Chapter VI: Colard Mansion

Bruges, the old metropolis of Flanders, offers many points of the greatest interest to the historian and the antiquary. In the fifteenth century, it was the chosen residence of the sovereigns of the House of Burgundy, and to its marts resorted the most opulent merchants of Europe. There the arts, as well as commerce, were developed to a degree of excellence unequalled since the Augustan age, and even Paris was surpassed in literary and artistic treasures. Artists and craftsmen were consequently numerous, and, as we have already seen, those of them who were connected with the production of books, were enrolled as a trade guild. And this pre-eminence is not immaterial to our inquiry, for William Caxton was not only for more than thirty years a constant resident in Bruges, holding for a considerable period a position of great authority, but in this city likewise took his first lessons in typography and obtained the materials necessary for the introduction of the New Art into his native country.

Colard Mansion is generally admitted to have been the first printer at Bruges, but of his history little is known. His name occurs many times in the old records still preserved in the municipal library, and always in connection either with his trade of fine-manuscript writer, or with the guild of St. John. The first time it appears it is written “Collinet,” a diminutive of Collaert, from which Van Praet, his first biographer, thinks he was at that time under age. In 1450 “Collinet” received fifty-four livres from the Duke of Burgundy for a novel, entitled “Romuleon,” beautifully illuminated and bound in velvet. This copy is now in the Royal Library at Brussels, and another copy, written in characters exactly like the types used twenty years later by Colard Mansion, is in the British Museum. Both the Seigneur de la Gruthuyse and the Seigneur de Creveceur were his patrons; the former, indeed, was at one time on such friendly and familiar terms with Mansion, that he stood godfather to one of his children. It does not, however, appear that in later years, when poverty laid its heavy hand on the unfortunate printer, any of his patrons came to his assistance.

From 1454 to 1473 name of Mansion is found, year by year, as a contributor to the guild of St. John, the formation of which has been already noticed. In 1471 he was “doyen” or dean, an office which he held for two years, at the expiration of which time he is supposed to have left Bruges for a twelvemonth in order to learn the new art of printing. This is a needless assumption, grounded solely on his subscription for 1473 having been paid through a brother of the guild. From 1476 to 1482 his name does not appear at all as a contributor, although the dates of the “Boece,” the “Quadrilogue,” and the “Somme rurale,” show that he was still at Bruges, and pursuing his vocation. His subscription to the guild is again entered in 1483, and his name occurs in the guild records for the last time in 1484. This was a disastrous year to Colard Mansion; for, although not overtaken by death, as his early biographers have assumed, disgrace, poverty, and expatriation awaited him. He appears to have been in straitened circumstances for some years, as in 1480 he could not execute the commission of Monseigneur de Gazebeke for an illuminated copy of “Valerius Maximus,” in two volumes, without several advances of money. The receipts for these instalments are still preserved, as is also a notice of Mansion’s place of residence, which was in one of the poorest streets in Bruges, leading out of the Rue des Carmes. His typographical labours were carried on in one of two rooms over the porch of the church of St. Donatus, for which we may assume that he paid the same rent as the next tenant, six livres per annum. It was in this room that Colard Mansion, in May 1484, finished his beautiful edition of Ovid’s “Metamorphoses,” a magnificent folio of 386 leaves, full of woodcuts, printed-in separately from the text. We know nothing of the sale of this noble production; but the expenses connected with it were probably his ruin, for about three months later he left the city. The Chapter of St. Donatus, feeling uneasy about their rent, soon made inquiries as to the probability of his return, there being an opportunity of letting the room to a better tenant; but all was in vain, and in October 1484 the apartment in which Mansion had for so many years been labouring at those volumes which are now prized as among the glories of Bruges, was made over to Jean Gossin, a member of the same guild as Mansion, and, like him, engaged in the manufacture of books. The Chapter, however, took care not to lose by their tenant’s flight, for the conditions upon which his room (and probably a large stock of printed sheets besides) was made over to Gossin were that the latter should pay up all arrears of rent. Nothing more is known of Mansion after this sad event; and it is mournful to contemplate the poor man turning his back upon his native city, to begin life anew at the age of nearly sixty, after so many years spent in literary labour. It has been suggested that he took refuge in Paris, as the names of Paul and Robert Mansion appear as printers in that city in 1650; but on this point there is no evidence whatever.

In examining the productions of Colard Mansion’s press, it is somewhat perplexing to the lover of accuracy to find that he, like all the earliest printers, issued most of his productions without date, and many without even name or place. In this he merely followed the example of his predecessors, the scribes, who seldom affixed their names, or the date of the transcript. Van Praet enumerates twenty-one works from his press, and another has been since discovered. These, to the eye of a printer, naturally divide themselves into two classes.

1st. Those printed in a large bold Secretary type.

2nd. Those printed in a smaller semi-roman character, known as “Lettres de Somme.”

No one acquainted, although but slightly, with the practical features of typography can doubt that the early books attributed to Caxton, and the early books issued by Mansion, came from the same press. Mansion employed for his first type a very bold secretary, exactly similar in character to the type first used at Westminster. In Pl. II and III they may be seen in juxtaposition. It also closely resembled in shape and in size the character in which Mansion was accustomed to execute his manuscripts. He likewise printed, at the head of each chapter, the summary in red ink; and here he displayed so curious an instance of typographical ingenuity that the reader’s attention is particularly requested to it. If we closely examine into the appearance which the red ink, as used by Mansion in his “Boccace,” “Boece,” “Somme rurale,” and “Ovide,” presents, it will be noticed that it is very dirty in colour, and moreover that the black lines, nearest the red, have their edges tipped with red, a defect which the separate printing of lines in red ink affords no opportunity for producing. The following explanation will satisfactorily show the _modus operandi_. The two colours were printed by one and the same pull of the press, all the type, both for black and red, being included in the same form. But it was impossible to beat the form with the balls, and leave a single line in the middle untouched; so the whole page was inked black, and then (a space for play being always left above and below) the black line was carefully wiped from the intended red line, and that line re-inked with red by the finger, or by other means, after which the sheet was pulled. A twofold inconvenience attended this clumsy process,--the black could never be removed so completely that it would not taint the ensuing red, and the utmost care would not usually prevent the black lines nearest the red receiving a slight touch from the red finger, or ball. In fact, both these defects appear in every book printed by Colard Mansion, in which the two colours were used, and to these was frequently added a third--the loss of a portion of the black ink nearest to the red caused by the wiping process. Actual experiment shows that this mode of working both colours at once is the only solution of the appearance, and the inducement for its adoption was in all probability the perfect accuracy of “register” it secured, as there was thus no fear of the red lines not fitting exactly in their proper places--an accuracy very difficult to obtain, by separate printings, at a rudimentary press. This peculiarity of workmanship in the Bruges printer is not found in any book from the Mentz or Cologne presses; indeed all the typographical habits of the Bruges and Cologne printers were so distinct and opposite that it is difficult to believe in any connection between them.

It has been already shown that in early books uneven spacing is a sure sign that the workmanship is prior to that of books from the same press in which the lines are all of equal length. The dated books of Colard Mansion are only six in number, which fully bear this out.

Le Jardin de Dévotion before 1476 uneven lines
Boccace du Déchiet des Nobles Hommes 1476 ”
Boece de la Consolation de Philosophie 1477 ”
Le Quadrilogue d’Alain Chartier 1478[4] even lines
La Somme rurale 1479 ”
Les Metamorphoses d’Ovide 1484 ”

Taking, then, 1478 as the year in which Mansion changed his practice, we may assume, without fear of error, that all the undated books, with short-spaced lines, were anterior, and all the undated books, with their lines spaced to one length, posterior to the “Quadrilogue.” On this basis his undated productions may be thus arranged.

Before 1478, having lines of an uneven length:--

Les Dits moraux des Philosophes short-spaced
Les Invectives contre la Secte de Vauderie ”
La Controversie de Noblesse ”
Débat entre trois valeureux Princes ”

After 1478, having lines of an even length:--

Les Advineaux amoureux. Edit. 1 full-spaced
La Doctrinal du temps présent ”
La Doctrine de bien vivre ”
L’Art de bien mourir ”
La Purgatoire des mauvais Maris ”
L’Abuse en court ”
Les Evangiles des Quenouilles ”
Le Donat espirituel ”
Les Adeuineaux amoreux. Edit. 2 ”
Dionysii Areopagiticæ liber ”

Colard Mansion seems never to have produced works from his press with rapidity; therefore, as the “Boccace” of 1476 contained nearly 600 pages in large folio, and the “Boece” of 1477 about the same, we may fairly assume that the five other short-spaced works were anterior to the “Boccace.” This hypothesis would make Mansion a printer in Bruges about the time when Caxton finished his translation of “Le Recueil des Histoires de Troyes.”

In the next Chapter it is proposed to show how all the peculiarities noticeable in the printed productions of Colard Mansion may be traced in those attributed to William Caxton.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] The only date in the volume is 1477, which was the year when the Prologue was composed: the printing must have been later than this.

_Type No. 1._

_From “The Recuyell of the Histories of Troye.”_

_From “Le Recueil des Histories de Troye.”_]

_Colard Mansion’s, Gros Bâtarde Type. Showing the hand of the same Artist that cut Caxton’s No. 2._

_Taken from “La Controversie de Noblesse,” c. 1477._]

_Caxton’s Type No. 2*._

_Taken from “Fratris Laur. Gul. de Saona,” c. 1479._]