These books have been carefully classified, according to their types, by J. H. Hessels, the translator in English of Van der Linde's Haarlem Legend, from which work the classification following has been copied. The types have been specified by numbers, and have been arranged according to the order in which they are described by Holtrop in his Monuments typographiques. It is not pretended that the order of these numbers indicates the order in which the types were made; numbers have been assigned to them only for convenience in reference and for the purpose of accurate classification.
Type I. In this character[1] the four notable editions of the Speculum were printed. In the same character were found the relics of six editions of the Donatus. The single leaf by which one edition of this book was identified, was pasted in a volume which once belonged to Sion Convent, at Cologne, and which contained several treatises printed by Ulric Zell, of Cologne. One of these treatises is dated 1467. Another leaf, now in the city hall of the city of Haarlem, was found in the original binding of an account book for the year 1474, which book was kept in the cathedral of that city. The account books of this church for the years 1476, 1485 and 1514, contain cuttings of leaves from the same edition. The first entry in the record of 1474 is to this effect: "Item. I have paid six Rhine florins to Cornelis the binder, for the binding of books."[2] Fragments of other little books printed in the types of the Speculum have been found:
An abridgment of the Liturgy, then known as the Little Book of the Mass,[3] a small quarto, with pages of twelve lines.
- ↑ For a fac-simile (from Holtrop) of this face of type see page 277.
- ↑ A fuller notice of Cornelis the binder will be given in the chapter on the Legend of Coster, in which his relations to early printing will be described. Attention may be called to the significance of the fact that no fragments of any book in the types of the Speculum have been found in the covers or binding of any manuscript book of earlier date than 1467.
- ↑ This work was in use as late as the reign of Charles v. It was enjoined by him that a printer should furnish without alteration "the little book commencing with the alphabet, the little book which directs how to bless the table (grace at meals), and the little book which directs how to answer at the holy mass." Van der Linde, Haarlem Legend, p. 2.
