past;
printing scattered broadcast the means of acquiring knowledge.
The humble beginnings of this revolution, the life and achievements of
the man by whose hands it was effected in this country, are not so
widely known that they may be assumed as common knowledge. Let us ask,
for instance, who was Caxton? How did he arrive at his printing press?
What did he print? These are questions that the ordinary reader would
perhaps find it difficult to answer.
To begin with, the setting up of his printing press
[Illustration: CAXTON’S DEVICE.]
was but an episode--albeit the last--in the long and busy life of this
active man; an experiment, doubtful at first, which presently became the
serious business of a man advanced in years, his occupation at an age
when most men think of ease and retirement. The name and fame and praise
of Caxton have gone forth into all lands; but it is the fame of Caxton
in old age, Caxton the printer, not Caxton in early life and in full
manhood, Caxton of the Mercers’ Company, Caxton the Merchant Adventurer,
Caxton the Rector of the English House. If you ask any person of
ordinary acquirements who invented printing, he will probably tell you
that it was Caxton. Yet the person of a little more than ordinary
acquirements very well knows that Caxton was not the inventor at all.
What he did was to bring over the art of printing from the Netherlands
to this country. Not such a very great thing, perhaps; had he not done
so someone else would; it was
[Illustration: SUPPOSED PORTRAIT OF CAXTON. FROM BLADES’ “PENTATEUCH OF
PRINTING.”]
only a matter of time; the invention was already beginning to leave its
cradle; other men already understood that here was a thing belonging to
the whole world--a thing bound to travel over the whole world. Caxton,
however, did actually give it to us; he first brought it over here; he
introduced the new invention into this country. That is his great glory;
for that service he will never be forgotten; he has the honor that
belongs to those who understand, and advance, and associate with their
own lives and achievements, things invented by others who could not,
perhaps, see their importance.
Perhaps everything that can be found out about Caxton has been already
discovered. When we consider the antecedent improbability of learning
anything at all about a merchant of the fifteenth century,--not a
merchant of the wealthier kind, neither a Whittington nor a Gresham,--we
may congratulate ourselves upon knowing a good deal about Caxton. To be
sure, he gives us in his prefaces many valuable facts concerning
himself. The learned Mr. William Blades has put together in his two
books on Caxton all that he himself, or that others before him, had been
able to discover. He has also added certain conjectures as to the most
important step in Caxton’s life; I will speak of these conjectures
presently. The result is a tolerably complete biography. We cannot fill
up the life year after year, but in general terms we know how it was
spent and what things were done in the allotted span. That the
personality is shadowy--yet not more shadowy than that of
Shakespeare--cannot be denied.
No one, however, can say, in these times of research, when the documents
of the past are overhauled and made to yield their secrets, that any
point of archæological investigation is finally closed, so that nothing
more will be discovered about it. Somewhere or other are lying hidden
documents, contracts, wills, conveyances, letters, reports,
diaries--which may at any moment yield unexpected treasures to the
finder. Let us remember how Peter Cunningham unearthed the accounts of
the Revels and Masques among the papers of the Audit Office; how the
debates of the House of Commons in the time of Cromwell were discovered;
how Riley’s researches in the archives of London have actually restored
the mediæval city in every detail of its multi-colored life; how the
history of England has been already entirely rewritten during the last
fifty years from newly discovered documents, and must in the next fifty
years be again rewritten. Remembering these things, let us not conclude
that concerning any man, king, statesman, churchman, citizen, the last
word has been spoken, the last discovery made.
For my own part, I have to contribute only those little
discoveries--some may call them theories--which always present
themselves when another man from another point of view approaches a
certain array of facts. That is to say, I have no new fact to announce,
but I have one or two new conclusions to draw.
Let me endeavor, then, to present to you William Caxton as a reality,
not a shadow; you shall see how and why he became, late in life, a
printer; what he was and what was his reputation before he became a
printer. And you shall see for yourselves what kind of book he produced,
how he illustrated it, the kind of type he employed, and the binding of
his books.
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.
He forgets nobody, this good citizen; he desires good water and
plentiful; he wants the Bridge to be kept in repair--where would trade
be without the Bridge? he wants cleanliness in the City--why should
Walbrook be allowed to be converted into an open sewer? Hospitals for
the sick; marriage portions for girls; worn-out servants; prisoners;
lepers; he remembers all. Surely, to have been brought up in the
household of such a man, so kindly, so thoughtful, with so great a
heart, must have been an education for the boy.
At this time the principal market of Western Europe was Bruges, and the
center of the trade carried on by the Merchant Adventurers--an
association containing members of various companies--was that city.
There stood _Domus Anglorum_, the House of the English Merchants. It was
not uncommon for a young man to be sent to this House in order to learn
the foreign trade before he completed his time. Thither, therefore, went
Caxton, having seven years still to serve; and there he remained for
thirty years.
Those who know the history of the Hanseatic
[Illustration: THE “DOMUS ANGLORUM,” BRUGES.]
Merchants and the Steelyard will understand the position and meaning of
the _Domus Anglorum_. The Englishmen in Bruges, just as the Germans in
London, lived separate and apart, a community by themselves, in their
own house, which was surrounded by a wall, contained offices,
warehouses, sleeping chambers, a common hall, and perhaps a chapel (I
say perhaps, because a chapel belonged to every great house). The people
of the London Steelyard, whether they had a chapel or no, worshiped in
the Church of All Hallows the Great, just outside their walls; and very
likely the English merchants observed the same practice. They lived
separate from the Flemings; they were never allowed by the citizens of
Bruges to consider themselves otherwise than as strangers and
foreigners; they had certain privileges and rights jealously accorded,
jealously watched, by the Duke of Burgundy and by the worthy burghers
of Bruges; jealously guarded and resolutely claimed by the foreign
merchants themselves. In order to avoid, as much as possible, the
ever-present danger of a popular rising against strangers, the
Englishmen lived by strict rule: abroad they walked with circumspection;
they kept as much as possible within their own walls. It is not likely
that the prejudice against foreigners was so strong in any European
country as it was in England; certainly not at Bruges, Ghent, and
Antwerp, whither foreigners flocked from every port. At the same time,
to be a foreigner anywhere invited curiosity; and mediæval curiosity was
the mother of hostility; and hostility too often took a practical and an
active line. The English factory, therefore, lived under rule, like the
Germans of the Steelyard; they lived in a college; they observed hours
of closing the gates; they had a common table; save for vows and
midnight prayers the life was monastic; on no pretense were women to be
admitted, and all the residents were unmarried.
These factories or foreign stations of English merchants were continued
into quite modern times. In the seventeenth century, and perhaps later,
there was an English factory at Aleppo; the Indian Empire sprang out of
English factories; the establishment of a factory was the first step
toward a footing in foreign trade.
The position of governor, or rector, of such a community was, it will be
readily understood, one requiring special, rare, and valuable qualities.
He must be, first of all, a man of courteous and conciliatory manners;
he must know how to be firm and how to assert his rights; he must be
watchful for the extension, and jealous for the observance, of
privileges; he must be ready to seize every opportunity for advancing
the interests of the community; he must not be afraid to stand before
kings; he must be a linguist, and able to speak the language of the
court and the language of the market. When we learn, therefore, that
Caxton was presently raised to the very important office of Governor of
all the English merchants, not only in Bruges, but in other
towns,--Ghent, Antwerp, Damme, Sluys,--we understand from this single
fact the manner of man he was supposed to be; when we learn in addition
that he continued to hold his post till he was forty-five years of age,
we understand what manner of man he must have been.
There is, as one who studies this time cannot fail to remark, a special
kind of dignity belonging to these centuries; it is the dignity that
springs from the knowledge of one’s own rank or place, at a time when
rank, place, or station belonged to every possible occupation of life. A
bricklayer or a carpenter, as well as a mercer, or a monk, or a priest,
belonged to a trade association; he was ’prentice first, full member
next, officer or even warden in due course. The most humble employment
was dignified by the association of its members. Everybody, from the
King to the lowest craftsman, understood the dignity of associated
labor; everybody recognized office and authority, whether it was the
episcopal office or the presidency of a Craft Company. You may see
Caxton in every picture that presents a _bourgeois_ of the time. He
wears a long gown of red cloth, something like a cassock, the sleeves
and neck trimmed with rich fur; round his neck hangs a gold chain; his
belt is of leather, gilt, and from it hangs his purse; his hair is cut
shorter than the nobles wear it, and it is seen under a round cap, the
sides of which are turned up. It is a costume admitting of great
splendor in the way of material; the fur lining or trimming may be broad
and costly; the gold chain may be rich and heavy; the belt may be
embossed by an Italian artist--all the advantages of mediæval costume
are not with the knight and soldier. As for his face, it is grave; his
eyes are serious; it is not for him that the Court Fool plays his
antics; it is not for him that the minstrel strikes his mandolin: he is
thinking what new concessions he can get from the Duke of Burgundy.
Above all, at this moment he is troubled about the late quarrel in
Antwerp between certain English sailors--young hotheads--and some
Flemings, in a tavern, after which two of the latter were found dead.
And the town, without considering who began the brawl, was of course in
an uproar against the accursed English. The news has been brought home
by a Flemish merchant just from Antwerp: the Englishmen have taken
sanctuary; there will be correspondence, excuses--fines, perhaps.
Or it is an Italian merchant--Caxton talks his language as well--who has
things to propose, barter to effect. The Rector of the _Domus Anglorum_
was, in fact, a kind of consul. He sent home regular reports on the
state of trade, on prices and fluctuations, on supply and demand; he
received English merchants, made them pay an entrance fee, instructed
them in the laws and privileges of the factory, gave them interpreters,
and assisted them in their buying and selling, according to the customs
of the town. He was also agent to the Merchant Adventurers of London.
In the archives of the town two cases are recorded in which Caxton was
concerned, the first in which he had become surety to a merchant of the
Staple at Calais, the second in which he consented to arbitration. In
the first he is styled simply “English Merchant.” In the second he is
“English Merchant and Governor of the English House.” As a merchant, or
as Rector of the English House, Caxton did not become rich. This point
seems to me abundantly proved by the facts of the case. His biographers
have sometimes represented him as returning to England enriched by his
calling, and setting up his press as an occupation or recreation for his
old age. Let us look again at the facts. Those which bear upon the point
are the following:
1. He remained in the _Domus_ for thirty years, leaving it at the age of
forty-seven or thereabouts. Merchants who grow rich do not continue in
the service of their company so long.
2. He married on leaving the _Domus_. Those who prosper do not continue
in celibacy till they are past their prime.
3. He then remained abroad for a time, and entered the service of the
Duchess of Burgundy. Wealthy merchants do not remain in exile, nor did
they at any time enter into the service of a foreign prince.
4. During the whole thirty years of Caxton’s residence abroad, his
native country was torn to pieces by a long and bitter civil war. It has
been shown that the towns suffered comparatively little from this
conflict, but its effect upon the Merchant Adventurers was most
certainly disastrous. Where, when all the country was covered with
armies, and every great noble had to take a side, was the market for
imports? Where were they to get the exports when the land was ravaged
throughout its length and breadth? The Merchant Adventurers could
neither sell their imports nor ship their exports. The condition of
London was something like that when the Saxons overran the country on
all sides; and also, like that time, the flower of the London youth were
called out to fight. Of money-making there was small thought; happy the
merchant who could hold his own. “I have known London,” Caxton writes,
“in my young age much more wealthy, prosperous, and richer than it is at
this day.” While the Red and the White Roses were tearing at each
other’s throats one fears that the _Domus Angliæ_ showed empty
warehouses and a deserted hall.
Lastly, if there were any doubt on the subject of Caxton’s comparative
poverty, it should be removed by the grateful words in which he speaks
of the money given him when he entered the service of the Duchess of
Burgundy; these are not the words of a prosperous man.
Caxton, therefore, one may be quite sure, left Bruges as slenderly
provided as regards store and treasure as when he entered the city.
After this preamble, we now arrive at the invention of printing.
The fifteenth century--the beginning of the Renaissance--was also
remarkable for the production of beautiful and costly books. The art of
the illuminator had never been finer, the writing had never been more
beautiful, the demand for books had never been so great; the numbers of
those engaged outside the monasteries in the production of books rapidly
increased. In every town they formed themselves into Guilds; thus, at
Bruges, there was the Guild of St. John, in which were enrolled
booksellers, painters, scriveners and copyists, illuminators,
bookbinders, curriers, makers of parchment and vellum, and engravers.
And they could not produce books fast enough to meet the increased
demand. Now, it is perfectly certain that if the demand for anything
that is made, grown, or produced is increased from any cause, the
methods of production of that thing will be reconsidered, and men’s
ingenuity will devise means of making the production easier, cheaper,
and more practicable. What happened with the production of books was
exactly what happened with everything else. “Give us more books,” cried
those who, a hundred years before, had wanted no books; “give us more
books.” Those who were interested in the production pondered continually
over the enormous labor and cost of copying. Could there be found any
way to lessen that labor? The result was the invention of printing.
Who was the first printer?
You may read all the books, pamphlets, and articles; you may consider
all the arguments, and in the long run you will know no more than you
knew at the beginning. Perhaps it was Coster of Haarlem, or perhaps it
was Gutenberg of Mainz. No one knows, and really it matters little
except for the antiquary and the historian. At this period, as we have
seen, some modification in the old method of copying was certain to be
invented. It was by the greatest good luck, I have always thought, that
a sort of shorthand, a representation of words by little easy symbols,
was not invented. For instance, supposing a separate symbol for each of
the prepositions, articles, and auxiliary verbs, and other separate
symbols for the commoner words, there might be some thousands of symbols
in all to be learned by the scribe; but his labor would be reduced to
one-tenth. They might have invented some such method. Then, satisfied
with the result, we should have gone on for centuries, and the art of
printing would still have to be invented.
But the time was come, and the invention, happily, came with it. Had
printing been invented two centuries before, it would have been
neglected and speedily forgotten, because there was no demand for books.
Had it been invented two centuries later, it would have had to contend
against some other contrivance for shortening labor and cheapening
books. If an ingenious projector discovers some great truth or invents
some useful contrivance before or after his time, he is lost--he and his
discovery. Thus, in the reign of James the First a man of great
ingenuity contrived a submarine boat--he was before his age. In the
middle of the last century another ingenious person discovered a way of
sending messages by electricity--he was before his age. In a romance,
now a hundred and fifty years old, the possibility of photography was
imagined by another person before his age. Men whose ideas are much
before their age receive, as their reward, contempt, certainly;
imprisonment, probably; and perhaps death in one of its more unpleasant
forms.
The generally received story, after all that has been said, is this:
There was a certain Johann Gensfleisch von Sorgenloch, called Zum
Gutenberg, a man of noble family, who was born in Mainz somewhere about
the end of the fourteenth century. He removed from his native town to
Strasbourg, where he began experimenting upon wood blocks. He then, with
the idea of printing clearly defined in his mind, perhaps with type
already cut in wood, went back to Mainz and entered into partnership
with three others, named Riffe, Heitman, and Dritzchen. Documents still
exist which prove this partnership, and contemporary evidence is clear
[Illustration: CAXTON’S HOUSE IN THE ALMONRY, WESTMINSTER.]
and strong upon the point that this Gutenberg, and none other, was the
inventor of the art. The first partnership was speedily broken up. A
second was formed with Fust or Faust, a goldsmith, and one Peter
Schöffer, who seems to have been the working partner. Certainly he
improved and carried the art to a high state of perfection.
That it should spread was certain; the work was simple; the press was
not a machine which could be kept secret. Before long printers were
setting up their presses everywhere. At Bruges the first printer was one
Colard Mansion, a native of the place. He was a member of that
Fraternity or Guild of St. John already mentioned. He was himself a
writer, or at least a translator, as well as a printer. Caxton followed
him in this respect. He printed and published twenty-two works, of which
one, called “The Garden of Devotion,” was in Latin, the others were all
in French except two, which were in English. These two were printed for
Caxton. The use of French shows that the court and the nobles did not
use Flemish. One of his books, the cost of which seems to have ruined
the unfortunate printer, was a splendid edition in folio of Ovid’s
“Metamorphoses,” translated into French and illustrated with numerous
woodcuts. It is worthy of note that Colard’s workshop was the chamber
over the north porch of the Church of St. Donatus. The first “chapel” of
printers may have been begun in the modest room over a church porch.
When troubles fell upon poor Colard he was fain to run away; he left the
city, and--he disappeared. History knows nothing more about Colard
Mansion.
That he printed these two books for Caxton there seems no reason to
doubt. Wynkyn de Werde, Caxton’s successor, certainly says that they
were printed at Cologne; but contemporary evidence is not always to be
trusted. The character of the type alone is held to prove that they are
the work of Colard.
These are the earliest English-printed books. The first is a “Recuyell
of the Historyes of Troie”; the second is “The Game and Playe of the
Chesse.” The second is dedicated to the unfortunate Duke of Clarence:
“To the righte noble, righte excellent and vertuous Prince George, Duc
of Clarence, Earle of Warwicke and Salisburye, Grete Chamberlayne of
Englonde and Lieutenant of Ireland, Oldest Brother of Kynge Edwarde, by
the Grace of God Kynge of Englonde and of France, your most humble
servant William Caxton amonge other of youre servantes sendes unto you
Peas, Helthe, Joye and Victorye upon your Enemies.”
The “Recuyell,” a translation, was completed in 1471. It was not printed
until 1474. The conclusion is that Caxton found so great a demand for it
that he could not get the book copied quickly enough to meet the demand;
that his attention was drawn to the newly invented art, and that he
perceived something of the enormous possibilities which it presented.
About this time he resigned the post he had held so long; he left the
claustral _Domus_ over which he had presided; he married a wife, and he
entered into the service of the Duchess of Burgundy. It has been asked
in what capacity he served. In no capacity at all; he was one of the
“following”; he wore the livery of the Duchess; he was attached to the
court; he had rooms and rations and some allowance of money; he was in
the service and at the orders of the Duchess; he was a secretary or an
interpreter; he swelled the pageant by his presence; he conducted the
Duchess’s trade ventures; he was Usher of the White Rod, Chamberlain,
Gentleman-in-waiting--anything. Do not let us be deceived by the word
“service” and its modern meaning.
[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF THE “RECUYELL OF THE HISTORYES OF TROIE.”]
This “service” lasted a very short time. He left the court--one knows
not why--and he returned, after this long absence, to his native land.
Then began the third, the last, the most important chapter of his life.
This was in the year 1476. He brought over his presses and his workmen
with him. And he settled in Westminster.
Why did he choose Westminster?
This point is elaborately discussed by Blades. He suggests that Caxton
went to Westminster on account of the wool staple, with which he may
have had
[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF THE “GAME AND PLAYE OF THE CHESSE.”]
correspondence while at Bruges. He _may_ have had; perhaps did
have--though it is not at all likely, because, as is most certain, he
was in constant correspondence with the Merchant Adventurers of London,
and with his own company of Mercers, whose representative he was; and
it is also certain that, as a citizen of London, he could not regard the
Staple of Westminster with any favor. That reason, therefore, may be
disregarded.
Or, Blades suggests, the Mercers rented of the Abbey a tavern called the
Greyhound, where they feasted once a year, and where they did business
with the merchants of the Wool Staple. _Therefore_ Caxton came here.
This, again, is a reason that is no reason; for, surely, the fact that
there was this tavern in Westminster could not influence Caxton in the
least. One might as well make him go to Gravesend because the Mercers
had a farm not far from the town.
There are, however, two reasons which seem to me very plain and
sufficient. The first shows why he did not set up his press in the City
of London. The next shows why he did set it up in the town--not yet a
city--of Westminster. The first reason is that he did not take a
workshop in London because he could not. The thing was impossible; he
would not be allowed to work under the jurisdiction of the Lord Mayor.
By this time every trade or craft carried on in the City had been formed
into a company or attached to some company; every craftsman belonged to
a company; every merchant and every retailer belonged to a company.
There was, however, no trade of printing; therefore no company;
therefore, as yet, and until the point was raised and settled, no power
of settling within the City.
Where, then, could he find a proper place? Southwark was within the City
jurisdiction. Without the walls there were hardly any suburbs. The
Strand, which might be considered a suburb, was a long line of palaces
built upon the river bank, noble of aspect from the river; on the other
side their gates opened upon a muddy road, on the north side of which
were fields. Caxton wanted, however, not a suburb, but a town; he
wanted, also, patrons and customers for the new trade. Westminster was,
in fact, the only place to which he could go. Doubtless he bore letters
and recommendations from the Duchess of Burgundy to her brother Edward
IV. He wanted court favor, a thing which everybody wanted at that time;
he wanted the patronage of great lords and ladies; and he wanted to
attract the attention of colleges, monasteries, and places where they
wanted books and used books. In short, like every man in trade, Caxton
wanted a place which would be convenient for advertising, showing, and
proclaiming his business. For all purposes Westminster was admirably
suited for the setting up of his press.
Where was his house?
Long afterward, until exactly fifty years ago, when it fell down, there
was shown a house traditionally assigned to Caxton. The representation
certainly indicates a later origin, but there may have been alterations.
There have been discussions and disputes over the site of the first
printing press: it has been placed on the site of Henry the Seventh’s
Chapel; one is told that the monument in front of St. Margaret’s stands
on the site. For my own part I cannot understand how there can be any
doubt at all. Stow, writing a hundred years later, states with the
greatest clearness where the house stood. He says, speaking of the “Gate
House,”--that is, the gate at the east end of Tothill Street: “On the
South side of this Gate King Henry VII. founded an Almshouse for
thirteen poor men ... near unto this house westward was an old chapel of
St. Anne, over against which the Lady Margaret, mother to King Henry
VII., erected an almshouse for poor women, which is now turned into
lodgings for the singing men of the College. The place wherein this
Chapel and Almshouse stand was called the Eleemosynary or Almonry; now,
corruptly, the Ambry; for that the alms of the Abbey were here
distributed to the poor.
“And therein Islip, Abbot of Westminster, first practised and erected
the first press of Book printing that ever was in England about the year
of Christ 1471; W. Caxton, Citizen of London, Mercer, brought it into
England, and was the first that practised it in the said Abbey.”
Islip was not Abbot at that time, but Prior and afterward Abbot. As
Prior, the details of the government of the Abbey were in his hands. If
now we look at the map we shall see that the place corresponds with what
was called the Great Almonry until a few years ago, when Victoria Street
was cut though the slums of Westminster, and the Westminster Palace
Hotel was built, either covering the site or effectually hiding it. The
thing does not seem to admit of doubt or dispute. Observe that Stow
speaks of the “Ambry” as being “in” the Abbey, though it was outside the
gate. So Caxton speaks of his presses as set up “in” the Abbey--an
expression which has led many to think that he carried on his work
within the church. The mistake was natural so long as men had forgotten
the meaning of the word “Abbey,” and thought that Westminster Abbey
meant the Church of St. Peter. How many are there, even now, who have
examined the remains lying south of the church, and who understand that
these were buildings which, with the church, constituted the Abbey?
The house was known by the sign of the Red Pale. It was a common sign
among printers in Holland, some of whom, however, had a Black Pale.
It is not necessary to enumerate the books which Caxton printed; and the
questions of type, process, binding, and illustrating must be left for
the biographer. But about the trade of printer and publisher? On this
point hear Caxton himself. He speaks in a Prologue (hitherto
undiscovered).
“When,” he says, “I resolved upon setting up a press in Westminster, I
knew full well that it was an enterprise full of danger. For I had seen
my friend Colard, printer of Bruges, fain to fly from the city in
poverty and debt; and I had seen Melchior of Augsburg dying a bankrupt;
and I had heard how Sweynheim and Pannarts in Rome had petitioned the
Pope for help. Yet I hoped, by the favour and countenance of His
Highness the King, to succeed. This have I done: yet not as I hoped to
do. For I thought that the quick production and the cheapness of books
would cause many to buy them who hitherto had been content to live
without the solace of poetry and romance, and without the instruction of
Cato and Boethius. Again, I thought that there are schools and colleges
where books must be studied, and I hoped that they would find it better
to print than to copy. And there are Religious Houses where they are
forever engaged in copying Psalters and Service Books. Surely, I
thought, it will be better for the good Monks to print than to copy. I
forgot, moreover, that there was a great stock in hand of written books;
in every Monastery a store which must first be used up, and in every
College there were written books for the student which must first be
worn out before there
[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF THE “DICTES OR SAYINGS OF THE
PHILOSOPHERS.’”]
would be question of replacing them with printed books. Also I forgot
the great company of copyists, illuminators, limners, and those who make
and sell vellum and fine parchment for the copyists. And I found,
moreover, to my surprise, that there were many, great lords to wit, who
cared nothing for cheapness, and who scoffed at my woodcuts compared
with the illuminations in red and blue and gold which adorned their
written books. He who would embark upon a new trade must reckon with
those who make their livelihood in the old trade. Wherefore my Art of
Printing had many enemies at the outset, and few friends. So that the
demand for my books has not yet been found equal to the number which I
have put forth, and I should have been ruined like Colard and bankrupt
like Melchior were it not for the help of my Lord of Arundel and others,
who protected me against the certain loss which threatened.”
There are many points connected with the first English printing press on
which one would like to dwell: the mechanism of it, the forms of type,
the paper used, the binding, the price. These things belong to a
biography, and not to a chapter. It must suffice here to say that the
form of the press was simple, being little more than such a screw press
as is used now for copying letters.
As to the books themselves, Caxton, in the true spirit of trade, gave
the world not what he himself may have wanted, but what the world
wanted. Books of romance, chivalry, and great achievements were demanded
by the knights and nobles. Books of service were wanted by the Church.
Caxton provided these. These things illustrate the character of the
man--cautious, businesslike, anxious to run his press at a profit, so
that he tried no experiments, and was content to be a servant rather
than a teacher.
Those who will take the trouble to visit the British Museum and there
examine for themselves the treasures which the nation possesses of early
printing--the case full of Caxtons in the King’s Library, the shelf
filled with Caxtons in the vast Library, which the general visitor is
not allowed to see--will be astonished to observe the rapid advances
already made in the Art of Printing when Caxton undertook its practice.
Printing was first invented some time in the first half of the fifteenth
century.[6] The type is clear and strong--clearer type we have never
made since; the
[Illustration: CAXTON MEMORIAL WINDOW IN ST. MARGARET’S, WESTMINSTER.]
ink is perfectly black to this day; the lines are even and in perfect
order; the binding, when an ancient binding has been preserved, is like
any binding of later times. But the shape of the book was not newly
invented, nor the binding, nor the form of the type; in these matters
the printer followed the copyist. In the earlier examples the
illuminator was called in to adorn the book, copy by copy, with his
art-initials, colored letters, pictures delicately and beautifully
drawn, colored and gilt in the printed page. The illuminator, however,
very soon gave way to the engraver. The wood engravings of the late
fifteenth century, rough though they are, and coarse in drawing and
outline, are yet vigorous and direct; they illustrate what they desire
to illustrate. One can believe that those who could afford the
illuminations continued to order and to buy the manuscripts, for the
sake of their delicacy and beauty. But the printed book, with its rough
engraving, was within the reach of student, priest, and squire, to whose
slender means the illuminated work was forbidden.
[Illustration: FACSIMILE OF CAXTON’S HANDWRITING, FROM THE PEPYSIAN
LIBRARY.]
The more one considers this figure of the fifteenth-century workman, the
more clearly he stands out before us, grave, anxious, resolute of
face--the more he becomes admirable and wonderful. For thirty years
engaged in protecting English interests in the Netherlands--patient,
tenacious, conciliatory; the friend and servant of the most powerful
lady in Europe; the friend of all those at home who regarded literature;
himself a lover of poetry and of romance, and at the mature age of
sixty-five engaged in translating the latter; a good linguist; a good
scholar; and, most certainly, one who could look into the future, and
could foretell something of the influence which the press was destined
to have upon the world. And all this in a simple liveryman of the
Mercers’ Company, without education other than that enjoyed by all lads
of his position, without wealth and without family influence other than
that derived from the long connection with the City in various trades of
his kith and kin. Admirable and wonderful is the life of this great man;
admirable and wonderful are his achievements.
He died in harness. Thus sayeth Wynkyn de Worde in the “Vitæ Patrum”:
“Thus endyth the most vertuouse hystorye of the devoute and righte
renowned lyves of holy faders lyuynge in deserte, worthy of remembrance
to all wel dysposed persons, which hath ben translated oute of French
into English by William Caxton of Westmynstre late deed and fynyshed at
the laste daye of hys lyff.” He died in the year 1491, and was buried at
St. Margaret’s, where his wife, Maude, and perhaps his father, were also
buried. He left one child, a daughter. He left a will, which is lost;
but one clause was a bequest of fifteen copies of the “Golden Legend” to
the parish church. These were afterward sold at prices varying from 5s.
4d. to 6s. 8d. If money was then worth eight times its present value, we
can understand that books, although they were greatly cheapened by
being printed instead of written, had not yet become cheap.
Many of the books which he published were romances, as has been said,
and tales of chivalry. He loved these tales himself, as much as the
noble ladies and gallant knights for whom he published them. Let us end
this notice with his own words on the excellence and the usefulness of
romance. He is speaking of the “History of King Blanchardine and Queen
Eglantine his Wife,” translated by order of the Lady Margaret:
“I know full well that the story of it was honest and joyful to all
virtuous young noble gentlemen and women for to read therein as for
their pastime. For under correction, in my judgment, the stories of
noble feats and valiant acts of arms and war ... which have been
actioned in old time by many noble princes, lords, and knights, are as
well for to see and know their valiantness, for to stand in the special
grace and love of their ladies, and in likewise for gentle young ladies
and demoiselles for to learn to be steadfast and constant in their part
to them, that they once have promised and agreed to such as have put
their lives oft in jeopardy for to please them to stand in grace, as it
is to occupy the ken and study overmuch in books of contemplation.”