heartily accept the date of any version of the legend. On this great occasion the Costerian Museum[1] of Haarlem was enriched with a pedigree of the Thomaszoon family, an old document frequently referred to by some defenders of the legend as an incontestable evidence of its truth. The pedigree was, without doubt, a genuine relic. 
Autograph of Laurens Janszoon.
[From Koning.]Its dingy vellum surface, written over in many handwritings, was surrounded by an embroidered border blackened with age. Its history could be traced through three centuries. Gerrit Thomaszoon, the aged descendant of Coster mentioned by Junius with such marked respect, was the person by or for whom this pedigree was made in or about the year 1550.[2] This Gerrit Thomaszoon had kept an inn in the house once occupied by Coster, and it is supposed that the pedigree was one of the decorations of a wall in his house. There is a special significance in this date of 1550.
This pedigree, which describes Coster as the inventor of printing, was written at least one hundred years after the discovery of the invention and the death of the inventor. It was written when Cornelis, the only eye-witness known to
- ↑ This Museum then contained, among other relics, copies of the Apocalypse, the Ars Moriendi, the Canticles, the Donatus, the Speculum, the Temptations of Demons, and other printed works that have here been noticed in the chapter on The Works and Workmanship of an Unknown Printer, most of which were claimed as the work of Coster's office. The wood block of the Horarium (see page 260), some official documents, some autographs of the sheriff Louwerijs Janszoon, a picture said to be a likeness of Coster, several engravings of Coster (curiously dissimilar, and one of which is an undeniable forgery), are also contained in this Museum. Van der Linde denounced the Museum as a municipal show-booth. The Haarlem Legend, p. 164.
- ↑ Gerrit Thomaszoon died about 1563 or 1564. In the year 1611, the pedigree belonged to Adrien Rooman, the town printer at Haarlem. At his death it fell into the hands of Dr. John Vlasveld. For nearly two centuries it was unknown to the public. In 1809, it was sold at auction, Jacobus Koning paying for it, and for an old wood-cut, supposed to be the work of Coster, four hundred guilders.
