CHAPTER VIII.

CAXTON--WYNKYN DE WORDE--JULIAN NOTARY.

The history of the Introduction of Printing into England is comparatively clear and straightforward; for we have neither the difficulties of conflicting accounts, as in the case of Germany and the Low Countries, nor troublesome manuscript references which cannot be adequately explained, as in the case of France. Previous to 1477, when Caxton introduced the art in a perfect state, nothing had been produced in England but a few single sheet prints, such as the Images of Pity, of which there are copies in the British Museum and the Bodleian, and the cut of the Lion, the device of Bishop Gray (1454-1479), in Ely Cathedral.

There was no block-printing (for the verses on the seven virtues in the British Museum, and formerly in the Weigel Collection, are comparatively late), and with the one exception of the false date of 1468 in the first Oxford book, which we shall treat of later, there is nothing to confuse us in forming an absolutely clear idea of the introduction of the art into England, and its subsequent growth.

William Caxton, our first printer, was born, as he himself tells us, ‘in the Weald of Kent,’ but unfortunately he has given us no clue to the date; probably it was about 1420; and in 1438 he was apprenticed to Robert Large, a mercer of the city of London, who was Lord Mayor in 1439-40. His business necessitated his residence abroad, and he doubtless left England shortly after his apprenticeship, for in 1469 he tells us that he had been ‘thirty years for the most part in the countries of Brabant, Flanders, Holland, and Zetland.’ In 1453 he visited England, and was admitted to the Livery of the Mercers’ Company. About 1468 he was acting as governor to the ‘English Nation residing abroad,’ or ‘Merchant Adventurers’ at Bruges. After some six or seven years in this position, he entered the service of Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, sister of Edward IV. The greater leisure which this appointment afforded him was employed in literary pursuits. In March 1469 he commenced a translation of the _Recueil des Histoires de Troyes_, by Raoul le Fèvre, but it was not finished till 19th September 1471, when Caxton was staying at Cologne.

This visit to Cologne marks an interesting period in Caxton’s career, for it is most probable that it was there he learnt to print. Wynkyn de Worde tells us that the first book printed by Caxton was the _Bartholomæus de proprietatibus rerum_, and that it was printed at Cologne. It has been the general custom of writers to condemn this story as impossible, perhaps without sufficiently examining the facts.

W. de Worde says in his preface to the English edition—

‘And also of your charyte call to remembraunce The soule of William Caxton the first prynter of this boke In laten tongue at Coleyn, hymself to avaunce That every well disposed man may thereon loke.’

Now, there is a Latin edition, evidently printed at Cologne about the time that Caxton was there, in a type almost identical with that of N. Gotz or the printer of the _Augustinus de fide_; and it was in conjunction with a very similar type, in 1476, that the ‘gros bâtarde’ type, which is so intimately connected with Caxton, first appeared. Though Caxton worked in partnership with Colard Mansion about 1475-77, he had probably learnt something of the art before; and, taking into consideration his journey to Cologne, the statement of Wynkyn de Worde, and the typographical connexion between the _Bartholomæus_ and Caxton’s books, we may safely say that the story cannot be put aside as without foundation. It is not, of course, suggested that Caxton printed the book by himself, but only that he assisted in its production. He was learning the art of printing in the office where this book was being prepared, and his practical knowledge was acquired by assisting to print it.

Another Cologne book which may have been printed for Caxton, or produced through his means, is the first edition of the Breviary according to the use of Sarum. Unfortunately we only know of its existence through a few leaves in the libraries at Oxford, Cambridge, Lincoln, and Paris, and have therefore no means of knowing by whom it was printed, or whether it had any colophon at all. It is a quarto, printed in two columns, and with thirty-one lines to the column. Such a book would hardly have been printed without the help of an English stationer,—and who more likely than Caxton?

In 1477 an eventful change took place in Caxton’s career. ‘On June 21, 1476, was fought the bloody battle of Morat between the Duke of Burgundy and the Swiss, which resulted in the ruin of the Burgundian power. In the following January, the Duke, while engaged in a murderous battle at Nanci, was overpowered and fell, covered with wounds, stubbornly fighting to the last. Caxton’s mistress was now no longer the ruling power at the court of Bruges. The young daughter of the late Duke succeeded as the reigning sovereign, and the Dowager Duchess of Burgundy resigned her position at court, retiring into comparative privacy on a handsome jointure. Caxton’s services as secretary would now be no longer required by the Duchess in her altered position.’[31]

[31] _Who was Caxton?_ By R. Hill Blades. London, 1877.

Early, therefore, in 1477, Caxton returned to England, and set up his press in the Almonry at Westminster. On 18th November of the same year he finished printing the _Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophers_, the first book printed in England. Copies of this book vary, some being without the imprint. This was followed by an edition of the _Sarum Ordinale_, known now only from fragments, and the curious little ‘cedula’ relating to it, advertising the ‘pyes of two or three commemorations.’

The productiveness of Caxton’s press in its earliest years was most remarkable, for we know of at least thirty books printed within the first three years. A good many of these, however, were very small, the little tracts of Chaucer and Lydgate containing but a few leaves each. These were the ‘small storyes and pamfletes’ with which, according to Robert Copland, Caxton began his career as printer. On the other hand, we have the _History of Jason_ (150 leaves), _The Canterbury Tales_ (374 leaves), Chaucer’s _Boethius_ (94 leaves), the _Rhetorica Nova_ of Laur: Gulielmus de Saona (124 leaves), the _Cordyal_ (78 leaves), the second edition of the _Dictes or Sayengis_ (76 leaves), and the _Chronicles of England_ (182 leaves).

The starting of Lettou’s press in London, in 1480, may probably account for some of the changes introduced by Caxton in that year. His first indulgence, printed this year in the large type, was at once thrown into the shade by the editions of the same indulgence issued by Lettou in his small neat letter, which was much better adapted for such work. Lettou also in this year used signatures, Caxton doing the same. The competition caused Caxton to make his fount of small type, and to introduce many other improvements. It was about this time that he introduced woodcuts into his books; and the first book in which we find then is the _Mirrour of the World_. The cuts in this volume may be divided into two sets, those given for the first time by Caxton, and those copied from his predecessors. The first are ordinary woodcuts, the second what we should call diagrams. The woodcuts are of the poorest design and coarsest execution. Several are of a master with four or five pupils, others of single figures engaged in scientific pursuits. The diagrams are more or less carefully copied from the MSS.: they are numbered in the table of contents as being eight in