The sumptuary laws of the middle ages, which were made to restrain common people from imitating the dress and equipage of the nobility, were not extended to the making of books. The copyist or calligrapher was at liberty to decorate books according to his own fancy. There was no occasion for restrictive legislation. The admirable romances and books of prayer upon which the miniaturist had lavished his talents were beyond the skill of the vulgar copyist and beyond the means of the plebeian book-buyer. Only an artist could paint them; only a prince or patrician could buy them. But these books, although far removed from the multitude by price and rarity, were not above the capacity of the ordinary reader. The illiterate man who could find no attraction in a book of letters would readily acknowledge the charm of the pictures [p194] in a book like the _Bedford Missal_. In this universal appreciation of pictures, some of the early engravers of cards and images saw an opportunity. Men who would not buy books of letters would buy books of pictures. Books of the latter class were not only sure of sale, but they could be engraved on blocks at a comparatively small expense. They could be printed in quantities much more cheaply, and, above all, with more accuracy and uniformity than they could be drawn by hand. They could be painted or illuminated by stencil plates, and made acceptable to men of simple tastes. Here was the beginning of the block-books. The term Block-Book is used to define the book printed entirely from engraved blocks, in contradistinction to the book printed from movable types. Bibliographers divide the block-books in two distinct classes: books of pictures without text, in which words descriptive of the picture are engraved at the foot of the page, or in cartouches proceeding from the mouths of the principal figures; and books of pictures with text, in which the explanations of the pictures are given in the form of a full page of text, which was commonly printed on the page opposite the picture.