the eldest and nearest blood relation in the branch from which they came The corporation remaining in existence, the right of property in the chairs continued, by uninterrupted transmission, until our time.
In the register of the names of the occupants of the chairs are found the following entries under the heading of chair 29:
| | ||
| 1421 | .. | Jan Coster, by … |
| 1436 | .. | Lourijs Coster, by inheritance. |
| 1484 | .. | Frans Thomas Thomasz, by …[1] |
| 1497 | .. | Gerret Thomas Pieterz, by inheritance from his father. |
| 1564 | .. | Cornelis Gerritz, by inheritance from his father. |
| 1589 | .. | Anna Gerritsdr., by purchase from her cousin. |
The names of the successive owners of chair 29 are continued in the book, but they are of no interest in this inquiry.
The archives of the church and town of Haarlem contain the names of other Costers, but there is no other Coster who will answer the description of Junius and Thomaszoon. The Lourens Janszoon Coster of the pedigree, the Louwerijs Janssoen (so called only after the year 1441) or Lourijs Coster of the archives, and the Lourijs Coster of the chair-book are, without doubt, the different names of the same man. This is the man who, according to Thomaszoon and Junius, brought the first print in the world. But he appears as a printer only in the pedigree. The archives and the chair-book do not so describe him; they tell us nothing of his invention, nor of the alleged stealing of his types, nor of his death in 1439. The town-book says that he was living in 1483. In none of these documents does he appear as sheriff, sexton, or treasurer.
It is obvious that the legend of Coster the printer rests entirely upon the pedigree and its amplifications by Junius.
- ↑ The exact nature of the relationship between Laurens Janszoon Coster and Gerrit Thomaszoon is not clearly defined, but the archives of the town and the vellum pedigree corroborate each other in establishing the existence—of Lourens Janszoon Coster (son of Jan Coster), tallow chandler and innkeeper, who left Haarlem in 1483—of Thomas Pieterszoon (probably the son-in-law of Coster), sheriff, who died in 1492—of Gerrit Thomaszoon (according to the pedigree, a great-great-grandson of Lourens Janszoon Coster), a sheriff and an innkeeper. He was, also, a sacristan or church-warden.
