Chapter I: Antiquity of Engraving (1)

Engraving -- The Word Explained -- The Art Defined -- Distinction
Between Engraving on Copper and on Wood -- Early Practice of the Art
of Impressing Characters by Means of Stamps Instanced in Babylonian
Bricks; Fragments of Egyptian and Etruscan Earthenware; Roman Lamps,
Tiles, and Amphoræ -- The Cauterium or Brand -- Principle of
Stencilling Known to the Romans -- Royal Signatures thus Affixed --
Practice of Stamping Monograms on Documents in the Middle Ages --
Notarial Stamps -- Merchants’-Marks -- Coins, Seals, and Sepulchral
Brasses -- Examination of Mr. Ottley’s Opinions Concerning the
Origin of the Art of Wood Engraving in Europe, and its Early
Practice by Two Wonderful Children, the Cunio.

As few persons know, even amongst those who profess to be admirers of the art of Wood Engraving, by what means its effects, as seen in books and single impressions, are produced, and as a yet smaller number understand in what manner it specifically differs in its procedure from the art of engraving on copper or steel, it appears necessary, before entering into any historic detail of its progress, to premise a few observations explanatory of the word ENGRAVING in its general acceptation, and more particularly descriptive of that branch of the art which several persons call Xylography; but which is as clearly expressed, and much more generally understood, by the term WOOD ENGRAVING.

The primary meaning of the verb “to engrave” is defined by Dr. Johnson, “to picture by incisions in any matter;” and he derives it from the French “_engraver_.” The great lexicographer is not, however, quite correct in his derivation; for the French do not use the verb “engraver” in the sense of “to engrave,” but to signify a ship or a boat being embedded in sand or mud so that she cannot float. The French synonym of the English verb “to engrave,” is “graver;” and its root is to be found in the Greek γράφω (_grapho_, I cut), which, with its compound ἐπιγράφω, according to Martorelli, as cited by Von Murr,[I-1] is always used by Homer to express cutting, incision, or wounding; but never to express writing by the superficial tracing of characters with a reed or pen. From the circumstance of laws, in the early ages of Grecian history, being cut or engraved on wood, the word γράφω came to be used in the sense of, “I sanction, or I pass a law;” and when, in the progress of society and the improvement of art, letters, instead of being cut on wood, were indented by means of a skewer-shaped instrument (stylus) on wax spread on tablets of wood or ivory, or written by means of a pen or reed on papyrus or on parchment, the word γράφω, which in its primitive meaning signified “to cut,” became expressive of writing generally.

[Footnote I-1: C. G. Von Murr, in his Journal zur Kunstgeschichte,
2 Theil, S. 253, referring to Martorelli, De Regia Theca
Calamaria.]

From γράφω is derived the Latin _scribo_,[I-2] “I write;” and it is worthy of observation, that “_to scrive_,”--most probably from _scribo_,--signifies, in our own language, to cut numerals or other characters on timber with a tool called a _scrive_: the word thus passing, as it were, through a circle of various meanings and in different languages, and at last returning to its original signification.

[Footnote I-2: If this etymology be correct, the English Scrivener
and French _Greffier_ may be related by descent as well as
professionally; both words being thus referable to the same
origin, the Greek γράφω. The modern _Writer_ in the Scottish
courts of law performs the duties both of Scrivener and Greffier,
with whose name his own is synonymous.]

Under the general term SCULPTURE--the root of which is to be found in the Latin verb _sculpo_, “I cut”--have been classed copper-plate engraving, wood engraving, gem engraving, and carving, as well as the art of the statuary or figure-cutter in marble, to which art the word _sculpture_ is now more strictly applied, each of those arts requiring in its process the act of _cutting_ of one kind or other. In the German language, which seldom borrows its terms of art from other languages, the various modes of cutting in sculpture, in copper-plate engraving, and in engraving on wood, are indicated in the name expressive of the operator or artist. The sculptor is named a _Bildhauer_, from _Bild_, a statue, and _hauen_, to hew, indicating the operation of cutting with a mallet and chisel; the copper-plate engraver is called a _Kupfer-stecher_, from _Kupfer_, copper, and _stechen_, to dig or cut with the point; and the wood engraver is a _Holzschneider_, from _Holz_, wood, and _schneiden_, to cut with the edge.

It is to be observed, that though both the copper-plate engraver and the wood engraver may be said to _cut_ in a certain sense, as well as the sculptor and the carver, they have to execute their work _reversed_,--that is, contrary to the manner in which impressions from their plates or blocks are seen; and that in copying a painting or a drawing, it requires to be reversely transferred,--a disadvantage under which the sculptor and the carver do not labour, as they copy their models or subjects _direct_.

ENGRAVING, as the word is at the present time popularly used, and considered in its relation to the pictorial art, may be defined to be--“The art of representing objects on metallic substances, or on wood, expressed by lines and points produced by means of corrosion, incision, or excision, for the purpose of their being impressed on paper by means of ink or other colouring matter.”

The impressions obtained from engraved _plates_ of metal or from _blocks_ of wood are commonly called engravings, and sometimes prints. Formerly the word _cuts_[I-3] was applied indiscriminately to impressions, either from metal or wood; but at present it is more strictly confined to the productions of the wood engraver. Impressions from copper-plates only are properly called _plates_; though it is not unusual for persons who profess to review productions of art, to speak of a book containing, perhaps, a number of indifferent woodcuts, as “a work embellished with a profusion of the _most charming plates_ on wood;” thus affording to every one who is in the least acquainted with the art at once a specimen of their taste and their knowledge.

[Footnote I-3: Towards the close of the seventeenth century we
find books “adorned with _sculptures_ by a curious hand;” about
1730 we find them “ornamented with _cuts_;” at present they are
“illustrated with _engravings_.”]

Independent of the difference of the material on which copper-plate engraving and wood engraving are executed, the grand distinction between the two arts is, that the engraver on copper corrodes by means of aqua-fortis, or cuts out with the burin or dry-point, the lines, stipplings, and hatchings from which his impression is to be produced; while, on the contrary, the wood engraver effects his purpose by cutting away those parts which are to appear white or colourless, thus leaving the lines which produce the impression prominent.

In printing from a copper or steel plate, which is previously warmed by being placed above a charcoal fire, the ink or colouring matter is rubbed into the lines or incisions by means of a kind of ball formed of woollen cloth; and when the lines are thus sufficiently charged with ink, the surface of the plate is first wiped with a piece of rag, and is then further cleaned and smoothed by the fleshy part of the palm of the hand, slightly touched with whitening, being once or twice passed rather quickly and lightly over it. The plate thus prepared is covered with the paper intended to receive the engraving, and is subjected to the action of the rolling or copper-plate printer’s press; and the impression is obtained by the paper being pressed _into_ the inked incisions.

As the lines of an engraved block of wood are prominent or in relief, while those of a copper-plate are, as has been previously explained, _intagliate_ or hollowed, the mode of taking an impression from the former is precisely the reverse of that which has just been described. The usual mode of taking impressions from an engraved block of wood is by means of the printing-press, either from the block separately, or wedged up in a _chase_ with types. The block is inked by being beat with a roller on the surface, in the same manner as type; and the paper being turned over upon it from the _tympan_, it is then run in under the _platen_; which being acted on by the lever, presses the paper _on to_ the raised lines of the block, and thus produces the impression. Impressions from wood are thus obtained by the _on-pression_ of the paper against the raised or prominent lines; while impressions from copper-plates are obtained by the _in-pression_ of the paper into hollowed ones. In consequence of this difference in the process, the inked lines impressed on paper from a copper-plate appear prominent when viewed direct; while the lines communicated from an engraved wood-block are indented in the front of the impression, and appear raised at the back.

The above impressions--the one from a wood-block, and the other from an etched copper-plate--will perhaps render what has been already said, explanatory of the difference between copper-plate printing from hollowed lines, and _surface printing_ by means of the common press from prominent lines, still more intelligible. The subject is a representation of the copper-plate or rolling press.

Both the preceding impressions are produced in the same manner by means of the common printing-press. One is from wood; the other, where the white lines are seen on a black ground, is from copper;--the hollowed lines, which in copper-plate printing yield the impression, receiving no ink from the printer’s balls or rollers; while the surface, which in copper-plate printing is wiped clean after the lines are filled with ink, is perfectly covered with it. It is, therefore, evident, that if this etching were printed in the same manner as other copper-plates, the impression would be a fac-simile of the one from wood. It has been judged necessary to be thus minute in explaining the difference between copper-plate and wood engraving, as the difference in the mode of obtaining impressions does not appear to have been previously pointed out with sufficient precision.

As it does not come within the scope of the present work to inquire into the origin of sculpture generally, I shall not here venture to give an opinion whether the art was invented by ADAM or his good angel RAZIEL, or whether it was introduced at a subsequent period by TUBAL-CAIN, NOAH, TRISMEGISTUS, ZOROASTER, or MOSES. Those who feel interested in such remote speculations will find the “authorities” in the second chapter of Evelyn’s “Sculptura.”

Without, therefore, inquiring when or by whom the art of engraving for the purpose of producing impressions was invented, I shall endeavour to show that such an art, however rude, was known at a very early period; and that it continued to be practised in Europe, though to a very limited extent, from an age anterior to the birth of Christ, to the year 1400. In the fifteenth century, its principles appear to have been more generally applied;--first, to the simple cutting of figures on wood for the purpose of being impressed on paper; next, to cutting figures and explanatory text on the same block, and then entire pages of text without figures, till the “ARS GRAPHICA ET IMPRESSORIA” attained its perfection in the discovery of PRINTING by means of movable fusile types.[I-4]

[Footnote I-4: Astle on the Origin and Progress of Writing,
p. 215, 2nd edit.]

At a very early period stamps of wood, having hieroglyphic characters engraved on them, were used in Egypt for the purpose of producing impressions on bricks, and on other articles made of clay. This fact, which might have been inferred from the ancient bricks and fragments of earthenware containing characters evidently communicated by means of a stamp, has been established by the discovery of several of those wooden stamps, of undoubted antiquity, in the tombs at Thebes, Meroe, and other places. The following cuts represent the face and the back of one of the most perfect of those stamps, which was found in a tomb at Thebes, and has recently been brought to this country by Edward William Lane, Esq.[I-5]

[Footnote I-5: Author of “An Account of the Manners and Customs of
the Modern Egyptians, written in Egypt during the years 1833, ’34,
and ’35.”]

The original stamp is made of the same kind of wood as the mummy chests, and has an arched handle at the back, cut out of the same piece of wood as the face. It is of an oblong figure, with the ends rounded off; five inches long, two inches and a quarter broad, and half an inch thick. The hieroglyphic characters on its face are rudely cut in _intaglio_, so that their impression on clay would be in relief; and if printed in the same manner as the preceding copy, would present the same appearance,--that is, the characters which are cut into the wood, would appear white on a black ground. The phonetic power of the hieroglyphics on the face of the stamp may be represented respectively by the letters, A, M, N, F, T, P, T, H, M; and the vowels being supplied, as in reading Hebrew without points, we have the words, “Amonophtep, Thmei-mai,”--“Amonoph, beloved of truth.”[I-6] The name is supposed to be that of Amonoph or Amenoph the First, the second king of the eighteenth dynasty, who, according to the best authorities, was contemporary with Moses, and reigned in Egypt previous to the departure of the Israelites. There are two ancient Egyptian bricks in the British Museum on which the impression of a similar stamp is quite distinct; and there are also several articles of burnt clay, of an elongated conical figure, and about nine inches long, which have their broader extremities impressed with hieroglyphics in a similar manner. There is also in the same collection a wooden stamp, of a larger size than that belonging to Mr. Lane, but not in so perfect a condition. Several ancient Etruscan terra-cottas and fragments of earthenware have been discovered, on which there are alphabetic characters, evidently impressed from a stamp, which was probably of wood. In the time of Pliny terra-cottas thus impressed were called Typi.

[Footnote I-6: On a mummy in the royal collection at Paris, the
six first characters of this stamp occur. Champollion reads them,
“Amenoftep,” or “Amonaftep.” He supposes the name to be that of
Amonoph the First; and says that it signifies “approuvé par
Ammon.”--Précis du Système Hiéroglyphique. Planches et
Explication, p. 20, No. 161.]

In the British Museum are several bricks which have been found on the site of ancient Babylon. They are larger than our bricks, and somewhat different in form, being about twelve inches square and three inches thick. They appear to have been made of a kind of muddy clay with which portions of chopped straw have been mixed to cause it to bind; and their general appearance and colour, which is like that of a common brick before it is burnt, plainly enough indicate that they have not been hardened by fire, but by exposure to the sun. About the middle of their broadest surface, they are impressed with certain characters which have evidently been indented when the brick was in a soft state. The characters are indented,--that is, they are such as would be produced by pressing a wood-block with raised lines upon a mass of soft clay; and were such a block printed on paper in the usual manner of wood-cuts, the impression would be similar to the preceding one, which has been copied, on a reduced scale, from one of the bricks above noticed. The characters have been variously described as cuneiform or wedge-shaped, arrow-headed, javelin-headed, or nail-headed; but their meaning has not hitherto been deciphered.

Amphoræ, lamps, tiles, and various domestic utensils, formed of clay, and of Roman workmanship, are found impressed with letters, which in some cases are supposed to denote the potter’s name, and in others the contents of the vessel, or the name of the owner. On the tiles,--of which there are specimens in the British Museum,--the letters are commonly inscribed in a circle, and appear raised; thus showing that the stamp had been hollowed, or engraved in intaglio, in a manner similar to a wooden butter-print. In a book entitled “Ælia Lælia Crispis non nata resurgens,” by C. C. Malvasia, 4to. Bologna, 1683, are several engravings on wood of such tiles, found in the neighbourhood of Rome, and communicated to the author by Fabretti, who, in the seventh chapter of his own work,[I-7] has given some account of the “figlinarum signa,”--the stamps of the ancient potters and tile-makers.

[Footnote I-7: Inscriptionum Explicatio, fol. Romæ, 1699.]

The stamp from which the following cut has been copied is preserved in the British Museum. It is of brass, and the letters are in relief and reversed; so that if it were inked from a printer’s ball and stamped on paper, an impression would be produced precisely the same as that which is here given.

It would be difficult now to ascertain why this stamp should be marked with the word LAR, which signifies a household god, or the image of the supposed tutelary genius of a house; but, without much stretch of imagination, we may easily conceive how appropriate such an inscription would be impressed on an amphora or large wine-vessel, sealed and set apart on the birth of an heir, and to be kept sacred--inviolate as the household gods--till the young Roman assumed the “toga virilis,” or arrived at years of maturity. That vessels containing wine were kept for many years, we learn from Horace and Petronius;[I-8]

[Footnote I-8: “O nata mecum consule Manlio!” says Horace,
addressing an amphora of wine as old as himself; and Petronius
mentions some choice Falernian which had attained the ripe age of
a hundred: “Statim allatæ sunt amphoræ vitreæ diligenter gypsatæ,
quarum in cervicibus pittacia erant affixa, cum hoc titulo:
_Falernum Opimianum annorum centum_.” _Pittacia_ were small
labels--schedulæ breves--attached to the necks of wine-vessels,
and on which were marked the name and age of the wine.]

----Prome reconditum,
Lyde, strenua, Cæcubum,
Munitæque adhibe vim sapientiæ.
Inclinare meridiem
Sentis: ac veluti stet volucris dies,
Parcis deripere horreo
Cessantem Bibuli Consulis amphoram.

_Carmin._ lib. III. xxviii.

“Quickly produce, Lyde, the hoarded Cæcuban, and make an attack
upon wisdom, ever on her guard. You perceive the noontide is on its
decline; and yet, as if the fleeting day stood still, you delay to
bring out of the store-house the loitering cask, (that bears its
date) from the Consul Bibulus.”--_Smart’s Translation._

Mr. Ottley, in his “Inquiry into the Origin and Early History of Engraving,” pages 57 and 58, makes a distinction between _impression_ where the characters impressed are produced by “_a change of form_”--meaning where they are either indented in the substance impressed, or raised upon it in relief--and _impression_ where the characters are produced by _colour_; and requires evidence that the ancients ever used stamps “charged with ink or some other tint, for the purpose of stamping paper, parchment, or other substances, little or not at all capable of indentation.”

It certainly would be very difficult, if not impossible, to produce a piece of paper, parchment, or cloth of the age of the Romans impressed with letters in ink or other colouring matter; but the existence of such stamps as the preceding,--and there are others in the British Museum of the same kind, containing more letters and of a smaller size,--renders it very probable that they were used for the purpose of marking cloth, paper, and similar substances, with ink, as well as for being impressed in wax or clay.

Von Murr, in an article in his Journal, on the Art of Wood Engraving, gives a copy from a similar bronze stamp, in Praun’s Museum, with the inscription “GALLIANI,” which he considers as most distinctly proving that the Romans had nearly arrived at the arts of wood engraving and book printing. He adds: “Letters cut on wood they certainly had, and very likely grotesques and figures also, the hint of which their artists might readily obtain from the coloured stuffs which were frequently presented by Indian ambassadors to the emperors.”[I-9]

[Footnote I-9: Journal zur Kunstgeschichte, 2 Theil, S. 81. By
grotesque--“Laubwerk”--ornamental foliage is here
meant;--_grot_-esque, bower-work,--not caricatures.]

At page 90 of Singer’s “Researches into the History of Playing-Cards” are impressions copied from stamps similar to the preceding; which stamps the author considers as affording “examples of such a near approach to the art of printing as first practised, that it is truly extraordinary there is no remaining evidence of its having been exercised by them;--unless we suppose that they were acquainted with it, and did not choose to adopt it from reasons of state policy.” It is just as extraordinary that the Greek who employed the expansive force of steam in the Ælopile to blow the fire did not invent Newcomen’s engine;--unless, indeed, we suppose that the construction of such an engine was perfectly known at Syracuse, but that the government there did not choose to adopt it from motives of “state policy.” It was not, however, a reason of “state policy” which caused the Roman cavalry to ride without stirrups, or the windows of the palace of Augustus to remain unglazed.

The following impressions are also copied from two other brass stamps, preserved in the collection of Roman antiquities in the British Museum.

As the letters in the originals are hollowed or cut into the metal, they would, if impressed on clay or soft wax, appear raised or in relief; and if inked and impressed on paper or on white cloth, they would present the same appearance that they do here--white on a black ground. Not being able to explain the letters on these stamps, further than that the first may be the dative case of a proper name Ovirillius, and indicate that property so marked belonged to such a person, I leave them, as Francis Moore, physician, leaves the hieroglyphic in his Almanack,--“to time and the curious to construe.”

Lambinet, in his “Recherches sur l’Origine de l’Imprimerie,” gives an account of two stone stamps of the form of small tablets, the letters of which were cut in _intaglio_ and reverse, similar to the two of which impressions are above given. They were found in 1808, near the village of Nais, in the department of the Meuse; and as the letters, being in reverse, could not be made out, the owner of the tablets sent them to the Celtic Society of Paris, where M. Dulaure, to whose examination they were submitted, was of opinion that they were a kind of matrices or hollow stamps, intended to be applied to soft substances or such as were in a state of fusion. He thought they were stamps for vessels containing medical compositions; and if his reading of one of the inscriptions be correct, the practice of stamping the name of a quack and the nature of his remedy, in relief on the side of an ointment-pot or a bottle, is of high antiquity. The letters

Q. JUN. TAURI. ANODY.
NUM. AD OMN. LIPP.

M. Dulaure explains thus: _Quinti Junii Tauridi anodynum ad omnes lippas_;[I-10] an inscription which is almost literally rendered by the title of a specific still known in the neighbourhood of Newcastle-on-Tyne, “_Dr. Dud’s lotion, good for sore eyes_.”

[Footnote I-10: M. Dulaure’s latinity is bad. “_Lippas_” certainly
is not the word. His translation is, “Remède anodin de Quintus
Junius Tauridus, pour _tous les maux_ d’yeux.” Other stone stamps,
supposed to have been used by oculists to mark the vessels
containing their medicaments, were discovered and explained long
before M. Dulaure published his interpretation. See “WALCHII
Antiquitates Medicæ Selectæ, Jenæ, 1772,” Num. 1 and 2, referred
to by Von Murr.]

Besides such stamps as have already been described, the ancients used brands, both figured and lettered, with which, when heated, they marked their horses, sheep, and cattle, as well as criminals, captives, and refractory or runaway slaves.

The Athenians, according to Suidas, marked their Samian captives with the figure of an owl; while Athenians captured by the Samians were marked with the figure of a galley, and by the Syracusans with the figure of a horse. The husbandman at his leisure time, as we are informed by Virgil, in the first book of the Georgics,

“Aut pecori signa, aut numeros impressit acervis;”

and from the third book we learn that the operation was performed by branding:

“Continuoque notas et nomina gentis _inurunt_.”[I-11]

[Footnote I-11: HERMANNUS HUGO, De prima Origine Scribendi, cap.
xix. De Notis Servilibus, et cap. xx. De Notis pecudum. A further
account of the ancient _stigmata_, and of the manner in which
slaves were marked, is to be found in PIGNORIUS, De Servis.]

* * *

Such brands as those above noticed, commonly known by the name of _cauteria_ or _stigmata_, were also used for similar purposes during the middle ages; and the practice, which has not been very long obsolete, of burning homicides in the hand, and vagabonds and “sturdy beggars” on the breast, face, or shoulder, affords an example of the employment of the brand in the criminal jurisprudence of our own country. By the 1st Edward VI. cap. 3, it was enacted, that whosoever, man or woman, not being lame or impotent, nor so aged or diseased that he or she could not work, should be convicted of loitering or idle wandering by the highway-side, or in the streets, like a servant wanting a master, or a beggar, he or she was to be marked with a hot iron on the breast with the letter V [for Vagabond], and adjudged to the person bringing him or her before a justice to be his slave for two years; and if such adjudged slave should run away, he or she, upon being taken and convicted, was to be marked on the forehead, or on the ball of the cheek, with the letter S [for Slave], and adjudged to be the said master’s slave for ever. By the 1st of James I. cap. 7, it was also enacted, that such as were to be deemed “rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars” by the 39th of Elizabeth, cap. 4, being convicted at the sessions and found to be incorrigible, were to be branded in the left shoulder with a hot iron, of the breadth of an English shilling, marked with a great Roman R [for Rogue]; such branding upon the shoulder to be so thoroughly burned and set upon the skin and flesh, that the said letter R should be seen and remain for a perpetual mark upon such rogue during the remainder of his life.[I-12]

[Footnote I-12: History of the Poor Laws, 8vo. 1764, by Richard
Burn, LL.D., who in his observations on such punishments says: “It
is affecting to humanity to observe the various methods that have
been invented for the _punishment_ of vagrants; none of all which
wrought the desired effect . . . . . . This part of our history
looks like the history of the savages in America. Almost all
severities have been exercised against vagrants, except
scalping.”]

From a passage in Quintilian we learn that the Romans were acquainted with the method of _tracing_ letters, by means of a piece of thin wood in which the characters were pierced or cut through, on a principle similar to that on which the present art of _stencilling_ is founded. He is speaking of teaching boys to write, and the passage referred to may be thus translated: “When the boy shall have entered upon _joining-hand_, it will be useful for him to have a _copy-head_ of wood in which the letters are well cut, that through its furrows, as it were, he may trace the characters with his _style_. He will not thus be liable to make slips as on the wax [alone], for he will be confined by the boundary of the letters, and neither will he be able to deviate from his text. By thus more rapidly and frequently following a definite outline, his hand will become _set_, without his requiring any assistance from the master to guide it.”[I-13]

[Footnote I-13: “Quum puer jam ductus sequi cœperit, non inutile
erit, litteras tabellæ quam optime insculpi, ut per illos, velut
sulcos, ducatur stylus. Nam neque errabit, quemadmodum in ceris,
continebitur enim utrimque marginibus, neque extra præscriptum
poterit egredi; et celerius ac sæpius sequendo certa vestigia
firmabit articulos, neque egebit adjutorio manum suam, manu
superimposita, regentis.” Quintiliani Instit. Orator., lib.
i. cap. I.]

A thin stencil-plate of copper, having the following letters _cut out_ of it,

DN CONSTAN
TIO AVG SEM
PER VICTORI

was received, together with some rare coins, from Italy by Tristan, author of “Commentaires Historiques, Paris, 1657,” who gave a copy of it at page 68 of the third volume of that work. The letters thus formed, “ex nulla materia,”[I-14] might be traced on paper by means of a pen, or with a small brush, charged with body-colour, as stencillers _slap-dash_ rooms through their pasteboard patterns, or dipped in ink in the same manner as many shopkeepers now, through similar thin copper-plates, mark the prices of their wares, or their own name and address on the paper in which such wares are wrapped.

[Footnote I-14: Prosper Marchand, at page 9 of his “Histoire de
l’Imprimerie,” gives the following title of a book in 8vo. which
was wholly, both text and figures, executed in this manner, _percé
au jour_, in vellum: “Liber Passionis Domini Nostri Jesu Christi,
cum figuris et characteribus _ex nulla materia_ compositis.” He
states that in 1640 it was in the collection of Albert Henry,
Prince de Ligne, and quotes a description of it from Anton.
Sanderi Bibliotheca Belgica Manuscripta, parte ii. p. 1.]

In the sixth century it appears, from Procopius, that the Emperor Justin I. made use of a tablet of wood pierced or cut in a similar manner, through which he traced in red ink, the imperial colour, his signature, consisting of the first four letters of his name. It is also stated that Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths, the contemporary of Justin, used after the same manner to sign the first four letters of his name through a plate of gold;[I-15] and in Peringskiold’s edition of the Life of Theodoric, the annexed is given as the monogram[I-16] of that monarch. The authenticity of this account has, however, been questioned, as Cochlæus, who died in 1552, cites no ancient authority for the fact.

[Footnote I-15: “Rex Theodoricus inliteratus erat, et sic obruto
sensu ut in decem annos regni sui quatuor literas subscriptionis
edicti sui discere nullatenus potuisset. De qua re laminam auream
jussit interrasilem tieri quatuor literas regis habentem, unde ut
si subscribere voluisset, posita lamina super chartam, per eam
pennam duceret et subscriptio ejus tantum videretur.”--Vita
Theodorici Regis Ostrogothorum et Italiæ, autore Joanne Cochlæo;
cum additamentis Joannis Peringskiold, 4to. Stockholmiæ, 1699,
p. 199.]

[Footnote I-16: A monogram, properly, consists of all, or the
principal letters of a name, combined in such a manner that the
whole appear but as one _character_; a portion of one letter being
understood to represent another, two being united to form a third,
and so on.]

It has been asserted by Mabillon, (Diplom. lib. ii. cap. 10,) that Charlemagne first introduced the practice of signing documents with a monogram, either traced with a pen by means of a thin tablet of gold, ivory, or wood, or impressed with an inked stamp, having the characters in relief, in a manner similar to that in which letters are stamped at the Post-office.[I-17] Ducange, however, states that this mode of signing documents is of greater antiquity, and he gives a copy of the monogram of the Pope Adrian I. who was elected to the see of Rome in 774, and died in 795. The annexed monogram of Charlemagne has been copied from Peringskiold, “Annotationes in Vitam Theodorici,” p. 584; it is also given in Ducange’s Glossary, and in the “Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique.”

[Footnote I-17: Mabillon’s opinion is founded on the following
passage in the Life of Charlemagne, by his secretary Eginhard:
“_Ut scilicet imperitiam hanc [scribendi] honesto ritu suppleret,
monogrammatis usum loco proprii signi invexit_.”]

The monogram, either stencilled or stamped, consisted of a combination of the letters of the person’s name, a fanciful character, or the figure of a cross,[I-18] accompanied with a peculiar kind of flourish, called by French writers on diplomatics _parafe_ or _ruche_. This mode of signing appears to have been common in most nations of Europe during the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries; and it was practised by nobles and the higher orders of the clergy, as well as by kings. It continued to be used by the kings of France to the time of Philip III. and by the Spanish monarchs to a much later period. It also appears to have been adopted by some of the Saxon kings of England; and the authors of the “Nouveau Traité de Diplomatique” say that they had seen similar marks produced by a stamp of William the Conqueror, when Duke of Normandy. We have had a recent instance of the use of the _stampilla_, as it is called by diplomatists, in affixing the royal signature. During the illness of George IV. in 1830, a silver stamp, containing a fac-simile of the king’s sign-manual, was executed by Wyon, which was stamped on documents requiring the royal signature, by commissioners, in his Majesty’s presence. A similar stamp was used during the last illness of Henry VIII. for the purpose of affixing the royal signature. The king’s warrant empowering commissioners to use the stamp may be seen in Rymer’s Fœdera, vol. xv. p. 101, anno 1546. It is believed that the warrant which sent the poet Surrey to the scaffold was signed with this stamp, and not with Henry’s own hand.

[Footnote I-18: “Triplex cruces exarandi modus: 1. penna sive
calamo; 2. lamina interrasili; 3. stampilla sive typo anaglyptico.
Laminæ interrasiles ex auro aliove metallo, vel ex ebore etiam
confectæ sunt, atque ita perforatæ, ut hiatus, pro re nata,
crucium cet. speciem præ se ferrent, per quos velut sulcos,
calamus sive penna ducebatur. Stampillæ vero ita sculptæ sunt, ut
figuræ superficiem eminerent, quæ deinde atramento tinctæ sunt,
chartæque impressæ.”--Gatterer, Elementa Artis Diplomaticæ, § 264,
De Staurologia.]

In Sempère’s “History of the Cortes of Spain,” several examples are given of the use of fanciful monograms in that country at an early period, and which were probably introduced by its Gothic invaders. That such marks were stamped is almost certain; for the first, which is that of Gundisalvo Tellez, affixed to a charter of the date of 840, is the same as the “sign” which was affixed by his widow, Flamula, when she granted certain property to the abbot and monks of Cardeña for the good of her deceased husband’s soul. The second, which is of the date of 886, was used both by the abbot Ovecus, and Peter his nephew; and the third was used by all the four children of one Ordoño, as their “sign” to a charter of donation executed in 1018. The fourth mark is a Runic cypher, copied from an ancient Icelandic manuscript, and given by Peringskiold in his “Annotations on the Life of Theodoric:” it is not given here as being from a stencil or a stamp, but that it may be compared with the apparently Gothic monograms used in Spain.

“In their inscriptions, and in the rubrics of their books,” says a writer in the Edinburgh Review[I-19] “the Spanish Goths, like the Romans of the Lower Empire, were fond of using combined capitals--of _monogrammatising_. This mode of writing is now common in Spain, on the sign-boards and on the shop-fronts, where it has retained its place in defiance of the canons of the council [of Leon], The Goths, however, retained a truly _Gothic_ custom in their writings. The Spanish Goth sometimes subscribed his name; or he drew a _monogram_ like the Roman emperors, or the sign of the _cross_ like the Saxon; but not unfrequently he affixed strange and fanciful marks to the deed or charter, bearing a close resemblance to the Runic or magical knots of which so many have been engraved by Peringskiold, and other northern antiquaries.”

[Footnote I-19: No. lxi. p. 108, where the preceding Gothic marks,
with the explanation of them, are given.]

To the tenth or the eleventh century are also to be referred certain small silver coins--“something between counters and money,” as is observed by Pinkerton--which are impressed, on one side only, with a kind of Runic monogram. They are formed of very thin pieces of silver; and it has been supposed that the impression was produced from wooden dies. They are known to collectors as “_nummi bracteati_”--tinsel money; and Pinkerton, mistaking the Runic character for the Christian cross, says that “most of them are ecclesiastic.” He is perhaps nearer the truth when he adds that they “belong to the tenth century, and are commonly found in Germany, and the northern kingdoms of Sweden and Denmark.”[I-20] The four following copies from the original coins in the Brennerian collection are given by Peringskiold, in his “Annotations on the Life of Theodoric,” previously referred to. The characters on the three first he reads as the letters EIR, OIR, and AIR, respectively, and considers them to be intended to represent the name of Eric the Victorious. The characters on the fourth he reads as EIM, and applies them to Emund Annosus, the nephew of Eric the Victorious, who succeeded to the Sueo-Gothic throne in 1051; about which time, through the influence of the monks, the ancient Runic characters were exchanged for Roman.

[Footnote I-20: Essay on Medals, pp. 144, 145. Edit. 1784.]

The notaries of succeeding times, who on their admission were required to use a distinctive sign or notarial mark in witnessing an instrument, continued occasionally to employ the stencil in affixing their “sign;” although their use of the stamp for that purpose appears to have been more general. In some of those marks or stamps the name of the notary does not appear, and in others a small space is left in order that it might afterwards be inserted with a pen. The annexed monogram was the official mark of an Italian notary, Nicolaus Ferenterius, who lived in 1236.[I-21]

[Footnote I-21: It it given by Gatterer in his “Elementa Artis
Diplomaticæ,” p. 166; [4to. Gottingæ, 1765;] who refers to
Muratori, Antiquit. Italiæ Medii Ævi, t. vi. p. 9.]

The three following cuts represent impressions of German notarial stamps. The first is that of Jacobus Arnaldus, 1345; the second that of Johannes Meynersen, 1435; and the third that of Johannes Calvis, 1521.[I-22]

[Footnote I-22: These stamps are copied from “D. E. Baringii
Clavis Diplomatica,” 4to. Hanoveræ, 1754. There is a work
expressly treating of the use of the Diplomatic Stamp--J. C.
C. Oelrichs de Stampilla Diplomatica, folio, Wismariæ, 1762, which
I have not been able to obtain a sight of.]

Many of the merchants’-marks of our own country, which so frequently appear on stained glass windows, monumental brasses, and tombstones in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, bear a considerable likeness to the ancient Runic monograms, from which it is not unlikely that they were originally derived. The English trader was accustomed to place his mark as his “sign” in his shop-front in the same manner as the Spaniard did his monogram: if he was a wool-stapler, he stamped it on his packs; or if a fish-curer, it was branded on the end of his casks. If he built himself a new house, his mark was frequently placed between his initials over the principal door-way, or over the fireplace of the hall; if he made a gift to a church or a chapel, his mark was emblazoned on the windows beside the knight’s or the nobleman’s shield of arms; and when he died, his mark was cut upon his tomb. Of the following merchants’-marks, the first is that of Adam de Walsokne, who died in 1349; the second that of Edmund Pepyr, who died in 1483; those two marks are from their tombs in St. Margaret’s, Lynn; and the third is from a window in the same church.[I-23]

[Footnote I-23: The marks here given are copied from Mackarel’s
History of King’s Lynn, 8vo. 1737. In the same book there are
upwards of thirty more of a similar kind, from the middle of the
fourteenth century to the latter end of the seventeenth. Perhaps
no two counties in the kingdom afford so many examples of
merchants’-marks and monumental brasses as Norfolk and Suffolk.]

In Pierce Ploughman’s Creed, written after the death of Wickliffe, which happened in 1384, and consequently more modern than many of Chaucer’s poems, merchants’-marks are thus mentioned in the description of a window of a Dominican convent:

“Wide windows y-wrought, y-written full thick,
Shining with shapen shields, to shewen about,
With _marks of merchants_, y-meddled between,
Mo than twenty and two, twice y-numbered.[I-24]”

[Footnote I-24: “_Y-meddled_ is mixed; the marks of merchants are
put in opposition to the ‘shapen shields,’ because merchants had
no coats of arms.”--Specimens of the Early English Poets, by
George Ellis, Esq. vol. i. p. 163. Edit. 1811.]

Having thus endeavoured to prove by a continuous chain of evidence that the principle of producing impressions from raised lines was known, and practised, at a very early period; and that it was applied for the purpose of impressing letters and other characters on paper, though perhaps confined to signatures only, long previous to 1423,--which is the earliest date that has been discovered on a wood-cut, in the modern sense of the word, impressed on paper, and accompanied with explanatory words cut on the same block;[I-25] and having shown that the principle of stencilling--the manner in which the above-named cut is coloured[I-26]--was also known in the middle ages; it appears requisite, next to briefly notice the contemporary existence of the cognate arts of die-sinking, seal-cutting, and engraving on brass, and afterwards to examine the grounds of certain speculations on the introduction and early practice of wood-engraving and block-printing in Europe.

[Footnote I-25: “Till lately this was the earliest dated evidence
of block printing known; but there has just been discovered at
Malines, and now deposited at Brussels, a woodcut of similar
character, but assumed to be Dutch or Flemish, dated MCCCCXVIII.;
and though there seems no reason to doubt the genuineness of the
cut, it is currently asserted that the date bears evidence of
having been tampered with.”--Extract from Bohn’s Lecture on
Printing.]

[Footnote I-26: The woodcut referred to is that of St.
Christopher, discovered by Heineken, pasted within the cover of a
book in the Monastery of Buxheim, near Memmingen, in Suabia. It is
of a folio size, and is coloured by means of stencils; a practice
which appears to have been adopted at an early part of the
fifteenth century by the German Formschneiders and Briefmalers,
literally, figure-cutters and cardpainters, to colour their cuts
and their cards. The St. Christopher is now in Earl Spencer’s
library. (See a reduced copy of it at p. 46).]

Concerning the first invention of stamping letters and figures upon coins, and the name of the inventor, it is fruitless to inquire, as the origin of the art is lost in the remoteness of antiquity. “Leaving these uncertainties,” says Pinkerton, in his Essay on Medals, “we know from respectable authorities that the first money coined in Greece was that struck in the island of Ægina, by Phidon king of Argos. His reign is fixed by the Arundelian marbles to an era correspondent to the 885th year before Christ; but whether he derived this art from Lydia or any other source we are not told.” About three hundred years before the birth of Christ, the art of coining, so far as relates to the beauty of the heads impressed, appears to have attained its perfection in Greece;--we may indeed say its perfection generally, for the specimens which were then produced in that country remain unsurpassed by modern art. Under the Roman emperors the art never seems to have attained so high a degree of perfection as it did in Greece; though several of the coins of Hadrian, probably executed by Greek artists, display great beauty of design and execution. The art of coining, with the rest of the ornamental arts, declined with the empire; and, on its final subversion in Italy, the coins of its rulers were scarcely superior to those which were subsequently minted in England, Germany, and France, during the darkest period of the middle ages.

The art of coining money, however rude in design and imperfect in its mode of stamping the impression, which was by repeated blows with a hammer, was practised from the twelfth to the sixteenth century in a greater number of places than at present; for many of the more powerful bishops and nobles assumed or extorted the right of coining money as well as the king; and in our own country the archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the bishop of Durham, exercised the right of coinage till the Reformation; and local mints for coining the king’s money were occasionally fixed at Norwich, Chester, York, St. Edmundsbury, Newcastle-on-Tyne, and other places. Independent of those establishments for the coining of _money_, almost every abbey struck its own _jettons_ or counters; which were thin pieces of copper, commonly impressed with a pious legend, and used in _casting up accounts_, but which the general introduction of the numerals now in use, and an improved system of arithmetic, have rendered unnecessary. As such mints were at least as numerous in France and Germany as in our own country, Scheffer, the partner of Faust, when he conceived the idea of casting letters from matrices formed by punches, would have little difficulty in finding a workman to assist him in carrying his plans into execution. “The art of impressing legends on coins,” says Astle in his Account of the Origin and Progress of writing, “is nothing more than the art of printing on medals.” That the art of casting letters in relief, though not separately, and most likely from a mould of sand, was known to the Romans, is evident from the names of the emperors Domitian and Hadrian on some pigs of lead in the British Museum; and that it was practised during the middle and succeeding ages, we have ample testimony from the inscriptions on our ancient bells.[I-27]

[Footnote I-27: The small and thick brass coins, struck by Grecian
cities under the Roman emperors, and known to collectors as
“colonial Greek,” appear to have been cast, and moulds for such a
purpose have been discovered in our own country.]

In the century immediately preceding 1423, the date of the wood-cut of St. Christopher, the use of seals, for the purpose of authenticating documents by their impression on wax, was general throughout Europe; kings, nobles, bishops, abbots, and all who “came of _gentle_ blood,” with corporations, lay and clerical, all had seals. They were mostly of brass, for the art of engraving on precious stones does not appear to have been at that time revived, with the letters and device cut or cast in hollow--_en creux_--on the face of the seal, in order that the impression might appear raised. The workmanship of many of those seals, and more especially of some of the conventional ones, where figures of saints and a view of the abbey are introduced, displays no mean degree of skill. Looking on such specimens of the graver’s art, and bearing in mind the character of many of the drawings which are to be seen in the missals and other manuscripts of the fourteenth century and of the early part of the fifteenth, we need no longer be surprised that the cuts of the earliest block-books should be so well executed.

The art of engraving on copper and other metals, though not with the intention of taking impressions on paper, is of great antiquity. In the late Mr. Salt’s collection of Egyptian antiquities there was a small axe, probably a model, the head of which was formed of sheet-copper, and was tied, or rather bandaged, to the helve with slips of cloth. There were certain characters engraved upon the head in such a manner that if it were inked and submitted to the action of the rolling-press, impressions would be obtained as from a modern copper-plate. The axe, with other models of a carpenter’s tools, also of copper, was found in a tomb in Egypt, where it must have been deposited at a very early period. That the ancient Greeks and Romans were accustomed to engrave on copper and other metals in a similar manner, is evident from engraved pateræ and other ornamental works executed by people of those nations. Though no ancient writer makes mention of the art of engraving being employed for the purpose of producing impressions on paper, yet it has been conjectured by De Pauw, from a passage in Pliny,[I-28] that such an art was invented by Varro for the purpose of multiplying the portraits of eminent men. “No Greek,” says De Pauw, speaking of engraving, “has the least right to claim this invention, which belongs exclusively to Varro, as is expressed by Pliny in no equivocal terms, when he calls this method _inventum Varronis_. Engraved plates were employed which gave the profile and the principal traits of the figures, to which the appropriate colours and the shadows were afterwards added with the pencil. A woman, originally of Cyzica, but then settled in Italy, excelled all others in the talent of illumining such kind of prints, which were inserted by Varro in a large work of his entitled ‘_Imagines_’ or ‘_Hebdomades_,’ which was enriched with seven hundred portraits of distinguished men, copied from their statues and busts. The necessity of exactly repeating each portrait or figure in every copy of the work suggested the idea of multiplying them without much cost, and thus gave birth to an art till then unknown.”[I-29] The grounds, however, of this conjecture are extremely slight, and will not without additional support sustain the superstructure which De Pauw--an “ingenious” guesser, but a superficial inquirer--has so plausibly raised. A prop for this theory has been sought for by men of greater research than the original propounder, but hitherto without success.

[Footnote I-28: “That a strong passion for portraits formerly
existed, is attested both by Atticus, the friend of Cicero, who
wrote a work on this subject, and by M. Varro, who conceived the
very liberal idea of inserting by some means or other, in his
numerous volumes, the portraits of seven hundred individuals; as
he could not bear the idea that all traces of their features
should be lost, or that the lapse of centuries should get the
better of mankind.”--Pliny’s Natural History, Book XXXV. chap.
2.--(Bohn’s Ed. vol. vi. p. 226. M. Deville is of opinion that
these portraits were made in relief upon plates of metal, perhaps
bronze, and coloured with minium, a red tint much esteemed by the
Romans).]

[Footnote I-29: See De Pauw, Recherches Philosophiques sur les
Grecs, t. ii. p. 100. The subject is discussed in Meusel’s “Neue
Miscellaneen von artistischen Inhalts,” part xii. p. 380-387, in
an article, “Sind wirklich die Römer die Erfinder der
Kupferstecherkunst?--Were the Romans truly the inventors of
copper-plate engraving?”--by A. Rode. Böttiger, one of the most
learned and intelligent of all German writers on the fine arts,
and Fea, the editor of Winkleman’s History of Art, do not admit De
Pauw’s conjecture, but decide the question in the negative.]

About the year 1300 we have evidence of monumental brasses, with large figures engraved on them, being fixed on tombs in this country; and it is not unlikely that they were known both here and on the Continent at an earlier period. The best specimens known in this country are such as were in all probability executed previous to 1400. In the succeeding century the figures and ornamental work generally appear to be designed in a worse taste and more carelessly executed; and in the age of Queen Elizabeth the art, such as it was, appears to have reached the lowest point of degradation, the monumental brasses of that reign being generally the worst which are to be met with.

The figures on several of the more ancient brasses are well drawn, and the folds of the drapery in the dresses of the females are, as a painter would say, “well cast;” and the faces occasionally display a considerable degree of correct and elevated expression. Many of the figures are of the size of life, marked with a hold outline well ploughed into the brass, and having the features, armour, and drapery indicated by single lines of greater or less strength as might be required. Attempts at shading are also occasionally to be met with; the effect being produced by means of lines obliquely crossing each other in the manner of cross-hatchings. Whether impressions were ever taken or not from such early brasses by the artists who executed them, it is perhaps now impossible to ascertain; but that they might do so is beyond a doubt, for it is now a common practice, and two immense volumes of impressions taken from monumental brasses, for the late Craven Ord, Esq., are preserved in the print-room of the British Museum.