CHAPTER II.Typography and Bibliography.

Old books must be loved, and their idiosyncrasies carefully studied, before they will yield upalltheir treasures; that done, the observant lover will obtain possession of both soul and body; he may revel in the intellectual feast provided by the author, or he may study the material and mechanical features of the books as represented by the peculiarities of paper and the habits and customs of the various printers. Then, by grouping these as a botanist does his flowers, according to their organisation into classes, orders, genera, and species, he may extract from his volumes true replies to questions which otherwise would remain hidden for ever. So true is the dictum, “The Mind it is which sees, and not the Eye alone.”

Many bibliophiles, however, of education and taste have been positively blind when outside the circle of their own particular studies. So it was with the Rev. Dr. M‘Neille, a well-known critic and book-collector of sixty years ago. When addressing Dr. Dibdin he wrote thus of “The Book of St. Albans”—“This book is itself useless, and only abon morceaufor the quizzical collector.” With such feelings towards one of the most curious works which this country produced during the infancy of the printing press, it was simply impossible that the interest of its pages should be revealed to him; and however rich in divinity andeditiones principesof the classics the library of theworthy doctor may have been, it is evident that our Book of St. Albans could never have been aught but an alien onhisbook-shelves.

The works printed by William Caxton were almost without exception in the English tongue, while the contemporary presses of Oxford, St. Albans, and Machlinia were nearly all in Latin. Of the eight books at present known to have been printed at St. Albans, the only two in English were the “Fructus Temporum” and the work under review. The “Fructus” or St. Albans’ Chronicle is the same as that printed two years previously by Caxton, with the addition of certain ecclesiastical events and Papal chronology, probably added by the printer himself to please the monks.

The Book of St. Albans’ and the St. Albans’ Chronicle make a class of themselves; but as it is impossible to understand their position without a glance at the other works from the same press, we will give a tabulated description of the whole eight.

But who was the printer? What was his name? Was he associated with the great Abbey? and is there any internal or external evidence in his works to connect him with any other printer or any other town?

The only notice we have of the printer is an accidental one by Wynken de Worde, who, in reprinting the St. Albans’ Chronicle, saysin the colophon, “Here endith this present Chronicle ... compiled in a book and also enprinted by our sometime Schoolmaster of St. Alban.” He was a schoolmaster, then, and this will account for the nature of his early works, all scholastic and all in Latin. Not till the end of his typographical career did he realise the fact that the printing press, instead of being the hobby of a few learned men, was the educator of the people, the whole nation; and then he gave his countrymen what they wanted—a history of their own country and a book upon the whole (secular) duty of the gentleman, as then understood.

The name of the schoolmaster-printer is quite unknown. No notice of him is found in the records of the Abbey, nor does he appear in any contemporary document. Yet here, as in Mistress Barnes’s case, imagination has come to the rescue and a legendary name has been provided.

Finding that the Prologue to the Book of Hawking began with the words, “Insomuchas gentle men and honest persons have great delight in Hawking;” finding also that the St. Alban’s Chronicle from the same press began thus: “Insomuchas it is necessary;” and bearing in mind that certain old authors had veiledtheirnames in the first words of their works, Dr. Chauncy arrived at the sagacious conclusion that the St. Albans printer wished to veilhisname, which really was “Insomuch.” The joke, for it almost seems like one, does not bear even the scrutiny which itself invites, for although the schoolmaster uses the words in two other places, in neither case are they at the beginning of a chapter.[4]It should be added that in this the worthy historian of Hertfordshire only followed the lead of both Bale and Pits.

4. On sig.a jrecto of “Cote Armour” is “Insomuch as all gentleness comes of God;” and upon sig.b iijverso is “Insomuch that in the fifth quadrat,” &c. The use of the word in these cases could have no veiled meaning, and it was probably only a peculiarity of diction which had become a habit with the schoolmaster.

Was he connected with the Abbey? I think not. There is not a word to suggest such a connection, although we may take it for granted that the Abbot and his fraternity could not have frowned uponthe printer, or he would never have established himself. His imprints all mention the town of St. Albans, but never the Abbey, and his position was probably similar to that of Caxton, who was simply a tenant of the Abbot of Westminster, but, so far as is known, nothing more.

Was he connected with Caxton and the Westminster press? Without a shadow of doubt I say, No! Mr. E. Scott, of the MS. department in the British Museum, has indeed strung together a number of surmises to show that the Schoolmaster was employed by Caxton, and that all the books without date or place hitherto attributed to Westminster were really printed at St. Albans. But internal evidence is against any such gratuitous assumption. There is nothing in common between the two printers in any of their habits or customs except the possession of Caxton’s No. 3 type. This is the only one of Caxton’s types used outside his own office (for W. de Worde, his successor in house and business, must not be regarded as a separate printer). Caxton employed it from his arrival in England in 1477 till 1484, when it makes its last appearance in the headings of “Æsop,” the “Order of Chivalry,” and “The Golden Legend.” In 1485 Caxton obtained a new fount, similar in shape and character, and from that time the old No. 3 disappears to make way for the new and smaller type No. 5. This being more suited to the taste of the day, we find the larger and worn fount passing over to the country press of St. Albans, where the Schoolmaster first uses it in 1486, being the identical year in which its successor appears in Caxton’s “Royal Book.” We may here observe that after the stoppage of the St. Albans’ Press the same fount finds its way back again and is seen in W. de Worde’s reprint, in 1496–97, of the two English St. Albans books. But the discovery of a copy of Caxton’s Boethius in the old Grammar School at St. Albans, and the numerous fragments of old books extracted from its covers, are quoted as confirming the idea. Yet the book itself and all these fragments were from Westminster, not a single one being from a known St. Albans book, and they included the Caxton “Chronicles,” 1480, the “Dictes,” 1477, and thestill earlier “Life of Jason;” so that we had better at once remove the whole Westminster press, dated and undated, to St. Albans, if such an argument is to have any force. These fragments, indeed, can only point to the fact that the copy of Boethius was bound in the printing office, as was commonly the case with the books from Caxton’s press.

Again, Mr. Scott draws attention to the fact that a page of the St. Albans’ Book, 1486, has been copied by a contemporary writer on to the blank leaves of one of Caxton’s earliest books. ’Tis true; but this copying of part of one book into another, printed ten years before, has no typographical bearing whatever. Lastly, the name Causton appears in an old St. Albans’ Register of the early part of the fifteenth century. But this, again, means positively nothing. Caxton’s name was not at all uncommon; there were Caustons or Caxtons in nearly every English county, and I have quite a long list of them.

It is highly probable that Caxton, while at Westminster, in the van of all the literature of his day, would have communications of some sort with the important town of St. Albans; but that the two printers assisted one another in the production of books, is, so far as any evidence goes, a pure fiction.

Let us now glance at the bibliographical aspect of the book.

The work itself has no title. It is difficult in our time, accustomed as we are to “teeming millions” of books, each with its own title-page, to conceive a period when the press sent out works without even the shadow of a title-page. Before the invention of printing, the author simply headed his first page with the name of the work, as “Here begins the Confessio Amantis,” or “Hic incipit Parvus Catho,” and, without preface or more ado, the text commenced. Sometimes even this little notification was omitted, and, as in Caxton’s “Jason,” “The Chess Book,” “Tulle,” and many other fifteenth-century books, the subject of the work had to be learned by reading the text. So it is with the book now under review; it comprises four distinct works, but to one only is there any heading, and that has the bare line “Incipit liber armorum.”The first, “The Book of Hawking,” starts straight off—“This is the manner to keep Hawks,” and occupies three signatures,a,b, andc, of eight leaves each, and sig.d, which has but four leaves, on purpose that this portion might be complete alone, if so desired. The same idea controlled the arrangement of “The Book of Hunting,” which, beginning on sig.e j, ends with Dame Juliana’s “Explicit” on the recto of sig.f iiij. This left the last seven pages of the quaternion to be filled up. Now it was a common practice, both with the scribes and with the early printers, when they got to the end of their text and found that a page or two of blank paper was left, to occupy the blank pages with such common household aphorisms or popular rhymes as came easily to the memory, or were at hand in some other book. So here the schoolmaster-printer fills up his vacant pages with a number of odd sentences and rhymes, most of which occur over and over again in numerous manuscripts of early poetry. Among others we notice the well-known:—

“Arise erly,serue God deuouteli,and the world besily.”&c. &c.

“Arise erly,

serue God deuouteli,

and the world besily.”

&c. &c.

Also the folks proverb:—

“Too wyues in oon hous,Too cattys and oon mous,Too dogges and oon boon,Theis shall neū accorde oon.”

“Too wyues in oon hous,

Too cattys and oon mous,

Too dogges and oon boon,

Theis shall neū accorde oon.”

Then the list of proper terms to be used by gentlemen and those curious in their speech is of very common occurrence:—

“An herde of HertisAn herde of all mañ dereA pride of LionysA sleuth of Beeris.”&c. &c.

“An herde of Hertis

An herde of all mañ dere

A pride of Lionys

A sleuth of Beeris.”

&c. &c.

This was evidently copied from some MS., and ends with “¶ Explicit,” and nothing more. On the next page we have the proper terms for carving or dismembering beasts, fowls, and fishes, followed on the last leaf by a list of bishoprics and provinces.

Having thus filled up all his leaves, the printer begins his third subject on a fresh signature, and introduces the “Liber Armorum” with the Preface (already printed). A long work on the “Blasing of Arms” follows, beginning on sig.c j, and ending on sig.f10.

This is extremely interesting, both in matter and in the very rude woodcut representations of armorial bearings with which the text is profusely illustrated. Except in one or two cases of uncommon tints, these are all colour-printed, as are the initials to paragraphs. In the Grenville copy, the pressman having forgotten to roll the “forme,” the initials all appear in that semi-tinted state which would be the natural result of such an omission. We notice, too, that where the coats of arms require, say, three colours on one page, then the initials are also in three colours; but if only one colour is required for the arms, only one colour, and that the same, is used for the initials. Occasionally, where a peculiar colour was necessary, a brush was used to insert that tint by hand.

In workmanship the St. Albans printer, especially in the English books, is much inferior to the contemporary issue from the Westminster press. The types are worse, the arrangement worse, the presswork worse, and the ink worse. From this point of view alone, the theory that he would print for Caxton so much better than he did for himself, is not worth serious consideration.

The Book of St. Albans went through many editions, particulars of which are difficult to obtain.

How did the schoolmaster at St. Albans obtain his types? This is a puzzling question in the present state of palæotypography. Mr. Bradshaw of Cambridge has, by unwearied study of early printed books, thrown great light upon the connection and genealogy of numerous founts used by fifteenth-century printers, and systematic attention to the minute peculiarities of each printer is doubtless the only way in which those old books can be forced to yield up their secrets; but the task is immense, and beyond the powers of any one man to complete. Some day, however, when the palæotypography of this country, as well as of the Continental presses, shall have received that full technical and philosophical analysis which time is sure to bring, the more fortunate bibliographer of the future will be able with certainty to track the footsteps and operations of the early typefounders, and will be enabled to state for certain to what extent Caxton and the St. Albans printer were their own typefounders, and to what extent and to whom they looked for outside help. As the case now stands, we can only confess our ignorance of where the St. Albans types came from.

Fleuron

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