THE LOW COUNTRIES.

On no subject connected with printing has more been written, and to less purpose, than on the Haarlem invention of printing by Lourens Janszoon Coster. During the fifteenth century much had been said about the invention, accrediting it always to Germany; and it was not till 1499 that a reference was made to an earlier Dutch discovery in the following passage of the Cologne Chronicle:[27]—

This narrative, it will be seen, breaks down, if we examine its accuracy strictly, in several places. To get over this apparent difficulty, we are told that the compiler of the Chronicle took the various parts of his statement from various sources. The statement that printing was invented at Mainz, from Hartmann Schedel’s Nuremberg Chronicle of 1493; that from 1440 to 1450 it was being investigated, is an addition of his own; that about 1450 people began to print, and that the first book printed was the Bible in Latin, was told him by Ulric Zel, and so on. But evidence which on certain points is inaccurate, cannot be implicitly trusted on other points; and since it is impossible to trust absolutely the statement of the Chronicle, we must seek information from the best source, that is, the earliest productions of the press.

Coster himself was not heard of as a printer till about a hundred years after he was supposed to have printed, when Junius wrote in his Batavia the wonderful legend of the letters cut in beech bark. That a person called Lourens Janszoon lived at Haarlem from 1436 to 1483 seems to be an established fact; but, at the same time, all the entries and notices relating to him show that he was a chandler or innkeeper. Von der Linde very justly, therefore, considers he was not a printer; and this view is certainly reasonable, for we can hardly suppose that a man could have printed all the so-called Costeriana and at the same time have attended to his business so carefully, that all the entries which relate to him speak of him only as an innkeeper, and no mention of any kind is made of him as a printer, though he was, so believers in him assert, the only printer in Holland for thirty years.

Coming to the books themselves, what do we find? The first printed date is 1473, in which year books were issued at both Utrecht and Alost. M. Holtrop mentions that the Hague copy of the Tractatus Gulielmi de Saliceto de salute corporis et animÆ and Yliada was bought by a certain Abbat Conrad for the library of his house; and as the Abbat in question was Abbat only from 1471 to 1474, the book cannot have been printed later than 1471-74; and this and the rubricated 1472 in the Darmstadt copy of the Saliceto are at present the only dates which we can use for our purposes.

There are, however, a large number of fragments of books known, printed in a rude type and with the appearance of early printing, all of which are frequently asserted to have been printed before 1473. These books, consisting for the most part of editions of the Donatus or the Doctrinale, are known by the name of Costeriana, as being the supposed productions of Coster. Among them also are the four editions of the Speculum, which we have examined at length in Chapter I. Fragments of at least fifty books or editions are known, which may be separated by their types into eight groups. Concerning the types Mr. Hessels says: ‘Type 2 is inseparably connected with type 1; and as the former is so much like type 3 that some consider these two types identical, nothing would be gained by separating them. Type 4 and 5 occur in one and the same book; and as certain letters of type 5 are identical with some of type 3, they may all be linked together. Type 6 is identical with type 5 except the P, which is larger and of a different form. Types 7 and 8 are linked on to the types 1-6, on account of the great family-likeness between them, they all having that peculiar perpendicular stroke to the cross-bar of the t, and a down stroke or curl attached to the r, which is found in no other types of the Netherlands.’

The close connection of all these types points to the books having been produced in one place; but where this one place was, cannot be determined. The account written by Junius, in 1568, of the invention of printing by Coster, mentions Haarlem as the place where he printed, and they have therefore been always ascribed to Haarlem by such writers as believe in the Costerian invention. Mr. Bradshaw, who refused to assign books to particular places without reason, said: ‘I am compelled to leave the Speculum at Utrecht until I know anything positive to the contrary; because it is at Utrecht that the cuts first appear, cut up into pieces in a book printed by Veldener at that place in 1481.’ This statement does not mean that the Costeriana were necessarily printed at Utrecht, but that the place where we find the materials as soon as they can be connected with any place, is Utrecht, and that therefore such little evidence as exists is in favour of these books having been printed there. One point which tells in favour of Utrecht, is the fact that one of the Costeriana is a Donatus in French, and Utrecht is one of the few places in the Netherlands where such a book is likely to have been produced.

There is no direct evidence in favour of Haarlem or Utrecht; and indirect evidence is not particularly in favour of Haarlem, unless it is considered that some belief may be placed in Junius’ wonderful narrative. It is certainly wiser to leave the matter open, or, with Bradshaw, place the books provisionally at Utrecht till we have a better reason for placing them elsewhere.

The more important question as to the date when these Costeriana were produced, seems still as far as ever from any satisfactory solution. Mr. Hessels takes them back to 1446 by the ingenious method of putting eighteen months between each edition. This method of working is based on no sound principle, and leads to no result of any value. Another argument of Mr. Hessels, and one that is hardly worthy of so learned a writer, is that since the Costeriana look older than the first Mainz books, therefore they are older. The foolishness of this reasoning is too apparent to need any explanation, for it amounts to the assertion that the same phase of development in different countries means the same date. But if the earliest dated books of the Low Countries are compared with the productions of Germany, it needs a prejudiced eye to see in the former any approach to the exquisite beauty and regularity of the German type and printing.

There is one point which seems to me to argue strongly against the early date ascribed to the Costeriana. They were produced by ordinary typographic processes, such as would be used for printing any book, and there is little or no improvement observable in the latest compared with the earliest. Yet, during the thirty years to which these books are ascribed, no work of any size or importance was produced from this press. It can hardly be assumed that during these years there was no demand for books, when we consider that immediately after 1473 books of all kinds were produced in great number. Nor can we reasonably suppose that the great demand for the Donatus and the Doctrinale ceased about 1473. The printing of school-books did not require to be ornamental, for they had to be produced as cheaply as possible, so that this class of work naturally soon fell into the hands of the poorer printers. We see many examples of this in studying the history of printing in other places, and find the finest and the rudest work being produced side by side. Block-books and xylographic Donatuses were printed in Germany up to the last years of the fifteenth century, as old in appearance as the productions of fifty years earlier. We may connect certain of these Costeriana with the years 1471-74, within which period printing presses were started at Utrecht and Alost; but why should all the rest be placed earlier? It is curious that, while we have no dates forcing us to fix them early, neither have we dates preventing us from fixing them late.

Because certain of these books were written by Pius II., who became Pope in 1458, Mr. Hessels seizes on 1458 as one of the dates we may take as relating to their printing, and groups the Costeriana round that date. He might equally well have grouped others round the fourth century, when Ælius Donatus lived, or round 1207, when Alexander de Villa Dei finished his Doctrinale. The only date as regards the printing of a book that can be derived from the authorship is a date before which the book cannot have been printed. M. Dziatzko mentions one point which he considers conclusive as giving a late date to the Costeriana. In them is wrongly used a particular form of the letter x, which is not found in Dutch manuscripts, and which was used at the first Mainz press for a special purpose.

Putting aside, then, the useless mass of conjecture and sophistry that obscures the subject, the case stands thus. The first printed date in the Low Countries is 1473, and there are a group of undated books which may perhaps be placed before or round this date; beyond this we have no information whatever.

Before leaving this subject, it is worth noticing that there is a simple explanation for the fact that almost all the Costeriana fragments are on vellum. They have in most cases been found in the bindings of books, and it was the almost invariable habit of Netherlandish binders to line the boards of their bindings with vellum. They used if possible clean vellum, or printed or written only on one side, the used side being pasted down and the clean side exposed. In this way many indulgences have been preserved.

In 1473, printing starts simultaneously at Utrecht and Alost, and from that time onward its history is clear. More attention has been paid to the history of printing in the Netherlands than to that of any other country, and the work of Holtrop, Campbell, and Bradshaw offers a firm foundation to rest upon.

The first printers at Utrecht were Nicholas Ketelaer and Gerard de Leempt, and their first book was the Historia Scholastica of Petrus Comestor. Though they printed a large number of books, only three are dated, two in 1473 and one in 1474. About 1475 a printer named William Hees printed some books at Utrecht; and in 1478, Veldener moved to that town from Louvain, where he had been printing up to that time.

The first printer at Alost was Thierry Martens, an accomplished linguist and scholar, who is supposed by many bibliographers to have learned to print at Venice. He says in the colophon to the De vita beata libellus of Baptista Mantuanus—

On this basis the story has arisen, and it is perhaps hardly sufficient to justify the conclusions. The first books, four in number, printed in 1473 and the beginning of 1474, were printed in partnership with John of Westphalia, a printer who in 1474 migrated to Louvain. Thierry Martens continued by himself at Alost for a while, but moved on, in 1493, to Antwerp, and in 1498 to Louvain. According to Van der Meersch, he left Louvain in 1502 to return to Antwerp, but left this town again in 1512, and settled definitely at Louvain till the end of his career in 1529.

Printing was introduced at Louvain in 1474, and it is, after Antwerp, the most important town in that respect in the Low Countries. The first printer was John of Westphalia,[28] whom we have just mentioned as a printer at Alost in partnership with Thierry Martens. He seems to have been the owner of the type used at Alost, for he continued to print with it, and in June 1474 issued the Commentariolus de pleuresi by Antonius Guainerius, the first book known to have been issued at Louvain. John of Westphalia continued to print up to the year 1496; and Campbell[29] enumerates over one hundred and eighty books as having been printed by him in these twenty-two years. In some of his books we find a small woodcut portrait of himself, used first in the Justinian of 1475; and a few of his books have the red initial letters printed in by hand. John Veldener, the second printer at Louvain, was matriculated at the university there, in the faculty of medicine, 30th July 1473. His first book was probably the Consolatio peccatorum of Jacobus de Theramo, which contains a prefatory letter, addressed ‘Johanni Veldener artis impressoriÆ magistro,’ dated 7th Aug. 1474. Veldener continued to print at Louvain till 1478, and he is found in that year at Utrecht, where he printed till 1481. After this he moved to Kuilenburg, issuing books there in 1483 and 1484.

Besides those that have been mentioned, seven other printers worked at Louvain before the close of the fifteenth century. These were—Conrad Braem (1475), Conrad de Westphalia (1476), Hermann de Nassou (1483), Rodolphe Loeffs (1483), Egidius vander Heerstraten (1484), Ludovicus de Ravescot (1487), and Thierry Martens (1498).

Bruges, one of the most prosperous and artistic of the towns in the Netherlands, is intimately associated with the history of English printing; for it was there that our first printer, Caxton, began to print. It was not, however, a productive town as regards printing, for only two printers, or at most three, were at work there in the fifteenth century. Of these the most important was Colard Mansion. He was by profession a writer and illuminator of manuscripts, and his name is found year by year from 1454 to 1473 in the book of the Guild of St. John. It was probably about 1475 that he began to print; but his first dated book appeared in the following year. About the years 1475-77, Caxton was in partnership with Mansion, whether generally or only for the production of certain books, we do not know. But together they printed three books, The Recuyell of the Histories of Troye, The Game and playe of the Chesse, and Les quatre derrennieres choses. After Caxton’s departure, in 1477, Mansion continued to print by himself. It is worth noticing that in 1477 he first made use of a device. The first dated book issued by Mansion, De la ruyne des nobles hommes et femmes, by Boccaccio, has a curious history. It was issued first without any woodcuts, and no spaces were left for them. Then the first leaf containing the prologue was cancelled, and reprinted so as to leave a space for a cut of the author presenting his book. At a later date, the first leaves of all the books, excepting books i. and vi., were cancelled, and reissued with spaces for engravings. Mansion printed altogether about twenty-four books, the last being a moralised version of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, issued in May 1484. Almost immediately after this book was finished, the printer fled from Bruges, and his rooms over the porch of the Church of St. Donatus were let to a bookbinder named Jean Gossin. This latter paid the rent still owing by Mansion, and is supposed to have come into possession of the stock of the Ovid, for several copies of the book are known in which the leaves 113-218, 296-389 have been reprinted, presumably by Gossin, and these examples do not contain Mansion’s device.

The other printer, Jean Brito, is little more than a name. Campbell gives four books as having been printed by him, but only one contains his name. This, however, is a book of exceptional interest, the Instruction et doctrine de tous chrÉtiens et chrÉtiennes, by Gerson; and but one copy is known, now in the BibliothÈque Nationale. It has the following curious colophon in verse:—

The last two lines, which, translated literally, say, ‘Discovering, without being shown by any one, the wonderful art, and also the tools, not less objects for wonder and praise,’ would seem to imply that Brito claimed to be a self-taught printer. That this may have been the case is quite possible, and it is the only reasonable interpretation to put upon the lines. They suggest, however, still a further inference. The type in which this book is printed seems to be identical with that used afterwards by William de Machlinia at Holborn, in London, and extraordinarily similar to the type used by Veldener at Utrecht. If Brito was a self-taught printer, who invented his own tools, he must also have been a type-founder; and if so, may very likely have supplied William de Machlinia with his type.

After Bruges comes Brussels, where but one press was established before 1500. This was set up by the Brothers of the Common Life, who must have found their old industry of copying manuscripts seriously interfered with by the competition of the new art. They therefore started a press at their house, called ‘Nazareth,’ and in 1476 issued their first dated book, the Gnotosolitos sive speculum conscientiÆ, by Arnoldus de Gheilhoven, a large folio of 472 leaves. From 1476 to 1484[30] they worked industriously, producing about thirty-five books, only one of which clearly states who and what the printers were. This is the Legenda Henrici Imperatoris et Kunigundis Imperatricis of 1484, where we read in the colophon: ... ‘impresse in famosa civitate bruxellensi per fratres communis vite in nazareth’.... There is no doubt that, as types come to be studied and recognised, more books will be found printed by this Brotherhood. Other establishments of the same Order had practised, or were shortly to practise, the art of printing. That at Marienthal, important in the history of printing, had been at work for some years; others at Rostock, Nuremberg, and Gouda were to follow; while, as we have seen, if we are to believe M. Madden, the monastery at Weidenbach was the instructor of all the more noted printers of Europe. The similarity in appearance between the Brussels type and that of Ther Hoernen at Cologne is very striking, and has deceived even M. Van der Meersch, Ther Hoernen’s bibliographer. The distinguishing mark of this type, or the one most readily to be distinguished, is a very voluminous capital S in the later books.

Gerard Leeu, the first printer at Gouda, is the most important of all the Low Country printers of the fifteenth century. His first book was issued in 1477, a Dutch edition of the Epistles and Gospels; and five other books followed in the same year. His first illustrated book, the Dialogus creaturarum moralisatus, was issued in 1480. About the middle of the year 1484 he removed to Antwerp, and printed there till 1493. In that year, while the Chronicles of England were being printed, a letter-cutter named Henric van Symmen, one of Leeu’s workmen, struck work. In a quarrel which followed, Leeu was struck on the head, and died after three days’ illness. The workman who gave the blow was fined forty gulden, not a very heavy punishment for manslaughter. At the end of the Chronicles the workmen put the following colophon: ‘Enprentyd ... by maister Gerard de Leew, a man of grete wysedom in all maner of kunnying: whych nowe is come from lyfe unto the deth, which is grete harme for many a poure man. On whos sowle god almyghty for hys hygh grace have mercy. Amen.’

Leeu must have employed a good deal of labour, for he printed a very large number of books; Campbell gives about two hundred, and his numbers are always being added to. But what makes Leeu especially interesting to us is the fact of his printing English books. Of these, he issued seven between 1486 and 1493—a Grammar, two Sarum Service-books, and four other popular books which will be noticed later.

Another interesting printer who was settled at Gouda was Gotfried de Os, whom Bradshaw considers to have been identical with Govaert van Ghemen. He began to print at Gouda in 1486, but about 1490 removed to Copenhagen, printing at Leyden on his way. Before he went there he parted with some of his printing materials, type, initial letters, and woodcuts, which came into the hands of W. de Worde, and were used in England.

Five other towns in the Netherlands possessed printing presses before 1480—Deventer (1477), Delft (1477), St. Maartensdyk (1478), Nÿmegen (1479), and Zwolle (1479).

At Deventer there were only two printers, R. Paffroed and J. de Breda; but between them they printed at least five hundred books, about a quarter of the whole number issued in the Netherlands in the fifteenth century.

At St. Maartensdyk in Zeeland only one book was printed, Der zyelen troeste, the work of a printer named Peter Werrecoren, in November 1478. Of this book only one copy is known, preserved in the library of the abbey of Averbode. In the colophon the printer apologises for the short-comings of his book, saying that it is his first, and that he hopes by the grace of God to improve. We have, however, no record of his ever printing again. Nÿmegen had also but one printer, Gerard Leempt, who issued four books, Zwolle, where Peter van Os of Breda printed from 1479 onwards, is an interesting place in the history of printing, for there, in 1487, appeared portions of the original blocks of the Biblia Pauperum used to illustrate a Dutch edition of the Epistles and Gospels, and in 1494 a block from the Canticum Canticorum. Peregrinus Barmentlo, the only printer at Hasselt, was at work from 1480 to 1490. He seems to have had some connection with Peter van Os, as was only natural from the situation of Hasselt and its nearness to Zwolle; and we find the cuts of one printer in the hands of the other.

Arend de Keysere commenced to print at Audenarde in 1480, his first book being the Sermons of Hermannus de Petra. By April 1483 he had moved from Audenarde and settled at Ghent, where he remained till his death in 1489. His wife, Beatrice van Orrior, continued to print for a short time, but no copy is known of any of her productions. At a later date she married again, her husband being a certain Henry van den Dale, who is mentioned in the St. Lucas-gilde book at Bruges as a printer in that town in 1505-6.

In the fifteenth century more printers were settled in Antwerp than in any other Netherlandish town. The first to settle there was Matthew van der Goes, and his first book is dated 29th April 1482. In the same year he issued the Boeck van Tondalus vysioen, which has the misprinted date 1472, and has for that reason been sometimes quoted as the first book printed in the Low Countries, or more often as the first book printed with signatures. We have already spoken of Gerard Leeu, who was the next to settle at Antwerp; and shortly after his appearance in 1484, Nicolas Kesler of Basle opened a shop there for the sale of his books. There are said to be three books with Kesler’s name, and the name of Antwerp given as the town; and though his press at Basle was at work without a break from 1486 onward, still in 1488 his name appears amongst the list of members of the St. Lucas-gilde at Antwerp. It is very probable, as Campbell suggests, that Kesler was entered as a member to enable him to sell his books in Antwerp. The most interesting among the remaining printers of the town was Thierry Martens, who began to print in 1493, and stayed till 1497. His various movements have been spoken of before. Leyden, Ghent, Kuilenburg, and Haarlem all started presses in 1483. The first printer of Haarlem, Bellaert, seems to have obtained his materials for the most part from Leeu, both type and woodcuts; but the town cannot have been a flourishing one from a printer’s point of view; for, though another workman, Joh. AndreÆ, printed a few books in 1486, both presses disappear after that year. At Bois-le-duc, Gerard Leempt, from Nÿmegen, printed a few books between 1484 and 1490. In 1495 the Canons of St. Michael’s in den Hem, near Shoenhoven, began to print books in order to obtain means to rebuild their convent, which had been destroyed by fire the year before. They printed one or two editions of the Breviary of different uses, but the rest of their books were all in the vernacular. Schiedam was the last town in the Netherlands where printing was practised before 1500, and there, about 1498, an unknown printer issued a very remarkable book.

There were altogether in the Netherlands twenty-two towns whence books were issued before 1500, and in this list it will be noticed that Haarlem stands near the end. When printing had once been introduced it spread rapidly, all but three towns starting within the first ten years.