The Story of Books Part 3

CHAPTER VI

THE BEGINNING OF PRINTING

The germs of the invention which, in spite of Carlyle's somewhat slighting reference, has proved itself hardly less momentous in the world's history than the conception of the idea of writing, are to be found in the stamps with which the ancients impressed patterns or names upon vases or other objects, or in the device and name-bearing seals which were in common use among the nations of antiquity. But these stamps and seals could be used only to impress some plastic material, not to make ink or other marks upon paper; and for the first example of printing, as we understand the word, we must look to China, where, it is said, as early as the sixth century, A.D., engraved wooden plates were used for the production of books. The Chinese, however, kept their invention to themselves, or at any rate it spread no further than j.a.pan, until many years later; and although in the tenth century the knowledge of printing was carried as far as Egypt, Europeans seem to have made the discovery for themselves, quite independently of help from the East, both as regards block-printing and the use of moveable type.

In Europe, as in China, the first printing was done by means of a block, that is, a slab of wood on which the design was carved in relief, and from which, when inked, an impression could be transferred to paper or other material. This process is known as block-printing, and in Europe was princ.i.p.ally used for the production of ill.u.s.trations, the text, which came to be added later, being accessory and subordinate to the picture.

The first European block-prints are pictures of saints, roughly printed on a leaf of paper and usually rudely coloured. Heinecken, whose _Idee general d'une Collection complette d'Estampes_ (1771) is still a standard work, is of opinion that pictures of this cla.s.s were first executed by the old makers of playing-cards, and that the playing-cards themselves were printed from wood and not drawn separately by hand. In this case the cards should rank as the earliest examples of block-printing, or wood-engraving. Heinecken has not been alone in entertaining this opinion, but, on the other hand, there are some who consider that the portraits represent the first woodcuts, and that the early playing-cards were drawn and painted by hand.

The single-leaf portraits of saints were produced chiefly, or perhaps solely, in Germany, and examples are now rare. It is curious that most of those which have survived to the present day have been found in German religious houses, pasted inside the covers of old books, and thus shielded from the destruction to which their fragile nature rendered them liable. One specimen, which has the reputation of being the earliest extant with which a date can be connected, is the well-known St Christopher, which represents the saint carrying the child Christ over a stream, after an old legend. This specimen bears the date 1423, and was discovered pasted in the cover of a mediaeval ma.n.u.script in the monastery at Buxheim, in Swabia, and is now in the John Rylands Library at Manchester. The date, however, may be only that of the engraving of the block, and not the year of printing. A theory was put forward by Mr H. F. Holt, at the meeting of the British Archaeological a.s.sociation in 1868, that this St Christopher, so far from being the earliest known specimen of printing of any sort, belonged to a period subsequent to the invention of typography, and that the date 1423 refers only to the jubilee year of the saint, and not to the execution of the print. He also held that the block-books, to which we refer below, were not the predecessors of type-printed books, as they are usually considered to be, but merely cheap subst.i.tutes for the costly works of the early printers. But these theories, though not disproved, do not receive the support of bibliographers in general.

Another early woodcut is the Brussels Print, which is in the Royal Library at Brussels. It is ostensibly dated 1418, but although this date is accepted by some, it has most probably been tampered with, and therefore the position of the print is at least doubtful. It is of Flemish origin, and represents the Virgin and Child, accompanied by SS.

Barbara, Catharine, Veronica and Margaret. Other prints exist which are not dated, and it is quite possible that some of these may be older than the St Christopher, though no definite statements as to their date can be made. It is certain, however, that the art of block-printing was known in the closing years of the fourteenth century, and that it was practised thenceforward until about 1510, that is, some years after the invention of typography. In many ma.n.u.scripts of the period, printed ill.u.s.trations were inserted by means of blocks, either to save time, or because the scribe's skill did not extend to drawings.

These early woodcuts were the forerunners of the better known block-books, which also, according to Heinecken, were at first the work of the card-makers. Block-books consisted of prints accompanied by a descriptive or explanatory text, both text and ill.u.s.tration being printed from the same block. Since they were intended for the moral instruction of those whose education did not fit them for the study of more elaborate works, they generally deal with Scriptural and religious subjects. The earliest of all the block-books was the _Biblia Pauperum_, or "Bible of the Poor," so called because it was designed for the edification of persons of unlearned minds and light purses, who could neither have afforded the high prices demanded for ordinary ma.n.u.script copies, nor have read such copies had they owned them. The _Biblia Pauperum_, however, exactly met their want. It is not so much a book to read, as a book to look at. It has a text, it is true, but the text is subordinate to the pictures.

The _Biblia Pauperum_ is on paper, as paper was cheaper than vellum and considered quite good enough for the purpose. One side only of each leaf was printed, two pages being printed from one block, and the sheets folded once and arranged in sequence, not "quired" or "nested." The resulting order was that of two printed pages face to face, followed by two blank pages face to face. The ill.u.s.trations are of scenes from sacred history, and portraits of Biblical personages, accompanied by explanatory Latin or German texts in Gothic characters. The original designer and compiler of this favourite block-book is unknown, but he certainly worked on lines laid down by some much older author and artist, for ma.n.u.script works of similar nature existed at least as early as the beginning of the fourteenth century. The earliest known instance of a composition of the kind, however, is a series of enamels on an antependium or altar-frontal in the St Leopold Chapel at Klosterneuburg, near Vienna, which originally contained forty-five pictures dealing with Biblical subjects, arranged in the same order as in the _Biblia Pauperum_, and which were executed by Nicolas de Verdun, in 1181. Some attribute the inception of the _Biblia Pauperum_ to Ansgarius, first Bishop of Hamburg, in the ninth century, others to Wernher, a German monk of the twelfth century, but it seems unlikely that the point will ever be decided. The _Biblia Pauperum_ is usually supposed to have been first printed xylographically in Holland, and type-printed editions were issued later from Bamberg, Paris and Vienna.

To modern eyes the ill.u.s.trations of this book are strange and wonderful indeed. "The designer certainly had no thought of irreverence," says De Vinne, "but many of the designs are really ludicrous. Some of the anachronisms are: Gideon arrayed in plate-armour, with mediaeval helmet and visor and Turkish scimitar; David and Solomon in rakish, wide-brimmed hats bearing high, conical crowns; the translation of Elijah in a four-wheeled vehicle resembling the modern farmer's hay-wagon. Slouched hats, puffed doublets, light legged breeches and pointed shoes are seen in the apparel of the Israelites who are not represented as priests or soldiers. Some houses have Italian towers and some have Moorish minarets, but in none of the pictures is there an exhibition of pointed Gothic architecture."

[Ill.u.s.tration: PAGE FROM THE BIBLIA PAUPERUM (SECOND EDITION).]

Our ill.u.s.tration gives a reduced representation of a page from the second edition of the _Biblia Pauperum_, dating from about 1450. The middle panel shows Christ rising from the tomb, and the wonder and fear of the Roman guards; the left-hand panel shows Samson carrying off the gates of the city of Gaza, and the right-hand panel the disgorging of Jonah by the whale. The upper part of the text shows how that Samson and Jonah were types of Christ, and the four little figures represent David, Jacob, Hosea, and Siphonias (Zephaniah), the texts on the scrolls being quotations from their words.

The accompanying rhymes are as follows:--

Obsessus turbis: Sampson valvas tulit urbis.

Quem saxum texit: ingens tumulum Jesus exit.

De tumulo Christe: surgens te denotat iste.

(In the midst of crowds, Samson removes the gates of the city. The anointed Jesus, whom the stone covered, rises from the tomb. This man [Jonah] rising from the tomb, denotes Thee, O Christ!)

Another very popular block-book, of German origin, was the curious compilation known as _Ars Moriendi_--the Art of Dying--or, as it is sometimes called, _Temptationes Demonis_, or Temptation of Demons. It describes how dying persons are beset by all manner of temptations, the final triumph of the good, and the sad end of the wicked, with suitable emotions on the part of the attendant angels, and the hideous demons by which the temptations are personified. This work was greatly in vogue in the fifteenth century, and after the invention of type-printing was reproduced in various parts of France, Italy, Germany and Holland.

The only block-book without ill.u.s.trations was the _Donatus de octibus partibus orationis_, or Donatus on the Eight Parts of Speech, shortly known as Donatus. It was _the_ Latin grammar of the period, and was the work of Donatus, a famous Roman grammarian of the fourth century. Large numbers were printed both from blocks and from type, but xylographic fragments are scarce, and none are known of any date before the second half of the fifteenth century. Yet it is believed that probably more copies of this work were printed than of any other block-book whatever.

Besides its lack of ill.u.s.trations, the xylographic Donatus is unique among block-books from the fact that it was printed on vellum and not on paper, and (another unusual feature) on both sides of the leaf. Vellum was dear, and had to be made the most of, and no doubt was used only because a paper book would have fared badly at the hands of the schoolboys.

Only one block-book is known to have been printed in France, and that is _Les Neuf Preux_, or the Nine Champions. The nine champions are divided into three groups: first, cla.s.sical heroes--Hector, Alexander and Julius Caesar; next, Biblical heroes--Joshua, David and Judas Maccabaeus; and lastly, heroes of romance--Arthur, Charlemagne and G.o.defroi of Boulogne.

The portraits of these celebrities are accompanied by verses. This block-book dates from about 1455.

Other block-books were the _Speculum Humanae Salvationis_, _the Apocalypse of St John_, _the Book of Canticles_, _Defensorium Inviolatae Virginitatis Beatae Mariae Virginis_, _Mirabilia Romae_; various German almanacks, and a _Planetenbuch_, this last representing the heavenly bodies and their influence on human life. The last of the block-books, so far as is known, was the _Opera nova contemplativa_, which was executed at Venice about 1510.

From one point of view the _Speculum Humanae Salvationis_, or Mirror of Salvation, is the most curious of its kind. It is looked upon as the connecting link between block-books proper and type-printed books. Its purpose seems to have been to afford instruction in the facts and lessons of the Christian religion, beginning with the fall of Satan. It is founded on an old and once popular ma.n.u.script work sometimes ascribed to Brother John, a Benedictine monk of the thirteenth or fourteenth century. Four so-called "editions" of the _Speculum_ are known, two of which are in Latin rhyme, and two in Dutch prose, all four having many points in common and standing apart from the later and dated editions afterwards produced in Germany, Holland, and France.

In these early copies the body of the work consists of a text printed from moveable types, with a block-printed ill.u.s.tration at the head of each page. But one of the Latin editions is remarkable for having twenty pages of the text printed from wood blocks. How and why these xylographic pages appear in a book whose remaining forty-two pages are printed from types is a mystery. They are inserted at intervals among the other leaves, and for this and other reasons it is considered improbable that they were printed from blocks originally intended for a block-book, to help to eke out a not very plentiful stock of type.

Moreover, no entirely xylographic _Speculum_ exists to lend colour to such a theory.

The time and place of origin of the _Speculum_ are unknown, and bibliographers are not agreed as to the order in which the several "editions" appeared. But such evidence as exists points to Holland as the home of the printed _Speculum_, and those who believe that Coster of Haarlem invented typography, credit him with having produced it.

Block-books are nearly all of German, Dutch, or Flemish workmanship. As a rule the ill.u.s.trations are roughly coloured by hand. The method by which they were printed is generally supposed to have been that of laying a dampened sheet of paper on the inked block, and rubbing it with a dabber or frotton until the impression was worked up. But De Vinne, in his _History of Printing_, says that there are practical reasons against the correctness of this view, and considers it more probable that a rude hand-press was used.

Those who wish to see some modern examples of block-printing may be referred to the books printed by the late William Morris at the celebrated Kelmscott Press at Hammersmith. The t.i.tle-pages and initial words of these volumes were executed by means of wood blocks, and are as beautiful examples of block-printing as the texts of the works they adorn are of typography. All the Kelmscott printing, whose history, though most interesting, is nevertheless outside the present subject, was done by hand presses.

CHAPTER VII

WHO INVENTED MOVEABLE TYPES?

The wood-block, however, was merely a stepping-stone to the greatest of all events in the history of printing, the invention of moveable types; that is, of letters formed separately, which, after being grouped into words, and sentences, and paragraphs, could be redistributed and used again for all sorts of books. Here once more our Chinese friends were ahead of the rest of the world, for, more than four centuries before German printers existed, Picheng, a Chinese smith, had shown his countrymen how to print from moveable types made of burnt clay. But the process which was to prove of such untold value to those who employed the simple Roman alphabet was almost useless to the Chinese, since the immense number of their characters rendered the older method the less tedious and c.u.mbersome of the two. In China and j.a.pan, therefore, the use of moveable types was of short duration. In Europe, however, when the art of printing from moveable types once became known, the case was very different.

Once upon a time, as a magnate of the city of Haarlem was walking in a wood near the city, he idly cut some letters on the bark of a beech tree. It then suddenly occurred to him that these letters might be impressed upon paper; whereupon he made some impressions of them for the amus.e.m.e.nt of his grandchildren. This, we have learned from our youth up, is how the art of printing came to be discovered. But unfortunately, this legend is not to be relied upon. As a matter of fact, the first inventor of printing is unknown, and even as regards moveable types it is impossible to say with absolute certainty when or by whom the idea was first conceived. Daunon, in his _a.n.a.lyse des Opinions diverses sur l'origine de l'Imprimerie_, tells us that no less than fifteen towns claim to be the birthplace of printing, and that a still larger number of persons have been put forward as its inventors, from Saturn, Job, and Charlemagne downwards. The arguments for or against the pretensions of Saturn, Job, and Charlemagne, and, indeed, of the majority of the personages whose names have been mentioned in this connection, do not call for notice. For although the first printer is not known, many believe that they can point him out with tolerable certainty, and in the fierce battle which has raged round the question of the ident.i.ty of the inventor of moveable types, two names alone have been used as the respective war-cries of the opposing armies. One is Johann Gutenberg of Mentz, and the other, Laurenz Coster of Haarlem.

Although the balance of opinion is now, and always has been, in favour of Gutenberg, the battle has been long and furious. The diligence of the disputants in collecting data in support of their theories has been equalled only by the vigour and ferocity with which some of their number have maintained their opinions. Each side has charged the other with forging evidence, and ink and abuse have been freely poured out in the cause of typographical truth. Yet though sought for during several centuries, no conclusive proof has been discovered by either side; typographical truth remains in her well, and the ident.i.ty of the inventor of moveable types seems almost as hard to determine as that of the man in the iron mask or the writer of the letters of Junius. The partisans of Coster have been as eminent and as able as those of Gutenberg, and thus the unlearned enquirer finds it difficult to declare for one rather than the other, without investigating for himself all the ins and outs of this involved subject. Even then, without some previous bias in one or the other direction, he would probably find himself halting between two opinions. Such an investigation is obviously out of the question here, and even were it practicable it could hardly be lipped that where so many doctors disagree our modest effort would produce any valuable result. We shall therefore do no more than briefly set forth some of the chief arguments on either side as fairly as may be, but without attempting an exhaustive examination of the evidence, first, however, declaring ourselves as followers of the majority and partisans of Gutenberg, by way of sheet anchor.

Those who advocate the claims of Holland against Germany largely base their belief on the existence of various printed books and fragments of Dutch origin, undated, and affording no clue to the time and place at which they were printed, or to their printer, whether Coster or another.

It is much more likely, they say, that these were the first rude attempts at typography, and that they gave the idea to the Mentz printers, who forthwith improved upon it, than that the Mentz printers should have given the idea to the Dutch, who, so far from improving upon it, produced these clumsy imitations of fine German work. And Mr Hessels, who made a complete examination of the evidence in favour of Gutenberg, was unable to say either that Gutenberg invented type-printing, or that he did not invent it. On the other hand, "it is certainly possible," say the writers of the _Guide to the British Museum_, "that actual printing may have been previously executed in Holland; although, to our minds, the improbability of the printers who are a.s.serted to have produced _Donatus_ and the _Speculum_ from moveable types ten years before Gutenberg having produced nothing but the like kind of work for nearly twenty years after him outweighs all the arguments which have been advanced in support of their claim. It is at all events certain that, without some very direct and positive evidence on the other side, mankind will continue to regard Gutenberg as the parent of the art, and Mainz as its birthplace."

Within recent years a claim for the honour of the invention has been put forward on behalf of quite another part of the world. Some early fifteenth century doc.u.ments discovered at Avignon make unmistakable references to printing, and not to xylography, and from them we learn that Procopius Waldfoghel, a silver-smith of Prague, was engaged in printing at Avignon in 1444, and had undertaken to cut a set of Hebrew types for a Jew whom he had previously instructed in the art of printing. No specimens of his work are known, and it is therefore impossible to say exactly to what process these records refer, but it has been conjectured that it may have been some method of stamping letters from cut type, and not from cast type by means of a press.

Since Coster is the hero of the well-known story quoted above, and since as regards our present purpose there is less to be said of him than of Gutenberg, we will briefly recapitulate what is known about him, and the foundations on which his fame as a typographer rests, before dealing more at length with Gutenberg and the Mentz press.

It does not seem easy to account for the existence of what the partisans of Gutenberg contemptuously term the Coster legend. It has been conjectured, somewhat plausibly, that Haarlem's jealousy of the superiority and fame of Mentz and its printers began very early, and arose from the narrow vanity of those Haarlemers who imagined that the first printing press in Haarlem must necessarily be the first printing press in the world. However this may be, the legend arose, and waxed strong, and many believed in it.

Laurenz Janssoen, or Coster, was born in Haarlem about 1370. He is said to have held various high offices, such as sheriff, treasurer, officer of the city guard, and especially that of Coster to the great church of Haarlem. Coster means sacristan or s.e.xton, but the position was one of far greater honour than is now a.s.sociated with it. But another account, which is supported by all the available records, represents him as a tallow-chandler, and subsequently as an innkeeper, and if he had anything at all to do with the great church, it was only that he supplied it with candles. But whether chandler or coster, nothing is heard of him as a printer until 1568, more than a hundred years after his alleged success in printing from types--in itself a strange fact, since if Coster were the inventor, why were the Mentz printers allowed to appropriate all the credit to themselves, unchallenged by Coster's kinsfolk or countrymen, and supported by the opinions of sixty-two writers, including Caxton, the chronicler Fabian, Trithemius, and the compilers of the Cologne and Nuremberg chronicles? It is true that "few sometimes may know when thousands err," but silence is no proof of truth, and if Coster's representatives possessed the truth, how came they to withhold it from a deluded world?

Although Coster is not named till 1568, the claims of Haarlem to be the birthplace of printing had been put forward (for the first time) some years earlier by Jan Van Zuyren in a work on the Invention of Typography, of which only a fragment remains. The claims of Haarlem, he says, "are at this day fresh in the remembrance of our fathers, to whom, so to express myself, they have been transmitted from hand to hand from their ancestors." Thus, though probably writing in all good faith, Van Zuyren bases his statements on nothing better than tradition. "The city of Mentz," he goes on to say, "without doubt merits great praise for having been the first to publish to the world, in a becoming garb, an invention which she received from us, for having perfected and embellished an art as yet rude and imperfect.... It is certain that the foundations of this splendid art were laid in our city of Haarlem, rudely, indeed, but still the first."

Coornhert, an engraver, and a partner of Van Zuyren, repeats the same statements, and on the same basis, in the preface to a translation of Cicero which he published in 1561, but is acute enough to see that the case for Haarlem is nearly hopeless. "I am aware," he says, "that in consequence of the blameable neglect of our ancestors, the common opinion that this art was invented at Mentz is now firmly established, that it is in vain to hope to change it, even by the best evidence and the most irrefragable proof." He proceeds to declare his conviction of the justice of Haarlem's claim, because of "the faithful testimonies of men alike respectable from their age and authority, who not only have often told me of the family of the inventor, and of his name and surname, but have even described to me the rude manner of printing first used, and pointed out to me with their fingers the abode of the first printer. And therefore, not because I am jealous of the glory of others, but because I love truth, and desire to pay all tribute to the honour of our city which is justly her due, I have thought it inc.u.mbent upon me to mention these things." Yet it is strange that he did not think it inc.u.mbent upon him to mention the name and surname of the inventor, since he had been told them so often.

Hadrian Junius, said to have been the most learned man in Holland after Erasmus, is the first to give to the world the fully-developed legend of Coster. This he does in his _Batavia_, which was finished in 1568 and published posthumously twenty years later. It is he who first mentions Coster by name, and gives the story of the walk in the woods. He relates how Coster devised block-printing, and calling in the help of his son-in-law, Thomas Peter, produced the block-book _Speculum Humanae Salvationis_, and then advanced to types of wood, then to types of lead, and finally to types of lead and tin combined. Prospering in his new art, he engaged numerous workmen, one of whom, probably named Johann Faust, as soon as he had mastered the process of printing and of casting type, stole his master's types and other apparatus one Christmas Eve, and fled to Amsterdam, thence to Cologne, and finally to Mentz. For all this Junius also adduces no better authority than hearsay, but nevertheless it is his statements which have brought Coster to the front and given him such reputation as he now enjoys.

No books bearing Coster's name are known, though this in itself is no argument against him, for the name of Gutenberg himself is not found in any of his own productions. It is not only highly improbable that Coster was the first printer, but also doubtful whether he printed anything at all. But those who think otherwise consider that the idea of printing occurred to him about 1428 or 1430, and that he executed, among other books, the _Biblia Pauperum_, the _Speculum_, the _Ars Moriendi_, and _Donatus_.

The people of Holland still retain their faith in Coster. Statues have been erected, medals struck, tablets put up, and holidays observed in his honour.

CHAPTER VIII

GUTENBERG AND THE MENTZ PRESS