the Conqueror) had their monograms cut on blocks of wood or metal in order to impress them on their charters. Such impressions from stamps are found, instead of seals on charters of the 15th century. Manuscripts, even of the 12th century, show initials which, on account of their uniformity, are believed to have been impressed by means of stamps or dies.[1] Before the invention of printing, say about 1436, bookbinders are known to have impressed names or legends or other inscriptions on their bindings in two ways: (1) by means of single, insulated letters engraved reversely downwards into a stamp of brass, whereby the letters appeared en relief on the leather or parchment of the binding; (2) by letters engraved reversely en relief on the brass stamp, whereby the letters sank into the binding. For this reason the term impressor, applied afterwards to the “printer,” was, in the first instance, applied to the binder, whereas ligator was the proper word for him (see F. Falk, Der Stempeldruck, in “Festschrift,” 1900, p. 73 sqq.; Zedler, Gutenberg-Forschungen, 1901, p. 6). But the idea of “multiplying” representations from one engraved plate or block or stamp, or other form, was unknown to the ancients, whereas it is predominant in what we call the art of block-printing, and especially in that of typography, in which the same types can be used again and again.
Block-printing and printing with movable types seem to have been practised in China and Japan long before they were known in Europe. It is said that in the year 175 the text of the Chinese classics was cut upon tablets, and that impressions were taken of them, some of which are East Asiatic Printing. supposed to be still in existence. Printing from wooden blocks can be traced as far back as the 6th century, when the founder of the Suy dynasty is said to have had the remains of the classical books engraved on wood, though it was not until the 10th century that printed books became common. In Japan the earliest example of block-printing dates from the period 764-770, when the empress Shiyau-toku, in pursuance of a vow, had a million small wooden toy pagodas made for distribution among the Buddhist temples and monasteries, each of which was to contain a dhâranî out of the Buddhist Scriptures, entitled “Vimala nirbhasa Sûtra,” printed on a slip of paper about 18 in. in length and 2 in. in width, which was rolled up and deposited in the body of the pagoda under the spire. In a journal of the period, under the year 987, the expression “printed book” (suri-hoñ) is applied to a copy of the Buddhist canon brought back from China by a Buddhist priest. This must have been a Chinese edition; but the use of the term implies that printed books were already known in Japan. It is said that the Chinese printed with movable types (of clay) from the middle of the 11th century. The authorities of the British Museum exhibit as the earliest instance of Korean books printed with movable types a work printed in 1337. To the Koreans is attributed the invention of copper types in the beginning of the 15th century; and an inspection of books bearing dates of that period seems to show that they used such types, even if they did not invent them.[2]
From such evidence as we have, it would seem that Europe is not indebted to the Chinese or Japanese for the art of block-printing, nor for that of printing with movable types.
In Europe, as late as the second half of the 14th century, every book and every public and private document was written by hand; all figures and pictures, even playing cards and images of saints, were drawn with the pen or painted with a brush. In the 13th century there MS. Period. already existed a kind of book trade. The organization of universities as well as that of large ecclesiastical establishments was at that time incomplete, especially in Italy, France and Germany, without a stall of scribes and transcribers (scriptores), illuminators, lenders, sellers and custodians of books (stationarii librorum, librarii), and pergamenarii, i.e. persons who prepared and sold the vellum or parchment required for books and documents. The books supplied were for the most part theological, legal and educational, and are calculated to have amounted to above one hundred different works. As no book or document was approved unless it had some ornamented and illuminated initials or capital letters, there was no want of illuminators. The workmen scribes and transcribers were, perhaps without exception, calligraphers, and the illuminators for the most part artists. Beautifully written and. richly illuminated manuscripts on vellum became objects of luxury which were treasured by princes and people of distinction. Burgundy of the 15th century, with its rich literature, its wealthy towns, its love for art and its school of painting, was in this respect the centre of Europe, and the libraries of its dukes at Brussels, Bruges, Antwerp, Ghent, &c., contained more than three thousand beautifully illuminated MSS.
In speaking of the writing of the manuscripts of the 15th and preceding centuries it is essential to distinguish in each country between at least four different classes of writing, two of which must be again subdivided into two classes.Classes of Writing.
1. The book hand, that is, the ordinary writing of theological, legal and devotional books, used by the official transcribers of the universities and churches, who had received a more or less learned education, and consequently wrote or transcribed books with a certain pretence of understanding them and of being able to write with greater rapidity than the ordinary calligrapher. Hence they produced two kinds of writing: (a) the current or cursive book hand, of which several illustrations are given in Wilh. Schum, Exempla Codicum Amplon. Erfurtensium; the volumes of the (London) Palaeogr. Society, &c. Quite distinct from this current writing, and much clearer and more distinct, is (b) the upright or set book hand, which was employed not only by writers who worked for universities and churches, but also by persons who may be presumed to have worked in large cities and commercial towns for schools and the people in general without university connexion. (2) In the church hand (Gothic or black letter) were produced transcripts of the Bible, missals, psalters and other works intended for use in churches and private places of worship and devotion. This writing we may again subdivide into two classes: (a) the ornamental or calligraphic writing, found exclusively in books intended for use in churches or for the private use of wealthy and distinguished persons, and (b) the ordinary upright or set church hand, employed for less ornamental and less expensive books. (3) The letter hand may be said to be intermediate between the set literary book hand and the set literary church hand, and to differ but little from either. It was employed in all public documents of the nature of a letter. (4) The court or charter hand was used for charters, title-deeds, papal bulls, &c.[3]
These different kinds of writing served again, in the first instance, as models for cutting the inscriptions and explanatory texts that were intended to illustrate and explain the figures in blockbooks, and afterwards as models for the types used in the printing of books and documents.
Dypold Läber (Lauber), a teacher and transcriber at Hagenau in Germany, is known to have carried on a busy trade in manuscripts about the time of the invention of printing. His prospectuses[4] in handwriting of the middle of the 15th century announce that whatever books people wish 15th-Century Books, Written. to have, large or small, “geistlich oder weltlich, hübsch gemolt,” are all to be found at Dypold Lauber’s the scribe. He had in stock Gesta Romanorum, mit den Viguren gemolt; poetical works (Parcival, Tristan, Freidank); romances of chivalry (Der Witfarn Ritter; Von eime Getruwen Ritter der sin eigen Hertze gab umb einer schönen Frowen willen; Der Ritter unter dem Zuber); biblical and legendary works (A Rimed Bible; A Psalter, Latin and German; Episteln und Evangelien durch das Jor; Vita Christy; Das gantze Passional, winterteil und summerteil; devotional books (Bellial; Der Selen Trost; Der Rosenkrantz; Die zehn Gebot mit Glosen; Small Bette-Bücher); and books for the people (Gute bewehrte Artznien-Bücher; Gemolte Loss-Bücher, i.e. fortune-telling books; Schachtzabel gemolt). The lower educational books consisted for the most part of the Abecedaria, containing the alphabet, the Lord’s Prayer, the creed, and one or two prayers; the Donatus, a short Latin grammar extracted from the work of Aelius-Donatus, a Roman grammarian of the 4th century, and distinctly mentioned in a school ordinance of Bautzen of 1418; the Doctrinale, a Latin grammar in leonine verse, compiled by Alexander Gallus (or De Villa Dei), a minorite of Brittany of the 13th century; the Summula logica of Petrus Hispanus (afterwards Pope John XXI.), used in the teaching of logic and dialectics; and Dionysius Cato’s Disticha de Moribus, and its supplement called Facetus, with the Floretus of St Bernard, used in the teaching of morals. As helps to the clergy in educating the lower classes, and as a means of assisting and promoting private devotion, there were picture books accompanied with an easy explanatory
text, for the most part representations of the mystic relation- ↑ Passavant, Le Peintre-Graveur, i. 18 (Leipzig, 1860-1864); John Jackson, Wood Engraving (London, 1839); Bruno Bucher, Gesch. der techn. Künste, I. p. 362 seq.
- ↑ See Ern. Satow, “On the Early History of Printing in Japan,” in Trans. Asiat. Soc. of Japan, x. 48 seq.; and Stan. Julien, “Documents sur l’art d'imprimer,” &c., in Journ. Asiat., 4ᵐᵉ ser., vol. ix. p. 505.
- ↑ See further Palaeography.
- ↑ An original copy of one of them is in the British Museum (Addit. MS. 28752).
