A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898 | Page 7

of St. Margaret's, Westminster, that he left to that church fifteen copies of the Golden Legend, twelve of which were sold at prices varying between 6s. 8d. and 5s. 4d.
Caxton used only one device, a simple square block with his initials W. C. cut upon it, and certain hieroglyphics said to stand for the figures 74, with a border at the top and bottom. It was probably of English workmanship, as those found in the books of foreign printers were much more finely cut. This block, which Caxton did not begin to use until 1487, afterwards passed to his successor, who made it the basis of several elaborate variations.
Upon the death of Caxton in 1491, his business came into the hands of his chief workman, Wynkyn de Worde. From the letters of naturalisation which this printer took out in 1496, we learn that he was a native of Lorraine. It was suggested by Herbert that he was one of Caxton's original workmen, and came with him to England, and this has recently been confirmed by the discovery of a document among the records at Westminster, proving that his wife rented a house from the Abbey as early as 1480. In any case there is little doubt that Wynkyn de Worde had been in intimate association with Caxton during the greater part of his career as a printer, and when Caxton died he seems to have taken over the whole business just as it stood, continuing to live at the Red Pale until 1500, and to use the types which Caxton had been using in his latest books. This fact led Blades to ascribe several books to Caxton which were probably not printed until after his death. These are The Chastising of Gods Children, The Book of Courtesye, and the Treatise of Love, printed with type No. 6; but, in addition to these, two other books, probably in the press at the time of Caxton's death, were issued from the Westminster office without a printer's name, but printed in a type resembling type 4*. These are an edition of the Golden Legend and the Life of St. Catherine of Sienna. Wynkyn de Worde's name is found for the first time in the Liber Festivalis, printed in 1493. In the following year was issued Walter Hylton's Scala Perfectionis, and a reprint of Bonaventura's Speculum Vite Christi, the sidenotes to which were printed in Caxton's type No. 7, which de Worde does not seem to have used in any other book. Besides this, there was the Sarum Hor?, no doubt a reprint of Caxton's edition now lost. He used for these books Caxton's type No. 8, with the tailless 'y' and the dotted capitals. Speaking of this type in his Early Printed Books, Mr. E. G. Duff points out its close resemblance to that used by the Paris printers P. Levet and Jean Higman in 1490, and argues that it was either obtained from them or from the type-cutter who cut their founts.[1]
To the year 1495 belongs the Vitas Patrum, the book of which Caxton had finished the translation on the day of his death, and beside this, there were reprints of the Polychronicon and the Directorium Sacerdotum. The reprint of the Boke of St. Albans, which was issued in 1496, is noticeable as being printed in the type which De Worde obtained from Godfried van Os, the Gouda printer. This broad square set letter is not found in any other book of De Worde's, though he continued to use a set of initial letters which he obtained from the same printer for many years.
Among other books printed in 1496, were Dives and Pauper, a folio, and several quartos such as the Abbey of the Holy Ghost, the Meditations of St. Bernard, and the Liber Festialis. In 1497 we find the Chronicles of England, and in 1498 an edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, a second edition of the Morte d'Arthur, and another of the Golden Legend, in fact nearly all De Worde's dated books up to 1500 were reprints of works issued by Caxton. But amongst the undated books we notice many new works, such as Lydgate's Assembly of Gods, and Sege of Thebes, Skelton's Bowghe of Court, The Three Kings of Cologne, and several school books.
In 1499 De Worde printed the Liber Equivocorum of Joannes de Garlandia, using for it a very small Black Letter making nine and a half lines to the inch, probably obtained from Paris. This type was generally kept for scholastic books, and in addition to the book above noted, Wynkyn de Worde printed with it, in the same year or the year following, an Ortus Vocabulorum. From the time when he succeeded to Caxton's business down to the year 1500, in which he left Westminster and settled