Although it has been asserted that the wood-cut of St. Christopher with the date 1423, and the wood-cut of the Annunciation--probably of the same period--were printed by means of a press, yet I consider it exceedingly doubtful if the press were employed to take impressions from wood-blocks before Gutemberg used it in his earliest recorded attempts to print with moveable types. I believe that in every one of the early block-books, where opportunity has been afforded of examining the back of each cut, unquestionable evidence has been discovered of their having been _printed_, if I may here use the term, by means of friction. Although there is no mention of a _press_ which might be used to take impressions before the process between Gutemberg and the heirs of one of his partners, in 1439, yet “Prenters” were certainly known in Antwerp before his invention of printing with moveable types was brought to perfection. Desroches in his Essay on the Invention of Printing gives an extract from an order of the magistracy of Antwerp, in the year 1442, in favour of the fellowship or guild of St. Luke, called also the Company of Painters, which consisted of Painters, Statuaries, Stone-cutters, Glass-makers, Illuminators, and “_Prenters_”. This fellowship was doubtless similar to that of Venice, in whose favour a decree was made by the magistracy of that city in 1441, and of which some account has been given, at page 43, in the preceding chapter. There is evidence of a similar fellowship existing at Bruges in 1454; and John Mentelin, who afterwards established himself at Strasburg as a typographer or printer proper, was admitted a member of the Painters’ Company of that city as a “Chrysographus” or illuminator in 1447.[III-4] [Footnote III-4: Lichtenberger, Initia Typographica, § De Prenteris ante inventam Typographiam, p. 140.--Lambinet, Recherches sur l’Origine de l’Imprimerie, p. 115.] Whether the “Prenters” of Antwerp in 1442 were acquainted with the use of the press, or not, is uncertain; but there can be little doubt of their not being _Printers_, as the word is now generally understood; that is, persons who printed books with moveable types. They were most likely block-printers, and such as engraved and printed cards and images of saints; and it would seem that typographers were not admitted members of the society; for of all the early typographers of Antwerp the name of one only, Mathias Van der Goes, appears in the books of the fellowship of St. Luke; and he perhaps may have been admitted as a wood-engraver, on account of the cuts in an herbal printed with his types, without date, but probably between 1485 and 1490.