University of Virginia Library

Among its incunables, the Stadtbibliothek of Trier numbers a copy of a Latin grammatical tract, the commonplace text of which is probably matched only by the rarity of this edition. This is the Exercitium puerorum grammaticale printed in Antwerp by Claes Leeu in 1488 (VT 2351),[1] of which only four other copies (one quite fragmentary) are known to us.

The precise date as given by the colophon is: "xxviij. kalendas marcias[2] Anni octogesimioctaui". In regard to this, the Gesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke (GW 9497)[3] makes the following observation: "Mit dem Datum der Schlussschrift kann der 3. II.[4] nicht gemeint sein, da er 1488 ein Sonntag war. Vermutlich ist der 28. III. 1488 gemeint". It is a matter of record that, in 1488, February 3rd fell on a Sunday.[5] The emended dating of the Gesamtkatalog was accepted by Dr. Maria E. Kronenberg[6] and by Professors Wytze and Lotte Hellinga,[7] in both cases with such reservations as an added "?" implies.

To the present writer, the statement in the great German bibliography seemed rather like a gratuitous assumption, especially since a number of books bearing a Sunday date came to mind. Chief among these was the book for which William Caxton's press will always be remembered, the Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory. The colophon of this work sets forth that it was "fynysshed in thabbey westmestre the last day of Juyl the yere of our lord /M/CCCC/lxxxv/".[8] In 1485, July 31st fell on a Sunday. Similarly, the Cicero, Of Old Age (etc.), was printed by Caxton on "the xij day of August the yere of our lord .M. CCCC. lxxxj".[9] Chronological tables show that August 12th was the second Sunday of that month in 1481.

The opinion expressed by the Gesamtkatalog in regard to the date of the Belgian incunable raises, of course, the entire question of what is meant by the dates given in such colophons. Certainly, no one will suggest that the fifteenth-century printer was able to complete much more than the printing (say) of a "sheet-per-press-per-day" — obviously nothing so extensive as a folio book of 862 printed pages. What, then, does the date of the

colophon represent? It has often been assumed that this precise date indicated the day of the machining of that sheet which contained this information — and this, indeed, seemed perfectly reasonable and logical.

If the Gesamtkatalog was correct in the assumption that the printing of a book would not have been completed on a Sunday, then such mundane tasks would certainly never have been undertaken on any of the recognized holy days of the Church. In order to determine whether any incunabula were in fact provided with such dates, the writer made a quick survey of the incunabula produced in the Low Countries,[10] England[11] and Bologna.[12]

Quite a few books, indeed, bear the dates of the first four days of Holy Week.[13] Similarly, in the Netherlands, Italy and England, books were occasionally dated as of Christmas Eve.[14] All these may be allowed as suitable dates for the completion of a book — but it seems highly improbable that printing would have been performed on Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter or Christmas Day,[15] yet we know of a few incunables which do exhibit such dates:

• Palm Sunday: 27 March 1491 (GW 1159) — "vicesimaseptima Martij"

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• Good Friday: 5 April 1493 (Hain 8683[16] and Bühler 36.A.1) — "quinta Aprilis; Nonis Aprilibus"
• Holy Saturday:[17] 14 April 1487 (BMC IX:166 — IA. 49349) — "xiiij Aprilis" 6 April 1493 (Bühler 33.A.3) — "a di .vi. de Aprile"
• Easter: 30 March 1483 (Bühler 6.A.14) — "adi. 30. de marzo"
• Christmas Day:[18] 1496 (Bühler 36.A.15) — "octauo Kalendas Ianuarii"

How, then, shall one account for such dates? Perhaps it may be true that, in certain circumstances, the printer simply selected some remote target, choosing an arbitrary date about the time when he believed the printing might be completed. This could explain the dates in Holy Week, assuming that the printer set up his type for the colophon quite some time before actual printing began and hit upon some important date without happening to note its special significance.[19] This explanation, however, would be impossible for a Christmas date,[20] since it was not a movable feast.

Again, it may be that incunabulists have been too much influenced by the modern respect for accurate dates — and that those found in fifteenth-century books were considered, on occasion and in their own day, merely as approximations. Such an hypothesis may be underscored by the presence of "circiter", which certain Augsburg printers (especially Schüssler and Sorg, early in their careers)[21] prefixed to the exact dates.

If, then, dates must occasionally be regarded as mere approximations, it would seem wise not to tamper with a printed date, unless some almost

incontrovertible proof for the correctness of the proposed alteration could be advanced. The value of an approximate date would, indeed, be the same as that of an exact one, since nothing more definite can, with any confidence, be proposed to take its place.

To return to the Belgian incunable which provoked the present inquiry, it is apparent that February 3rd or March 28th are equally possible solutions for the improper date of the colophon, but it must remain a matter of speculation as to which of these (and conceivably still other dates) the printer actually had in mind. It might, therefore, be wise to date the book as Voulliéme did: "28. Kal. Mart. 1488".