AT the end of the sixteenth century, the legend had two strong supports—the authority of an eminent scholar, and the patriotic pride of the Hollanders, who accepted it as truthful history. It did not, however, pass the ordeal of criticism unharmed: the weaker points of the legend were exposed by many German authors, and the weight of their objections compelled Dutch writers to attempt new explanations. Bertius,203 writing in 1600, and evidently perplexed by the carelessness with which Junius had noticed Coster’s first experiments, says, but without producing any proof, that “Coster invented the art of printing with engraved blocks or xylography .... the three-fold villain John Faust stole the invention.” Here we see the unavoidable result of Junius’s p348 malignant innuendo: Bertius does not hesitate, as Junius did, to name Fust as the false workman who stole Coster’s tools.

Peter Scriverius thought it necessary, in 1628, to enlarge and embellish the story of Junius. He wrote a new version of the invention, which appeared with a curious poem called the Laurecrans.204 This, says Scriverius, was the manner of it: In the year 1428, Laurens Coster, then a sheriff of Haarlem, strolled in the Haarlem wood. He took up the branch of an oak-tree, cut a few letters in relief on the wood, and after a while wrapped them up in paper. He then fell asleep, but while he slept, rain descended and soaked the paper. Awakened by a clap of thunder, he took up the sheet, and, to his astonishment, discovered that the rain had transferred to it the impress of the letters. Here was the suggestion of xylography, which he at once followed to a successful conclusion. He printed a great many block-books and a Donatus, but finding to his surprise that letters cut upon a solid block could not be used for other work, he thereupon invented typography. John Gutenberg, who had been employed as a workman, stole the tools and the secret. Disheartened with this misfortune, Coster abandoned printing and died. He proceeds:

It is my opinion that the art was first invented ten or twelve years before the year of our Lord 1440 (in which the most trustworthy authors agree), in Holland, at Haarlem. Junius has told its beginning and progress before us. And although he discovered some particulars about the invention, yet he has (I may be allowed to say it without disturbing his ashes) his errors, and may not be pronounced free from inadvertence. To-day (A. D. 1628) is just two centuries since the p349 excellent and valuable art of printing made its appearance (A. D. 1428). Not in the manner that is used now, with letters cast of lead and tin. No, it did not go on like that; but a book was cut, leaf for leaf, on wooden blocks . ... We must not think that every letter was cut separately on wood, and that these letters were collected and put together to a line, and in a certain number of lines. .... Our acute Laurens first cut the letters, twisted and close to each other, in the manner of writing on wood or tin; but afterward, when he was so successful, he changed his method of working, and, having invented the matrices, cast his letters. (!)

I will not say further how the noble art of engraving and printing of engravings is connected with the invention of printing, which arose afterward. But just as the dexterous Jan Fuyst imitated the appropriate art of printing, so the excellent and talented printers and designers, who also handled the artistic chisel and knife, contrived to multiply and publish their engravings, cut after the printing of the Haarlem figures. And all have been instructed by, and got their first experience from, our clever and talented Laurens Koster.205

Scriverius has given dates and new details, but he has not thrown any clear light on the subject. He has not made the story of Junius more credible, but he has exposed himself as a romancer and a fabricator. In trying to mend the legend, he has destroyed it. If the story of Scriverius is true, then that of Junius is false, for they contradict each other. The statements of Junius were based on the pedigree and the gossip of the old men of Haarlem; the statements of Scriverius were based on nothing, for he had no authorities which the most lenient critic could accept.

Scriverius said that Lourens Janszoen or Laurens Koster was the inventor of xylography as well as of types. After an examination of the Speculum, he had wit enough to see what Junius did not, that the printer of the book must have had practice with blocks, and that printing on blocks necessarily preceded printing with types. His description of the growth of the new art is not at all satisfactory. The careless manner in which he skips over the invention of matrices and the making of the moulds is that of a man who knows nothing p350 about type-founding, neither from instruction nor observation. Encouraged by the praise which Scriverius had received for his performance, Marcus Zuerius Boxhorn undertook to place the date of the invention eight years earlier. In his Dissertation on the Invention of Typography, printed by Vogel at Leyden in the year 1640,206 Boxhorn says that the invention was made in 1420. Here we encounter a curious fact. The story of Junius had been published less than fifty years, yet the writers disagreed concerning the date of the invention. Believers in the legend had been taught by one teacher that typography was invented in 1440—by another, in 1428—by another, in 1420. And it is a noticeable circumstance that the authors farthest removed from the date of the invention were the most positive in their statements. The later writers, who knew the least, give us the earlier dates.

Adrien Rooman, a printer of Haarlem, and apparently a conservative and conciliatory man, thought that these differences could be most satisfactorily adjusted by fixing the date midway between the extremes. He was not in the possession of any newly discovered facts, and had no authority for the arbitrary selection, but this incompetency did not prevent him from publishing a portrait of Coster, with an inscription which made the year 1430 the date of the invention.

To the thinking men of Haarlem the assumptions of Boxhorn were as unsatisfactory as those of Junius and Scriverius. There was an air of improbability, or at least of uncertainty, about the statements of all the authorities, which filled their minds with doubts as to the truth of the legend. The statue to Coster, which was soon after put up in the Doctors’ Garden, had no date of invention on the pedestal. To remove these doubts, Seiz207 undertook, in 1742, to furnish “a true and rational account of the invention” by Coster. The truth and reason of this new description of the invention of Coster are most strikingly illustrated in its chronology. p352

Seiz has not told us where he obtained this curious information, but we shall make no mistake if we attribute it to an imagination disordered by national pride. His chronology is so absurd that serious criticism would be a waste of time.

Notwithstanding the strong efforts of Seiz to remove the impression created by the contradictory accounts of his predecessors, the citizens of Haarlem seemed to be involved in p353 greater doubts than ever about the chronology of the invention. For, in 1740, upon the occasion of the third jubilee of Coster’s invention, two silver medals were struck, with legends curiously unlike. We here see that the name of the inventor is printed in different forms; one medal bears the date 1440, and the other contains the date 1428. These irregularities prepare us for what is to follow.

In 1757, Gerard Meerman, subsequently a distinguished champion of the Haarlem legend, wrote “that the pretentious assertion of the invention of printing by Laurens Coster begins to lose credit more and more. The particulars that have been related by Seiz are mere suppositions, and the chronology of Coster’s invention and enterprise is a romantic fiction.”

But, in the year 1760, Daniel Schoepflin, an eminent scholar of Strasburg, wrote a valuable contribution to the history of typography, under the title of VindiciÆ TypographicÆ. Meerman was provoked to emulation. He had not believed in the legend, but he thought that he could construct a theory of the invention, which would, to some extent, concede the claims of the rival cities of Haarlem, Strasburg and Mentz. In this illogical manner, by the construction of a theory before p354 he was in possession of the facts, he began to write the Origines TypographicÆ. The entire book was published in 1765, with a portrait of Lourens Coster by the eminent Dutch engraver Houbraken, and a portrait of Meerman himself by DaullÉ. In the matter of scholarship, Meerman was thoroughly qualified for his task. He wrote in a clear style and with admirable method. But he knew nothing of the mechanics of printing nor of type-founding, and, unfortunately, he was too conceited to accept correction or instruction even from the hands of experts like EnschedÉ, Fournier and others. In trying to make facts suit theories, he went so far as to order the engraver of a fac-simile to stretch the vellum of a Donatus so that the types used upon this Donatus should appear to be the same as the types of the Speculum.

These are the conclusions submitted by Meerman as the result of his study of, and reflection on, the legend of Haarlem:

Typography was invented by Louwerijs Janszoen, also known as Laurens Coster, who, at various times between 1422 and 1434, filled the office of sheriff, treasurer and sacristan. He was of noble blood, but a bastard of one of the p355 Brederodes. He died sometime between 1434 and 1440. He invented typography about 1428 or 1430, using only movable types of wood. All that Junius has written about an invention of lead and tin types by Coster is incorrect. He thinks it useless to consider the engraving of letters upon solid wood-blocks, for this is not typography, and is not printing as we now understand it. Laurens was robbed on Christmas night, 1440, by Johan Gensfleisch the elder, who carried the art to Mentz. The son-in-law and heirs of Coster continued his business for some time after his death, but with little appreciation, as they were overshadowed by the superior invention of Gutenberg and Schoeffer. Coster printed but one edition of the Speculum from types of wood. His successors printed the other Dutch edition and the two Latin editions from engraved metal types. The contributions of different inventors toward the perfect invention are acknowledged in this manner: Laurens Coster was the first to demonstrate the feasibility of typography by his use of wood types; John Gensfleisch was the first to make cut or engraved metal types; Peter Schoeffer was the inventor of cast or founded metal types; John Gutenberg and John Fust were printers who invented nothing.

Meerman had fair warning from the type-founder and printer John EnschedÉ that his theories of wood types209 and of cut metal types were preposterous. He did not heed the warning. He wrote, not for printers, but for bibliographers who believed in the practicability of wood types, and he did not mistake his readers. The bibliographers, who knew little or nothing of the theory or practice of type-making, were not competent to criticise the mechanical part of his theory. He hoped to disarm the prejudices of German authors by his frank acknowledgment of the contributions of Schoeffer and Gensfleisch as co-inventors. The novelty of his theory, the p356 judicial equity with which he decreed to Coster, Gensfleisch and Schoeffer what he said was their share in the honors of the invention, the temperate tone and calm philosophic spirit in which the book was written, the breadth of scholarship displayed in exact quotations from a great number of authors, won admirers in all countries. The theory of Meerman about a contributive invention need not be examined here: it has been entirely refuted by many French and German authors; it was abandoned even by Hollanders210 at the beginning of the present century. The authority of the book is at an end.

The conviction that all previously written defences of the legend were untenable, caused a scientific society of Holland to offer a prize for the best treatise on the invention. Jacobus Koning was the successful competitor. In 1816, he published, under the sanction of the society, the essay that had won the prize, under the title of “The Origin, Invention and Development of Printing.” It was an inquiry of more than ordinary merit—the first book on the subject which showed evidences of original research. Koning tried to supplement the many deficiencies of Junius, with extracts from the records of the old church and town of Haarlem, which he had studied with diligence. He brought to light a great deal of information about one Laurens Janszoon, whom he confounded, as Meerman had done, with Lourens Janszoon Coster. This is the substance of his discoveries and of his conclusions therefrom:

Koning describes the inventor as Laurens Janszoon Koster, and not as Lourens Janszoon. He says that Koster was born about 1370; that there are no records of his early life, and that his name does not appear on any of the registers of Haarlem, municipal or ecclesiastical, until he became a man of middle age. After this period of his life, notices are frequent. He was the sacristan of a church from 1421 to 1433. He was, at different times, alderman and presiding alderman, treasurer of the town, lender of money to the city, officer in the citizens’ guard, member of the grand council, and deputy to a p357 convocation of the States—clearly a man of wealth and distinction. There was a great pestilence in Haarlem in the latter part of the year 1439, and Koning says it seems probable that Koster was one of its many victims. Koster’s only child was a daughter named Lucette, who married Thomas, the son of Pieter Pieterzoon—the Peter mentioned by Junius. Pieterzoon had three children, but with them the family name was lost. This Laurens Janszoon Koster invented xylography and typography. He experimented with types of wood, but did not use them for practical work. His types were founded in matrices of lead, and in moulds of metal; he invented printing ink, and printed his books with inking balls on a press. His materials were rude, but the process was substantially the same as that of modern printers. He printed the first edition of the Speculum in 1430, and sixteen other books before his death. His business as a printer was continued for some years, but in a feeble manner, by his grandsons. The thief of Koster’s process was Frielo Gensfleisch.

In the town records Koster is not noticed as a printer, but Koning described his method of printing, his punches, moulds, matrices, presses, inking balls, ink, types, and printing office furniture, with as much boldness as if he had been eye-witness to the entire process. Nor was this his only error. It has since been proved that he willfully suppressed many important facts in the records which are of great importance in an examination of the life and services of Coster. It is plain that he was more intent on pleasing the national pride than on revealing the truth.

The speculations of Koning were destroyed by the keen criticisms of the authors who followed him. Dr. Abraham De Vries211 set aside impatiently nearly all the ingenious theories devised by former commentators. He repudiated the statement that Coster had been a sexton or sacristan, or that he invented engraving on wood. Warned by the failures of his predecessors, he advanced no new theory about the peculiarities of Coster’s typographic process; he professed to be satisfied with the bald statement of Junius, and dogmatically maintained that Coster “was the inventor of typography, of the proper art of printing, the first who invented and practised p358 the art of printing with movable and cast letters, and so gave the example to Mentz. ... In the beginning, the art was secretly practised as a trade in manuscripts, not only during the lifetime of the inventor, but by his successors after his death.” De Vries placed the invention about 1423.

It is not necessary to protract this review of the different versions of the legend, nor yet to point out the fatal disagreements and inaccuracies of these versions. It is plain that all the authors who have maintained the claims of Coster have taken their leading facts from Junius. It is equally plain that they have been dissatisfied with his statements and have tried to fill up the gaps in the evidence with conjectures. But they have not made the legend any more credible. The exact nature and date of the invention, the name of the inventor, his method of making types, the books he printed, the thief who stole his process, the fate of his printing office, the total disappearance of the knowledge of the new art—these and other features of the positive statement first made by Junius are enveloped in as complete a mystery as they were when Batavia was written.

With all its inconsistencies and improbabilities, the legend has been accepted as essentially truthful by many eminent bibliographers in France and England. Of late years it has encountered but feeble opposition from German writers. In many modern books on printing, Coster has been recognized either as the inventor or as one of the co-inventors of the art. There has been a general belief that, however absurd the legend might be in some minor matters of detail, it had a nucleus of truth. Coster’s place in typographical history, at the middle of the present century, seemed almost as firmly fixed as that of Gutenberg.

In Holland, this legend of the invention of printing by Coster was an article of national faith which only the bold man dared to deny. It has produced results which could never have been fore­seen by the vain old man Gerrit Thomas­zoon, in whose conceit the fable orig­inat­ed. Haarlem is dotted with p359 mon­u­ments to the memory of Coster. Certain days in June and July are observed as festivals in com­mem­ora­tion of the invention. In the Hout, or Haarlem Wood, where Coster is said to have received his first sug­ges­tion of types, an imposing cenotaph has been placed. Carved on this stone are the arms of the sheriff Laurens Jans­zoon, and the year 1423, which is offered as the date of this sug­ges­tion. An ack­now­ledg­ment of Coster as the inventor of typ­og­raphy may be seen in the ancient cath­ed­ral of Haarlem, on a black marble tablet, which was put in place during the month of June, 1824, by King William I. In almost every well appointed public office or private house of Haar­lem is some pic­torial recog­ni­tion of Coster as the in­ven­tor of print­ing.

In the year 1851, an as­so­cia­tion of patriotic Hol­landers placed in front of the rebuilt Coster house a memorial stone with this inscription: “The house of Coster: the birthplace of typography.” The date of this birth is judiciously omitted. The tablet of the old Coster house contained an inscription in honor of “Laurens Coster, sheriff, of Haarlem, inventor of typography about the year 1430.” The vitality of the legend has also been preserved by the issue of a great many medals, prints and papers, and by the repeated assertion of the civic authorities that Coster was the original and unquestionable inventor of typography.