While looking at the great variety of bindings found in our stacks, I was thinking about the advent of the paperback book. In looking up the history of paperbacks I found that common knowledge would say that this style of book originated in the 1930’s with publications by Penguin Books. ¹ But, as always, if you dig a little deeper the real story is quite different. It is recognized that Dime Novels, pamphlets and other ephemera were printed with paper covers in the 19^th century. Even recognizing these publications preceded 1900, I found that the history of the paperback goes much further back. During the Late Medieval period, prior to the invention of the printing press, manuscripts were sold in an unbound form so that the purchaser could choose a binding of their own. Collections of books were often bound with the same style for a wealthy patron. This made their libraries personally distinctive. Printing and binding were separate industries. This custom was followed after the 1450’s with books made by the printing press. Sometime in the next 50 years printers covered the text block with paper to prevent the copy from being soiled by dirt and stains. While most books were bound with a hardback case binding there are examples throughout this period where books were bound with plain and decorative papers. Here are a few examples from our collection:

De Rebus Ad Historiam by Francesco Antonio Zaccaria, was published in 1781 and on the title page is found the imprint excudebat Pompejus Campana, Fulginiae. This two-volume work examines the topic of ancient church history. Both volumes can be found bound together, or individually, in vellum. It is also found in various forms of leather binding. Our library has the two volumes bound separately in a coarse, heavy paper.

Ensayo sobre la supremacía del Papa was published in Lima Peru in 1831 by José Masias for Jose Ignacio Moreno. Moreno argued for the supremacy of the Pope and the authority of Rome over all ecclesiastical affairs. This volume is bound with thick thread in a pamphlet style. It is interesting that this book came from the library of the noted Peruvian author Father Antonine Tibesar (1909-1992).

Our next example, De optima legendorum ecclesiae Patrum methodo was published in 1742 by ex typographia Regia, Augustae Taurinorum. Written by Bonaventure d’ Argonne this book provides a methodology for reading the Early Church Fathers. Here we see an intermediate type of binding with vellum on the spine and corners over a binding of decorated boards.

In the same tradition, the 1783 edition of Della Forza Della Fantasia Umana by Lodovico Antonio Muratori caries on the practice of vellum combined with printed paper. This book presents a bold theatrical representation of the celestial mechanics of imagination.

Finally, in this short survey of early bindings in our collection, is the 1830 book The romance of history: Spain printed in London and written by Joaquín Telesforo de Trueba y Cosío (1799?-1835). Here Joaquín provides a survey of the history of Spain from the Gothic Dynasty to the early 1800’s. In the same tradition of inexpensive bindings, we see a transition from paper and vellum to a low-cost cloth cover with paper titles.

Once we enter the 19^th century a wide variety of bindings are used. Popular and inexpensive coverings of paper emerge. Where the majority of pre 19^th bindings were sturdy leather and vellum the numbers of books bound with and paper prevail in the 20^th century.

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DLWA Call Number: BR143 .Z13 1781 v.1 & v.2
Worldcat: Link – Volume 1
Worldcat: Link – Volume 2

• Title: De rebus ad historiam atque antiquitates ecclesiae pertinentibus dissertationes Latinae
• Author: Francesco Antonio Zaccaria
• Language: Latin
• Setting: Ecclesiastical history

DLWA Call Number: BX1810 .M67 1831
Worldcat: Link

• Title: Ensayo sobre la supremacía del Papa especialmente con respecto a la institución de los obispos
• Author: José Ignacio Moreno
• Language: Spanish
• Setting: Ecclesiastical history

DLWA Call Number: BR 67 .A74164 1742
Worldcat: Link

• Title: De optima legendorum ecclesiae Patrum methodo in quatuor Partes tributa
• Author: Bonaventure d’ Argonne
• Language: Latin
• Setting: Ecclesiastical history

DLWA Call Number: BF408 .M8 1783
Worldcat: Link

• Title: Della forza della fantasia umana
• Author: Ludovico Antonio Muratori
• Language: Italian
• Setting: Mind and body

DLWA Call Number: PR5699.T453 .R66 1830
Worldcat: Link

• Title: The romance of history : Spain
• Author: Joaquín Telesforo de Trueba y Cosío
• Language: English
• Setting: Spanish history

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1. Smithsonian Magazine

–DLW

Thomas Rowlandson (1756–1827) was a prolific English artist known for political and satirical prints. Much of his art was in the form of engravings and etching that were then printed individually or in collections. Because these prints could be inexpensively produced his art was available to the general public. Rowlandson was often censured, as much for his biting social commentary on the powerful of the day, as the bawdy caricatures of their private and public life. Rowlandson’s art is distinctive in its style and was copied by many others in the newspapers and gazettes in Europe and America.

The subject of The Dance of Death finds its origin in the Late Middle Age allegory of the Danse Macabre. Whether this genre developed because of the horrors of the Black Death, or the deprivations and unending wars of feudal Europe, it became a popular subject expressed in art, dance, and song. Some of the earliest recorded depictions of The Dance were murals painted on the walls of charnel houses of Paris in the 1420’s. While dancing was an important part of the iconography of this genre, dancing was not always portrayed in the art work. These early depictions show lines of people from Pope to Pauper being led by skeletons to their death. Death was the great leveler of the time.

The Dance appeared in the Liber Chronicarum (Book of Chronicles), often known as the Nuremberg Chronicle, printed in 1492. Draped with shrouds the skeletons appear to be quite festive. The everyday presence of death was so prevalent that even the children’s rhyme Ring Around the Rosie has been attributed to memories of the plague. With the advent of the printing press The Dance was represented in many books, pamphlets and prints.

Hans Holbein the Younger created one of the best-known series of The Dance during the period of 1523 to 1526. Death comes in many disguises and no one escapes the skeletal hand. Sold individually and in book form his prints were extremely popular.

Now back to Thomas Rowlandson. Following in the tradition of The Dance, and echoing the morality prints of William Hogarth, Rowlandson created a series of prints collected together in the two-volume set The English Dance of Death. The English Dance of Death was originally issued in twenty-four monthly subscriptions. Published between 1814-16 the cartoons were accompanied by verses, written by the comic poet William Combe under the pen name Doctor Syntax. Again, Rowlandson presents Death as the universal marauder, stretching out his bony hand to clutch at his prey at in the most unexpected and inopportune occasion. Rowlandson shows us the vanity of human life and the futility of human pleasures and pursuits

Plutus commands. & to the Arms
of doting Age, She yields her Charms.

There is a proverb that is known
By ev’ry lively Miss in Town,
For whom Love lies in ambuscade,
— That Marriages in Heaven are made.
Thus, when the Fair, resolv’d to wed,
Receives the Captain to her bed,
Whose only fortune is his pay
Of nothing like a pound per day,
A father’s anger to assuage,
And calm an humbled Mother’s rage,
She says, in hopes to be forgiven,
The nuptial knot was tied in Heaven.
How could she help it — when her Love
Was govern’d by the powers above ;
And therefore would Papa persuade
That this same match was wisely made ;
Nay, asks the Dower he would accord,
As if her Spouse had been a Lord.
— But ’tis not Birth, nor is it gold
That does the sacred Union hold.

There is a not so subtle hint that the marriage is not for love:

But ’tis not form’d by Nature’s plan
To give such Happiness to Man :
It would be folly then to wonder
That Love and Plutus keep asunder ;
For Hymen ‘s ever at their will
Their sep’rate pleasure to fulfil ;
Though Plutus seems to take the lead
Of Love, in matrimonial deed :
Such is, at least, the gen’ral creed : —
And such Amelia’s tale will prove
Who married Wealth, nor thought of Love.

Tis not the time to meet one’s fate.
Just ent’ring on a large Estate.

What sudden changes do we see,
What wonderful Variety,
In all that passes here below.
From Grief to Joy, from Joy to Woe !
How oft do the transitions seem
The rapid movements of a dream :
But no where does the change appear
So oft within one fleeting year ;
So oft display the motley mien
As in the pantomimic scene
Which Fashion, by her magic power.
Forms to enliven every hour.

The parable ends with the following:

The Chaise was high, the Gate was low,
His Head receiv’d the fatal blow
From the rude arch ; — He loos’d the rein.
And fell, no more to rise again.
— Thus, as Joy brighten’d Sorrow’s gloom,
He sunk, untimely, to the Tomb.
But ah, those Sorrows did not wait
Upon his unexpected Fate,
Which mourn’d Lord Ronald good and
great.

‘Twere well to spare me two or three
Out of your num’rous Family

Doctor Syntax expounds on the woes of man:

Broken with toils, with arms opprest,
The Soldier thinks the Merchant blest ;
And when the threat’ning Tempests rise,
Arm me for war, the Merchant cries :
While he, who in the City lives.
Sighs for the peace the Country gives ;
The Country Folk unheard, unknown.
Think there ‘s no pleasure but in Town.

But in this tableaux Death has his eye on more, Jemmy Guest’s family:

One morn at breakfast, as He sat,
Attentive to their various chat.
Death at the door in form appear’d ;
And, as aloft his arm he rear’d,
Jemmy began to stir and stare
And ask’d the Shape his errand there.
He grinn’d a ghastly smile, and said —
To follow his old-fashioned trade.
To get a pretty little picking
Among this brood of human chicken.
Jemmy replied — I ’11 ne’er consent
To such a barbarous intent :
Touch not, I pray, a single feather.
Take none, or take us all together.
— Think not, said Death, I ’11 march away
And let my arrow lose its prey :
Why, here ‘s this brat so loudly squalling —
Leave him to me — I ’11 stop his bawling.
— Poor little dear, it scarce can walk.
And has but just begun to talk.
— Then, there’s the Babe in t’ other room,
Who will not talk for months to come.
— If from her Nursling forc’d to part,
T’would break the Angel Mother’s heart.
Indeed I cannot spare you one.
So take us all, or pray be gone.
But if you must employ your dart.
E’er from this chamber you depart.
To me and mine delay the curse,
And make your meal upon the NURSE.

Did death take them all? During this time it was a great possibility.

—–

DLWA Call Number: D11 S32
Worldcat: Link

• Title: Liber Chronicarum (The Nuremberg Chronicle)
• Author: Hartmann Schedel
• Language: Latin
• Setting: book history

DLWA Call Number: PR3359 .C5 E5 1815
Worldcat: Link

• Title: The English dance of death
• Author: Thomas Rowlandson and William Combe
• Language: English
• Setting: Prints, Early Modern Political Satire

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1. Pencil sketch portrait of Thomas Rowlandson by George Henry Harlow (d. 1819), currently in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
   Date – 1814
2. Klein, Augusta Julia, “Death in the City of Light : The Culture of Death in Paris from the Middle Ages through the NineteenthCentury” (2017).Senior Projects Spring 2017. 273
3. Schedel, Hartmann, and Anton Koberger. 1493. Liber chronicarum. Nürnberg: Anton Koberger.
4. Holbein, Hans, Hans Sebald Beham, François Gryphius, Joannis Bittner, Richard Copley Christie, Ignatius Gunther, Wenceslas Kail, F. Maillard, Tom Webster, and Thomas White. 1542. Biblia, insignium historiarum simulachris, cùm uenustati, tũ ueritati accomodis illustrata. Cætera sequens pagina docebit. [Paris]: Excudebat Fran. Gryphius.
5. Rowlandson, Thomas, and William Combe. 1815. The English dance of death. London: Pr. by J. Diggens.
6. ibid.
7. ibid.

–DLW

In 1915 T. F. Tout gave a lecture at the John Rylands library on a great crime. It was the burglary of the treasury in the King’s Wardrobe in the abbey at Westminster on April 24, 1303. ¹ Tout examines how the story has come down to us and lays out the plot in detail. Why is this event, so remote and lost to history, intriguing? As I read this story I wondered: Where was the king? Where were the guards? And most curious, why was the King’s treasure in a wardrobe? These questions led me on an interesting journey in historiography and ancient sources.

To summarize, the burglary took place in late April 1303. Edward I was in Scotland at war with William Wallace for the control of the northern Scottish territories. When the King traveled it was customary for the national treasury to follow in the Wardrobe along with the rest of his retinue. On this occasion the treasure was deposited in a room under the chapter house of Westminster Abbey designated to house the Kings Wardrobe. We do not know the reason for this change in plans, but it was clear that there was an opportunity ripe for the taking. Whether it was with the help of the Monks charged with protecting the treasure or on his own, Richard of Pudlicott (also known as Richard de Podelicote) plotted to take the loot. Depending on the account, on his own or with the help of a gang of thieves, gold, coin, jewels, and other treasure was taken. The local community started to take notice as items begin to appear in the pub and pawn shops being traded by near do wells and prostitutes. Treasures were even found by fishermen in the river Thames. The king was notified, and dozens of people were rounded up, jailed, and placed on trial. Many were hanged. The implicated monks were spared because of Richard’s confession as well as their possible influence with the crown. Richard experienced a most gruesome fate. Eventually the bulk of the hoard was returned to the King.

We are able to know about this rich and deeply layered tale because of the attempts of the monks to absolve themselves participating in the crime. As T. F. Tout noted there were a number of accounts that have survived. One of the most detailed, and in Tout’s estimation, accurate, is the chronicle written by Robert of Reading. ²

Modern accounts of the burglary are traced to published records of English Chronicles starting with Francis Palgrave’s The Antient Kalendars and Inventories of the Treasury of His Majesty’s Exchequer, with other documents illustrating the history of that repository.

Later in the nineteenth century Luke Pike (1873), focused on the trials related to the theft as well as the role of the clergy. But he does uncover why the monks were guarding the treasure and the scope of the theft. ³

Hubert Hall, writing in 1898, was more concerned with the history of the treasury and the role of the wardrobe in English history. He goes into great detail about the how the burglary was committed. He published a plan for the Westminster Abby grounds that Tout reproduced in his lecture.

Hall also examines the evicence implicating the monks and friars.⁴

Interest has continued to the present time as witnessed by Paul Doherty’s book The great crown jewels robbery of 1303.

As the publisher notes:

This compelling work is an exhilarating tale of cunning deceit, lechery, feisty villains, meddling monks, greedy goldsmiths, and devious pimps and prostitutes. It takes the lid off both the medieval underworld and the assumed piousness of the monastic community.⁵

So here are the hints to raise your appetite to explore this mystery further. Look into the original documents, read the records in our library and dive deep into the medieval world. There are more paths to follow in the tales recounted here.

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DLWA Call Number: DC151 .A58 1997
Worldcat: Link

• Title: The great crown jewels robbery of 1303: the extraordinary story of the first big bank raid in history. London: Constable.
• Author: Paul Doherty
• Language: English
• Setting: English History

DLWA Call Number: HJ1028 .H2 1891
Worldcat: Link

• Title: The Antiquities and Curiosities of the Exchequer, etc. E. Stock: London.
• Author: Hubert Hall
• Language: English
• Setting: English History

DLWA Call Number: Upcomming acqusition
Worldcat: Link

• Title: The Antient Kalendars and Inventories of the Treasury of His Majesty’s Exchequer, with other documents illustrating the history of that repository … collected and edited by Sir Francis Palgrave. London: Printed by C. Eyre and A. Spottiswoode.
• Author: Francis Palgrave
• Language: English, French, Latin
• Setting: English History

DLWA Call Number: HV6943 .A212 1873
Worldcat: Link

• Title: A history of crime in England. [Place of publication not identified]: Smith Elder and Co.
• Author: Luke Owen Pike
• Language: English
• Setting: English History

DLWA Call Number: DA229 .T649 1915
Worldcat: Link

• Title: “A mediaeval burglary”. Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. 2: 348-369.
• Author: T. F. Tout
• Language: English
• Setting: English History

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1. Tout, T. F. 1914. “A mediaeval burglary”. Bulletin of the John Rylands Library. 2: 348-369. paginated as separate volume pp 3-24
2. ibid. pp.22-23
3. Pike, Luke Owen. 1873. A history of crime in England
4. Hall, Hubert. 1898. The Antiquities and Curiosities of the Exchequer, etc. pp.19-34
5. Doherty, Paul. 2005. The great crown jewels robbery of 1303: the extraordinary story of the first big bank raid in history Cover