ENGLISH PRINTERS AND THEIR ORNAMENTS
In the five and twenty years that elapsed from the discovery of the art of printing in Mentz, to Caxton’s establishment of his press in Westminster, the printers on the Continent had by these means brought the decoration of the printed book to an astonishing degree of excellence. They could never hope to attain the results produced by the monastic rubricator or colourist, but they learnt to equal them in beauty of design and delicacy of treatment. For, in its way, the problem that faced the printers, in the ornamentation of the printed book, was rather more difficult than that presented to the illuminator. With the latter a wealth of colour might cover a multitude of sins; but the printer had to see that his decoration did not overshadow his type, which after all was his chief pride, and that the decoration of the book did not distract the reader’s attention from the subject-matter. Moreover, woodcutting was a very difficult art to learn. The mysteries of cross-hatching and shading were not to be mastered without many failures; in fact, the master wood-engraver was born, not made.
Such men as E. Ratdolt and N. Jenson in Venice, Pigouchet and Jean du Pré in Paris, Gerard Leeu, of Gouda and Antwerp, and many others, were turning out books that for beauty of typography and artistic decoration have never been surpassed. It might have been supposed that with such examples before them Caxton and his contemporaries in this country would have been spurred to emulation. English printers were in constant intercourse with Continental printers and booksellers, and had the opportunity of attending the great annual fair at Frankfort, where they could see all the latest productions of the Continental presses and where they could buy anything they wanted in the way of type, ornaments or binding tools. Yet so far were they from attempting to produce fine books, whenever such were called for—as Missals, Books of Hours, Psalters or Breviaries—they handed the work over to some foreign printer, with this result, to use the words of Mr E. Gordon Duff: “The poverty of ornamental letters and borders is very noticeable in all the English presses of the fifteenth century.”[4]
There are several reasons to account for this. In the first place, in 1471, the year in which it is believed that Caxton began to learn the art of printing in Cologne, the decoration of books was in its infancy, and few of the printers in that city had, up to that time, issued any books in which decorative blocks, other than perhaps an initial or two, were used. But what is of more importance, we know that Caxton’s chief object in, at a late period of his life, working in a Cologne printing office, was to save himself the labour and weariness of copying by hand the various works which he translated for the pleasure of others. He recognized that by the art of printing copies could be multiplied easily and quickly: that they would be easier to read than manuscript, and, provided that type, ink and paper were of good quality, would endure indefinitely. Caxton’s concern was to make his countrymen acquainted with the best literature—books of literary value, that would please readers, not by their prettiness, but for the matter that was in them. Hence all he wanted to know about printing was, how to set up type and how to ink and pull a clean and clear impression, and we know that he paid very little heed to decoration or ornament throughout his career as a printer.
Wynkyn de Worde was probably only just out of his apprenticeship when he entered Caxton’s service, and during his master’s lifetime he would naturally conform to Caxton’s rule and opinions in the matter of the make-up of the books.
Lettou and Machlinia, both foreigners, who came to this country in 1480, were chiefly concerned with printing law books, which did not lend themselves readily to decorative work, and their office was not a school in which to learn it. Hence we should not expect to find Richard Pynson, who was on friendly terms with Machlinia, and possibly learnt the rudiments of the art of printing in his office, and who certainly succeeded him, getting much knowledge as to the use of ornaments from such a master.
It is true that Theodoric Rood at Oxford used a decorative border as early as 1481, and that ten years later Caxton made a notable departure from his usual methods by surrounding every page of the Fifteen Oes with a border; but these were solitary exceptions.
The second reason for this was certainly lack of enterprise on the part of the English printers. This was largely due, no doubt, to the want of art training. The foreign printer had been taught the value of unity of design—a lesson for which the English printer had to wait until the nineteenth century. He designed his border to harmonize with his letterpress, and his initials to harmonize with his borders and beautify his letterpress.
But the English printers who followed Caxton would not concern themselves with these things. They were not actuated by the same motive that led Caxton to abstain from the use of ornament—that is, the belief that literature came before decoration. They viewed the matter from a purely commercial standpoint. To quote once again the words of Robert Copland, half a century later, in the Prologue to The Seven Sorrows that Women have when their Husbands be Dead, referring to the printing of the book he says:
Consequently they took no pride in the appearance of their books, but used the first block that came to hand regardless whether it harmonized with the type or not.
A third reason for this paucity of ornament in books of the fifteenth century was assuredly lack of encouragement on the part of the English buyer. Caxton and his successors worked for many royal and noble patrons, as King Edward IV., Henry VII. and Henry VIII., Margaret, Duchess of Richmond, Earl Rivers, the Earl of Arundel, some of whom, we may be sure, were acquainted with such Continental masterpieces as the Fior de Virtu, Mer des Hystoire, or the Hypnerotomachia, and many similar works. If they had called upon De Worde or Pynson to produce books of that kind the printers would certainly have done so, and we may therefore ascribe their absence as much to lack of support on the part of the reading public of that day as to lack of enterprise or want of skill on the part of the printers. Here again we may quote from the Seven Sorrows, where Quidam pronounced the opinion, “A peny I trow is enough on books.”
This theory receives strong confirmation from the fact that when a rich book-lover like Cardinal Morton was willing to pay for the work to be done, it was done, and was a credit both to the printer and the nation, for, leaving out of account the service books printed by foreign printers for the English market, Morton’s Missal, printed by Richard Pynson in 1500, may be said to be the first artistic book produced in this country.
Foreign influence as to design is there, no doubt—possibly that of Rouen rather than Paris—but the workmanship was English. Pynson was, in fact, a far better printer than Wynkyn de Worde, and while we know that he obtained material from Basle and Rouen, he used it with better effect. Down to the date of Caxton’s death the ornaments found in English printed books were singularly few. Caxton began to use paragraph marks with his type 4 and 4a, i.e. between 1480 and 1485; then in 1486 he began to use type 6, in which the Maltese cross is found. These were the only two small ornaments he possessed; but in addition to these one or two woodcut initial letters and one border are found in his books.
Wynkyn de Worde, immediately after his master’s death, obtained a fount of type and various blocks from a printer in Gouda, Govaert van Os. The type he used once, the blocks he used until they were worn out, and there is no doubt that he obtained border-pieces from other printers on the Continent. Julyan Notary procured decorative blocks from a foreign source before 1500; but it may safely be said that the paucity of ornament in English books referred to by Mr Duff continued to the opening of the sixteenth century.
The Reformation gave a stimulus to book decoration. The great folio Bible and Books of Common Prayer were ordered to be placed in every church throughout the kingdom, and editions were put on the market as fast as the presses could turn them out. Their title-pages were surrounded by specially engraved borders, and every printing office in Europe was ransacked to provide ornamental initials, of which great numbers were required. How far native talent was employed in this work we have no means of knowing, but there is very little doubt that Richard Grafton and Edward Whitchurch did employ English workmen. Thomas Berthelet, who succeeded Pynson as King’s printer, printed some notable books, but he seldom used illustrations, though most of his ornaments were good. Richard Tottell and Reyner Wolfe both used decorative blocks with the best effect; but it was left to John Day, with the help of Archbishop Parker, to bring English Printers’ Ornaments to their highest excellence.
John Day was a native of the old town of Dunwich in Suffolk. His father is believed to have been a ‘stringer’ or bow-string maker. Nothing is known with any certainty as to his apprenticeship, but he is found in possession of a device previously in the hands of Robert Gibson, a protégé of Cromwell, and he may have served his term with Gibson.
The first heard of him as a printer is in 1546, when he was in partnership with William Seres at the sign of the Resurrection in Holborn.
Their work was much as other men’s and their printing material was no better. This partnership was dissolved in 1548, Day moving to Aldersgate, and in the following year he printed an edition of the Bible which contained some good initials.
But it was not until after the accession of Queen Elizabeth, and the appointment of Archbishop Parker as Primate, that Day’s work attained its best. For Parker he cut a fount of Saxon types in metal which Mr Talbot Reed, in his Old English Letter Foundries, says was cast with such accuracy and regularity as was highly creditable to his excellence as a founder. So that John Day had a foundry at which he could have cast any small ornaments he required. Some of the blocks found in his books bear the initials I.D., but it has never been satisfactorily established that he cut them; but there is no doubt that he obtained the aid of the best artists and woodcutters available.
After Day’s death there was a marked falling-off in the decoration of English books, and the work was only redeemed from mediocrity by such men as Henry Bynneman and Henry Denham, both of whom, as we shall see, used the fleuron with effect, and introduced some light and graceful head and tail pieces. Henry Denham also used a set of initials which Mr C. Sayle,[5] of Cambridge University Library, who has made this branch of ornaments his own, has declared to be “quite unlike any other work in England, and as high as the work of Sylvius, if not, indeed, in some respects still higher.” Henry Denham was succeeded by Peter Short, and he in turn by Humphrey Lownes, and thus furnished one of the links between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and carrying the traditions of one century into the other.
Another notable link between these two centuries was formed by the establishment of the Eliots Court Press. This was a syndicate of young printers, who upon the death of Henry Bynneman, the London printer, acquired most of his stock of letter and ornaments, and set up for themselves in premises in Eliots Court, near the Old Bailey. The most important members of this syndicate were Edmund Bollifant, Arnold Hatfield and Ninian Newton, all of whom had served their apprenticeship with Henry Denham. Later members of the firm were Melchisidec Bradwood, who printed the Eton Chrysostum, Edward Griffin the first and second, George Purslowe and John Haviland, who carried on the work of the firm until late in the seventeenth century.
The only presses outside London in the sixteenth century were those of the two Universities. Oxford’s second press was short-lived, and though two printers were connected with it—John Scolar from 1517–18, and C. Kyrforth in 1519—its output was very small, and the printers seem to have obtained their material from Wynkyn de Worde in London. The third Oxford press was set up by Joseph Barnes in 1585. Very little is known about this printer’s history, but from what we do know he does not appear to have been a man who would concern himself about the ornamentation of his books. He opened his career with a disgraceful act of piracy and did his best to ruin a young London printer. We are not surprised to find that his ornaments show no originality, and were either copies from those of London printers or were bought from them.
The first printer in Cambridge was a foreigner, John Lair of Siberch or Siegburg, near Cologne, who called himself John Siberch. His first book, a speech of Doctor Henry Bullock’s printed in the early part of 1521, has no ornaments; but in Cujusdam fidelis Christiani epistola, printed a month or two later, a couple of border-pieces, evidently from a Book of Hours, are seen on the title-page. Siberch also possessed some good initials and a border which will be dealt with in their proper places. His successors, Thomas and John Legat, would appear to have obtained their ornaments, excepting, of course, the block of the University arms, from London. At any rate they were all quite common in London books of the sixteenth century.
The seventeenth century was a period of decline in the art of printing in England. During the first forty years woodcut ornaments are found in almost all books, and though woodcut borders to title-pages are sometimes met with, they gave place in the early part of the century to engraved title-pages of very elaborate character. The fleuron, worked up into borders, etc., retained its popularity. The Civil War, while it stimulated the printing of controversial tracts and news-sheets, killed all artistic effort. Some notable books, it is true, appeared during the Commonwealth, such as Dugdale’s Monasticon Anglicanum, a handsome folio with engravings by Wenceslaus Hollar, the same author’s Antiquities of Warwickshire, while between 1654 and 1657 the six folio volumes of Walton’s Polyglot Bible were printed, and it is said that the types for this last were supplied by the four licensed type-founders in London.
But the ornaments found in these books consisted of a few initials and tail-pieces of no special merit or originality of design. The four type-founders in question could not make a living. Either for want of training, lack of capital or lack of encouragement, they could not compete with the type-founders of Holland, from whence came most of the type, and presumably the ornaments, found in English books for the next seventy years. Joseph Moxon, who in 1659 added type-founding to his other professions, had spent some years in Holland, and his foundry was stocked with a large assortment of letters, mostly Dutch. James Grover was another type-founder at work in the second half of the seventeenth century, and he cast the types for the folio editions of Cicero and Herodotus, printed in 1679, for a syndicate of London booksellers. Both these works were amongst the best specimens of typography of that period, but the only ornaments used in the first were initial letters. In the Herodotus there is a tail-piece, to which I shall return when dealing with those ornaments.
Before passing away from the work of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries a word or two must be said of the ‘copyist,’ who played a very large part in the production of printers’ ornaments. Whether the printers were their own copyists, or whether they employed some one else to do this part of the work, we cannot say, but quite early in the sixteenth century, and from thence onwards to the close of the seventeenth, almost every head and tail piece and initial letter was copied and copied again without limit, and it must not be assumed, without the most careful examination and comparison, that any blocks, found in books having no printer’s name, show them to have been published by a certain printer. For example, Richard Jugge used some large initials in the various editions of the Bible that he printed, and no less than six varieties of those letters can be traced in the hands of other men, the resemblance between them being so close that only by putting them side by side and examining them with great care can the points of difference be distinguished. Another instance is furnished by a set of initials used by the Eliots Court Press in the seventeenth century. These were probably copies of a set in the hands of Henry Middleton, while several other printers had letters like them, and the only way to distinguish between them is by counting the number of beads or circles in the framework.
In the same way other ornaments were closely copied, and it is frequently very hard to distinguish between them.
With the opening of the eighteenth century a marked change is noticeable in the character of the decorative blocks used by English printers. Borders to title-pages are rarely found, and, in place of the single block woodcut head and tail pieces, that had done duty for a century and a half, were substituted metal blocks of a more ornate character, and this was the case also with the initial letters. It would be interesting if one could trace the causes of this change, but one can only surmise. I may be wrong, but I am inclined to attribute it to the influence of the Oxford University Press, and to the work for it of Michael Burghers, who between 1680 and 1725 designed some very remarkable head and tail pieces.
It would be interesting also to know whether the printers employed their own artists to design and engrave these blocks, or whether they obtained them from the type-founders. I offer my own opinion for what it is worth, and it is in favour of the first suggestion. Judging from the type specimen sheets issued before 1780, the type-founders only supplied the smaller ornaments such as the fleuron, with suggestions as to their effective use. On the other hand, we find William Bowyer at one end of the century having a special tail-piece designed for him commemorative of the great fire that destroyed his premises in 1712, and at the other end Thomas Bewick, the engraver, drawing and cutting suitable head and tail pieces to go with his illustrations.
The nineteenth century opens the era of Modern work, which forms the closing chapters of this book.