Chapter VIII: Westminster

In the preceding chapters Caxton’s career as an Apprentice, as a Merchant, as Governor of the Merchant-Adventurers, as a Magistrate, and as an Ambassador, has been traced; the revival of literary tastes in Europe has been briefly sketched, as well as the literary influences by which Caxton was surrounded; and we have seen his translation of a romance for the Duchess of Burgundy obtain such popularity that he was forced to have recourse to the new art of printing, in order to multiply copies quickly: but we have yet to investigate the most important period of his history--those last fifteen years, to which the whole of his former life seems but the introduction--that short period which alone has caused the name of Caxton to be inscribed on the tablets of history, and the typographical relics of which form the best and only memorial which England possesses of her first printer.[8]

We left Caxton early in 1476 preparing to return to England, after having disposed of his printed copies of the “Chess Book” in Bruges. The next certain notice of him is after his settlement at Westminster, when, in November 1477, he had printed his first edition of the “Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers.” This book is, in fact, the earliest we have from Caxton’s press with an indisputable imprint. It is evident that his arrangements for settling in England, the engagement of assistants, and all the other matters inseparable from a novel undertaking, must have occupied a considerable time. If, therefore, we assume that Caxton commenced his new career in this country about the latter half of 1476 we cannot be far wrong. A cautions man, he began to try his powers, and ascertain the probable sale for his productions, by printing small pieces. Copland, one of his workmen, who served with Wynken de Worde after his first master’s death, has a curious remark upon this in the prologue to his edition of “Kynge Apolyn of Thyre,” with which romance he appears to have commenced his career as a printer. “Whiche booke I, Roberte Copland, have me applyed for to translate oute of the Frenshe language into our maternal tongue, at the exhortacyon of my forsayd mayster [Wynken de Worde], gladly followynge the trace of my mayster Caxton, _begynnynge with small storyes and pamfletes, and so to other_.” That Westminster was the locality in which Caxton first settled, there is, fortunately, no room to doubt; but as the exact spot has given rise to considerable discussion, it may be useful to collect all the instances in which Caxton connects his own name with a definite locality. We therefore give the following extracts taken _verbatim et literatim_ from his works:--

1477. DICTES AND SAYINGS. First edition. Epilogue.
_enprynted by me william Caxton at westmestre._

1478. MORAL PROVERBS. Colophon. _I haue enprinted_....
_At westmestre._

1480. CHRONICLES OF ENGLAND. First edition. Colophon.
_enprinted by me William Caxton Jn thabbey of westmynstre by
london._

1480. DESCRIPTION OF BRITAIN. First edition. Prologue. _the
comyn cronicles of englond ben_ ... _now late enprinted at
westmynstre_.

1481. MIRROUR OF THE WORLD. First edition. Prologue. _And
emprised by me_ ... _to translate it into our maternal
tongue_ ... _in thabbay of westmestre by london_.

1481. REYNARD THE FOX. First edition. Epilogue. _by me
will’m Caxton translated_ ... _in thabbey of westmestre_.

1481. GODFREY OF BOLOGNE. Epilogue. _sette in forme and
emprynted_ ... _in thabbey of westmester_.

1483. PILGRIMAGE OF THE SOUL. Colophon. _Emprynted at
westmestre by william Caxton._

1483. LIBER FESTIVALIS. First edition. Colophon. _Emprynted
at Westmynster by wyllyam Caxton._

1483. QUATUOR SERMONES. First edition. Colophon. _Enprynted
by Wylliam Caxton at Westmestre._

1483. CONFESSIO AMANTIS. Colophon. _Emprynted at westmestre
by me willyam Caxton._

1483. GOLDEN LEGEND. First edition. Epilogue. _fynysshed it
at westmestre._

1483. CATON. Colophon. _Translated_ ... _by William
Caxton in thabbey of Westmynstre_.

1483. KNIGHT OF THE TOWER. Colophon. _enprynted at
Westmynstre._

1484. ÆSOP. Epilogue. _enprynted by me william Caxton at
westmynstre in thabbay._

1484. THE ORDER OF CHIVALRY. Epilogue. _translated_
... _by me William Caxton dwellynge in Westmynstre besyde
london_.

1485. KING ARTHUR. Colophon. _emprynted and fynysshed in
thabbey westmestre._

1485. PARIS AND VIENNE. Colophon. _translated_ ...
_by wylliam Caxton at Westmestre_.

[1489.] DIRECTORIUM SACERDOTUM. Colophon. _Impressum_
... _apud Westmonesterium_.

1489. DOCTRINAL OF SAPIENCE. Colophon. _translated_
... _by wyllyam Caxton at Westmestre_.

To these must be added Caxton’s Advertisement, printed about 1480.

“If it plese ony man spirituel or temporel to bye ony pyes of two and
thre comemoraciōs of salisburi vse enpryntid after the forme of this
presēt lettre whiche ben wel and truly correct, _late hym come to
westmonester in to the almonesrye at the reed pale_ and he shal haue
them good chepe.”

The following quotations are from titles or colophons of books printed by Wynken de Worde in the house of his late master, only three of which are dated.

SCALA PERFECTIONIS, 1493.
And Wynkyn de Worde this hath sett in print.
_In William Caxstons hows_ so fyll the case.

DIRECTORIUM SACERDOTUM, 1495. _In domo Caxton Wynkyn fieri fecit._

LYNDEWODE’S CONSTITUTIONES, 1496. _Apud Westmonasterium. In domo
caxston._

THE XII PROFYTES OF TRIBULACYON. _Enprynted at Westmyster in Caxtons
hous._

DONATUS MINOR. _In domo Caxton in westmonasterio._

WHITAL’S DICTIONARY. _Imprynted in the late hous of William Caxton._

ACCEDENCE. _Prynted in Caxons house at westmynstre._

THE CHORLE AND THE BYRDE. _Emprynted at westmestre in Caxtons house._

DOCTRYNALLE OF DETHE. _Enprynted at westmynster Jn Caxtons hous._

ORTUS VOCABULORUM. _prope celeberrimum monasterium quod westmynstre
appellatur impressum._

Adding to the foregoing the testimony of Stow, we shall have before us all the evidence of any authority.

“Neare vnto this house westward was an old chappel of S. Anne, ouer
against the which the Lady Margaret, mother to King H. the 7. erected
an Almeshouse for poore women.... the place wherein this chappell
and Almeshouse standeth was called the Elemosinary or Almory, now
corruptly the Ambry, for that the Almes of the Abbey were there
distributed to the poore. And therin Islip, Abbot of Westmin.
erected the first Presse of booke printing that euer was in England
about the yeare of Christ 1471. William Caxton, cittizen of London,
mercer, brought it into England, and was the first that practised it
in the sayde Abbey.”

Reviewing the foregoing quotations, it will be noticed that although the precise expression, _Printed in the Abbey of Westminster_, is affixed to some books, yet the more general phrase _Printed at Westminster_ is also used, and evidently refers to the same locality, for otherwise we must suppose Caxton to have carried on two separate printing-offices for many years. The word “Abbey” did not assume its modern sense, as applicable only to the fabric, until after the Reformation; and the phrase “dwelling at Westminster,” used in 1484, just _after_ “printed in the Abbey,” 1483, and _before_ “printed in the Abbey,” 1485, proves that Caxton himself attached to the word no very restrictive idea. We find also, from the above-mentioned advertisement, that “Westminster” in that instance meant “The Almonesrye,” where Caxton occupied a tenement, called “The Red-pale.” The Almonry was a space within the Abbey precincts, where alms were distributed to the poor; and here the Lady Margaret, mother of King Henry VII, and one of Caxton’s patronesses, built almshouses. Other houses were also there; and we therefore conclude that by the words _in the Abbey_ Caxton meant nothing more than that he resided within the Abbey precincts.

The position of St. Anne’s Chapel and the Almonry, in relation to that of the Abbey Church, seems to have been misunderstood by all the biographers of Caxton. Dr. Dibdin, Charles Knight, and others, place them on the site of the Chapel of Henry VII, which is the east end of the Abbey. The Almonry was considerably to the west, and the following statements, gathered from Stow, will give its exact locality. After describing the monastery and the king’s palace, he proceeds to say, “now will I speake of the gate house, and of Totehill streete, stretching from the _west_ part of the Close.... The gate towards the _west_ is a Gaile for offenders.... On the _Southside_ of this gate, king H. the 7. founded an almeshouse.... Neare vnto this house _westward_ was an old chappel of S. Anne ... the place wherein this chappel ... standeth was called the Almory.” The Almonry was therefore west-south-west of the western front of the Abbey.

It has been argued that Caxton was permitted by the abbot to use the “Scriptorium” of the abbey as a printing-office. Printing, even in these days of improvement, is necessarily in some parts a very unclean operation, but it was much more so in its earlier years, some of the processes employed being extremely filthy and pungent. The Abbot of Westminster would never have admitted into the scriptorium anything so defiling, much less within the sacred walls of the church itself. There is, indeed, no evidence that any portion of the abbey was ever appropriated as a scriptorium: no mention of such a place is made by any historian, nor has any manuscript been recognised as having issued thence.

The Abbot of Westminster, at the time of Caxton’s arrival in England, was John Esteney, who succeeded to that office in 1474, upon the promotion of Thomas Milling to the Bishopric of Hereford. Those writers who maintain that Caxton returned to England before 1474 have mentioned Milling as his patron. George Fascet succeeded Abbot Esteney in 1498, and was in turn succeeded by John Islip in 1500. Stow’s chronology is very faulty in ascribing to Abbot Islip any connection with Caxton, whose death occurred about nine years before Islip’s election to the abbacy.

There is nothing to lead to the supposition that Caxton and Abbot Esteney were on intimate terms; indeed, the probability is that they knew but little of each other. Our printer mentions Esteney but once, and that only casually, as illustrating the difficulty which even educated men experienced in deciphering documents of a bygone age. In the prologue to the “Eneydos,” Caxton says, “My lord abbot of Westmynster _did do shewe_ to me late certayn euydences wryton in old Englisshe, for to reduce it into our Englisshe now vsid.” The sense of “did do shewe,” as already noticed, would seem merely to signify “caused to be shewn;” or in other words, the abbot only _sent_ the documents. Caxton always appears to have recorded, in prologue or epilogue, the names of those by whom he was employed; and if he had received any favour or patronage from the abbot, he would in all likelihood have dedicated one of his numerous translations to him, as he did to so many of his patrons, some of whom, like Hugh Bryce and William Praat, were plain “Mercers” only.

It is unlikely, therefore, that Caxton went to Westminster by invitation of the abbot, or that he occupied any place within the church itself, or that he stood in any other relation to the abbot than that of tenant. The rent-roll of the abbey was under the immediate charge of the abbot’s chamberlain, and with him Caxton would have to agree as to his tenure of “The Red-pale” in the Almonry.

The reason of Caxton’s preference for the Almonry is not at all evident, though his being a Mercer may, possibly, have had some connection with his choice, as the Mercers’ Company held certain tenements of the abbots of Westminster. Some of these were in the parish of St. Martin Otewich (Broad Street Ward), within the city walls; and there was also a tenement called “The Pye,” and another called “The Grehounde,” the localities of which are not mentioned. The rents paid for these are duly entered in the “Renter Wardens’ Account-books,” at Mercers’ Hall. But whatever induced Caxton to settle at Westminster, we may safely infer, from his own mention, not more than two or three years later, of “The Red-pale” as his house, that it was there he originally established himself, that there his translations were made and works printed, and that there, surrounded by his books and presses, and soothed by the loving attentions of his daughter, he breathed his last.

Wynken de Worde, his immediate successor, printed several books in the same place, dating them from “Caxton’s house in Westminster.” This phrase was considered, by the early biographers of Caxton, as proving that he had migrated from the side chapel, where they assumed he first set up his press, and established himself in a new residence. Bagford, with his usual fertility of invention, identified the very street and house into which Caxton moved, and assigned reasons for his ejection from the abbey. For many years an old house in the Almonry was currently believed to have been that in which our first printer dwelt; but Mr. Nichols, who, as well as Knight, gives a woodcut of it, is of opinion that the house could not be older than the time of Charles I. Upon its demolition in 1846, portions of the beams were made into walking-sticks and snuffboxes, and presented to various patrons of literature as genuine relics of the famous printer. Interesting, indeed, would it have been if we could have identified the exact spot where the first press was placed on English soil, and still more so if we could have stood in the very room where Caxton worked; but uncertainty hangs over all this part of our history.

The printers of the fifteenth century, especially in Holland and Flanders, very frequently used armorial bearings for their trade-marks, the shield being represented as hanging from the branch of a tree. A broad band down the centre of the shield is, in heraldic language, called a “pale,” and this, if painted red, would be a “red pale.” Doubtless this was the sign used by Caxton to designate his house. The woodcut opposite, taken from Holtrop’s “Monumens Typographiques,” pl. 71, shows a house of the fifteenth century, which has two tenants, both printers, each of whom has a sign. This was in Antwerp. The printers at Delff, in Holland, used a “black pale” for their marks.

We have already mentioned “The Greyhound” as being held by the Mercers’ Company from the Abbots of Westminster. From the same “Account-book” it appears that in 1477 the “livelihode” made a “visitation,” and “kept a dinner” at “The Greyhound,” which cost them 26_s._ 8_d._, besides 2_d._ for washing the table-cloth. There is nothing to indicate the locality of this tenement; but from the fact that mercers, as well as drapers, dealt largely in cloth and various woollen goods, they would necessarily be much interested in the great staple of wool, held at fixed intervals, not far from the abbey walls.[9] They would therefore require a place in the neighbourhood for meeting during their visitation, which would, at the same time, afford them good accommodation for a dinner at its close.

And here we may remark that, although so much of his attention was devoted to translating and printing, Caxton probably still took considerable interest in his old vocation. The wool-staple at Westminster was an important mart, and many of the merchants resorting thither were fellow-mercers and benefactors to St. Margaret’s Church. Some of them were also fellow-members with Caxton of the “Fraternity or Guild of our Blessed Lady Assumption.” Several of the “Account-books” of this brotherhood are still preserved in the vestry of St. Margaret’s; and although they nowhere state its objects, it seems, from the entries of salaries paid to priests, from money spent in obits, wax, and vestments, and from the granting of a few pensions, to have been somewhat like the “benefit societies” of the present day, with the additional advantage of prayers for the repose of the souls of deceased members. And yet, if only a religious guild, it is not apparent why they required certain tenements in Aldermary, which they leased of the Mercers’ Company, not far from the Steel Yard of the Hanse merchants, where large quantities of raw wool were stapled. But whatever may have been the objects of this guild, their accounts, made up by their clerk every three years, show that towards the end of the fifteenth century they were in a flourishing state, with a good balance to their credit; and that, on Midsummer-day, they, too, had a “general feast,” on which they spent a large portion of their income. The expenses of these lavish feasts, each time filling at least two folio pages, are entered in the accounts with great minuteness, from the amount paid to the “chief cok” as a reward (which was more than twelve guineas of modern money), down to the boat-hire for the “turbuts,” and nearly £4 for “pottes broken and wasted at the same fest.”[10] Of this guild Caxton was a member for some years before his death.

It is pleasant to think of our printer as retaining the friendship of the City merchants after all official relationship between them had been dissolved. That this was the case is proved by his warm eulogy of the City of London, and his continuance as a member of the Mercers’ Company. He, no doubt, had many personal friends and supporters; indeed, it would be hardly a stretch of the imagination to fancy that, during the holding of the great wool-staple at Westminster, Caxton would be no disinterested observer, and that at its close, when the wardens and the “livelihode” flocked to the “dener kept at the grehounde,” if not there by right as a liveryman of the Mercers’ Company, the printer would be always a welcome guest. Surely, before parting, in remembrance of past associations and services, one of the drinking-pledges would be, “The health of William Caxton, late governor of our fellowship beyond the sea.”

But to return to facts. There is no doubt that Caxton was residing in his tenement in the Almonry when he printed the “Dictes” in 1477. He would, therefore, be in the parish of St. Margaret: and it is somewhat remarkable that a person bearing the same name was buried there about two years later. In 1479 parochial records show an entry among the receipts of the burial fees of twenty pence for two torches and three tapers at a low mass for William Caxton. Dibdin assumes this man to have been our printer’s father: possibly so, but there is no evidence of kindred. We may notice, however, that although the amount paid may to us seem trifling, yet it was more than double the average burial fees of that period, as is evidenced by the same accounts. About this time the king ordered a payment of £30 (equal to £400 or £450 now) to be made to Caxton for “certain causes or matters performed by him for the said Lord the King.” Might not this have been for assistance to Edward IV and his retinue when fugitives at Bruges?

Caxton, as might be expected, held a high position in his parish; and, within a very short time of his arrival, his name appears as auditor of the parish accounts. The parish audit seems to have been a very simple affair. It was open to all the parishioners, and the accounts were probably read aloud by the clerk who was engaged by the churchwardens to keep them. The balance in cash, and the custody of the “treasures” in the church, were then handed over to the incoming wardens, and the names of the most substantial parishioners present were added by the clerk to the usual form declaring the correctness of the accounts. The business on these occasions was fitly concluded by a good “supper.” Caxton’s name appears annexed to the audit for the years 1478-80, 1480-82, 1482-84; and it would have been most gratifying to have found that the signatures at the end of these and other accounts were genuine autographs. All the names, however, are in the same handwriting, which is that of the scribe or priest engaged to keep the parish books.

Caxton did not enter upon his new adventure of printing books without good and able patronage. Edward IV, as we have seen, paid him a sum of money for certain services performed; and Caxton printed “Tully” and “Godfrey” under the king’s “protection.” The king’s sister Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, was his friend and supporter, and perchance may have paid a visit to her old servant at the “Red-pale,” when she visited England in 1480. Margaret, Countess of Richmond, mother of King Henry VII, also favoured his designs. Earl Rivers, brother to the queen, was a fast friend, with whom Caxton seems to have enjoyed a considerable degree of intimacy, and the Earl of Warwick likewise must have had some knowledge of him, as Caxton dedicated to him the “Chess-Book.” The “Order of Chivalry” was dedicated to Richard III. Henry VII personally desired Caxton to translate and print the “Fayts of Arms,” and the “Eneydos” was specially presented to Arthur, Prince of Wales. Master William Daubeney, King Henry VI’s treasurer, was his “good and synguler friend.” William, Earl of Arundel, took great interest in his progress, and allowed him the “yearly fee” of a buck in summer and a doe in winter. Sir John Fastolf, a great lover of books, of whose library several volumes still exist; Hugh Bryce, mercer and king’s ambassador; William Pratt, a rich mercer; and divers unnamed “gentylmen and ladyes,” are known to have employed him. Some of these, like the “noble lady with many faire doughters,” for whom he produced “The Knyght of the Toure,” engaged him to translate as well as to print.

In 1486 death deprived Caxton of his old friend William Pratt, who, on his death-bed, requested him to print “The Book of Good Manners.” The terms in which Caxton mentions Pratt as a fellow mercer, an honest man, and “a singular friend of old knowledge,” show that a close bond of union existed between the two. It is to be hoped that their mutual object--“the amendment of manners, and the increase of virtuous living”--was promoted by the publication.

In 1490 died, and was buried at St. Margaret’s, one “Mawde Caxton,” of whose relationship to William Caxton there is no direct evidence. It may have been the Maude who, twenty-nine years earlier, became his wife while he was yet in Bruges: if so, it will explain, in a most interesting manner, the reason why he in that year suspended printing the “Fayts of Arms,” until he had finished a new undertaking, “The Arte and Crafte to Die Well.”

The history of Caxton after his settlement at Westminster is almost confined to a catalogue of the productions of his press. Fortunately many were printed from his own manuscript, and have additions which often afford the date of translation or of printing. The following table presents an arrangement of these books, from which we may obtain some idea of the time occupied in their translation and printing. The majority of Caxton’s works, however, bear no date whatever; and here the only basis of a correct arrangement must be a careful examination and comparison of the peculiarities of the various types. In this table variations may be noticed from some of the dates as printed by Caxton; but these are merely apparent discrepancies caused by the difference between the old and new style of reckoning the commencement of the year, and also by the custom, then so common, of dating by the regnal year of the sovereign.

┌───────────────┬──────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐ │ DATES. │ TRANSLATION. │ PRINTING. │ ├───────────────┼──────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤ │ 1477--Nov. 18 │ │ Dictes, 1st edition (_e_) │ │ 1478--Feb. 20 │ │ Moral Proverbs (_e_) │ │ 1479--Feb. 3 │ │ Cordyale (_b_) │ │ Mar. 24 │ │ Cordyale (_e_) │ │ 1480--Apr. 22 │ Ovid, 15th Book (_e_) │ │ │ June 10 │ │ Chronicles, 1st edit. (_e_) │ │ Aug. 18 │ │ Description, 1st ed. (_e_) │ │ 1481--Jan. 2 │ Mirrour, 1st edit. (_b_) │ │ │ Mar. 8 │ Mirrour, 1st edit. (_e_) │ │ │ Mar. 12 │ Godfrey (_b_) │ │ │ June 6 │ Reynart, 1st edit. (_e_) │ │ │ June 7 │ Godfrey (_e_) │ │ │ Aug. 12 │ │ Tully (_e_) │ │ Nov. 20 │ │ Godfrey (_e_) │ │ 1482--July 2 │ Polycronicon (_e_) │ │ │ Oct. 8 │ │ Chronicles, 2nd ed .(_e_) │ │ 1483--June 1 │ Knight of the Toure (_e_)│ │ │ ” │ Æsop (_e_) │ │ │ June 6 │ │ Pylgremage (_e_) │ │ June 30 │ │ Festival (_e_) │ │ Sep. 2 │ │ Confessio (_e_) │ │ Nov. 20 │ │ Golden Legend (_e_) │ │ Dec. 23 │ Caton (_e_) │ │ │ 1484--Jan. 31 │ │ Knight of the Toure (_e_) │ │ Mar. 26 │ │ Æsop (_e_) │ │ ” │ │ Order of Chivalry (_e_) │ │ Sep. 13 │ Ryal Book (_e_) │ │ │ 1485--June 18 │ Charles (_e_) │ │ │ July 31 │ │ King Arthur (_e_) │ │ │ │ │ │ Aug. 31 │ Paris and Vienne (_e_) │ │ │ Dec. 1 │ │ Charles (_e_) │ │ Dec. 19 │ │ Paris and Vienne (_e_) │ │ 1486--June 8 │ Good Manners (_e_) │ │ │ 1487--May 11 │ │ Good Manners (_e_) │ │ 1489--Jan. 23 │ Fayts (_b_) │ │ │ May 7 │ Doctrinal (_e_) │ │ │ July 8 │ Fayts (_e_) │ │ │ ” │ │ Directorium, 2nd ed. (_e_) │ │ 1490--June 15 │ Art and Craft (_e_) │ │ │ June 22 │ Eneydos (_e_) │ │ │ July 14 │ │ Fayts (_e_) │ └───────────────┴──────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘ (_b_) means _begun_. (_e_) means _ended_.

The same table shows that Caxton took ten weeks for the translation of the “Mirrour of the World,” containing 198 pages; twelve weeks for “Godefroy of Bologne,” 284 pages; and nearly six months for “Fayts of Arms,” 286 pages. The period occupied in printing “Cordyale,” 152 pages, was only seven weeks, whilst “Godfrey,” supposing the printing immediately to follow the completion of the translation, took nearly six months. The “Knight of the Tower,” 208 pages, required eight months; “Charles the Great,” 188 pages, five and a half months; “Paris and Vienne,” 70 pages, three and a half months; “Good Manners,” 132 pages, eleven months; and “Fayts of Arms,” 286 pages, more than a year.

Caxton’s own translations made in this country were The Whole Life of Jason; the Mirror of the World; Reynart the Fox; Godfrey of Bulloyn; the Golden Legend; the book called Caton; the Knight of the Tower; Æsop’s Fables; the Order of Chivalry; the Royal Book; the Life of Charles the Great; the History of the Knight Paris and the Fair Vienne; the Book of Good Manners; the Doctrinal of Sapience; the Fayts of Arms; the Art and Craft to Die Well; Eneydos; the Curial; the Life of St. Winifred; Blanchardin and Eglantine; the Four Sons of Aymon; and the Gouvernayle of Health. These contain more than 4,500 printed pages. The total produce of his press, excluding the books printed at Bruges, reaches to above 18,000 pages, nearly all of folio size. These figures speak more forcibly than any argument for the great industry and perseverance of Caxton; and to this list must be added the translation of the “Vitæ Patrum,” which he finished only a few hours before his death, but did not live to print.

Those who have blamed Caxton for not choosing the Bible, or the Greek and Latin classics, for the use and instruction of his countrymen, have quite overlooked the impossibility of making a business profitable (and Caxton tells us, in “Charles the Great,” that he earned his living by it), unless it supplied the wants of the age. The demand in England in the fifteenth century was not for Bibles in the vernacular, nor for Horace, nor for Homer, whose writings very few could read in the original texts;[11] but the clergy wanted Service-books, and Caxton accordingly provided them with Psalters, Commemorations, and Directories; the preachers wanted Sermons, and were supplied with the “Golden Legend,” and other similar books; the “prynces, lordes, barons, knyghtes & gentilmen” were craving for “joyous and pleysaunt historyes” of chivalry, and the press at the “Red-pale” produced a fresh romance nearly every year. Poetry and history require for their appreciation a more advanced mental education, and of these, therefore, the issue was more scanty. By thus bringing his commercial experience to bear upon his new vocation, and by accommodating the supply to the demand, while, at the same time, he in no slight degree directed the channel in which that demand should flow, Caxton contrived to earn an honest living by the produce of his press, and to avoid the fate of his typographical brethren at Rome, Sweynheim and Pannartz, who, having printed too many works of the classic authors, about 12,000 volumes in five years, became bankrupt, and sank under the dead weight of their unsold volumes.

Thus, in the selection of books for his press, some of which he obtained “with grete instaunce, labour, and coste”--in translating and printing--in friendly communication and intercourse with the best educated men of his day--in the discharge of the social duties of his position--Caxton passed the few remaining years of his life. In 1491, when close upon seventy years of age, but still in full vigour of mind, he undertook the translation of the “Vitæ Patrum.” Whether disease was at this time gradually undermining his health, or whether, as the following colophon renders more probable, he was taken off suddenly, is unknown; but it is an interesting fact that he was spared to work at his favourite task of translation till within a few hours of his death.

The following is Wynken de Worde’s colophon to the “Vitæ Patrum:”--“Thus endyth the moost vertuouse hystorye of the deuoute and right renowned lyves of holy faders lyuynge in deserte, worthy of remembraunce to all wel dysposed persones which hath bē translated oute of Frenche into Englisshe by William Caxton of Westmynstre late deed and fynysshed at the laste daye of hys lyff.”

The exact date of his death has not been ascertained; but the burial is entered in the parish accounts for 1490-92, and from the position of the entry would appear to have taken place towards the close of the year 1491. This date is confirmed by the following manuscript note, quoted by Ames:--“There is wrote down in a very old hand in a _Fructus Temporum_ of my friend Mr. Ballard’s, of Cambden, in Gloucestershire:--‘Of your charitee pray for the soul of Mayster Wyllyam Caxton, that in hys time was a man of moche ornate and moche renommed wysdome and connyng, and decessed ful crystenly the yere of our Lord MCCCC LXXXXJ.’”

“Moder of Merci shyld him fro thorribul fynd,
And bryng hym to lyff eternall that neuyr hath ynd.”

He was buried in his own parish churchyard, and in the account-books of the churchwardens appear the following funeral charges:--

Item atte Bureyng of William Caxton for iiij torches vj s viij d
Item for the belle atte same bureyng vj d

These fees are considerably higher than those paid by the majority of the parishioners, and are equalled in but very few instances; they thus afford further evidence of the superior position held by our printer in his parish.

Caxton’s property consisted probably of little more than his stock in trade. He nevertheless left a will, as fifteen copies of the “Golden Legend” are recorded in the parish accounts as having been “bequothen to the chirch behove by William Caxston.” The “Golden Legend” was first printed in 1484, but the second edition, of which the bequest probably consisted, was not executed till four or five years later. By the churchwardens’ account for 1496-98, it appears that by that time they had disposed of three of the fifteen copies: one for 6_s_ 8_d_, and another for 6_s_ 4_d_, by the agency of William Ryolle; and one for 6_s_ 8_d_ to the parish priest, probably for his own use. Within the next two years William Geiffe took five copies at an average of 5_s_ 4_d_ each; John Crosse one copy at 5_s_ 8_d_; Walter Marten one at 5_s_ 11_d_; and Daniel Aforge one at 5_s_ 10_d_; another being sold in “Westmynster halle” for 5_s_ 8_d_. This should have left remaining, in 1500, _four_ copies to be accounted for, but the “Memorandum” acknowledges only _three_; probably one copy had been appropriated by the churchwardens to the use of their church. Two more copies were sold in the ensuing two years, and one left unaccounted for.

The discovery of Caxton’s will would probably settle satisfactorily many questions about his family and relations, but all the registries in which it might possibly have been deposited have been searched without success.

That our knowledge of William Caxton is confined almost entirely to his public life, is much to be regretted. We can trace to some extent his career in commerce as well as in diplomacy. As a printer too, we can judge of him by an examination of his works; but when we wish to portray the man as a master, or in domestic life, or we desire to know what his neighbours thought of him, we fail for want of reliable material. From his appending a bitter satire on “women” to the “Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers,” we might have inclined to think him a bachelor, did we not know that he had a wife and daughter when he came to England; but that he was unmarried while “governor” at Bruges is almost certain, as the rules of celibacy were very strict among merchants living out of their own countries. The Steel Yard merchants had a stringent law on the subject, and the Merchant Adventurers were doubtless guided by the same policy.

We naturally turn to the prologues and epilogues attached to Caxton’s translations for traits of character, but here again, we are surrounded by difficulties. There existed in those days no rights in literature. Every author took from others what best suited his purpose, and that without acknowledgment, except to give authority to his own opinions. This practice has involved many of the works of that period in considerable obscurity. Caxton was not free from this characteristic of his age, and we accordingly find him appropriating whole prologues and epilogues from the French originals, altering them only when inapplicable to himself. Such instances may be seen in the “Chess Book,” the “Mirror,” the “Golden Legend,” “Charles,” and others. Great care is therefore requisite to distinguish between Caxton’s own thoughts and the mere translation of those of others. But, after making due allowance for all this, there yet remains, in Caxton’s prologues and epilogues, a substratum of individuality, which must be the basis for any right appreciation of his character. His repeated eulogies of Edward IV, and the members of his family, indicate that all his political sympathies were with the House of York. This was but natural, for the development of trade consequent upon amity between England and the princes of the Low Countries, made all the English merchants staunch adherents to the White Rose. His writings also reveal that he had a deep sense of religion, and was strict in the observance of his Christian duties. Although in one sense the greatest reformer that this country has ever known, he was quite unconscious of the tendency of the art which he introduced. In the tone of his mind he was indeed eminently conservative, comparing the good old times of his apprenticeship with the degeneracy of the succeeding generations, when in the youth of London there was “no kernel nor good corn found, but chaff for the most part.” Much concerned was he to note in his latter days the decline of chivalry, and he urged his Sovereign to take immediate measures for its revival, even to the extent of engaging in a new crusade against the Turks for the recovery of the “holy cyte of Jherusalem.” Conservative as he was in theory, there seems reason to believe that he was no less so in practice. Caxton never gave in to the new-fangled ideas of printers about the advantage of title-pages to books, though if we may judge from the fact of Wynken de Worde using them immediately after his master’s death, he was of the reverse opinion. In the adoption of signatures, initials, and lines of an even length, he was very tardy, and from the use of red ink he was evidently averse.

As a linguist, Caxton undoubtedly excelled. In his native tongue, notwithstanding his self-depreciation, he seems to have been a master. His writings, and the style of his translations, will bear comparison with Lydgate, with Gower, with Earl Rivers, the Earl of Worcester, and other contemporaneous writers. Many of his readers, indeed, thought him too “ornate” and “over curious” in his diction, and desired him to use more homely terms; but, since others found fault with him for not using polished and courtly phrases, we may fairly presume that he attained the happy medium, “ne over rude, ne over curious,” at which he aimed. When excited by a favourite subject, as the “Order of Chivalry,” he waxed quite eloquent; and the appeal of Caxton to the knighthood of England has been often quoted as a remarkable specimen of fifteenth-century declamation. With the French tongue he was thoroughly conversant, although he had never been in France; but Bruges was almost French, and in the Court of Burgundy, as well as in that of England, French was the chief medium of conversation. With Flemish he was also well acquainted, as shown by his translation of “Reynart;” indeed, this language, after so long a residence in Bruges, must have become almost his mother-tongue.

Caxton’s knowledge of Latin has often been denied or underrated; but as governor of the English nation in Bruges, and as ambassador, he must have been able to read the treaties he assisted to conclude, and the correspondence with the king’s council. Moreover, he printed books entirely in the Latin tongue, some of which were full of contractions, and could only have been undertaken by one well acquainted with that language. These were the “Infancia Salvatoris,” three editions of the “Directorium Sacerdotum,” a “Psalterium,” “Horæ,” “Tractatus de Transfiguracione,” and several “Indulgences.” To “ordain in print” a Latin manuscript of the fourteenth or fifteenth century required a knowledge of the language on the part of the workman as well as of the master; for, as the letters _n_ and _u_ were identical in shape, and as _m_ and _i_ varied only in the number of strokes, the latter being without a dot, it was impossible to read some words--for instance, ~minimum~ (minimum), where fifteen parallel strokes distract the eye--apart from their context. We have, however, in the English translation of the “Golden Legend” positive evidence on this point; for, in the “Life of Saynt Rocke,” the printer says, “which lyff is translated oute of latyn in to englysshe by me wyllyam Caxton.”

As translator, editor, and author, Caxton has not received his due meed of praise. The works which he undertook at the suggestion of his patrons, as well as those selected by himself, are honestly translated, and, considering the age in which he lived, are well chosen. Romances, the favourite literature of his age, were Caxton’s great delight--and that not merely for the feats of personal prowess which they narrated, although no quality was more desirable in the fifteenth century, but rather, as he himself says, for the examples of “courtesy, humanity, friendliness, hardiness, love, cowardice, murder, hate, virtue, and sin,” which “inflamed the hearts of the readers and hearers to eschew and flee works vicious and dishonest.” In Poetry Caxton shows to great advantage, for he printed all the works of any merit which then existed. The prologue to his second edition of the “Canterbury Tales” proves how anxious he was to be correct, and at the same time shows the difficulty he had in obtaining manuscripts free from error. The poetical reverence with which Caxton speaks of Chaucer, “the first founder of _ornate_ eloquence in our English,” and the pains he took to reprint the “Canterbury Tales” when a purer text than that of his first edition was offered to him, show his high appreciation of England’s first great poet. In History the only available works in English were the “Chronicle of Brute” and the “Polycronicon;” the latter Caxton carried down, to the best of his ability, to nearly his own time. It was, indeed, as a writer of history that Caxton was best known to our older authors, some of whom, while including his name among those of English historians, have overlooked the far more important fact that he was also England’s prototypographer.

All reference to the literary forgery of Atkyns, who, in the seventeenth century, to support his claim to certain exclusive privileges of printing under the king’s patent, invented the foolish story of the abduction, by Turnour and Caxton, of one of the Haarlem workmen, and his settlement at Oxford in 1464, has here been purposely omitted. The whole account is so evidently false, so entirely at variance with the known facts in Caxton’s history, and has been so often disproved in works on English typography, that it needs no further refutation.

As to Caxton’s industry, it was marvellous: at an age when most men begin to take life easily, he not only embarked in an entirely new trade, but added to the duties of its general supervision and management, which could never have been light, the task of supplying his workmen with copy from his own pen. The extraordinary amount of printed matter, original, and translated, which he put forth has already been noticed; but there seems reason to believe that some of his works, both printed and manuscript, have been entirely lost. Of his translation of the “Metamorphoses of Ovid,” only Book XV has been preserved; but we may be certain that Caxton never would have begun to translate at the end of a work; and it seems probable, as the manuscript is evidently intended for the press, that the whole was printed as well as translated. Moreover several of Caxton’s works being unique, and others having been but recently discovered, we may conclude that time will yet reveal to us other specimens.

Several pretended autographs of Caxton have been claimed since the public exhibition of his books at South Kensington Museum, but great care should be taken before giving credence to them.

Great interest would attach to a veritable portrait of Caxton, but although two or three have been published, they are all apocryphal. The only one that has any appearance of probability is the small defaced illumination in the manuscript of “Dictes and Sayings” at Lambeth Palace, which has received too much praise from Horace Walpole, who engraved it for his “Royal and Noble Authors.” King Edward IV is represented on his throne, with the young prince (to whom Earl Rivers was tutor) standing by his side: there are two kneeling figures, one of which, Earl Rivers, is presenting to the king a copy of his own translation, which Horace Walpole assumes to have been printed by the other, who of course would then be Caxton. If this were the case it would be very interesting; but unfortunately the second figure is evidently an ecclesiastic, as shown by his tonsure, and apparently represents “Haywarde” the scribe, who engrossed the copy, and probably executed the illumination. The portrait commonly received as that of Caxton, and which first appeared in his “Life,” by Lewis, is thus accounted for by Dr. Dibdin:--“A portrait of _Burchiello_, the Italian poet, from an octavo edition of his work on Tuscan poetry, of the date of 1554, was inaccurately copied by Faithorne for Sir Hans Sloane, as the portrait of Caxton.” In Lewis’s “Life,” this portrait was “improved” by adding a thick beard to Burchiello’s chin, and otherwise altering his character; and in this form the Italian poet made his appearance, upon copper, as Caxton. Ames, Herbert, Marchand, and others have reproduced this absurd engraving. From a note, however, written by Lewis to Ames, it appears that, although Lewis admitted the portrait, it was Bagford’s creative genius that invented it, as may also be inferred from Lewis’s own subscription “_inv. Bagford_,” upon the plate.

As an instance of his appreciation of a higher life than can be obtained from riches alone, we will quote an anecdote which Caxton himself wrote, and added as an appendix to “Æsop’s Fables.”

“There were dwelling in Oxford two priests, both Masters of Art, of whom that one was quick and could put himself forth, and that other was a good simple priest. And so it happened that the master that was pert and quick was anon promoted to a benefice or two, and after to prebends, and for to be a dean. So after long time this worshipful man, this dean, came riding into a good parish with ten or twelve horses, like a prelate, and came into the church of the said parish, and found there this good simple man, sometime his fellow, which came and welcomed him lowly. And that other bade him, Good morrow, Master John, and took him slightly by the hand and axed him where he dwelled. And the good man said, In this parish. How! said he. Are ye here a soul-priest or a parish-priest? Nay, sir, said he; for lack of a better I am parson and curate of this parish. Then that other availed his bonnet and said, Master parson, I pray you be not displeased, I had supposed you not to be beneficed; but, master, said he, I pray you, what is this benefice worth to you a year? Forsooth, said the good simple man, I wot not, for I make never account thereof, although I have had it four or five years. And know you not what it is worth! it should seem a good benefice? No, forsooth, said he; but I wot well what it shall be worth to me. Why, said he, what shall it be worth? Forsooth, if I do my true diligence in the cure of my parishioners in preaching and teaching, and do the part belonging to my cure, I shall have heaven therefor. And if their souls be lost, or one of them by my default, I shall be punished therefor, and hereof am I sure. And with that word the rich dean was abashed. This was a good answer of a good priest and an honest.”

No attempt has been made in the preceding sketch to exalt Caxton at the expense of historical truth. As England’s first typographer, a never-dying interest will surround his name. Except as a printer, he nowhere shines forth pre-eminent. But although we cannot attribute to him those rare mental powers which can grasp the hidden laws of nature, nor the still more rare creative genius which endures throughout all time, we can claim for him a character which attracted the love and respect of his associates--a character on which history has chronicled no stain--a character which, although surrounded, through a long period of civil war, by the worst forms of cruelty, hypocrisy, and injustice in Church and State, retained to the last its innate simplicity and truthfulness.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] There is certainly the Roxburghe tablet in St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster; and, better still, there is a “_Caxton Pension_” in connection with the “Printers’ Corporation,” by which the needs of some afflicted successors in Caxton’s craft are alleviated; but a memorial worthy of our first printer and of his countrymen has never yet been attempted.

[9] Stow says the Abbots of Westminster had six wool-houses in the Staple granted them by King Henry VI.

[10] After an entry of the payment of six priests’ salaries, there occur--

“Costes and pcelles allowed by the hole Brotherhode toward thexpences
of the geñall fest in iij^{de} yere of this accompt.”

These “Costs and Parcels” occupy two folio pages, and contain the following among other items:--

“A tonn of wyne vj li”
“Paide to John Drayton chief cok for his reward xxv s”
“Also for the hire of xxiiij doseyn of erthen
pottes for ale & wyne iiij s”
“Also for erthen pottes broken & wasted at
the same fest vj s viij d”
“Also to iiij players for their labour xij s x d”
“Also to iij mynstrelles ix s x d”
“Also for the mete of diuers strangers xvj s”
“Also for russhes iij s iiij d”
“Also for vj doseyn of white cuppes iiij s”
“Also for portage and botehyre of the Turbut iiij d”
“Also for ix Turbutts xv s ij d”

Besides scores of “Capons, chekyns, gese, conyes, and peiones” (pigeons), the chief “cok” provided them with “swannys” and “herons,” with all sorts of fish, including oysters and “see pranys,” or prawns, with all sorts of meats and game, with jellies in “ix dosen gely dishes,” and with abundance of fruits. The quantity of ale, wine, and ypocras provided by the butler is marvellous, and one cannot wonder at the heavy entries for “pottes and cuppes broken and wasted.” The cook seems to have been paid much more liberally than the wardens, who had but xxx s between them “for their diligence.”

[11] The historian Gibbon regrets that in the choice of authors Caxton “was reduced to comply with the vicious taste of his readers; to gratify the nobles with treatises on heraldry, hawking [_Caxton printed nothing of the sort_], and the game of Chess; and to amuse the popular credulity with romances of fabulous knights and legends of some fabulous saints. The father of printing expresses a laudable desire to elucidate the history of his country; but instead of publishing the Latin chronicle of Radulphus Higden [_which very few could have read_] he could only venture on the English version by John de Trevisa ... the world is not indebted to England for one _first_ edition of a classic author!”