The Invention of Printing.: A Collection of Facts and Opinions, Descriptive of Early Prints and Playing Cards, the Block-Books of the Fifteenth Century, the Legend of Lourens Janszoon Coster, of Haarlem, and the Work of John Gutenberg and His AssociatesDe Vinne, Theodore Low
History
The Invention of Printing.: A Collection of Facts and Opinions, Descriptive of Early Prints and Playing Cards, the Block-Books of the Fifteenth Century, the Legend of Lourens Janszoon Coster, of Haarlem, and the Work of John Gutenberg and His Associates
De Vinne, Theodore Low
Incunabula -- Bibliography; Printing -- History -- Origin and antecedents
The zealous indignation of Cornelis does not compensate us for his
mysterious concealment of the name of the thief.[198] His evidence is
extremely unsatisfactory. Cornelis, who was in the employ of Coster
when the theft was made, who knew the process, who bound the printed
work, who was an old resident of Haarlem, who had business relations
with every printer that succeeded Coster, of all men, should have been
the one most [p343] competent to describe the work of Coster. But
the information that he has furnished through Junius is ridiculously
trivial, scanty as to facts and dates, inconsistent, and, in some
points, entirely untrue.
Before we accept all that Junius has said about Cornelis, it will be
well to learn what we can about him from other sources. The first entry
in an account book of the cathedral of Haarlem for the year 1474 is to
this effect: “Item. . . . I have paid to Cornelis, the binder,[199] six
Rhine florins for binding books.” Similar items, describing Cornelis
as a bookbinder, are found in similar account books between the years
1485 and 1515. Payments were also recorded to Cornelis for coloring the
initial letters of the “bulls of the indulgences.” After the year 1515
his name appears no longer as a bookbinder; in 1517 another binder did
the work of the church. Seiz mentions an old book, printed by Jacob
Bellaert of Haarlem in 1485, on the last leaf of which was written:
“Bought at Haarlem in the Cruysstraet, of Cornelis the bookbinder,
in May, 1492.” The register for the year 1522 contains this entry:
“Cornelis the bookbinder was buried in the church. For the making
of his grave, twenty pence.” There can be no doubt that there was a
bookbinder Cornelis at Haarlem, and that the Cornelis of Junius is the
Cornelis of the church record. The dates in these records will enable
us to test the accuracy of one portion of the chronology of the legend.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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