Chapter II: Progress of Wood Engraving (3)

Of all the block-books, that which is now commonly called “BIBLIA PAUPERUM,”--the Bible of the Poor,--is most frequently referred to as a specimen of that kind of printing from wood-blocks which preceded typography, or printing by means of moveable characters or types. This title, however, has given rise to an error which certain learned bibliographers have without the least examination adopted, and have afterwards given to the public considerably enlarged, at least, if not corrected.[II-54] It has been gravely stated that this book, whose text is in abbreviated Latin, was printed for the use of the _poor_ in an age when even the _rich_ could scarcely read their own language. Manuscripts of the Bible were certainly at that period both scarce and costly, and not many individuals even of high rank were possessed of a copy; but to conclude that the first editions of the so-called “Biblia Pauperum” were engraved and printed for the use of the poor, appears to be about as legitimate an inference as to conclude that, in the present day, the reprints of the Roxburghe club were published for the benefit of the poor who could not afford to purchase the original editions. That a merchant or a wealthy trader might occasionally become the purchaser of “Biblia Pauperum,” I am willing to admit,--though I am of opinion that the book was never expressly intended for the laity;--but that it should be printed for the use of the poor, I cannot bring myself to believe. If the poor of Germany in the fifteenth century had the means of purchasing such books, and were capable of reading them, I can only say that they must have had more money to spare than their descendants, and have been more learned than most of the rich people throughout Europe in the present day. If the accounts which we have of the state of knowledge about 1450 be correct, the monk or friar who could read and expound such a work must have been esteemed as a person of considerable literary attainments.

[Footnote II-54: “It is a manual or kind of Catechism of the
Bible,” says the Rev. T. H. Horne, “for the use of young persons
and of the common people, whence it derives its name _Biblia
Pauperum_,--_the Bible of the Poor_,--who were thus enabled to
acquire, at a comparatively low price, an imperfect knowledge of
some of the events recorded in the Scripture.”--Introduction to
the Critical Study of the Scriptures, vol. ii. p. 224-5. The young
and the poor must have been comparatively learned at that period
to be able to read cramped Latin, when many a priest could
scarcely spell his breviary.]

The name “Biblia Pauperum” was unknown to Schelhorn and Schœpflin, and was not adopted by Meerman. Schelhorn, who was the first that published a fac-simile of one of the pages engraved on wood, gives it no distinctive name; but merely describes it as “a book which contained in text and figures certain histories and prophecies of the Old Testament, which, in the author’s judgment, were figurative of Christ, and of the works performed by him for the salvation of mankind.”[II-55] Schœpflin calls it, “Vaticinia Veteris Testamenti de Christo;”[II-56]--“Prophecies of the Old Testament concerning Christ;” but neither this title, nor the description of Schelhorn, is sufficiently comprehensive; for the book contains not only prophecies and typical figures from the Old Testament, but also passages and subjects selected from the New. The title which Meerman gives to it is more accurately descriptive of the contents: “Figuræ typicæ Veteris atque antitypicæ Novi Testamenti, seu Historia Jesu Christi in figuris;” that is, “Typical figures of the Old Testament and antitypical of the New, or the History of Jesus Christ pictorially represented.”[II-57]

[Footnote II-55: J. G. Schelhorn, Amœnitates Literariæ, tom. iv.
p. 297. 8vo. Francofurt. & Lips. 1730. Lichtenberger, Initia
Typographica, p. 4, says erroneously, that Schelhorn’s fac-simile
was engraved on copper. It is on wood, as Schelhorn himself states
at p. 296.]

[Footnote II-56: J. D. Schœpflin, Vindiciæ Typographicæ, p. 7,
4to. Argentorati, 1760.]

[Footnote II-57: Ger. Meerman, Origines Typographicæ, P. 1,
p. 241. 4to. Hagæ Comit. 1765.]

Heineken appears to have been the first who gave to this book the name “Biblia Pauperum,” as it was in his opinion the most appropriate; “the figures being executed for the purpose of giving a knowledge of the Bible to those who could not afford to purchase a manuscript copy of the Scriptures.”[II-58] This reason for the name is not, however, a good one: for, according to his own statement, the only copy which he ever saw with the title or inscription “Biblia Pauperum,” was a manuscript on vellum of the fourteenth century, in which the figures were drawn and coloured by hand.[II-59] Meerman, however, though without adopting the title, had previously noticed the same manuscript, which in his opinion was as old as the twelfth or thirteenth century. As the word “Pauperum” formed part of the title of the book long before presumed cheap copies were printed from wood-blocks for the use of the poor, it could not be peculiarly appropriate as the title of an illumined manuscript on vellum, which the poor could as little afford to purchase as they could a manuscript copy of the Bible. In whatever manner the term “poor” became connected with the book, it is clear that the name “Biblia Pauperum” was not given to it in consequence of its being printed at a cheap rate for circulation among poor people. It is not indeed likely that its ancient title ever was “Biblia Pauperum;” while, on the contrary, there seems every reason to believe that Heineken had copied an abridged title and thus given currency to an error.

[Footnote II-58: Idée Générale, p. 292, note.]

[Footnote II-59: Camus, speaking of one of those manuscripts
compared with the block-book, observes: “Ce dernier abrégé
méritoit bien le nom de BIBLIA PAUPERUM, par comparison aux
tableaux complets de la Bible que je viens d’indiquer. Des
ouvrages tels que les tableaux complets ne pouvoient être que
BIBLIA DIVITUM.”--Notice d’un Livre imprimé à Bamberg en 1462,
p. 12, note. 4to. Paris, 1800.]

Heineken says that he observed the inscription, “Incipit Biblia Pauperum,” in a manuscript in the library at Wolfenbuttel, written on vellum in a Gothic character, which appeared to be of the fourteenth century. The figures, which were badly designed, were coloured in distemper, and the explanatory text was in Latin rhyme. It is surprising that neither Heineken nor any other bibliographer should have suspected that a word was wanting in the above supposed title, more especially as the word wanting might have been so readily suggested by another work so much resembling the pretended “Biblia Pauperum” that the one has frequently been confounded with the other.[II-60] In the proemium of this other work, which is no other than the “Speculum Salvationis,” the writer expressly states that he has compiled it “propter pauperes predicatores,”--for _poor_ preachers.

+Predictu’ p’hemiu’ hujus libri de conte’tis compilavi,
Et p’pter paup’es p’dicatores hoc apponere curavi;
Qui si forte nequieru’t totum librum sibi co’p’are,
Possu’t ex ipso p’hemio, si sciu’t p’dicare.+

This preface of contents, stating what this book’s about,
For the sake of all _poor preachers_ I have fairly written out;
If the purchase of the book entire should be above their reach,
This preface yet may serve them, if they know but how to preach.

[Footnote II-60: “Entre ces abrégés [de la Bible] on remarque le
SPECULUM HUMANÆ SALVATIONIS et le BIBLIA PAUPERUM. Ces deux
ouvrages ont beaucoup d’affinité entre eux pour le volume, le
choix des histoires, les moralités, la composition des tableaux.
Ils existent en manuscrits dans plusieurs bibliothèques.”--Camus,
Notice d’un Livre, &c. p. 12.]

That the other book might be called “Biblia Pauperum _Predicatorum_,” in consequence of its general use by mendicant preachers, I can readily believe; and no doubt the omission of the word “predicatorum” in the inscription copied by Heineken has given rise to the popular error, that the pretended “Biblia Pauperum” was a kind of cheap pictorial Bible, especially intended for the use of the poor. It is, in fact, a series of “skeleton sermons” ornamented with wood-cuts to warm the preacher’s imagination, and stored with texts to assist his memory. In speaking of this book in future, I shall always refer to it as the “Biblia Pauperum Predicatorum,”--“the Poor Preachers’ Bible;” for the continuance of its former title only tends, in my opinion, to disseminate an error.

Nyerup, who in 1784 published an “Account of such books as were read in schools in Denmark prior to the Reformation,”[II-61] objected to the title “Biblia Pauperum,” as he had seen portions of a manuscript copy in which the drawings were richly coloured. The title which he preferred was BIBLIA TYPICO-HARMONICA. In this objection, however, Camus does not concur: “It is not from the embellishments of a single copy,” he observes, “that we ought to judge of the current price of a book; and, besides, we must not forget to take into consideration the other motives which might suggest the title, ‘Bible of the Poor,’ for we have proofs that other abridgments of greater extent were called ‘Poor men’s books.’ Such is the ‘Biblia Pauperum’ of St. Bonaventure, consisting of extracts for the use of _preachers_, and the ‘Dictionarius Pauperum.’ Of the last the title is explained in the book itself: ‘Incipit summula omnibus _verbi divini seminatoribus pernecessaria_.’” It is surprising that Camus did not perceive that the very titles which he cites militate against the opinion of the “Biblia” being intended for the use of poor _men_. St. Bonaventure’s work, and the Dictionary, which he refers to as instances of “Poor men’s books,” both bear on the very face of them a refutation of his opinion, for in the works themselves it is distinctly stated that they were compiled, not “ad usum pauperum _hominum_;” but “ad usum pauperum _predicatorum_, et _verbi divini seminatorum_:” not for the use of “poor _men_,” but for “poor _preachers_ and _teachers of the divine word_.” Camus has unwittingly supplied a club to batter his own argument to pieces.

[Footnote II-61: “Librorum qui ante Reformationem in scholis Daniæ
legebantur, Notitia. Hafniæ, 1784;” referred to by Camus, Notice
d’un Livre, &c. p. 10.]

Of the “Biblia Pauperum Predicatorum,” there are, according to Heineken, five different editions with the text in Latin. Four of them contain each forty leaves, printed on one side only from wood-blocks by means of friction, and which differ from each other in so trifling a degree, that it is not unlikely that three of them are from the same set of blocks. The other edition,--the fifth described by Heineken--contains fifty leaves, printed in a similar manner, but apparently with the figures designed by a different artist. Besides the above, there are two different editions, also from wood-blocks, with the text in German: one with the date 1470; and the other, 1471 or 1475, for the last numeral appears as like a 1 as a 5. There are also two editions, one Latin, and the other German, with the text printed from moveable types by Albert Pfister, at Bamberg, about 1462.

Without pretending to decide on the priority of the first five editions,--as I have not been able to perceive any sufficient marks from which the order in which they were published might be ascertained,--I shall here give a brief account of a copy of that edition which Heineken ranks as the third. It is in the King’s Library at the British Museum, and was formerly in the collection of Monsieur Gaignat, at whose sale it was bought for George III.

It is a small folio of forty leaves, impressed on one side only, in order that the blank pages might be pasted together, so that two of the printed sides would thus form only one leaf. The order of the first twenty pages is indicated by the letters of the alphabet, from +a+ to +v+, and of the second twenty by the same letters, having as a distinguishing mark a point both before and after them, thus: +. a .+ In that which Heineken considers the first edition, the letters +n+, +o+, +r+, +s+, of the second alphabet, making pages 33, 34, 37, and 38, want those two distinguishing points, which, according to him, are to be found in each of the other three Latin editions of forty pages each. Mr. Ottley has, however, observed that Earl Spencer’s copy wants the points,--on each side of the letters +n+, +o+, +r+, +s+, of the second alphabet,--thus agreeing with that which Heineken calls the first edition, while in all other respects it answers the description which that writer gives of the presumed second. Mr. Ottley says, that Heineken errs in asserting that the want of those points on each side of the said letters is a distinction exclusively belonging to the first edition, since the edition called by him the second is likewise without them.[II-62] In fact, the variations noticed by Heineken are not only insufficient to enable a person to judge of the priority of the editions, but they are such as might with the greatest ease be introduced into a block after a certain number of copies had been taken off. Those which he considers as distinguishing marks might easily be broken away by the burnisher or rubber, and replaced by the insertion of other pieces, differing in a slight degree. From the trifling variations noticed by Heineken[II-63] in the first three editions, it is not unlikely that they were all taken from the same blocks. Each of the triangular ornaments in which he has observed a difference, might easily be re-inserted in the event of its being injured in taking an impression. The tiara of Moses, in page 35, letter +. p .+ would be peculiarly liable to accident in taking an impression by friction, and I am disposed to think that a part of it has been broken off, and that in repairing it a trifling alteration has been made in the ornament on its top. Heineken, noticing the alteration, has considered it as a criterion of two different editions, while in all probability it only marks a trifling variety in copies taken from the same blocks.

[Footnote II-62: Inquiry, vol. i. p. 129.]

[Footnote II-63: Idée Générale, p. 307, 308.]

On each page are four portraits,--two at the top, and two at the bottom,--intended for the prophets, and other holy men, whose writings are cited in the text. The middle part of the page between each pair of portraits consists of three compartments, each of which is occupied with a subject from the Old or the New Testament. In the 14th page, however, letter +o+, two of the compartments--that in the centre, and the adjoining one to the right--are both occupied by the same subject, Christ’s entry into Jerusalem. The greatest portion of the explanatory text is at the top on each side of the uppermost portraits; and on each side of those below there is a Leonine, or rhyming Latin, verse. A similar verse underneath those portraits forms the concluding line of each page. Texts of Scripture, and moral or explanatory sentences, having reference to the subjects in the three compartments, also appear on scrolls. The following cut, which is a reduced copy of the 14th page, letter +k+, will afford a better idea of the arrangement of the subjects, and of the explanatory texts, than any lengthened description.

The whole of this subject--both text and figures--appears intended to inculcate the necessity of restraining appetite. The inscription to the right, at the top, contains a reference to the 3rd chapter of Genesis, wherein there is to be found an account of the temptation and fall of Adam and Eve, who were induced by the Serpent to taste the forbidden fruit. This temptation of our first parents through the medium of the palate, was, as may be gathered from the same inscription, figurative of the temptation of Christ after his fasting forty days in the wilderness, when the Devil came to him and said, “If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.”

In the inscription to the left, reference is made to the 25th chapter of Genesis, as containing an account of Esau, who, in consequence of his unrestrained appetite, sold his birth-right for a mess of pottage.

In the compartments in the middle of the page, are three illustrations of the preceding text. In the centre is seen the pattern to imitate,--Christ resisting the temptation of the Devil; and on each side the examples to deter,--Adam and Eve with the forbidden fruit; and hungry Esau receiving the mess of pottage from Jacob.

Underneath the two half-length figures at the top, is inscribed “David 34,” and “Ysaie xxix.”[II-64] The numerals are probably intended to indicate the chapters in the Psalms, and in the Prophecies of Isaiah, where the inscriptions on the adjacent scrolls are to be found. On similar scrolls, towards the bottom of the page, are references to the 7th chapter of the 2nd book of Kings, and to the 16th chapter of Job. The two half-length figures are most likely intended for the writers of those sacred books. The likenesses of the prophets and holy persons, thus introduced at the top and bottom of each page, are, as Schelhorn has observed,[II-65] purely imaginary; for the same character is seldom seen twice with the same face. As most of the supposed figurative descriptions of Christ and his ministry are to be found in the Psalms, and in the Prophecies of Isaiah, the portraits of David and the last-named prophet are those which most frequently occur; and the designer seems to have been determined that neither the king nor the prophet should ever appear twice with the same likeness.

[Footnote II-64: The passages referred to are probably the 8th,
9th, and 10th verses of the xxxivth Psalm; and the 8th verse of
the xxixth chapter of Isaiah.]

[Footnote II-65: “Has autem icones ex sola sculptoris imaginatione
et arbitrio fluxisse vel inde liquet, quod idem scriptor sacer in
diversis foliis diversa plerumque et alia facie delineatus
sistatur, sicuti, v. g. Esaias ac David, sæpius obvii, Protei
instar, varias induerunt in hoc opere formas.”--Amœnitates
Literariæ, tom. iv. p. 297.]

The rhyming verses are as follows. That to the right, underneath the subject of Adam and Eve:

Serpens vicit, Adam vetitam sibi sugerat escam.

The other, on the opposite side, underneath Jacob and Esau:

Lentis ob ardorem proprium male perdit honorem.

And the third, at the bottom of the page, underneath the two portraits:

Christum temptavit Sathanas ut eum superaret.

The following cuts are fac-similes, the size of the originals, of each of the compartments of the page referred to, and of which a reduced copy has been already given.

The first contains the representation of David and Isaiah, and the characters which follow the name of the former I consider to be intended for 34. They are the only instances in the volume of the use of Arabic, or rather Spanish numerals. The letter +k+, at the foot, is the “signature,” as a printer would term it, indicating the order of the page. On each side of it are portions of scrolls containing inscriptions, of which some of the letters are seen.

The next cut represents Satan tempting Christ by offering him stones to be converted into bread.

In the distance are seen the high mountain, to the top of which Christ was taken up by the Devil, and the temple from whose pinnacle Christ was tempted to cast himself down. The figure of Christ in this compartment is not devoid of sober dignity; nor is Satan deficient in diabolical ugliness; but, though clawed and horned proper, he wants the usual appendage of a tail. The deficiency is, however, in some degree compensated by giving to his hip the likeness of a fiendish face. In two or three other old wood engravings I have noticed a repulsive face indicated in a similar manner on the hip of the Devil. A person well acquainted with the superstitions of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries may perhaps be able to give a reason for this. It may be intended to show that Satan, who is ever going about seeking whom he may devour, can see both before and behind.

The cut on the following page (90), which forms the compartment to the right, represents Adam and Eve, each with an apple: and the state in which Eve appears to be, is in accordance with an opinion maintained by several of the schoolmen of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The tree of knowledge is without fruit, and the serpent, with a human face, is seen twined round its stem. The form of the tree and the shape of the leaves are almost precisely the same as those of the olive-trees in the Apocalypse, uprooted by Antichrist. The character of the designs, however, in the two books is almost as different as the manner of the engraving. In the Apocalypse there is no attempt at shading, while in the book under consideration it is introduced in every page, though merely by courses of single lines, as may be perceived in the drapery of Christ in the preceding cut, and in the trunk of the tree and in the serpent in the cut subjoined. In this cut the figure of Adam cannot be considered as a specimen of manly beauty; his face is that of a man who is past his prime, and his attitude is very like that of one of the splay-footed boors of Teniers. In point of personal beauty Eve appears to be a partner worthy of her husband; and though from her action she seems conscious that she is naked, yet her expression and figure are extremely unlike the graceful timidity and beautiful proportions of the Medicean Venus. The face of the serpent displays neither malignity nor fiendish cunning; but, on the contrary, is marked with an expression not unlike that of a Bavarian broom-girl. This manner of representing the temptation of our first parents appears to have been conventional among the early German Formschneiders; for I have seen several old wood-cuts of this subject, in which the figures were almost precisely the same. Notwithstanding the bad drawing and the coarse engraving of the following cut, many of the same subject, executed in Germany between 1470 and 1510, are yet worse.

In the opposite cut, which forms the compartment to the left, Esau, who is distinguished by his bow and quiver, is seen receiving a bowl of pottage from his brother Jacob. At the far side of the apartment is seen a “kail-pot,” suspended from a “crook,” with something like a ham and a gammon of bacon hanging against the wall. This subject is treated in a style which is thoroughly Dutch. Isaac’s family appear to have been lodged in a tolerably comfortable house, with a stock of provisions near the chimney nook; and his two sons are very like some of the figures in the pictures of Teniers, more especially about the legs.

The following cut, a copy of that which is the lowest in the page, represents the two prophets or inspired penmen, to whom reference is made on the two scrolls whose ends may be perceived towards the lower corners of each arch. The words underneath the figures are a portion of the last rhyming verse quoted at page 87. It is from a difference in the triangular ornament, above the pillar separating the two figures, though not in this identical page, that Heineken chiefly decides on three of the editions of this book; though nothing could be more easy than to introduce another ornament of a similar kind, in the event of the original either being damaged in printing or intentionally effaced. In some of the earliest wood-blocks which remain undestroyed by the rough handling of time there are evident traces of several letters having been broken away, and of the injury being afterwards remedied by the introduction of a new piece of wood, on which the letters wanting were re-engraved.

The ink with which the cuts in the “Poor Preachers’ Bible” have been printed, is evidently a kind of distemper of the colour of bistre, lighter than in the History of the Virgin, and darker than in the Apocalypse. In many of the cuts certain portions of the lines appear surcharged with ink,--sometimes giving to the whole page rather a blotched appearance,--while other portions seem scarcely to have received any.[II-66] This appearance is undoubtedly in consequence of the light-bodied ink having, from its want of tenacity, accumulated on the block where the line was thickest, or where two lines met, leaving the thinner portions adjacent with scarce any colouring at all. The block must, in my opinion, have been charged with such ink by means of something like a brush, and not by means of a ball. In some parts of the cuts--more especially where there is the greatest portion of text--small white spaces may be perceived, as if a graver had been run through the lines. On first noticing this appearance, I was inclined to think that it was owing to the spreading of the hairs of the brush in inking, whereby certain parts might have been left untouched. The same kind of break in the lines may be observed, however, in some of the impressions of the old wood-cuts published by Becker and Derschau,[II-67] and which are worked off by means of a press, and with common printer’s ink. In these it is certainly owing to minute furrows in the grain of the wood; and I am now of opinion that the same cause has occasioned a similar appearance in the cuts of the “Biblia Pauperum Predicatorum.” Mr. Ottley, speaking of the impressions in Earl Spencer’s copy, makes the following remarks: “In many instances they have a sort of horizontally striped and confused appearance, which leads me to suppose that they were taken from engravings executed on some kind of wood of a coarse grain.”[II-68] This correspondence between Earl Spencer’s copy and that in the King’s Library at the British Museum tends to confirm my opinion that there are not so many editions of the book as Heineken,--from certain accidental variations,--has been induced to suppose.

[Footnote II-66: Schelhorn has noticed a similar appearance in the
old block-book entitled “Ars Memorandi:” “Videas hic nonnunquam
literas atramento confluenti deformatas, ventremque illarum, alias
album et vacuum, atramentaria macula repletum.” Amœnitat. Liter.
tom. i. p. 7.]

[Footnote II-67: This collection of wood engravings from old
blocks was published in three parts, large folio, at Gotha in
1808, 1810, and 1816, under the following title: “Holzschnitte
alter Deutscher Meister in den Original-Platten gesammelt von Hans
Albrecht Von Derschau: Als ein Beytrag zur Kunstgeschichte
herausgegeben, und mit einer Abhandlung über die Holzschneidekunst
und deren Schicksale begleitet von Rudolph Zacharias Becker.” The
collector has frequently mistaken rudeness of design, and
coarseness of execution, for proofs of antiquity.]

[Footnote II-68: Inquiry, vol. i. p. 130.]

The manner in which the cuts are engraved, and the attempts at something like effect in the shading and composition, induce me to think that this book is not so old as either the Apocalypse or the History of the Virgin. That it appeared before 1428, as has been inferred from the date which the Rev. Mr. Horne fancied that he had seen on the ancient binding, I cannot induce myself to believe. It is more likely to have been executed at some time between 1440 and 1460; and I am inclined to think that it is the production of a Dutch or Flemish, rather than a German artist.

A work, from which the engraved “Biblia Pauperum Predicatorum” is little more than an abstract, appears to have been known in France and Germany long before block-printing was introduced. Of such a work there were two manuscript copies in the National Library at Paris; the one complete, and the other--which, with a few exceptions, had been copied from the first--imperfect. The work consisted of a brief summary of the Bible, arranged in the following manner. One or two phrases in Latin and in French formed, as it were, the text; and each text was followed by a moral reflection, also in Latin and in French. Each article, which thus consisted of two parts, was illustrated by two drawings, one of which related to the historical fact, and the other to the moral deduced from it. The perfect copy consisted of four hundred and twenty-two pages, on each of which there were eight drawings, so that the number contained in the whole volume was upwards of five thousand. In some of the single drawings, which were about two and one-third inches wide, by three and one-third inches high, Camus counted not less than thirty heads.[II-69]

[Footnote II-69: Notice d’un Livre, &c. p. 11.]

In a copy of the “Biblia Pauperum Predicatorum” from wood-blocks, Heineken observed written: “S. ANSGARIUS est autor hujus libri,”--St. Ansgarius is the author of this book. St. Ansgarius, who was a native of France, and a monk of the celebrated Abbey of Corbey, was sent into Lower Saxony, and other places in the north, for the purpose of reclaiming the people from paganism. He was appointed the first bishop of Hamburg in 831, and in 844 Bishop of Bremen, where he died in 864.[II-70] From a passage cited by Heineken from Ornhielm’s Ecclesiastical History of Sweden and Gothland, it appears that Ansgarius was reputed to have compiled a similar book;[II-71] and Heineken observes that it might be from this passage that the “Biblia Pauperum Predicatorum” was ascribed to the Bishop of Hamburg.

[Footnote II-70: Heineken, Idée Générale, p. 319.]

[Footnote II-71: Ornhielm’s book was printed in 4to. at Stockholm,
1689. The passage referred to is as follows: “Quos _per numeros et
signa_ conscripsisse cum [Ansgarium] libros Rembertus memorat
indigitatos _pigmentorum_ vocabulo, eos continuisse, palam est,
quasdam aut e divinarum literarum, aut pie doctorum patrum
scriptis, pericopas et sententias.”]

In the cloisters of the cathedral at Bremen, Heineken saw two bas-reliefs sculptured on stone, of which the figures, of a moderate size, were precisely the same as those in two of the pages--the first and eighth--of the German “Biblia Pauperum Predicatorum.” The inscriptions, which were in Latin, were the same as in block-book. He thinks it very probable that the other arches of the cloisters were formerly ornamented in the same manner with the remainder of the subjects, but that the sculptures had been destroyed in the disturbances which had occurred in Bremen. Though he by no means pretends that the cuts were engraved in the time of Ansgarius, he thinks it not impossible that the sculptures might be executed at that period according to the bishop’s directions. This last passage is one of the most silly that occurs in Heineken’s book.[II-72] It is just about as likely that the cuts in the “Biblia Pauperum Predicatorum” were engraved in the time of Ansgarius, as that the bas-reliefs in the cloisters of the cathedral of Bremen should have been sculptured under his direction.

[Footnote II-72: “Ces conjectures sont foibles; elles ont été
attaquées par Erasme Nyerup dans un écrit publié à Copenhague en
1784. . . . . Nyerup donne à penser que Heinecke a reconnu
lui-même, dans la suite, la foiblesse de ses conjectures.”--Camus,
Notice d’un Livre, &c. p. 9.]

The book usually called the “Speculum Humanæ Salvationis,”[II-73]--the Mirror of Human Salvation,--which is ascribed by Hadrian Junius to Lawrence Coster, has been more frequently the subject of discussion among bibliographers and writers who have treated of the origin of printing, than any other work. A great proportion, however, of what has been written on the subject consists of groundless speculation; and the facts elicited, compared with the conjectures propounded, are as “two grains of wheat to a bushel of chaff.” It would be a waste of time to recite at length the various opinions that have been entertained with respect to the date of this book, the manner in which the text was printed, and the printer’s name. The statements and the theories put forth by Junius and Meerman in Coster’s favour, so far as the execution of the Speculum is concerned, are decidedly contradicted by the book itself. Without, therefore, recapitulating arguments which are contradicted by established facts, I shall endeavour to give a correct account of the work, leaving those who choose to compare it, and reconcile it if they can, with the following assertions made by Coster’s advocates: 1. that the Speculum was first printed by him in Dutch with wooden types; 2. that while engraving a Latin edition on blocks of wood he discovered the art of printing with moveable letters; 3. that the Latin edition, in which the text is partly from moveable types and partly from wood-blocks, was printed by Coster’s heirs and successors, their moveable types having been stolen by John Gutemberg before the whole of the text was set up.

[Footnote II-73: It is sometimes named “Speculum Figuratum;” and
Junius in his account of Coster’s invention calls it “Speculum
Nostræ Salutis.”]

The Speculum which has been the subject of so much discussion is of a small folio size, and without date or printer’s name. There are four editions of it known to bibliographers, all containing the same cuts; two of those editions are in Latin, and two in Dutch. In the Latin editions the work consists of sixty-three leaves, five of which are occupied by an introduction or prologue, and on the other fifty-eight are printed the cuts and explanatory text. The Dutch editions, though containing the same number of cuts as the Latin, consist of only sixty-two leaves each, as the preface occupies only four. In all those editions the leaves are printed on one side only. Besides the four editions above noticed, which have been ascribed to Coster and have excited so much controversy, there are two or three others in which the cuts are more coarsely engraved, and probably executed, at a later period, in Germany. There is also a quarto edition of the Speculum, printed in 1483, at Culemburg, by John Veldener, and ornamented with the identical cuts of the folio editions ascribed to Coster and his heirs.

The four controverted editions of the Speculum may be considered as holding a middle place between block-books,--which are wholly executed, both text and cuts, by the wood-engraver,--and books printed with moveable types: for in three of the editions the cuts are printed by means of friction with a rubber or burnisher, in the manner of the History of the Virgin, and other block-books, while the text, set in moveable type, has been worked off by means of a press; and in a fourth edition, in which the cuts are taken in the same manner as in the former, twenty pages of the text are printed from wood-blocks by means of friction, while the remainder are printed in the same manner as the whole of the text in the three other editions; that is, from moveable metal types, and by means of a press.

There are fifty-eight cuts in the Speculum, each of which is divided into two compartments by a slender column in the middle. In all the editions the cuts are placed as head-pieces at the top of each page, having underneath them, in two columns, the explanatory text. Under each compartment the title of the subject, in Latin, is engraved on the block.

The following reduced copy of the first cut will give an idea of their form, as every subject has pillars at the side, and is surmounted by an arch in the same style.

The style of engraving in those cuts is similar to those of the Poor Preachers’ Bible. The former are, however, on the whole executed with greater delicacy, and contain more work. The shadows and folds of the drapery in the first forty-eight cuts are indicated by short parallel lines, which are mostly horizontal. In the forty-ninth and subsequent cuts, as has been noticed by Mr. Ottley, a change in the mode of indicating the shades and the folds in the draperies is perceptible; for the short parallel lines, instead of being horizontal as in the former, are mostly slanting. Heineken observes, that to the forty-eighth cut inclusive, the chapters in the printed work are conformable with the old Latin manuscripts; and as a perceptible change in the execution commences with the forty-ninth, it is not unlikely that the cuts were engraved by two different persons. The two following cuts are fac-similes of the compartments of the first, of which a reduced copy has been previously given.

In the above cut, its title, “Casus Luciferi,”--the Fall of Lucifer,--is engraved at the bottom; and the subject represented is Satan and the rebellious angels driven out of heaven, as typical of man’s disobedience and fall. The following are the first two lines of the column of text underneath the cut in the Latin editions:

+Inchoatur speculum humanae salvacionis
In quo patet casus hominis et modus repactionis.+

Which may be translated into English thus:

In the Mirror of Salvation here is represented plain
The fall of man, and by what means he made his peace again.

The following is the right-hand compartment of the same cut. The title of this subject, as in all the others, is engraved at the bottom; the contracted words when written in full are, “Deus creavit hominem ad ymaginem et similitudinem suam,”--God created man after his own image and likeness.

The first two lines of the text in the column underneath this cut are,

+Mulier autem in paradiso est formata
De costis viri dormienti est parata.+

That is, in English rhyme of similar measure,

The woman was in Paradise for man an help meet made,
From Adam’s rib created as he asleep was laid.

The cuts in all the editions are printed in light brown or sepia colour which has been mixed with water, and readily yields to moisture. The impressions have evidently been taken by means of friction, as the back of the paper immediately behind is smooth and shining from the action of the rubber or burnisher, while on the lower part of the page at the back of the text, which has been printed with moveable types, there is no such appearance. In the second Latin edition, in which the explanatory text to twenty of the cuts[II-74] has been printed from engraved wood-blocks by means of friction, the reverse of those twenty pages presents the same smooth appearance as the reverse of the cuts. In those twenty pages of text from engraved wood-blocks the ink is lighter-coloured than in the remainder of the book which is printed from moveable types, though much darker than that of the cuts. It is, therefore, evident that the two impressions,--the one from the block containing the cut, and the other from the block containing the text,--have been taken separately. In the pages printed from moveable types, the ink, which has evidently been compounded with oil, is full-bodied, and of a dark brown colour, approaching nearly to black. In the other three editions, one Latin and two Dutch, in which the text is entirely from moveable types, the ink is also full-bodied and nearly jet black, forming a strong contrast with the faint colour of the cuts.

[Footnote II-74: The cuts which have the text printed from
wood-blocks are Nos. 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16,
17, 21, 22, 26, 27, 46, and 55.--Heineken, Idée Générale, p. 444.]

The plan of the Speculum is almost the same as that of the Poor Preachers’ Bible, and is equally as well entitled as the latter to be called “A History typical and anti-typical of the Old and New Testament.” Several of the subjects in the two books are treated nearly in the same manner, though in no single instance, so far as my observation goes, is the design precisely the same in both. In several of the cuts of the Speculum, in the same manner as in the Poor Preachers’ Bible, one compartment contains the supposed type or prefiguration, and the other its fulfilment; for instance: at No. 17 the appearance of the Lord to Moses in the burning bush is typical of the Annunciation; at No. 23 the brazen bath in the temple of Solomon is typical of baptism; at No. 31 the manna provided for the children of Israel in the Desert is typical of the Lord’s Supper; at No. 45 the Crucifixion is represented in one compartment, and in the other is Tubal-Cain, the inventor of iron-work, and consequently of the nails with which Christ was fixed to the cross; and at No. 53 the descent of Christ to Hades, and the liberation of the patriarchs and fathers, is typified by the escape of the children of Israel from Egypt.

Though most of the subjects are from the Bible or the Apocrypha, yet there are two or three which the designer has borrowed from profane history: such as Semiramis contemplating the hanging gardens of Babylon; the Sibyl and Augustus; and Codrus king of Athens incurring death in order to secure victory to his people.

The Speculum Salvationis, as printed in the editions previously noticed, is only a portion of a larger work with the same title, and ornamented with similar designs, which had been known long before in manuscript. Heineken says, at page 478 of his Idée Générale, that the oldest copy he ever saw was in the Imperial Library at Vienna; and, at page 468, he observes that it appeared to belong to the twelfth century.

The manuscript work, when complete, consisted of forty-five chapters in rhyming Latin, to which was prefixed an introduction containing a list of them. Each of the first forty-two chapters contained four subjects, the first of which was the principal, and the other three illustrative of it. To each of these chapters were two drawings, every one of which, as in the printed copies of the work, consisted of two compartments. The last three chapters contained each eight subjects, and each subject was ornamented with a design.[II-75] The whole number of separate illustrations in the work was thus one hundred and ninety-two. The printed folio editions contain only fifty-eight cuts, or one hundred and sixteen separate illustrations.

[Footnote II-75: Heineken, Idée Générale, p. 474.]

Though the Speculum from the time of the publication of Junius’s work[II-76] had been confidently claimed for Coster, yet no writer, either for or against him, appears to have particularly directed his attention to the manner in which the work was executed before Fournier, who in 1758, in a dissertation on the Origin and Progress of the Art of Wood-engraving,[II-77] first published some particulars respecting the work in question, which induced Meerman and Heineken to speculate on the priority of the different editions. Mr. Ottley, however, has proved, in a manner which carries with it the certainty of mathematical demonstration, that the conjectures of both the latter writers respecting the priority of the editions of the Speculum are absolutely erroneous. To elicit the truth does not, with respect to this work, seem to have been the object of those two writers. Both had espoused theories on its origin without much inquiry with respect to facts, and each presumed that edition to be the first which seemed most likely to support his own speculations.

[Footnote II-76: The “Batavia” or Junius, in which the name of
Lawrence Coster first appears as a printer, was published in
1588.]

[Footnote II-77: Dissertation sur l’Origine et les Progrès de
l’Art de Graver en Bois. Par M. Fournier le Jeune, 8vo. Paris,
1758.]

Heineken, who assumed that the work was of German origin, insisted that the _first_ edition was that in which the text is printed partly from moveable types and partly from letters engraved on wood-blocks, and that the Dutch editions were executed subsequently in the Low Countries. The Latin edition with the text entirely printed from moveable types he is pleased to denominate the second, and to assert, contrary to the evidence which the work itself affords, that the type resembles that of Faust and Scheffer, and that the cuts in this _second_ Latin edition, as he erroneously calls it, are coarser and not so sharp as those in the Latin edition which he supposes to be the first.

Fournier’s discoveries with respect to the execution of the Speculum seem to have produced a complete change as to its origin in the opinions of Meerman; who, in 1757, the year before Fournier’s dissertation was printed, had expressed his belief, in a letter to his friend Wagenaar, that what was alleged in favour of Coster being the inventor of printing was mere gratuitous assertion; that the text of the Speculum was probably printed after the cuts, and subsequent to 1470; that there was not a single document, nor an iota of evidence, to show that Coster ever used moveable types; and lastly, that the Latin was prior to the Dutch edition of the Speculum, as was apparent from the Latin names engraved at the foot of the cuts, which certainly would have been in Dutch had the cuts been originally destined for a Dutch edition.[II-78] In the teeth of his own previous opinions, having apparently gained a new light from Fournier’s discoveries, Meerman, in his Origines Typographicæ, printed in 1765, endeavours to prove that the Dutch edition was the first, and that it was printed with moveable wooden types by Coster. The Latin edition in which the text is printed partly from moveable types and partly from wood-blocks he supposes to have been printed by Coster’s heirs after his decease, thus endeavouring to give credibility to the story of Coster having died of grief on account of his types being stolen, and to encourage the supposition that his heirs in this edition supplied the loss by having engraved on blocks of wood those pages which were not already printed.

[Footnote II-78: A French translation of Meerman’s letter, which
was originally written in Dutch, is given by Santander in his
Dictionnaire Bibliographique, tom. i. pp. 14-18, 8vo. Bruxelles,
1805.]

Fournier’s discoveries relative to the manner in which the Speculum was executed were: 1st, that the cuts and the text had been printed at separate times, and that the former had been printed by means of friction; 2d, that a portion of the text in one of the Latin editions had been printed from engraved wood-blocks.[II-79] Fournier, who was a type-founder and wood-engraver, imagined that the moveable types with which the Speculum was printed were of wood. He also asserted that Faust and Scheffer’s Psalter and an early edition of the Bible were printed with moveable wooden types. Such assertions are best answered by a simple negative, leaving the person who puts them forth to make out a probable case.

[Footnote II-79: Dissertation, pp. 29-32. The many mistakes which
Fournier commits in his Dissertation, excite a suspicion that he
was either superficially acquainted with his subject, or extremely
careless. He published two or three other small works on the
subject of engraving and printing,--after the manner of
“Supplements to an Appendix,”--the principal of which is entitled
“De l’Origine et des Productions de l’Imprimerie primitive en
taille de bois; avec une refutation des préjugés plus ou moins
accredités sur cet art; pour servir de suite à la Dissertation sur
l’Origine de l’Art de graver en bois. Paris, 1759.”]

The fact having been established that in one of the editions of the Speculum a part of the text was printed from wood-blocks, while the whole of the text in the other three was printed from moveable types, Heineken, without diligently comparing the editions with each other in order to obtain further evidence, decides in favour of that edition being the first in which part of the text is printed from wood-blocks. His reasons for supposing this to be the first edition, though specious in appearance, are at variance with the facts which have since been incontrovertibly established by Mr. Ottley, whose scrutinizing examination of the different editions has clearly shown the futility of all former speculations respecting their priority. The argument of Heineken is to this effect: “It is improbable that a printer who had printed an edition wholly with moveable types should afterwards have recourse to an engraver to cut for him on blocks of wood a portion of the text for a second edition; and it is equally improbable that a wood-engraver who had discovered the art of printing with moveable types, and had used them to print the entire text of the first edition, should, to a certain extent, abandon his invention in a second by printing a portion of the text from engraved blocks of wood.” The following is the order in which he arranges the different editions:

1. The Latin edition in which part of the text is printed from
wood-blocks.

2. The Latin edition in which the text is entirely printed from
moveable types.

3. The Dutch edition with the text printed wholly from moveable
types, supposed by Meerman to be the _first edition_ of all.[II-80]

4. The Dutch edition with the text printed wholly from moveable
types, and which differs only from the preceding one in having
the two pages of text under cuts No. 45 and 56 printed in a type
different from the rest of the book.

[Footnote II-80: Heineken seems inclined to consider this as the
second Dutch edition; and he only mentions it as the first Dutch
edition because it is called so by Meerman.--Idée Gén. pp. 453,
454.]

The preceding arrangement--including Meerman’s opinion respecting the priority of the Dutch edition--rests entirely on conjecture, and is almost diametrically contradicted in every instance by the evidence afforded by the books themselves; for through the comparisons and investigations of Mr. Ottley it is proved, to an absolute certainty, that the Latin edition supposed by Heineken to be the second is the _earliest of all_; that the edition No. 4, called the second Dutch, is the next in order to the actual first Latin; and that the two editions, No. 1 and No. 3, respectively proclaimed by Heineken and Meerman as the earliest, have been printed subsequently to the other two.[II-81] Which of the pretended _first_ editions was in reality the _last_, has not been satisfactorily determined; though there seems reason to believe that it was the Latin one which has part of the text printed from wood-blocks.

[Footnote II-81: Inquiry into the Origin and Early History of
Engraving, pp. 205-217. Though differing from Mr. Ottley in the
conclusions which he draws from the facts elicited by him
respecting the priority of the editions of the Speculum, I bear a
willing testimony to the value of his discoveries on this subject,
which may rank among the most interesting that have resulted from
bibliographical research.]

It is well known to every person acquainted with the practice of wood-engraving, that portions of single lines in such cuts as those of the Speculum are often broken out of the block in the process of printing. If two books, therefore, containing the same wood-cuts, but evidently printed at different times, though without a date, should be submitted to the examination of a person acquainted with the above fact and bearing it in mind, he would doubtless declare that the copy in which the cuts were most perfect was first printed, and that the other in which parts of the cuts appeared broken away was of a later date. If, on comparing other copies of the same editions he should find the same variations, the impression on his mind as to the priority of the editions would amount to absolute certainty. The identity of the cuts in all the four editions of the Speculum being unquestionable, and as certain minute fractures in the lines of some of them, as if small portions of the block had been broken out in printing, had been previously noticed by Fournier and Heineken, Mr. Ottley conceived the idea of comparing the respective cuts in the different editions, with a view of ascertaining the order in which they were printed. He first compared two copies of the edition called the _first Latin_ with a copy of that called the _second Dutch_, and finding, that, in several of the cuts of the former, parts of lines were wanting which in the latter were perfect, he concluded that the miscalled _second Dutch_ edition was in fact of an earlier date than the pretended _first Latin_ edition of Heineken. In further comparing the above editions with the supposed _second Latin_ edition of Heineken and the supposed _first Dutch_ edition of Meerman, he found that the cuts in the miscalled second Latin edition were the most perfect of all; and that the cuts in Heineken’s first Latin and Meerman’s first Dutch editions contained more broken lines than the edition named by those authors the _second Dutch_. The conclusion which he arrived at from those facts was irresistible, namely, that the earliest edition of all was that called by Heineken the second Latin; and that the edition called the second Dutch was the next in order. As the cuts in the copies examined of the pretended _first_ Latin and Dutch editions contained similar fractures, it could not be determined with certainty which was actually the _last_.