Читать книгу Old Picture Books, With Other Essays on Bookish Subjects - Alfred W. Pollard - Страница 6

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SOME years ago a copy of an edition of the 'Hours of the Blessed Virgin,' according to the use of Sarum, came into my possession, and I have since been surprised to learn that it is probably unique. On the fly-leaf of the little volume is the note: 'This Book I picked up on a Stall at Venice, in 1741, and had it bound there. It was probably printed in England (as there are some few English directions in it) some time before Henry VIII.' The second half of this note has been crossed through, and the more correct information substituted: 'rather at Paris for the use of English booksellers, about the year 1500.' A later note shows that the original purchaser was Mr. Joseph Smith, for many years British Consul at Venice, most of whose many bargains in early printed books passed into the library of George III., and thence to the British Museum. Of this little 'Book of Hours' many of the pages are stained with damp, so that it probably belonged to the consignment of his purchases which was wrecked on its way home. Perhaps for this reason, perhaps because the most esteemed Horae are on vellum and this is on paper and moreover lacks its first leaf, perhaps because the good king did not care to collect works of prae-Reformation devotion, this particular purchase of the energetic consul never found a royal owner. It possesses, however, not a little interest of its own, and if my readers will consent to turn over its pages with me, they will disclose to us a great deal of information as to the compilation and printing of these books of devotion in the fifteenth century, and their supply for the use of devout persons in England.

It is rather surprising that Consul Smith was deceived, even for a moment, as to the foreign origin of his purchase. The illustrations, as to which we shall have a great deal to say later on, are unmistakably French, and appear in many French 'Books of Hours,' both of earlier and later date. The type also is of a character very common in French books, and never found out of France. These points, however, require just a smattering of knowledge about early printing for their appreciation, while only a little common sense is needed in the present case to determine the origin of the book. The general printing is excellent, but the mistakes made in the half-dozen directions in English could have been made by no Englishman. Thus the words into the chirche appear as in thothe chir che; hous is misprinted bous; begynne as hegynne; and the like. Moreover, we note that the printer possessed no letter k in his fount, but was obliged to represent it by a combination of l and the old sign for and: The book, therefore, was printed neither in England, Germany, nor the Low Countries, but in a country where the letter k forms no part of the alphabet, and a good guess might easily have suggested France as its most likely place of imprint.

A clause in one of the Acts passed by the Parliament of 1483, while Richard III. was still anxious to pose as a constitutional monarch, expressly provided for the free importation of books printed abroad, and for the exemption of foreign printers and booksellers settling in England from the restrictions usually imposed upon alien traders. The clause was no doubt prompted by a genuine desire to promote education and learning, but it is probable that a little protection of a young industry might have quickened its development without imposing too serious a tax upon reading. Lettou and Machlinia were already at work in London when the Act was passed, and Theodoric Rood at Oxford, but no other printers were attracted from abroad for several years, while the influx of foreign books made home competition so hazardous that after Rood disappears Oxford was for many years without a printer, and at Cambridge no press was set up till 1521. Not only were almost all classical books imported, but English works were printed in English by several Dutch firms, the much greater similarity of the two languages in those days rendering the task easier than it would be at present. English books were also printed occasionally in France, for Antoine Vérard among others, not always, however, very intelligently, as indeed the misprints at which we have just been looking would lead us to expect.

In addition to the works of poetry and romance, which are now the best known among the productions of his press, William Caxton issued also many books of devotion. In the show-case devoted to his publications in the King's Library at the British Museum, among other unique books are shown the Latin Psalter, printed by him between 1480 and 1483, and a volume containing the 'Fifteen Oes,' and other prayers, 'emprented bi the commaundementes of the most hye and vertuous pryncesse our liege ladi Elizabeth by the grace of God Quene of Englonde,' and of Margaret Tudor, the king's mother.

THE TREE OF JESSE. FROM PIGOUCHET'S 'HORAE'

Caxton also printed at least four editions of the Horae, fragments of which survive at the Museum and at Oxford, though no copy even approaching completeness is now known to exist. As a rule, however, English liturgical works were printed abroad, for the most part in France (at Paris or Rouen), but also at Venice, at Antwerp, at Basel, and elsewhere. Thus of the Sarum Breviary there are at the Museum six early Paris editions, and one from Antwerp, but no London edition before 1541. The solitary editions of the Sarum Gradual and Antiphonal are both from Paris, while of the thirty editions of the Sarum Missal, five and twenty were printed abroad and only five at home. It need not, therefore, surprise us to find that of thirty-nine Sarum Horae in the Museum library, while two were printed at Antwerp, and two at Rouen, the Paris presses produced twenty-seven, those of London only eight, and these with some help from France.

It is time now to turn to the contents of our book. These are as follows:—

i.	A Kalendar.
ii.	Passages from the Gospels on the Birth, Ascension, and Death of Christ, viz., S. John i. 1-14; S. Luke i. 20-38; S. Matt. ii. 1-12; S. Mark xvi. 14-20; S. John xviii. 1-42.
iii.	Prayers: On the Trinity: 'Whan thou goest first out of thy hous'; 'Whan thou entrest into the chirch'; 'Whan thou beginnest to praye.'
iv.	The Hours of the Blessed Virgin—'Horae intemeratae beatae Mariae Virginis secundum usum Sarum.'
v.	The Hours of the Compassion of the Blessed Virgin.
vi.	The Seven Penitential Psalms.
vii.	The Litany of the Saints.
viii.	The Vigils of the Dead.
ix.	Seven Psalms on the Lord's Passion.
x.	Prayers: Before the Image of the Body of Christ; To the Blessed Mary and to S. John the Evangelist.

There is thus, as in all editions, a great deal in the volume besides the Horae, from which the book takes its name. But of the hundred and sixty pages to which (in addition to the twelve leaves of Kalendar) the volume extends, upwards of sixty are occupied by the Hours, which are thus much the most important item in the contents. The antiquity of these Hours was very great, for they are mentioned as an office as early as the sixth century. They fell, however, into disuse, but were revived, and probably rearranged, by Peter Damian just ten years before our battle of Hastings. Forty years later, in 1096, at the Council of Claremont, the saying of them, in addition to the canonical hours, was made compulsory upon all the clergy, and this compulsion continued until 1568, when Pope Pius V., in issuing his revision of the Breviary, released the clergy from the obligation to say this office, at the same time that he forbade the use of the vernacular translations of it, which for at least two centuries had been permitted to the laity. In England, as we all know, these vernacular versions were called Primers, and their rendering of the Psalms and Prayers of which the Hours were made up, and of the additional matter which was joined with them, has formed the basis of our present English Prayer Book.

Thee God we preise: Thee Lord we knowleche:

Thee endless Fader everi erthe worschipeth:

To Thee alle angels, to Thee hevenes and alle manere powers:

To thee cherubim and seraphim crieth with vois withouten cessinge:

Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Ostis:

Hevenes and erthe ben ful of mageste of thi glorie:

Thee the glorious compainie of apostles:

Thee the preisable noumbre of prophetes:

Thee preiseth the white ost of martires.

So began the English version of the Te Deum in a Primer written at the end of the fourteenth century (British Museum, Add. MS. 27, 592),[4] and if the beauty of some of these lines has caused us to give them a preference over other versions a little closer to our own, they serve none the less well to show whence it was that our Prayer Book obtained its magnificent rhythms. But who would know more of our old English Primers must be referred to the third volume of the late Mr. Maskell's 'Monumenta Ritualia Ecclesiae Anglicanae' (Clarendon Press, 1882). Here we are concerned with Horae, and that in their bibliographical and pictorial, rather than their liturgical aspect.

Each of the Hours, we are told, had its mystical reference to some event in the Lives of the Blessed Virgin and our Lord, and these references are explained in some of the Primers in some rude verses, which, with correction of some obvious misprints, and modernising the spelling, I proceed to quote:—

Ad Laudes:

How Mary, the mother and virgin,

Visited Elizabeth, wife of Zachary,

Which said, 'Blessed be thou cousin,

And blessed be the fruit of thy body.'

Ad Primam:

How Jesu Christ right poorly born was,

In an old crib laid all in poverty,

At Bethleem, by an ox and an ass,

Where Mary blessed His nativity.

Ad Tertiam:

How an Angel appeared in the morn,

Singing, 'Gloria in Excelsis Deo';

Saying, 'The very Son of God is born,

Ye Shepherds of Bethleem, ye may go.'

Ad Sextam:

How three kings of strange nations,

Of Christ's birth having intelligence,

Unto Bethleem brought their oblations,

Of gold, of myrrh, and frankincense.

Ad Nonam:

Simeon, at Christ's circumcision,

These words unto the Jews did tell,

'My eyen beholdeth your redemption,

The light and glory of Israel.'

Ad Vesperas:

How Mary and Joseph with Jesus were fain

Into Egypt, for succour, to flee,

Whan the Innocents for His sake were slain,

By commission of Herod's cruelty.

Ad Completorium:

How Mary assumpted was above the skies,

By her Son as sovereign lady,

Received there among the hierarchies,

And crowned her the queen of glory.

I have quoted these verses in full, rude though they are, because they form the keynote to the scheme of illustrations of all Horae and Primers. The Hours were intended as devotional comments on the subjects of these verses, and in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries it was thus the most natural thing in the world that each Hour should be accompanied by an illumination, or, failing that, a woodcut, to illustrate its special theme. Accustomed as we nowadays are to gain our information exclusively by reading letterpress, it is only by a visit to our nurseries that we can recall to ourselves how deeply the need of pictures was felt in the ages before the printing press made the art of reading a common acquirement. Of this need the Miracle Plays, with all their rudeness, all their unconscious profanity, were at once the living witness and the living fulfilment. In the great cycles, such as those of York, Wakefield, and Chester, which have come down to us, the history of the world in its sacred aspects is unrolled from the creation of the angels to the day of judgment; and the presentment of these plays probably brought the Bible stories nearer to the people than could have been possible in any other way. Certainly these plays left a deep mark upon current ideas of art, and helped to render impossible any attempt at antiquarian correctness. In the scene of the Adoration of the Shepherds in some of the finest books of Hours (P. Pigouchet: Paris, 1498, 1502, etc.), underneath the figures of the shepherds and their wives (by whom they are mostly represented as being accompanied) are written the names Gobin le gai, le beau Roger, Aloris, Alison, Mahault, Ysambre, by which they were known in the French plays on the Nativity, and the shepherds are French Shepherds of the fifteenth century. But however great their anachronisms, the tableaux in the Miracle Plays and the pictures in books of devotion were found abundantly helpful, and for more than a century and a half, first in manuscript and afterwards in print, the Horae or Primers, the prayer-books of the laity, hold the first place among illuminated books.

FROM A SARUM HORAE. PARIS: P. PIGOUCHET FOR S. VOSTRE, 1502

A few years ago Mr. Quaritch possessed a charming 'Book of Hours,' which at one time belonged to Elizabeth Poyntz, a relative of the Thomas Poyntz at whose book we were looking a little while back. To this manuscript Mr. Quaritch in his catalogue assigned the date 'about 1360,' which, if correct, gives it considerable antiquity among illuminated Horae. The end of the fourteenth century is the date at which these first become at all common, and it was during the fifteenth century that they obtained their greatest popularity, and that the greatest artists were employed in their production. Numerous and very beautiful examples of the manuscripts produced during this period form part of the permanent exhibition in the Grenville Library at the British Museum, and I hope that many of my readers will go to look at them there. All fine examples of manuscript Horae possess (i.) beautiful initial letters, (ii.) borders surrounding every page, formed of leaves, flowers, birds, grotesques, and the like, (iii.) a number of beautiful miniatures, filling the whole or the greater part of a page, and representing the scenes from the life of Christ and His Mother mentioned in the lines quoted above, with additional illustrations from the Passion, and from the lives of the saints. Beyond saying this, it is impossible to give any general description of these manuscript Hours, each one of which possesses its own delightful individuality. Two or three special examples, however, may be mentioned to show the estimation in which they were held and the care which was spent on their decoration. Thus the late Mr. Charles Elton possessed a charming little 'Book of Hours' which once belonged to Queen Jeanne II. of Naples (1370-1435). It measures only 2 5/8 × 1 7/8 inches, and contains one hundred and sixty leaves and twenty miniatures, nine of which occupy the whole of their page. The initial letters throughout are in gold and colours, and the borders are of the ivy-leaf pattern, the scrolls often terminating in grotesques. Mr. Quaritch, again, when this paper was written, had for disposal (for the sum of one thousand pounds) a Horae of slightly later date, a wedding present from the Regent, John, Duke of Bedford, to Lord Talbot on his second marriage in 1424, when he allied himself to Margaret Beauchamp, daughter of Richard, Earl of Warwick. The first leaf contains a miniature showing Talbot and his wife at prayer under the protection of their patron saints, and many other miniatures are scattered through the rest of the volume. In 1429 Talbot was captured at the battle of Patay and remained a prisoner in France till 1433. During this time he made many entries in the blank leaves of his Hours. Here is a snatch from one in verse:

Saynt George the gode knyght

Over your Fomen geve you myght,

And holy Saynt Katheryne

To youre begynnyng send gode fyne,

Saynt Christofre botefull (helpful) on see and lond,

Joyfully make you see Engelond.

Twenty years after his release from imprisonment, Talbot was slain (July 20, 1453), fighting against a Breton force at Chatillon. It is possible that he may have carried his Hours on his person, for it was in the cottage of a Breton peasant that it was discovered a few years ago, and it seems likely that a Breton soldier may have found it on the battle-field, and transmitted it to his descendants as an heirloom. As an example of another kind of interest, we may instance a Horae at the Bodleian, on four of whose leaves are drawn most delicate and beautiful representations of religious processions. The best of these has been reproduced in the Proceedings of the Palæographical Society, and it is impossible to overrate the charm of the drawing.

In 1473 Nicholas Jenson printed a Horae at Venice; three years later, Matthias Moravus followed his example at Naples, and the earliest of Caxton's four editions was probably printed not much later than 1478. But these were all ordinary books, with no special beauty about them except what they might receive from the 'rubrisher,' or illuminator, after the printer had done his work. It was not till 1487, just a third of a century after the issue from the press of the first printed document bearing a date, that any serious attempt was made to supplant the manuscript Horae by printed editions. The first essay was made by Anthoine Vérard, of Paris, and is said—I have never seen a copy of it—to have been a poor production, 'without frontispieces' (whatever that may mean), or borders to the text. The success, however, with which it met was apparently sufficient to encourage Vérard to renew his attempt, and in 1488 or thereabouts he issued his 'Grandes Heures,' a fine quarto, with fourteen large engravings, and borders in four compartments to every page. In 1489, he reprinted the book in much cheaper form, using most of the large engravings which now occupied a whole page apiece, and devising for the borders smaller figures, in which scenes from the life of the Blessed Virgin and our Lord were set forth with their Old Testament types. Meanwhile other publishers had not been idle, for, in 1488, Jean du Pré, or Johannes de Prato, as he called himself on his Latin title-pages, issued the first of the few Horae which proceeded from his press; and in 1491 Philippe Pigouchet printed his first known edition, and not long afterwards entered into relations with Simon Vostre, an enterprising bookseller, which resulted in the publication of at least a score of editions, all extraordinarily rare, during the next twenty years. Towards the end of this century, and in the early part of the next, other Paris firms of printers and publishers joined in the trade. Of these, Thielman Kerver, Gilles and Germain Hardouyn, Guillaume Eustace, Francois Regnault, and Geoffroy Tory were the most important, but Horae are extant bearing the imprint of more than thirty other firms besides these. The demand must have been very great, for Paris supplied not only the rest of France—and in the British Museum there are examples of Horae for the use of no fewer than thirty different French dioceses—but also England. Hence there was abundance of work for all, and the different publishers copied each other's editions with a freedom which is not a little embarrassing to the humble bibliographer.

The subjects of the fourteen full-page illustrations in the little 'Horae secundum usum Sarum,' which we have taken as our text, are as follows:-

i.	The Betrayal of Christ (repeated after xiv.).
ii.	The root of Jesse, from whose slumbering body a tree is springing, its branches being the Jewish kings, and the Virgin and Holy Child its summit (see page 54).
iii.	The Holy Trinity adored by the Saints in heaven and by the Pope and Emperor and their followers upon earth.
iv.	The Annunciation.
v.	The Visitation.
vi.	The Crucifixion.
vii.	The Adoration by the Shepherds.
viii.	The Annunciation to the Shepherds.
ix.	The Adoration by the Magi.
x.	The Presentation in the Temple.
xi.	The Flight into Egypt.
xii.	The Death of the Virgin.
xiii.	S. John before the Latin Gate.
xiv.	Dives and Lazarus.

These, with the exception of the last, which is not quite so common, occur in most Horae. Other illustrations, which are frequently found, especially in earlier editions, represent scenes from the life of David in connection with the Penitential Psalms, his gazing at Bathsheba, the consummation of his plan for the murder of Uriah, and his punishment. His victory over Goliath is also occasionally represented. We also find in several early editions 'Les Trois Vifs' placed over against 'Les Trois Morts,' three gay knights on one page and three grinning skeletons on another, and in Tory's 'Heures à l'usage de Paris' of 1527 we have a striking picture of Death, on his black horse, riding over the corpses of his victims to deliver yet another summons. The Calendar, again, is usually prefaced by a figure of a man, with all the organs of his body exposed, and lines drawn from them to the celestial bodies, which, in the popular beliefs, were supposed to influence their health and sickness. Of all these illustrations five or six different varieties are found; but from 1495 to the end of the century, the set of designs which was used for our little Sarum Horae was by far the most popular, and influenced the editions of all the leading publishers.