The Image in Print: Book Illustration in Late Medieval England and its Sources (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Image in Print: Book Illustration in Late Medieval England and its Sources Judith Collard Driver, Martha W. , The Image in Print: Book Illustration in Late Medieval England and its Sources, London, The British Library, 2004; cloth; pp. xii, 302; 178 b/w illustrations; RRP US$80; ISBN 0712348336. Martha Driver has published a substantial range of articles on printing, literature and the use of imagery in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, much of which has focused on books for an English market. She has also worked on the role of nuns and lay women as patrons of both illuminated and printed books. She is one of the founders of the Early Books Society and the editor of its journal, [End Page 155] and is ideally situated to tackle the subject of this book. In her introduction she sets out a bold and ambitious programme. Woodcuts are an important and overlooked resource in the history of book illustration. She writes: 'they have much to tell us about how books were produced and for what purposes, about reading habits and developments in literacy, and about the part that books played in social, political and religious change'. Driver suggests that the study of woodcuts and their texts can be used to argue for 'a radically new understanding of book illustration'. This seems an overstatement. One reason is that Driver does herself a disservice by not providing us with a sense of how these woodcuts have been discussed by other scholars, thus disguising her important contribution. Much of the previous discussion of this material has been in relation to iconographical issues, or as illustrations to particular themes. The work of Charles Zika and Keith Moxey has demonstrated the value of woodcuts for such approaches. Scholars of printmaking have looked at woodcuts as independent artefacts, as many were, while historians of the book, as Driver indicates, have tended to overlook their role. In bringing together these elements into one study Driver is, indeed, embarking on an ambitious project. Exploring the emergence of a new medium highlights both the speed of the spread of innovation as well as the lingering influence of what preceded it. In her first chapter Driver writes about the early printed illustration. She emphasizes that not only was the printed book quickly accepted but that this acceptance did not mean that manuscripts ceased to be equally valued or produced. Print took up texts that were already popular in manuscript and distributed them to a wider market. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was this very affordability and ubiquity that led to print being devalued. Sonnets were circulated amongst an aristocratic audience in manuscript form, possibly never originally intended to appear in a printed format. She also reminds the reader that block prints with their xylographic texts and other single-leaf woodcuts were produced concurrently with typeset books and were sometimes pasted into books. The Ars moriendi, a particularly popular work, was first produced typographically and then abridged in block-book form. Both were ultimately derived from the Tractatus artis bene moriendi written in the early fifteenth century. To illustrate these points reference is also made to European examples such as the documentation of the use of woodcuts in paintings of figures like Petrus Christus or devotional prints made in Germany. One impression that is quickly gained is that English printing was dependent in its early phases upon the major [End Page 156] printing centres in Germany, the Netherlands and France. Caxton, for example, initially began experimenting with printing on the continent and imported type, wood-blocks and even his foreman, Wynkyn de Worde. English printed books were regarded as inferior to those produced by continental printers. Many books, including Henry VIII's Great Bible, were produced, at least initially, in places like France. What Driver does not point out is that this practice of manufacturing English books abroad was not unique to the printing trade. In the fifteenth century the Netherlands and France were already supplying mass-produced manuscripts for the English market. Printed books were reflecting the general cultural dominance of the Low Countries. This is not to say that English books were completely without innovation...