The Printing by the Cambridge Press of A
Platform of
Church Discipline, 1649
[*]
by
Lawrence G. Starkey
A PLATFORM OF CHURCH DISCIPLINE, A quarto printed by the
Cambridge, Massachusetts, Press in 1649, is important to religious
historians as the foundation of New England Congregationalism. As
such this book has been widely reprinted, both here and in England:
Holmes describes twenty-six editions and three reissues from 1649
to 1893.[1] To bibliographers, the
first edition of the Platform is important as the first
extant work of Samuel Green, third Cambridge printer,[2] who operated the Press from
1649 until it ceased to print in 1692. The
Platform also
presents a number of interesting bibliographical problems, which
have long been unsolved. The purpose of this paper is to clear up
several such points about the printing of this book.
There has been no agreement about the dating of the
Platform. Roden wrote that it was issued "in the late summer
of 1649,"[3] but Winship believes
that it was printed after 19 October 1649,[4] at which date the following entry
was
made in the minutes of the Massachusetts General Court:
Whereas a booke hath binn psented to the Courte, intituled a
Platforme of Church Discipline, gathered out of the Word of God,
&c, being the result of what the synod did in their assembly in
the yere 1647 at Cambridge, for their consideracõn and
acceptance, the Court judgeth it meete to comend it to the
judicyous and pious consideracõn of the seuerall churches wthin
this jurisdiccõn. . . .
[5]
I feel, however, that the book was printed before the autumn
meeting of the General Court and that the wording of the entry in
the Court records was copied from the printed title-page.
Furthermore, on 17 December 1649 a London printer entered the title
in the Stationers' Register; thus either a book or a
manuscript had been dispatched to England before the General Court
met.[6] Since crossings from New to
Old England
in less than two months were unknown at that time, a copy of the
Platform printed after the General Court meeting could not
have reached England by 17 December. The only reason for delaying
the printing of the book until the Court met would have been to
make certain of the recommendation of the General Court; if an
actual approval had been necessary, however, it is unlikely that an
unapproved manuscript would have been sent to England. The
evidence, I believe, while it is admittedly inconclusive, points to
the
Platform having been in print before 19 October 1649.
The Court, as a consequence, was not ordering the manuscript to be
printed, but instead simply recommending a book already in
existence. The language of the Court entry seems to bear out this
hypothesis.
Further information about the printing of the first edition of
the Cambridge Platform is found in what may be called the
first bibliographical document in the history of printing in
English North America: a list compiled in 1656 by Stephen Daye and
Samuel Green of printing done at Cambridge until approximately
1654, with some sketchy data about receipts from sales, printing
costs, and quantities of paper used.[7] This document has been
well-studied by
Winship.[8] As we might expect, the
data about the Platform was the first entry made by Green:
- Sinod booke. he [Dunster] had of Bro: Green
12:00:00
- finding papr. for ye impression
- abate for paper. 6 Rheame ¼
02:05:00
- -------------------
--------
- Rest. -09.15.00
09:15:00
At the end of Green's part of the list, the £9 15s was added in
as Dunster's profit. For the impression the latter supplied paper
which Green appraised as worth £2 5s. Apparently Green did the
printing, sold the copies to one or more booksellers,
[9] took out enough money to pay
himself
for his labor,
[10] then delivered the
rest, £12, to Dunster. This procedure differed from that in
effect both before and after the printing of the
Platform;
for every other book listed by Daye and Green, the printer was
credited with a specified sum as his payment.
Since the Platform is a book of five and one-half
sheets,
the six and one-quarter reams of paper would have been sufficient
for an edition of 568, which probably may be reduced to about 550
copies because of waste and imperfect sheets.[11]
The title-page of the Platform, which exists in two
states, is overcrowded, as in most books printed by the Cambridge
Press. It contains twenty-two lines of type (compared with
thirty-eight in the text) and gives not only the title and imprint
but also the circumstances of the book's preparation and three
scriptural quotations. The following transcript is made of the
title in its corrected state II.
[within a frame of acorn and fleuron type-orn.]
A | PLATFORM OF | CHURCH DISCIPLINE |
GATHERED
OVT OF THE WORD OF GOD: |
AND AGREED
VPON BY THE ELDERS: | AND MESSENGERS OF THE CHURCHES |
ASSEMBLED IN THE SYNOD AT CAMBRIDGE |
IN NEW ENGLAND | To be
preſented to the Churches and Generall Court | for their conſideration and
acceptance, | in the Lord. | The Eight Moneth Anno 1649 ||
Pſal: 84 1.
How amiable are thy Tabernacles O Lord of
Hosts? | Pſal: 26.8.
Lord I have loved the habitation of
thy house & the |
place where thine honour
dwelleth.
| Pfal: 27.4.
One thing have I desired of the Lord that will I
seek |
after,
that I may dwell in the house of
the
Lord all the |
dayes of my life to behold the Beauty of the
Lord & to |
inquire in his Temple. || Printed
by
S
G at
Cambridge in
New England | and
are
to be
fold at
Cambridge and
Boston |
Anno
Dom: 1649.
[Stent:
GATHERED (swash
G)
ELDERS:
S G
(no periods)]
Press variants in state I of title] plain
italic
instead of swash G in 'GATHERED', 'Eighth'
instead of
'Eight', '84.' instead of '84' (no period), 'Tabernacle'
instead of 'Tabernacles', 'at Cambridge by
S
G' instead of 'by S G at
Cambridge'
The Platform collates as follows: 4°,
πA6
A-D4, 22 leaves, pp.
[2]π
I 2-10, 1-29
30-32
(πseries in sq. bkts. immediately following hdl.); $4
(+πA5,6) signed (multiple letters indicate leaf no., as
'Aa'
for A2); πA4-5 missigned 'Aaa', 'Aaaa';
πA2-6 in
italic.
The title-page is πA1 (verso blank). A preface
occupies
πA2-6v. The seventeen chapters of
the text begin on A1 and
end on D3. D3v is blank. On D4 is a table of contents and
a list
of errata. D4v is blank.
The preface has a running-title, 'The Preface.'
(πA2v-6v); there are
no uniform running-titles for the
text, but abbreviated chapter-titles are used as hdls.,
A1v-D3.
When one chapter ends and another begins on the same page, the two
chapter-titles are abbreviated and combined as the hdl. for that
page.
The type is predominantly roman, with some italic; the text has
side-notes in roman referring to the Bible by book, chapter, and
verse; (D1) 38 ll. 155(164) x 98(114) mm., 82R. The same type had
been first used by the Cambridge Press in 1645 for printing John
Winthrop's A Declaration of Former Passages and Proceedings
Betwixt the English and the Narrow-gansets.
Catchwords were used, but in a manner which emphasized the
inexperience of the printer. They were seldom set over to the page
margin, and there was little or no effort to make catchword
capitalization agree with the first word on the succeeding page.
Whenever syllables were used as catchwords, the compositor omitted
the usual hyphen.
I have examined seven of the nine extant copies, as follows:
University of Virginia, 175 x 130; New York Public
Library (lacks D4), 181 x 132; Congregational
Library,
171 x 127; American Antiquarian Society, 180 x 138;
Huntington (microfilm); William Clements
(microfilm);
John Carter Brown (title has been cut out close to frame and
mounted for binding), 177 x 131. In addition, I have received a
detailed report on an eighth copy: Thomas W. Streeter, 178
x 132. There is a ninth copy in a private library which I have not
seen.[12]
Of the eight copies upon which this study is based, two have an
imprint which reads:
[I]
Printed at Cambridge by S G in
New
England
| and are to be fold at Cambridge and Boston
|
Anno Dom: 1649.
In the other six copies, the first line of the imprint has been
altered:
[13]
[
II]
Printed by S G at Cambridge in
New
England
| and are to be fold at Cambridge and Boston
|
Anno Dom: 1649.
There is good evidence for reversing the order of imprints
favored by Winship, who believes that imprint II was first
through the press.[14] Associated with
imprint I is an error in a scriptural quotation: in the
quotation from the 84th Psalm, 'How amiable are thy Tabernacles
O Lord of Hosts?', the final 's' in
'Tabernacles'
is lacking in the Brown and Streeter copies, which have imprint
I. This quotation is found in a correct state in all copies
which have imprint II, thus suggesting that the correction
and the change of imprint were made at the same time. An
examination of the seventh word in the third line of
πA6v,
which is in the same forme as the title-page, provides additional
evidence. In the Brown and Streeter copies, with imprint I,
the word is printed incorrectly as 'im', but in all copies
with imprint II the word has been press-corrected to
'in'. From
this previously unrecorded evidence, I conclude that the letter was
changed when the forme was unlocked to alter imprint I to
imprint II. Although I believe that these two instances are
sufficient to prove the priority of imprint I, I feel bound
to mention that the two states of the title-page are characterized
by three other differences. With imprint I are found 'Eighth
moneth' instead of 'Eight moneth', '84.' instead of '84' (no
period), and a swash 'G' in 'GATHERED'
instead
of a
plain italic 'G'. The presence or absence of the swash
'G' is not substantively significant, but the other two
differences are manifestly more correct in state I of the
titlepage than in state II. Since there is no question of
textual alteration connected with them, I would contend that the
'h' in 'Eighth' and the period after '84.' were pulled out when the
loosened forme was inked after it had been unlocked to change
imprint
I to imprint
II and to correct the
misprint
in the scriptural quotation.
[14a] On
the contrary, there is no space for an '
s' in
'
Tabernacle' when the letter is missing, which suggests that
the letter was not pulled out in inking but was instead added as a
result of press-correction.
There is some additional, though inconclusive, evidence that
imprint I was actually first through the press. The
separation of town and region in I is awkward. Winship
maintains that an imprint would usually begin with the place, which
is one of his reasons for regarding imprint I as a revised
version.[15] If this reason were
valid, one would expect to find Green henceforth setting his
imprints with the place first. For the next seven years, however,
he invariably set his name first and the place second. Only when,
eleven years later, he became associated with Marmaduke Johnson, an
experienced London printer, did Green habitually adopt the more
conventional sequence in his imprints.[16]
Winship's other argument for the priority of imprint II
is that it is found in the same copies as a misprint on iA6
recto, whereas imprint I appears in a copy where the
misprint has been corrected. He points out that the leaf with the
misprint is "the leaf that is joined to that of the title whether
the half-sheet of this fold [i.e., gathering] was folded
outside or inside the other four leaves."[17] Actually, this argument would
have no
bibliographical validity whatsoever for the second of Winship's
postulates: if the half-sheet in the quarto (6's) gathering is the
inmost fold and the first, second, fifth, and sixth leaves
constitute the full sheet, the title on iA1r
cannot be in the
same forme as the misprint on iA6r, and
thus no connection
can exist between them. On the other hand, if it is possible to
demonstrate what Winship felt was 'futile to guess,' that is, that
the half-sheet is the outermost
fold iA1.6, then since all four type-pages of the two leaves
could have been imposed in the same forme—provided the fold were
printed by half-sheet imposition, —any argument based on a
relation between the misprint and the title must be scrutinized
carefully. The problem, therefore, must be attacked from two points
of enquiry: (1) which fold in the six-leaf preliminary gathering
was printed as a half-sheet; and (2) if this fold was iA1.6,
was
it printed by half-sheet imposition (the only method which could
bring the type-pages for iA1r and
iA6r together in the
same forme) or in some other manner which would separate them by
formes.
(1) Following the title-leaf, the first gathering of the
Platform continues with a ten-page preface, the whole quarto
gathering being composed of six leaves and thus necessitating the
first use of a half-sheet by a Cambridge printer. This poses to the
bibliographer the nice problem whether Green quired the half-sheet
within the folded full sheet as would have been
normal printing practice, or whether he printed the title on it and
wrapped it around the full sheet. Although the problem has been
thought insoluble,
[18] watermarks
conveniently provide the answer. By good fortune in the copy held
by the American Antiquarian Society (the other copies are
ambiguous
[18a]), the watermarks
link
iA1 with
iA6, and
iA2
with
iA5. Thus
iA3.4, the
inner fold, cannot be the half-sheet, for that would mean that each
of the quarto leaves of a full sheet
iA1.2.5.6 would have
a
watermark:an impossibility. The only conclusion is that
iA1.6,
the fold containing the title-page and the end of the preface, must
be the half-sheet.
(2) Having established that the outer fold is the half-sheet, we
may now turn to the question of its printing, for a bibliographical
connection can exist between iA1r and
iA6r only if the
fold were printed by half-sheet imposition, that is, by placing all
type-pages in one forme, with printing and perfecting of a full
sheet being made from this forme and the halves of the full sheet
subsequently being cut apart to furnish two identical copies of the
half-sheet. First, however, it is necessary to examine what are the
actual facts of coincidence between this
iA6r misprint and
its correction[19] in relation to the
two states of the title. Winship's facts are in error here, for the
misprint on iA6r is not, as he states,
corrected in copies
with imprint I though uncorrected in all copies with imprint
II. Instead, this misprint appears in one of the preserved
copies with imprint I (John Carter Brown) and is also
found in two copies with imprint II (University of Virginia
and Huntington) although
corrected in the other four copies with imprint
II which I
have examined and also in the Streeter copy with imprint
I.
This evidence puts a quite different complexion on the problem, for
it demonstrates (a) the misprint was not corrected at the same time
as the alteration in the title; (b) imprint
I must have been
first through the press. Determination of the precise method of
printing thus becomes doubly necessary if we are to untangle the
proper explanation for these facts.
Had iA1.6 been printed by half-sheet imposition, the
type-pages must necessarily have been imposed in a single forme in
the following relation to each other:
If we begin normal printing from this forme and lay each successive
piece of paper, printed on one side only, on a pile, we should
start with imprint I of the title, the misprint on
iA6r, and the misprint on
iA6v. The series of sheets
printed with this state of the type we may call series X. As the
second step in the printing, the press is stopped, the title is
altered to imprint II, and coincidentally the misprint on
iA6v is corrected. A second series of
sheets, series Y, is
thereupon printed on one side only with these characteristics and
laid on top of series X in the gradually mounting heap of
wrought-off sheets. Somewhat later the misprint on
iA6r is
detected, and the press is stopped to make this correction.[19a] The remaining sheets, series
Z, are
thereupon printed and laid on the pile in order.
To complete the process this whole pile is turned over so that
series X is on top, and perfecting is executed, all three series
being perfected by the forme in state Z. When this operation is
followed, and the full sheets cut in half to give us the
iA1.6
folds, we observe that we have secured a proportion of states which
closely approximates those in the extant copies. The largest number
of half-sheets contains imprint II and the corrected
readings on iA6r and
iA6v. A smaller number gives us
the state of the Virginia and Huntington copies, with imprint
II, iA6v corrected, but
iA6r uncorrected.
Finally, we have the smallest group, containing imprint I,
iA6v uncorrected, but
iA6r
corrected—that
is,
the Streeter copy. It is clear, therefore, that if printing
proceeded by half-sheet imposition as outlined above, no copy could
be produced which would correspond with the John Carter Brown copy
with imprint
I, although in all other respects we have variants
corresponding with the other known copies and in approximately the
correct proportions.
There is, however, another alternative.[20] If the correction of the misprint in
iA6r did not take place during the
printing of the
white-paper but instead was performed during the operation of
perfecting, then if all of series X and a certain number of series
Y (there would be no series Z of white-paper) had been perfected
with the forme in the Y state and the press were stopped to correct
iA6r (constituting state Z) during the
early perfecting of
the Y sheets, we should indeed have copies produced which agree
exclusively with the John Carter Brown exemplum and the two known
states of imprint II, but none at all of the state
represented by the Streeter copy with imprint I.
For these reasons, it is necessary to enquire whether another
method of printing might not have been adopted which would produce
copies in the states observed and in proportion to their
preservation. This method is to be found in printing by cut sheets.
According to this rather elementary procedure, familiar in the
earliest days of printing, the full sheets were cut in half before
any were printed, and thereupon each half-sheet was treated as a
separate sheet, being printed from one forme and perfected from a
different forme (inner and outer).
If this method were employed for the half-sheet in the
Platform, the inner and outer formes would each have been
made up from only two type-pages, as follows:
Whether the inner or the outer forme was first through the press is
undeterminable and here of no consequence, since under any
circumstances uncorrected printed white-paper is perfected by an
uncorrected forme at the start and the overlap—as represented by
the Virginia and Huntington copies—occurs according to the
unequal proportion of each machined as a separate operation.
Although printing by cut sheets is a primitive method as
compared with half-sheet imposition, there is every indication from
his work that Green was not a sophisticated workman and that he may
well have prided himself on successfully solving the problem he
faced, especially if—as likely—he had never been instructed
in
the technique of half-sheet imposition. If we believe that
iA1.6
was indeed printed by cut sheets, we are enabled to explain without
difficulty the particular proportion of extant copies in each
state, a matter impossible to explain by any theory of half-sheet
imposition. Moreover, the difference
in time between the correction of misprints on
iA6
r and
iA6
v is more readily accounted for if they
are in different
formes than if we must assume in half-sheet imposition that two
separate correction operations were made in the same forme. By
cut-sheet printing only a relatively few copies of the inner forme
need have been printed before the correction on
iA6
r was
effected, and, indeed, this is the direct import of the evidence of
the Streeter copy.
The central bibliographical fact with which we are concerned is
clear. Printing was by cut sheets; moreover, imprint I must
have been first through the press, and the alteration of this state
to the form of imprint II has no causal connection with the
correction of the misprint on iA6r as has
been asserted. The
two type-pages were in different formes, and hence alterations to
these pages are from a bibliographical point of view completely
independent even though the leaves are conjoined.
Commencing with iA2, and continuing with the
subsequent
gatherings in 4's, the recto of every leaf in the Platform
bears a signature, instead of the two, or at most three, leaves
customarily signed in a quarto gathering, all that are necessary
for a binder. Green seems to have devised his own method of
signing, using letters exclusively. The rectos of each gathering
were signed with a combination of capital and lower case letters,
for example: B, Bb, Bbb, Bbbb. The letter of the alphabet denoted
the gathering, the number of letters, including the capital, the
leaf. In the four gatherings of the text of the Platform,
this system is worked out perfectly; but in the preface, printed
last of all, there is some confusion, doubtless because of the
quiring of the iA gathering as a quarto in 6's. The rectos
of
the preliminary gathering are signed in succession after the title
page: Aa, Aaa, Aaa, Aaaa, Aa5. The last leaf, signed Aa5, was, of
course, iA6; apparently Aa5 was intended as an
abbreviation for
Aaaaaa, i.e. capital A and five lower-case a's. The fourth
and
fifth leaves of the gathering were incorrectly signed Aaa and Aaaa.
The error was natural, for Green had only to forget for a moment
that he was later to have a half-sheet; the two leaves in question
would be correctly signed as the last two leaves of a quarto
gathering like the others in the same book. Green abandoned this
system of signing after printing the
Platform, and similar
signatures are never again found in the books printed by the
Cambridge Press.
The list of nine errata found on D4r (of the inner
forme) is
unable, because of its position, to correct any errors on
D1v,
D2r (D3v is blank), or in the table of
contents on the errata
leaf itself, where two chapters are listed as beginning on the
wrong pages.[21] That an erratum is
listed for D1r proves that the outer forme of the D
gathering
was first through the press. Since the list of errata corrects none
of the several errors in the preface, either, we may readily assume
that the iA6 was printed last, as would
be expected. The
designation of the errata as 'faults escaped in some of the
books thus amended' seems to indicate that corrections had been
made in the text by stopping the press, and that one might expect
to find the correct readings in some copies. A collation of eight
of the nine extant copies, however, discloses that none of the
errata was corrected. Because we have less than two per cent of
the edition, it is impossible to tell whether corrections were
actually made or whether Green was trying consciously to give the
impression that he was a much more careful printer than actually he
was. We know that later, while printing the preface, he did stop
his press to correct errors in the half-sheet. He seems, however,
to have paid no attention to several errors in the full sheet
(iA2-5) of the preface, including one that was particularly
noticeable: the misspelling of 'Preface' as 'Prefae' in the
headline on iA4r.
Notes