It seems impossible that
writings
on con-
temporary events could escape being printed.
temporary events could escape being printed.
Cambridge History of English Literature - 1908 - v02
Richard Arnold, the compiler, was a
merchant trading with the Low Countries and his work is a
miscellaneous collection of stray facts relating to the city of
London, copies of charters, examples of business letters, lists of
mayors and bailiffs, of London churches and quaint recipes; it is, in
fact, the commonplace book of a man with antiquarian tastes.
Its chief fame is derived from its including, inserted between
a list of the tolls of Antwerp and the difference between English
and Flemish coinage, the famous ballad of The Nut Broron Maid.
A second edition of the Chronicle was issued in which the lists
were brought down to 1520.
When William de Machlinia ceased printing, probably about
the year 1488, his place was taken by Richard Pynson, a Norman,
who had been educated at the university of Paris. His first object
was to print law-books, and here his knowledge of French would
be of great use; but he also issued works of general interest.
Before November 1492, when his first dated book was issued, he
had printed a Latin grammar, an edition of The Canterbury Tales
and a version of The Goste of Guy.
The Canterbury Tales is an exact reprint of Caxton's second
edition, and was probably issued before Caxton's death in 1491.
The short preface, a most confused and involved piece of writing,
shows that Pynson was not thoroughly acquainted with the
English language, and it is rare to find him making use of it.
The Goste of Guy must have been a most interesting book;
but, unhappily, all that remains of it are two small fragments
of a leaf, containing altogether twelve lines. On comparison with
manuscripts of the poem, it is clear that the printed version was
very much abbreviated and bore about the same relation to them
as the early printed editions of such books as Sir Beves of
Hamtoun or Guy of Warwick bear to their earlier manuscripts.
The manuscripts of The Goste of Guy, both in prose and verse,
are, apparently, derived from a northern English prose original.
The version in verse is placed by Schleich in the second quarter
of the fourteenth century. The Pynson fragment is quite
independent of any of the known English versions, and is valuable
as evidence of a lasting interest in the subject. A short Latin
version was printed towards the close of the fifteenth century
## p. 321 (#339) ############################################
Richard Pynson
321
at Cologne; and this may be more nearly connected with the
version printed by Pynson. In June 1493, Pynson issued the
first edition of Dives and Pauper, by Henry Parker, a Carmelite
monk of Doncaster, who died in 1470. The work, which is an
explanation of the ten commandments, points out the duties of the
rich towards the poor, and finishes with a treatise on holy poverty.
In the following year, Pynson issued an illustrated edition
of Lydgate's Falls of Princes, translated from Boccaccio; and,
in 1495, an edition of the Hecyra of Terence the first printed
of a set of the plays issued between 1495 and 1497. It is probable
that these were printed for William Horman for use at Eton;
and other books, such as Dialogus linguae et ventris and one or
two grammars bearing Horman's initials, were issued about the
same time.
Pynson seems to have had little enterprise in printing English
books; and, besides those already mentioned, he only issued six
in the fifteenth century which were not mere reprints. He must
be credited with the first edition of Mandeville's Travels, and of
The History of Guy Earl of Warwick. The remaining four are
small poetical pieces of a few leaves each. The earliest, The Life
of St Margaret, is only known from a fragment. The next is
The Epitaph of Jasper Tudor, Duke of Bedford. The poem
ends 'Quod Smerte maister de ses ouzeaus'; but it is generally
ascribed to Skelton. The duke died in 1495, and the book was
printed very shortly afterwards. The Foundation of the Chapel
of Walsingham gives an account in verse of the miracle which
led to the building of the shrine in 1061, and may have been
printed for sale to the pilgrims who travelled there. The remaining
piece is The Life of St Petryonylla.
The sixteenth century shows slight advance. In 1503, Pynson
published a translation of Imitatio Christi, by William Atkyn-
son, to which was added a spurious fourth book, translated
from the French by Margaret, countess of Richmond and
Derby. Nothing further of interest was issued until 1509, when
Barclay's translation of The Ship of Fools appeared. Barclay
seems to have been a favourite author with Pynson, who printed
many of his works. In 1511, appeared The Pilgrimage of Sir
Richard Guilforde, a most interesting account of a journey to
the holy land, written by his chaplain. A good deal of the book
is compiled from earlier guide-books; but there are several pieces
of picturesque writing, especially the account of the death and
burial of Sir Richard at Jerusalem.
E. L. II.
CH. XIII,
21
## p. 322 (#340) ############################################
322
The Introduction of Printing
In 1516, Fabyan's Chronicles were printed, the first of the
series of modern chronicles. The work was compiled by Robert
Fabyan, sheriff of London, who died in 1512. It is a compilation
from previous writers of the history of England from the days
of Brutus, but the earlier parts are very superficial. The later
parts are only valuable where they touch on matters which came
under his own personal observation; but much matter relating
to London is given in detail.
In the same year was issued the Kalendar of the new legend
of England, a work treating of the lives of British saints.
Soon after this date, Pynson, as king's printer, found much of his
time occupied in printing more or less official works and books
relating to political affairs; and English books of this period are
few. Between 1523 and 1525, he completed the printing of the
most important of his publications, the translation of the Chronicle
of Froissart by John Bourchier, Lord Berners-a work of great
bibliographical interest on account of the several variations in the
first edition. Its publication introduced a new style of historical
writing; but it seems to have met with little success and was but
once reprinted before the nineteenth century. Berners's love of
romance led him to translate three books from French and Spanish,
Huon of Bordeaux, The Castle of Love and The History of
Arthur of Little Britain, to which reference is made elsewhere!
Pynson's later work was mainly confined to books in Latin and
treatises on law; English books printed by him are rare and,
usually, mere reprints. In fact, during his whole career, he did not
issue one English book for ten issued by de Worde. His taste was
for serious literature, and he was the favourite publisher for such
learned writers of England as chose to have their books printed in
this country. He was heavily handicapped by want of type. He had
a fair Latin fount, but hardly any Greek; so that scholars preferred
to send their work to foreign printers such as Froschover or
Froben, who had not only adequate type and good correctors, but
were well situated for publishing the books at the various local
fairs, the then recognised centres for circulating books. If success
in business may be taken as a sign of popular approval, Pynson,
with his learned books and the official income derived from his
work as king's printer, stood no chance against Wynkyn de Worde,
with his romances and poetical tracts; for, as we know from the
subsidy rolls, de Worde was by far the richer man.
Wynkyn de Worde, who succeeded to Caxton's press and
· See Chapter XIV, p. 339.
>
## p. 323 (#341) ############################################
Wynkyn de Worde
323
material, published very little during the first few years, being
contented with a few reprints. In 1495, he issued a translation
of the Vitae Sanctorum Patrum of Jerome. This translation was
the work of Caxton and was only finished, as de Worde writes
in the colophon, on the last day of his life. It was rendered from
the French edition printed at Lyons in 1486; but, as might have
been expected, it attained little popularity and was never re-
printed.
About this time, de Worde published an English version of
'Bartholomaeus de Proprietatibus Rerum, made by John Trevisa. '
The printer, or some one under his direction, has added an epi-
logue which contains some curious details as to the beginning of
Caxton's career as a printer, and also the information that the
book was the first to be printed on English-made paper. The
year 1496 saw the issue of new editions of Dives and Pauper
and The Book of St Albans, the latter being enlarged with a third
part containing the treatise of Fishing with an angle, a book
which would seem to be the work of a practical fisherman, is
much more modern in feeling than many books of the same
class issued at a later date and differs much in style from the
other treatises. The fourth edition of Chaucer's Canterbury
Tales, printed in 1498, again clearly shows de Worde's carelessness
as a printer and the absence of editorial work on his books.
A large portion of The Monk's Tale is omitted; and, though the
printer, when he discovered this, inserted an extra printed leaf,
still, much is missing. Though not skilful as a printer, de Worde
was not idle : before the close of the fifteenth century, he had
issued at least one hundred and ten books. A large number were
reprints and many others of no literary interest, such as grammars,
service-books and law-books; but, among the remainder, are some
worthy of notice. The Contemplacyon of sinners, written by a
monk, William Touris, and an illustrated edition of Mandeville's
Travels were issued in 1499. Among the undated books are
several romances, Beves of Hamtoun, Guy of Warwick and
Robin Hood; the works of John Alcock, bishop of Ely; some
curious religious works such as The Doctrinal of Death, The
Miracles of Our Lady, The Rote or mirror of Consolation, The
Twelve profits of tribulation. There is also one work of Skelton,
The Bowge of Court, a satire on the court manners of the time,
and a book which, from the number of editions, appears to have
been popular, The History of the Three Kings of Cologne, a
translation of the Historia trium regum of John of Hildesheim.
21-2
## p. 324 (#342) ############################################
324
The Introduction of Printing
We have no evidence that de Worde did anything in the way
of editing or translating; but he had in his employ assistants who
were able to translate from the French. Chief among these was
Robert Copland, who was responsible for the translation of the
Kalendar of Shepherds, The mirror of the Church, Helyas
Knight of the Swan and Kynge Appolyn of Thyre, while he
frequently added short prologues and epilogues in verse to the
books he printed for de Worde. Copland printed also several
books on his own account, two, at least, being of his own composition.
These are The Hye Way to the Spyttell Hous and Iyl of
Braintford's Testament. The former, though it cannot lay claim
to any merit, is curious on account of its matter. It purports to
be a dialogue between Copland and the porter of an almshouse,
in the course of which they criticise all the applicants for charity
as they pass, and discuss the various frauds and deceits practised
by thieves and beggars, and, incidentally, the vices and follies
which have brought them to ruin. The second piece is very
inferior to the first, and coarse even for the period.
Another translator, an apprentice to Wynkyn de Worde, was
Henry Watson, and his first work was a prose translation from
the French of The Ship of Fools. This work must have been
done directly for the press, since it is said in the prologue to have
been undertaken at the request of Margaret, countess of Richmond,
the king's grandmother. This must have been after 21 April
1509, and the finished book was published on 6 July. His other
translations were The Church of Evil Men and Women and
Valentine and Orson. The first is from a French version of a
work by St Augustine. Another translation by Watson from the
French was The History of Olyver of Castylle and the fayre
Helayne, issued in 1518. In the prologue, the translator speaks
of the cheapness of books owing to the invention of printing.
Andrew Chertsey, of whom nothing is known, also translated a
considerable number of books for de Worde. His earliest trans-
lation was The Ordinary of Christian men, which, like all his
other books, was taken from the French. Among them may be
mentioned The Lricydarye, The Flower of commandments of
God, The Treatise of the Passion of Christ, The Craft to live
well and to die well, a complete translation of a book from which
Caxton had already translated extracts under the title of The
Art of good living and good dying.
A good idea of the ordinary demand for books may be obtained
by examining the publications of Wynkyn de Worde in the year 1509.
## p. 325 (#343) ############################################
Wynkyn de Worde
325
This was the busiest year of his career, for, no doubt, the funerals
of Henry VII and the countess of Richmond, and the coronation
of Henry VIII, would bring large crowds to London. Altogether,
he issued twenty-five books and these, again, can be arranged in an
almost exact order. Up to 21 April, he had published five, a York
Manuale, an edition of the Manipulus Curatorum and editions of
The Gospel of Nicodemus, The Parliament of Devils and Richard
Cour de Lion. Between 21 April and 12 July, the busiest time, he
issued eleven; four grammatical books, two editions each of
Fisher's Sermon on the seven penitencial psalms and Funeral
sermon on Henry VII, the prose version of The Ship of Fools
and two works by Stephen Hawes, The Passetyme of Pleasure
and The Conversion of Swearers. During the rest of the year
he printed seven-two service-books, a grammar, Hawes's Joyful
meditation. . . of the coronation of. . . Henry VIII, Fisher’s Mourning
Remembrance, and two anonymous books, The Fifteen Joys of
Marriage and The Seven Sheddings of the blood of Jesu Christ.
Two more books belong to this year which cannot be placed
in any group, a service-book, and The rule of the living of the
bretherne and systars.
The publications of this year are the most miscellaneous of
any, and, very soon, the taste began to change. New romances
continued to be published for some years: King Apolyn of Tyre
and The Birth of Merlin in 1510, The History of King Ponthus
in 1511, The History of Helias, Knight of the Swan in 1512 and
Oliver of Castile (probably a reprint of a lost earlier edition)
in 1518. Yet a gradual but marked change was taking place.
Educational books and books on religious subjects became more
and more in demand. The influence of scholars like Erasmus and
the general revival of letters in the one case, and the growth
of the reformation and the influence of the 'new learning' in
the other, were beginning to produce effects. In Wynkyn de
Worde's second busiest year, 1532, out of eighteen books, six were
scholastic, eleven religious and the remaining one a romance,
The History of Guystarde and Sygysmonde, translated from the
Latin by William Walter.
William Walter, ‘servant' to Sir Henry Marney, chancellor
of Lancaster from 1509 to 1523, translated at least three books.
Guystarde and Sygysmonde is a version in seven-lined stanzas
taken, probably, from the Latin version of Boccaccio's story made
by Leonardo Aretino. This, like so many of de Worde's books,
was edited by Robert Copland, who added some verses of his
## p. 326 (#344) ############################################
326
The Introduction of Printing
own. Though the earliest edition known is dated 1532, there must,
most probably, have been an earlier one. Another of Walter's
books, The Spectacle of Lovers, though spoken of as 'newly
compiled,' is, apparently, a translation; while the last, The
History of Titus and Gesippus is, also, translated out of Latin.
In 1521, de Worde printed a book of carols, of which only
a fragment is known. It contains the well known carol on the
bringing in of the boar's head beginning ‘The boar's head in hand
bring I, still sung on Christmas day in Queen's College, Oxford,
and another carol on hunting.
After this year, we find hardly any new English books printed;
the revival of letters was beginning to make itself felt, and half the
produce of the press consisted of educational books. So much
had the demand for this class of book increased that de Worde
sometimes printed three or four editions of one grammar in the
course of a year.
Among some two hundred undated books issued from this
press there are many of great interest; but, unfortunately, many
are known only from fragments, and very many more from single
copies in private libraries, and, therefore, difficult of access. As
examples of such books may be mentioned the metrical romance
of Capystranus, The Complaint of the too soon married, The
Complaint of the too late married, The Complaynte of the Heart,
Feylde's Controversy between a lover and a jay, The Fifteen joys
of marriage, The Jest of the Miller of Abingdon, The Pain and
sorrow of evil marriage and many other small metrical pieces, all
of which are in private hands.
The total number of books at present known to have been
issued by Wynkyn de Worde in the sixteenth century is about
six hundred and forty. Of these, more than two hundred were
merely small school-books, about one hundred and fifty service-
books and religious treatises and the same number of poems and
romances; the remainder consisting of chronicles, law-books,
accounts of passing events and other miscellaneous books.
The productions of the minor printers of the period show little
originality, though, here and there, we come across books which had
not already been issued by de Worde or Pynson. Julian Notary,
who printed between 1496 and 1520, issued, out of some forty books,
only five not previously printed. The earliest of these, The Gospel of
Nicodemus, printed in 1507, evidently suited the popular taste and
was very frequently reprinted. Besides this there are two small
poetical tracts, The mery geste of a Sergeaunt and Frere, by Sir
## p. 327 (#345) ############################################
The Minor Printers
327
Thomas More, and A mery gest howe Johan Splynter made his testa-
ment. This last tells how John Splynter, rent-gatherer at Delft and
Schiedam, having neglected his private concerns for the sake of
his professional business, was treated with contempt by the nuns
who employed him, but who, hoping to obtain as a legacy the
chest which he pretended was full of money, kept him in comfort
for his life. Pepwell, between 1518 and 1523, printed eight books ;
The Castle of Pleasure, by W. Neville, The City of Ladies, by
Christine de Pisan, The Dietary of ghostly health, are all, probably,
reprints from editions printed by Wynkyn de Worde. Another
book contains several religious pieces printed together, some of
which had not been issued before. Among them are the treatise
named Benjamin, written by Richard of St Victor, The life of St
Katherine of Senis, The book of Margery Kempe, ancresse of Lynn,
The treatise of the Song of angels by Walter Hylton and others.
Richard Faques, out of a total of about twenty books, printed
three or four of interest. Two are ballads relating to the battle
of Flodden. Another is a curious and hitherto unnoticed work,
entitled The booke of the pylgrymage of man. The preface runs
'translated from Le Pelerinage de l'homme of late drawen into
prose by dane William Hendred, Priour of Leomynstre, and now
newly at the specyal commandement of the same father reverent
I have compyled the tenure of the same in metre, comprehended
in xxvI chapitours. ' The book is written in highly alliterative
seven-lined stanzas, but there is no clue to the name of the
compiler. The date of the printing of the book may be put
down to about the year 1515; but no authorities mention prior
William Hendred, so the exact date of his translation cannot be
determined.
Among John Rastell's productions, for the most part legal or
religious, are a few of a totally different nature. In 1526, he issued
The merry jests of the widow Edith, written by Walter Smith.
This is the story in verse of the many tricks played by Edith, the
daughter of John Haukin and widow of Thomas Ellis, on various
persons, innkeepers, tradesmen and the servants of Sir Thomas
More and the bishop of Rochester. She was still alive when
the book was written; and the author, Walter Smith, was, very
probably, a stationer of that name in London and a neighbour of
Rastell. The poem itself is coarse and of no merit, but interesting
on account of its references to contemporary persons. The other
book of the same year is The Hundred merry Tales, of which the
unique copy is at Göttingen. Rastell was in the habit of giving
## p. 328 (#346) ############################################
328
The Introduction of Printing
performances of plays at his own house; and to this we may
attribute his printing several interludes and plays by Medwall,
Skelton and Heywood.
One other book by this printer is worthy of notice, The
Pastime of People. This is a short chronicle, carried up to the
.
year 1530 and, apparently, compiled by Rastell himself, which
contains some curious statements on recent events. It contains
also full-page portraits of the kings of England.
The only other among all the minor printers of the period
to show any originality in his choice of publications was John
Skot. He issued, about 1535, a curious religious imitation of the
celebrated ballad of The Nut Brown Maid, entitled The newe
Notbrowne mayd upon the passyon of Cryste, and also printed two
editions of Every-man, a morality of exceptional literary merit,
closely connected with the Dutch Elckerlijk, written by Petrus
Dorlandus towards the close of the fifteenth century.
Another cause militating against the production of much good
work by these minor early printers was the smallness of their
resources. They had practically no capital, and, without good type
and illustrations, could not venture upon the production of a large
work. A fount of type discarded by some other printer, and a
small collection of miscellaneous and worn wood-blocks, were their
sole stock. They could thus only work on small books, and had,
moreover, to choose those which, by previous publication, bad
proved to be popular.
Reference has been made before to the attempt, very soon after
Caxton's death, to produce English books abroad for sale in this
country. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, this attempt
was renewed with greater success.
Antoine Verard, the famous French publisher, attempted, about
1503, to issue books for the English market. In that year, he issued
The Kalendar of Shepherds and The Art of good living and
dying. The former became a very popular book, and at least
sixteen editions were issued in the sixteenth century. It is a
translation of the Calendrier des Bergers, of which there are
many early French editions, and is an extraordinary collection of
miscellaneous matter, 'a universal magazine of every article of
salutary and useful knowledge. ' The language of this first edition
is even more curious than its contents; for the translator was,
manifestly, a young Scotchman with a very imperfect knowledge
of French. It has been suggested that this version was intended
for sale in Scotland; but this is hardly probable, since the language
## p. 329 (#347) ############################################
English Books Printed Abroad
329
would have been as unintelligible to the Scottish as it was to the
English reader. In 1506, Pynson issued a new edition revised from
the 'corrupte englysshe' of the earlier; and, in 1508, Wynkyn de
Worde published a new translation made by Robert Copland, who
definitely speaks of the language of the first as Scottish ; and
this final translation was frequently reprinted.
The Art of good living and dying, a translation from L'Art
de bien vivre et de bien mourir, was also translated by the same
hand; and of it, again, a new translation made by Andrew Chertsey
was issued by Wynkyn de Worde in 1505. The third of Verard's
books, but, probably, the earliest published, is the first edition of
Alexander Barclay's translation of Gringore's Chasteau de labour,
which may have been printed under Barclay's own supervision
when he was staying in Paris. It is known only from fragments,
but was fortunately reprinted, once by Pynson and twice by
Wynkyn de Worde.
Another very remarkable foreign printed book, clearly translated
by a foreigner, is The Passion of Christ. The strangeness of the
language is evident from the first sentence 'Her begynnythe ye
passion of dar seygneur Jesu chryste front ye resuscytacion of
lazarus and to thende translatet owt of frenche yn to englysche
the yer of dar lorde. M. v. cviii. The book, said to have been
translated at the command of Henry VII, was evidently printed
in Paris, probably by Verard and is illustrated with a number of
fine wood-cuts copied from a series by Urs Graf published at
Strassburg. The name of the translator is not known; but many
of the words point to a native of the Low Countries.
Soon after the beginning of the sixteenth century, an Antwerp
bookseller and stationer, John of Doesborch, began to print books in
English for sale in this country. These range in date from about 1505
to about 1525 and are good evidence of what a speculative printer
considered most likely to appeal to popular taste. The earliest
is a religious tract on the subject of the last judgment, entitled
The Fifteen Tokens, a translation by the printer from some Dutch
version of a part of L'Art de bien mourir. There are four small
grammars of a kind in common use, but the majority are story-
books. These are The Gest of Robyn Hode, Euryalus and
Lucrece, The Lyfe of Virgilius, Frederick of Jennen, Mary of
Nemmegen, Tyll Howleglas and The Parson of Kalenborowe.
With the exception of the first two, all are translations from the
Dutch. Douce, without apparently any reason, suggested Richard
Arnold, the compiler of Arnold's Chronicle, as the translator ; but
## p. 330 (#348) ############################################
330
The Introduction of Printing
the work was more probably done by Lawrence Andrewe, who was
then living in Antwerp and was afterwards a printer in London.
The remaining English books issued by Doesborch are very
miscellaneous. There are two editions of the Valuation of gold
and silver; a work on the pestilence; two tracts relating to
expeditions against the Turks; another, on the wonderful shape
and nature of beasts and fishes; and, lastly, what is generally
considered the first English book on America, Of the new lands
found by the messengers of the King of Portugal named Emanuel.
Only a single leaf of the book, describing a voyage made in 1496,
relates to America; the rest is compiled from various sources such
as the Tractatus de decem nationibus christianorum, appended
to the Itinerarius of Johannes de Hese, and a Dutch book, also
printed by Doesborch, Van Pape Jans landendes.
The printers of Antwerp always continued to be connected
with the English book trade; but the year 1525, which saw the
cessation of John of Doesborch's press with its popular little books,
witnessed also the publication at Worms of Tindale’s New
Testament, which marks an entire change in the character of
the books printed abroad. After this time, the foreign presses
issued nothing but religious and controversial books, the work
of refugees whose religious or political opinions had made them
outcasts from their own country. The reformation seems to have
dealt a blow at both books of amusement and books of education,
and story-books and grammars almost ceased to be published.
In taking a general survey of the English press during the first
fifty years of its existence, several points stand out very prominently.
One, in especial, is the comparative scarcity of books by con-
temporary writers. Skelton, who flourished during this period,
is very badly represented, and Stephen Hawes but little better.
But, when we consider how very many of these early books have
come down to our time only in single copies or even fragments
out of an edition of some hundreds, it is only natural to suppose
that a great number must have utterly disappeared. This would
be especially the case with small poetical books and romances ;
but others, of which copies might have been expected to be
preserved, are lost. There is no trace of The epitaph of the King
of Scotland, written by Petrus Carmelianus and stuffed full of
womanly abuse,' which, according to Erasmus, was printed by
Pynson in 1513. Of the several books relating to the impostures
of the Maid of Kent which are known to have been printed, not
a fragment now remains. Perhaps their popularity was the cause
a
## p. 331 (#349) ############################################
The Book Trade
331
of their destruction.
It seems impossible that writings on con-
temporary events could escape being printed. For instance,
Dunbar's poem 'London thou art the flower of cities all,'
composed on his visit to London in 1501 and circulated in
manuscript, is just what an enterprising printer would have
seized upon. Yet we have no evidence of its existence in a
printed form. The popular demand was for reprints of older
works and translations of French poems and romances; there is
hardly any genuine original work printed in the period.
Another point which has been commented upon is the entire
absence of any classical books. Apart from books evidently in-
tended for school use, such as Cicero pro Milone, printed at Oxford
about 1483, and the Terence printed by Pynson in 1495—7, the only
book to which we can point is Pynson's edition of Vergil, printed
about 1520. But the reason here is not far to seek. There were
no restrictions on the importation of foreign books, and English
printers could not possibly compete either in accuracy and neatness
or in cheapness with the foreign productions of this class. Very
wisely they left them alone. Thus, the output of the English
presses show rather the popular, than the general, demand. To
discover this, it would be necessary to find a day-book or ledger
of some London bookseller similar to that of John Dorne the
Oxford bookseller of 1520. This latter, being the accounts of a
bookseller in a university town, furnishes no fair criterion of
general taste; though, even at the fairs where the most general
trade was done in books, his English books formed but a small
proportion of his sales.
The seeming neglect by the age of the work of its own more
important writers is balanced by the precipitancy of modern
writers, who have hitherto skipped from Skelton to Surrey without
a pause, entirely ignoring the minor authors and translators
whose books supplied the main reading of the English public.
## p. 332 (#350) ############################################
OHAPTER XIV
ENGLISH PROSE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY
II
CAXTON. MALORY. BERNERS
ALTHOUGH the introduction of printing brought about no
sudden renascence, it accelerated and strengthened, under the
direction of Caxton, the drift of the current of our fifteenth
century literature; and this places our first printer in a position
wholly different from that of his more mechanical successors.
Caxton was quick to discern the direction in which taste was
tending and, himself helping to direct that taste, he ignored the
old metrical romances, favourites for long, preferring to satisfy
the chivalric-romantic fashion of the times by prose translations
from French works of already established repute. That romances
of the kind of The Four Sons of Aymon, or Paris and Vienne
were destined to disappearance early in the next century in no
way neutralises their importance as a step in English literature.
They handed on material not disdained by Spenser, they formed a
link between medieval and modern romance and, from among
them, has survived an immortal work, Malory's Morte – Arthur.
We might have supposed Caxton's publication of Chaucer to
have been epoch-making, had it not had to wait for long before
kindling any fresh torch; but there is no evidence that it roused in
others the enthusiasm felt by its editor. In truth, the men of that
age, who had but just emerged from a long and sordid war, were
not, and could not be, poetical; and, save for the poems of
Chaucer and Lydgate, Caxton held firm to prose.
His publications, excluding church service-books and practical
manuals, fall into three groups: didactic works, romances and
chronicles. Of the last-large and, doubtless, costly-three proved
sufficient; of romances, he issued ten or eleven, probably for the
courtly class of readers; while, of moral and didactic works, for
the most part small and cheap, he provided no less than twenty-
nine, not counting Reynard the Fox, and the Golden Legend,
## p. 333 (#351) ############################################
Caxton as Editor
333
a
>
which partake of the entertaining element at least equally with
the instructive. As several of these books and tracts went into
two editions, they were, evidently, in considerable demand with the
general public; but the tinge of utility is upon them, and they have
not the literary interest of the larger works.
As has been observed already, the greater part of Caxton's
output was translated. Tudor prose, like that of the earlier period,
was chiefly fashioned on French models, to which we owe nearly
all the prose masterpieces of the epoch, and a proportionate debt of
gratitude. But Caxton found another quarry in fifteenth century
prose, and in the case of both English and French material he
acted as editor, translating with the same freedom as his prede-
cessors, and 'embellishing the old English' of Trevisa or of The
Golden Legend.
Caxton had lived so long abroad that he probably found more
difficulty than other writers in selecting the most suitable words to
employ; and it is difficult to believe that one hand alone turned
out so large a mass of literature as he did, any more than it
manipulated the printing-press unaided. Nevertheless, his trans-
lations must, like his press, be reckoned as having the stamp of
his authority, though others, probably, helped. A comparison
of his editions of The Golden Legend, Polychronicon and The
Knight of the Tower with the original English versions leaves the
older prose easily first. Again and again, the modern reader will
find the word rejected by Caxton more familiar than its substitute;
again and again, Caxton's curtailments, inversions, or expansions
merely spoil a piece of more vigorous narrative. This is parti-
cularly evident in The Knight of the Tower, which Caxton seems
to have translated entirely afresh, unaware of the older version,
whose superiority is remarkable. And in his original and interest-
ing prefaces we may, perhaps, see how it was he went wrong.
He appears to have been desirous of avoiding the colloquially
simple manner of earlier writers, and to have felt his way towards
the paragraph, working out, in those prefaces for which he had
no French exemplar, a somewhat involved style. He is fond of
relative sentences, and sometimes piles them on the top of each
other without finishing the earlier ones : ‘Which thing when
Gotard had advertised of and that he bare so away the bread, but
he wist not to whom ne whither, whereof he marvelled and so did
all his household? ' He mixes direct and indirect speech; he uses
the redundant which : 'I fynde many of the sayd bookes, whyche
Life of St Rocke, in Golden Legend, No. 154, tr. by Caxton,
## p. 334 (#352) ############################################
334 English Prose in the XVth Century
writers have abrydged it and many thynges left out' Only
when he has plain statements to convey, as in his continuation
of the Chronicle, or an anecdote to relate, such as the tale of the
dean and the poor parson in the epilogue to Aesop, does he become
direct; but then he is, sometimes, almost as vigorous as Latimer
himself. In this power of writing with a naïve vivacity, while
deliberately striving after a more ornate manner, Caxton belongs
to his age. He provides, as it were, a choice of styles for his
readers.
The mannerisms of the Middle Ages are still noticeable in
Caxton's work: in his irrepressible moralising, his quotations
from old authority, his conventional excuse for writing a book
(to keep himself from idleness, which is the nurse of sin), his
arrant inaccuracy as to names, his profession of incapacity 'to
smattre me in suche translacions'; but his definite claim to have
embellished the older authors, his quiet pride in his own author-
ship and the interest taken therein by his noble patrons, his
conscious appreciation of language, are of the new world, not of
the old. The days of anonymous compiling are over; and, hence-
forth, not the substance, alone, but its form will challenge
attention. Prose is no longer to be merely the vehicle of in-
formation, but conscious literature.
Caxton's largest and most popular book, The Golden Legend, is,
also, the most medieval in kind. It may almost be called a
cyclopaedia of traditional sacred lore, comprising not lives of the
saints only, but explanations of the church service and homilies
upon the feast days, as well as a shortened but complete chronicle,
Lombard in origin, to A. D. 1250. The public decidedly preferred
it to Malory or Chaucer, and it went through edition after edition.
For one thing, it was a long recognised classic; for another, it
presented the favourite mixture of morality combined with enter-
tainment. Many of the lives are copies from earlier English
versions, more or less 'mollified' by their editor. Those of French
saints are a new, and often slipshod, translation. Others are
compiled from the three renderings (Latin, English and French)
and from further sources such as Polychronicon and Josephus,
and practically form a new version. With regard to the merit of
these, opinions will differ. It may be true that Caxton's Becket,
for example, presents a more compact story than the original; on
the other hand, the incessant curtailment has spoiled the charming
incident of the Saracen princess. Caxton, moreover, altered the
usual arrangement of the Legend to insert a series of lives of
## p. 335 (#353) ############################################
The Golden Legend 335
Old Testament heroes, and it is a vital question in estimating
his rank as a prose writer whether these lives are to be
reckoned his own or not. They are so far superior to the mere
translations that one of his critics takes it for granted they must
be his own; another, that they must come from an earlier
English version now lost. The MSS of the old version now
remaining to us contain none of these Old Testament lives save
Adam, from which the Caxtonian version differs entirely. The
earlier Adam? , except for the usual legendary interpolations,
is strictly Biblical in language, adhering closely, at first, to the
revised Wyclifite version, afterwards, to the first Wyclifite version;
whereas Caxton's Adam is, in the main, a sermon, and the suc-
ceeding lives, though they follow the Bible closely as to incident,
are much shortened as to wording, and not distinctively reminis-
cent of the Wyclifite versions ; indeed, they afford more points of
resemblance to the later phraseology. If it can be supposed that
Caxton actually rendered them into English himself, his literary
powers here rose to a pitch far higher than he attained at any
other time?
Like The Golden Legend, the Morte – Arthur, the publication
of which holds a chief place in Caxton's work, looks back to the
Middle Ages. Based on translation, a mosaic of adaptations, it is,
nevertheless, a single literary creation such as no work of Caxton's
own can claim to be, and it has exercised a far stronger and longer
literary influence.
If, as is possible, Malory was the knight of Newbold Revell,
he had been a retainer of the last Beauchamp earl of Warwick, he
had seen the splendours of the last efforts of feudalism and had
served in that famous siege of Rouen which so deeply impressed
contemporary imagination. Apparently, he was a loyalist during the
Civil Wars and suffered from Yorkist revenge ; his burial in the
Grey Friars may, possibly, suggest that he even died a prisoner in
i In Lambeth MS, 72.
· The English MSS of The Golden Legend (for which see Pierce Butler, bibliog.
cap. VII), end with a kind of appendix on Adam and Eve and a sermon on the five
wiles of Pharaoh. The Lambeth MS (No. 72) adds a long account of the three kings
of Cologne, probably the legendary history often issued separately. Though this
MS contains only one hundred and sixty-two chapters to compare with the one
hundred and seventy-nine of MS Harl. 4775, it contains several English saints not
included in the latter or the parallel M8 Addit. 11,565. Caxton has not got all of
them: he omits Frideswide, Chadd and Bride, but those he has are nearly all exactly
like the older version, except K. Edmund, which he evidently obtained from some
source we do not know.
## p. 336 (#354) ############################################
336
English Prose in the XV th Century
Newgate. In any case, he must have died before the printing of
his immortal book, which comes to us, therefore, edited by Caxton,
to whom, possibly, are due most of the lacunae, bits of weak
grammar and confusions in names. Nevertheless, the style seals
the Morte d'Arthur as Malory's, not Caxton's. It is as individual
as is the author's mode of dealing with the material he gathered
from his wide field. This material Malory several times says he
found in a French book-the French book_but critics have
discovered a variety of sources. It is in the course of the story
that the multiplicity of sources is at times discernible in the
failure of certain portions to preserve a connecting thread, in the
interruption of the story of Tristram, in the curious doubling of
names, or the confusion of generations—the style reveals no trace
of inharmonious originals. The skilful blending of many ancient
tales, verse and prose, French and English, savage and saintly, into
a connected, if but loosely connected, whole is wrought in a
manner which leaves the Morte, while representative of some of
the nobler traits of Malory's century, in other respects typical
neither of that nor any particular epoch, and this is an element in
its immortality.
If such an ascetic purity and rapt devotion as glows in the
Grail story was practised among the mystics, such a fantastic
chivalry portrayed by Froissart, such a loyalty evinced by a
Bedford or a Fortescue, yet the Morte assumes the recognition
of a loftier standard of justice, purity and unselfishness than its
own century knew. These disinterested heroes, who give away all
they win with the magnanimity of an Audley at Poictiers, these
tireless champions of the helpless, these eternal lovers and their
idealised love, are of no era, any more than the forests in which
they for ever travel. And, if the constant tournaments and battles,
and the castles which seem to be the only places to live in, suggest
a medieval world, the total absence of reference to its basic
agricultural life and insistent commerce detach us from it again,
while the occasional mention of cities endows them with a splendour
and remoteness only to be paralleled in the ancient empire or
in the pictures of Turner.
Medieval stories were, naturally, negligent of causes in a world
where the unaccountable so constantly happened in real life, and
a similar suddenness of adventure may be found in tales much
older than this. Malory, however, on the threshold of an age
which would require dramatic motive or, at least, probability,
saved his book from the fate of the older, unreasoned fiction by
## p. 337 (#355) ############################################
Style of the Morte d'Arthur
337
investing it with an atmosphere, impossible to analyse, which
withdraws his figures to the region of mirage. This indescribable
conviction of magic places Malory's characters outside the sphere
of criticism, since, given the atmosphere, they are consistent
with themselves and their circumstances. Nothing is challenged,
analysed or emphasised ; curiosity as to causation is kept in
abeyance; retribution is worked out, but, apparently, uncon-
sciously. Like children's are the sudden quarrels and hatreds
and as sudden reconciliations. The motive forces are the elemental
passions of love and bravery, jealousy and revenge, never greed, or
lust, or cruelty. Courage and the thirst for adventure are taken
for granted, like the passion for the chase, and, against a brilliant
and moving throng of the brave and fair, a few conceptions are
made to stand forth as exceptional-a Lancelot, a Tristram, or
a Mark. Perhaps most skilful of all is the restraint exercised
in the portrayal of Arthur. As with Shakespeare's Caesar and
Homer's Helen, we realise Arthur by his effect upon his paladins ;
of himself we are not allowed to form a definite image, though
we may surmise justice to be his most distinct attribute. Neither
a hero of hard knocks nor an effective practical monarch, he is not
to be assigned to any known type, but remains the elusive centre
of the magical panorama.
The prose in which is unfolded this scarcely Christianised fairy
tale for the Grail was to Arthurian legend something as the
Crusades to feudalism-is, apparently, of a very simple, almost
childlike, type, with its incessant '80-and-then,' but, unlike mere
simplicity, it never becomes tedious. There is a kind of cadence,
at times almost musical, which bears the narrative on with a
gradual swell and fall proportioned to the importance of the
episodes, while brevity, especially at the close of a long incident,
sometimes approaches to epigram. But the style fits the subject
so perfectly as never to claim attention for itself. A transparent
clarity is of its essence. Too straightforward to be archaic,
idiomatic with a suavity denied to Caxton, Malory, who reaches
one hand to Chaucer and one to Spenser, escaped the stamp of a
particular epoch and bequeathed a prose epic to literature.
1
Tudor prose owes its foundations to three men of affairs who
took to literature late in life. Next to Caxton and Malory stands
Sir John Bourchier, Lord Berners. Like Malory, he was an active
soldier, but, unlike him, a well known and prosperous man, a
politician and courtier. He belonged to the influential Bourchier
22
L. L. II.
CH. XIV.
## p. 338 (#356) ############################################
338
English Prose in the XV th Century
clan, Yorkists till the death of Edward IV, and had earned and
experienced the gratitude of Henry VII. But he had the less
good fortune to attract the favour of Henry VIII, and, late in
life, suffered from that monarch's customary harshness. It was
partly to solace his anxieties while captain of Calais, as well as
to eschew idleness, the mother of all the vices,' that he executed
the series of translations which secure to him the credit of a
remarkable threefold achievement. Berners was the first to intro-
duce to our literature the subsequently famous figure of Oberon,
the fairy king; he was the first to attempt in English the ornate
prose style which shortly became fashionable; and he gave to
historians at once a new source-book and a new model in his
famous rendering of the Chronicles of Froissart.
Lord Berners was peculiarly well fitted to execute this trans-
lation. He had himself been active at the siege of Terouenne and
on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, where Henry VIII regarded
himself as, in some sort, reviving the glories of old; he had visited
the Spanish court of Charles V and knew something of that of
France. He so thoroughly entered into the spirit of his original
as to make his work rather an adoption than a translation. In
his hands history is still near akin to fiction, but rather to the
heroic romance than to the well worn marvels of ancient chronicles.
If these remind us of Gesta Romanorum or of Sir John Man-
deville, Froissart, in the dress of Berners, may be paralleled
with Malory. Sir John of Hainault champions the cause of queen
Isabel as would a knight of Arthur; and from orthodox romance
comes the fancy picture of Bristol, the well closed city on the good
port of the sea, which beats round its strong castle. While the
old chronicles are wearisome, Berners conveys all the vigour and
freshness of Froissart in his descriptions and conversations. Both
the human interest and the chronicler's personal attitude towards
it are preserved. Berners is in full sympathy with Froissart's
aristocratic spirit, which places the violence of a duke of Britanny
or a count of Foix on a plane above criticism though not beyond
sympathy, and bestows a contemptuous pity on the crestfallen
burghers of Bruges and a lofty disdain on the upstart pride of
Ghent. In language, Berners follows the excellent method of
earlier translators: 'In that I have not followed myne authour
worde by worde yet I trust I have ensewed the true reporte of the
sentence of the mater. ' And he varies his narration pleasantly by
a not unskilful use of inversion.
But the Froissart of Berners taught something further to the
Tudor historians, of the value of well proportioned detail and
## p. 339 (#357) ############################################
Huon of Bordeaux
339
occasional quotation of witness in impressing the sense of actuality.
It can hardly be said that Hall and Holinshed, the most ambitious
of Tudor historians, borrow much from Berners in style; but it is
evident that the new model influenced their aims and methods
quite apart from its value as a new mine of information.
In Arthur of Little Britain and Huon of Bordeaux, Berners
took up the prose tale, or romance, of the ordinary medieval type,
most of the incidents in which are of the wildly absurd order. But
the favourite of the two, Huon, is remarkable for its unusual pair
of heroes. The uncouthness of Charlemagne and his court is in
odd contrast to the conventional pictures of Arthur, and the whole
romance is treated on a different and lower level, whether because it
represents a fourteenth or even thirteenth century story, or because
some folk-tale influence had been at work upon it. Huon himself
is apt to remind us of the ignobly born simpleton heroes of
German peasant story, and he is a bad simpleton. He runs
headlong into danger, not from extravagance of knightly daring
but out of stupidity, or greed, or childish impatience. He com-
plains querulously, tries to deceive his benefactor Auberon and
has no notion of either gratitude or morality. For instance,
Auberon has warned him never to tell a lie, but, so soon as the
paynim porter of Babylon asks whether he be a Saracen, ‘Yea'
replies Huon promptly, and then reflects that Auberon will surely
not be angry at such a lie, ‘sen I did it not wilfully but that
I forgat it ! ' It is only when he has committed some offence
against the fairy that Huon prides himself upon being a Christian :
his Saviour ought to shield him from the wrath of Auberon. And
yet this perjured simpleton is incongruously represented as the
only creature 'sinless' enough to be able to drink from Auberon's
magic horn.
Auberon himself is half-way to being the fairy of poetry ; 'a
dwarf of the fairy' is he, child of a fairy mother, the lady of the
isle' and a mortal father, Julius Caesar (who, in the Middle Ages,
obtained the same magical reputation as Vergil). Auberon, there-
fore, is mortal, he can weep, he falls sick; but he is never of more
stature than a child of three years, and his magical powers are so
absolute that he has only to wish, and his will accomplishes itself.
He knows all that passes afar as he rules in his fairy capital,
Momure, for he is a civilised fairy with a knowledge of politics.
He is a much better Christian than Huon, and, when he dies, his
corpse is buried in an abbey and his soul is carried to heaven
by an innumerable company of angels.
6
22-2
## p. 340 (#358) ############################################
340 English Prose in the XVth Century
Huon of Bordeaux was so popular as to obtain a reissue in
1601, modernised as to wording and adorned as to style'. As
Berners wrote it out, the English is extremely straightforward, and
bears hardly more trace of the graceful fluency of his Froissart
than of the novel experiment its translator was shortly to assay.
To a modern reader, it appears, at first sight, wonderful that the
most popular work of the translator of Froissart should have been
his rendering of a verbose, didactic book by the Spanish secretary
of Charles V, Antonio de Guevara, an author whose involutions of
language rapidly captivated fashionable taste in Spain, France and
England. Berners has the credit of first introducing him and his
style to English readers in The Golden Book of Marcus Aurelius,
which so much delighted the polite world that it went through
fourteen editions in half a century. The substance of this volume
of tedious letters and trite reflections Guevara pretended he had
discovered in an old MS, claiming for himself only the merit of
bestowing ‘style' upon the emperor's writing.
The desire to treat composition as itself an art was beginning
to be felt in England, as in other countries, and Berners must have
already paid attention to that peculiar manner of writing which,
vigorously introduced by translations of which his own was the
earliest specimen, was to receive its distinctive epithet from its
most perfect example, Euphues.
The prefaces of Berners to his Froissart are his first experi-
ments in the ornate, and not much more successful, though more
lavish, than the earlier groping of Caxton. 'As said is'; 'I pray
them that shall default find,' result from his preference of inversion
to direct speech, and relative pronouns are a puzzle to him.
Yet perhaps these elaborate prologues are but a fresh outburst
of the native love of double terms which hampered every prose
writer between Chaucer and Malory. The national bent to cumu-
lative expression must have been a good preparation to the
reception of the new style when it came, by the means of trans-
lated Guevara, in a flood. What was wanting was the art to weave
the customary repetitions of thought, the synonyms, antitheses and
alliterative combinations into a balance and harmony of sentences.
To this, neither Berners nor his nephew and literary disciple
Sir F. Bryan had attained. A comparison of his Golden Book with
North's rendering of it, The Dial of Princes, exhibits the crudity
of the efforts of Berners in this style. He can faithfully reproduce
the repetitions and run the slight idea to death, but the 'sauce of
the said sweet style, as his nephew terms it, lacks savour.
1 Cl. Sidney Lee's list in his edition of Huon, E. E. T. S.
## p. 341 (#359) ############################################
CHAPTER XV
ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH EDUCATION. UNIVERSITIES
AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS TO THE TIME OF COLET
In an age innocent of historical criticism, champions of Oxford
and Cambridge, waging a wordy war for the honour of prior
foundation, referred the establishment of their respective uni-
versities to Alfred and to Sigebert. In these days, the historians
of both are content to look to the twelfth century as the birth
period, not only of the English university, but of the university
of Paris from which English university life drew its early inspiration.
When the twelfth century drew to a close, Paris was the English
academic metropolis. Already, indeed, there were masters and
students in Oxford. What was the attraction which drew them
to a town that had no well based claims to high antiquity, and
was, otherwise, of little consequence, it is impossible now to point
out with certainty. Looking to the history of continental uni-
versities, analogy would seem to demand, as the nucleus of the
concourse, a cathedral or a monastic school. But Oxford was not a
bishop's seat; its diocesan was posted in far distant Lincoln. And,
if monks provided or salaried the first Oxford teachers, they wholly
failed to obtain, or, at any rate, to retain, control over the rising
university; there is not the slightest trace of monastic influence
in the organisation or studies of the earliest Oxford of historic
times. The cloister school of St Frideswide may well have
charged the atmosphere with the first odour of learning ; but
its walls at no time sheltered the university soul.
Certain, however, it is that, in the first half of the twelfth
century, a number of famous names are connected with Oxford
teaching. It may be that if, as Gervase of Canterbury testifies,
Vacarius taught civil law at Oxford, in 1149, he did not lecture as
an Oxford master, but as a member of the train of archbishop
Theobald. But Theobaldus Stampensis, as a recent historiand has
pointed out, in letters written between 1101 and 1117 styles
· Rashdall, Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, II, 333.
## p. 342 (#360) ############################################
342
English Education
himself master in Oxford; Robert Pullen, afterwards cardinal and
the author of Sententiarum Libri Octo, is stated, on good authority,
to have taught in Oxford in 1133; and, when in 1189 Giraldus
Cambrensis read his Topographia Hibernica at Oxford, 'where the
nost learned and famous of the clergy of England were then to be
found,' he entertained ‘all the doctors of the several faculties and
such of their pupils as were of greater fame and repute. '
In the story of this last incident we have clear indications
of an existing and of an organised Oxford university.
Modern research points to the year 1167 as the date of the birth
of Oxford as a studium generale, and offers a chain of circum-
stantial evidence to connect it with an expulsion of alien students
by the Parisian authorities and the contemporary recall by
Henry II, then engaged in the contest with Becket, of all clerks
holding English cures? However this may have been, the last few
years of the twelfth century furnish abundant proof of the presence
in Oxford of students in considerable numbers.
In 1192, Oxford, according to Robert of Devizes, could barely
maintain her clerks. In 1197, the great abbot Samson of Bury
entertained a large company of Oxford masters. When the
troubles of 1209 burst upon the university, scholars to the
number-according to Matthew Paris-of three thousand dis-
persed in various directions.
It is to this last occasion that the Oxford historian” refers the
appearance of Cambridge as a studium generale.
The story is characteristic of the times. An Oxford clerk kills
a woman-accidentally, as it is afterwards said. But the culprit
flees. The town authorities search the dwelling wherein he
lodged, and, in his absence, arrest two or three of his companions,
who are perfectly innocent of the offence, if such it be. King John,
however, is in the middle of his famous quarrel with the pope, and
is ready to wreak his vengeance on any clerk. On the king's
instructions, the innocent prisoners are hanged. In combined
fear and indignation, the Oxford masters proclaim a suspension
of studies; and the scholars scatter. Some merely retreat to
Reading; others migrate further afield. Some go to Paris; some
to Cambridge.
Cambridge, as a town, dates back to the days of the Roman
occupation of Britain, when it represented the intersection of two
great military highways and a consequent guard-post. William I
made it his base for attack upon Ely, and pulled down eighteen of
1 Rashdall, Chap. XII.
merchant trading with the Low Countries and his work is a
miscellaneous collection of stray facts relating to the city of
London, copies of charters, examples of business letters, lists of
mayors and bailiffs, of London churches and quaint recipes; it is, in
fact, the commonplace book of a man with antiquarian tastes.
Its chief fame is derived from its including, inserted between
a list of the tolls of Antwerp and the difference between English
and Flemish coinage, the famous ballad of The Nut Broron Maid.
A second edition of the Chronicle was issued in which the lists
were brought down to 1520.
When William de Machlinia ceased printing, probably about
the year 1488, his place was taken by Richard Pynson, a Norman,
who had been educated at the university of Paris. His first object
was to print law-books, and here his knowledge of French would
be of great use; but he also issued works of general interest.
Before November 1492, when his first dated book was issued, he
had printed a Latin grammar, an edition of The Canterbury Tales
and a version of The Goste of Guy.
The Canterbury Tales is an exact reprint of Caxton's second
edition, and was probably issued before Caxton's death in 1491.
The short preface, a most confused and involved piece of writing,
shows that Pynson was not thoroughly acquainted with the
English language, and it is rare to find him making use of it.
The Goste of Guy must have been a most interesting book;
but, unhappily, all that remains of it are two small fragments
of a leaf, containing altogether twelve lines. On comparison with
manuscripts of the poem, it is clear that the printed version was
very much abbreviated and bore about the same relation to them
as the early printed editions of such books as Sir Beves of
Hamtoun or Guy of Warwick bear to their earlier manuscripts.
The manuscripts of The Goste of Guy, both in prose and verse,
are, apparently, derived from a northern English prose original.
The version in verse is placed by Schleich in the second quarter
of the fourteenth century. The Pynson fragment is quite
independent of any of the known English versions, and is valuable
as evidence of a lasting interest in the subject. A short Latin
version was printed towards the close of the fifteenth century
## p. 321 (#339) ############################################
Richard Pynson
321
at Cologne; and this may be more nearly connected with the
version printed by Pynson. In June 1493, Pynson issued the
first edition of Dives and Pauper, by Henry Parker, a Carmelite
monk of Doncaster, who died in 1470. The work, which is an
explanation of the ten commandments, points out the duties of the
rich towards the poor, and finishes with a treatise on holy poverty.
In the following year, Pynson issued an illustrated edition
of Lydgate's Falls of Princes, translated from Boccaccio; and,
in 1495, an edition of the Hecyra of Terence the first printed
of a set of the plays issued between 1495 and 1497. It is probable
that these were printed for William Horman for use at Eton;
and other books, such as Dialogus linguae et ventris and one or
two grammars bearing Horman's initials, were issued about the
same time.
Pynson seems to have had little enterprise in printing English
books; and, besides those already mentioned, he only issued six
in the fifteenth century which were not mere reprints. He must
be credited with the first edition of Mandeville's Travels, and of
The History of Guy Earl of Warwick. The remaining four are
small poetical pieces of a few leaves each. The earliest, The Life
of St Margaret, is only known from a fragment. The next is
The Epitaph of Jasper Tudor, Duke of Bedford. The poem
ends 'Quod Smerte maister de ses ouzeaus'; but it is generally
ascribed to Skelton. The duke died in 1495, and the book was
printed very shortly afterwards. The Foundation of the Chapel
of Walsingham gives an account in verse of the miracle which
led to the building of the shrine in 1061, and may have been
printed for sale to the pilgrims who travelled there. The remaining
piece is The Life of St Petryonylla.
The sixteenth century shows slight advance. In 1503, Pynson
published a translation of Imitatio Christi, by William Atkyn-
son, to which was added a spurious fourth book, translated
from the French by Margaret, countess of Richmond and
Derby. Nothing further of interest was issued until 1509, when
Barclay's translation of The Ship of Fools appeared. Barclay
seems to have been a favourite author with Pynson, who printed
many of his works. In 1511, appeared The Pilgrimage of Sir
Richard Guilforde, a most interesting account of a journey to
the holy land, written by his chaplain. A good deal of the book
is compiled from earlier guide-books; but there are several pieces
of picturesque writing, especially the account of the death and
burial of Sir Richard at Jerusalem.
E. L. II.
CH. XIII,
21
## p. 322 (#340) ############################################
322
The Introduction of Printing
In 1516, Fabyan's Chronicles were printed, the first of the
series of modern chronicles. The work was compiled by Robert
Fabyan, sheriff of London, who died in 1512. It is a compilation
from previous writers of the history of England from the days
of Brutus, but the earlier parts are very superficial. The later
parts are only valuable where they touch on matters which came
under his own personal observation; but much matter relating
to London is given in detail.
In the same year was issued the Kalendar of the new legend
of England, a work treating of the lives of British saints.
Soon after this date, Pynson, as king's printer, found much of his
time occupied in printing more or less official works and books
relating to political affairs; and English books of this period are
few. Between 1523 and 1525, he completed the printing of the
most important of his publications, the translation of the Chronicle
of Froissart by John Bourchier, Lord Berners-a work of great
bibliographical interest on account of the several variations in the
first edition. Its publication introduced a new style of historical
writing; but it seems to have met with little success and was but
once reprinted before the nineteenth century. Berners's love of
romance led him to translate three books from French and Spanish,
Huon of Bordeaux, The Castle of Love and The History of
Arthur of Little Britain, to which reference is made elsewhere!
Pynson's later work was mainly confined to books in Latin and
treatises on law; English books printed by him are rare and,
usually, mere reprints. In fact, during his whole career, he did not
issue one English book for ten issued by de Worde. His taste was
for serious literature, and he was the favourite publisher for such
learned writers of England as chose to have their books printed in
this country. He was heavily handicapped by want of type. He had
a fair Latin fount, but hardly any Greek; so that scholars preferred
to send their work to foreign printers such as Froschover or
Froben, who had not only adequate type and good correctors, but
were well situated for publishing the books at the various local
fairs, the then recognised centres for circulating books. If success
in business may be taken as a sign of popular approval, Pynson,
with his learned books and the official income derived from his
work as king's printer, stood no chance against Wynkyn de Worde,
with his romances and poetical tracts; for, as we know from the
subsidy rolls, de Worde was by far the richer man.
Wynkyn de Worde, who succeeded to Caxton's press and
· See Chapter XIV, p. 339.
>
## p. 323 (#341) ############################################
Wynkyn de Worde
323
material, published very little during the first few years, being
contented with a few reprints. In 1495, he issued a translation
of the Vitae Sanctorum Patrum of Jerome. This translation was
the work of Caxton and was only finished, as de Worde writes
in the colophon, on the last day of his life. It was rendered from
the French edition printed at Lyons in 1486; but, as might have
been expected, it attained little popularity and was never re-
printed.
About this time, de Worde published an English version of
'Bartholomaeus de Proprietatibus Rerum, made by John Trevisa. '
The printer, or some one under his direction, has added an epi-
logue which contains some curious details as to the beginning of
Caxton's career as a printer, and also the information that the
book was the first to be printed on English-made paper. The
year 1496 saw the issue of new editions of Dives and Pauper
and The Book of St Albans, the latter being enlarged with a third
part containing the treatise of Fishing with an angle, a book
which would seem to be the work of a practical fisherman, is
much more modern in feeling than many books of the same
class issued at a later date and differs much in style from the
other treatises. The fourth edition of Chaucer's Canterbury
Tales, printed in 1498, again clearly shows de Worde's carelessness
as a printer and the absence of editorial work on his books.
A large portion of The Monk's Tale is omitted; and, though the
printer, when he discovered this, inserted an extra printed leaf,
still, much is missing. Though not skilful as a printer, de Worde
was not idle : before the close of the fifteenth century, he had
issued at least one hundred and ten books. A large number were
reprints and many others of no literary interest, such as grammars,
service-books and law-books; but, among the remainder, are some
worthy of notice. The Contemplacyon of sinners, written by a
monk, William Touris, and an illustrated edition of Mandeville's
Travels were issued in 1499. Among the undated books are
several romances, Beves of Hamtoun, Guy of Warwick and
Robin Hood; the works of John Alcock, bishop of Ely; some
curious religious works such as The Doctrinal of Death, The
Miracles of Our Lady, The Rote or mirror of Consolation, The
Twelve profits of tribulation. There is also one work of Skelton,
The Bowge of Court, a satire on the court manners of the time,
and a book which, from the number of editions, appears to have
been popular, The History of the Three Kings of Cologne, a
translation of the Historia trium regum of John of Hildesheim.
21-2
## p. 324 (#342) ############################################
324
The Introduction of Printing
We have no evidence that de Worde did anything in the way
of editing or translating; but he had in his employ assistants who
were able to translate from the French. Chief among these was
Robert Copland, who was responsible for the translation of the
Kalendar of Shepherds, The mirror of the Church, Helyas
Knight of the Swan and Kynge Appolyn of Thyre, while he
frequently added short prologues and epilogues in verse to the
books he printed for de Worde. Copland printed also several
books on his own account, two, at least, being of his own composition.
These are The Hye Way to the Spyttell Hous and Iyl of
Braintford's Testament. The former, though it cannot lay claim
to any merit, is curious on account of its matter. It purports to
be a dialogue between Copland and the porter of an almshouse,
in the course of which they criticise all the applicants for charity
as they pass, and discuss the various frauds and deceits practised
by thieves and beggars, and, incidentally, the vices and follies
which have brought them to ruin. The second piece is very
inferior to the first, and coarse even for the period.
Another translator, an apprentice to Wynkyn de Worde, was
Henry Watson, and his first work was a prose translation from
the French of The Ship of Fools. This work must have been
done directly for the press, since it is said in the prologue to have
been undertaken at the request of Margaret, countess of Richmond,
the king's grandmother. This must have been after 21 April
1509, and the finished book was published on 6 July. His other
translations were The Church of Evil Men and Women and
Valentine and Orson. The first is from a French version of a
work by St Augustine. Another translation by Watson from the
French was The History of Olyver of Castylle and the fayre
Helayne, issued in 1518. In the prologue, the translator speaks
of the cheapness of books owing to the invention of printing.
Andrew Chertsey, of whom nothing is known, also translated a
considerable number of books for de Worde. His earliest trans-
lation was The Ordinary of Christian men, which, like all his
other books, was taken from the French. Among them may be
mentioned The Lricydarye, The Flower of commandments of
God, The Treatise of the Passion of Christ, The Craft to live
well and to die well, a complete translation of a book from which
Caxton had already translated extracts under the title of The
Art of good living and good dying.
A good idea of the ordinary demand for books may be obtained
by examining the publications of Wynkyn de Worde in the year 1509.
## p. 325 (#343) ############################################
Wynkyn de Worde
325
This was the busiest year of his career, for, no doubt, the funerals
of Henry VII and the countess of Richmond, and the coronation
of Henry VIII, would bring large crowds to London. Altogether,
he issued twenty-five books and these, again, can be arranged in an
almost exact order. Up to 21 April, he had published five, a York
Manuale, an edition of the Manipulus Curatorum and editions of
The Gospel of Nicodemus, The Parliament of Devils and Richard
Cour de Lion. Between 21 April and 12 July, the busiest time, he
issued eleven; four grammatical books, two editions each of
Fisher's Sermon on the seven penitencial psalms and Funeral
sermon on Henry VII, the prose version of The Ship of Fools
and two works by Stephen Hawes, The Passetyme of Pleasure
and The Conversion of Swearers. During the rest of the year
he printed seven-two service-books, a grammar, Hawes's Joyful
meditation. . . of the coronation of. . . Henry VIII, Fisher’s Mourning
Remembrance, and two anonymous books, The Fifteen Joys of
Marriage and The Seven Sheddings of the blood of Jesu Christ.
Two more books belong to this year which cannot be placed
in any group, a service-book, and The rule of the living of the
bretherne and systars.
The publications of this year are the most miscellaneous of
any, and, very soon, the taste began to change. New romances
continued to be published for some years: King Apolyn of Tyre
and The Birth of Merlin in 1510, The History of King Ponthus
in 1511, The History of Helias, Knight of the Swan in 1512 and
Oliver of Castile (probably a reprint of a lost earlier edition)
in 1518. Yet a gradual but marked change was taking place.
Educational books and books on religious subjects became more
and more in demand. The influence of scholars like Erasmus and
the general revival of letters in the one case, and the growth
of the reformation and the influence of the 'new learning' in
the other, were beginning to produce effects. In Wynkyn de
Worde's second busiest year, 1532, out of eighteen books, six were
scholastic, eleven religious and the remaining one a romance,
The History of Guystarde and Sygysmonde, translated from the
Latin by William Walter.
William Walter, ‘servant' to Sir Henry Marney, chancellor
of Lancaster from 1509 to 1523, translated at least three books.
Guystarde and Sygysmonde is a version in seven-lined stanzas
taken, probably, from the Latin version of Boccaccio's story made
by Leonardo Aretino. This, like so many of de Worde's books,
was edited by Robert Copland, who added some verses of his
## p. 326 (#344) ############################################
326
The Introduction of Printing
own. Though the earliest edition known is dated 1532, there must,
most probably, have been an earlier one. Another of Walter's
books, The Spectacle of Lovers, though spoken of as 'newly
compiled,' is, apparently, a translation; while the last, The
History of Titus and Gesippus is, also, translated out of Latin.
In 1521, de Worde printed a book of carols, of which only
a fragment is known. It contains the well known carol on the
bringing in of the boar's head beginning ‘The boar's head in hand
bring I, still sung on Christmas day in Queen's College, Oxford,
and another carol on hunting.
After this year, we find hardly any new English books printed;
the revival of letters was beginning to make itself felt, and half the
produce of the press consisted of educational books. So much
had the demand for this class of book increased that de Worde
sometimes printed three or four editions of one grammar in the
course of a year.
Among some two hundred undated books issued from this
press there are many of great interest; but, unfortunately, many
are known only from fragments, and very many more from single
copies in private libraries, and, therefore, difficult of access. As
examples of such books may be mentioned the metrical romance
of Capystranus, The Complaint of the too soon married, The
Complaint of the too late married, The Complaynte of the Heart,
Feylde's Controversy between a lover and a jay, The Fifteen joys
of marriage, The Jest of the Miller of Abingdon, The Pain and
sorrow of evil marriage and many other small metrical pieces, all
of which are in private hands.
The total number of books at present known to have been
issued by Wynkyn de Worde in the sixteenth century is about
six hundred and forty. Of these, more than two hundred were
merely small school-books, about one hundred and fifty service-
books and religious treatises and the same number of poems and
romances; the remainder consisting of chronicles, law-books,
accounts of passing events and other miscellaneous books.
The productions of the minor printers of the period show little
originality, though, here and there, we come across books which had
not already been issued by de Worde or Pynson. Julian Notary,
who printed between 1496 and 1520, issued, out of some forty books,
only five not previously printed. The earliest of these, The Gospel of
Nicodemus, printed in 1507, evidently suited the popular taste and
was very frequently reprinted. Besides this there are two small
poetical tracts, The mery geste of a Sergeaunt and Frere, by Sir
## p. 327 (#345) ############################################
The Minor Printers
327
Thomas More, and A mery gest howe Johan Splynter made his testa-
ment. This last tells how John Splynter, rent-gatherer at Delft and
Schiedam, having neglected his private concerns for the sake of
his professional business, was treated with contempt by the nuns
who employed him, but who, hoping to obtain as a legacy the
chest which he pretended was full of money, kept him in comfort
for his life. Pepwell, between 1518 and 1523, printed eight books ;
The Castle of Pleasure, by W. Neville, The City of Ladies, by
Christine de Pisan, The Dietary of ghostly health, are all, probably,
reprints from editions printed by Wynkyn de Worde. Another
book contains several religious pieces printed together, some of
which had not been issued before. Among them are the treatise
named Benjamin, written by Richard of St Victor, The life of St
Katherine of Senis, The book of Margery Kempe, ancresse of Lynn,
The treatise of the Song of angels by Walter Hylton and others.
Richard Faques, out of a total of about twenty books, printed
three or four of interest. Two are ballads relating to the battle
of Flodden. Another is a curious and hitherto unnoticed work,
entitled The booke of the pylgrymage of man. The preface runs
'translated from Le Pelerinage de l'homme of late drawen into
prose by dane William Hendred, Priour of Leomynstre, and now
newly at the specyal commandement of the same father reverent
I have compyled the tenure of the same in metre, comprehended
in xxvI chapitours. ' The book is written in highly alliterative
seven-lined stanzas, but there is no clue to the name of the
compiler. The date of the printing of the book may be put
down to about the year 1515; but no authorities mention prior
William Hendred, so the exact date of his translation cannot be
determined.
Among John Rastell's productions, for the most part legal or
religious, are a few of a totally different nature. In 1526, he issued
The merry jests of the widow Edith, written by Walter Smith.
This is the story in verse of the many tricks played by Edith, the
daughter of John Haukin and widow of Thomas Ellis, on various
persons, innkeepers, tradesmen and the servants of Sir Thomas
More and the bishop of Rochester. She was still alive when
the book was written; and the author, Walter Smith, was, very
probably, a stationer of that name in London and a neighbour of
Rastell. The poem itself is coarse and of no merit, but interesting
on account of its references to contemporary persons. The other
book of the same year is The Hundred merry Tales, of which the
unique copy is at Göttingen. Rastell was in the habit of giving
## p. 328 (#346) ############################################
328
The Introduction of Printing
performances of plays at his own house; and to this we may
attribute his printing several interludes and plays by Medwall,
Skelton and Heywood.
One other book by this printer is worthy of notice, The
Pastime of People. This is a short chronicle, carried up to the
.
year 1530 and, apparently, compiled by Rastell himself, which
contains some curious statements on recent events. It contains
also full-page portraits of the kings of England.
The only other among all the minor printers of the period
to show any originality in his choice of publications was John
Skot. He issued, about 1535, a curious religious imitation of the
celebrated ballad of The Nut Brown Maid, entitled The newe
Notbrowne mayd upon the passyon of Cryste, and also printed two
editions of Every-man, a morality of exceptional literary merit,
closely connected with the Dutch Elckerlijk, written by Petrus
Dorlandus towards the close of the fifteenth century.
Another cause militating against the production of much good
work by these minor early printers was the smallness of their
resources. They had practically no capital, and, without good type
and illustrations, could not venture upon the production of a large
work. A fount of type discarded by some other printer, and a
small collection of miscellaneous and worn wood-blocks, were their
sole stock. They could thus only work on small books, and had,
moreover, to choose those which, by previous publication, bad
proved to be popular.
Reference has been made before to the attempt, very soon after
Caxton's death, to produce English books abroad for sale in this
country. At the beginning of the sixteenth century, this attempt
was renewed with greater success.
Antoine Verard, the famous French publisher, attempted, about
1503, to issue books for the English market. In that year, he issued
The Kalendar of Shepherds and The Art of good living and
dying. The former became a very popular book, and at least
sixteen editions were issued in the sixteenth century. It is a
translation of the Calendrier des Bergers, of which there are
many early French editions, and is an extraordinary collection of
miscellaneous matter, 'a universal magazine of every article of
salutary and useful knowledge. ' The language of this first edition
is even more curious than its contents; for the translator was,
manifestly, a young Scotchman with a very imperfect knowledge
of French. It has been suggested that this version was intended
for sale in Scotland; but this is hardly probable, since the language
## p. 329 (#347) ############################################
English Books Printed Abroad
329
would have been as unintelligible to the Scottish as it was to the
English reader. In 1506, Pynson issued a new edition revised from
the 'corrupte englysshe' of the earlier; and, in 1508, Wynkyn de
Worde published a new translation made by Robert Copland, who
definitely speaks of the language of the first as Scottish ; and
this final translation was frequently reprinted.
The Art of good living and dying, a translation from L'Art
de bien vivre et de bien mourir, was also translated by the same
hand; and of it, again, a new translation made by Andrew Chertsey
was issued by Wynkyn de Worde in 1505. The third of Verard's
books, but, probably, the earliest published, is the first edition of
Alexander Barclay's translation of Gringore's Chasteau de labour,
which may have been printed under Barclay's own supervision
when he was staying in Paris. It is known only from fragments,
but was fortunately reprinted, once by Pynson and twice by
Wynkyn de Worde.
Another very remarkable foreign printed book, clearly translated
by a foreigner, is The Passion of Christ. The strangeness of the
language is evident from the first sentence 'Her begynnythe ye
passion of dar seygneur Jesu chryste front ye resuscytacion of
lazarus and to thende translatet owt of frenche yn to englysche
the yer of dar lorde. M. v. cviii. The book, said to have been
translated at the command of Henry VII, was evidently printed
in Paris, probably by Verard and is illustrated with a number of
fine wood-cuts copied from a series by Urs Graf published at
Strassburg. The name of the translator is not known; but many
of the words point to a native of the Low Countries.
Soon after the beginning of the sixteenth century, an Antwerp
bookseller and stationer, John of Doesborch, began to print books in
English for sale in this country. These range in date from about 1505
to about 1525 and are good evidence of what a speculative printer
considered most likely to appeal to popular taste. The earliest
is a religious tract on the subject of the last judgment, entitled
The Fifteen Tokens, a translation by the printer from some Dutch
version of a part of L'Art de bien mourir. There are four small
grammars of a kind in common use, but the majority are story-
books. These are The Gest of Robyn Hode, Euryalus and
Lucrece, The Lyfe of Virgilius, Frederick of Jennen, Mary of
Nemmegen, Tyll Howleglas and The Parson of Kalenborowe.
With the exception of the first two, all are translations from the
Dutch. Douce, without apparently any reason, suggested Richard
Arnold, the compiler of Arnold's Chronicle, as the translator ; but
## p. 330 (#348) ############################################
330
The Introduction of Printing
the work was more probably done by Lawrence Andrewe, who was
then living in Antwerp and was afterwards a printer in London.
The remaining English books issued by Doesborch are very
miscellaneous. There are two editions of the Valuation of gold
and silver; a work on the pestilence; two tracts relating to
expeditions against the Turks; another, on the wonderful shape
and nature of beasts and fishes; and, lastly, what is generally
considered the first English book on America, Of the new lands
found by the messengers of the King of Portugal named Emanuel.
Only a single leaf of the book, describing a voyage made in 1496,
relates to America; the rest is compiled from various sources such
as the Tractatus de decem nationibus christianorum, appended
to the Itinerarius of Johannes de Hese, and a Dutch book, also
printed by Doesborch, Van Pape Jans landendes.
The printers of Antwerp always continued to be connected
with the English book trade; but the year 1525, which saw the
cessation of John of Doesborch's press with its popular little books,
witnessed also the publication at Worms of Tindale’s New
Testament, which marks an entire change in the character of
the books printed abroad. After this time, the foreign presses
issued nothing but religious and controversial books, the work
of refugees whose religious or political opinions had made them
outcasts from their own country. The reformation seems to have
dealt a blow at both books of amusement and books of education,
and story-books and grammars almost ceased to be published.
In taking a general survey of the English press during the first
fifty years of its existence, several points stand out very prominently.
One, in especial, is the comparative scarcity of books by con-
temporary writers. Skelton, who flourished during this period,
is very badly represented, and Stephen Hawes but little better.
But, when we consider how very many of these early books have
come down to our time only in single copies or even fragments
out of an edition of some hundreds, it is only natural to suppose
that a great number must have utterly disappeared. This would
be especially the case with small poetical books and romances ;
but others, of which copies might have been expected to be
preserved, are lost. There is no trace of The epitaph of the King
of Scotland, written by Petrus Carmelianus and stuffed full of
womanly abuse,' which, according to Erasmus, was printed by
Pynson in 1513. Of the several books relating to the impostures
of the Maid of Kent which are known to have been printed, not
a fragment now remains. Perhaps their popularity was the cause
a
## p. 331 (#349) ############################################
The Book Trade
331
of their destruction.
It seems impossible that writings on con-
temporary events could escape being printed. For instance,
Dunbar's poem 'London thou art the flower of cities all,'
composed on his visit to London in 1501 and circulated in
manuscript, is just what an enterprising printer would have
seized upon. Yet we have no evidence of its existence in a
printed form. The popular demand was for reprints of older
works and translations of French poems and romances; there is
hardly any genuine original work printed in the period.
Another point which has been commented upon is the entire
absence of any classical books. Apart from books evidently in-
tended for school use, such as Cicero pro Milone, printed at Oxford
about 1483, and the Terence printed by Pynson in 1495—7, the only
book to which we can point is Pynson's edition of Vergil, printed
about 1520. But the reason here is not far to seek. There were
no restrictions on the importation of foreign books, and English
printers could not possibly compete either in accuracy and neatness
or in cheapness with the foreign productions of this class. Very
wisely they left them alone. Thus, the output of the English
presses show rather the popular, than the general, demand. To
discover this, it would be necessary to find a day-book or ledger
of some London bookseller similar to that of John Dorne the
Oxford bookseller of 1520. This latter, being the accounts of a
bookseller in a university town, furnishes no fair criterion of
general taste; though, even at the fairs where the most general
trade was done in books, his English books formed but a small
proportion of his sales.
The seeming neglect by the age of the work of its own more
important writers is balanced by the precipitancy of modern
writers, who have hitherto skipped from Skelton to Surrey without
a pause, entirely ignoring the minor authors and translators
whose books supplied the main reading of the English public.
## p. 332 (#350) ############################################
OHAPTER XIV
ENGLISH PROSE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY
II
CAXTON. MALORY. BERNERS
ALTHOUGH the introduction of printing brought about no
sudden renascence, it accelerated and strengthened, under the
direction of Caxton, the drift of the current of our fifteenth
century literature; and this places our first printer in a position
wholly different from that of his more mechanical successors.
Caxton was quick to discern the direction in which taste was
tending and, himself helping to direct that taste, he ignored the
old metrical romances, favourites for long, preferring to satisfy
the chivalric-romantic fashion of the times by prose translations
from French works of already established repute. That romances
of the kind of The Four Sons of Aymon, or Paris and Vienne
were destined to disappearance early in the next century in no
way neutralises their importance as a step in English literature.
They handed on material not disdained by Spenser, they formed a
link between medieval and modern romance and, from among
them, has survived an immortal work, Malory's Morte – Arthur.
We might have supposed Caxton's publication of Chaucer to
have been epoch-making, had it not had to wait for long before
kindling any fresh torch; but there is no evidence that it roused in
others the enthusiasm felt by its editor. In truth, the men of that
age, who had but just emerged from a long and sordid war, were
not, and could not be, poetical; and, save for the poems of
Chaucer and Lydgate, Caxton held firm to prose.
His publications, excluding church service-books and practical
manuals, fall into three groups: didactic works, romances and
chronicles. Of the last-large and, doubtless, costly-three proved
sufficient; of romances, he issued ten or eleven, probably for the
courtly class of readers; while, of moral and didactic works, for
the most part small and cheap, he provided no less than twenty-
nine, not counting Reynard the Fox, and the Golden Legend,
## p. 333 (#351) ############################################
Caxton as Editor
333
a
>
which partake of the entertaining element at least equally with
the instructive. As several of these books and tracts went into
two editions, they were, evidently, in considerable demand with the
general public; but the tinge of utility is upon them, and they have
not the literary interest of the larger works.
As has been observed already, the greater part of Caxton's
output was translated. Tudor prose, like that of the earlier period,
was chiefly fashioned on French models, to which we owe nearly
all the prose masterpieces of the epoch, and a proportionate debt of
gratitude. But Caxton found another quarry in fifteenth century
prose, and in the case of both English and French material he
acted as editor, translating with the same freedom as his prede-
cessors, and 'embellishing the old English' of Trevisa or of The
Golden Legend.
Caxton had lived so long abroad that he probably found more
difficulty than other writers in selecting the most suitable words to
employ; and it is difficult to believe that one hand alone turned
out so large a mass of literature as he did, any more than it
manipulated the printing-press unaided. Nevertheless, his trans-
lations must, like his press, be reckoned as having the stamp of
his authority, though others, probably, helped. A comparison
of his editions of The Golden Legend, Polychronicon and The
Knight of the Tower with the original English versions leaves the
older prose easily first. Again and again, the modern reader will
find the word rejected by Caxton more familiar than its substitute;
again and again, Caxton's curtailments, inversions, or expansions
merely spoil a piece of more vigorous narrative. This is parti-
cularly evident in The Knight of the Tower, which Caxton seems
to have translated entirely afresh, unaware of the older version,
whose superiority is remarkable. And in his original and interest-
ing prefaces we may, perhaps, see how it was he went wrong.
He appears to have been desirous of avoiding the colloquially
simple manner of earlier writers, and to have felt his way towards
the paragraph, working out, in those prefaces for which he had
no French exemplar, a somewhat involved style. He is fond of
relative sentences, and sometimes piles them on the top of each
other without finishing the earlier ones : ‘Which thing when
Gotard had advertised of and that he bare so away the bread, but
he wist not to whom ne whither, whereof he marvelled and so did
all his household? ' He mixes direct and indirect speech; he uses
the redundant which : 'I fynde many of the sayd bookes, whyche
Life of St Rocke, in Golden Legend, No. 154, tr. by Caxton,
## p. 334 (#352) ############################################
334 English Prose in the XVth Century
writers have abrydged it and many thynges left out' Only
when he has plain statements to convey, as in his continuation
of the Chronicle, or an anecdote to relate, such as the tale of the
dean and the poor parson in the epilogue to Aesop, does he become
direct; but then he is, sometimes, almost as vigorous as Latimer
himself. In this power of writing with a naïve vivacity, while
deliberately striving after a more ornate manner, Caxton belongs
to his age. He provides, as it were, a choice of styles for his
readers.
The mannerisms of the Middle Ages are still noticeable in
Caxton's work: in his irrepressible moralising, his quotations
from old authority, his conventional excuse for writing a book
(to keep himself from idleness, which is the nurse of sin), his
arrant inaccuracy as to names, his profession of incapacity 'to
smattre me in suche translacions'; but his definite claim to have
embellished the older authors, his quiet pride in his own author-
ship and the interest taken therein by his noble patrons, his
conscious appreciation of language, are of the new world, not of
the old. The days of anonymous compiling are over; and, hence-
forth, not the substance, alone, but its form will challenge
attention. Prose is no longer to be merely the vehicle of in-
formation, but conscious literature.
Caxton's largest and most popular book, The Golden Legend, is,
also, the most medieval in kind. It may almost be called a
cyclopaedia of traditional sacred lore, comprising not lives of the
saints only, but explanations of the church service and homilies
upon the feast days, as well as a shortened but complete chronicle,
Lombard in origin, to A. D. 1250. The public decidedly preferred
it to Malory or Chaucer, and it went through edition after edition.
For one thing, it was a long recognised classic; for another, it
presented the favourite mixture of morality combined with enter-
tainment. Many of the lives are copies from earlier English
versions, more or less 'mollified' by their editor. Those of French
saints are a new, and often slipshod, translation. Others are
compiled from the three renderings (Latin, English and French)
and from further sources such as Polychronicon and Josephus,
and practically form a new version. With regard to the merit of
these, opinions will differ. It may be true that Caxton's Becket,
for example, presents a more compact story than the original; on
the other hand, the incessant curtailment has spoiled the charming
incident of the Saracen princess. Caxton, moreover, altered the
usual arrangement of the Legend to insert a series of lives of
## p. 335 (#353) ############################################
The Golden Legend 335
Old Testament heroes, and it is a vital question in estimating
his rank as a prose writer whether these lives are to be
reckoned his own or not. They are so far superior to the mere
translations that one of his critics takes it for granted they must
be his own; another, that they must come from an earlier
English version now lost. The MSS of the old version now
remaining to us contain none of these Old Testament lives save
Adam, from which the Caxtonian version differs entirely. The
earlier Adam? , except for the usual legendary interpolations,
is strictly Biblical in language, adhering closely, at first, to the
revised Wyclifite version, afterwards, to the first Wyclifite version;
whereas Caxton's Adam is, in the main, a sermon, and the suc-
ceeding lives, though they follow the Bible closely as to incident,
are much shortened as to wording, and not distinctively reminis-
cent of the Wyclifite versions ; indeed, they afford more points of
resemblance to the later phraseology. If it can be supposed that
Caxton actually rendered them into English himself, his literary
powers here rose to a pitch far higher than he attained at any
other time?
Like The Golden Legend, the Morte – Arthur, the publication
of which holds a chief place in Caxton's work, looks back to the
Middle Ages. Based on translation, a mosaic of adaptations, it is,
nevertheless, a single literary creation such as no work of Caxton's
own can claim to be, and it has exercised a far stronger and longer
literary influence.
If, as is possible, Malory was the knight of Newbold Revell,
he had been a retainer of the last Beauchamp earl of Warwick, he
had seen the splendours of the last efforts of feudalism and had
served in that famous siege of Rouen which so deeply impressed
contemporary imagination. Apparently, he was a loyalist during the
Civil Wars and suffered from Yorkist revenge ; his burial in the
Grey Friars may, possibly, suggest that he even died a prisoner in
i In Lambeth MS, 72.
· The English MSS of The Golden Legend (for which see Pierce Butler, bibliog.
cap. VII), end with a kind of appendix on Adam and Eve and a sermon on the five
wiles of Pharaoh. The Lambeth MS (No. 72) adds a long account of the three kings
of Cologne, probably the legendary history often issued separately. Though this
MS contains only one hundred and sixty-two chapters to compare with the one
hundred and seventy-nine of MS Harl. 4775, it contains several English saints not
included in the latter or the parallel M8 Addit. 11,565. Caxton has not got all of
them: he omits Frideswide, Chadd and Bride, but those he has are nearly all exactly
like the older version, except K. Edmund, which he evidently obtained from some
source we do not know.
## p. 336 (#354) ############################################
336
English Prose in the XV th Century
Newgate. In any case, he must have died before the printing of
his immortal book, which comes to us, therefore, edited by Caxton,
to whom, possibly, are due most of the lacunae, bits of weak
grammar and confusions in names. Nevertheless, the style seals
the Morte d'Arthur as Malory's, not Caxton's. It is as individual
as is the author's mode of dealing with the material he gathered
from his wide field. This material Malory several times says he
found in a French book-the French book_but critics have
discovered a variety of sources. It is in the course of the story
that the multiplicity of sources is at times discernible in the
failure of certain portions to preserve a connecting thread, in the
interruption of the story of Tristram, in the curious doubling of
names, or the confusion of generations—the style reveals no trace
of inharmonious originals. The skilful blending of many ancient
tales, verse and prose, French and English, savage and saintly, into
a connected, if but loosely connected, whole is wrought in a
manner which leaves the Morte, while representative of some of
the nobler traits of Malory's century, in other respects typical
neither of that nor any particular epoch, and this is an element in
its immortality.
If such an ascetic purity and rapt devotion as glows in the
Grail story was practised among the mystics, such a fantastic
chivalry portrayed by Froissart, such a loyalty evinced by a
Bedford or a Fortescue, yet the Morte assumes the recognition
of a loftier standard of justice, purity and unselfishness than its
own century knew. These disinterested heroes, who give away all
they win with the magnanimity of an Audley at Poictiers, these
tireless champions of the helpless, these eternal lovers and their
idealised love, are of no era, any more than the forests in which
they for ever travel. And, if the constant tournaments and battles,
and the castles which seem to be the only places to live in, suggest
a medieval world, the total absence of reference to its basic
agricultural life and insistent commerce detach us from it again,
while the occasional mention of cities endows them with a splendour
and remoteness only to be paralleled in the ancient empire or
in the pictures of Turner.
Medieval stories were, naturally, negligent of causes in a world
where the unaccountable so constantly happened in real life, and
a similar suddenness of adventure may be found in tales much
older than this. Malory, however, on the threshold of an age
which would require dramatic motive or, at least, probability,
saved his book from the fate of the older, unreasoned fiction by
## p. 337 (#355) ############################################
Style of the Morte d'Arthur
337
investing it with an atmosphere, impossible to analyse, which
withdraws his figures to the region of mirage. This indescribable
conviction of magic places Malory's characters outside the sphere
of criticism, since, given the atmosphere, they are consistent
with themselves and their circumstances. Nothing is challenged,
analysed or emphasised ; curiosity as to causation is kept in
abeyance; retribution is worked out, but, apparently, uncon-
sciously. Like children's are the sudden quarrels and hatreds
and as sudden reconciliations. The motive forces are the elemental
passions of love and bravery, jealousy and revenge, never greed, or
lust, or cruelty. Courage and the thirst for adventure are taken
for granted, like the passion for the chase, and, against a brilliant
and moving throng of the brave and fair, a few conceptions are
made to stand forth as exceptional-a Lancelot, a Tristram, or
a Mark. Perhaps most skilful of all is the restraint exercised
in the portrayal of Arthur. As with Shakespeare's Caesar and
Homer's Helen, we realise Arthur by his effect upon his paladins ;
of himself we are not allowed to form a definite image, though
we may surmise justice to be his most distinct attribute. Neither
a hero of hard knocks nor an effective practical monarch, he is not
to be assigned to any known type, but remains the elusive centre
of the magical panorama.
The prose in which is unfolded this scarcely Christianised fairy
tale for the Grail was to Arthurian legend something as the
Crusades to feudalism-is, apparently, of a very simple, almost
childlike, type, with its incessant '80-and-then,' but, unlike mere
simplicity, it never becomes tedious. There is a kind of cadence,
at times almost musical, which bears the narrative on with a
gradual swell and fall proportioned to the importance of the
episodes, while brevity, especially at the close of a long incident,
sometimes approaches to epigram. But the style fits the subject
so perfectly as never to claim attention for itself. A transparent
clarity is of its essence. Too straightforward to be archaic,
idiomatic with a suavity denied to Caxton, Malory, who reaches
one hand to Chaucer and one to Spenser, escaped the stamp of a
particular epoch and bequeathed a prose epic to literature.
1
Tudor prose owes its foundations to three men of affairs who
took to literature late in life. Next to Caxton and Malory stands
Sir John Bourchier, Lord Berners. Like Malory, he was an active
soldier, but, unlike him, a well known and prosperous man, a
politician and courtier. He belonged to the influential Bourchier
22
L. L. II.
CH. XIV.
## p. 338 (#356) ############################################
338
English Prose in the XV th Century
clan, Yorkists till the death of Edward IV, and had earned and
experienced the gratitude of Henry VII. But he had the less
good fortune to attract the favour of Henry VIII, and, late in
life, suffered from that monarch's customary harshness. It was
partly to solace his anxieties while captain of Calais, as well as
to eschew idleness, the mother of all the vices,' that he executed
the series of translations which secure to him the credit of a
remarkable threefold achievement. Berners was the first to intro-
duce to our literature the subsequently famous figure of Oberon,
the fairy king; he was the first to attempt in English the ornate
prose style which shortly became fashionable; and he gave to
historians at once a new source-book and a new model in his
famous rendering of the Chronicles of Froissart.
Lord Berners was peculiarly well fitted to execute this trans-
lation. He had himself been active at the siege of Terouenne and
on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, where Henry VIII regarded
himself as, in some sort, reviving the glories of old; he had visited
the Spanish court of Charles V and knew something of that of
France. He so thoroughly entered into the spirit of his original
as to make his work rather an adoption than a translation. In
his hands history is still near akin to fiction, but rather to the
heroic romance than to the well worn marvels of ancient chronicles.
If these remind us of Gesta Romanorum or of Sir John Man-
deville, Froissart, in the dress of Berners, may be paralleled
with Malory. Sir John of Hainault champions the cause of queen
Isabel as would a knight of Arthur; and from orthodox romance
comes the fancy picture of Bristol, the well closed city on the good
port of the sea, which beats round its strong castle. While the
old chronicles are wearisome, Berners conveys all the vigour and
freshness of Froissart in his descriptions and conversations. Both
the human interest and the chronicler's personal attitude towards
it are preserved. Berners is in full sympathy with Froissart's
aristocratic spirit, which places the violence of a duke of Britanny
or a count of Foix on a plane above criticism though not beyond
sympathy, and bestows a contemptuous pity on the crestfallen
burghers of Bruges and a lofty disdain on the upstart pride of
Ghent. In language, Berners follows the excellent method of
earlier translators: 'In that I have not followed myne authour
worde by worde yet I trust I have ensewed the true reporte of the
sentence of the mater. ' And he varies his narration pleasantly by
a not unskilful use of inversion.
But the Froissart of Berners taught something further to the
Tudor historians, of the value of well proportioned detail and
## p. 339 (#357) ############################################
Huon of Bordeaux
339
occasional quotation of witness in impressing the sense of actuality.
It can hardly be said that Hall and Holinshed, the most ambitious
of Tudor historians, borrow much from Berners in style; but it is
evident that the new model influenced their aims and methods
quite apart from its value as a new mine of information.
In Arthur of Little Britain and Huon of Bordeaux, Berners
took up the prose tale, or romance, of the ordinary medieval type,
most of the incidents in which are of the wildly absurd order. But
the favourite of the two, Huon, is remarkable for its unusual pair
of heroes. The uncouthness of Charlemagne and his court is in
odd contrast to the conventional pictures of Arthur, and the whole
romance is treated on a different and lower level, whether because it
represents a fourteenth or even thirteenth century story, or because
some folk-tale influence had been at work upon it. Huon himself
is apt to remind us of the ignobly born simpleton heroes of
German peasant story, and he is a bad simpleton. He runs
headlong into danger, not from extravagance of knightly daring
but out of stupidity, or greed, or childish impatience. He com-
plains querulously, tries to deceive his benefactor Auberon and
has no notion of either gratitude or morality. For instance,
Auberon has warned him never to tell a lie, but, so soon as the
paynim porter of Babylon asks whether he be a Saracen, ‘Yea'
replies Huon promptly, and then reflects that Auberon will surely
not be angry at such a lie, ‘sen I did it not wilfully but that
I forgat it ! ' It is only when he has committed some offence
against the fairy that Huon prides himself upon being a Christian :
his Saviour ought to shield him from the wrath of Auberon. And
yet this perjured simpleton is incongruously represented as the
only creature 'sinless' enough to be able to drink from Auberon's
magic horn.
Auberon himself is half-way to being the fairy of poetry ; 'a
dwarf of the fairy' is he, child of a fairy mother, the lady of the
isle' and a mortal father, Julius Caesar (who, in the Middle Ages,
obtained the same magical reputation as Vergil). Auberon, there-
fore, is mortal, he can weep, he falls sick; but he is never of more
stature than a child of three years, and his magical powers are so
absolute that he has only to wish, and his will accomplishes itself.
He knows all that passes afar as he rules in his fairy capital,
Momure, for he is a civilised fairy with a knowledge of politics.
He is a much better Christian than Huon, and, when he dies, his
corpse is buried in an abbey and his soul is carried to heaven
by an innumerable company of angels.
6
22-2
## p. 340 (#358) ############################################
340 English Prose in the XVth Century
Huon of Bordeaux was so popular as to obtain a reissue in
1601, modernised as to wording and adorned as to style'. As
Berners wrote it out, the English is extremely straightforward, and
bears hardly more trace of the graceful fluency of his Froissart
than of the novel experiment its translator was shortly to assay.
To a modern reader, it appears, at first sight, wonderful that the
most popular work of the translator of Froissart should have been
his rendering of a verbose, didactic book by the Spanish secretary
of Charles V, Antonio de Guevara, an author whose involutions of
language rapidly captivated fashionable taste in Spain, France and
England. Berners has the credit of first introducing him and his
style to English readers in The Golden Book of Marcus Aurelius,
which so much delighted the polite world that it went through
fourteen editions in half a century. The substance of this volume
of tedious letters and trite reflections Guevara pretended he had
discovered in an old MS, claiming for himself only the merit of
bestowing ‘style' upon the emperor's writing.
The desire to treat composition as itself an art was beginning
to be felt in England, as in other countries, and Berners must have
already paid attention to that peculiar manner of writing which,
vigorously introduced by translations of which his own was the
earliest specimen, was to receive its distinctive epithet from its
most perfect example, Euphues.
The prefaces of Berners to his Froissart are his first experi-
ments in the ornate, and not much more successful, though more
lavish, than the earlier groping of Caxton. 'As said is'; 'I pray
them that shall default find,' result from his preference of inversion
to direct speech, and relative pronouns are a puzzle to him.
Yet perhaps these elaborate prologues are but a fresh outburst
of the native love of double terms which hampered every prose
writer between Chaucer and Malory. The national bent to cumu-
lative expression must have been a good preparation to the
reception of the new style when it came, by the means of trans-
lated Guevara, in a flood. What was wanting was the art to weave
the customary repetitions of thought, the synonyms, antitheses and
alliterative combinations into a balance and harmony of sentences.
To this, neither Berners nor his nephew and literary disciple
Sir F. Bryan had attained. A comparison of his Golden Book with
North's rendering of it, The Dial of Princes, exhibits the crudity
of the efforts of Berners in this style. He can faithfully reproduce
the repetitions and run the slight idea to death, but the 'sauce of
the said sweet style, as his nephew terms it, lacks savour.
1 Cl. Sidney Lee's list in his edition of Huon, E. E. T. S.
## p. 341 (#359) ############################################
CHAPTER XV
ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH EDUCATION. UNIVERSITIES
AND PUBLIC SCHOOLS TO THE TIME OF COLET
In an age innocent of historical criticism, champions of Oxford
and Cambridge, waging a wordy war for the honour of prior
foundation, referred the establishment of their respective uni-
versities to Alfred and to Sigebert. In these days, the historians
of both are content to look to the twelfth century as the birth
period, not only of the English university, but of the university
of Paris from which English university life drew its early inspiration.
When the twelfth century drew to a close, Paris was the English
academic metropolis. Already, indeed, there were masters and
students in Oxford. What was the attraction which drew them
to a town that had no well based claims to high antiquity, and
was, otherwise, of little consequence, it is impossible now to point
out with certainty. Looking to the history of continental uni-
versities, analogy would seem to demand, as the nucleus of the
concourse, a cathedral or a monastic school. But Oxford was not a
bishop's seat; its diocesan was posted in far distant Lincoln. And,
if monks provided or salaried the first Oxford teachers, they wholly
failed to obtain, or, at any rate, to retain, control over the rising
university; there is not the slightest trace of monastic influence
in the organisation or studies of the earliest Oxford of historic
times. The cloister school of St Frideswide may well have
charged the atmosphere with the first odour of learning ; but
its walls at no time sheltered the university soul.
Certain, however, it is that, in the first half of the twelfth
century, a number of famous names are connected with Oxford
teaching. It may be that if, as Gervase of Canterbury testifies,
Vacarius taught civil law at Oxford, in 1149, he did not lecture as
an Oxford master, but as a member of the train of archbishop
Theobald. But Theobaldus Stampensis, as a recent historiand has
pointed out, in letters written between 1101 and 1117 styles
· Rashdall, Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, II, 333.
## p. 342 (#360) ############################################
342
English Education
himself master in Oxford; Robert Pullen, afterwards cardinal and
the author of Sententiarum Libri Octo, is stated, on good authority,
to have taught in Oxford in 1133; and, when in 1189 Giraldus
Cambrensis read his Topographia Hibernica at Oxford, 'where the
nost learned and famous of the clergy of England were then to be
found,' he entertained ‘all the doctors of the several faculties and
such of their pupils as were of greater fame and repute. '
In the story of this last incident we have clear indications
of an existing and of an organised Oxford university.
Modern research points to the year 1167 as the date of the birth
of Oxford as a studium generale, and offers a chain of circum-
stantial evidence to connect it with an expulsion of alien students
by the Parisian authorities and the contemporary recall by
Henry II, then engaged in the contest with Becket, of all clerks
holding English cures? However this may have been, the last few
years of the twelfth century furnish abundant proof of the presence
in Oxford of students in considerable numbers.
In 1192, Oxford, according to Robert of Devizes, could barely
maintain her clerks. In 1197, the great abbot Samson of Bury
entertained a large company of Oxford masters. When the
troubles of 1209 burst upon the university, scholars to the
number-according to Matthew Paris-of three thousand dis-
persed in various directions.
It is to this last occasion that the Oxford historian” refers the
appearance of Cambridge as a studium generale.
The story is characteristic of the times. An Oxford clerk kills
a woman-accidentally, as it is afterwards said. But the culprit
flees. The town authorities search the dwelling wherein he
lodged, and, in his absence, arrest two or three of his companions,
who are perfectly innocent of the offence, if such it be. King John,
however, is in the middle of his famous quarrel with the pope, and
is ready to wreak his vengeance on any clerk. On the king's
instructions, the innocent prisoners are hanged. In combined
fear and indignation, the Oxford masters proclaim a suspension
of studies; and the scholars scatter. Some merely retreat to
Reading; others migrate further afield. Some go to Paris; some
to Cambridge.
Cambridge, as a town, dates back to the days of the Roman
occupation of Britain, when it represented the intersection of two
great military highways and a consequent guard-post. William I
made it his base for attack upon Ely, and pulled down eighteen of
1 Rashdall, Chap. XII.
