=Typography and Bibliography.=
Old books must be loved, and their idiosyncrasies carefully studied,
before they will yield up _all_ their treasures; that done, the
observant lover will obtain possession of both soul and body; he may
revel in the intellectual feast provided by the author, or he may study
the material and mechanical features of the books as represented by the
peculiarities of paper and the habits and customs of the various
printers. Then, by grouping these as a botanist does his flowers,
according to their organisation into classes, orders, genera, and
species, he may extract from his volumes true replies to questions which
otherwise would remain hidden for ever. So true is the dictum, “The Mind
it is which sees, and not the Eye alone.”
Many bibliophiles, however, of education and taste have been positively
blind when outside the circle of their own particular studies. So it was
with the Rev. Dr. M‘Neille, a well-known critic and book-collector of
sixty years ago. When addressing Dr. Dibdin he wrote thus of “The Book
of St. Albans”—“This book is itself useless, and only a _bon morceau_
for the quizzical collector.” With such feelings towards one of the most
curious works which this country produced during the infancy of the
printing press, it was simply impossible that the interest of its pages
should be revealed to him; and however rich in divinity and _editiones
principes_ of the classics the library of the worthy doctor may have
been, it is evident that our Book of St. Albans could never have been
aught but an alien on _his_ book-shelves.
The works printed by William Caxton were almost without exception in the
English tongue, while the contemporary presses of Oxford, St. Albans,
and Machlinia were nearly all in Latin. Of the eight books at present
known to have been printed at St. Albans, the only two in English were
the “Fructus Temporum” and the work under review. The “Fructus” or St.
Albans’ Chronicle is the same as that printed two years previously by
Caxton, with the addition of certain ecclesiastical events and Papal
chronology, probably added by the printer himself to please the monks.
The Book of St. Albans’ and the St. Albans’ Chronicle make a class of
themselves; but as it is impossible to understand their position without
a glance at the other works from the same press, we will give a
tabulated description of the whole eight.
BOOKS PRINTED AT ST. ALBANS IN FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
┌─┬────────────────────┬─────────┬─────┬─────────┬───────┬─────┬───────┐
│ │ Title of Book. │Language.│Size.│ Date of │ No. of│Type.│Size of│
│ │ │ │ │Printing.│Printed│ │Printed│
│ │ │ │ │ │Leaves.│ │ Page. │
├─┼────────────────────┼─────────┼─────┼─────────┼───────┼─────┼───────┤
│1│Augustini Dacti │Latin │ 4to │ n. d. │ 18│ 1 │5¾ × 3½│
│ │ elegancie │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│2│Laur: de Saona │Latin │ 4to │ 1480 │ 81│ 2–1 │5¾ × 3½│
│ │ Rhetorica nova │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│3│Alberti quest. de │Latin │ 4to │ 1480 │ 46│ 3–1 │5¾ × 3½│
│ │ modo Significandi │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│4│Joan: Canonici │Latin │fol. │ 1481 │ 174│ 3 │ 8 × 5 │
│ │ Quest. sup. Phys. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ Arist. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│5│Exempla sacre │Latin │ 4to │ 1481 │ 83│ 3 │5¾ × 3½│
│ │ scripture │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│6│Ant. Andreæ super │Latin │ 4to │ 1482 │ 335│ 3 │5¾ × 3½│
│ │ Logica Aristotelis│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│7│Chronicles of │Engl. │fol. │ 1483? │ 295│ 2 │ 8 × 5 │
│ │ England │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│8│The Book of St. │Engl. │fol. │ 1486 │ 88│ 2–4 │ 8 × 5 │
│ │ Albans │ │ │ │ │ │ │
└─┴────────────────────┴─────────┴─────┴─────────┴───────┴─────┴───────┘
┌─┬────────────────────┬───────────┬─────────┬─────┬───────┬─────────┬─────┐
│ │ Title of Book. │Signatures.│ Printed │Ink. │Device.│Woodcuts.│Lines│
│ │ │ │Initials.│ │ │ │ in │
│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │Page.│
├─┼────────────────────┼───────────┼─────────┼─────┼───────┼─────────┼─────┤
│1│Augustini Dacti │ none │ none │black│ none │ none │ 36 │
│ │ elegancie │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│2│Laur: de Saona │ signed │ none │black│ none │ none │ 24 │
│ │ Rhetorica nova │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│3│Alberti quest. de │ signed │ none │black│ none │ none │ 32 │
│ │ modo Significandi │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│4│Joan: Canonici │ signed │ none │black│ none │ none │ 44 │
│ │ Quest. sup. Phys. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│ │ Arist. │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│5│Exempla sacre │ signed │ none │black│ none │ none │ 32 │
│ │ scripture │ │ │ │ │ │ │
│6│Ant. Andreæ super │ signed │ none │black│ none │ none │ 32 │
│ │ Logica Aristotelis│ │ │ │ │ │ │
│7│Chronicles of │every leaf │ yes │black│ with │ yes │ 32 │
│ │ England │ signed │ │& red│ │ │ │
│8│The Book of St. │ signed │ yes │black│ with │ yes │ 32 │
│ │ Albans │ │ │& red│ │ │ │
└─┴────────────────────┴───────────┴─────────┴─────┴───────┴─────────┴─────┘
But who was the printer? What was his name? Was he associated with the
great Abbey? and is there any internal or external evidence in his works
to connect him with any other printer or any other town?
The only notice we have of the printer is an accidental one by Wynken de
Worde, who, in reprinting the St. Albans’ Chronicle, says in the
colophon, “Here endith this present Chronicle ... compiled in a book and
also enprinted by our sometime Schoolmaster of St. Alban.” He was a
schoolmaster, then, and this will account for the nature of his early
works, all scholastic and all in Latin. Not till the end of his
typographical career did he realise the fact that the printing press,
instead of being the hobby of a few learned men, was the educator of the
people, the whole nation; and then he gave his countrymen what they
wanted—a history of their own country and a book upon the whole
(secular) duty of the gentleman, as then understood.
The name of the schoolmaster-printer is quite unknown. No notice of him
is found in the records of the Abbey, nor does he appear in any
contemporary document. Yet here, as in Mistress Barnes’s case,
imagination has come to the rescue and a legendary name has been
provided.
Finding that the Prologue to the Book of Hawking began with the words,
“_Insomuch_ as gentle men and honest persons have great delight in
Hawking;” finding also that the St. Alban’s Chronicle from the same
press began thus: “_Insomuch_ as it is necessary;” and bearing in mind
that certain old authors had veiled _their_ names in the first words of
their works, Dr. Chauncy arrived at the sagacious conclusion that the
St. Albans printer wished to veil _his_ name, which really was
“Insomuch.” The joke, for it almost seems like one, does not bear even
the scrutiny which itself invites, for although the schoolmaster uses
the words in two other places, in neither case are they at the beginning
of a chapter.[4] It should be added that in this the worthy historian of
Hertfordshire only followed the lead of both Bale and Pits.
Footnote 4:
On sig. =a j= recto of “Cote Armour” is “Insomuch as all gentleness
comes of God;” and upon sig. =b iij= verso is “Insomuch that in the
fifth quadrat,” &c. The use of the word in these cases could have no
veiled meaning, and it was probably only a peculiarity of diction
which had become a habit with the schoolmaster.
Was he connected with the Abbey? I think not. There is not a word to
suggest such a connection, although we may take it for granted that the
Abbot and his fraternity could not have frowned upon the printer, or he
would never have established himself. His imprints all mention the town
of St. Albans, but never the Abbey, and his position was probably
similar to that of Caxton, who was simply a tenant of the Abbot of
Westminster, but, so far as is known, nothing more.
Was he connected with Caxton and the Westminster press? Without a shadow
of doubt I say, No! Mr. E. Scott, of the MS. department in the British
Museum, has indeed strung together a number of surmises to show that the
Schoolmaster was employed by Caxton, and that all the books without date
or place hitherto attributed to Westminster were really printed at St.
Albans. But internal evidence is against any such gratuitous assumption.
There is nothing in common between the two printers in any of their
habits or customs except the possession of Caxton’s No. 3 type. This is
the only one of Caxton’s types used outside his own office (for W. de
Worde, his successor in house and business, must not be regarded as a
separate printer). Caxton employed it from his arrival in England in
1477 till 1484, when it makes its last appearance in the headings of
“Æsop,” the “Order of Chivalry,” and “The Golden Legend.” In 1485 Caxton
obtained a new fount, similar in shape and character, and from that time
the old No. 3 disappears to make way for the new and smaller type No. 5.
This being more suited to the taste of the day, we find the larger and
worn fount passing over to the country press of St. Albans, where the
Schoolmaster first uses it in 1486, being the identical year in which
its successor appears in Caxton’s “Royal Book.” We may here observe that
after the stoppage of the St. Albans’ Press the same fount finds its way
back again and is seen in W. de Worde’s reprint, in 1496–97, of the two
English St. Albans books. But the discovery of a copy of Caxton’s
Boethius in the old Grammar School at St. Albans, and the numerous
fragments of old books extracted from its covers, are quoted as
confirming the idea. Yet the book itself and all these fragments were
from Westminster, not a single one being from a known St. Albans book,
and they included the Caxton “Chronicles,” 1480, the “Dictes,” 1477, and
the still earlier “Life of Jason;” so that we had better at once remove
the whole Westminster press, dated and undated, to St. Albans, if such
an argument is to have any force. These fragments, indeed, can only
point to the fact that the copy of Boethius was bound in the printing
office, as was commonly the case with the books from Caxton’s press.
Again, Mr. Scott draws attention to the fact that a page of the St.
Albans’ Book, 1486, has been copied by a contemporary writer on to the
blank leaves of one of Caxton’s earliest books. ’Tis true; but this
copying of part of one book into another, printed ten years before, has
no typographical bearing whatever. Lastly, the name Causton appears in
an old St. Albans’ Register of the early part of the fifteenth century.
But this, again, means positively nothing. Caxton’s name was not at all
uncommon; there were Caustons or Caxtons in nearly every English county,
and I have quite a long list of them.
It is highly probable that Caxton, while at Westminster, in the van of
all the literature of his day, would have communications of some sort
with the important town of St. Albans; but that the two printers
assisted one another in the production of books, is, so far as any
evidence goes, a pure fiction.
Let us now glance at the bibliographical aspect of the book.
The work itself has no title. It is difficult in our time, accustomed as
we are to “teeming millions” of books, each with its own title-page, to
conceive a period when the press sent out works without even the shadow
of a title-page. Before the invention of printing, the author simply
headed his first page with the name of the work, as “Here begins the
Confessio Amantis,” or “Hic incipit Parvus Catho,” and, without preface
or more ado, the text commenced. Sometimes even this little notification
was omitted, and, as in Caxton’s “Jason,” “The Chess Book,” “Tulle,” and
many other fifteenth-century books, the subject of the work had to be
learned by reading the text. So it is with the book now under review; it
comprises four distinct works, but to one only is there any heading, and
that has the bare line “Incipit liber armorum.” The first, “The Book of
Hawking,” starts straight off—“This is the manner to keep Hawks,” and
occupies three signatures, =a=, =b=, and =c=, of eight leaves each, and
sig. =d=, which has but four leaves, on purpose that this portion might
be complete alone, if so desired. The same idea controlled the
arrangement of “The Book of Hunting,” which, beginning on sig. =e j=,
ends with Dame Juliana’s “Explicit” on the recto of sig. =f iiij=. This
left the last seven pages of the quaternion to be filled up. Now it was
a common practice, both with the scribes and with the early printers,
when they got to the end of their text and found that a page or two of
blank paper was left, to occupy the blank pages with such common
household aphorisms or popular rhymes as came easily to the memory, or
were at hand in some other book. So here the schoolmaster-printer fills
up his vacant pages with a number of odd sentences and rhymes, most of
which occur over and over again in numerous manuscripts of early poetry.
Among others we notice the well-known:—
“Arise erly,
serue God deuouteli,
and the world besily.”
&c. &c.
Also the folks proverb:—
“Too wyues in oon hous,
Too cattys and oon mous,
Too dogges and oon boon,
Theis shall neū accorde oon.”
Then the list of proper terms to be used by gentlemen and those curious
in their speech is of very common occurrence:—
“An herde of Hertis
An herde of all mañ dere
A pride of Lionys
A sleuth of Beeris.”
&c. &c.
This was evidently copied from some MS., and ends with “¶ Explicit,” and
nothing more. On the next page we have the proper terms for carving or
dismembering beasts, fowls, and fishes, followed on the last leaf by a
list of bishoprics and provinces.
Having thus filled up all his leaves, the printer begins his third
subject on a fresh signature, and introduces the “Liber Armorum” with
the Preface (already printed). A long work on the “Blasing of Arms”
follows, beginning on sig. =c j=, and ending on sig. =f= 10.
This is extremely interesting, both in matter and in the very rude
woodcut representations of armorial bearings with which the text is
profusely illustrated. Except in one or two cases of uncommon tints,
these are all colour-printed, as are the initials to paragraphs. In the
Grenville copy, the pressman having forgotten to roll the “forme,” the
initials all appear in that semi-tinted state which would be the natural
result of such an omission. We notice, too, that where the coats of arms
require, say, three colours on one page, then the initials are also in
three colours; but if only one colour is required for the arms, only one
colour, and that the same, is used for the initials. Occasionally, where
a peculiar colour was necessary, a brush was used to insert that tint by
hand.
In workmanship the St. Albans printer, especially in the English books,
is much inferior to the contemporary issue from the Westminster press.
The types are worse, the arrangement worse, the presswork worse, and the
ink worse. From this point of view alone, the theory that he would print
for Caxton so much better than he did for himself, is not worth serious
consideration.
The Book of St. Albans went through many editions, particulars of which
are difficult to obtain.
1486. The Boke of St. Albans (Brit. Mus.).
149–. By Wynken de Worde “at the sygne of the Sonne.”
1496. By Wynken de Worde (Brit. Mus.).
15—. By W. Powell. “Imprinted at London in Fletestrete at the sygne of
George next to saynt Dunston’s Church by Wyllyam Powell.”
15—. By W. Copland. “Imprinted at London in Flete Street at the sygne
of the Rose Garlande by Wylliam Copland for Richard Tottell”
(Brit. Mus.).
15—. By W. Copland. “In Lothebury” 4to.
15—. By W. Copland. “In saynt Martyns parish in the Vinetre uppon the
three crane wharfe.”
1548? By W. Copland. “Imprynted at London in the Vyentre vppon the thre
Craned Wharfe by Wyllyam Copland.”
1550. By W. Powell. “Hawkynge Huntynge and Fishynge.” 8vo. London.
1551? By Abraham Vele.
15—. By Henry Tab. “Imprynted at London in Paul’s chyrch yarde by me
Hēry Tab” (Brit. Mus.).
15—. By J. Waley. “Imprinted at London in Foster laen by John̄ Waley”
4to.
1561. By Copland. In this year Copland was fined for “a book of
Hawkyng, Huntyng, and fyshynge cōtrary to the orders of this
howse—iiij d” (Herbert, p. 367).
1586. By E. Alde. 4to. (Bib. Dec.).
1590. By John Wolfe “at the sygne of the Gunne.”
1595. By H. Lownes. “The Gentleman’s Academie or the Booke of St.
Albans * * * Compiled by Juliana Barnes in the year from the
incarnation of Christ 1486. And now reduced into a better
method by G. M.” (Gervase Markham). London. 4to. (Brit. Mus.).
1596. By Wolffe.
1596. By Islip. “Hawking Hunting Fowling and Fishing,” by Adam Isllip.
4to.
1596. By E. Alde. “Hawking Hunting Fowling and Fishing,” by Edward
Alde.
1600. By Wolffe.
1606. By Wolffe.
1614. By Helme. “A Jewell for Gentrie by S. T.” 4to. (Brit. Mus.).
1793. “The Book of Cote Armour.” London, 4to, reprinted by J. Dallaway,
with an excellent introduction (Brit. Mus.).
1810. The Boke of Hawking Hunting and Cote Armour. Hazlewood’s reprint.
London. 4to. (Brit. Mus.).
How did the schoolmaster at St. Albans obtain his types? This is a
puzzling question in the present state of palæotypography. Mr. Bradshaw
of Cambridge has, by unwearied study of early printed books, thrown
great light upon the connection and genealogy of numerous founts used by
fifteenth-century printers, and systematic attention to the minute
peculiarities of each printer is doubtless the only way in which those
old books can be forced to yield up their secrets; but the task is
immense, and beyond the powers of any one man to complete. Some day,
however, when the palæotypography of this country, as well as of the
Continental presses, shall have received that full technical and
philosophical analysis which time is sure to bring, the more fortunate
bibliographer of the future will be able with certainty to track the
footsteps and operations of the early typefounders, and will be enabled
to state for certain to what extent Caxton and the St. Albans printer
were their own typefounders, and to what extent and to whom they looked
for outside help. As the case now stands, we can only confess our
ignorance of where the St. Albans types came from.
[Illustration: Fleuron]