Page:De Vinne, Invention of Printing (1876).djvu/240

XII

Block-Books of Images with Text.

The Antichrist, with Fac-simile … How to Remember the Evangelists, with Fac-simile … How to Die Becomingly, with Fac-simile … Other Editions of this Work … Chiromancy of Doctor Hartleib, with Fac-simile … German Planetarium and Calendar, with Fac-simile … Wonders of Rome, with Fac-simile … Pomerium Spirituale, with Fac-simile … Temptations of the Devil, with Fac-simile. Life of St. Meinrat, with Fac-simile … Dance of Death, with Fac-simile … Mechanical Peculiarities of the Block-Books … All of Religious Character …. Made for Priests, but seen by the People. Not Adapted to the Needs of the People … The Period of the Block-Books … Made in Germany and the Netherlands … Dates and Printers of the Books Unknown … Probably Made in the First Quarter of the Fifteenth Century … An Established Business before the Invention of Typography.

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This, that is written in this little book, ought the priests to learn and teach to their parishes: and it is also necessary for simple priests that understand not the Scriptures, and it is made for simple people. … by cause that for to hear examples stirreth and mobeth the people that ben simple more to devotion than great authority of science.

Caxton's Preface to the Doctrinal of Sapyence.

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Der Endkrist, or the Antichrist. This book seems to have been written to warn men against the snares of heresy. Two distinct editions are known; each was printed from a different suite of blocks and by a different printer. The copy about to be described has thirty-eight leaves, twenty-six of which are devoted to the life of Antichrist, and eleven to a separate treatise known as the Fifteen Signs, which was bound up with the Antichrist, and of which it seems to be the proper sequel. The book is printed on one side of the leaf, in brown ink, and the illustrations face each other. The text begins with the words "Here beginneth of Antichrist, taken and drawn out of many books, how and of whom he