Wood-cuts of sacred subjects were known to the common people of Suabia, and the adjacent districts, by the name of _Helgen_ or _Helglein_, a corruption of Heiligen, saints;--a word which in course of time they used to signify prints--_estampes_--generally.[II-7] In France the same kind of cuts, probably stencil-coloured, were called “dominos,”--the affinity of which name with the German Helgen is obvious. The word “domino” was subsequently used as a name for coloured or marbled paper generally, and the makers of such paper, as well as the engravers and colourers of wood-cuts, were called “dominotiers.”[II-8] [Footnote II-7: Fuseli, at p. 85 of Ottley’s Inquiry; and Breitkopf, Versuch d. Ursprungs der Spielkarten Zu erforschen, 2 Theil, S. 175.] [Footnote II-8: Fournier, Dissertation sur l’Origine et les Progrès de l’Art de Graver en Bois, p. 79; and Papillon, Traité de la Gravure en Bois, tom. i. p. 20, and Supplement, p. 80.] As might, _à priori_, be concluded, supposing the Germans to have been the first who applied wood-engraving to card-making, the earliest wood-cuts have been discovered, and in the greatest abundance, in that district where we first hear of the business of a card-maker and a wood-engraver. From a convent, situated within fifty miles of the city of Augsberg, where, in 1418, the first mention of a Kartenmacher occurs, has been obtained the earliest wood-cut known,--the St. Christopher, now in the possession of Earl Spencer, with the date 1423. That this was the first cut of the kind we have no reason to suppose; but though others executed in a similar manner are known, to not one of them, upon anything like probable grounds, can a higher degree of antiquity be assigned. From 1423, therefore, as from a known epoch, the practice of wood engraving, as applied to pictorial representations, may be dated. [Illustration] The first person who published an account of this most interesting wood-cut was Heineken, who had inspected a greater number of old wood-cuts and block-books than any other person, and whose unwearied perseverance in searching after, and general accuracy in describing such early specimens of the art of wood-engraving, are beyond all praise. He found it pasted on the inside of the right-hand cover of a manuscript volume in the library of the convent of Buxheim, near Memmingen in Suabia. The manuscript, entitled LAUS VIRGINIS[II-9] and finished in 1417, was left to the convent by Anna, canoness of Buchaw, who was living in 1427; but who probably died previous to 1435. The above reduced copy conveys a pretty good idea of the composition and style of engraving of the original cut, which is of a folio size, being eleven and a quarter inches high, and eight inches and one-eighth wide.[II-10]