But an event was at hand of greater importance than any question of
crowns or parties, though then none was wise enough to see its real
significance. William Caxton, a London merchant, had learned the new
art of printing with movable type[1] at Bruges in Flanders (now
Belgium). When he returned to his native country, he set up a small
press within the grounds of Westminster Abbey.
[1] The first printing in Europe was done in the early part of the
fifteenth century from wooden blocks on which the words were cut.
Movable types were invented about 1450.
There, at the sign of a shield bearing a red "pale," or band, he
advertised his wares as "good chepe." He was not only printer, but
translator and editor. King Edward gave him some royal patronage.
His Majesty was willing to pay liberally for work which was not long
before the clergy in France had condemned as a black art emanating
from the devil. Many, too, of the English clergy regarded it with no
very friendly eye, since it threatened to destroy the copying trade,
of which the monks had well-nigh a monopoly (S154).
The first printed book which Caxton is known to have published in
England was a small volume entitled "The Sayings of the Philosophers,"
1477.[1] This venture was followed in due time by Chaucer's
"Canterbury Tales" (S253), and whatever other poetry, history, or
classics seemed worthy of preservation; making in all nearly a hundred
distinct works comprising more than eighteen thousand volumes.
[1] "The dictes or sayengis of the philosophres, enprynted by me
william Caxton at westmestre, the year of our lord MCCCCLxxvii."
Up to this time a book of any kind was a luxury, laboriously "written
by the few for the few"; but from this date literature of all sorts
was destined to multiply and fill the earth with many leaves and some
good fruit.
Caxton's patrons, though few, were choice, and when one of them, the
Earl of Worcester, was beheaded in the wars, Caxton said, "The ax did
then cut off more learning than was left in all the heads of the
surviving lords." Towards the close of the nineteenth century a
memorial window was placed in St. Margaret's Church within the abbey
grounds, as a tribute to the man who, while England was red with
slaughter, introduced "the art preservative of all arts," and
preservative of liberty no less[1] (S322).
[1] "Lord! taught by thee, when Caxton bade
His silent words forever speak;
A grave for tyrants then was made,
Then crack'd the chain which yet shall break."
Ebenezer Elliott, "Hymn for the Printers'
Gathering at Sheffield," 1833