CHAPTER VIII. THE ORNAMENTATION OF LEATHER BOOKBINDINGS WITHOUT GOLD.

Blind tooling and stamping--Panel stamps--Cut leather--Stained calf--Cut vellum--Transparent vellum.

The true binding of a book consists of the sewing of the sections on bands, and the covering of leather is really wanted to protect the threads on the outer surfaces of the raised bands.

But this is generally taken for granted, and now when we speak of the binding of a book we normally mean only the outside ornamentation. In short, the term has changed its meaning; so in the remainder of this chapter, when I speak of the “binding” of a book, it is to be understood as the generally accepted meaning: namely, those parts of the leather covering that are visible.

From an artistic and æsthetic point of view we are justified in considering only the final ornamentation of a book binding. We rightly presume that in all great bindings, and even in the case of most good bindings, the technical procedures have all been truly and properly carried out. It is safe to presume this in the case of all bindings made before the latter half of the nineteenth century, but I regret to say that it is not safe to say it of bindings made then and later. There has been much improper use made of false bands, false headbands, “sawn in” backs, bad leather, and scamped sewing of sections even in books costing upwards of a hundred pounds for their bindings.

The consideration of the ornamentation of leather bindings without the use of gold is of itself a large study, and one that has received much attention of late years. In the trade, ornamental outside work is called “finishing,” as distinct from the previous work, which is known as the “forwarding.” As a rule, now, these operations are not done by the same hands, but a finisher does the finishing only and makes it his speciality.

Patterns stamped on leather by means of punches or small dies are found in numbers of early instances on horse trappings, shoes and boots, and accoutrements of various sorts; and almost as soon as it was found out that skins of animals could be rendered soft so as to be wearable, it was also found out that they could be ornamented by patterns cut or impressed upon them.

Such patterns are made when the leather is damp and soft, and on drying they become hard and permanent. Many of the earlier impressions made on leather bindings are done by means of hard styles held in the hand and drawn along the leather. Beautiful Celtic interlacings done in this way are found in the ancient Irish “polaires” or book covers. Others are small ornamental stamps which have been impressed on the leather in the same way as we now make an ordinary seal.

One of the earliest instances of a leather binding with ornamental covers is on a Coptic MS. on papyrus, dating from about the eighth century, which has been originally stabbed, and the pattern is an interlacing one with ornamented fillets, between which are impressions from small cameo stamps. In time special tools were carefully cut in hard wood or metal for the avowed purpose of ornamenting leather bindings. The exact date at which this occurred it is impossible to say.

So far as Europe is concerned, the earliest known blind tooled bindings range from about the twelfth century onwards. Earlier books were either covered with the rich metal and jewelled mediæval work that I have already noticed, or else bound in vellum with ties and without ornamentation.

In England the art of blind tooling reached its highest level from the twelfth to the fourteenth century, and, thanks to the researches of Mr. W. H. J. Weale, there is little doubt that the English excelled in this art. The Germans succeeded best after the English, but German work never approaches the English, either for excellence of general design or for delicacy and beauty of the small engraved stamps. The English work was on goat skin or calf, the German generally on pig skin.

The stamps used in blind tooling--that is to say, without gold--are cut in the same manner as a seal stone is, only that the cutting is much deeper, and in deep places needs no finishing. When this is pressed upon the soft, damp leather, the leather rises up of itself into the deep hollows cut in the stamp, and so a charming, natural, and apparently much studied relief is automatically given. Such stamps are called “cameo” stamps because of this relief.

The general typical arrangements used by England, Germany, and France in planning out the disposition of the stamps is a subject that is deserving of careful attention by any student of blind stamped work. Some valuable plans of these dispositions can be found in Mr. W. H. J. Weale’s _Catalogue of Bookbindings and Rubbings of Bindings in the National Art Library, South Kensington_, and they are well worthy of study.

Roughly, it will be found that the most elaborate of these bindings have come from Durham, London, Winchester, or Oxford, that series of close perpendicular lines of small stamps are characteristic of French early stamped work, and that the marking out of the boards with large lozenges is a German plan. But these types must not be studied alone, as they travelled about freely; the character of the stamps themselves, as well as the leather used, must all receive careful consideration.

London bindings often show perpendicular lines of stamps, sometimes touching, sometimes separate; several of the stamps are round, and others drop-shaped.

The Winchester Domesday Book, now in the library of the Society of Antiquaries, is a beautiful and typical specimen of English twelfth century blind tooling. It is bound in deep brown goat skin, and each side is differently ornamented.

The upper board shows an arrangement of two large circles, largely made up by impressions of the common English drop-shaped stamps. These circles are flanked by two rows of rectangular stamps bearing monsters, and the corners are filled in with circular and drop-shaped stamps.

Durham bindings must be studied at Durham Cathedral, where Bishop Pudsey’s books are kept. They are twelfth century work, and splendid examples. On some of these bindings occur interlacings of basket work designs, borrowed from the East.

One of the most curious English bindings in existence is known as St. Cuthbert’s Gospels. Its history is of great interest. It is a copy of the Gospel of St. John, and is said to have been buried with St. Cuthbert at Lindisfarne in the seventh century. The saint’s coffin was shortly afterwards moved to Durham. The tomb was opened in the reign of Henry I. in 1105, when the little copy of the Gospel was found in it, and removed and kept in the treasury at Durham.

It then passed through many hands, and at last found a home at Liège, whence one of the Jesuit Fathers brought it to Stonyhurst College, where it now is.

The binding is of thin lime wood covered with red leather, the upper board is ornamented with a nearly square central panel bearing a Celtic scroll in raised work. Above and below this are two rectangular panels ornamented with scroll-work impressed with a style and coloured by hand with blue and yellow paint. A narrow border is ornamented with a twisted line painted yellow. On the lower cover is a geometrical design drawn in lines and also coloured yellow.

It is not known what the date of this binding is, and it is likely enough that the extraordinary state of preservation in which it still is may be due either to very careful keeping, or else that the seventh century work has been carefully copied on one or other of the many occasions during which such copy could easily have been made.

Mr. Gordon Duff inclines to about the tenth century, but I should imagine that the most likely time for such a copy to be made was when the tomb of St. Cuthbert was opened in 1105, and the book, then some four hundred years old, was removed. It is likely enough that the authorities of the Cathedral library treasury at Durham would have admired the binding, which was probably much out of condition, and had it carefully copied in new leather.

Even if it were made then, it would still be the earliest decorative English binding left, apart from blind tooled work, and it is undoubtedly a most decorative and effective example. But it is permissible to think and hope that at all events it preserves the colour and designs of the seventh century binding, which was the first cover of the old manuscript.

Another very early English binding, covering a Latin Psalter of the early twelfth century with interlinear Saxon version, is now kept in the British Museum among the Stowe collection.

It is bound in oaken boards nearly an inch thick, the central portion of which is hollowed into a rectangular depression. On the lower board is a bronze figure of our Lord in the attitude of the Crucifixion. The figure has been gilded, but most of the gold has now worn off. The corners have small bosses set in triangular pieces of thin metal, which are impressed with a design of a _fleur-de-lys_ in outline within a circle. The boards are covered with brown leather, much worn and faded, probably deer skin, and the brass fastenings for a clasp still remain _in situ_.

The history of the book is as curious as the book itself; there are several manuscript notes in it, and also much has been written about it.

It appears to be the original book on which our sovereigns took their coronation oath, and it seems to have been so used from the coronation of Henry I. to that of Henry VII.

Powell in his _Repertory of Records_ mentions this as a fact, and it was repeated by Thos. Madox, historiographer, and also by Thos. Astle, Keeper of the Records in the Tower of London, to whom it belonged, and it is believed to have been written and bound for the coronation of Henry I.

From the library of Thomas Astle the little book passed into the possession of the Marquis of Buckingham, and was kept at Stowe in a beautiful Gothic room built for a library. In June, 1849, the Stowe library changed hands and became the property of Lord Ashburnham, and in 1883 it was acquired by the Trustees of the British Museum.

So the coronation book is now the property of the nation, and in company with the greater part of the Stowe library, but the Irish MSS., some of them in beautiful bindings, went to Ireland, where they are now safely kept in the library of the Royal Irish Academy.

Caxton’s styles of binding are not distinctively English in character. The reason for this is that in all probability he brought foreign stamps and styles with him when he returned from Bruges and set up in Westminster in 1477. So the few blind stamped bindings that appear to have issued from Caxton’s workshop bear the diamond-shaped spaces characteristic of foreign work, filled with impressions for cameo stamps, often triangular. Wynkyn de Worde used the same stamps.

White deer skin bindings were used much in England in the fifteenth century; they were unornamented, and usually had small clasps. A fine copy of the Book of St. Albans, in a contemporary binding of this kind, was recently sold by Mr. Quaritch.

A curious treatise in bookbinding, the earliest known, is in the Bibliothèque Nationale; but there are two treatises by John Bagford which may be of about the same date, early in the eighteenth century. These treatises have been published by the Bibliographical Society, and are full of interesting matter. Bagford mentions inscriptions on stone, “slate books,” or diptychs, paste-boards, sewing, headbands, covers, bosses, clasps, horn books, and gives curious rules for collating, folding, and binding.

At Oxford fine blind tooled bindings were produced in considerable numbers. In the fifteenth century Theodoric Rood and Thomas Hunt did fine work, and in the seventeenth, Dominick Pinart and Edward Miles were especially prominent. The main characteristic of early Oxford bindings is the presence of small rectangular stamps closely arranged in rows.

Cambridge has also been notable among English towns for the production of fine blind tooled bindings. The main characteristic of these bindings may, perhaps, be considered to be the existence of rolls on which are variations of the Royal Tudor badges, rose, fleur-de-lys, portcullis, the castle of De Beaufort, and the pomegranate. Larger rolls have devices of monsters, and frequently the initials of the binders may be found.

In the sixteenth century the works of Garrett Godfrey, Nicholas Spierinck and John Siberch are, perhaps, most usually met with. They show the initials of their respective binders.

Blind tooled bindings of French origin are numerous enough, especially those impressed with panel stamps. The main characteristic of early work is the existence of perpendicular lines of blind tooling, but although this peculiarity is oftener found on French work than on any other, it is by no means unknown in bindings made by English and German workmen, so must not be taken as an absolute proof of French origin if unsupported by other evidence.

Late in the fifteenth century the panel stamp was invented in Holland, or the Netherlands, and it soon attained a great measure of popularity. It reached England in the early part of the sixteenth century, and although at first foreign dies were freely used here, in time our native binders made their own.

In France and Germany panel stamps were also popular, used on calf bindings, but I think that in Italy it never made much headway.

The Netherlands panel stamps often have the names of the binders upon them, Bollcaert, Bloc, and many more, and the same valuable information is also often found on French panel stamps of the sixteenth century.

The best known names are André Boule, Jean Moulin, R. Macé, and Denis Roce. All these are plentiful, and are often found in excellent condition. The English panel stamps do not bear names upon them, but they often have initials, but whether it is safe to interpret these is difficult to say. We generally consider that J. R. stands for John Reynes, I. N. for Jean Norins, R. L. for Richard Lant, G. G. for Garrett Godfrey, R. P. for Richard Pynson, and so on; but it is probable, anyhow, that although panel stamps of English design bearing these initials were used here, they were largely of foreign, probably Netherlandish, origin.

In the early sixteenth century in England, heraldry was an important science, and began to show itself as a fertile source of ornamentation of bindings. Many of the panel stamps of the early Tudor period are heraldic. The most interesting of these stamps is one which is found in combination with several others; it seems to be a sort of backbone. The design consists of a large Tudor rose, partly enclosed by ribbon on which is the legend HEC ROSA VIRTUTIS DE CŒLO MISSA SERENO ETERNUM FLORENS REGIA SCEPTRA FERET.

At the side are two angels and in the corners the arms of London and the Cross of St. George.

Then there are numbers of other stamps bearing in the centre the coat-of-arms of Henry VII. and Henry VIII. up to 1526, namely, France and England quarterly, with supporters, the red dragon of Cadwallader and the white greyhound of De Beaufort.

Belonging to the same school of design are fine panel stamps bearing the armorial devices of Anne Boleyn and Queen Katharine Parr.

The question as to whether these stamps are royal or not inevitably occurs to any student, but as with one or two exceptions they carry with them extraneous ornament, such as the sun and moon, and arms of London, I think that any such stamp cannot have been royal, but it is possible enough that when the royal arms alone are found the stamp may have been originally cut for royalty. Such stamps as these are very strong and are not likely to have ever been worn out--indeed, it is curious that instances of unauthorised use of royal stamps is not commoner than it is.

One of the most curious of these panel stamps, not armorial, is one which bears upon it the device of John Reynes. It shows a fancy coat-of-arms on which are the emblems of the Passion, with two unicorns as supporters, a royal helmet, above which are scourges, &c., and a crowing cock, and below on a ribbon the words “Arma redemptoris mundi.” One cannot forget here that Dame Juliana Berners, in the Boke of Cote Armour, declares the Christ was a gentleman of coat armour by right of his mother Mary.

The English panel stamps, as well as rolls, of the early Tudor period often bear the Tudor badges of double or Tudor rose, the fleur-de-lys, and the portcullis of the De Beauforts. These badges are usually crowned.

Panel stamps were cut on latten, a metal alloy resembling brass. The thin engraved plate was fixed on a wooden block by means of two pegs, and the impression was made on the leather either by the use of a hammer or by means of weights, very likely by a combination of both these, methods.

After a time the pegs worked loose, and very frequently panel stamps are found in which the impression from these loosened pegs can be seen.

Many German calf bindings of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries are beautifully ornamented with cut work. The outlines of the designs are cut with a sharp small knife held slantingly, and afterwards worked into shape with blunted tools. The designs upon these bindings are often very fine, and the workmanship is most skilled and effective. The earliest example I know of is elaborately ornamented on the upper board with a groundwork of floral scrolls, and has in the centre the Austrian coat-of-arms supported on an eagle, which is stained black. On a scroll above the eagle are the words “Fridericus rex, etc., 1451” and below it in a long panel the letters “A E I O U,” standing for the proud motto “Austria est imperare orbi universo.” Along the lower edge is cut the name of the binder, “Petrus Ligator.”

Hunting scenes and scenes of religious life are usually found on these early German cut leather bindings, now and then, as in the case of the splendid sixteenth century copy of Ranierus de Pisa’s _Pantheologia_, now in the British Museum, showing a monk at his desk; the borders are ornamented with small stamps. Cut leather bindings are done with consummate skill, and must always have been very costly, so we find that they were, and are, very cleverly imitated by skilfully cut stamps. An example of this is so well done that it has over and over again been described as hand work, but in fact it is only a stamp. German leather workers are still pre-eminent in this small cut manner. At the St. Louis Exhibition of 1904, in the German section there were several examples of cut leather work done in exactly the same way as the fifteenth century work--and quite as good. It is not only used for book bindings but also to cover boxes and small articles, but as we have noted in the case of earlier work, many modern apparently hand-cut German leathers are really only impressions from large panel stamps.

Notable among German bindings are those made by John Richenbach, of Gyslingen, who lettered and dated many of his fine volumes. The dates run from 1467 onwards. There is one fine example in the British Museum; it is like all the rest, in pig skin, and stamped in blind, a little transparent colour being put over many of the stamps. Round the outer borders of the boards runs the inscription in large black letters:

ILLIGATA PER ME IO. RICHENBACH CAPELLANU IN GYSLINGEN, 1475.

All Richenbach’s bindings are still thoroughly strong and good, and the small touch of colour upon them redeems them from the monotony of colour which is so marked in the later German bindings in white pig skin.

German blind tooled bindings are very numerous, as the art was always much liked by German binders, and whereas both in England and in France blind tooling and stamping quickly gave way before the more beautiful and popular art of gold tooling, in Germany the quieter blind work has retained its supremacy. German binders never took kindly to gold tooling, and when they had to do it they generally used bad metal. Most early German gold tooled work is now badly discoloured for this reason.

German bindings in calf are usually designed with a central panel crossed by diagonals at considerable intervals, and in the diamonds thus formed are impressions of various stamps. On white pig skin, however, are to be found the most characteristic of the German blind tooled works. We find large books elaborately ornamented with impressions of finely cut “cameo” rolls, and having a centre panel stamp showing the portrait of some notable person, or a coat-of-arms. The rolls are worthy of much attention, as they are very carefully designed and beautifully cut. They show an infinite variety of designs, and may be roughly divided into two classes, namely, those showing human figures, busts in profile, and those only bearing floral or arabesque designs. Among the former there is a long series of allegorical figures, all with their respective emblems, and often lettered and dated. There are Faith, Hope and Charity; Sweetness, Prudence, Justice; figures of the Evangelists, Christ, David, St. Paul, Lucretia, and heads of the reformers, Luther, Melancthon and Hus particularly.

Some of the German panel stamps are very large, also numerous and finely cut. There are splendidly executed stamps of Charles V. and other distinguished personages, emperors and grand dukes, Rudolf and many others, and others of Luther and Melancthon. Some of these are set in an arabesque framing with a space left in the middle for an insertion. These are found impressed on calf and on pig skin, and the dies of many of them are most beautifully cut.

Several of the later calf bindings, done in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, show an infinite variety of marblings, sprinklings and “tree” patternings, done with one or other of the most appropriate chemicals--potash, soda, oxalic acid--run on when the leather is wet. But one and all of these rot away the surface wherever they touch it, and many of these books can now be found from which the original dyed spots have all entirely disappeared, leaving, however, a little eaten-out depression in every case.

James Edwards, of Halifax, invented a style of ornamenting calf by means of ordinary book stamps loaded with acid. The result is not unpleasing, and such books are known as “Etruscan,” because many of the designs are of classical feeling--little urns, the Greek fret and the like. But Edwards’ little acid burnt designs are only used as accessories; there is plenty of gold work and ordinary blind work upon them as well.

John Whitaker, another eighteenth century binder, went a step further, and drew designs upon his calf bindings with pen or brush. Some of these are very effective, but as a rule they are now showing the effects of time, the original darkest places, where the acid has been most freely applied, suffering first, and showing the pale calf underneath. But a fine specimen of Whitaker’s work is much to be prized. He also used the “Etruscan” style. He had many imitators, but whereas Whitaker’s bindings are generally ornamented with figure drawings, the imitators as a rule preferred easier subjects--ruins or landscapes.

Calf with the rough side outwards, like brown velvet, was used in England from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, sometimes tooled in blind and sometimes in gold.

Vellum was used at Little Gidding. One such book is covered in vellum painted orange colour and overlaid with openwork designs cut in white vellum. It is a harmony of the Gospels. The centre design is circular, and the corners have quarter circles. They are all helped with a little gold tooling.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries several small French and Dutch books were prettily ornamented with vellum cut in openwork patterns. Underneath the open places bits of coloured silk are laid. They are dainty but not very successful, as small edges and points of the vellum are apt to curl up and catch.

James Edwards, of Halifax, invented a curious way of making vellum transparent, and patented it in 1785. The vellum had to be soaked in pearlash and subjected to various processes, pressure among them, and cut very thin indeed, so as to be more like goldbeater’s skin than anything else. Then the books were covered with fine white paper and painted, generally in monotone, but sometimes in colour, and over this painting the transparent vellum was skilfully fixed. The result is that, except when the thin vellum is cracked or seen through, the painting underneath is as fresh as ever it was; but it is to be presumed that there is not much wearing strength in Edwards’ vellum, chiefly because of its extreme thinness. But as a rule any fine examples of his work, especially as they look dainty and precious, have always been well kept and highly valued, and are in good and clean condition. Some modern binders have essayed Edwards’ plan with a certain measure of success.

Impressions of designs in low relief were made on thin leather bindings by means of engraved cylinders in the earlier half of the nineteenth century. They were chiefly used in the small and beautifully illustrated periodicals which were so popular in England--_The Age_, _Friendship’s Offering_, and many more--issued during the earlier half of the nineteenth century and a little after it. Charming designs in cameo are often found in these cases, on paste-boards covered with thin leather, but they are nearly always rubbed badly in projecting places. Some of the best of these designs are by Remnant and Edmonds, Smith Elder & Co., and De La Rue & Co.

BOOKS TO CONSULT.

BAGFORD’S Notes on Bookbinding. (Bibliographical Soc. Proceedings, Nov. 16, 1903.)

BICKELL, L.--Buchereinbände des XV. bis, XVIII. Jahrhunderts aus hessischen Bibliotheken. _Leipzig_, 1892.

BOUCHOT, H.--Les reluires d’Art à la Bibliothèque Nationale. _Paris_, 1888.

DAVENPORT, CYRIL.--Cantor Lectures on Decorative Bookbinding. _London_, 1898.

DAVENPORT, CYRIL.--Early London Bookbindings. _London._ (_The Queen_, 1891.)

DUFF, E. G.--Early Stamped Bindings. (Prideaux, S. T.) _London_, 1893.

GIBSON, S.--Early Oxford Bindings. _London_, 1903.

GIBSON, S.--Some Notable Bodleian Bindings. _Oxford_, 1901-4.

GRAY, G. J.--The Earlier Cambridge Bookbinders. _London_, 1904.

GRAY, G. J.--A Note upon Early Cambridge Binders of the Sixteenth Century. _Cambridge_, 1900.

GROLIER CLUB, New York.--Catalogue of Decorated Early English Bookbindings exhibited ... 1899. _New York_, 1899.

LINDSAY, J. L. (_Earl of Crawford_).--Early Bindings Exhibited at the Society of Antiquaries. _London_, 1886.

WEALE, W. H. J.--Catalogue of Bookbindings ... in the National Art Library, South Kensington. _London_, 1894.