any neat-handed man could print for himself. We learn from
the inventory of the possessions of Jean de Hinsberg, bishop of Liége
(1419–1455), and his sister, a nun in the convent of Bethany, near
Mechlin, that they possessed “unum instrumentum ad imprimendas
scriptures et ymagines,” and “novem printe lignee ad imprimendas
ymagines cum quatuordecim aliis lapideis printis.” These entries
would seem to indicate that people purchased engraved blocks of
wood or of stone from the wood-cutter rather than books from a
printer.
Concurrently with these single woodcuts, with or without written or xylographic text, arose a class of books, in some of which written texts were added to pictures printed from wooden blocks; in others the text was written first, and woodcuts pasted or printed in Xylo-chirographs. spaces reserved for them. These books, combining wood-engraving with handwriting, are now in technical language called xylo-chirographs (wood-handwritten books); they may also be called semi-block books, and form an intervening stage between the manuscript book and the blockbook (xylograph) entirely printed from wooden blocks. They tend to show that xylography, after having been for some time confined to the production and multiplication of insulated pictures, was gradually applied to the printing of whole series of illustrations, to be added to written texts, or to have written texts added to them. It is not possible to assign definite dates to these xylo-chirographs; they could hardly be placed after, but may, for ought we know, be contemporaries of the blockbooks. We know nine of them; the years 1440 (which occurs in No. 5) and 1463 (found in No. 9) marking, for the present, the period within which they can be placed.
(1) Biblia Pauperum, in the Heidelberg University Library, German work, MS., Latin text added to engravings (cf. Schreiber, Manuel, iv. 90, c. 1460; photogr. pl. xlv.); (2) Anti-christus, one part of which is in the Paris Bibl. St Gen. (see Bernard, Orig. de l'impr. i. 102), another at Vienna, Alb. Bibl.; Bavarian work, MS., German text added to engravings (Schreiber iv. 231, pl. lv.); (3) Vita et Passio Jesu Christi, 48 leaves, in the Vienna Hofbibliothek, German work, the woodcuts printed on the versos, Latin prayers written on the rectos (Schreiber iv. 321, c. 1450, pl. lxxxx.); (4) Septem planetae, seven xylographically printed plates in the Berlin K. K. Library, German work, with German explanatory text written on separate leaves facing the engravings (Schreiber iv. 417, c. 1470, pl. cxi.); (5) Pomerium spirituale, by Henricus de Pomerio (or Henri Vanden Bogaert), in the Brussels Royal Library, bearing the date 1440 in two places; its twelve engravings seem to have originally been published as a block book, without any text (see below);[1] in this copy they are cut up, pasted on other (contemporary) leaves of paper, and a Latin MS. commentary added to them (see Alvin, Documents iconogr.; Schreiber iv. 317, pl. lxiv.; Conway, Notes on the Exercitium super Pater Noster; Holtrop, Mon. typ. p. 9). Some bibliographers unreasonably contend that the engravings cannot be earlier than c. 1470, and that the year 1440 is the date of the original, now lost, which the transcriber of this copy inadvertently repeated. (6) Exercitium super Pater Noster (ascribed for good reasons to the same Henri Vanden Bogaert); imperfect copy (8 leaves) in the Paris National Library (Invent. D. 1581); woodcuts printed on the recto of each leaf, and an explanatory text (in Flemish) written underneath them (Schreiber iv. 245, pl. lxxxvii.; Conway, l. c.); (7) the same Exercitium, with the same eleven engravings that were issued, some time before, as a complete blockbook (see below), a copy of which is preserved in the public library at Mons, in which the engravings are cut up and (after the Flemish verses of the blockbook had been cut away) pasted, with their versos, on the versos of other contemporary leaves, with an explanatory (Latin) text written on the recto of the leaf next to each engraving (Schreiber iv. 247, pl. lxxxviii.; Conway, l. c.; (8) a MS. of the Speculum humanae salvationis, with the written date 1461 (Munich Hof.-u. Staatsbibl. cod. lat. 21543), in which the 192 illustrations, usually found in the MSS. of the Speculum, have been impressed from small wooden blocks in the spaces reserved for them in the MS.; (9) another MS. of a German version of the Speculum in the same Munich library (Cod. Ger. 1126), with the written date 1463, in which the 192 woodcut illustrations, impressed in No. 8, are again impressed in the spaces reserved, for them.
Of blockbooks of probable German origin the following are known:—
1. The Apocalypsis, or Historia S. Johannis evangelistae ejusque
visiones apocalypticae (Germ. Das Buch der haymlichen Offenbarungen
Sanct Johans).—Of this work six or seven editions are said to
exist, each containing 48 (the 2nd and 3rd edition 50) illustrations,
Blockbooks
of German Origin.
on as many anopisthographic leaves, which seem to
have been divided into three quires of eight sheets each.
The first edition alone is without signatures. Cf. S. L.
Sotheby, The Blockbooks, i. 1. A copy of the 5th edition
(according to W. L. Schreiber, Manuel, iv. 168), 48 leaves, is in the
Cambridge University Library. A copy of the supposed 4th edition in
the British Museum (C. 9, c. 1), and one of the 6th edition (IB. 14);
also a single leaf (with signature H) of the 5th edition (IB. 16).
2. Ars moriendi.—Although the origin of this work must be ascribed to the Netherlands, some authors think that there are early German editions, among others that spoken of below as the 2nd Dutch edition. Certainly German is the edition of Hans Spörer of Nuremberg (1473), in the public library at Zwickau, and fragment of leaf 18, in the British Museum (IB. 20); another by Ludwig zu Ulm, in the Paris National Library, and the one described in Collectio Weigel. (ii. 16), where also other, but opisthographic, editions are described (see Sotheby i. 70; Schreiber iv. 253). A copy of one of these in the British Museum (IA. 24). A copy of an edition printed in a press and ascribed to Augsburg, in the British Museum (IB. 23).
3. Ars memorandi quatuor Evangelia; 30 leaves, folio, printed on one side, 15 leaves being letterpress and 15 plates (Sotheby ii. 2; Schreiber iv. 135). Copy in the British Museum (IB. 17).
4. Salve Regina, bears the name of its en raver, Lienhart czu Regenspurck; 16 leaves; 2 leaves (signature a) are wanting in the only copy known of it, which was in the Weigel collection (ii. 103) and is now in the British Museum (IB. 1); Schreiber iv. 381.
5. Vita et Passio Christi (German); 32 leaves, small 8vo. Two copies in the Paris Library (Sotheby ii. 143; Schreiber iv. 320, who describes other issues in German and Italian).
6. The Ten Commandments for Unlearned People (Die Zehn Bott für die ungelernte Leut).—Ten leaves in the library at Heidelberg bound up with MS. No. 438; see Joh. Geffcken, Bildercatechismus (Leipzig, 1855), 4to; Sotheby ii. 160; W. L. Schreiber iv. 234.
7. The Passion of our Lord; 16 leaves in the Weigel collection (Sotheby ii. 141; Schreiber iv. 320), now in the British Museum (IA. 25).
8. The Antichrist (Der Enndchrist); 26 leaves, small folio (Sotheby ii. 38; Weigel ii. 111; Schreiber iv. 217). Copies in the Manchester Rylands Library (Spencer collection); Coll. Weig. No. 264, leaf 6 and the upper half of 7 now in the British Museum, where also a fragment of leaf 28 is preserved; four copies at Munich.
9. The Fifteen Signs of the Last Judgment; 12 engravings, usually bound up with the engravings of The Antichrist (Sotheby ii. 42; Schreiber iv. 217). Copies as of No. 8. An edition was also published at Nuremberg in 1472 by Jung hannss Priffmaler (copy at Gotha.
10. Symbolum Apostolicum; small 4to, 7 leaves printed on one side only, containing 12 woodcuts. Cf. Sotheby ii. 148; also Schreiber iv. 239, who describes three editions: (1) at Vienna; (2) at Heidelberg; (3) with German inscriptions, at Munich.
11. The Legend of St Meinrad; 48 leaves. Copies in the libraries at Munich and Einsiedeln (Sotheby ii. 150; Schreiber iv. 385).
12. The Acht Schalkheiten, of which 8 leaves were in the Weigel collection (i. 112; Sotheby ii. 154).
13. The Fable of the Sick Lion; 12 leaves. Copies in the Berlin Museum, and in the Heidelberg Library (No. 438). Cf. Sotheby ii. 159, pl. lxxxvi.; Schreiber iv. 444.
14. Defensorium Inviolatae Virginitatis b. Mariae Virginis; 16 leaves, folio, with the initials of the printer F(riedrich) W(althern) and the date 1470 on the first leaf (Schreiber iv. 368; Sotheby ii. 63). Copies in the British Museum (IB. 2); two at Paris; three at Munich; one at Berlin; another at Stuttgart.
15. The same work, 27 leaves, large folio, 1471, with the imprint “Johannes eysenhüt impressor (at Regensburg) Anno ab incarnacōis dnice Mo quadringentesimo septuagesimo jo” (cf. Sotheby ii. 72; Schreiber iv. 374). Copies in the British Museum (IC. 4) at Berlin, Gotha, Manchester.
16. The Dance of Death (Dance Macabre; der Doten Dantz); 27 leaves; two editions; one in the library at Heidelberg; another at Munich (cf. Schreiber iv. 432; Sotheby ii. 156).
17. Die Kunst Ciromantia of Dr Johan Hartlieb (Sotheby ii. 84; Schreiber iv. 428). Ten leaves of the edition of Jorg Schapff of Augsburg c. 1478 in the British Museum (IB. 8).
18. Der Beichtspiegel or Confessionale; 8 engravings (Sotheby ii. 145; Schreiber iv. 252). Copy in the royal library (Mus. Meerman) at the Hague.
19. Exercitium super Pater Noster, only one leaf (the first) preserved at Kremsmünster, of a German edition (Schreiber iv. 247). For two xylo-chirographic issues of this Netherlandish work, see above, and below for a xylographic edition.
20. Biblia Pauperum, German text; copy in the British Museum (IB. 3); and a copy of another edition (40 leaves) with the device of Hans Spoerer, and the date 1471 (IC. 5).
21. The Apostles' Creed; 7 leaves, folio. Copy at Wolfenbüttel.
22. The Credo, in German; 12 leaves, 4to. Copy in the Munich Royal Library.
- ↑ Dumortier testifies to having seen a copy of the engravings unaccompanied by MS. (“Notes sur l'imprimerie,” in Bull. Acad. Roy. de Belg., 1841, vol. viii.).
