which he had become used to during his residence at Bruges, though it
is interesting to notice that one at least of his dies was directly
copied from early London work and applied in the same manner. His
general method of covering the side of his binding was to make a large
centre panel contained by a framework of dies or lines running about
an inch from the edge of the side and intersecting each other at the
corners as in the frame known as an Oxford frame. The large panel thus
produced on the side was divided into lozenge-shaped compartments
by diagonal lines running both ways from the frame, and in each of
these compartments a die was stamped. The die most commonly found
on his bindings is a square one with some fabulous winged monster
engraved upon it, and this very die we find later in the hands of a
stationer in London named Jacobi. The broad frame was often made up
by repetitions of a triangular stamp, pointing alternately right and
left, and containing the figure of a dragon. This stamp is interesting,
not only because the use of a triangular stamp was very uncommon, but
because it was an exact copy of one used by a London binder about the
end of the twelfth century. Very few of Caxton’s own books in their
original binding have come down to our time, but there is a copy of
the second edition of the _Liber Festivalis_ in the British Museum
which was clearly bound by him, and the _Boethius_ which was found in
the Grammar School at St Alban’s was also in its original cover. The
_Royal Book_ formerly in the Bedfordshire General Library, and now in
the collection of Mr J. Pierpont Morgan, is in an absolutely similar
binding to the _Liber Festivalis_ in the British Museum, ornamented
with the same die, while the boards were lined with two waste copies
of an _Indulgence_. Caxton’s bindings were invariably of leather; he
never used vellum as many writers have stated. Blades, who was amongst
the number, refers to a vellum-bound Caxton in the Bodleian, and states
that it is the original binding; but had he examined the book more
carefully he would have found that it was made up from two copies,
and that the binding therefore could not well be original. Indeed the
particular binding was put on in the seventeenth century while the book
belonged to Selden. Selden’s bindings had good need to be flexible, for
one of his customs did not tend to improve bindings. He used to buy his
spectacles, like the youth in the _Vicar of Wakefield_, by the gross,
and whenever he stopped reading a book he put in the pair he happened
to be using to mark the place. It was quite a common thing, soon after
his library came to the Bodleian, for spectacles to drop out of the
books as they were taken incautiously from the shelves.
Of course the number of bindings which can with certainty be ascribed
to Caxton is necessarily small, we can in the first place take only
those on books printed by him, and which contain distinct evidence from
the fragments used in the binding that they came from his workshop. By
means of the stamps used on these we can identify others which have no
other materials for identification. Caxton used sometimes wooden boards
in his bindings and sometimes waste leaves of printed matter pasted
together. These pads of old printing frequently yield most valuable
prizes. The copy of Caxton’s _Boethius_, found by Blades in the library
of the St Alban’s Grammar-school, had its boards made of printed
matter, which, when carefully taken to pieces, were found to be made
of fifty-six half-sheets of paper, forming portions of thirteen books
printed by Caxton, three of which were quite unknown.
Caxton’s binding stamps passed with his printing material to his
successor, Wynkyn de Worde. I found in a college library at Oxford a
book with these stamps, evidently bound by De Worde, and the boards
were lined with waste leaves of three books printed by him, one being
unknown, and one by Caxton. De Worde’s bindings are the least easily
identified of any in the fifteenth century, for beyond these few dies
of Caxton’s there are none that can definitely be ascribed to him,
and even the various bindings that might be ascribed to him from the
fragments found in them vary so much in style and decoration that it
seems impossible that they could have all come from one shop. Perhaps
he had really no binding establishment of his own, but got such work as
he required done by others.
Wynkyn de Worde, as we learn from his will, employed several binders.
He left bequests to Alard, bookbinder, his servant, and to Nowel, the
bookbinder in Shoe Lane. James Gaver, who was one of his executors, was
one of the large family of Gavere, binders in the Low Countries, and
though, when he took out letters of denization on his own account in
1535 he is described as a stationer, no doubt he was also a bookbinder.
The square stamp with a dragon, which had belonged to Caxton and which
must have passed to De Worde, found its way early in the sixteenth
century with other dies of Caxton’s into the hands of another
stationer, Henry Jacobi.
The bindings which were produced by Lettou and Machlinia, so far as we
are able to identify them, are very plain. The sides are divided by
diagonal lines into diamond-shaped compartments, and in each is stamped
a small and uninteresting die. The Latin Bible in the library of Jesus
College, Cambridge, which has every quire lined with slips of vellum,
portions of two cut-up copies of Lettou’s _Indulgence_, and presumably
bound by him, has its binding ornamented with diagonal lines within a
frame formed of square dies containing the figure of a fabulous animal.
In the diamond-shaped compartments formed by the diagonal lines is a
small impressed cinquefoil. Another Lettou binding, on the copy of
the _Wallensis_ printed by him in 1481 in the Bodleian, is ornamented
simply with diagonal lines, but has no small stamps.
There is another English binder of this time whose name we do not know,
who produced some very good work. Bradshaw, I think, considered that
he worked at Norwich. There are a number of his books in Cambridge
libraries, and he used very often a red-coloured leather, which is
common in Cambridge bindings. His dies are Low Country in type,
and very much resemble those used at Oxford, but his work can be
recognised by two peculiarities. He always ruled two perpendicular
lines down the backs of his books, and always ornamented the ends of
the bands, the bands being those ridges on the back where the leather
covers the string or cord on which the quires are stitched. Where these
bands ended on the sides he printed a kind of ornament of leaves. He
also, like the Oxford binders, almost always lined his boards with
vellum. His dies, about eighteen in number, are well engraved, one in
especial representing two cocks fighting, being very finely executed.
Pynson’s earliest bindings are as a rule very plain. Like the other
binders of the time he ruled diagonal lines across the sides of his
books, and put a small die in each division. Sometimes he did not even
use a die, but contented himself with plain lines, as, for instance,
on the copy of his first dated book of 1492 in the British Museum. His
bindings, like Machlinia’s, are very plain, and the dies used are small
and poor.
Another binder, perhaps at St Alban’s, produced bindings not unlike
Pynson’s, but he is identified by a small circular die which he used,
which has on it the figure of a bird.
Another binder whose initials were W. G., but whose name we do not
know, produced a large number of bindings in the fifteenth century. It
is from his bindings that all the fragments of Machlinia’s _Horae ad
usum Sarum_ have been recovered, for he seems to have used up a copy
for lining his boards, and luckily several books bound about that time
have been preserved. Bradshaw found a curious case of the preservation
of two volumes bound in the same workshop about the same time. In the
library of St John’s College, Cambridge, is a copy of a book printed at
Nuremberg in 1505, which has in its cover some leaves of early Oxford
printing. In the library at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, is an
exactly similar binding on a book printed at Lyons in 1511, which also
contains some early Oxford leaves. Now it is clear that the same man
must have bound these books about the same time, because we find in
both, along with the refuse Oxford leaves, some leaves from one and the
same vellum manuscript.
There is one English binder, who worked before the end of the fifteenth
century, who is distinctly worthy of special mention on account of the
striking originality of his method of decoration and designs. His name,
unfortunately, we do not know, but as one of his most frequently used
dies represents a balance or pair of scales it has been conjectured
that this may be a rebus on his name, such as many binders used, and
that he was called “Scales.” Two volumes executed by this binder are
known, which were done for a certain William Langton, and the centre
panel is ornamented with a rebus on the name Langton, the letters Lang
over a barrel or tun, while the rest of the side is filled up with
little stamps. This Langton may perhaps be identified with the William
Langton who was a prebendary of Lincoln and afterwards of York at the
end of the fifteenth century. Another even more curious binding by this
same man is in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He
has disposed his dies so as to form a large heraldic shield, covering
the whole side of a folio volume, a style of adornment quite unique so
far as I am aware, and as an ornament extremely effective, though I
am afraid the heraldry is hardly sufficiently accurate to enable us to
determine for whom the volume was bound.
The bindings that I have spoken of so far were all produced in a slow
and laborious manner, as each die had to be impressed separately.
Towards the end of the fifteenth century, however, when the printers in
England began to issue books of a small size, a new system of binding
was introduced, by which the labour of the binder was very considerably
lessened, while the amount of decoration applied was increased.
The invention and use of the panel stamp, that is of a large stamp
which should ornament the side of the book with one picture, was a
great step forward. It was a great advantage commercially as it saved
much time, and in some ways it was an advance artistically. By its
means the whole side of the book was ornamented at once, instead of by
a series of dies impressed one after the other. And as the working out
of a binding had ceased to be its main point and the beauty of the die
itself was more emphasised, this invention did away with the building
up of a pattern altogether, and depended entirely on the excellence in
design and workmanship of the stamp. Mr Weale assigns the date 1367 to
the earliest panel stamp known to him, produced by a certain Lambertus
de Insula at Louvain, but this is only because the manuscript on which
it occurs bears that date. Without some further evidence I should be
inclined to think this date rather too early, and would not date any
panel stamp before the fifteenth century.
There is no doubt that the binders of the Low Countries were the
earliest to introduce this style of binding, and they produced very
excellent work; and the earliest panel stamps we find in use in
England are Netherlandish in execution, either used in this country by
foreign workmen, who had come over and settled, or obtained by native
binders from abroad. The earliest stamps were no doubt for the most
part of metal, and therefore practically indestructible, and we know
that they often passed out of the hands of their proper owner and
were used by other binders, even though the name of their original
owner was engraved upon them. As an example I may mention a book-cover
in the Douce collection in the Bodleian, on which two stamps are
impressed side by side. One has the name John Guilibert, the other
the inscription, “Omnes sancti angeli et archangeli dei, orate pro
nobis. Ioris de Gavere me ligavit in Gandavo.” A still more marvellous
example, and one almost certainly bound in England, is in the library
of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. It has on the two covers, besides
innumerable dies, no less than nine panels, two signed Woter Vanduffle,
three signed Martinus de Predio, and four signed Jacobus, illuminator.
The binding almost looks like a sample put out to show a specimen of
every stamp and die in the establishment. The Woter Vanduffle stamp
seems very early. I have in my own collection an English heraldic
manuscript of about the middle of the fifteenth century or slightly
earlier in its original binding impressed with the two panels of that
binder.
In these earliest panels the inscription nearly always runs
perpendicularly, either in the centre of the panel, cutting it in two,
or at the side of the picture. One peculiarly distinctive feature of
the earliest panels is the presence of four indentations, more or less
deep and clearly defined at each corner. These were made most probably
by the heads of the nails by which the metal plate was affixed to a
block before used for stamping. These four marks never seem to occur
in later panels, which, if they have any, have only two, considerably
larger in size, one at the top and one at the bottom. It has long been
a vexed question as to whether these stamps were made of metal or of
wood, but it is probable that both materials were used, and that the
majority of English stamps were of wood. As no heat was applied and
the leather treated when it was damp and soft, a wooden stamp would be
sufficiently strong, and I have found by experiment that soft leather
takes an excellent impression from a wooden block. I have, however,
in my own collection a binding struck from a broken plate, and the
appearance of the break shows clearly that the stamp must have been of
metal.
The earliest definitely English panel stamp is on a loose binding in
Westminster Abbey library. It has on it the arms of Edward IV, with two
small supporting angels. The rest of the binding is covered with small
dies, one in the shape of a heart, the other a _fleur de lys_. It is a
great pity that the book which was in this binding has been lost, as it
might have contained some clue to information about the binding.
Wynkyn de Worde, in spite of his enormous business, does not seem to
have ever used a panel with his name or device, at least so far not
one has been found, but with other printers and stationers the case is
different. Pynson used two panels. One is a copy of one of his devices,
having his initials on a shield with the helmet and crest above, while
around all is a floral border. The other has in the centre a large
Tudor rose, surrounded by intertwined branches of vine leaves and
grapes. This latter panel was a popular one, and several variations of
it are to be found, all of which are probably of the fifteenth century.
The only copy at present known of the Pynson panel with his mark
was acquired not long ago by the British Museum. I had known of the
existence of the copy for some time, as it had belonged to a Manchester
bookseller who had described it to me. He had sold the book, but had
no record of the purchaser, and knew nothing of him further than
that he lived in London. One day while I was working in the Museum
a visitor came in with this identical book and offered it for sale.
The book itself was a copy of the _Abridgement of the Statutes of_
1499. Herbert, in his _Typographical Antiquities_, describes a copy of
the _Imitation of Christ_, printed by Pynson, which was in a similar
binding, and perhaps that may still be in existence; but I am sorry
to say that the collectors at the beginning of the present century
ruthlessly destroyed all old bindings, and would not have anything
on their shelves except bound in morocco or russia by Roger Payne or
Charles Lewis. There is not one single old leather binding in the whole
of the Spencer library, though we know that many of the books when
bought were in their original covers.
[Illustration: BINDING OF FREDERICK EGMONT.]
Frederick Egmont, the stationer about whom I spoke in my last lecture,
had several panels. The first has as its central ornament the Tudor
rose, and round it are vine leaves and grapes. Round the whole is
an arabesque floral border containing the initials and mark of
Egmont. This design was common at the time, there being several other
panels almost identical, one of which was used by Pynson. Another more
important panel is an almost exact copy of the device of Philippe
Pigouchet, the Paris printer. A wild man and woman, standing on
either side of a tree covered with some kind of fruit, bear in one
hand flowering boughs while with the other they assist in supporting
a shield suspended by a belt from the branches above them. Upon the
shield are Egmont’s mark and initials. The device of the wild man and
woman was for some reason very popular at this time and for a short
period afterwards. It was used by Bumgart at Cologne, and at Edinburgh
by Walter Chepman and Thomas Davidson. It was used by Pigouchet
and other Parisian printers, and by Peter Treveris, who printed in
Southwark at the sign of the “Wodows,” and the references to it in
colophons are very numerous. This panel of Egmont’s not only bears his
mark and initials, but is inscribed on the lower margin, “Fredericus
Egmondt me f[ecit].” Three copies only of this binding are known,
a very fine copy at Caius, a poor copy at Corpus Christi College,
Cambridge, and one in my own collection. Books which are stamped on
the front with this panel generally have on the back a plainer panel
containing three rows of arabesques of foliage surrounded by a border,
having ribbons in the upper and lower portion inscribed with the names
of the four Evangelists. This panel not infrequently occurs alone,
without Egmont’s signed panel, and may have been left by him in England
when he returned to France.
Nicholas Lecomte, the other foreign stationer settled in England in
the fifteenth century, and of whom I spoke in my last lecture, also
used panels with his initials and mark. He had not a pictorial panel,
but a formal one of rather Low Country type. The centre of the panel
is divided into two parts, each containing four spirals of foliage
encircling the figures of beasts and birds, while around all is a
border of grapes and vine leaves. At the bottom of the border are the
initials N.C., with a mark which almost exactly corresponds with the
initials and mark found in his device in the books printed for him. A
very fine specimen of this binding is in the University Library.
The majority of the early panels are pictorial, and in some cases they
are very elaborate and ornamental. The pair used by a binder whose
initials were A. R. are especially fine. On one side is the salutation
of Elisabeth with the Almighty and the Holy Ghost above, in the top
corners are the Tudor emblems, the rose and portcullis. Round the whole
is a diaper border with a shield in each corner, one the arms of St
George, another of the City of London, a third with two cross swords,
and a fourth with two cross keys. The panel on the other side has in
the centre St John standing preaching to some people who sit in the
foreground. On the left is St James, on the right King David, while
the lower part is taken up with a picture of David and Bathsheba. This
binding is very rare, and I know of only two examples, one in my own
collection and one in the University Library. This binder had several
other panels; there is one in the University Library with a figure of
St Roche, and there are two on a book at Aberdeen with the Baptism of
Christ, and the Annunciation.
It is curious that the subjects of these panels should have been
invariably religious, scenes from the Bible or pictures of saints, and
that we never find subjects from popular stories. The most frequent
subject of all was, I think, the Annunciation, and then single figures
of saints, St Barbara being one of the most popular. The binder very
often used a panel with a figure of the saint after whom he was named.
Nicolas Spering, who worked at Cambridge, has a panel with the picture
of St Nicholas restoring to life the three children who had been
killed and pickled by the innkeeper. Another binding which is probably
English, though it might be French, has on one side St Barbara with
her palm branch and three-windowed tower, and on the other the Mass of
St Gregory. In the border there occurs a delightful little figure of a
mermaid with a comb in one hand and a looking-glass in the other.
About 1500 a particular pair of panels came into great vogue amongst
the bookbinders. One had upon it the arms of England, supported by the
dragon and greyhound, the other the Tudor rose supported by angels.
Round the rose runs a ribbon with the motto:--
Haec rosa virtutis de celo missa sereno
Eternum florens regia sceptra feret.
In the top corners we generally find shields with the arms of St George
and of London, while in the base below the rose or shield occur the
initials and marks of the binders. This general use of the royal arms
together with the use of the arms of London points, I think, to some
trade guild to which these binders belonged. Foreigners, though they
might still use the royal arms, do not use the City arms, putting
something else in the place, sometimes the French shield, sometimes
merely an unmeaning ornament. It is a very popular but erroneous
opinion held by a great many people that these bindings with the royal
arms were produced for the king, Henry VII or Henry VIII as the case
may be. It would be just as reasonable to imagine that all the shops
with the royal arms over the door were private residences of the king.
Of course, the fiction is kept up in order to increase the price of the
books; “from the library of Henry VIII” looks well in catalogues. Even
in the sumptuous work recently issued on the historic bookbindings in
the Royal Library at Windsor this mistake has been repeated.
A very large number of these bindings exist, all very similar; but
unfortunately, although in many cases they bear the binder’s initials
and mark, we cannot discover his name; on the other hand again we know
the names of many binders, but we cannot identify their work; the
mere fact that the initials on a binding agree with the initials of
a binder’s name does not of necessity determine that the particular
binding was produced by that binder; a good deal more proof is
necessary.
A certain number of these bindings have been settled as the work of
a certain man in another way. When the binder was a printer, or a
stationer of sufficient importance to have books printed for him, then
we can identify the mark on his bindings by means of the mark used in
the books.
For instance, to take an early example. We have bindings by Julian
Notary, the printer, which bear his initials and mark, and the mark, of
course, is the same as the one he uses in his books, while in them his
name is in full. So again the work of Henry Jacobi, an important London
stationer of the early sixteenth century, was traced by the mark which
he uses in some of his books.
We know the names of a considerable number of early binders from the
registers of the grant of letters of denization and other manuscript
sources, but unfortunately we have no link between them and the
bindings. In this country it was not necessary, as it was in some
parts of the Low Countries, to register the design of a binding, and
though many of the Low Country bindings look the same, you will find on
examination that the detail varies and each design was protected.
The binder who is best known in connexion with these stamped bindings
is John Reynes, whose work is by far the most commonly met with, and
who is almost the only producer of stamped bindings mentioned by any
early bibliographer. His best-known panel is called “Redemptoris mundi
arma,” and consists of all the emblems of the Passion arranged in a
heraldic manner upon a shield. Reynes was certainly employed as a
binder by Henry VIII, as we know from early accounts, and so far as I
have seen all the copies of the king’s _Assertio septem sacramentorum_,
which remain in their original binding, were bound by him. It is
fortunate that Reynes put his mark and name in one printed book,
otherwise we should not have been able to identify him as the binder.
He had also two very well-executed panels, one depicting the fight of
St George and the dragon, and the other the Baptism of Christ.
The period during which these panel stamps were produced in England
was roughly the forty years from 1493 to 1534. The passing of the Act
against foreign workmen in the latter year had no doubt a good deal to
do with the falling off of the work, but the invention of a binding
tool called a roll seems to have finally put an end to the use of the
panel. The roll was a tool made in the form of a wheel, which saved a
very great deal of time in ornamenting the sides of a book, and which
was used very widely in England during the sixteenth century. At first
when the roll was broad and well cut, as the earliest examples almost
always were, it produced a very satisfactory appearance, but it soon
became narrower and more finely cut, and therefore showing to much less
advantage on the side of a large book, and finally about the end of the
century its use was almost entirely given up.