Biblia Pauperum

History

Original Woodblocks

A note by the printers, the Unwin Brothers of London, reveal that the original woodblocks were first displayed at the Caxton Celebration in 1877. During this celebration, an extraordinary collection of early printed books was exhibited at South Kensington. This made it one of the largest exhibitions of the printing industry in Europe of that time period. The exhibition was organized by large scale industrial printer William Clowes, typefounder and politician Sir Charles Reed, and printer and bibliographer William Blades, and other prominent individuals.

Approximately fifty years later in the early twentieth century, Mr. Sams of Darlington purchased the original blocks at Nuremberg. They were not recognized as belonging to any printed book and the artist’s mark, which appeared on the thirty-seventh plate, was unknown to any bibliographer. Therefore, it was probable that the woodblocks were unused for nearly four centuries after first being engraved.

Production of a Facsimile

When the printers acquired the original woodblocks, they saw that the woodblocks were remarkably clean and free from signs of wear, but extensively worm-eaten. In the case of one or two of the blocks, pieces of the surface were coming away in the hand. The soft wood was quite different from that used during the time period of the reprinting. Both the type of wood used and the unique manner in which the wood was cut were signs of their great antiquity.

This current copy of Biblia Pauperum contains the details of the original woodblocks, but reduced in size. It also includes supplemental text from Wycliffe’s translation of the New Testament, which was the only English version commonly known during the period when the woodblocks were originally engraved. The ornamented borders that are exact facsimiles of those from a Book of Hours which was printed by T. Kerver in Paris in 1525. With permission from the late Archbishop of Canterbury, the Unwin Brothers were able to reproduce the ornamentations of the Book of Hours stored in the Lambeth Palace Library.

Content

Prefatory Notice by the Late Very Rev. Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D., Dean of Westminster

Arthur Penrhyn Stanley was an English Anglican priest and ecclesiastical historian. The Unwin brothers asked him to write a preface for reprinted version of Biblia Pauperum. Stanley wrote that the connection of Caxton’s press with the precincts of Westminster Abbey has often suggested the coincidence of the book and the church. He quoted Victor Hugo who claimed that “The Church has given birth to the Book.” Stanley observed that the woodblocks of Biblia Pauperum dated only seven years before the first appearance of Caxton’s first printed English book, making them a fitting memorial of the epoch by being commemorated by the Caxton Celebration. Biblia Pauperum was one of the last versions of the Bible that contained illustrations which were the main focus of the book. This differed from later, more common versions of the Bible that were printed and distributed in mass quantities.