The Invention of Printing by Theodore Low De Vinne

Author:Theodore Low De Vinne [De Vinne, Theodore Low]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Andhof
Published: 2016-01-24T23:00:00+00:00

The date first written was 1446, but in this column, and in others, objectionable entries have been effaced and falsifications have been attempted. The figure 6 has been partially rubbed out; it has been replaced by a 0, so that the careless reader will construe the date as 1440. There can be no hesitation whatever on this point; the figures first written surely were 1446. “We see here a fable arise before our very eyes. A Haarlem citizen has a pedigree made for him, probably to put it up in his inn. . . . . But the frame wants lustre, and so the pedigree is linked by the probably totally fictitious Lucye, the second wife, to a Haarlemer—to a Haarlemer who (the awkwardness and naïveté of the expression may not surprise p364 us at all in such a product of family vanity) brought the first print in the world.” 214

We may waive all criticism of the faulty grammar of the pedigree and proceed to more important matters. It may be conceded that the pedigree was written by an ignorant man who intended to say that it was Coster, and not his daughter, who brought the first print in the world. By the word print Thomaszoon may have meant a playing card, the engraved figure of a saint, a block-book, or a book made from movable types. If he meant any product of xylographic printing, the statement is totally false, and deserves no consideration. If he meant typography, his failure to express that meaning is unfortunate. But his intention is really of but little importance. A bald statement on a pedigree, written by an ignorant and conceited man, about one hundred years after the great event he professed to record, of the details of which he obviously knew nothing, cannot be used to overthrow established facts in the history of typography.

It is unsatisfactory in other points. The alteration of the date, and the unexplained erasures have destroyed whatever validity the document may have had. It may be put aside; as an authority it is worthless. Its obscure notice of the invention of printing is but a frail foundation for the colossal superstructure which Junius erected. It is plain that Junius must have been conscious of its weakness as a basis for the legend; he had doubts of its accuracy, and dared not refer to it. He preferred the oral testimony of the dead Cornelis.

The discovery of this falsification induced Dr. Van der Linde to make, “with a zeal and patience worthy of a better cause and of a better reward,” a laborious investigation in the archives of the town and church of Haarlem for authentic p365 information concerning Coster. He had cause to think that history had been falsified by other historians of the legend. Through the study of the archives, Van der Linde ascertained that there lived in Haarlem, in the fifteenth century, a citizen whose name was Lourens Janszoon Coster, the son of one Jan Coster who died in 1436.

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