Part 19

The limitations of xylography are plainly set forth in this review of the more famous block-books. During the first half of the fifteenth century, labor was cheap, skill in engraving was not rare, paper was in abundant supply, the art of block-printing was known all over civilized Europe, and there was a growing demand for printed work, but this rude art of block-printing was limited to the production of pictures. It was never applied to the production of books of size or merit. The _Wonders of Rome_, with its text of one hundred and sixty-eight pages, is its most ambitious attempt; but large as this work may seem when it is put in contrast with other block-books, it is really insignificant when compared with the works of the first typographers.

[p264]

XIV

The Speculum Salutis, or the Mirror of Salvation.

Its Popularity as a Manuscript Book . . . Made for Mendicant Friars . . . Description of the Text . . . Fac-similes of Wood-cuts on First and Last Pages . . . Its Curious Theology . . . Four Editions of the Book . . . Their Peculiarities . . . Twenty Engraved Pages in one Edition . . . Strange Blemishes . . . Opinions of Bibliographers concerning the Date and Printer . . . Text of the Book Printed from Types . . . Fac-simile of the Types . . . Different Bodies of Types in Different Editions . . . Engraved Pages were Transferred from Types . . . Book Printed in Four Kinds of Ink . . . By Two Methods of Impression . . . Types and Cuts could not be Printed together . . . Opinions about the Quality of the Presswork . . . Strange Faults of Presswork . . . All Editions were Printed in Holland . . . Wood-cuts used for the last time by Veldener in 1483 . . . Not Probable that Veldener Printed the Earlier Editions . . . Veldener did not use the Types . . . The Speculum is the Work of an Unknown Printer.

* * * * *

Everything about the book is uncertain. It may be that the book was printed from engraved blocks. There are persons who say that it was engraved; there is a librarian who says that it was written by hand. . . . . I submitted the book to a type-founder, to an engraver, and to a printer, who decided that the book was printed with movable metal types that had been cast in a mould.

_André Chevillier._

* * * * *

The _Speculum Salutis_[132] was popular as a manuscript for at least two centuries before the invention of typography. Heineken describes a copy in the imperial library of Vienna, which he attributes to the twelfth century. He says, such was the popularity of the work with the Benedictines that almost every monastery possessed a copy of it. Of the four manuscript copies owned by the British Museum, one is supposed to have been written in the thirteenth century, another copy is in the Flemish writing of the fifteenth century. The printed [p265] book contains forty-five chapters of barbarous Latin rhymes, the literary merit of which is clearly enough set before us in Chatto’s faithful translation of four lines of the preface:

‹f›Predictum prohemium huius libri de contentis compilaui‹/f› ‹f›Et propter pauperes predicatores hoc apponere curaui‹/f› ‹f›Qui si forte nequierunt totum libri sibi comparare‹/f› ‹f›Possunt ex ipso prohemio si sciunt historias predicare.‹/f›

This preface of contents, stating what this book’s about, For the sake of all poor preachers I have fairly written out. If the purchase of the book entire should be above their reach, This preface yet may serve them, if they know but how to preach.[133]

In many features, the _Speculum_ resembles the _Bible of the Poor_. As the designs are in the same style, and as the engravings show the same mannerisms, it has been supposed that both books were made by the same printer; but this conjecture is opposed by many facts and probabilities.

The illustration at the beginning of this chapter is a fac-simile of the upper part of the first pictorial page. In the compartment to the right may be seen the Fall of Lucifer. The rebellious angels having been transformed into devils, and by swords and spears thrust over the battlements of Heaven, are falling into the jaws of Hell, which is here represented, in the conventional style of medieval designers, as the mouth of a hideous monster filled with forks of flame. In the next compartment is the Creation of Eve in the garden of Eden. Here we see that the designer has modified the biblical narrative to suit his own notions: Eve is not formed from the rib of Adam, but is emerging from his side. At the bottom of this picture is this legend in abbreviated Latin, God created man after his own image and likeness. [p267]

An illustration on the last page of the book represents the Parable of the Ten Virgins, to which is added the legend, The Kingdom of Heaven is likened unto Ten Virgins. The five foolish virgins are sadly descending into the mouth of the monster that represents Hell. Another illustration represents the prophet Daniel interpreting the writing on the wall.

Hessel’s free translation of a large portion of the preface is really needed to show the theological teachings of the book.

This is the preface of the _Spieghel onser behoudenisse_, which will teach many people righteousness, and to shine as the stars in eternal eternities. It is for this reason that I have thought of compiling, as an instruction for many, this book, from which those who read it will give and receive instruction. 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 layman 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. It will be sufficient to explain the matter briefly. I mean first to show the fall of Lucifer and the angels. Then the fall of our first parents and their posterity. Thereupon, how God delivered us by his assuming flesh, and with what figures he whilom prefigured this assuming. It is to be observed that many histories are given in this work, which could not be explained from word to word, for a teacher does not want to explain more of the histories than he thinks necessary for their meaning. And in order that this may be seen better and clearer, I give this parable. . . . . There was an abbey, in which stood a large oak, which, on account of the narrowness and smallness of the town, they were compelled to cut down. When it was cut down, the workmen came together, and each of them chose whatever he thought would suit his trade. The smith cut off the undermost block, which he thought suitable for a forge; the shoemaker took the bark for making leather; the swineherd, the acorns for feeding pigs; the carpenter, the straight wood for a roof; the shipwright, the crooked wood; the miller digs the roots up, as they are fit, on account of their solidity, for the mill; the baker uses the thin twigs for his oven; the sexton of the church, the leaves for decorating the church at festivals; the butler, the branches for barrels and mugs; the cook, the chips for the kitchen. . . . . Just now, as here every one chose his liking from the hewn tree, so they do with Holy Writ. The same method has been followed regarding the histories which will be explained. Every teacher collects from them what he thinks proper and useful. I shall follow the same way with regard to this work, leaving out altogether some part of the histories, that it may not offend those who will hear and read it. Let us also observe that Holy Writ is like soft wax, which assumes the shape of all forms impressed upon it. Does, for instance, the stamp contain a lion? the soft wax will contain the same; and if it bears an ear, the soft wax will bear the same figure. So one thing signifies, sometimes the Devil, and sometimes Christ. However, we ought not to be astonished at this manner of the Scriptures, for divers significations may be ascribed to the divers performances of a thing or a person. When David, the king, committed both adultery and [p269] man-slaughter, he represented not Christ but the Devil. And when he loved his enemies, and did them good, he bore within him the figure of Christ and not of the Devil. . . . . This is why I have noticed these remarkable things here, for I thought it useful to those who study the Holy Scriptures, that they should not judge me, if they happened to find such things in this book, for the manner of translation and exposition is so. O good Jesus, give me works and a Christian devotion which may please thee.

* * * * *

Equally curious is the explanation of the marriage of the mother of God with Joseph. It appears from this, that it was not thought superfluous to justify a fact somewhat strange in regard to the doctrine of the supernatural incarnation of the second person of the Godhead. The author of the _Speculum_ assigns eight reasons for this marriage. The first was, that Mary should not be suspected of unchastity; the second, that she might want the help of a man during her travels as well as elsewhere; the third, that the Devil might not become aware of the incarnation of Christ; the fourth, that Mary could have a witness of her purity; the fifth, that God wished that his mother should be married; the sixth, to prove the sanctity of marriage; the seventh, to prove that marriage is no impediment to blessing; the last, that married people should not despair of their salvation. Catholicism had already brought the world to the possibility of that despair. Van der Linde, _Haarlem Legend of the Invention of Printing_, p. 4.

The _Speculum_ was printed at different times and places during the fifteenth century,[134] but the copies of greatest value are those which belong to four correlated editions—two in Latin, and two in Dutch—all without date, name, or place of printer. In these four editions the illustrations are obviously impressions from the same blocks; but each edition exhibits some new peculiarity in the shape or disposition of the letters. Those who favor the theory of an invention of typography in Holland maintain that these letters are the impressions of the first movable types, and that the curious workmanship of the book marks the development of printing at the great turning-point in its progress when it was passing from xylography to typography. As important conclusions have been drawn from the peculiarities of each edition, it is necessary that they should be described with precision. The order in which the four editions were actually printed is not certainly known. Six eminent bibliographers have arranged them in as many different orders. The order assigned to them here [p270] is purely conjectural, but it is based on the supposition that that should be the first edition in which the wood-cuts show the sharpest lines, and that the last in which the types and wood-cuts show the strongest marks of wear.

The _First Edition_ is in Latin. Each copy of the book is made up of sixty-three leaves of small folio printed upon one side of the paper, but with printed pages facing each other, after the style of the block-books. The space occupied by the printed page is about 7-3/4 inches wide, and 10-1/4 inches high. The preface, in rhyme, is composed in broad measure, and occupies five pages. The fifty-eight pages of text that follow are also in rhyme; but they are made up with two columns to the page. At the top of each page is an engraving on wood, containing, on one block, two distinct designs, separated from each other by the pillar of an architectural frame-work. At the bottom of each design, and engraved upon the same block, is a line in Latin, which explains the design, and which serves as the text for the verses underneath. The letters of the preface and the text are impressions from Pointed Gothic types of the Flemish style. Every line of verse begins with a capital letter. The only mark of punctuation is the period, but it is rarely used. The book is without title, paging-figures, signatures, or catch-words. The wood-cuts are in brown, and the types in black ink. The brown ink is a water color which can be partially effaced by rubbing with a moist sponge; the black ink is an oil color, for it has stained the paper with the pale greenish tinge of badly prepared oil. As the back of every printed wood-cut is smooth and shining, while the back of every type-printed page is rough and deeply indented, it is obvious that the types of the text were not only printed with a different ink, but by a separate impression, and, perhaps, by a process different from that employed in printing the pictures. The two pages that appear on the same sheet were printed together, as may be inferred from their irregularities; if one page is out of register, or out of square, its mated page is out of register to the same degree. The engravings were printed [p271] before the types, as is clearly proved by the discovery that on some pages the types slightly overlap the cuts.[135]

The _Second Edition_ is in Latin, and is like the first, with this odd exception: twenty pages of the text are printed from engraved blocks of wood. These xylographic pages are distributed in irregular order, as if by accident, as will be shown by the italic figures, which represent these pages, in the following table.

First Second Third Fourth Fifth Section Section of Section of Section of Section of of Six Fourteen Fourteen Fourteen Sixteen Leaves. Leaves. Leaves. Leaves. Leaves.

–5 . _6–19_. 20–33 34–47 48–63 1–4 . _7–18_. ._21–32_. 35–46 49–62 2–3 8–17 ._22–31_. 36–45 50–61 . _9–16_. 23–30 37–44 ._51–60_. ._10–15_. 24–29 38–43 52–59 ._11–24_. 25–28 39–42 53–58 ._12–13_. ._26–27_. 40–41 54–57 55–56

It should be noticed that the xylographic pages, as well as the typographic pages, are always found in couples. The types are those of the first edition, but there are [p272] variations in the composition and spelling of words, which prove that they must have been recomposed for this edition.

The _Third Edition_ is in Dutch prose. The types are like those of the previous editions, with the exception of pages 49 and 60, which are printed in types of a smaller body. The face of the smaller types has all the peculiarities of the types of the earlier editions, and is apparently the work of the same letter-cutter. In the few known copies of this edition there are differences in typographic arrangement which show that types were altered between the first and the last impression.

The _Fourth Edition_ is also in Dutch prose. All known copies of this edition are so badly printed that they have the appearance of spoiled or discarded sheets. Many authors have supposed that this must have been the first edition, and, perhaps, the first experiment with types; but a closer examination proves that the bad printing is owing, not so much to ignorance and to inexperience as to worn types and careless presswork—that this edition is really the last. The copy that is preserved by the city of Haarlem shows, in the handwriting of the sixteenth century, this inscription in Dutch: “The _Speculum Salutis_, the earliest production of Lourens Coster, the inventor of typography, who printed at Haarlem about the year 1440.” Between the second and the third leaf has been inserted a portrait of Lourens Coster, “engraved by Vandervelde after Van Campen,” with the words, in Latin, “Lourens Coster, of Haarlem, first inventor of the typographic art about the year 1440.” Underneath this inscription is a Latin verse by Scriverius, in which he extols Coster as indisputably the inventor of typography. As the writing, the portrait, and the inscription were added a long time after the book had been printed, these additions cannot, consequently, be accepted as evidences of any real value.

Junius, the historian of Holland, writing in 1568, was the first to call attention to the _Speculum_. He noticed but one edition: it is not probable that he knew of the others. He said it was made by Coster from types of wood, in Haarlem, [p273] before the year 1440. Scriverius, a Dutch author, writing in 1628, said that it was printed by Coster from founded or cast types in or about 1428. Heineken, a German bibliographer, intimates that the blocks of the _Speculum_ were engraved, and that the two Latin editions were printed in Germany after the invention of typography; but he concedes, rather grudgingly, that the Dutch editions were printed in Holland. Santander says that the book was printed in the Netherlands, but not before the year 1480.

The disagreements of bibliographers concerning this book have not been restricted to controversies about its date and printer. Some have said that there were no types in any of the editions, and that the letters, like the pictures, were cut on solid blocks of wood. This error is almost pardonable. The superficial observer of our own time will say that the characters of this book are not types, but badly engraved letters. They seem to lack the most distinguishing feature of types. The letters are not at all alike, as may be seen in the accompanying fac-simile. The variations in the shapes of the letters are so frequent that a modern printer would at once decide that the dissimilar letters could not have been cast in the same matrix. This is a curious defect, but it can be shown that the letters are types, and founded types. “The existence of a positive fact,” says Chatto, “can never be affected by any arguments which are grounded on the difficulty of accounting for it.” It is plain, however, that the types of the book were carelessly made by an inexpert type-maker, and perhaps by a clumsy method now out of use. Instead of making all the types of one character from one punch or original, the printer of this book made them from two, four, or six punches or originals. At this point it is not necessary to consider why so many punches were made. It is enough to say that there is real uniformity in the midst of all this diversity—that each letter is a duplicate, more or less faithful according to the wear it has received, of its own original. Careful tracings on transparent paper have been repeatedly made of a selected letter [p274] for the purpose of testing its agreement or disagreement with letters of the same kind on other pages, and the comparison establishes the fact that the letters are founded types.[136]

The errors of the _Speculum_ are those of types. They show the inversion of letters in positions which preclude the possibility that they could have been formed upon engraved blocks. The occasional occurrence of a _c_ for an _e_, of an _n_ for a _u_, of an _ſ_ for an _f_, and the “turning upside down” of other letters, are examples of errors which can be made only by compositors.

The unequal perspicuity of the letters in the _Speculum_ is that of unequally worn types. Of two adjoining letters, one will be distinct, black, and deeply indented in the paper; the other will be of dull color, and of indistinct outlines. The distinct letter is a new and high type, which has received the full force of impression; the indistinct letter is an old and worn type which has been touched but feebly by impression. If all the letters had been engraved on one plate, they would have been of equal height, and should have been equally legible, or nearly so, under impression.

The four editions of the _Speculum_ are, of themselves, presumptive evidence that each edition was printed from types. It is improbable that the printer would re-engrave blocks for a second edition when those of the first were in existence. If the first edition had been printed from types, and the types had been distributed, as is customary, the printer was obliged to reset them in order to make the second edition.

These four editions were certainly the work of the same printing office, and, without doubt, of the same printer, for [p275] the engravings are the same, and the types, ink, paper, and workmanship have similar defects and peculiarities. The first edition shows pages of types only; the next edition has types and blocks, but the types are like those of the first; then comes a third edition in the same types, but with two pages of types differing somewhat as to body and face; lastly an edition entirely in the old types, in a worn condition. Each edition has more or less connection with the others.[137]

The body or dimension of the types used in the _Speculum_ approximates the size known to all British and American printers as English; but it is rather larger than any of the modern standards. It is really intermediate between the body English and the little-used body of Two-line brevier or Columbian.[138]

The appearance of twenty engraved pages in the second edition of the _Speculum_ cannot be explained with satisfaction. Bernard thinks that these pages are the relics of an earlier edition engraved, or at least attempted, on wood, which, for some unknown reason, were temporarily substituted for types. [p276] No trace of this imaginary edition has been discovered. It has been claimed that the engraver of these xylographic blocks was the probable inventor of typography. It is supposed that he matured the ideas he had cherished about movable types when he was engraving and printing the first edition of the book; that when he became fully convinced of their feasibility, he stopped the engraving of the blocks, and finished the work with types which were made for the purpose. This hypothesis is not reasonable. If the printer of the book suddenly abandoned blocks for types, the change would be abruptly marked in his work. The twenty pages at the beginning of the book would be xylographic, and all following would be typographic. But it will be perceived that the twenty pages are scattered, without any order, throughout the book. Instead of being the relics of an earlier edition, it is demonstrable that these xylographic blocks were cut from transfers obtained from a typographic edition. A traced drawing upon transparent paper, taken with accuracy from the first edition of the _Speculum_, and carefully laid over a corresponding xylographic page in the second edition, will show an agreement in the length of lines, in the abbreviation of words, and in the copying of little errors or blemishes, which could have been produced only by means of transferred drawing.[139] With this fact before us, the supposition of the priority of an engraved edition of the book is untenable. Dutch authors say that these xylographic blocks corroborate a Hollandish legend, in which it is stated that the materials of the printer of the _Speculum_ were stolen. They suppose that the first typographer was obliged to engrave [p278] these twenty blocks to complete his imperfect edition. This hypothesis does not accord with other facts: the appearance of three successive editions of the book, each with a text of types, proves that the practice of typography was continued.