after the reign of Philip, and in cities over which Philip never ruled. Paper containing the letter Y was used in 1395, before Ysabella was born; it was in use for many years after she was dead; paper with the letters M A joined to the arms of Bavaria must have been made before her daughter Jacqueline was married, or, in other words, before 1422, an earlier date than can be claimed for any typographic book.
The rude paper-mark of the bull's head was in frequent use between the years 1370 and 1523 in the Netherlands and in Germany; it is found in the great Bible of Gutenberg. It is, therefore, of no value in an inquiry concerning the date of any book in which it has been found. The paper-mark of the lily was used even in the fourteenth century; in the fifteenth it was as common as the bull's head. It is found in books that were printed in Cologne and in Paris, in Utrecht, Gouda, Delft, Louvain and Deventer.
Paper marked with the unicorn was frequently used by the later Netherlandish printers. It did not go out of use until 1620. It is found in so many shapes that it is impossible to determine by it the date, or the printer, of any book on which it was used.
When we find that these marks were used in manuscripts before the fifteenth century, and in printed books at the end of the fifteenth century, we have to conclude that they are almost worthless as evidence[1] in an inquiry concerning the printer of the Speculum. Instead of proving that the Speculum must have been printed between 1420 and 1440, they really show, so far as paper is connected with the question, that the various editions of the book could have been printed in the third, and perhaps in the fourth, quarter of the century.
- ↑ Water-marks have much less weight in bibliography than some writers have attributed to them. In very few instances can a prime limit be fixed for their use; and, as the marks might be repeated, and the paper itself kept for any length of time, and imported to any place, they cannot be used as evidence either of the date when, or place where, they passed through the press. Blades, William Caxton, vol. ii, p. xviii.—The results of the examination of the paper-marks are, for the present, mostly negative, Van der Linde, Haarlem Legend, p. 86.
