Part 14

The printing of books began, not as an independent art, but as an aid to the art of writing. A publisher[103] of London recently described and offered for sale a curious old book, partly printed and partly written, which illustrates the close alliance of labor once maintained between the copyist and the engraver. He describes the book as a folio of 17 leaves of vellum, on which are printed 69 engravings, twelve of them bearing legends, “representing scenes of Christian mythology, figures of patriarchs, saints, devils, and other dignitaries of the church, all colored and illuminated with oxidized gold, impressed in the midst of a manuscript text in German.” The engravings of this book are small, about 3 inches long and 2-1/4 inches broad. They are enclosed by a double border of black lines, and are printed on the left side of the page. The designer of the illustrations was obviously an inexpert, not accustomed to drawing the letters of the inscriptions in reverse order on the block, for some of the letters are turned the wrong way. The engravings were printed before the descriptive text was written. The language of the text, old High German, contains obsolete words which were out of use before typography was invented. Quaritch attributes this [p189] book to unknown monks of Southern Germany, “about the year 1400.” This copy of the _Weekly Meditations_ is a favorable specimen of the combined workmanship of the copyist and the printer; but it is not the only one. Copies or fragments of manuscript books[104] with printed illustrations are in the British Museum, and in many European libraries.

These specimens of book-making during the period of its transition from writing to printing, give us some notions of the estimation in which the process of printing was held by the men who manufactured chap-books. It does not appear that they made use of printing because they thought it was a labor-saving process. They used it mainly, if not entirely, to supplement the deficient skill of the copyist. It was then as it is now—many could write, but few could draw. If the copyist who wrote the text had been competent to draw, the pictures would not have been engraved. Nor would these engravings have been made for one nor even for one dozen copies. We may properly suppose that enough copies were printed to justify the expense of engraving.

While it was expedient to engrave the pictures, it was inexpedient to engrave the text of a book. In many books, the letters constituted the largest part of the work, and to the engraver it was the more difficult part—the expense of engraving would more than offset all the advantages that might have been gained from printing. A full suite of blocks for the text would cost more than the writing of a hundred copies. To the stationer who could sell but few books, xylographic printing was not an economical process: the preliminary cost of engraving was too great. It would be an extravagant estimate to assume that the writer of the _Weekly Meditations_ made one hundred copies of this book; but one [p190] hundred copies would have been an edition much too small to justify the engraving of its text of seventeen pages. We must accept this as the reason why printing was so sparingly used by the early book-makers. They did not engrave blocks and print books, because there were not enough book-buyers to warrant the expense. This feature of printing—its entire dependence upon a very large number of book-buyers—may require a more extended explanation.

The small prices for which all popular modern books and newspapers are sold lead many into the error that printing is, necessarily and under all circumstances, a much cheaper method of making books than that of writing. As compared with writing, presswork, or the operation of impressing the types on the sheet, is much the quicker and cheaper process; but presswork is not the main branch of the art of printing. Before one impression can be taken, or one copy be made, types must be composed or blocks engraved at very great expense. The composition and stereotyping of the pages of an ordinary duodecimo book may be worth six hundred dollars. On an edition of ten copies the cost of such a book would be, for making plates only, sixty dollars per copy. If there were but one hundred copies, the expense of the plates would be six dollars per copy. Under these conditions few books would be published. But if an edition of one thousand copies should be printed, the cost of the plates would be only sixty cents a copy. In this instance, printing would be much cheaper than writing, but this reduced rate would not necessarily justify the expenses of printing. The risk of sale must be hazarded. No publisher would undertake at his own risk to print even one thousand copies,—much less a smaller number,—if he did not fully believe that the edition could be promptly sold. But the early book-maker did not have this confident belief in large and speedy sale. There were, comparatively, few book-buyers, and the publication of a book by the method of engraving and printing must have seemed very hazardous speculation. [p191]

It can be clearly seen that the cost of printing a book is in inverse ratio with the number printed. When the number is small, the cost per copy is great; when the number is great, the cost per copy is small. Printing is an economical process only for books of many copies. If there were not a very great number of book-readers and book-buyers, printing could not be practised to advantage.

In the fourteenth century this multitude of book-readers had not been created. One hundred copies would have been considered a great edition, and the engravers or printers who took such a hazard would have waited many years for purchasers. Their unwillingness to take an unwise risk has been often regarded as an evidence, not of their sagacity, but of their stupidity. There are writers who have taught that the project of a printed book was a grand conception, not to be imagined by any but a great inventor—an idea far above the capacity of any printer of playing cards or images; but the legends in the image prints teach us that the early engravers knew how to engrave the letters, and that they could have engraved entire books of letters if they had thought it expedient. The advantages or disadvantages of engraving books were considered by them as they would be by publishers of our own time, purely as an economical question. The early engravers decided that books of letters could be appreciated, and would be purchased, only by the educated, a class too small to reward the labor of the engraver. For the making of books, printing was not regarded as an economical process, and books were consequently made by the cheaper process of writing.

While it was unprofitable to engrave letters for books, it was profitable to engrave designs for printed fabrics, images and playing cards. On work of this character, the relations of cost and sale were completely reversed. The expenses for engraving one design, one image, or one suite of cards, was small; but the sale of the work printed from the blocks was generally very large. Fabrics that could be worn, cards that [p192] could amuse, and images that would serve as decorations or as aids to devotion, had attractions for all people, and especially for the poor and illiterate. Whoever printed merchandise of this nature could rightfully expect that it would be sold in such large quantities that the cost of engraving would be inappreciable.

The world was not ready at the beginning of the fifteenth century to apply its knowledge of printing with ink to the making of books. It was regarded as too expensive a process. It bided its time, waiting for more readers and book-buyers, for paper in greater supply and of better quality, for higher skill on the part of the engravers, printers and ink-makers. If there were no other evidences than those afforded by the partly printed and written books, it could be safely assumed that when the early engravers did begin to print books, they would be, not books of letters, but books of pictures.

[p193]

XI

Block-Books of Images without Text.

General Appreciation of Pictures . . . Beginning of the Block-Books . . . Popularity during the Fifteenth Century . . . Neglected afterward . . . Childish in Character . . . The Bible of the Poor . . . Its Age as a Manuscript . . . Its Popularity . . . The First Edition . . . Its Designs and Engravings . . . Explanations of Fac-similes . . . Description of Printing . . . Not Printed by the Frotton . . . Anachronisms in Design . . . Dissimilarity of the Copies . . . Blocks destroyed in 1488 . . . Price of Copies . . . Description of German Edition of 1470 . . . The Apocalypse . . . Description of Illustrations . . . Probably of German Origin . . . The Canticles . . . Description of Fac-simile . . . Its Anachronisms . . . Its object . . . Quality of Engraving . . . The Story of the Blessed Virgin . . . Its Object . . . Description of Fac-simile . . . Its Absurdities . . . Exercise on the Lord’s Prayer . . . Description of Fac-simile . . . Singular Perversion of the Prayer . . . The Book of Kings . . . Description and Fac-simile . . . The Grotesque Alphabet . . . A Mysterious Book . . . The Apostles’ Creed . . . The Eight Rogueries.

* * * * *

I presume that nothing is in this life more useful to a man than to acknowledge his Creator, his condition, his own being. Scholars may learn this from the Scriptures, and the laymen shall be taught by the books of the laymen, that is by the pictures. Wherefore I have thought fit, with the help of God, to compile this book for laymen to the glory of God, and as an instruction for the unlearned, in order that it may be a lesson both to clerks and to laymen.

_Preface to the Speculum Salutis._

* * * * *

The sumptuary laws of the middle ages, which were made to restrain common people from imitating the dress and equipage of the nobility, were not extended to the making of books. The copyist or calligrapher was at liberty to decorate books according to his own fancy. There was no occasion for restrictive legislation. The admirable romances and books of prayer upon which the miniaturist had lavished his talents were beyond the skill of the vulgar copyist and beyond the means of the plebeian book-buyer. Only an artist could paint them; only a prince or patrician could buy them. But these books, although far removed from the multitude by price and rarity, were not above the capacity of the ordinary reader. The illiterate man who could find no attraction in a book of letters would readily acknowledge the charm of the pictures [p194] in a book like the _Bedford Missal_. In this universal appreciation of pictures, some of the early engravers of cards and images saw an opportunity. Men who would not buy books of letters would buy books of pictures. Books of the latter class were not only sure of sale, but they could be engraved on blocks at a comparatively small expense. They could be printed in quantities much more cheaply, and, above all, with more accuracy and uniformity than they could be drawn by hand. They could be painted or illuminated by stencil plates, and made acceptable to men of simple tastes. Here was the beginning of the block-books.

The term Block-Book is used to define the book printed entirely from engraved blocks, in contradistinction to the book printed from movable types. Bibliographers divide the block-books in two distinct classes: books of pictures without text, in which words descriptive of the picture are engraved at the foot of the page, or in cartouches proceeding from the mouths of the principal figures; and books of pictures with text, in which the explanations of the pictures are given in the form of a full page of text, which was commonly printed on the page opposite the picture.

It is admitted by all writers on typography that block-books of both classes were made before and after the invention of typography. That they were manufactured in large quantities by many printers, and in many cities or towns, during the fifteenth century, does not admit of doubt. It is claimed by one bibliographer that there are eight editions of the _Ars Moriendi_; by others, that there are six editions each of the _Bible of the Poor_ and of the _Apocalypse_, and four of the _Mirror of Man’s Redemption_. In some instances, the so-called later editions are reprintings, with slight alterations, of the same blocks that were used for the first edition; in other instances, the later editions were printed from blocks newly engraved. The number and variety of the editions are proof that there must have been a very large demand for the books; the alterations in the engravings are presumptive evidence of [p195] repairs to blocks badly worn by long use; the newly engraved blocks are evidently the replacement of a suite completely worn out; an edition different from the others in design may be accepted as the work of a rival or competing printer.

The few block-books known in the seventeenth century were regarded by bibliographers as prejudicial to the claims of contestants for the honor of the invention of typography. They were annoying facts which could neither be rejected nor accepted without hurt to favorite theories. There was a disposition on all sides to belittle them in number as well as in importance. The first writer who called attention to their value as relics could describe but nine block-books. Sotheby, writing about them in 1858, described in the _Principia Typographica_ twenty-one block-books—not different editions of a few books, but twenty-one distinct works. Even with these additions, the list cannot be considered complete: it is possible that more will yet be found, but it is certain that many have been irretrievably lost.

The neglect of the block-books by early librarians seems almost justifiable when we consider their great inferiority to the typographic books that followed them. From a literary point of view, they were of no importance as works of instruction or authority. They were published during the fifteenth century, but they really belong to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, during which period most of them were composed. The legends that explain their illustrations were written in Latin, but they are adapted to readers in a child-like state of development. It is not strange that they should have been put aside by the world when it had outgrown them. Childish as these books are, they are of high value to those who wish to note the growth of printing. They indicate the attainments of their authors and readers, and the artistic abilities of their designers and engravers. They show the quality of the paper, ink, and workmanship of the period. They prove that the art of printing from blocks was practised by many persons during the second and third quarters of the fifteenth century. [p198]

THE BIBLIA PAUPERUM, OR BIBLE OF THE POOR.

This is the most famous and the most creditable specimen of the early block-book.[105] The title, _Bible of the Poor_, seems to have been used at an early period to distinguish it from the Bible proper, a fair manuscript copy of which was sold in France, in the year 1460, for five hundred crowns of gold. The Bible proper, as then made, in two or more stout folio volumes of fine vellum, was the Bible of the rich; its epitome, in the shape of the book of forty pages of engravings, about to be described, was the Bible of the poor.

The author of the _Bible of the Poor_ is unknown, but the designer of the illustrations was not the writer of the texts that explained the designs. There are frequent incongruities between the words and the pictures, which fully show that the author did not always understand the intent of the artist. It is probable that the illustrations were made first, and that, in the beginning, the _Bible of the Poor_ was a book of pictures only.[106] Some German antiquarians say that the book, in its [p199] original form, was designed and explained by a monk named Wernher, who was living in 1180, and was famous during his lifetime both as a painter and a poet. Other German authorities put the origin of the first manuscript as far back as the ninth century, attributing the work to Saint Ansgarius, first bishop of Hamburg. It seems to have been a popular manuscript, for copies written before the fifteenth century have been found in many old monasteries. These copies are not alike. Nearly every transcriber has made more or less alterations and innovations of his own; but the general plan of the book—the contrasting of apostles with prophets, and of the patriarchs of the Old Testament with the saints of the Christian Church—has been preserved in all the copies.

At least four distinct xylographic editions—two in Latin and two in German—of the _Bible of the Poor_ have been discovered. Three of them were printed in Germany after the invention of typography.[107] The edition acknowledged as the first,[108] and supposed to have been printed before the invention of types, is in Latin, without date, place, or name of printer. Those who favor the theory of a German invention of printing say that it was printed in Germany between the years 1440 and 1460. Those who believe in the priority of Dutch printing say that it must be regarded as the work of some printer of Holland. This is the opinion of Berjeau, who republished the book in fac-simile. He says that the designs for the original editions must have been made in the Netherlands, probably by Van Eyck, between 1410 and 1420. [p200]

The illustration on the preceding page, which is the exact size of the original, gives a faithful representation of the last page of the first edition of this curious book.

Unlike most of the block-books, the _Bible of the Poor_ was designed with architectural symmetry. An open frame-work divides each page in nine distinct panels or partitions, five of which are devoted to pictorial illustrations, and four to their explanation in words. The three large panels in the middle of the page illustrate historical subjects drawn from the Bible, of which the central panel is, in theological phrase, the _type_, and is taken from the New Testament. The pictures on either side are known as the _antitypes_, and are oftenest taken from the Old Testament. The texts that explain the pictures are placed in the corners of the page, or in scrolls near the figures.

To most readers the explanatory text is undecipherable. The obscurity is not only that of a dead language: a trained Latin scholar will always grope and often stumble in attempting to make a translation. All the letters are carelessly drawn and cut; the words are badly spaced, and are deformed with abbreviations. These faults appear more noticeable when the letters are contrasted with the designs. Whoever designed the figures on the wood drew with the bold and free hand of an artist who had proper confidence in his ability. Whoever engraved the figures cut the clean firm line that can be made only by an expert. But the cutting of the letters, although probably done by the engraver of the figures, is really barbarous. It is obvious that the designer, skillful as he was with figures, had no experience in drawing letters, and that the engraver was equally unsuccessful at a new kind of work.

The text and translation appended are the version of Dr. Horne, author of the _Introduction to the Study of Bibliography_, who has corrected the contractions of the original Latin. It is copied from the _Typographia_ of Hansard.

Each page contains four busts—two at the top, and two lower down; together with three historical subjects. The two upper busts represent certain prophets, or other eminent persons, whose names are [p201] added beneath them. Of the three historical subjects, the _chief type_, or principal piece, is taken from the New Testament, and occupies the centre of the page, between the two _antitypes_, or subordinate subjects, which are allusive to it. The two busts, placed in the middle of the upper part of the page, represent David and Isaiah between two texts of the Bible, with brief explanations. The former of these, on the left of the Prophets, is from the Song of Solomon, Chapter iv, 7:

‹f›Legitur in Cantico Canticorum, quarto capite, quod sponsus alloquitur sponsam, et eam sumendo dixit: Tota pulchra es, amica mea, et macula non est in te. Veni, amica mea, veni, coronabere. Sponsus verus iste est Christus, qui in assumendo eam sponsam, quæ est anima sine macula omnis peccati, et introducit eam in requiem æternam; et coronat cum corona immortalitatis.‹/f›

In the fourth chapter of the Song of Solomon it is read, That the bridegroom addresses the bride, and receiving her, says, Thou art all fair, my love, and in thee is no spot. Come, my love; come, thou shalt be crowned. The real bridegroom is Christ, who, in receiving the bride, which is the soul without spot of sin, also conducts her to eternal rest, and crowns her with the crown of immortality.

The second passage, on the right of David and Isaiah, is partly taken from the Book of Revelation, and runs thus:

‹f›Legitur in Apocalypsi xxiº capite, quod angelus Dei apprehendit Jhoannem Evangelistam cum esset in Spiritu, et volens sibi ostendere archana Dei, dixit ad eum, Veni, et ostendam tibi sponsam, uxorem agni. Angelus loquitur ad omnem generationem ut veniant ad auscultandum in sponsum, agnum innocentem Christum animas innocentes coronantem.‹/f›

In the twenty-first chapter of the Revelation it is read, That the Angel of God took John the Evangelist when he was in the Spirit, and willing to show him the mysteries of God, said to him, Come, and I will show thee the bride, the wife of the Lamb. The Angel speaks to every generation, that they come and hearken to the bridegroom, the pure Lamb Christ, crowning innocent souls.

Under the bust of David, which is indicated by his name, is a scroll proceeding from his hand, inscribed:

‹f›Enim tamquam sponsus dominus procedens de thalamo suo.‹/f›

Even as a bridegroom cometh out of his chamber. Ps. XIX, 5.

Beneath the corresponding compartment containing a bust of Isaiah, is the word _Ysaye_, and also the ordinal number LXI, referring to the sixty-first chapter of that prophet; and from the hand of the figure proceeds a label containing:

‹f›Tamquam sponsus decoravit me corona.‹/f›

As a bridegroom, he hath adorned me with a crown. LXI, 10.

Toward the bottom of the plate are two other busts, similar to those at the top, and which represent the Prophets Ezekiel and [p202] Hosea. From the figure that occupies the left-hand compartment extends a scroll, at one end of which is the word _Œzeciel_, with a number referring to the twenty-fourth chapter; and in the other part are the words:

‹f›Corona tua capite ligata fiet, et calciamenta in pedibus.‹/f›

Thy tire shall be bound upon thine head, and thy shoes upon thy feet. XXIV, 17.

The corresponding scroll, attached to the other figure, contains, at one end, _Ozee_, with a reference to the second chapter; and in the other part are the words:

‹f›Sponsabo te mihi in sempiternum.‹/f›

I will betroth thee unto me forever. II, 19.

In the central compartment, between the upper and lower busts, is depicted the Type, or principal subject. It represents the reward of righteousness in heaven; the designer having introduced the Redeemer as bestowing the Crown of Life upon one of the elect Spirits. The antitype, on the left, is the Daughter of Zion crowned by her spouse, with the following leonine verse underneath:

‹f›Laus anime vere,‹/f› ‹f›Sponsum bene sensit habere.‹/f›

O soul divine! it rightly knew, To have the spouse was glory true.