After 1467, while Caxton still held his official responsibilities and before he had begun to investigate the new art of printing, we find him interesting himself in literary pursuits. He began in that year the translation of the _Histories of Troy_ (_Le Recueil des Histoires de Troye_), which translation was printed in 1474. In 1471, Caxton was in the service of the Duchess, receiving a yearly salary and other advantages, and being under instruction to proceed with his literary undertakings. Margaret seems, in fact, in giving Caxton an income in order that he might devote himself to literature, to have had in view a kind of endowment of research. He presented to the Duchess, in 1471, as a first result of his literary labours, a manuscript copy of his now completed translation of the _Histoires_, and the favour given by her to the work appears to have secured for it an immediate reputation, not only with the English-speaking members of the Court, but with their friends and correspondents in England, so that demand for Caxton’s translation soon became more active than could be supplied by the work of the scribe. In the epilogue to the first printed edition, he speaks of his hand becoming “wery and not stedfast with much writing” while his eyes were “dimed with overmuch lokyng on the whit paper.” Then it was, apparently, that, through the suggestion of his friend Colard Mansion, he was led to turn his attention to the new art of printing.[44] As has been mentioned in an earlier chapter, literary interests had, for a number of years before the beginning of printing, found a favourable environment in the dominions of the Duke of Burgundy. Burgundy and Flanders were, during the last half of the fifteenth century, among the richest territories in Europe. The arts and the luxuries of civilisation had at that time attained a higher development in Bruges than in almost any other capital, and with the other refinements of life, had come an active interest in literary pursuits and in the collection of libraries. These literary interests had been furthered by the example of the ruling family, successive dukes having set the fashion of collecting rare and costly works and of employing great staffs of skilled scribes, illuminators, and binders, to put into the most beautiful possible dress the manuscripts that had been secured from all parts of Europe. David Aubert, a well-known scribe, writing in 1457, thus describes the literary interests of Duke Philip the Good: “This renowned and virtuous prince has been accustomed, for many years past, to have ancient histories read to him daily. His library surpasses all others, for from his youth he has had in his service numerous translators, scholars, historians, and scribes, working diligently not only in Bruges but in various countries, so that now there is not in all christendom a prince who has so varied and rich a collection.”[45]