For the first there was a combination of several reasons. The opposition of the Formschneiders may have had something to do with it. On the other hand, Scheffer may have got tired of always using the same initials which had been cut for him by an exceptionally clever engraver, of whom he had afterwards lost sight. In the third place, the sack of Mayence in 1462, which led to the dispersion of his workmen, may have been partly the reason, but that he did not lose his material is proved by the initials appearing in the antiquarian reprints of the Psalter. In our opinion the second reason is most probable, and it is supported by the testimony of Papillon as to the identity of the artist, which seems to have escaped recent bibliographers. According to Heineken, a certain Meydenbach is mentioned in Sebastian Münster’s _Cosmographia_, and also by an anonymous author in _Serarius_, as being one of Gutenberg’s assistants. Heineken on these grounds considers that he accompanied Gutenberg from Strasburg to Mayence, also that he was probably an engraver or illuminator, and Von Murr thinks he was the artist who engraved the large initials. Fischer is convinced that they were engraved by Gutenberg himself, ‘a person experienced in such work, as we are taught by his residence in Strasburg,’ which Jackson declares teaches no such thing. Papillon’s history is too long to be related here _verbatim_, but in substance it is as follows: A German who was making the _tour de France_ applied to him for work. He stated that his name was Cocksperger, and that he was descended from Peter Cocksperger who had engraved the initials of the Psalter of Mayence. Papillon only saw him three times in 1737, when he showed him some of his work, which, although somewhat coarse, was well cut, of a pretty taste, and not common. His ancestors had lived in Mayence, Cologne, and Nuremberg. One of them, Peter, had worked with Fust and Scheffer at their first impressions, and it was a tradition in the family that he was a scribe and miniaturist, and also engraved neatly on wood. He had been engaged by Scheffer, who lodged him in his house, to design and engrave on wood large initials embellished with ornaments like those he was in the habit of drawing and painting. Also that one of his brothers, Jacques, together with a friend named Thomas Forkanach who also engraved on wood, had helped him to engrave the initials for Scheffer’s Psalter. He showed Papillon a book of ‘figures of the mass,’ a xylographic tract printed _au frotton_. Not being able to get acceptable work, he left Paris. ‘This man,’ says Papillon, was ‘_franc et de très bon caractère_,’ he had means to live quietly at home, had not _l’envie de voyager_ made him leave Germany.[8] [8] Papillon, _Histoire de la gravure sur bois_.