sition to another book in paper, or in a paper cover?" This conjecture is reasonable. No one knows of an early edition of this book from engraved blocks. As the seller of one copy was a copyist we may conclude that both copies were written.
Equally unsatisfactory to an unprejudiced reader is the misconstruction of the word printer in the list of the different arts or trades embraced by the Confraternity of St. John the Baptist, at Bruges. It has been inferred that the printers here noticed were printers of types, and that typographic printing was done in 1454, when the following list was written:[1]
Librariers en boeckverkopers, or booksellers.
Vinghettemakers, or painters in miniature.
Scrivers en boucscrivers, or scriveners and copyists of books.
Scoolemeesters, or schoolmasters.
Prentervercoopers, or image sellers.
Verlichters, or illuminators.
Prenters, or printers.
Boucbinders, or bookbinders.
Riemmakers, or curriers who prepare skins for parchment-makers.
Perkementmakers en fransynmakers, or makers of parchment.
Guispelsniders, or makers of decorations for bound books.
Scoolevrowen, or schoolmistresses.
Lettersnyders, or engravers of letters.
Scilders, or painters.
Drochscherrers, or shearers of cloth.
Beeldemakers, or makers of images.[2]
We have here a careful and, probably, a complete specification of all trades contributing to the manufacture of books, but there is no mention of type-makers nor of typographers.
- ↑ Leon de Bubure, in a paper published in the Bulletins de l'académie royale de Belgique, 2d series, vol. viii, No. ii, shows that printing that was practised at Antwerp as early as 1417. He submits an extract from the records of the city in which it appears that one Jan the printer publicly acknowledged, August 5th, 1417, that he was indebted to William Tserneels, manufacturer of parchment, in the sum of 2 pounds 12 shillings 4 pence, for which he bound himself and his chattels. It seems that this Jan the printer received a very liberal credit, for there are other acknowledgments of obligations for larger amounts, all incurred in 1417. After this date his name does not again appear on the record.
- ↑ Van der Meersch, Imprimeurs Belges et Neèrlandais, vol. i, p. 92.
