1 March: Boreham on William Caxton

We Go To Press
It was on the first of March, in the old city of Bruges, that William Caxton began the work that was to transform the world. No man knows exactly when he was born. We like to think that, like an actor who has been hiding in the wings and suddenly steps into the limelight, William Caxton emerged, on world history. No man did more than he to give shape and colour to our modern civilisation; of no man's personal history do we know less. But, on that day in 1438, he became apprenticed to Robert Large, a citizen of enormous wealth and immense authority, who, a few months later, celebrated with extraordinary splendour his election to the office of Lord Mayor of London. Amid the pomp and circumstance that attended his master's elevation, we catch the first glimpse of the man who taught Englishmen to print. During the years that followed he spent a good deal of his time in Flanders as governor of the English Guild of Merchant Adventurers; but, whatever his position and whatever his duties, he was secretly cogitating the reform with which his name is inseparably associated.

It seems almost incredible today, when we discuss the literary triumphs of the Middle Ages, that the books that we so familiarly mention were originally published in handwritten script. Obviously, literature could never be popular under such conditions. Only the wealthy could afford a scroll or even purchase the right of perusal. Caxton held that earth's loftiest thought should be available to earth's lowliest citizens. During his residence on the Continent, he came upon a number of literary treasures that he ardently coveted for his own people. He set to work to copy them. The venture, heart-breaking in its sheer immensity, excites both wonder and admiration. Imagine a reversion to 15th century conditions. Imagine a young Australian going to London and finding, at the British Museum, the manuscripts of "David Copperfield," "Pendennis," "Ivanhoe" and "Adam Bede." Imagine his setting to work to make accurate and neatly written copies of these manuscripts in order that his Australian friends may share with him the delight that they have found in their perusal.

Labour-saving Par Excellence
By this frolic of fancy we are able to appreciate the courage that constitutes Caxton's first claim upon our veneration. The strain was terrific. "In all this writing," he says, "my pen is worn; my hand weary; my eyes dimmed by overmuch concentration on the white paper; my courage is failing; whilst old age creepeth on me daily, enfeebling all my body." Necessity was ever the mother of invention, and it was out of the necessity imposed upon him by his insufferable weariness that Caxton's most memorable work was born. Tired to death of copying the endless folios, it occurred to him that there must be adventitious and mechanical aids to so exhausting an undertaking. He soon found that there were. They were extremely primitive, extremely clumsy, extremely costly, and extremely slow. But Caxton's imaginative genius and practical sagacity saw in these crude beginnings the protoplasmic germ of an epoch-making reform. He bought a ramshackle old press; returned excitedly to England; and was soon able to announce that any man who wanted to buy a book should come to the Sign of the Red Sale "where he should have it good and cheap." The Sign of the Red Sale was, curiously enough, within the precincts of Westminster Abbey. The innovation startled England. Learned men, fashionable women, and great nobles thronged the little printing house to see how the miracle was performed, while less intelligent people declined to go near it, declaring that such results could only be achieved by commerce with evil spirits. For 14 years Caxton was able to continue his toils; the business went ahead by leaps and bounds. Books became so cheap that most people could afford to buy them, and, in order that they might enjoy the pleasures offered, thousands of people learned to read who had never before felt any desire for that accomplishment.

Harbinger Of A New Dawn
The printing press startled the world at the very moment at which the world had something worth printing. The air tingled with sensation and romance. It was an age of thrills. Civilisation was being overhauled and recast. The very planet was being recreated. Going east and west, the great navigators were finding new continents and new islands everywhere. It was, too, the age of the renaissance. Men were eager to think. Astronomy was being born. In the realms of philosophy, music, art and science, illustrious adventurers whose names will live for ever, appeared like bright stars that twinkle suddenly out of the age-long dark. An infinite horizon was opened to the simplest minds. Men fell in love with the universe. Moreover, with that revived interest in ancient culture, there awoke in the minds of the people an insatiable desire to possess the Scriptures in their own tongue. And, at that psychological moment, William Tyndale arose. A private tutor in Gloucestershire, he conceived the idea of making the simplest ploughboy as familiar with the Scriptures as the most erudite scholars then were. As a result, he completed his monumental translation in such a masterly way that, except in matters of detail, no subsequent revisers have been able to improve on his majestic production. The people had obtained what they wanted. Caxton's presses scattered the copies broadcast over the country, and all our historians have borne eloquent witness to the important part played by this notable development in fashioning our modern way of life. The rise of Caxton, therefore, was not only an epoch-making event; it was a glowing portent. It was the symbol of the dawn of an era without parallel in history. The man who would discover and demonstrate Caxton's contribution to human progress must establish a contrast between the past five centuries and the five centuries that immediately preceded them.

F W Boreham

Image: William Caxton