THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY
skill and industry of the inmates ; and the order was equally famous for the beauty
and richness of its church ornaments. [On the Sunday after Whitsun 1495 the Priory
and its church were struck by lightning and severely damaged.1] Rebuilding began
at once, but printing must have been interrupted.
The breviary is in itself a proof of the remarkable industry of these canons, for
it is a large undertaking for the time. It is a folio volume of 628 pages or 157 sheets
of fours.On the assumption that the printers setup three sheets every week, worked
them offand distributed the letter that same week, the Priory must have had a fount
of at least 200 kilogrammes. And remembering that the casting of a fount ofthat
size would have taken at least six months, it may safely be assumed that the decision
to set up the press must have been made by the summer of 1493 and the choice of the
fount made very soon after the appearance of Jacob van Breda's book.2 Does this
not imply that the canons thought highly of the work of Henric Lettersnider?
Not being able to reproduce a page of the breviary, I have reset (fig. 4) the last
page of a Book of Hours,3 whose imprint means: 'Printed at Den Hem outside
Schoonhoven, in the year of our Lord 1498, on the 28th day in March. Thank God'.
The press was controlled up to the time of his death by the ninth Prior, Zeger
Jansz. Until about 1520 the canons printed a great deal. After that date no printed
Щ$№ epnOet eefuuetlic boerbêuâ
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Da0^en uanDet meeben elcbe Dad)
ujn fonDetlúujtye 0et^uOe.
|[ ЗЭео fonnenDa0eo.
|[3Bte 0^etiDe uanDe ^epli0é* 0eell.
|[<Эео manenDa0eo nano emi0et
f[
|[2BeoDonteDa0eo.uanDe \щ\щЩ
|[<Эео uujDa0eo. Die (fattamente
laii0lje aupo 0ljetiOe.
I 2E>eo fateeöageo uâ onlêt moutné"
ILlííte Deo fatetOa0eonoaj (Dtoef Щ
et fuuetlic 0ettDe nan onfet utoume
liocclmDctt.
4<êeDmrt|nDel^embutefcoê^ouê
lint iaet ono ^eten fHtat eñ rraúj.
<®pten rruiü Оаф Jn matao.
С<Эео0гааао.
Fig. 4. English-bodied Black Letter no. i.
Resetting of the last page with imprint of Devote ghetiden,
Den Hem, Canonici Regulares, 1498.
[ i ] A sentence has been changed to accord with M. Schoen- ished by 1495 at the rate of progress postulated by the author,
gen, Monasticon Batavum 2, p. 171. About the possible date of The breviary was probably set by formes from cast-off copy,
the beginning of printing at Den Hem see L. and W. Hellinga which would require a much smaller supply of type. This meth-
in Le cinquième Centenaire de l'imprimerie dans les anciens Pays-Bas, od of composition was unknown to Charles Enschedé. [L.H. ]
IQ73> P- 5°3- [3] CA 842, formerly in the Enschedé colleftion. Catalogue
[2] Because otherwise the book would not have been fin- auction Enschedé 1867, lot 700, now Cambridge ul, ulc 3661.
IO
HENRIC LETTERSNIDER
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bemetenofDuna4enbmd)tofboet.
met Ці molte Deo auonto toeDet 0ae
metûttenDifdpnlentnbetljantêtot
matttyen eñ marien fottöc lu 0enoet
metDen *6ñ onte liera moutneeñDe
anDet uránDebeno obltíoen \)t teet
Doe fi tljtn met finen Dtfamtlenfa0e
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ínouetfpeleñmaedjDntl;ematDat
menmetfoDaui0eDoenfouDemant
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fouDe<6ñil;ño bebêDeljaet boeflidt
enDe ftteef met fúnuiu0etin Díeaet=
De alfo Dat fut uetftonDen enDe feiDe
mie Dat fonDetfonDenío.Dietuerpet
op ^aee Den eetften lleen. fp mn¿en
Fig. 5. English-bodied Black Letter N0.1. Resetting of two pages from the
Oefeninghe van den leven cms Heren Ihesu Christi, Leyden, Hugo Jansz. van Woerden, 1498.
work by them can be found. Nevertheless, the convent was in a flourishing state : a
new sacristy was built in 1511, and in 1534 a cloister was added to the buildings on the
east side. The Priory existed until 6 July 1572, on which day the soldiers of the Prince
of Orange, marching to face the Spaniards under the Duke of Alva, set fire to it
and left it an utter ruin. Today nothing survives but the name : an orchard called
Den Hem marks the place where in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries so many
masterpieces of typography came into being.
In 1497 another printer, Hugo Jansz. van Woerden, of Leyden, began using our
Black Letter. In that year he produced a Book of Hours beginning Hier beginnen onser
liever Vrouwen getijden,x stated in the imprint to be : 'Printed at Leyden in Holland. In the
year of our Lord 1497'. This book is another that I have been unable to trace.2 As ex¬
amples of the work of the press I have reset two pages of a little devotional book, an
exercise in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ,3 printed by Van Woerden in 1498 with
his imprint meaning: 'Printed in Leyden by me Hugo Jansz. van Woerden in the
Vischmarkt, in the year of our Lord 1498' (fig. 5).
Henric Lettersnider seems to have gone on working as a typefounder and to
have been successful. His Black Letter is found, for example, in a book of Epistles,
Qljeptent te lepOen ШтіЩщо
J\aofoen nan moetDen ííen Die utfel;
matct Jfnttaetono Цеке.$ВА£€€.
eftrcutn..
Lettersnider's type
used hi Hugo ]ansz
Lettersntder's type
used at Antwerp
[1] CA 841 (note). Catalogue auction Enschedé 1867, lot 699, is now in the British Li-
[2] The fragment formerly in the Enschedé colleftion, brary (вмс ix, p. 98, IA. 48441).
[3] CA1119.