Notes on the Wynkyn de Worde Editions of the
Boke of St
Albans and its Separates
[*]
by
Eloise Pafort
In 1496, when Wynkyn de Worde planned to reprint the editio
princeps (1486) of the Boke of St. Albans, today often
referred to as the Book of Hawking, Hunting and Heraldry,
it
was his intention to include some new material and to make certain
physical improvements. The latter consisted in adding a title-page
and a number of woodcuts[1] and in
modernizing the phrasing and spelling. But on the whole, De Worde
followed his model closely, even, one might say to a semblance of
type, since he employed a rather heavy square letter obtained from
Govaert van Ghemen (Godfried van Os), a printer of Gouda in South
Holland, about 1491 when the latter removed to Copenhagen.[2] In later years, the initials and
woodcuts reappeared frequently but the type, apparently considered
unsuitable for English books,[3]
was not used again by De Worde or by any other sixteenth-century
English printer.
Although De Worde launched his 1496 first edition in a small
folio, he seems to have changed the format subsequently, for all
later recorded texts of the Boke of St. Albans from his
press were brought out in a handy quarto, a size increasingly
favored by the establishment "At the Sign of the Sun." For the most
part, the texts of these quartos inevitably contain some slight
alterations in spelling but suffer chiefly from omissions of words
and phrases in printing.
Since De Worde was a popular printer, he must have reckoned the
practicality of a pocket-sized edition soon after 1496, but there
is a gap of approximately nineteen years before we can pick up the
thread of De Worde's printing of the Boke of St. Albans. The
earliest recorded quarto is preserved only as a fragment of three
leaves and is Bodleian Rawl. 4° 598.8, catalogued as a separate
printing of The boke of huntynge, the text of the fragment.
Fortunately, one of the leaves has the signature E.i. and the
catch-title "Huntynge," two workable clues for tracing this
edition. As there are 33-34 lines to a page, we may start with the
text on E1 and work backwards, in comparison with the 1496
edition,[4] to conjecture that this
is a quarto edition of the whole work and that presumably
"Huntynge" was the catch-title throughout as found in the Schwerdt
quarto described later.
From type criteria, the only basis offered, this Bodleian quarto
might be dated circa 1515[5]
an assignment determined by (1) fig. 6 of Isaac's[6] classification of De Worde's types;
(2)
a close examination of the type[7] of
De Worde's dated publications 1513 to 1518, a range limited by
Isaac's Fig. 6; and (3) by its closest resemblance to the
type-pages of the Chronicles of England dated 1515.
The 1515 edition must have gone well, for not long afterwards,
some three years perhaps, another quarto appeared "At the Sign of
the Sun." This, fortunately, is extant in a perfect though undated
copy, the unicum formerly in the celebrated collection of
sporting literature formed by C.F.G.R. Schwerdt[8] of Alresford, Hants. The extreme
importance of the Schwerdt quarto is determined by the fact that we
become acquainted
for the first and
only time, with a complete text of a De
Worde quarto of the
Boke of St. Albans; and since no other
perfect De Worde quarto of this text is known to exist, its status
is that of a bibliographical monument.
The title of the Schwerdt reads: The boke of hawkynge
|
and huntynge | and fysshynge. This might well
have
been the wording of the Bodleian quarto, from which it could have
been printed, unless there was a lost intermediate edition. The
colophon adds a little more to its contents: "Here endeth the boke
of hawkynge hūtynge and fysshynge | and with many other dyuer
maters. Inprȳted in Flete strete at ye sygne of
ye sonne
| by Wȳkyn de Worde." The text is an abridgement, for the
Schwerdt quarto indicates that when the change of format was under
consideration, from a folio containing 74 leaves, to a quarto size,
two extensive treatises on heraldry occupying some 33 leaves were
dropped, presumably because they would have made the volume too
bulky to be taken into the field by falconers, hunstmen, and
anglers. In fact, the heraldic tracts, Liber armorum and
The blasynge of armes with its numerous woodcuts of
shields,
never again made their appearance over De Worde's imprint or
device[9] though the "importance of
heraldry as a subject of polite study and speculation" was of
absorbing interest in the fifteenth and even more so in the
sixteenth centuries considering the remains dating from this early
Tudor Age.
Broadly, the Schwerdt quarto can be placed between the years
1518 and 1521;[10] the earlier date is
more acceptable to Mr. F. S. Ferguson, for whose examination Mr.
Schwerdt personally brought the little volume up to London: "As a
result I am able to tell you that the book was printed [c.
1518-1521]. . . . Personally I incline to the earlier date, but I
have no unalterable reason for doing so—it may have been printed
as late as 1521, but I should think this must be the limit."[11] Since the
volume is perfect it offers various typographical "points" for
arriving at a year of publication: (1) the wording in the colophon:
"In Flete strete at y
e sygne of y
e sonne,"
dates it after
1501,
[12] for at the turn of the
century De Worde moved to this new address; (2) the device beneath
the colophon is McKerrow no. 25
[13]
who has determined its use from 1508 to 1531; (3) the state of the
large title-cut
[14] representing the
falconer with his attendants demonstrates that the original block
freshly cut for De Worde's folio in 1496 had been cut down to fit
the quarto page; moreover, this block shows signs of cracking in
two places, a condition never seen in the folio cut, but which
might indicate its use in other lost quartos before the surmised
date 1518, and finally (4)
the letter-press is Isaac's 95 textura
[15] as reproduced in his fig. 7 and is
precisely the same as the types in publications dated 1517 and
1518.
[16]
The little Schwerdt volume concludes this review of the known De
Worde quarto editions of the Boke of St. Albans. After the
printer's death in 1534, to 1596 when this book of sport appeared
for the last time in the sixteenth century, there were issued
upwards of fourteen editions.[17] It
is probable that two or three of these are, instead, issues for
different stationers, each having his name attached to his quota of
copies from the same edition.[18] They
all bore the same wording in the title: "The boke of hawkynge
huntynge and fysshynge with all the properties and medecynes that
are necessary to be kept," or the same wording in the colophon:
"The boke of Haukynge, Huntynge and Fysshynge, with other dyuers
matters." And the progenitor of all these texts was, of course, the
singularly popular De Worde quarto.
Since the Boke of St. Albans contained practical
information on the several pastimes extensively practised, De Worde
saw the good sense of issuing each "manual of sport" in a size
convenient for the pockets of each genus of sportsman. Whether this
was done simultaneously with his issuing of the quartos of the
whole work, there are no records to substantiate.
But after 1518, the assigned date of the latest known quarto, two
examples of "separates" whose texts originally appeared in De
Worde's folio of the
Boke of St. Albans, are known. In point
of time, the first separate quarto is the unique
[19] imperfect copy in the University
Library, Cambridge, Sel.5.57 (formerly AB.5.37
8). Sayle
[20] supplied the title
Treatise
of Hunting by Juliana Berners since it lacks the title-page and
there is no colophon from which a title might be extracted. The
versified text is the book of hunting followed by the miscellanea
including the poem "A Faythfull frende wolde I fayne fynde", the
same which occupies leaves c6 recto to e5 verso of the folio, but
here (at this late date) either reprinted from an earlier lost
quarto "separate" or a missing quarto edition of the folio later
than the Schwerdt. On the verso of the title-page of the Cambridge
quarto,
the text must have begun with an introductory paragraph, and the
beginning of the hunting treatise itself had the heading "Bestys of
Venery."
Sayle dates the Cambridge quarto [1530?]; accepted by STC under
no. 3318. According to Isaac's classification it might be dated
slightly earlier, circa 1526 to 1530 as determined by the
letter-press: the sole use of s3 with the curling serifs,
which
was the only s used after 1521; w3 frequently employed
in the
middle and at the end of words as well as at the beginning,
precisely in the manner seen in the type-pages of two dated books:
The thre kynges of coleyne, 1526 (Morgan 20896) and
The
destruccyon of Jherusalem, 1528 (Morgan 21134), and the
infrequent use of y1 which became rare in 1530.
The full title of De Worde's folio partially discloses the
divers subjects treated: This present boke shewyth the manere of
hawkynge & huntynge: and also of diuysynge of Cote armours It
shewyth also a good matere belongynge to horses: wyth other
cōmendable treatyses. And ferdermore of the blasynge of armys:
as here after it maye appere.[21]
In this long intitulation, we find the treatises on Hawking,
Hunting, and the two on Heraldry are named, but an extensive new
addition is not mentioned, though it may be covered by the phrase
"wyth other cōmendable treatyses". This unnamed tract, however,
is itself conspicuously entitled: Here begynnyth the treatyse of
fysshynge wyth an Angle and
it is accompanied by a lively woodcut: Hodnett's
English
Woodcuts, 897.
Oddly enough, this treatise is found between two heraldic essays
at the end of the volume. But this "insertion" may have been
unintentional, for originally De Worde had planned not to print the
second heraldic treatise but later changed his mind. This treatise
Here begynneth the blasynge of armes with its numerous
colored woodcut coats of arms and its own set of signatures (a-c in
6's plus d in 8's), the printer may have intended to handle as a
separate (see also footnote 9).
The obvious appeal of the special subject matter to all classes
would have made a profitable business venture to bring out in
pocket-size editions. But the records, meager in the extreme, yield
up only one separate printing of the Treatise on Fishing in
a handy quarto size, which is to be dated as late as circa
1532 to 1534. This edition is today represented by the unique
perfect copy in the Pierpont Morgan Library (Morgan 20894) and it
occupies therefore a niched position among the separate
printings from the De Worde folio of the Boke of St. Albans
as the Schwerdt copy occupies among the quarto editions of the
whole work. In a sense, the Morgan separate is of slightly
greater magnitude, for it is the only proof, thus far, of De
Worde's separate printing on fishing and the earliest known
pocket manual on that subject in all the literature of sport
in England.
It is, then, as a new addition to De Worde's folio 1496 reprint
of the Boke of St. Albans that the celebrated Treatise
on
Fishing with an Angle made its first appearance and became the
earliest printed essay in English on the subject.
The original text took up some 12 folios. De Worde, or his
editor, must have thought the subject fully covered, for he
described it as a "compendyous treatyse," whereas the author said
"this symple treatyse" and wrote it for "al you that ben vertuous:
gentyll: and free borne", the same public for whom the compilation
was first conceived.
The treatise is devoted to the art of "anglynge wyth a rodde:
and a lyne and a hoke" as against all other manner of fishing. It
is introduced by some general observations on the sport, but on the
whole its character is technical, with seventeen woodcuts
illustrating the making of fishing tackle. A comparison of these
with the woodcuts in the 1496 folio discloses that the first, a
representation of the fishing rod (B1 recto) is new in this
separate edition; two instruments, the "Hamour" and "Knyfe" are
missing from the original row of eight "for to make of your hookes"
(B3 verso); a whole new set (four instead of five) of fishing-lines
were cut to illustrate them (B4 verso); and the set of fish-hooks
has been entirely omitted.
The title of the Fishing quarto remained unchanged from its
first printing: Here begynneth a treatyse of fysshynge with an
Angle, reiterated in the colophon: "Here endeth the boke of
Fysshynge | With other dyuers maters. Imprynted at London by Wynkyn
de Worde | dwellynge in Flete strete at the sygne of the Sonne."
Once more we find an undated colophon necessitating dependence upon
typographical particulars: (1) the printer's address places the
publication after 1501; (2) De Worde's mark beneath the colophon is
the tripartite device (McKerrow no. 21) used from 1528 to 1534; (3)
the letter-press discloses the frequent use of w3 and the
sole
use of s3, which brings us up between 1522 and 1528;
another
letter y1 which Isaac states was rare in 1530 does not
appear at
all; and finally the textura type used in the first line of the
title is first found in 1532, Isaac's fig. 9. Resolving these
minutiae,
we may assign the date of the Morgan quarto to circa 1532
to
1534.
The text of the Morgan separate quarto was the one that was
reprinted with minor differences many years after De Worde's death.
In modern times, however, it is the pure text as it was first
published in 1496 that has been reprinted and facsimiled in
extenso at various periods.
De Worde's long title for the folio also exhibits another
misleading promise: "It shewyth also a good matere belongynge to
horses." Since the other treatises mentioned in the title are of
considerable length, one is led to expect that a "good matere
belongynge to horses" indicates a more extensive text on the horse
than only the nine lines on folio e3, with the rubric "The
proprytees of a good horse", listing simply fifteen essential
conditions. It does not seem likely that De Worde would have
singled out these nine lines from all the other just as fragmentary
and miscellaneous pieces in the middle of the volume to be
specified in his title had he not under consideration more
comprehensive matter relating to horses.
However, De Worde did not cast aside altogether the "good matere
belongynge to horses," for that may well be the quarto bearing the
title Here begynneth the Proprytees and medycynes for hors
extant in the unique imperfect copy in the Huntington Library (no.
59359).[22] On folio A3 in that
edition is a similar list of the fifteen points of a good horse
which De Worde printed in his folio of 1496.
The Huntington quarto may be dated circa 1504 to
1506. A
specific test
is found in the letter-press which is Isaac fig. 2, the 95 textura
for 1501.
[23] However, to Isaac's
determinant letters in this textura must be added a small k with a
large top loop brought in 1500 to the Sign of the Sun but not found
in the Huntington quarto. This archaic k was used exclusively after
1500 in dated publications such as Alcock's
Mons
perfectionis, 27 May 1501;
Thordynary of crysten
men,
1502; and Le Fevre's
Recuyles of Troye, 1503. After 1503,
it
drops out entirely.
[24] By other
typographical standards,
[25] such as
the type used in the chapter-headings and the state of the
Crucifixion woodcut, De Worde's treatise on the horse has
heretofore been wrongly dated from 1500 to 1502.
The Huntington "separate" quarto contains the first twelve
leaves out of an original sixteen and therefore lacks the end of
the text including the colophon-leaf which contained a device.
Ames[26] saw a perfect copy, for after
quoting the above title he gives the colophon: "And here we shall
leue to treate ferthermore in this sayd mater whyche is dylygently
corrected and made after a sufficyent copy directed vnto me by a
certen person whyche as hym thought rygt necessary to be knowen to
gentlemen and men of honour as to seruysable and rustyck people."
The wording of that colophon clearly places the Proprytees and
medycynes for hors in the same category as the other treatises
which make up the Boke of St. Albans.
It remained for another Tudor printer, Robert Wyer, to prove
what De Worde set out to do: knowledge of horses belonged in a book
compiled primarily for gentlemen. In Here be Certayne Questyons
of Kynge Bocthus of the maners | tokyns | and
condycions of men | with the answeres made to the same by
the Phylosopher Sydrac,
[27]
Wyer
brings together with this dialogue wholly based on the Boke of
St. Albans, "The Propertyes of a good Horse" which, to every
appearance, has as its archetype the De Worde quarto at Huntington.
Even as late as 1567, De Worde's tract was
still in circulation in a text printed by William Copland with the
title
Mediciues (sic)
for Horses, preserved in
the
unique imperfect copy at Trinity College, Cambridge.
[28]
The small-format volumes, the quarto size De Worde found so
profitable in the fields of romances and schoolbooks, and suitably
adapted for his treatises on the sports, proved for the
bibliographer of today le modèle fatal. Because of its
size, works of this type were easily lost, and copies are either
extremely rare or, as seen in this review, the record is narrowed
down to unique copies; the whole class of De Worde's "sporting
literature for gentlemen" almost perished.
One other branch of sport which might have appeared in a
separate quarto by De Worde is the sport of flight—falconry, or
the knowledge of and hunting with hawks, the first in the set of
treatises in his folio. Assuredly compositions on this subject were
in wide circulation in De Worde's own time. Some day perhaps a
fragment will determine a quarto of his printing.[29]
Fowling is a sport mentioned by the author of the Treatise on
Fishing: "And therefore now woll I chose of foure good
disportes & honeste gamys | that is to wyte: of huntynge:
hawkynge: fysshynge: & foulynge." The last subject, thus ranked
among the four major field sports of England, was unfortunately not
included in the compilation of the schoolmaster printer of St.
Albans or "inserted" by Wynkyn de Worde.
TABLE
Boke of St. Albans
Wynkyn de Worde Editions
| The whole book |
| 1496 |
folio |
STC 3309 |
|
Quartos of the whole book |
| [c. 1515] |
Bodleian Rawl. 4°.598 (8) |
STC 3317 [1515] |
| [c. 1518] |
Schwerdt |
quarto |
Not in STC |
|
Separate quartos from the whole book |
| [c. 1526-1530] |
Cambridge University Library Sel.5.57 |
STC 3318 [1530?] |
|
Treatise of Hunting |
| [c. 1532-1534] |
Morgan 20894 |
STC 24243 with date [1535?] |
|
Treatise of Fishing |
|
Proposed quartos
|
| [c. 1504-1506] |
Huntington 59359 |
Not in STC |
|
Treatise on the Horse |
Notes
