Chapter II: An Apprenticeship

Caxton tells us, in his prologue to “Charles the Great,” that, previously to his apprenticeship, he had been to school, but whether in Kent or in London he does not say. He only thanks his parents for their kind foresight in giving him a good education, by which he was enabled in after years to earn an honest living. No other particulars of his early history being known, we will pass at once to the year 1438, and imagine him, fresh from the Weald, already installed in the household of Alderman Large, and duly invested with all the rights and privileges of a London apprentice.

When we remember how many of these apprentices were young men about four-and-twenty years of age, we can readily believe that very strict rules were required to keep them within bounds, and that when they did break loose it was sometimes beyond the combined power of all the city authorities to restrain them. The Evil May Day, as it was called, in 1517, when the apprentices rose against the foreigners, especially the French, and, notwithstanding the efforts of the Lord Mayor and aldermen, ravaged the City, burning houses and killing many persons, is recorded by the old chroniclers. The day was long remembered by the masters with fear, and by the apprentices with pride--although twelve of the latter ignominiously perished by the hands of the hangman after the suppression of the riot by the King’s troops.

The master’s duties to his apprentice were to feed him, clothe him, and teach him well and truly his art and craft. Failing the fulfilment of these duties, the apprentice could, on complaint and proof shown before the Court of Aldermen, have his indentures cancelled, or be turned over to another master. On the other side, the apprentice made oath to serve his master well and truly, to keep all his secrets, to use no traffic on his own account, and to obey all lawful commands.

The London merchants of those days were very exclusive in their reception of apprentices, and perhaps none of them more so than the Mercers, who took precedence of all the City companies. The leading men of the great companies, as was natural, apprenticed their sons to one another, and thus the family names of Caxton’s fellow-apprentices are the names also of the wardens, and the most substantial citizens of the period. The family name of “Caxton” does not, indeed, figure among those of the City magnates, but William Caxton’s admission to the household of one of London’s most eminent merchants, and his being apprenticed at the same time as his master’s son, go far to prove the family to have been well connected. In one case only does there seem a probability of relationship. The records of the Mercers’ Company contain many notices of the “entries” and “issues” of apprentices, and in 1447 it is recorded that one Richard Caxton finished his term of servitude with John Harrowe, whose son was one of the apprentices of Robert Large at the same time as William Caxton. Large and Harrowe were fellow Mercers, and evidently on friendly terms, so that it is probable the two young Caxtons were of the same family.

Robert Large, Caxton’s master, was one of the richest and most influential merchants in the City. He was a Mercer, and the son of a Mercer, and a native of the City of London. In 1430 he filled the office of Sheriff, and in 1439-40 that of Lord Mayor. The Mercers’ Company was then, as now, the oldest chartered company in existence, and among its members were comprised the merchants of highest standing in the City. It paid more money to the king’s revenue, sent to a “riding” more well-mounted men, spent larger sums on its “liveries,” and yielded from its ranks more sheriffs and mayors than any two City companies besides. Large was elected “Gardein” (the old term for Warden) in 1427, and appears to have made himself very popular, if we may judge from the unusual expenditure on the Lord Mayor’s Day when he succeeded to the mayoralty. Carriages not having yet come into use, the procession to Westminster was on horseback, the Mercers on that occasion riding in new robes, preceded by sixteen trumpeters, blowing silver trumpets purchased for the occasion. A few liverymen who absented themselves were heavily fined.

_From Aggas’s Map of London, showing the House of Alderman Large, Caxton’s Master (marked †). The Arms of Large in right hand corner._]

The house in which Alderman Large resided no doubt presented a great contrast to Caxton’s home in the Weald. It stood at the north end of the Old Jewry, and appears to have been a very ancient and extensive mansion. Stow, writing in 1598, gives a curious account of its vicissitudes, and sums up its history thus:--“sometime a Jews’ Synagogue, since a house of friars, then a nobleman’s house, after that a merchant’s house, wherein mayoralties have been kept, but now a wine tavern.” Large resided there until his death.

The household of which Caxton had become a member consisted of at least eighteen persons, exclusive of domestic servants--Alderman Robert Large and his second wife Johanna; four sons, Robert, Thomas, Richard, and John, all under age (24 years), the last being bound apprentice at the same time as Caxton; two daughters, Alice and Elizabeth, both under age (21 years); two “servants,” or men who had served their apprenticeship, and eight apprentices. Large did not long survive his mayoralty. His will is dated April 11th, 1441, and he died on the 24th of the same month. He was buried in St. Olave’s, Old Jewry, in the same grave as his first wife Elizabeth, and their monument, with the following inscription, existed in the time of Stow:--“Hic requiescat in Gratia et misericordia Dei, ROBERTUS LARGE, quondam Mercerus et Maior istius civitatis.” A copy of Large’s will is preserved in the Principal Registry of the Court of Probate at Somerset House. From it we learn that he owned the manor of Horham, in Essex, and that he left various sums to the parish churches of Shakeston, Aldestre, and Overton, where some of his relatives were buried. It would have been interesting to find that Large had a family connection with Caxton’s native county; but although no trace of this can be discovered, it is remarkable that two of his apprentices should have had Kentish names, Caxton being merely another form of Causton, a manor near Hadlow, and the hundred of Strete being represented by Caxton’s fellow-apprentice, Randolph Streete. He left liberal bequests to his parish church of St. Olave, Old Jewry, and for religious purposes generally, as well as considerable sums for the completion of a new aqueduct then in course of construction, for the repair of London Bridge, for cleansing the watercourse of Walbrook, for marriage portions of poor girls, for relief of domestic servants, and for the use of various hospitals of London, among which may be noticed “Bedleem,” Bishopsgate Without, St. Thomas of Southwark, and the Leper Houses at “Hakeney-les-lokes.” Among the many bequests in Large’s will, the following are worthy of notice as showing the names and approximate ages of Caxton’s fellow apprentices, of whom he appears, both by the order in which he is mentioned, and by the dates in the Mercers’ records, to have been the youngest.

Richard Bonyfaunt (issued 1440) 50 marks.
Henry Okmanton (entered 1434) 50 pounds.
Robert Dedes ( ) 20 marks.
Christopher Heton (issued 1443) 20 pounds.
William Caxton (entered 1437) 20 marks.

Besides the above there were Randolph Streete, who issued in the same year as that in which Caxton was bound, Thomas Neche, who issued in 1440, and John Harrowe, who issued in 1443. These are all entered in the Mercers’ books as “appñtices de Rob^{t.} Large.”

Before proceeding with the account of Caxton, we may here briefly state what is known of the subsequent history of the family in which he lived. Mistress Large (whose son Richard Turnat, by her first husband, is mentioned in Large’s will) was now again a widow, with a large fortune of her own and the care of two stepsons, each of whom was also well provided for. Her second bereavement appears for a time to have affected her most deeply. Over the body of her deceased husband she thus solemnly and publicly vowed to devote the remainder of her days to charity and chastity:--“I, Johanna, that was sometime the wife of Robert Large, make mine avow to God and the high blissful Trinity, to our Lady Saint Mary, and to all the blissful company of Heaven, to live in chastity and cleanness of my body from this time forward as long as my life lasteth, and never to take other spouse but only Christ Jesu.” At the same time a ring was placed upon her wedding finger, and a coarse brown veil thrown over her by the priest. Her celibacy was not, however, of long duration, as in about three years she married for the third time, as we learn from the following quaint entry in the second edition of Stow’s “Survey of London.” Writing of John Gedney, Lord Mayor in 1427, he says, “This Godnay in the yeare 1444 wedded the widdow of Robert Large late Maior, which widdow had taken the Mantell and ring, and the vow to liue chast to God tearme of her life, for the breach whereof, the marriage done they were troubled by the Church, and put to penance, both he and she.”

All the children mentioned by Large in his will were by Elizabeth, his first wife. Robert and Thomas did not long survive their father; John died soon after the expiration of his apprenticeship, which, as we have seen, was contemporaneous with that of Caxton, and his name, accordingly, does not occur in Large’s will. Richard, the sole survivor, succeeded, as was his father’s wish, to all the property devised to his two elder brothers, and his claims were allowed by the Court of Aldermen on his “attaining his age of 24 years” in the year 1444. Large’s daughter Alice does not appear to have claimed her patrimony on arriving at her majority; she therefore, in all probability, died previously; but Elizabeth married soon after her father’s death, and her husband, Thomas Eyre, son of the Lord Mayor, received her dowry in 1446.

The three years which Caxton passed as apprentice with Large were very eventful, and, as it was during this period that he must have received his most vivid impressions of life, it may not be amiss to take a rapid glance at a few of the events which agitated the minds of the people. Caxton, no doubt, was witness of the great jousts in Smithfield in 1438, which lasted three weeks, and are so graphically described in one of the Lansdowne Manuscripts in the British Museum (No. 285), and his intense love for knightly sports may have there been first developed. But though sights of knights at tournaments were to be seen for nothing, common bread was very dear, and many deaths from starvation occurred in the same year. An old chronicle tells us that, “Men ate rye bread and barly, and bred mad of benes, peses, and fetches: and wel were hym that myghte haue ynowe thereof.” In his own additions to the “Polycronicon” Caxton is more than usually minute in his record of the events which occurred during the time of his apprenticeship. Speaking of this year, he recounts that “Corne was soo skarce that in some places poure peple made hem brede of fern rotes.” This makes one cease to wonder at tumults and rebellion, and possibly some chord of pity was struck in Caxton’s breast when certain men from his native county of Kent, called “Risers,” were beheaded, and the heads of five of them were stuck on poles and left to rot over the southern gateway of London Bridge. In 1439 Large was elected Mayor, and at his “riding” to Westminster and back, all his apprentices no doubt assisted to swell the shout in honour of their master, and to drink the wine which flowed freely from the conduits. But ere that year was ended a sad spectacle was seen on Tower Hill, when Richard Wyche, Vicar of Deptford, an old man of eighty years of age, was burnt for Lollardism. An old chronicler, at the end of his account of this martyrdom, adds, “for the which Sir Richard was made grete _mone_ among the comyn peple;” and well they might moan, for his love and charity had won for him the strongest affection among the poor. He was first degraded “at Powly’s,” and then taken away to Tower Hill, where he was roasted alive over a slow fire. The excitement among the people was intense, and on the night of this event all the watches throughout the city were doubled, so great were the fears entertained of a general rising. The impression made on the mind of Caxton by this event may be gathered from his own relation:--“This yere Syr Rychard wiche, vycary of hermettesworth was degrated of his prysthode, at powlys, and brente at toure hylle as for an heretyk on saynt Botolphus day, how wel at his deth, he deyde a good crysten man, wherefore after his dethe moche people cam to the place where he hadde ben brente, and offryd and made a heepe of stones, and sette vp a crosse of tree, and helde hym for a saynt till the mayer and shreves, by commaundement of the kynge and bisshops destroyed it, and made there a donghyll.” Another grievous event appears, in the following year, to have excited the compassion of our young apprentice. On three alternate days Eleanor Chobham, the beautiful wife of Duke Humphrey, was landed on the banks of the Thames, and, accompanied by the mayor, sheriffs, and guilds of the city, walked to St. Paul’s barefooted, clad in a white sheet, and holding a taper, as a penance for her presumed sorceries with the witch of Eye. Caxton has narrated this at unusual length. There were great tournaments again this year in the Tower, as well as a desperate fight between the citizens and a body of courtiers, for which the former, although first invaded and then attacked, were heavily fined by the king. The old chronicler describes the fray as “a great debate by the night time, where through shots of bows there were many hurt foul and slain.” But the chief event of this period, considered in its bearing upon Caxton’s destiny, was the conclusion of a three years’ peace between England and Flanders. This, coupled with the termination of the war which had raged furiously between Holland and Zealand and Hamburgh, was probably a material cause in determining Caxton’s departure from England.

We do not know what were the exact duties which devolved upon Caxton during his apprenticeship; but as an assistant to Large, who had extensive connections, and was doubtless in frequent correspondence with Bruges, the great centre of English commerce abroad, he must have obtained considerable insight into the customs of foreign trade, and become personally known to many Flemish merchants, who, when in London, would probably stay in Large’s house.

We must not forget that Caxton was not released from his indentures by the death of his master. If he wished to continue his career as a merchant, whether in England or abroad, he was obliged to serve out his apprenticeship; and that he did so we gather from his admission in after years to the livery of the Mercers’ Company. Executors were bound to provide the apprentices of a deceased trader with a new home; and it would seem that the original master might appoint a new master by his will, or of his own accord assign the apprentice during his lifetime, without making the apprentice himself a party to the assignment. So far as we know, Large made no arrangement of this kind; and it appears probable that the usual course of providing a new master for the bereaved apprentice was adopted by the executors in Caxton’s case. Moreover, it was not uncommon for young men in his position to be sent to some foreign town to obtain experience in trade. Wheeler says, “The Merchants Adventurers send their yong men, sonnes, and servantes or apprentices, who for the most parte are Gentlemens sonnes, to the Marte Townes beyonde the seas, there to learne good facions and knowledge in trade.” Whether Caxton left England by his own desire, or at the instance of his new master, or by the invitation of a foreign friend, is unknown; but that he took up his abode in the Low Countries, and probably at Bruges, in 1441, the year in which his first master died, we gather from his own words in the prologue to “The Recuyell,” where he states that he had then, in 1471, been abroad for thirty years. Thither probably he carried with him no more than the twenty marks (equal to about £150 at the present day) bequeathed to him by Alderman Large.