GERMAN PLANETARIUM AND CALENDAR.

These are two distinct works, which were often printed and bound together. The Planetarium, which is in German, describes, through a text in rhyme and by engraved illustrations, the influence of the planets on the destinies of mankind. The Calendar, which is in Latin, occupies but four pages, and contains at the end of the month of February the inscription, Magister Johannes Gamundia.124 On another page is found the p242 date 1468. There is a copy of the German Planetarium in the British Museum which contains only twelve printed pages. Berjeau describes it as a small quarto, and says, that although it is printed on both sides of the paper, it presents the appearance of impression by the frotton. The fac-simile illustration that is given underneath represents the influences of the planet Mercury. The artist before the easel is painting a Madonna; his servant is mixing colors with a muller; in the middle of the print is an organ-maker; to the right is a copyist; at his back are two gourmands; in the foreground is a sculptor at work on a statue; to the left is a goldsmith before his anvil. The descriptions of these works that have been given by the early German bibliographers are not clear. They represent the book as consisting of twenty-six pages printed on one p243 side of the sheet, with the blank pages pasted together. The size of the page, the color of the ink, and the method used in gathering the sheets are not stated. It seems that there were at least two editions of each work, one in German and one in Latin, and that portions of the different editions were sometimes bound up in one book. Von der Hagen says that the first page of the copy examined by him contained an imperfect impression of one of the pages of the Antichrist.

THE WONDERS OF ROME.

This small quarto of one hundred and eighty-four engraved pages is an example of patience in obscure letter-cutting that is more characteristic of China than of Europe. The text is in German, and is fairly printed in black ink on both sides of the paper. The book is enlivened by a few illustrations which have small merit as designs. The Wonders of Rome is an ecclesiastic’s description of the more important shrines of the holy city, with their consecrated relics. The first page of the book contains an engraving of the handkerchief of Saint Veronica, which, according to the legend, was placed on the face of Christ to wipe away the blood that dripped from the crown p244 of thorns, and received therefrom the impress of his features. Under this design the papal arms and the triple crown, the crossed keys, and the letters S. P. Q. R. The arms of the pope are those of Pope Sixtus IV, who occupied the papal chair from 1471 to 1484, within which period it is supposed that the book was engraved and published for German readers.

POMERIUM SPIRITUALE, OR SPIRITUAL NURSERY.

The rightful place of this work is among the manuscripts that are partly written and partly printed, for its pictures were engraved and its text was written. The book contains p245 twenty-six leaves of small folio, made up in one section. At the beginning of each of its twelve written chapters is the impression of an engraving on wood. The date 1440 is found in two of the engravings. The only known copy of this book is held by the Royal Library of Brussels. It is a curious circumstance that this copy, possibly in its original binding, which contains a printed date earlier than that of any other block-book, should also contain two printed leaves of the Bible of the Poor. Holtrop says that the book was composed by Henry Bogaert, canon of a monastery near Brussels, who was born in 1382 and died in 1469. He was the author of many small religious books, of which the Exercise on the Lord’s Prayer is one. The illustrations of this book and of the Pomerium Spirituale were probably made at the same time and by the same engraver.

THE TEMPTATIONS OF THE DEVIL.

This is not a book, but a print on a single sheet eleven inches wide and six­teen inches high. It dif­fers from the image prints in the pet­ti­ness of its cuts and the abun­dance of its text, for which rea­son it may pro­per­ly be described among the block-books with text. The nature of the work is clearly set forth in the pre­face, The Temp­tations of the De­vil, as he temp­teth men to the Se­ven Mor­tal Sins. The De­vil, who, with a claw-hook in his hand, stands in the corner to the left, has be­neath him the list of these se­ven sins. The temp­ted man is p246 the monk near the centre of the print, who sup­pli­cates the aid of the angel, who hastens to his rescue. Below the angel are ap­prop­riate quo­ta­tions from the Scrip­tures, which show that this print is but a medieval para­phrase of the story of Christ temp­ted by the Devil, as re­lated by St. Mat­thew. It was engraved and printed in the form of a pla­card, that it might be fastened against a wall for the con­tem­pla­tion of the de­vout. The il­lus­tra­tion shows only a por­tion of the upper part of this curious print, of which the British Museum has the only known copy. It is sup­posed to have been prin­ted in the Nether­lands.

THE LIFE OF ST. MEINRAT.

This book, which has an introduction of two pages in German, and forty-eight pages of illustrations, with brief descriptions below the pictures, tells the story of two bad men who murdered St. Meinrat, and who were immediately thereafter pursued by two crows. The illustration here presented represents the murderers on their way to execution, accompanied by the unrelenting crows. On the pages that follow are engravings of the murderers suffering under torture; it is shown how they were dragged at the heels of horses, and were broken and burnt on the wheel. The moral p247 of this story is unmistakable: it is an awful crime to kill an ecclesiastic. The publication of so large a book to enforce so plain a truism is an intimation that some of the laity needed forcible illustrations of the danger of abusing the clergy.

THE DANCE OF DEATH.

Of this block-book of twenty-seven large pages, only two copies are known; one of them, which is in the Heidelberg library, is entirely xylographic, with a text in German; the other copy, in a Munich library, has also a text in German, but it is in manuscript. For each edition a different suite of blocks was used. Nothing is known about the printer of either book, nor about the date of its execution. The designs are really meritorious, and the engraving is obviously the work of a man who had experience in his art, but the merit of the work has been overshadowed by the superior designs of Holbein and the more masterly engravings of Lutzelberger. The characters or personages in this block-book are the same as those in the famous painting once at Basle.

These descriptions of the more famous block-books may be sufficient to show their paltriness from a literary point of view, and their rudeness as specimens of printing, but the p248 books described are not enough in number to give us a correct notion of the activity of the early block-printers. It is probable that many books have been lost and forgotten; but we have, however, enough to warrant the belief that block-printing was an industry of some repute even as early as 1430.

One mechanical peculiarity of the block-books deserves a specific notice: all the block-books were printed on paper. The printers soon discovered that vellum was an intractable material, and they preferred paper as much for its convenience as for its cheapness. An apparent dislike of black ink is equally noticeable; the color in different books varies from a blackish gray to a dingy brown. But their most characteristic feature is the method of printing upon one side of the sheet. One chronicler says that the leaves were so printed that the blank sides might be pasted together. That this is not the true reason is apparent when we discover that very few of the books have pasted leaves. It is more reasonable to suppose that the earlier block-printers could not print on both sides of the paper. It is plain that they could not produce a neat impression even on one side—could not regulate the force of the impression, which was so harsh and violent that it sometimes spread the ink, and deeply indented the paper. As the margins are uneven, we have to infer that the printers could not place the sheets with uniform accuracy upon the blocks. Consequently, they could not print in register, and place the second page truly on the back of the first. Some authorities say that the paper was printed dry, but this is only a conjecture, made to suit the theory of printing by the frotton. The paper must have been dampened, for it was very thick, and as strong and as coarse as modern manila wrapping; it could not have been legibly printed until it had been softened.

With few exceptions, the block-books are of a religious character; but the religion taught is dogmatic and doctrinal more than devotional. We may safely assume that they were written by ecclesiastics in high station for the instruction of the ignorant monks, mendicant friars, and “unable curates.” p249 Illiterate priests, to whom the descriptions or the legends of the pictures had been read, must have understood their historical and spiritual meaning, and must have found the pictures an aid to the memory, and suggestive of topics for preaching. Although made for priests, they were not beyond the reach of the people. As far back as the twelfth century, an English abbot sternly forbade, under penalty of excommunication, the lending of any books, “neither the large books with pictures, nor the small books without pictures.” But the mandate was disregarded. Sooner or later, the books found their way to the hands of laymen, whose ignorance of Latin did not prevent them from admiring the pictures; and this admiration must have inspired many a reader with the desire to learn the strange language and to own the coveted book.

The Life of St. Meinrat is the only book which seems to have been written especially for the people. There are two, the Antichrist and the Exercise on the Lord’s Prayer, which were, apparently, written to furnish suggestions to preachers against heresy. There was need for books of this character. The church was fermenting with dissent; a very large portion of the people had abandoned the old faith, and there was a general complaint among all priests that the churches were neglected. To recover this lost allegiance, and as an antidote to infidelity and heresy,125 the church gave its assent to the circulation of image prints and block-books among the laity.

The poverty of the spiritual diet prepared for men who hungered for instruction and who leaned to heresy cannot be passed by without notice. It is strange that, in an age of p250 growing disbelief, nothing was written for the people which can now be considered as of importance. We look in vain over the earlier block-books for a copy, in any language that the common people could read, of a book containing appropriate selections from the Scriptures. [anc250] The Lord’s Prayer was published but once, published in Latin, and strangely perverted from its true purpose. The Ten Commandments, in block-book form, were printed in German, but not before the last quarter of the sixteenth century. We find no selections from the Psalms or Evangelists. The stories of the Bible, always with a Latin text, were obviously prepared, not to teach lessons of piety to the people, but to instruct the priests in the mysteries of dogmatic theology. All are orthodox: there is no block-book that has the slightest taint of heresy.

It does not appear that any of these block-books were made by monks. The block-printers of a later period were laymen, and men of no note, and it seems probable that the earlier books, without names, places or dates, were also made by laymen, by the printers of cards and images. It is possible that they were made at the instance, and perhaps under the direction, of the ecclesiastics. But we find no evidences that they were printed in monasteries; the lazy habits and coarse tastes of the monks, and their general avoidance of every form of mechanical labor as beneath their sacred calling, make this conjecture inadmissible.126

The literary merit of the block-books was small, and their shabby mechanical execution made them contemptible. To readers accustomed to handle great books of tinted vellum, admirably written in letters that are yet as sharp and legible as modern types, these miserable little pamphlets on dingy paper, and with muddy letters, scarcely deserved the name of books. By the educated readers of the fifteenth century they p251 were rated as literary rubbish. Professors in the universities looked on them with the same contemptuous spirit which men of letters afterward manifested toward early newspapers. The attempts of early printers to furnish these poor substitutes for books to common people, so far from receiving any encouragement from scholars, met with their disdainful neglect. There were, indeed, a few praiseworthy exceptions, but the scholarship of the middle ages took sides with rank, in upholding all the conventional distinctions of society. They wished illiterate people to understand that books were the right of the educated only.127

The period in which block-books were printed cannot be fixed within exact limits. They did not go out of fashion when types were invented: the illustrated block-book Opera Nova Contemplativa, the Italian adaptation of the Bible of the Poor, was printed in Venice about 1512; but block-books of inferior merit were made after this date. Berjeau describes one, the Innocentia Victrix, probably engraved in China at the order of the Jesuits, which was printed in 1671. But these books are really the last specimens of a dying art; in the sixteenth century, they were practically obsolete. The period of their greatest popularity may be fixed between the years p252 1440 and 1475. As we approach the latter date, we find block-books containing the names and places of the printers. We see that they were made at Ulm, Nuremberg, and Augsburg,—the towns which have the earliest records of manufacturers of playing cards,—in the district in which old image prints like the St. Christopher have been oftenest discovered. It is probable that block-books were printed in Southern Germany at or near the time when the St. Christopher was printed, but we have no positive proof that any block-book was printed in 1423. The German book with earliest printed date is the Chiromancy, but its date of 1448 is not certainly the date of printing.

The evidences in favor of an early practice of block-book printing in the Netherlands are, in some features, even more incomplete. No early Dutch or Flemish block-book reveals the name of its printer. There are not many notices in old Flemish town-books concerning card-makers, or printers or painters of images. Yet there was, without doubt, an early practice of block-printing in the Netherlands. The Dutch traditions about early printing are more circumstantial than those of Germany; the Brussels Print dated 1418 is older by five years than the print of St. Christopher; the date of 1440 as printed in the wood-cuts of the Exercise on the Lord’s Prayer is eight years earlier than the date of the Chiromancy.

The books themselves do not tell us, neither directly nor indirectly, whether they were first printed in Flanders or in Germany. They have been critically examined by many able men, but the unbiased reader will not fail to note that most inquirers have found only what they wanted to find. To the German critic, all the early block-books are German; to the Dutch critic, they are surely Dutch. To recite the arguments advanced by partisans, or even to state the facts wrested to the support of the arguments, would provide a tedious task for the reader. Nor would the fullest presentation of the facts lead to certain knowledge. The language oftenest found in the block-books is Latin, the language of the Church and of p253 scholars in all countries during the middle ages, and it gives us no clue to the place where they were printed. The paper-marks have been carefully scrutinized, in the hope that they would reveal the manufacture of the paper at some date or in some place, but reasonings made from paper-marks are now regarded as uncertain and of no practical value. We learn nothing through the study of the shapes or fashion of the engraved letters, for German-like characters have been found in block-books known to be Dutch, and peculiarities supposed to be Dutch have been found in German books. Nor can we glean anything of real value from a critical examination of the designs, which could have been copied from manuscripts, or drawn in one country and printed in another.

The only mechanical feature which leads to positive conclusions as to age is the manner in which they were printed. The books printed in black ink and on both sides of the paper were certainly printed after the invention of typography, and by typographic apparatus. The books in brown ink and on one side of the paper are of an earlier period. There is a peculiar rudeness about the books in brown ink which is not to be found in typographic work, a rudeness which we know began with the makers of cards or printers of images. If we consider, as we must, that the block-books are only collections of image prints, which were put in the form of books as soon as paper became cheap and popular, we may conclude with confidence that they could have been made, and probably were made, in the first quarter of the fifteenth century.

The great popularity of the block-books even after 1450, when types had been invented, proves that the business of making them was then firmly established, and that it was not checked by the superior advantages offered by types. It is obvious that the block-printers of 1450 had long practice in the older method, that they were firmly attached to it, and would not abandon it in favor of the new invention. Their preference for the older method of xylography is very plainly shown by the numerous editions of the Donatus.