Blockbooks and wood- and metal-cut prints

Detailed descriptions of the Bodleian's collection of blockbooks. Click here to see descriptions of the Bodleian Library's blockbooks, woodcut, and metalcut single sheets.

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Bibliography of blockbooks and woodcut printing

Schreiber, Manuel. W.L. Schreiber, Manuel de l'amateur de la gravure sur bois et sur metal au XVe siecle (Berlin:1891-1911). This five-volume work identifies and collates different editions of each of the blockbook titles and lists most of the woodcuts and metalcuts in the Bodleian collections. “Schreiber” numbers cited in records for items refer to this work.

Avril Henry, Biblia Pauperum (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987). Facsimile and transcription of the edition described by Schreiber (see above) as Edition I. See online resources for a version of this work.

The Bible of the poor = Biblia pauperum: a facsimile and edition of the British Library Blockbook C.9 d.2 / translation and commentary by Albert C. Labriola, John W. Smeltz (Duquesne University Press, 1990)

Kai-Wing Chow, 'Reinventing Gutenberg: Woodblock and Movable-type Printing in Europe and China', in Agent of Change: Print Culture Studies after Elizabeth L. Eisenstein, ed. Sabrina Alcorn Baron et al (Amherst and Boston, 2007), pp. 169-92. Places blockbooks in the context both of the history of printing in the west, and of the use of this form of printing in the east.

Blockbücher des Mittelalters: Bilderfolgen als Lektüre. Exhibition catalog, Mainz, Gutenberg-Museum, June-September 1991. (Mainz: Von Zabern, 1991). Contains a complete listing of all known copies of blockbooks, as well as articles on manuscript sources and artistic traditions.

Arthur M. Hind, An Introduction to a History of Woodcut with a Detailed Survey of Work Done in the Fifteenth Century, 2 vols (London, 1935).

Tobin Nellhaus, 'Mementos of Things to Come: Orality, Literacy, and Typology in the Biblia pauperum', in Printing the written word: the social history of books, circa 1450-1520, edited by Sandra Hindman (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991).

Online resources for blockbooks

About the texts of the blockbooks

Apocalypse

The text is from the New Testament book of Revelation, recounting St. John's vision of the Second Coming, and showing in stark woodcut images (often hand-coloured) the beast with seven heads, the resurrection of the dead, and the false prophet cast into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. The earliest blockbooks of the Apocalypse were based on manuscript models.
Apocalypse

Biblia Pauperum

A bible in pictures, the Biblia Pauperum originally appeared in the form of illuminated manuscripts in the late 13th century. The blockbook versions compressed the bible into 40 pages of pictures with small boxes or ribbons of text, either in Latin (as in the Bodleian copies) or in the vernacular.
Biblia Pauperum

Canticum Canticorum

The Song of Songs, from the Old Testament, is a poem in the form of a dialogue between two lovers. In Jewish theology it could be taken as an allegory of the love between God and the Jewish people. A medieval Christian interpretation stressed the roles of male and female, and used the lover's words of praise for his beloved as a model for devotion of the Virgin Mary. This was the context of the poem's printing as a blockbook in the later 1400s, when celebration of Mary was a strong feature of Christian devotion.
Canticum Canticorum

Donatus

Aside from devotional texts, another bestselling genre was the schoolbook. The Ars minor, or Lesser art [of grammar], first written in the 4th century by Aelius Donatus, was a popular textbook of Latin grammar, essential for all 15th-century schoolboys. For a description of the origins and printing of this text, see here.
Donatus

Essays and Notes

Provenance evidence: http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/csb/earlyprinting_provenance.html

A manuscript model for the blockbook Apocalypse: http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/csb/earlybooks_Apocalypse.html

Illustrations of the Passion of Christ in early printed books: http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/csb/earlybooks_Passion.html

(NB: The links in this tab are best viewed with Internet Explorer)

Glossary

Berengaudus commentary commentary on the Apocalypse written in the ninth century by Berengaudus of Ferrieres, and incorporated in the blockbook Apocalypse texts
bifolium sheet of paper folded in half to form a pair of joined leaves
blind style of decoration of a binding: a plain impression made on a binding using a tool or roll, and without gilding or colour being added
chiro-xylographic a book combining woodcut printed pictures with handwritten (manuscript) text
colophon information given at the end of a book about the printer, place of printing, and date
editio princeps Latin phrase meaning first edition
fillets a binder's tool, used to make a line or parallel lines on the binding; the word can mean either the tool itself or the lines it makes
gouges a brass binder's tool, used to make curved lines on bindings
guards narrow strip of paper onto which a leaf is pasted
offset ink transferred accidentally from a printed page to an adjacent page
Picture-book Apocalypses one type of illustrated Apocalypse, following the English tradtion, and transmitted from medieval manuscripts
ploughed edges of a book trimmed by a knife or primitive guillotine
prototypography "group of fifteenth-century editions, printed in the Netherlands and connected by their typeface, but bearing neither the place of printing, nor the name of the printer, nor the date. They are the earliest Dutch printed books "
quires section of a book, also called a 'gathering'; 'the group of leaves formed after the printed sheet has been folded to the size of the book and before it is combined in proper order with its fellows for binding' (Carter, ABC for Book Collectors, 6th edn, pp. 106, 169)
roll a binder's tool, used to make a repeated design; the word can mean either the tool itself or the design it makes on the binding
Sammelband collection of works, often small pamphlets
signatures The letters … printed in the … margin of the first leaf of each gathering or section of a book, as a guide to the binder in assembling them correctly' (Carter, ABC for Book Collectors, 6th edn, p. 189). In early books the study of early books printed signatures also form a useful means of identifying one's place in a book, given the (usual) absence of page numbers
stub narrow strip of leaf remaining after it has been cut from its counterpart
tacketed a book covering loosely attached to a sewn textblock with strips of parchment or leather thongs; a temporary covering
turn-ins edge of the covering material … folded over and pasted to the inside boards of a binding' (Marks, British Library Guide to Bookbinding, p. 90, illustrated on p. 30, pl. 17)
variant The copy of an edition containing some variation of text, title-page, or illustrations, made during the course of printing and usually resulting from proof reading, from other copies of the same edition
xylographic printed from woodblocks