The earliest productions in the nature of prints from wooden blocks upon paper which we find in Europe, are single sheets bearing generally the image of a saint. From their perishable nature but few of these prints have come down to our times; and though we have evidence that they were being produced, at any rate as early as the fourteenth, perhaps even as the thirteenth century, the earliest print with a definite and unquestioned date still in existence is the ‘St. Christopher’ of 1423. This print was discovered in 1769 by Heinecken, pasted inside the binding of a manuscript in the library of the Convent of the Chartreuse at Buxheim in Swabia. The manuscript, which is now in the Spencer Library,[1] is entitled _Laus Virginum_, is dated 1417, and is said to have been given to the Monastery of Buxheim by a certain Anna, Canoness of Buchau, ‘who is known to have been living in 1427.’ On the inside of the other board of the binding is pasted a cut of the Annunciation, said to be of the same age and workmanship as the St. Christopher. It is worth noticing that there seem to have been some wood engravers in this Swabian monastery, who engraved the book-plate for the books given by ‘Dominus Hildibrandus Brandenburg de Bibraco’ towards the end of the fifteenth century; and these book-plates are printed on the reverse sides of pieces of an earlier block-book, very probably engraved and printed in the monastery for presentation to travellers or pilgrims. [1] The Spencer Library has now passed into the possession of Mrs. Rylands, of Manchester; but as many of the early printed books in it are described in Dibdin’s _Bibliothecá Spencerianá_, and as it is so widely known under the name of the Spencer Library, it has been thought best, in order to avoid confusion, to refer to it under its old name throughout the present book. The date on the celebrated Brussels print of 1418 has unfortunately been tampered with, so that its authenticity is questioned. The print was found by an innkeeper in 1848, fixed inside an old chest, and it was soon acquired by the Royal Library at Brussels. Since the date has been touched up with a pencil, and at the same time some authorities consider 1468 to be the right reading, it is best to consider the St. Christopher as the earliest dated woodcut. Though these two are the earliest dated prints known, it is, of course, most probable that some others which are undated may be earlier; but to fix even an approximate date to them is in most cases impossible. The conventional way in which religious subjects were treated, and the extraordinary care with which one cutter copied from another, makes it difficult even for a specialist to arrive at any very definite conclusions.