Prices, of course, varied
according
to the beauty of the
volume, a primer for a princess might cost 638.
volume, a primer for a princess might cost 638.
Cambridge History of English Literature - 1908 - v02
His last work was, probably, the
dialogue between Understanding and Faith, a kind of meditation
upon the hard fate of the righteous and the duty of resignation.
The works of Pecock and Fortescue were destined to appeal
rather to later generations than to their own contemporaries,
whose tastes were better served by books more directly didactic
and less controversial, whether these were of the purely devotional
type or pseudo-devotional compilations of tales with arbitrary
applications. Of this latter sort the most famous example is Gesta
Romanorum. Devotional literature, as distinct from the Wyclifite
and controversial literature, for nearly a century and a half
derived from the school of mystics, the spiritual descendants of
Richard Rolle of Hampole. Their great master is Walter Hylton,
an Augustinian canon of Thurgarton in Nottinghamshire, whose
beautiful Ladder of Perfection supplied both system and cor-
rective to Rolle's exuberance of feeling.
That English mysticism was practical and missionary was
doubtless due to Rolle; and the example he set of copious writing
in the vernacular was followed by his disciples, whose tracts,
sermons and meditations, whether original or translated from the
Fathers, helped to render the language of devotion more fluent
than that of common life. When the life of the recluse had
become once more an honoured profession, the phraseology of
mysticism was readily understood by the special circle to which it
appealed. Hylton's works are far more modern than Rolle's, both
in matter and expression. They were favourites with the early
printers and are still read in modernised form. The lofty thought
and clear insight, the sanity, the just judgment of The Ladder of
Perfection or The Devout book to a temporal man are not more
striking than the clarity of the style. Hylton's language has not,
perhaps, a very wide range, but he renders abstract and subtle
thoughts with ease. Careful explanations are made of any fresh
term; pairs of words and phrases, though very frequent, are
scarcely ever tautologous, nor is alliteration noticeable. Biblical
language occurs less often than might be expected, but illustration
is common and ranges from simple comparison ('as full of sin as a
hide or skin is full of flesh') to complete metaphor, whose signifi-
cance he evidently expects his readers to grasp readily. Thus,
when he likens the progress of the soul to a pilgrimage to Jerusalem,
he adds, ‘Jerusalem is as moche as to saye as a syght of peace, and
## p. 300 (#318) ############################################
300 English Prose in the XV th Century
betokeneth contemplacyon in parfyte love of God! ' Or he speaks
of meekness and love, the prime virtues of the recluse's life, as two
strings, which, 'well fastened with the mynde of Jesu maketh good
accorde in the harpe of the soule whan they be craftely touched
with the fynger of reason; for the lower thou smytest upon that
one the hyer sowneth that other? ' In almost every respect
Hylton presents a contrast to his contemporary Trevisa.
An incidental remark in The Ladder-'this readest thou in
every book that teacheth of good living' bears witness to a con-
siderable body of literature of which only fragments have come
down to us. Chief among them is the well-known Revelations of
Divine Love by the anchoress Juliana of Norwich, a work of
fervent piety, pre-eminent in the graces of humility and love.
Juliana's meditations upon her vision evince her acquaintance
with Hylton, and, probably, with other religious writers. Such
study was, indeed, a duty strictly enjoined upon recluses by the
Ancren Riwle. More than once she uses Hylton's actual words
when developing the same ideas: 'the soul is a life,' they both
reiterate, and Juliana terms its inalterably pure essence, or spirit,
as distinguished from the sense-perceptions, its substance, in a
manner reminiscent of older scholars'. Apparently, she was not
acquainted with the translation of a Kempis, made in the middle
of the century, and again translated for the Lady Margaret.
Wholly different in kind are the moralised skeleton tales, by no
means always moral in themselves, of the famous Gesta Romanorum,
the great vogue of which is witnessed by the fact that the Anglo-
Latin recension assigned to the end of the fourteenth century was
being continually copied in the fifteenth, and that an English
translation then appeared, popularising this source-book of future
literature, beside the English Legenda Aurea, which, half-original,
half-translation, belongs to the same period.
? Wynkyn de Worde's edition.
2 Juliana's date is hardly certain. Only two late MSS are now known, B. M. Sloane
2499, said to belong to the seventeenth century, and Paris, Bibl. Nationale 30, said to
be a sixteenth century copy (cf. Miss Warrack's preface to her edition of Juliana).
Acoording to these she was born in 1342, saw the vision in 1373, wrote her account of
it about 1393, and was still living in 1442. (Cf. The Examination of William Thorpe,
which demands the belief that he, too, lived to be nearly a hundred, as used to be
assumed also of Hylton and of Juliana Berners. ) It is generally stated that Juliana
describes herself as unable to read, but this is an error, The Paris copyist calls her
a symple creature unlettyrde'; but 'a simple creature' is a term of humility :
the author of the prologue to the Wyclifite Bible so describes himself : 'unlettered'
may only mean no great scholar. The Sloane manuscript alters this word to that
cowde no letter. ' But the Revelations do not require the ascription of such a miracle
to enhance their value.
:
## p. 301 (#319) ############################################
Secreta Secretorum
301
Much akin to Gesta was another old classic of the Middle Ages,
Secreta Secretorum, three translations of which were executed in
the fifteenth century, one, by James Yonge in 1422, hailing from
the English Pale in Ireland. It is a work which ranks high
among medieval forgeries, professing to be no less than an
epistle on statesmanship addressed by Aristotle to his pupil
Alexander the Great. No doubt the public found its medley of
astrological and medical rules and elementary precepts on cleanli-
ness and decency the more impressive for its profound advice to
'avoid tyranny,' or to husband resources 'as the ampte getys
liflode for winter,' or not to trust in one leach alone, for fear of
poison, but to have at least ten. The clumsy attempt to express
more or less abstract ideas in English is interesting as a sort of
foil to Pecock's achievement. The Anglo-Irish version partakes of
the nature of a political appeal. The terror inspired in the Pale
by O'Dennis or MacMorough is plainly set forth, as illustration to
the original, and the earl of Ormonde is besought to remember Troy
when he captures rebels, 'trew men quelleris,' and to destroy them
'by the thow sharpe eggis of your swerde. . . rygoure of lawe and
dyntes delynge. ' Save for the uncouth spelling, the composition
is not very different from translations penned in England.
Yonge's use of modern illustration is but one among many in-
dications of the interest which the middle classes were beginning
to feel in the political events of their own days, and, to satisfy
it, a group of contemporary chronicles appeared, more interesting
to the historian than to the student of letters.
With the increase of popular agitation, the dull monastic
Latin chronicles withered away and were succeeded by a few in the
vernacular. Though these, in their earlier portions, are meagre
translations from the popular compendium called the Brute (French
or Latin or English') or from the Eulogium (Latin), the writers often
become individual when dealing with their own times. The re-
strained indignation of the monk of Malmesbury or Canterbury who
made the English Chronicle (1347—1461) at the incompetence
which produced the civil war invests his concise record with real
dignity, homely as is his vocabulary. But his political judgment
does not temper his readiness to accept the circumstantial legends
of the day, and two pages of his little work are given to a graphic
story of a ghost, futile and homely as only a fifteenth century
ghost could be.
In contrast with this, or with the more staid Cronycullys of
1 English translation by J. Maundeville, Rector of Burnham Thorpe, in 1435.
## p. 302 (#320) ############################################
302 English Prose in the XV th Century
Englonde may be set the more scholarly composition of the Lan-
castrian Warkworth, Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge, who took
pains to preserve his chronicle for future readers. His picture of
the final loss of the royal cause' has the dignity of tragedy.
He sees retribution in the falls of princes and points the moral
pithily: “suche goodes as were gadirde with synne were loste
with sorwe'—'perjury schall nevere have bettere ende withoute
grete grace of God. ' He is clear in style and a little addicted
to the usual pleonasms (“wetynge and supposynge,' 'excitynge
and sturing,' 'a proverb and a seyenge,' etc. ).
Some short contemporary accounts bear the character of
official reports, or news letters, e. g. The History of the Arrivall
(1471), Rebellion in Lincolnshire (1470), Bellum apud Seynt
Albons (1455). They are couched in the wearisome formalities
of semi-legal documents, like the proclamations of the time. Poor
as the expression was, men at least felt it needful to be articulate.
The productions of Richard duke of York are probably the
worst.
A specimen of something very different from these stilted
pamphlets survives in the note-book of William Gregory, a skinner
of London, who became mayor in 1461. In it he entered ballads
and rules of medicine, notes on the chase, the weather, etc. ,
besides a city chronicle. There are several of these, of which
Fabyan's is the best; all are extremely meagre, but Gregory's
account of his own days reflects the cheerfulness of a man who
has weathered hard times successfully, and it has the freedom
of a private diary. Not only are there hints of a humane
pity, then rare, for the misfortunes of 'meek innocents' or of a
brave old soldier, but touches of humour quite as unusual. Though
a fifteenth century writer, he jokes: the description of Cade's
‘sympylle and rude mayny' is really comical, weening they had
wit and wisdom to guide all England just because they had
gotten London by 'a mysse happe of cuttynge of ii sory cordys
that nowe be alteryde. ' They entrenched, like soldiers, but they
kept not discipline, 'for als goode was Jacke Robyn as John at
the Noke, for alle were as hyghe as pyggsfete. ' He may tag
the proper moral over 'thys wrecchyde and fals trobely worlde';
but he tells how the earl of Wiltshire, held the handsomest knight
in England, set the king's banner against a house end and fought
manly with the heels, for he was afeared of losing of beauty; how
a preacher at Paul's Cross once preached the truth before the
1 He chronicled the events of 1461–71.
## p. 303 (#321) ############################################
Private Letters
303
king, but all the great reward he had was riding of eightscore
mile in and out, and all his friends full sorry for him; how Sir
Andrew Trollope cut a joke; how the mayor strove to collect
supplies for queen Margaret, but the mob, learning its destina-
tion, pillaged the convoy; it was Sir John Wenlock's cook who
, attacked the victuals, 'but as for the mony I wot not howe hit
was departyd, I trowe the pursse stale the mony. ' If he makes
but the briefest mention of the famous tournament of lord Scales,
he does 'aftyr heryng'-'ax of em that felde the strokys, they
can telle
you best. '
Still less to be considered as literature, yet even more in-
teresting in themselves, are the private letters which prove that
ordinary people were conversant with pen and ink without
intervention of scribes : 'Mastresse Annes, I am prowd that ye
can reed Inglyshe wherfor I prey yow aqweynt yow with thys
my lewd hand. Even the correspondence addressed to Henry IV
and Henry V, the latter very considerable in quantity, was
certainly not all done through secretaries; and it is of interest
to notice that Henry IV appears to have preferred to be
addressed in French Chance has preserved a private letter
from one of Henry V's soldiers' to his 'felous and frendys,'
describing how 'alle the ambassadors that we dele wyth ben
yncongrue, that is, in olde maner of speche in Englond, "they
ben double and fals,”' and they had made the king a beau
nient, or cypher. He is fain of peace and begs his friends to
pray that he may soon come 'oute of thys unlusty soundyour's
lyf yn to the lyf of Englond. '
Though the epistles of the learned are usually couched in
Latin, provost Millington and bishops like Gray and Bekynton
could be extremely forcible in English, and even the university
of Oxford addressed English to the House of Commons", to great
ladies and even, sometimes, to noblemen. A kind of testimonial
to the famous Sir John Talbot, then lord lieutenant of Ireland, was
addressed to Henry V by all the principal inhabitants of the Pale
in very careful English, urging his claims upon the king in respect
of his energy against 'your Irishe Enimies and English Rebels. '
The corporate towns, too, were accustomed to send missives to
one another or to the great nobles; but the compositions of the
town clerks, e. g. of Caerleon or Youghal, are on a different plane
from those of the universities
· Paston Letters, No. 688.
>
9 1420.
3 1439.
## p. 304 (#322) ############################################
304 English Prose in the XV th Century
The famous collection of letters and business papers pre-
served by the Pastons furnishes a detailed picture of three
generations of a well-to-do Norfolk family, their friends and
enemies, their dependents and noble patrons. At first John
Paston and his devoted wife Margaret, afterwards their sons,
are the leading correspondents, and the cares of property form
the topic. John Paston inherited from his father, a worthy judge,
considerable estates and was ambitious of acquiring more; but
the cupidity of the nobles of the district kept him in continual
difficulties. The old judge used to say that 'whosoever should
dwell at Paston should have need to know how to defend himself,'
and had placed his sons to study at the inns of court, since the
only help against violence lay in the intricacies of the law, with
which every age, class and sex was acquainted. The letters,
accordingly, trace the endeavours of John Paston, and, after him,
of his sons, to form such a combination of royal favour, local
intrigue and bribery as to procure effective legal protection
against those who seized their manors by armed force. This
main thread of interest is interwoven with every sort of business.
We should scarcely gather that the crown of England lay in the
scales of civil war. What the correspondence reveals is a state
of anarchy in which jurymen are terrorised, gentlemen of repute
waylaid by ruffians after church or market, or even dragged
from the Christmas dinner at home to be murdered by the way-
side; when a sheriff professedly friendly dare not accept a bribe,
because he cannot safely take more than £100 (i. e. over £1000
present value), and lord Moleynes (Paston's foe) is a great lord
who can do him more harm than that; when the duke of Suffolk's
retainers attack dame Margaret in her husband's house with
bows and handguns, pans of fire and scaling ladders, break in the
gates, undermine the house-front, cut asunder the great timbers
and carry the courageous woman forth to watch them destroy it.
In the midst of such turmoil, business is conducted regularly.
We see the squires and their stewards incessantly riding to and
fro, letting farms and holding manor courts, attending markets
or elections at Norwich, trying to curry favour at the court of
the duke of Norfolk, complimenting the duchess or giving her
waiting-woman a jewel, above all visiting London, where lawyers
may be found and, possibly, the appointment of sheriff or under-
sheriff manipulated. Letters come by messengers, with plate
and money concealed in parcels ; sometimes tokens are mentioned,
for a seal might be stolen by the token that my mother bath
## p. 305 (#323) ############################################
The Paston Letters
305
the key but it is broken. ' Countless commissions are given for
grocery or dress. Treacle of Genoa' is sought whenever sickness
is rife, cinnamon and sugar, dates and raisins 'of Coruns' must
be priced to see if they be better cheap' than in Norwich. If
Paston once orders a doublet all of worsted for the honour of
Norfolk '—which is almost like silk '—his wife prays that he will
do his cost on her to get something for her neck, for she had
to borrow her cousin's device to visit the queen among such
fresh gentlewomen, 'I durst not for shame go with my beds. '
The family acts together, like a firm, against the rest of
the world; husband and wife are working partners, mother and
brothers can be counted on to take trouble; the confidential ser-
vants are staunch, and not one seems to have betrayed his master,
though gratitude is not a marked trait of the next generation,
Nor does it seem surprising that the daughter, Margery, neglected
as her upbringing had been-Paston had grudged outlay on his
elder children-should have fallen in love with the steward,
Richard Calle, and, after two years of home persecution, insisted
that she had betrothed herself to him and would marry him-
'to sell kandyll and mustard in Framlyngham,' as her angry
brother cried. Her mother immediately turned her out of the
house and left her to the reluctant charity of a stranger. Every
relationship of life, indeed, was of the commercial nature:
marriages were bargains, often driven by the parents without
intervention of the persons concerned, as had been the case with
John and Margaret. The wardship of children was purchased,
as a speculation. There is a widow fallen,' writes one brother
to another, or, 'I heard where was a goodly young woman to
marry. . . which shall have £200,' or, 'whether her mother will
deal with me. ' Paston's hard old mother, dame Agnes, sends
to ask at the inns of court if her son Clement 'hath do his
dever in lernyng,' and, if not, to pray his tutor to 'trewly
belassch hym tyl he will amend, and so did the last maystr and
the best that evir he had, att Caumbrege”. The tutor's fee
was to be ten marks. Several of the lads went to Cambridge,
one to Oxford and one to Eton, where he stayed till he was
nineteen; the inns of court came later, for some at least; then,
one was placed in the household of the duke of Norfolk for a
time, and another remained long in the service of the earl of
Oxford, the one courteous nobleman of this correspondence.
1 Forty years earlier it needed a royal writ to compel the Cambridge students
to attend lectures.
E. L. II.
CH. XII.
20
## p. 306 (#324) ############################################
306 English Prose in the XV th Century
Daughters were merely encumbrances, difficult to marry with
little dowry, expensive to bring up in the correct way by
boarding with a gentle family. Keeping them at home was a
disagreeable economy. Dame Agnes so maltreated her daughter
Elizabeth, beating her several times a week, and even twice in
a day, forbidding her to speak to anyone, and taunting her,
that her sister-in-law besought Paston to find her a husband.
‘My moder. . . wold never so fayn to have be delyvered of her
as she woll now. ' Parental authority was so unquestioned that,
years after Paston's death, his sons, grown men, and one, at
least, married, were boarding with their mother and treated like
children. Dame Margaret leaned on her chaplain, one James
Gloys, and quarrels were picked to get John and Edmund out
of the house. “We go not to bed unchidden lightly. ' 'Sir
James and I be tweyn. We fyll owt be for my modyr with
"thow proud prest” and “thow proud sqwyer. "' The priest
was always ‘chopping' at him provokingly, but 'when he hathe
most unfyttynge wordys to me I smylle a lytyll and tell hym
it is good heryng of thes old talys. ' Thus (1472) writes John,
a husband and father, to his elder brother, also named John,
a young knight about court in London'.
With this younger generation a rather lighter tone becomes
apparent in the letters. Sir John was of a somewhat shallow
and unpractical character, his brother a man of high spirits
and good temper; and it would seem as if, after Towton field,
the dead weight of terrorism had begun to lighten. The decade
after 1461 was less anarchical than that which preceded it, and
the young men sometimes have leisure for slighter concerns than
sales and debts, lawsuits and marriage bargains. Sir John took
an interest in books, his brother in hawking, and he merrily
threatens his elder 'to call upon yow owyrly, nyghtly, dayly,
dyner, soper, for thys hawk,' which he suggests might be pur-
chased of a certain grocer 'dwelling right over against the well
with 2 buckets' near St Helen's. When Sir John at length sends a
poor bird, it is with admirable temper that the disappointed brother
thanks him for his 'dylygence and cost. . . well I wot your labore
and trowbyll was as myche as thow she had ben the best of
the world, but. . . she shall never serve but to lay eggys. ' Sir John
had a better taste in the points, laces and hats about which his
brothers and he were so particular. Their friendliness is the most
amiable thing in the letters. The one sign of parental affection
· Letters, Nos. 697, 702.
## p. 307 (#325) ############################################
Copyists and Booksellers
307
in them comes from the younger John, who was sent in the princess
Margaret's train (1468) to the court of Charles the Bold. ('I hert
never of non lyek to it save Kyng Artourys cort. ) He is anxious
about his 'lytell Jak’ and writes home ‘modyr I beseche yow that
ye wolbe good mastras to my lytell man and to se that he go to scole. '
Humour was, apparently, invented in London, for the brothers and
their town friends have many a jest, crude as these often are. Some-
times we have a touch of slang—'He wolde bear the cup evyn,
as What-calle-ye-hym seyde to Aslake' (i. e. be fair). "Put in
hope of the moon schone in the water. If the tailor will not
furnish a certain gown, 'be cryst, calkestowe over hys hed (f a
double caul) that is schoryle (churl) in Englysche, yt is a terme
newe browthe up with my marschandis of Norwych,' says John the
younger, who addresses his knightly brother as 'lansmann' and
'mynher,' and jests on having nearly 'drownke to myn oysters,'
i. e. been murdered. Many a good colloquial expression never
found its way into literature, 'to bear him on hand' is common
for ‘to accuse'; 'cup-shotten,' 'shuttle-witted' are good terms? .
The scanty notices, during the fifteenth century, of the making
and selling of books no more indicate a general lack of them
than the names of Fortescue and Pecock represent the literature
in demand. The monasteries had long ceased to supply the
market, and professional scribes were employed. The stationers'
guild, in existence much earlier, was incorporated in 1403, and
had a hall in Milk street. Paternoster Rewe' was well known.
In Oxford, scribes, parchmenters, illuminators and bookbinders
were distinct from stationers before 1373, and, apparently, in
Cambridge also. Other book centres were Bury and Lincoln,
where king John of France had made purchases of many expensive
books in the preceding century, and, probably, several other
cathedral or scholastic cities had store of books. Prices were
stable, and materials cheap: in the fourteenth century a dozen
skins of parchment cost 38. , through most of the fifteenth century a
quaternion of parchment was 3d. and the writing of it 16d. , i. e. 2d.
a page, but small-paged books could be copied at id. the page.
Sometimes a limner charged by the number of letters, at id. or
4d. the hundred, according to quality, no doubt. Legal documents
were paid for at special rates. The trade does not seem to have
.
been very remunerative, for the scrivener who did a good deal
1 A curious instance of the fluid state of the vocabulary is the use by nearly all the
colloquial writers of me, short for men, or they—'causeth me to set the lease be us'-
while scholarly writers are beginning to use it for I, meseemeth, eto.
ដ
水
ben
lebo
16
20—2
## p. 308 (#326) ############################################
308 English Prose in the XV th Century
of copying for Sir John Paston writes from sanctuary to beg
for payment and would be grateful for the gift of an old
gown. At the universities, however, regulations may have
succeeded in 'protecting' the scribes. As early as 1373, Oxford
reduced the excessive number of booksellers' by forbidding
outsiders who were bringing volumes of great value from other
places, to expose any books for sale at more than half-a-mark
cheap text-books they might sell, but the university stationers
were not to have their accustomed profits taken from them by
competition. Not that students usually possessed their own
books, though William Paston sent to London for his brother's
‘nominal' and 'book of sophistry'; the tutors or the stationers
loaned or hired out books at regular charges. Certainly, the large
Latin volumes made for the colleges were much more expensive
than Paston's purchases. These handsome folios and quartos, as
a rule, cost from 408. to 508. , always calculated in marks (138. 4d. ),
and were, usually, standard theological works, although Peter-
house", which ventured upon books of natural science and a
Vergil, seems to have smuggled FitzRalph's revolutionary sermon
into the works of Augustine, and Ockham's Defensor into a com-
mentary.
Prices, of course, varied according to the beauty of the
volume, a primer for a princess might cost 638. 6d. , one Bible cost
‘not over 5 mark, so I trowe he wyl geve it,' while another cost
but 268. 8d. Several of the Pastons had books and were chary
of lending them; Anne possessed The Siege of Thebes, Walter,
The Book of Seven Sages, John mentions The Meeting of the
Duke and the Emperor, and Sir John had a library of English
books.
These books are of different kinds, and often, as then was
usual, included various works by several hands—the volume which
contained two of Chaucer's poems contained also Lydgate's The
Temple of Glass and The Grene Knight Another included The
Dethe of Arthur begynyng at Cassabelaun, Guy of Warwick,
Richard 'Cur de Lyon' and a Chronicle to Edwarde the iii.
One was didactic, comprising a book about the mass, Meditations
of Chylde Ypotis? and the Abbey of the Holy Ghost, a recent
devotional work. Several are old fashioned ballads—Guy & Col-
bronde (an Anglo-Norman tale), A Balade of the Goos (probably
Lydgate's). Troylus appears alone, and De Amicitia was lent to
William of Worcester, Fastolf's ill-requited scholar-servant, who
· The catalogue names eighteen different scriveners.
• A medieval form of Epictetus.
## p. 309 (#327) ############################################
Sir John Paston
309
>
afterwards translated it. One book is mentioned as 'in preente,
The Pleye off the Chessl.
Sir John, indeed, was in the fashion in patronising literature
and the drama, for he complained that one of his servants whom
he had kept 'thys three yer to pleye Seynt Jorge and Robin Hod
and the Shryff off Notyngham' had suddenly deserted him : 'he
is “goon into Bernysdale,” ' like the sturdy outlaw in the ballad to
which this is an early allusion. But his taste is still medieval:
romances of the old kind were shortly to go out of fashion. Up to
the close of the century, however, such books, along with useful
manuals of all kinds, were, evidently, plentiful enough, as may be
gathered from the number of scriveners and their poor pay; Sir
John Paston had bought his volume of chronicle and romances
from 'myn ostesse at The George,' and one or two had been given
by his friends; even the niggardly Fastolf had translations
executed for him, like the Lady Margaret or the duchess of
Burgundy; literature had become an amusement
· Cf. Catalogue in No. 869, Paston Letters.
## p. 310 (#328) ############################################
CHAPTER XIII
THE INTRODUCTION OF PRINTING INTO ENGLAND
AND THE EARLY WORK OF THE PRESS
WITH the advent of printing, books, from being expensive
and the property of the few, became cheap and were scattered
far and wide. The change was gradual, for an increased demand
for books could not grow up at once; but, by the time printing was
introduced into England, the art was widespread and books were
freely circulated. From a study of the productions of the various
presses of different countries can be determined, more or less
accurately, the general requirements of the reading public. This
is especially the case in England, where no books were printed for
exportation. It is proposed, therefore, in the present chapter to
examine the work produced by the earlier English printers as a
means of ascertaining the general literary taste of the period in
this country.
It was soon after the year 1450 that the first products of the new
art appeared at Mainz. In 1465, two German printers, Sweynheym
and Pandartz, migrated to Italy, setting up a press at Subiaco and
moving, two years later, to Rome. Switzerland followed soon after
Italy, and, in 1470, the first French press began work at Paris.
In all these cases, the first printers had been Germans. The
northern Netherlands, which have persistently claimed to be the
birth-place of printing, have no authentic date earlier than 1471,
when two native printers began work at Utrecht. Belgium and
Austria-Hungary follow in 1473 and Spain in 1474. There are
thus eight European countries which precede England, and at no
less than seventy towns were printers at work before Caxton
started at Westminster. So, too, as regards the quality and
quantity of books produced, England takes but a poor place, the
total number of books of every kind, including different editions
printed here before the end of the fifteenth century, only reaching
the total of about three hundred and seventy. On the other hand,
it must be remembered that the literary value of the books printed
## p. 311 (#329) ############################################
William Caxton
311
in England is high; for, unlike other countries, most of the
productions of the press are in the vernacular.
William Caxton, our first printer, was born in the weald of
Kent between the years 1421 and 1428, probably nearer the
earlier date. The weald was largely inhabited by descendants of
the Flemish clothmakers who had been induced by Edward III to
settle in that district, and this would, no doubt, have a certain
effect on the English spoken there, which Caxton himself describes
as 'broad and rude. He received a good education, though we
'
are not told where, and, having determined to take up the business
of a cloth merchant, was apprenticed, in 1438, to Robert Large,
one of the most wealthy and important merchants in London and
a leading member of the mercers' company.
Here Caxton continued until the death of Large, in 1441, and,
though still an apprentice, appears to have left England and gone
to the Low Countries. For the next few years we have little in-
formation as to his movements; but it is clear that he prospered in
business for, by 1463, he was acting as governor of the merchant
adventurers. In 1469, he gave up this post to enter the service of
the duchess of Burgundy, and, in the leisure which this position
afforded him, he turned his attention to literary work. A visit to
Cologne in 1471 marks an important event in Caxton's life, for
there, for the first time, he saw a printing press at work. If we
believe the words of his apprentice and successor Wynkyn de
Worde, and there seems no reason to doubt them, he even assisted
in the printing of an edition of Bartholomaeus de Proprietatibus
Rerum in order to make himself acquainted with the technical
details of the art.
A year or two after his return to Bruges, he determined to set
up a press of his own and chose as an assistant an illuminator
named Colard Mansion. Mansion is entered regularly as an illu-
minator in the guild-books of Bruges up to the year 1473, which
points to Caxton's preparations having been made in 1474.
Mansion was despatched to obtain the necessary type and other
materials, and it appears most probable that the printer who
supplied them was John Veldener of Louvain. Furnished with a
press and two founts of type, cut in imitation of the ordinary book
hand, Caxton began to print.
The first book printed in the English language was the Recuyell
of the Histories of Troy, issued, about 1475, at Bruges. The French
original was compiled in the year 1464 by Raoul le Fevre, chaplain
to Philip, duke of Burgundy; and, four years later, Caxton began
## p. 312 (#330) ############################################
312
The Introduction of Printing
to translate it into English, but, disheartened, as he tells us
in his prologue, by his imperfect knowledge of French, never
having been in France, and by the rudeness and broadness of
his English, he soon laid the work aside. Encouraged by Margaret
duchess of Burgundy, he, later, resumed his task and finished the
work in 1471. His knowledge of French was not perfect, as may
be seen from occasional curious mistranslations, but his position
must have required an adequate knowledge of the language. So,
too, with his English. His education had been good, and he had
served as apprentice with one of the most prominent of London
citizens; so that he had every opportunity to acquire good English
and lose his provincialisms. Nearly all his literary work consisted
of translations, but, to most of his publications, he added prologues
or epilogues which have a pleasant personal touch, and show us
that he had one valuable possession, a sense of humour.
His Recuyell of the Histories of Troy was a popular book
at the Burgundian court, and Caxton was importuned by
many famous persons to make copies for them. The copying
of so large a book was a wearisome undertaking; so Caxton,
remembering the art of printing which he had seen in practical
use at Cologne, determined to undertake it on his own account
and thus be able to supply his patrons with copies easily and
rapidly. Accordingly, about 1475, a printed edition was issued,
followed, shortly, by Caxton's translation from two French versions
of the Liber de ludo scacchorum of Jacobus de Cessolis, made by
Jean Faron and Jean de Vignay. Caxton, in his Game and playe
of the Chesse, made use of both these versions, translating partly
from one and partly from the other. The last book he printed at
Bruges was the Quatre dernieres choses.
In 1476, Caxton returned to England and set up
his
Westminster in a house with the sign of the Red Pale, situated
in the precincts of the abbey. In the two years following his
arrival, he issued a large number of books, though very little from
his own pen. We have it on the authority of the printer Robert
Copland, who worked for Wynkyn de Worde, Caxton's assistant
and successor, and who might himself have been with Caxton,
that the first products of the Westminster press were small pam-
phlets. Now this description exactly applies to a number of tracts
of small size issued about this time. These are Lydgate's Temple
of Glass, two editions of The Horse, the Sheep and the Goose and
The Churl and the Bird; two editions of Burgh's Cato, Chaucer's
Anelida and Arcite and The Temple of Brass, the Book of
press at
## p. 313 (#331) ############################################
William Caxton
313
Courtesy and the Stans puer ad mensam. From what we know
of Caxton's tastes, these are just such books as he would be
anxious to issue. The first two large books which he printed were
The History of Jason and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The
History of Jason was translated by Caxton from the French
version of Raoul le Fevre, and undertaken immediately he had
finished the Recuyell of the Histories of Troy and The Game of
Chess.
On 18 November 1477, was finished the printing of the Dictes
and Sayings of the Philosophers, the first dated book issued in
England. The translator, Anthony Wodville, earl Rivers, while
on a voyage to the shrine of St James of Compostella, in 1473, was
lent by the famous knight Lewis de Bretaylles a manuscript of Les
ditz moraulac des philosophes by Guillaume de Tignoville. With
this, the earl was so pleased that he borrowed the volume and, on
his return to England, set about the translation. This, when
finished, was handed to Caxton to oversee. ' He revised the book
'
with the French version and added an amusing epilogue, pointing
out that the earl, for some reason, had omitted the remarks of
Socrates concerning women, which he, therefore, had added himself.
In the following February, Caxton printed another translation
by earl Rivers, The Moral Proverbs of Christine de Pisan, a
small tract of four leaves. At the end is a short epilogue in verse,
written by Caxton himself, giving some details as to the author,
translator and date of printing. Another translation by earl
Rivers appeared in 1479, entitled Cordyale, or the Four last things.
This was rendered from the Quatre dernieres choses, a French
version of the De quattuor novissimis made by Jean Mielot,
secretary to Philippe le Bon in 1453.
Two editions of The Chronicles of England were printed in 1480
and 1482. This was the history known as The Chronicle of Brute,
edited and augmented by Caxton himself. The Polychronicon
of Higden was also issued in 1482, Caxton revising Trevisa's
English version of 1387, and writing a continuation, bringing down
the history to the year 1460, this continuation being the only
piece of any size which we possess of Caxton's original work.
In 1481, no less than three of his own translations were printed
by Caxton, The Mirror of the World, Reynard the Fox and The
History of Godfrey of Bologne. The origin of the first named is
obscure; but the English translation was made from a French
prose version by 'Maistre Gossouin,' which, in its turn, was rendered
from a French version in metre made, in 1245, from an unknown
>
## p. 314 (#332) ############################################
314
The Introduction of Printing
Latin original. Reynard the Fox was, apparently, translated from
the Dutch version printed by Gerard Leeu at Gouda in 1479.
About 1483, The Pilgrimage of the Soul and Lydgate's Life
of our Lady, were issued, and, also, a new edition of The
Canterbury Tales. Caxton's prologue to this book is extremely
interesting, and shows in what great esteem he held Chaucer
and his writings. He observes that, some six years previously,
he had printed an edition of The Canterbury Tales which
had been well received. One of the purchasers, however, had
pointed out that in many places the text was corrupt, and that
pieces were included which were not genuine, while some which
were genuine were omitted. He had added that his father possessed
a very correct manuscript which he much valued, and he offered, if
Caxton would print a new edition, to obtain the loan of it. This
Caxton undertook to do and issued the new edition, which, unlike
the earlier one, contains a series of woodcuts illustrating the various
characters. About the same time were also issued Chaucer's
Troilus and Criseyde, and House of Fame, and, in September
1483, Gower's Confessio Amantis.
The Golden Legend, Caxton's most important translation, was
finished, if not printed, in 1483. In his second prologue, the printer
tells us that, after beginning his translation, the magnitude of his
task and the probable great expense of printing had made him
'halfe desperate to have accomplissd it,' had not the earl of
Arundel come forward as a patron. With this assistance, the book
was, at last, finished. In its compilation, Caxton used three versions,
one French, one Latin and one English. The French original can
be clearly identified with an early printed edition without date or
place, for Caxton has fallen into several pitfalls on account of the
misprints which occur in it; for example, in the life of St Stephen,
the words femmes veuves have been printed Saine venue, which the
translator renders ‘hole comen'in spite of the words making no
sense.
a
In 1484, four more books translated by himself were printed by
Caxton: Caton, The Book of the Knight of the Tower, Aesop's
Fables and The Order of Chivalry. The Book of the Knight of
the Tower is a translation of the work written, in 1371, by Geoffroi
de la Tour Landry, for the instruction of his daughters, a medley
compiled from the Bible, Gesta Romanorum and the chronicles
of various countries. The next year saw the issue of three books,
The Life of Charles the Great, The History of Paris and Vienne
and, most important of all, Sir Thomas Malory's Morte – Arthur.
## p. 315 (#333) ############################################
William Caxton
315
The Life of Charles the Great was translated from an anonymous
French version compiled at the request of Henry Bolomyer, canon
of Lausanne, the Paris and Vienne from the French version made
by Pierre de la Seppade of Marseilles early in the fifteenth century.
Both these books are now known only from single copies.
The compilation of the Morte d Arthur was finished in 1469,
but of the compiler little is known save the name. He is generally
believed to be the Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revell in
Warwickshire who died in 1471. No manuscript of the work is
known, and, though Caxton certainly revised it, exactly to what
extent has never been settled. The prologue to this book is,
perhaps, the best and most interesting piece of writing the printer
ever composed, and still remains one of the best criticisms of
Malory's romance. Of the popularity of the book we have striking
evidence. Of Caxton's edition two copies are known, of which
one is imperfect. The second edition, printed by Wynkyn de
Worde in 1498 is known from one copy only, which is imperfect,
while the third edition, also printed by de Worde is, again, only
known from one imperfect copy. It may well be, considering
these facts, that there were other intervening editions which have
entirely disappeared.
While Caxton was busily at work making and printing his
translations, he did not neglect other classes of books which were
in demand. His position near the abbey would turn his attention
to service-books, and, of these, he printed a large number. One of
the first books he issued was a Sarum Ordinale, and this he ad-
vertised by means of a little handbill fixed up in prominent places.
Of Books of Hours he issued at least four editions. Besides
these, he printed the Psalter, Directorium Sacerdotum and some
special services to add to the breviary. The larger service-books
he does not seem to have attempted. These were always of a
highly ornamental character and his own types and material,
intended simply for ordinary work, were not equal to the task.
In 1487, when there was a demand for an edition of the Sarum
Missal, he gave a commission for the printing to a Paris printer
Guillaume Maynial, but added to it his own device.
The Royal Book and The Book of Good Manners were the
next two of Caxton's translations to be printed. The first is a
translation of La Somme des Vices et des Vertus, the latter of Le
livre des bonnes meurs by Jacques Legrand. The Book of Good
Manners, issued in 1487, was a popular book and was reprinted at
least four times before the close of the century.
## p. 316 (#334) ############################################
316
The Introduction of Printing
The Fayttes of Arms, the next of Caxton's translations to be
printed, was issued in 1489. It was undertaken at the express
desire of Henry VII, who himself lent the manuscript, now in the
British Museum, from which the translation was made. The
authorship is generally ascribed to Christine de Pisan.
About this time, two very popular romances were issued, The
History of the Four Sons of Aymon and The History of
Blanchardyn and Eglantine. The first, of which manuscripts are
common, was printed in French as early as 1480, at Lyons, and it was,
no doubt, from this edition that Caxton prepared his translation.
The second was translated at the request of Margaret, duchess of
Somerset, from a manuscript of the French version, which she had
purchased from Caxton himself many years previously. In this
translation, Caxton has adhered to his original far more nearly
than is usual in his translations, rendering word for word in the
closest manner.
The Eneydos, translated in 1490 and printed about the same
time, is not in any way a translation of the Aeneid, but, rather, a
romance founded on it. Caxton's version was translated from a
French version, probably the work called Le livre des Eneydes,
printed at Lyons, in 1483, by Guillaume le Roy. The printer's
preface is a most interesting piece of writing, for Caxton sets out
at length his views and opinions on the English language, its
changes and dialects. He points out how rapidly it was altering.
And certaynly our langage now used varyeth ferre from that
whiche was used and spoken when I was borne. ' The difference in
dialect is illustrated by a story of a London merchant who asked a
woman in ‘Forland' for some eggs, and was met with the answer
that she could not speak French, but she understood when asked
for 'eyren. ' The different styles of speech are contrasted, and
Caxton ends up as might have been expected, 'And thus bytwene
playn, rude, and curious I stande abasshed, but in my judgemente
the comyn termes that be dayli used ben lyghter to be understonde
than the olde and auncyent englysshe. ' In order to make the
style as correct as possible, Caxton obtained the assistance of John
Skelton to revise the book for the press.
One other translation by Caxton remains to be noticed, the
Metamorphoses of Ovid. He speaks of this work, along with
some others, in the introduction to The Golden Legend, and, since
all the others were printed, we may presume that this was also.
No trace of a printed copy remains, but there is in the Pepysian
library a manuscript of the last six books with the colophon
## p. 317 (#335) ############################################
Provincial Presses
317
"Translated and finished by me William Caxton at Westminster
the twenty second day of April, the year of our Lord 1480, and
the twentieth year of the reign of king Edward the fourth. '
This, like the rest of Caxton's books, was rendered from the
French.
In 1491 he died, having just completed a translation of
St Jerome's Lives of the Fathers, which was printed by his
successor in 1495.
It is impossible for many reasons to consider the books issued
by Caxton as quite representative of the popular demand. His
position was entirely different from that of the ordinary printer or
publisher. The best part of his life had been spent abroad in
business connected with the woollen trade, he had risen to a high
position and was, doubtless, a man of very considerable wealth.
When he settled in England as a printer, he was able to consult
his own tastes in the matter of what he should print, and this
clearly lay in the direction of English poetry and prose romances.
The reading public was not then very large, and Caxton directed
rather than followed the popular taste. A third of the books he
printed were translations made by himself, and he carefully edited
all that he printed. At the same time, it cannot be supposed
that he neglected the popular demand. He printed service books
for the clergy, school books and statutes, but his own interest
lay elsewhere. In especial, he was an admirer of Chaucer. He
took pains, as we have seen, in the printing of his works, and
expressed his admiration and appreciation in several prologues
and epilogues. He did even more, for, as we learn from the
epilogue to Boethius, he placed a memorial tablet to the poet
in Westminster Abbey.
Soon after Caxton began to print in Westminster, presses
were set up in 1478 at Oxford, and, about 1479, at St Albans.
Naturally, the books issued at Oxford were mainly scholastic, and,
of all the books printed there in the fifteenth and early sixteenth
century, but one is in English. This was an edition of the Liber
Festivalis of John Mirk, issued in March 1486—7. It is not
a mere reprint of Caxton's edition issued in 1483, but has
many points of difference; and, when Caxton printed his second
edition, about 1491, he copied this version in preference to his
Own.
The St Albans press, like that of Oxford, was mainly employed
on learned works. Of the eight books issued, the first six are
## p. 318 (#336) ############################################
318
The Introduction of Printing
6
6
in Latin; but the last two are in English. The first, The Chronicles
of England, printed about 1485, is mainly founded on Caxton's
earlier editions, but with interpolations relating to the popes and
other ecclesiastical matters. Its compiler and printer was, as we
learn from a later edition, sometime schoolmaster of St Albans';
but his name is unknown.
The last book from this press is well known under the title of
The Book of St Albans. It contains three treatises, the first on
hawking, the second on hunting and the last on coat-armour or
heraldry. Much has been written about the authorship of this
book, which is probably not all from one hand. The part on
hunting, which is in verse, ends with the words ' Explicit Dam
Julyans Barnes in her boke of huntyng,' and this is generally
considered to refer to a somewhat mythical Juliana Berners,
traditionally prioress of the nunnery of Sopwell near St Albans.
The treatise on heraldry is expressly said to have been translated
and compiled at St Albans, and is probably derived, in great part,
from a work on the same subject written, in 1441, by Nicholas
Upton and dedicated to Humphrey, duke of Gloucester. Whatever
part dame Juliana Berners may have taken in the compilation of
The Book of St Albans, it is certainly not an original work, and
the greater part of the books on hawking and hunting are derived
from the Venerie de Twety, a work composed early in the
fourteenth century. The work on fishing, which was added to
succeeding editions of the book, appears, from internal evidence, to
have been originally composed in English.
The first London press, started in 1480 by John Lettou under
the patronage of William Wilcock, a wealthy draper, produced
only two Latin books, a commentary on the Metaphysics of
Aristotle by Antonius Andreae and an exposition on the Psalms
by Thomas Wallensis. When, later, Lettou printed in partnership
with William de Machlinia, they issued nothing but law-books, and
it was not until about 1483, when Machlinia was at work by himself,
that books in English were printed in London. One of the earliest
was the Revelation of St Nicholas to a monk of Evesham. It was
composed in 1196; but the author is unknown. In an abridged
form, it is found in Roger of Wendover's Flores Historiarum under
the year 1196. It is a curious religious allegory, treating of the
pilgrimage of a soul from death through purgatory and paradise
to heaven. The monk, conducted by St Nicholas, is taken from
place to place in purgatory, where he meets and converses with
## p. 319 (#337) ############################################
English Books Printed Abroad
319
persons of various ranks, who relate their stories and their
suffering. From purgatory he advances slowly to paradise, and
finally reaches the gates of heaven; after which he awakes.
The later press of Machlinia issued few English books. Among
them came a reprint of The Chronicles of England and three
editions of a Treatise of the Pestilence, a translation of the Regimen
contra pestilentiam of Benedict Canutus, bishop of Westeraes, in
Sweden. These can certainly be dated about 1485, in which year
London was visited by the plague. One other interesting book
was issued by Machlinia, entitled Speculum Christiani. It is a
curious medley of theological matter in Latin, interspersed with
pieces of religious poetry in English. The authorship has been
ascribed to a certain John Watton, but the book, without the
English verse, was also printed abroad. The verse, though spoken
of by Warton as poor, is, occasionally, quite good; and the hymn
to the Virgin, reprinted in Herbert's Typographical Antiquities",
is a simple and charming piece of writing, reminiscent of an earlier
period. The second part of the book consists, mainly, of an exposi-
tion on the Lord's prayer, while the third contains selections taken
from the works of St Isidore.
With the death of Caxton, the character of the English press
changed. Both Wynkyn de Worde, his successor, and Richard
Pynson, the only other printer then at work in England, were
practical printers only, depending on their business for their
livelihood, and had to follow, not direct, the popular demand.
De Worde especially seems to have been without initiative, most
of his early work consisting of reprints and, for a year or two, his
press was almost idle. A foreign printer, Gerard Leeu of Antwerp,
took advantage of this period of inactivity and printed four books
for the English market. Three were mere reprints of Caxton's
books, The History of Jason, The History of Paris and Vienne
and The Chronicles of England; but the fourth is unknown in any
other English version. This is the Dialogue or communing between
the wise king Solomon and Marcolphus, a widespread and popular
story, of which there are versions in many languages. The English
version is translated from the Dutch, but there is no clue to the
translator. The story tells of the various questions put by Solomon,
which are answered by the rustic wit of Marcolphus, and of the
various ruses and quibbles by means of which he escaped the
punishments designed for him by the king. As the other three of
Leeu's books are reprints of Caxton's editions, it is just possible
1 I, pp. 113–4.
## p. 320 (#338) ############################################
320
The Introduction of Printing
that there may have been an English printed edition of it also;
but, if so, no trace of it remains.
About 1503, another Antwerp printer, Adraien van Berghen,
printed a book for sale in England, which goes under the name
of Arnold's Chronicle.
dialogue between Understanding and Faith, a kind of meditation
upon the hard fate of the righteous and the duty of resignation.
The works of Pecock and Fortescue were destined to appeal
rather to later generations than to their own contemporaries,
whose tastes were better served by books more directly didactic
and less controversial, whether these were of the purely devotional
type or pseudo-devotional compilations of tales with arbitrary
applications. Of this latter sort the most famous example is Gesta
Romanorum. Devotional literature, as distinct from the Wyclifite
and controversial literature, for nearly a century and a half
derived from the school of mystics, the spiritual descendants of
Richard Rolle of Hampole. Their great master is Walter Hylton,
an Augustinian canon of Thurgarton in Nottinghamshire, whose
beautiful Ladder of Perfection supplied both system and cor-
rective to Rolle's exuberance of feeling.
That English mysticism was practical and missionary was
doubtless due to Rolle; and the example he set of copious writing
in the vernacular was followed by his disciples, whose tracts,
sermons and meditations, whether original or translated from the
Fathers, helped to render the language of devotion more fluent
than that of common life. When the life of the recluse had
become once more an honoured profession, the phraseology of
mysticism was readily understood by the special circle to which it
appealed. Hylton's works are far more modern than Rolle's, both
in matter and expression. They were favourites with the early
printers and are still read in modernised form. The lofty thought
and clear insight, the sanity, the just judgment of The Ladder of
Perfection or The Devout book to a temporal man are not more
striking than the clarity of the style. Hylton's language has not,
perhaps, a very wide range, but he renders abstract and subtle
thoughts with ease. Careful explanations are made of any fresh
term; pairs of words and phrases, though very frequent, are
scarcely ever tautologous, nor is alliteration noticeable. Biblical
language occurs less often than might be expected, but illustration
is common and ranges from simple comparison ('as full of sin as a
hide or skin is full of flesh') to complete metaphor, whose signifi-
cance he evidently expects his readers to grasp readily. Thus,
when he likens the progress of the soul to a pilgrimage to Jerusalem,
he adds, ‘Jerusalem is as moche as to saye as a syght of peace, and
## p. 300 (#318) ############################################
300 English Prose in the XV th Century
betokeneth contemplacyon in parfyte love of God! ' Or he speaks
of meekness and love, the prime virtues of the recluse's life, as two
strings, which, 'well fastened with the mynde of Jesu maketh good
accorde in the harpe of the soule whan they be craftely touched
with the fynger of reason; for the lower thou smytest upon that
one the hyer sowneth that other? ' In almost every respect
Hylton presents a contrast to his contemporary Trevisa.
An incidental remark in The Ladder-'this readest thou in
every book that teacheth of good living' bears witness to a con-
siderable body of literature of which only fragments have come
down to us. Chief among them is the well-known Revelations of
Divine Love by the anchoress Juliana of Norwich, a work of
fervent piety, pre-eminent in the graces of humility and love.
Juliana's meditations upon her vision evince her acquaintance
with Hylton, and, probably, with other religious writers. Such
study was, indeed, a duty strictly enjoined upon recluses by the
Ancren Riwle. More than once she uses Hylton's actual words
when developing the same ideas: 'the soul is a life,' they both
reiterate, and Juliana terms its inalterably pure essence, or spirit,
as distinguished from the sense-perceptions, its substance, in a
manner reminiscent of older scholars'. Apparently, she was not
acquainted with the translation of a Kempis, made in the middle
of the century, and again translated for the Lady Margaret.
Wholly different in kind are the moralised skeleton tales, by no
means always moral in themselves, of the famous Gesta Romanorum,
the great vogue of which is witnessed by the fact that the Anglo-
Latin recension assigned to the end of the fourteenth century was
being continually copied in the fifteenth, and that an English
translation then appeared, popularising this source-book of future
literature, beside the English Legenda Aurea, which, half-original,
half-translation, belongs to the same period.
? Wynkyn de Worde's edition.
2 Juliana's date is hardly certain. Only two late MSS are now known, B. M. Sloane
2499, said to belong to the seventeenth century, and Paris, Bibl. Nationale 30, said to
be a sixteenth century copy (cf. Miss Warrack's preface to her edition of Juliana).
Acoording to these she was born in 1342, saw the vision in 1373, wrote her account of
it about 1393, and was still living in 1442. (Cf. The Examination of William Thorpe,
which demands the belief that he, too, lived to be nearly a hundred, as used to be
assumed also of Hylton and of Juliana Berners. ) It is generally stated that Juliana
describes herself as unable to read, but this is an error, The Paris copyist calls her
a symple creature unlettyrde'; but 'a simple creature' is a term of humility :
the author of the prologue to the Wyclifite Bible so describes himself : 'unlettered'
may only mean no great scholar. The Sloane manuscript alters this word to that
cowde no letter. ' But the Revelations do not require the ascription of such a miracle
to enhance their value.
:
## p. 301 (#319) ############################################
Secreta Secretorum
301
Much akin to Gesta was another old classic of the Middle Ages,
Secreta Secretorum, three translations of which were executed in
the fifteenth century, one, by James Yonge in 1422, hailing from
the English Pale in Ireland. It is a work which ranks high
among medieval forgeries, professing to be no less than an
epistle on statesmanship addressed by Aristotle to his pupil
Alexander the Great. No doubt the public found its medley of
astrological and medical rules and elementary precepts on cleanli-
ness and decency the more impressive for its profound advice to
'avoid tyranny,' or to husband resources 'as the ampte getys
liflode for winter,' or not to trust in one leach alone, for fear of
poison, but to have at least ten. The clumsy attempt to express
more or less abstract ideas in English is interesting as a sort of
foil to Pecock's achievement. The Anglo-Irish version partakes of
the nature of a political appeal. The terror inspired in the Pale
by O'Dennis or MacMorough is plainly set forth, as illustration to
the original, and the earl of Ormonde is besought to remember Troy
when he captures rebels, 'trew men quelleris,' and to destroy them
'by the thow sharpe eggis of your swerde. . . rygoure of lawe and
dyntes delynge. ' Save for the uncouth spelling, the composition
is not very different from translations penned in England.
Yonge's use of modern illustration is but one among many in-
dications of the interest which the middle classes were beginning
to feel in the political events of their own days, and, to satisfy
it, a group of contemporary chronicles appeared, more interesting
to the historian than to the student of letters.
With the increase of popular agitation, the dull monastic
Latin chronicles withered away and were succeeded by a few in the
vernacular. Though these, in their earlier portions, are meagre
translations from the popular compendium called the Brute (French
or Latin or English') or from the Eulogium (Latin), the writers often
become individual when dealing with their own times. The re-
strained indignation of the monk of Malmesbury or Canterbury who
made the English Chronicle (1347—1461) at the incompetence
which produced the civil war invests his concise record with real
dignity, homely as is his vocabulary. But his political judgment
does not temper his readiness to accept the circumstantial legends
of the day, and two pages of his little work are given to a graphic
story of a ghost, futile and homely as only a fifteenth century
ghost could be.
In contrast with this, or with the more staid Cronycullys of
1 English translation by J. Maundeville, Rector of Burnham Thorpe, in 1435.
## p. 302 (#320) ############################################
302 English Prose in the XV th Century
Englonde may be set the more scholarly composition of the Lan-
castrian Warkworth, Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge, who took
pains to preserve his chronicle for future readers. His picture of
the final loss of the royal cause' has the dignity of tragedy.
He sees retribution in the falls of princes and points the moral
pithily: “suche goodes as were gadirde with synne were loste
with sorwe'—'perjury schall nevere have bettere ende withoute
grete grace of God. ' He is clear in style and a little addicted
to the usual pleonasms (“wetynge and supposynge,' 'excitynge
and sturing,' 'a proverb and a seyenge,' etc. ).
Some short contemporary accounts bear the character of
official reports, or news letters, e. g. The History of the Arrivall
(1471), Rebellion in Lincolnshire (1470), Bellum apud Seynt
Albons (1455). They are couched in the wearisome formalities
of semi-legal documents, like the proclamations of the time. Poor
as the expression was, men at least felt it needful to be articulate.
The productions of Richard duke of York are probably the
worst.
A specimen of something very different from these stilted
pamphlets survives in the note-book of William Gregory, a skinner
of London, who became mayor in 1461. In it he entered ballads
and rules of medicine, notes on the chase, the weather, etc. ,
besides a city chronicle. There are several of these, of which
Fabyan's is the best; all are extremely meagre, but Gregory's
account of his own days reflects the cheerfulness of a man who
has weathered hard times successfully, and it has the freedom
of a private diary. Not only are there hints of a humane
pity, then rare, for the misfortunes of 'meek innocents' or of a
brave old soldier, but touches of humour quite as unusual. Though
a fifteenth century writer, he jokes: the description of Cade's
‘sympylle and rude mayny' is really comical, weening they had
wit and wisdom to guide all England just because they had
gotten London by 'a mysse happe of cuttynge of ii sory cordys
that nowe be alteryde. ' They entrenched, like soldiers, but they
kept not discipline, 'for als goode was Jacke Robyn as John at
the Noke, for alle were as hyghe as pyggsfete. ' He may tag
the proper moral over 'thys wrecchyde and fals trobely worlde';
but he tells how the earl of Wiltshire, held the handsomest knight
in England, set the king's banner against a house end and fought
manly with the heels, for he was afeared of losing of beauty; how
a preacher at Paul's Cross once preached the truth before the
1 He chronicled the events of 1461–71.
## p. 303 (#321) ############################################
Private Letters
303
king, but all the great reward he had was riding of eightscore
mile in and out, and all his friends full sorry for him; how Sir
Andrew Trollope cut a joke; how the mayor strove to collect
supplies for queen Margaret, but the mob, learning its destina-
tion, pillaged the convoy; it was Sir John Wenlock's cook who
, attacked the victuals, 'but as for the mony I wot not howe hit
was departyd, I trowe the pursse stale the mony. ' If he makes
but the briefest mention of the famous tournament of lord Scales,
he does 'aftyr heryng'-'ax of em that felde the strokys, they
can telle
you best. '
Still less to be considered as literature, yet even more in-
teresting in themselves, are the private letters which prove that
ordinary people were conversant with pen and ink without
intervention of scribes : 'Mastresse Annes, I am prowd that ye
can reed Inglyshe wherfor I prey yow aqweynt yow with thys
my lewd hand. Even the correspondence addressed to Henry IV
and Henry V, the latter very considerable in quantity, was
certainly not all done through secretaries; and it is of interest
to notice that Henry IV appears to have preferred to be
addressed in French Chance has preserved a private letter
from one of Henry V's soldiers' to his 'felous and frendys,'
describing how 'alle the ambassadors that we dele wyth ben
yncongrue, that is, in olde maner of speche in Englond, "they
ben double and fals,”' and they had made the king a beau
nient, or cypher. He is fain of peace and begs his friends to
pray that he may soon come 'oute of thys unlusty soundyour's
lyf yn to the lyf of Englond. '
Though the epistles of the learned are usually couched in
Latin, provost Millington and bishops like Gray and Bekynton
could be extremely forcible in English, and even the university
of Oxford addressed English to the House of Commons", to great
ladies and even, sometimes, to noblemen. A kind of testimonial
to the famous Sir John Talbot, then lord lieutenant of Ireland, was
addressed to Henry V by all the principal inhabitants of the Pale
in very careful English, urging his claims upon the king in respect
of his energy against 'your Irishe Enimies and English Rebels. '
The corporate towns, too, were accustomed to send missives to
one another or to the great nobles; but the compositions of the
town clerks, e. g. of Caerleon or Youghal, are on a different plane
from those of the universities
· Paston Letters, No. 688.
>
9 1420.
3 1439.
## p. 304 (#322) ############################################
304 English Prose in the XV th Century
The famous collection of letters and business papers pre-
served by the Pastons furnishes a detailed picture of three
generations of a well-to-do Norfolk family, their friends and
enemies, their dependents and noble patrons. At first John
Paston and his devoted wife Margaret, afterwards their sons,
are the leading correspondents, and the cares of property form
the topic. John Paston inherited from his father, a worthy judge,
considerable estates and was ambitious of acquiring more; but
the cupidity of the nobles of the district kept him in continual
difficulties. The old judge used to say that 'whosoever should
dwell at Paston should have need to know how to defend himself,'
and had placed his sons to study at the inns of court, since the
only help against violence lay in the intricacies of the law, with
which every age, class and sex was acquainted. The letters,
accordingly, trace the endeavours of John Paston, and, after him,
of his sons, to form such a combination of royal favour, local
intrigue and bribery as to procure effective legal protection
against those who seized their manors by armed force. This
main thread of interest is interwoven with every sort of business.
We should scarcely gather that the crown of England lay in the
scales of civil war. What the correspondence reveals is a state
of anarchy in which jurymen are terrorised, gentlemen of repute
waylaid by ruffians after church or market, or even dragged
from the Christmas dinner at home to be murdered by the way-
side; when a sheriff professedly friendly dare not accept a bribe,
because he cannot safely take more than £100 (i. e. over £1000
present value), and lord Moleynes (Paston's foe) is a great lord
who can do him more harm than that; when the duke of Suffolk's
retainers attack dame Margaret in her husband's house with
bows and handguns, pans of fire and scaling ladders, break in the
gates, undermine the house-front, cut asunder the great timbers
and carry the courageous woman forth to watch them destroy it.
In the midst of such turmoil, business is conducted regularly.
We see the squires and their stewards incessantly riding to and
fro, letting farms and holding manor courts, attending markets
or elections at Norwich, trying to curry favour at the court of
the duke of Norfolk, complimenting the duchess or giving her
waiting-woman a jewel, above all visiting London, where lawyers
may be found and, possibly, the appointment of sheriff or under-
sheriff manipulated. Letters come by messengers, with plate
and money concealed in parcels ; sometimes tokens are mentioned,
for a seal might be stolen by the token that my mother bath
## p. 305 (#323) ############################################
The Paston Letters
305
the key but it is broken. ' Countless commissions are given for
grocery or dress. Treacle of Genoa' is sought whenever sickness
is rife, cinnamon and sugar, dates and raisins 'of Coruns' must
be priced to see if they be better cheap' than in Norwich. If
Paston once orders a doublet all of worsted for the honour of
Norfolk '—which is almost like silk '—his wife prays that he will
do his cost on her to get something for her neck, for she had
to borrow her cousin's device to visit the queen among such
fresh gentlewomen, 'I durst not for shame go with my beds. '
The family acts together, like a firm, against the rest of
the world; husband and wife are working partners, mother and
brothers can be counted on to take trouble; the confidential ser-
vants are staunch, and not one seems to have betrayed his master,
though gratitude is not a marked trait of the next generation,
Nor does it seem surprising that the daughter, Margery, neglected
as her upbringing had been-Paston had grudged outlay on his
elder children-should have fallen in love with the steward,
Richard Calle, and, after two years of home persecution, insisted
that she had betrothed herself to him and would marry him-
'to sell kandyll and mustard in Framlyngham,' as her angry
brother cried. Her mother immediately turned her out of the
house and left her to the reluctant charity of a stranger. Every
relationship of life, indeed, was of the commercial nature:
marriages were bargains, often driven by the parents without
intervention of the persons concerned, as had been the case with
John and Margaret. The wardship of children was purchased,
as a speculation. There is a widow fallen,' writes one brother
to another, or, 'I heard where was a goodly young woman to
marry. . . which shall have £200,' or, 'whether her mother will
deal with me. ' Paston's hard old mother, dame Agnes, sends
to ask at the inns of court if her son Clement 'hath do his
dever in lernyng,' and, if not, to pray his tutor to 'trewly
belassch hym tyl he will amend, and so did the last maystr and
the best that evir he had, att Caumbrege”. The tutor's fee
was to be ten marks. Several of the lads went to Cambridge,
one to Oxford and one to Eton, where he stayed till he was
nineteen; the inns of court came later, for some at least; then,
one was placed in the household of the duke of Norfolk for a
time, and another remained long in the service of the earl of
Oxford, the one courteous nobleman of this correspondence.
1 Forty years earlier it needed a royal writ to compel the Cambridge students
to attend lectures.
E. L. II.
CH. XII.
20
## p. 306 (#324) ############################################
306 English Prose in the XV th Century
Daughters were merely encumbrances, difficult to marry with
little dowry, expensive to bring up in the correct way by
boarding with a gentle family. Keeping them at home was a
disagreeable economy. Dame Agnes so maltreated her daughter
Elizabeth, beating her several times a week, and even twice in
a day, forbidding her to speak to anyone, and taunting her,
that her sister-in-law besought Paston to find her a husband.
‘My moder. . . wold never so fayn to have be delyvered of her
as she woll now. ' Parental authority was so unquestioned that,
years after Paston's death, his sons, grown men, and one, at
least, married, were boarding with their mother and treated like
children. Dame Margaret leaned on her chaplain, one James
Gloys, and quarrels were picked to get John and Edmund out
of the house. “We go not to bed unchidden lightly. ' 'Sir
James and I be tweyn. We fyll owt be for my modyr with
"thow proud prest” and “thow proud sqwyer. "' The priest
was always ‘chopping' at him provokingly, but 'when he hathe
most unfyttynge wordys to me I smylle a lytyll and tell hym
it is good heryng of thes old talys. ' Thus (1472) writes John,
a husband and father, to his elder brother, also named John,
a young knight about court in London'.
With this younger generation a rather lighter tone becomes
apparent in the letters. Sir John was of a somewhat shallow
and unpractical character, his brother a man of high spirits
and good temper; and it would seem as if, after Towton field,
the dead weight of terrorism had begun to lighten. The decade
after 1461 was less anarchical than that which preceded it, and
the young men sometimes have leisure for slighter concerns than
sales and debts, lawsuits and marriage bargains. Sir John took
an interest in books, his brother in hawking, and he merrily
threatens his elder 'to call upon yow owyrly, nyghtly, dayly,
dyner, soper, for thys hawk,' which he suggests might be pur-
chased of a certain grocer 'dwelling right over against the well
with 2 buckets' near St Helen's. When Sir John at length sends a
poor bird, it is with admirable temper that the disappointed brother
thanks him for his 'dylygence and cost. . . well I wot your labore
and trowbyll was as myche as thow she had ben the best of
the world, but. . . she shall never serve but to lay eggys. ' Sir John
had a better taste in the points, laces and hats about which his
brothers and he were so particular. Their friendliness is the most
amiable thing in the letters. The one sign of parental affection
· Letters, Nos. 697, 702.
## p. 307 (#325) ############################################
Copyists and Booksellers
307
in them comes from the younger John, who was sent in the princess
Margaret's train (1468) to the court of Charles the Bold. ('I hert
never of non lyek to it save Kyng Artourys cort. ) He is anxious
about his 'lytell Jak’ and writes home ‘modyr I beseche yow that
ye wolbe good mastras to my lytell man and to se that he go to scole. '
Humour was, apparently, invented in London, for the brothers and
their town friends have many a jest, crude as these often are. Some-
times we have a touch of slang—'He wolde bear the cup evyn,
as What-calle-ye-hym seyde to Aslake' (i. e. be fair). "Put in
hope of the moon schone in the water. If the tailor will not
furnish a certain gown, 'be cryst, calkestowe over hys hed (f a
double caul) that is schoryle (churl) in Englysche, yt is a terme
newe browthe up with my marschandis of Norwych,' says John the
younger, who addresses his knightly brother as 'lansmann' and
'mynher,' and jests on having nearly 'drownke to myn oysters,'
i. e. been murdered. Many a good colloquial expression never
found its way into literature, 'to bear him on hand' is common
for ‘to accuse'; 'cup-shotten,' 'shuttle-witted' are good terms? .
The scanty notices, during the fifteenth century, of the making
and selling of books no more indicate a general lack of them
than the names of Fortescue and Pecock represent the literature
in demand. The monasteries had long ceased to supply the
market, and professional scribes were employed. The stationers'
guild, in existence much earlier, was incorporated in 1403, and
had a hall in Milk street. Paternoster Rewe' was well known.
In Oxford, scribes, parchmenters, illuminators and bookbinders
were distinct from stationers before 1373, and, apparently, in
Cambridge also. Other book centres were Bury and Lincoln,
where king John of France had made purchases of many expensive
books in the preceding century, and, probably, several other
cathedral or scholastic cities had store of books. Prices were
stable, and materials cheap: in the fourteenth century a dozen
skins of parchment cost 38. , through most of the fifteenth century a
quaternion of parchment was 3d. and the writing of it 16d. , i. e. 2d.
a page, but small-paged books could be copied at id. the page.
Sometimes a limner charged by the number of letters, at id. or
4d. the hundred, according to quality, no doubt. Legal documents
were paid for at special rates. The trade does not seem to have
.
been very remunerative, for the scrivener who did a good deal
1 A curious instance of the fluid state of the vocabulary is the use by nearly all the
colloquial writers of me, short for men, or they—'causeth me to set the lease be us'-
while scholarly writers are beginning to use it for I, meseemeth, eto.
ដ
水
ben
lebo
16
20—2
## p. 308 (#326) ############################################
308 English Prose in the XV th Century
of copying for Sir John Paston writes from sanctuary to beg
for payment and would be grateful for the gift of an old
gown. At the universities, however, regulations may have
succeeded in 'protecting' the scribes. As early as 1373, Oxford
reduced the excessive number of booksellers' by forbidding
outsiders who were bringing volumes of great value from other
places, to expose any books for sale at more than half-a-mark
cheap text-books they might sell, but the university stationers
were not to have their accustomed profits taken from them by
competition. Not that students usually possessed their own
books, though William Paston sent to London for his brother's
‘nominal' and 'book of sophistry'; the tutors or the stationers
loaned or hired out books at regular charges. Certainly, the large
Latin volumes made for the colleges were much more expensive
than Paston's purchases. These handsome folios and quartos, as
a rule, cost from 408. to 508. , always calculated in marks (138. 4d. ),
and were, usually, standard theological works, although Peter-
house", which ventured upon books of natural science and a
Vergil, seems to have smuggled FitzRalph's revolutionary sermon
into the works of Augustine, and Ockham's Defensor into a com-
mentary.
Prices, of course, varied according to the beauty of the
volume, a primer for a princess might cost 638. 6d. , one Bible cost
‘not over 5 mark, so I trowe he wyl geve it,' while another cost
but 268. 8d. Several of the Pastons had books and were chary
of lending them; Anne possessed The Siege of Thebes, Walter,
The Book of Seven Sages, John mentions The Meeting of the
Duke and the Emperor, and Sir John had a library of English
books.
These books are of different kinds, and often, as then was
usual, included various works by several hands—the volume which
contained two of Chaucer's poems contained also Lydgate's The
Temple of Glass and The Grene Knight Another included The
Dethe of Arthur begynyng at Cassabelaun, Guy of Warwick,
Richard 'Cur de Lyon' and a Chronicle to Edwarde the iii.
One was didactic, comprising a book about the mass, Meditations
of Chylde Ypotis? and the Abbey of the Holy Ghost, a recent
devotional work. Several are old fashioned ballads—Guy & Col-
bronde (an Anglo-Norman tale), A Balade of the Goos (probably
Lydgate's). Troylus appears alone, and De Amicitia was lent to
William of Worcester, Fastolf's ill-requited scholar-servant, who
· The catalogue names eighteen different scriveners.
• A medieval form of Epictetus.
## p. 309 (#327) ############################################
Sir John Paston
309
>
afterwards translated it. One book is mentioned as 'in preente,
The Pleye off the Chessl.
Sir John, indeed, was in the fashion in patronising literature
and the drama, for he complained that one of his servants whom
he had kept 'thys three yer to pleye Seynt Jorge and Robin Hod
and the Shryff off Notyngham' had suddenly deserted him : 'he
is “goon into Bernysdale,” ' like the sturdy outlaw in the ballad to
which this is an early allusion. But his taste is still medieval:
romances of the old kind were shortly to go out of fashion. Up to
the close of the century, however, such books, along with useful
manuals of all kinds, were, evidently, plentiful enough, as may be
gathered from the number of scriveners and their poor pay; Sir
John Paston had bought his volume of chronicle and romances
from 'myn ostesse at The George,' and one or two had been given
by his friends; even the niggardly Fastolf had translations
executed for him, like the Lady Margaret or the duchess of
Burgundy; literature had become an amusement
· Cf. Catalogue in No. 869, Paston Letters.
## p. 310 (#328) ############################################
CHAPTER XIII
THE INTRODUCTION OF PRINTING INTO ENGLAND
AND THE EARLY WORK OF THE PRESS
WITH the advent of printing, books, from being expensive
and the property of the few, became cheap and were scattered
far and wide. The change was gradual, for an increased demand
for books could not grow up at once; but, by the time printing was
introduced into England, the art was widespread and books were
freely circulated. From a study of the productions of the various
presses of different countries can be determined, more or less
accurately, the general requirements of the reading public. This
is especially the case in England, where no books were printed for
exportation. It is proposed, therefore, in the present chapter to
examine the work produced by the earlier English printers as a
means of ascertaining the general literary taste of the period in
this country.
It was soon after the year 1450 that the first products of the new
art appeared at Mainz. In 1465, two German printers, Sweynheym
and Pandartz, migrated to Italy, setting up a press at Subiaco and
moving, two years later, to Rome. Switzerland followed soon after
Italy, and, in 1470, the first French press began work at Paris.
In all these cases, the first printers had been Germans. The
northern Netherlands, which have persistently claimed to be the
birth-place of printing, have no authentic date earlier than 1471,
when two native printers began work at Utrecht. Belgium and
Austria-Hungary follow in 1473 and Spain in 1474. There are
thus eight European countries which precede England, and at no
less than seventy towns were printers at work before Caxton
started at Westminster. So, too, as regards the quality and
quantity of books produced, England takes but a poor place, the
total number of books of every kind, including different editions
printed here before the end of the fifteenth century, only reaching
the total of about three hundred and seventy. On the other hand,
it must be remembered that the literary value of the books printed
## p. 311 (#329) ############################################
William Caxton
311
in England is high; for, unlike other countries, most of the
productions of the press are in the vernacular.
William Caxton, our first printer, was born in the weald of
Kent between the years 1421 and 1428, probably nearer the
earlier date. The weald was largely inhabited by descendants of
the Flemish clothmakers who had been induced by Edward III to
settle in that district, and this would, no doubt, have a certain
effect on the English spoken there, which Caxton himself describes
as 'broad and rude. He received a good education, though we
'
are not told where, and, having determined to take up the business
of a cloth merchant, was apprenticed, in 1438, to Robert Large,
one of the most wealthy and important merchants in London and
a leading member of the mercers' company.
Here Caxton continued until the death of Large, in 1441, and,
though still an apprentice, appears to have left England and gone
to the Low Countries. For the next few years we have little in-
formation as to his movements; but it is clear that he prospered in
business for, by 1463, he was acting as governor of the merchant
adventurers. In 1469, he gave up this post to enter the service of
the duchess of Burgundy, and, in the leisure which this position
afforded him, he turned his attention to literary work. A visit to
Cologne in 1471 marks an important event in Caxton's life, for
there, for the first time, he saw a printing press at work. If we
believe the words of his apprentice and successor Wynkyn de
Worde, and there seems no reason to doubt them, he even assisted
in the printing of an edition of Bartholomaeus de Proprietatibus
Rerum in order to make himself acquainted with the technical
details of the art.
A year or two after his return to Bruges, he determined to set
up a press of his own and chose as an assistant an illuminator
named Colard Mansion. Mansion is entered regularly as an illu-
minator in the guild-books of Bruges up to the year 1473, which
points to Caxton's preparations having been made in 1474.
Mansion was despatched to obtain the necessary type and other
materials, and it appears most probable that the printer who
supplied them was John Veldener of Louvain. Furnished with a
press and two founts of type, cut in imitation of the ordinary book
hand, Caxton began to print.
The first book printed in the English language was the Recuyell
of the Histories of Troy, issued, about 1475, at Bruges. The French
original was compiled in the year 1464 by Raoul le Fevre, chaplain
to Philip, duke of Burgundy; and, four years later, Caxton began
## p. 312 (#330) ############################################
312
The Introduction of Printing
to translate it into English, but, disheartened, as he tells us
in his prologue, by his imperfect knowledge of French, never
having been in France, and by the rudeness and broadness of
his English, he soon laid the work aside. Encouraged by Margaret
duchess of Burgundy, he, later, resumed his task and finished the
work in 1471. His knowledge of French was not perfect, as may
be seen from occasional curious mistranslations, but his position
must have required an adequate knowledge of the language. So,
too, with his English. His education had been good, and he had
served as apprentice with one of the most prominent of London
citizens; so that he had every opportunity to acquire good English
and lose his provincialisms. Nearly all his literary work consisted
of translations, but, to most of his publications, he added prologues
or epilogues which have a pleasant personal touch, and show us
that he had one valuable possession, a sense of humour.
His Recuyell of the Histories of Troy was a popular book
at the Burgundian court, and Caxton was importuned by
many famous persons to make copies for them. The copying
of so large a book was a wearisome undertaking; so Caxton,
remembering the art of printing which he had seen in practical
use at Cologne, determined to undertake it on his own account
and thus be able to supply his patrons with copies easily and
rapidly. Accordingly, about 1475, a printed edition was issued,
followed, shortly, by Caxton's translation from two French versions
of the Liber de ludo scacchorum of Jacobus de Cessolis, made by
Jean Faron and Jean de Vignay. Caxton, in his Game and playe
of the Chesse, made use of both these versions, translating partly
from one and partly from the other. The last book he printed at
Bruges was the Quatre dernieres choses.
In 1476, Caxton returned to England and set up
his
Westminster in a house with the sign of the Red Pale, situated
in the precincts of the abbey. In the two years following his
arrival, he issued a large number of books, though very little from
his own pen. We have it on the authority of the printer Robert
Copland, who worked for Wynkyn de Worde, Caxton's assistant
and successor, and who might himself have been with Caxton,
that the first products of the Westminster press were small pam-
phlets. Now this description exactly applies to a number of tracts
of small size issued about this time. These are Lydgate's Temple
of Glass, two editions of The Horse, the Sheep and the Goose and
The Churl and the Bird; two editions of Burgh's Cato, Chaucer's
Anelida and Arcite and The Temple of Brass, the Book of
press at
## p. 313 (#331) ############################################
William Caxton
313
Courtesy and the Stans puer ad mensam. From what we know
of Caxton's tastes, these are just such books as he would be
anxious to issue. The first two large books which he printed were
The History of Jason and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The
History of Jason was translated by Caxton from the French
version of Raoul le Fevre, and undertaken immediately he had
finished the Recuyell of the Histories of Troy and The Game of
Chess.
On 18 November 1477, was finished the printing of the Dictes
and Sayings of the Philosophers, the first dated book issued in
England. The translator, Anthony Wodville, earl Rivers, while
on a voyage to the shrine of St James of Compostella, in 1473, was
lent by the famous knight Lewis de Bretaylles a manuscript of Les
ditz moraulac des philosophes by Guillaume de Tignoville. With
this, the earl was so pleased that he borrowed the volume and, on
his return to England, set about the translation. This, when
finished, was handed to Caxton to oversee. ' He revised the book
'
with the French version and added an amusing epilogue, pointing
out that the earl, for some reason, had omitted the remarks of
Socrates concerning women, which he, therefore, had added himself.
In the following February, Caxton printed another translation
by earl Rivers, The Moral Proverbs of Christine de Pisan, a
small tract of four leaves. At the end is a short epilogue in verse,
written by Caxton himself, giving some details as to the author,
translator and date of printing. Another translation by earl
Rivers appeared in 1479, entitled Cordyale, or the Four last things.
This was rendered from the Quatre dernieres choses, a French
version of the De quattuor novissimis made by Jean Mielot,
secretary to Philippe le Bon in 1453.
Two editions of The Chronicles of England were printed in 1480
and 1482. This was the history known as The Chronicle of Brute,
edited and augmented by Caxton himself. The Polychronicon
of Higden was also issued in 1482, Caxton revising Trevisa's
English version of 1387, and writing a continuation, bringing down
the history to the year 1460, this continuation being the only
piece of any size which we possess of Caxton's original work.
In 1481, no less than three of his own translations were printed
by Caxton, The Mirror of the World, Reynard the Fox and The
History of Godfrey of Bologne. The origin of the first named is
obscure; but the English translation was made from a French
prose version by 'Maistre Gossouin,' which, in its turn, was rendered
from a French version in metre made, in 1245, from an unknown
>
## p. 314 (#332) ############################################
314
The Introduction of Printing
Latin original. Reynard the Fox was, apparently, translated from
the Dutch version printed by Gerard Leeu at Gouda in 1479.
About 1483, The Pilgrimage of the Soul and Lydgate's Life
of our Lady, were issued, and, also, a new edition of The
Canterbury Tales. Caxton's prologue to this book is extremely
interesting, and shows in what great esteem he held Chaucer
and his writings. He observes that, some six years previously,
he had printed an edition of The Canterbury Tales which
had been well received. One of the purchasers, however, had
pointed out that in many places the text was corrupt, and that
pieces were included which were not genuine, while some which
were genuine were omitted. He had added that his father possessed
a very correct manuscript which he much valued, and he offered, if
Caxton would print a new edition, to obtain the loan of it. This
Caxton undertook to do and issued the new edition, which, unlike
the earlier one, contains a series of woodcuts illustrating the various
characters. About the same time were also issued Chaucer's
Troilus and Criseyde, and House of Fame, and, in September
1483, Gower's Confessio Amantis.
The Golden Legend, Caxton's most important translation, was
finished, if not printed, in 1483. In his second prologue, the printer
tells us that, after beginning his translation, the magnitude of his
task and the probable great expense of printing had made him
'halfe desperate to have accomplissd it,' had not the earl of
Arundel come forward as a patron. With this assistance, the book
was, at last, finished. In its compilation, Caxton used three versions,
one French, one Latin and one English. The French original can
be clearly identified with an early printed edition without date or
place, for Caxton has fallen into several pitfalls on account of the
misprints which occur in it; for example, in the life of St Stephen,
the words femmes veuves have been printed Saine venue, which the
translator renders ‘hole comen'in spite of the words making no
sense.
a
In 1484, four more books translated by himself were printed by
Caxton: Caton, The Book of the Knight of the Tower, Aesop's
Fables and The Order of Chivalry. The Book of the Knight of
the Tower is a translation of the work written, in 1371, by Geoffroi
de la Tour Landry, for the instruction of his daughters, a medley
compiled from the Bible, Gesta Romanorum and the chronicles
of various countries. The next year saw the issue of three books,
The Life of Charles the Great, The History of Paris and Vienne
and, most important of all, Sir Thomas Malory's Morte – Arthur.
## p. 315 (#333) ############################################
William Caxton
315
The Life of Charles the Great was translated from an anonymous
French version compiled at the request of Henry Bolomyer, canon
of Lausanne, the Paris and Vienne from the French version made
by Pierre de la Seppade of Marseilles early in the fifteenth century.
Both these books are now known only from single copies.
The compilation of the Morte d Arthur was finished in 1469,
but of the compiler little is known save the name. He is generally
believed to be the Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revell in
Warwickshire who died in 1471. No manuscript of the work is
known, and, though Caxton certainly revised it, exactly to what
extent has never been settled. The prologue to this book is,
perhaps, the best and most interesting piece of writing the printer
ever composed, and still remains one of the best criticisms of
Malory's romance. Of the popularity of the book we have striking
evidence. Of Caxton's edition two copies are known, of which
one is imperfect. The second edition, printed by Wynkyn de
Worde in 1498 is known from one copy only, which is imperfect,
while the third edition, also printed by de Worde is, again, only
known from one imperfect copy. It may well be, considering
these facts, that there were other intervening editions which have
entirely disappeared.
While Caxton was busily at work making and printing his
translations, he did not neglect other classes of books which were
in demand. His position near the abbey would turn his attention
to service-books, and, of these, he printed a large number. One of
the first books he issued was a Sarum Ordinale, and this he ad-
vertised by means of a little handbill fixed up in prominent places.
Of Books of Hours he issued at least four editions. Besides
these, he printed the Psalter, Directorium Sacerdotum and some
special services to add to the breviary. The larger service-books
he does not seem to have attempted. These were always of a
highly ornamental character and his own types and material,
intended simply for ordinary work, were not equal to the task.
In 1487, when there was a demand for an edition of the Sarum
Missal, he gave a commission for the printing to a Paris printer
Guillaume Maynial, but added to it his own device.
The Royal Book and The Book of Good Manners were the
next two of Caxton's translations to be printed. The first is a
translation of La Somme des Vices et des Vertus, the latter of Le
livre des bonnes meurs by Jacques Legrand. The Book of Good
Manners, issued in 1487, was a popular book and was reprinted at
least four times before the close of the century.
## p. 316 (#334) ############################################
316
The Introduction of Printing
The Fayttes of Arms, the next of Caxton's translations to be
printed, was issued in 1489. It was undertaken at the express
desire of Henry VII, who himself lent the manuscript, now in the
British Museum, from which the translation was made. The
authorship is generally ascribed to Christine de Pisan.
About this time, two very popular romances were issued, The
History of the Four Sons of Aymon and The History of
Blanchardyn and Eglantine. The first, of which manuscripts are
common, was printed in French as early as 1480, at Lyons, and it was,
no doubt, from this edition that Caxton prepared his translation.
The second was translated at the request of Margaret, duchess of
Somerset, from a manuscript of the French version, which she had
purchased from Caxton himself many years previously. In this
translation, Caxton has adhered to his original far more nearly
than is usual in his translations, rendering word for word in the
closest manner.
The Eneydos, translated in 1490 and printed about the same
time, is not in any way a translation of the Aeneid, but, rather, a
romance founded on it. Caxton's version was translated from a
French version, probably the work called Le livre des Eneydes,
printed at Lyons, in 1483, by Guillaume le Roy. The printer's
preface is a most interesting piece of writing, for Caxton sets out
at length his views and opinions on the English language, its
changes and dialects. He points out how rapidly it was altering.
And certaynly our langage now used varyeth ferre from that
whiche was used and spoken when I was borne. ' The difference in
dialect is illustrated by a story of a London merchant who asked a
woman in ‘Forland' for some eggs, and was met with the answer
that she could not speak French, but she understood when asked
for 'eyren. ' The different styles of speech are contrasted, and
Caxton ends up as might have been expected, 'And thus bytwene
playn, rude, and curious I stande abasshed, but in my judgemente
the comyn termes that be dayli used ben lyghter to be understonde
than the olde and auncyent englysshe. ' In order to make the
style as correct as possible, Caxton obtained the assistance of John
Skelton to revise the book for the press.
One other translation by Caxton remains to be noticed, the
Metamorphoses of Ovid. He speaks of this work, along with
some others, in the introduction to The Golden Legend, and, since
all the others were printed, we may presume that this was also.
No trace of a printed copy remains, but there is in the Pepysian
library a manuscript of the last six books with the colophon
## p. 317 (#335) ############################################
Provincial Presses
317
"Translated and finished by me William Caxton at Westminster
the twenty second day of April, the year of our Lord 1480, and
the twentieth year of the reign of king Edward the fourth. '
This, like the rest of Caxton's books, was rendered from the
French.
In 1491 he died, having just completed a translation of
St Jerome's Lives of the Fathers, which was printed by his
successor in 1495.
It is impossible for many reasons to consider the books issued
by Caxton as quite representative of the popular demand. His
position was entirely different from that of the ordinary printer or
publisher. The best part of his life had been spent abroad in
business connected with the woollen trade, he had risen to a high
position and was, doubtless, a man of very considerable wealth.
When he settled in England as a printer, he was able to consult
his own tastes in the matter of what he should print, and this
clearly lay in the direction of English poetry and prose romances.
The reading public was not then very large, and Caxton directed
rather than followed the popular taste. A third of the books he
printed were translations made by himself, and he carefully edited
all that he printed. At the same time, it cannot be supposed
that he neglected the popular demand. He printed service books
for the clergy, school books and statutes, but his own interest
lay elsewhere. In especial, he was an admirer of Chaucer. He
took pains, as we have seen, in the printing of his works, and
expressed his admiration and appreciation in several prologues
and epilogues. He did even more, for, as we learn from the
epilogue to Boethius, he placed a memorial tablet to the poet
in Westminster Abbey.
Soon after Caxton began to print in Westminster, presses
were set up in 1478 at Oxford, and, about 1479, at St Albans.
Naturally, the books issued at Oxford were mainly scholastic, and,
of all the books printed there in the fifteenth and early sixteenth
century, but one is in English. This was an edition of the Liber
Festivalis of John Mirk, issued in March 1486—7. It is not
a mere reprint of Caxton's edition issued in 1483, but has
many points of difference; and, when Caxton printed his second
edition, about 1491, he copied this version in preference to his
Own.
The St Albans press, like that of Oxford, was mainly employed
on learned works. Of the eight books issued, the first six are
## p. 318 (#336) ############################################
318
The Introduction of Printing
6
6
in Latin; but the last two are in English. The first, The Chronicles
of England, printed about 1485, is mainly founded on Caxton's
earlier editions, but with interpolations relating to the popes and
other ecclesiastical matters. Its compiler and printer was, as we
learn from a later edition, sometime schoolmaster of St Albans';
but his name is unknown.
The last book from this press is well known under the title of
The Book of St Albans. It contains three treatises, the first on
hawking, the second on hunting and the last on coat-armour or
heraldry. Much has been written about the authorship of this
book, which is probably not all from one hand. The part on
hunting, which is in verse, ends with the words ' Explicit Dam
Julyans Barnes in her boke of huntyng,' and this is generally
considered to refer to a somewhat mythical Juliana Berners,
traditionally prioress of the nunnery of Sopwell near St Albans.
The treatise on heraldry is expressly said to have been translated
and compiled at St Albans, and is probably derived, in great part,
from a work on the same subject written, in 1441, by Nicholas
Upton and dedicated to Humphrey, duke of Gloucester. Whatever
part dame Juliana Berners may have taken in the compilation of
The Book of St Albans, it is certainly not an original work, and
the greater part of the books on hawking and hunting are derived
from the Venerie de Twety, a work composed early in the
fourteenth century. The work on fishing, which was added to
succeeding editions of the book, appears, from internal evidence, to
have been originally composed in English.
The first London press, started in 1480 by John Lettou under
the patronage of William Wilcock, a wealthy draper, produced
only two Latin books, a commentary on the Metaphysics of
Aristotle by Antonius Andreae and an exposition on the Psalms
by Thomas Wallensis. When, later, Lettou printed in partnership
with William de Machlinia, they issued nothing but law-books, and
it was not until about 1483, when Machlinia was at work by himself,
that books in English were printed in London. One of the earliest
was the Revelation of St Nicholas to a monk of Evesham. It was
composed in 1196; but the author is unknown. In an abridged
form, it is found in Roger of Wendover's Flores Historiarum under
the year 1196. It is a curious religious allegory, treating of the
pilgrimage of a soul from death through purgatory and paradise
to heaven. The monk, conducted by St Nicholas, is taken from
place to place in purgatory, where he meets and converses with
## p. 319 (#337) ############################################
English Books Printed Abroad
319
persons of various ranks, who relate their stories and their
suffering. From purgatory he advances slowly to paradise, and
finally reaches the gates of heaven; after which he awakes.
The later press of Machlinia issued few English books. Among
them came a reprint of The Chronicles of England and three
editions of a Treatise of the Pestilence, a translation of the Regimen
contra pestilentiam of Benedict Canutus, bishop of Westeraes, in
Sweden. These can certainly be dated about 1485, in which year
London was visited by the plague. One other interesting book
was issued by Machlinia, entitled Speculum Christiani. It is a
curious medley of theological matter in Latin, interspersed with
pieces of religious poetry in English. The authorship has been
ascribed to a certain John Watton, but the book, without the
English verse, was also printed abroad. The verse, though spoken
of by Warton as poor, is, occasionally, quite good; and the hymn
to the Virgin, reprinted in Herbert's Typographical Antiquities",
is a simple and charming piece of writing, reminiscent of an earlier
period. The second part of the book consists, mainly, of an exposi-
tion on the Lord's prayer, while the third contains selections taken
from the works of St Isidore.
With the death of Caxton, the character of the English press
changed. Both Wynkyn de Worde, his successor, and Richard
Pynson, the only other printer then at work in England, were
practical printers only, depending on their business for their
livelihood, and had to follow, not direct, the popular demand.
De Worde especially seems to have been without initiative, most
of his early work consisting of reprints and, for a year or two, his
press was almost idle. A foreign printer, Gerard Leeu of Antwerp,
took advantage of this period of inactivity and printed four books
for the English market. Three were mere reprints of Caxton's
books, The History of Jason, The History of Paris and Vienne
and The Chronicles of England; but the fourth is unknown in any
other English version. This is the Dialogue or communing between
the wise king Solomon and Marcolphus, a widespread and popular
story, of which there are versions in many languages. The English
version is translated from the Dutch, but there is no clue to the
translator. The story tells of the various questions put by Solomon,
which are answered by the rustic wit of Marcolphus, and of the
various ruses and quibbles by means of which he escaped the
punishments designed for him by the king. As the other three of
Leeu's books are reprints of Caxton's editions, it is just possible
1 I, pp. 113–4.
## p. 320 (#338) ############################################
320
The Introduction of Printing
that there may have been an English printed edition of it also;
but, if so, no trace of it remains.
About 1503, another Antwerp printer, Adraien van Berghen,
printed a book for sale in England, which goes under the name
of Arnold's Chronicle.
