Page:A dictionary of printers and printing.djvu/125

 116

HISTORY OF PRINTING.

part of the mass, a burlesque composition, called the fool's prose, and upon the festival of St. John the Evangelist, they had another arrange- ment of ludicrous songs, called, the prose of the ox. — Strutt's Sports and Pastime*.

About the rear 990, Theophylact, patriarch of Constantinople, caused the Feast of Fools, and the Feast of the Ass, with other religious farces of that sort, to be exhibited in the Greek church. The fact is recorded by Cedranus, one of the Byzantine historians, who flourished about 1050, in the following words : " Tbeophylact intro- duced the practice which prevails even to this day, of scandalizing God and the memory of his saints, on the most splendid and popular festivals, by indecent and ridiculous songs, and enormous shoutings, even in the midst of those sacred hymns, which we ought to oflTer to the divine grace with compunction of heart, for the salva- tion of souls. But he, having collected a company of base fellows, and placing over them one Eu- thyonius, whom he also appointed the superinten- dent of his church, admitted into the sacred ser- vice diabolical dances, exclamations of ribaldry, and ballads borrowed from the streets and bro- thels.

1444. Gibbon, in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Enurire, remarks, that in this year seven or eight tables of brass were dug up between Cortona and Gubio ; part of them were inscribed with the Etruscan character; the rest repre- senting the premature state of the Pelasgic let- ters and language. — vol. vin. chap. xliv.

1445. Frederic III. Emperor of Germany permitted printers to wear gold and silver, and granted coat armour to the Typothetae and Ty- pographia to perpetuate the honour of the dis- covery. This armorial bearing is still claimed bjr the professors of the art in Germany. The reign of Frederic III, was from 1440 to 1493.» The emperor Frederic III. knew no better gra- tuity for John Capnion, who had been sent to him on an embassy by Edward of Wittemberg, than by making hmi a present of an old Hebrew bible.

1446. An ordinance was made by king Henry VI. relative to grammar schools in London. In consequence of peisonskeeping grammar schools, it was ordained that five were sufficient, and which weretobekept: — l,within the churchyard of St. Paul ; 2, wiUiin the collegiate church of St. Martin; 3, in Bow Church; 4, in the church of St. Dunstan in the east, and 5, " in the hos- pital of St. Anthony."

1446, April. Henry VI. grants a charter to Sir Edmund de Trafford and Sir Thomas Ash- ton, for the transmutation of baser metals into real or fine gold and silver. By this commission, they were emancipated from the penalties of an act to which the professors of alchemy had been subjected in the beginning of the reign of king Henry IV. Dr. John Fauceby who was physi- cian to the king, also obtained a commission from

thiu (ranted, as a vignette on bit title pace.
 * Haosanl in bis Typographia, giret a copj of the tma

his royal master to discover an nnirenal m«ji- cine, c&Wed the elixir of life, for the cure pf ill diseases, wounds, and fractures, and for pr^losg- ing the health and strength of the body, and tk vigour of the mind, to the greatest possible ex- tent of time. The above grants were confinnd by parliament. This was the folly of the age. It was by an application to the occult sciences, and not by a rational attention to the humiii economy, to the progress of nature, and the dic- tates of a judicious experience, that the ait of healing was expected to be promoted. Surgm, though the knowledge of it was so much wanted, in consequence of ue wars both at home and abroad, in which the nation was perpetually en- gaged, was in a most deplorable condition, and the skill of the surgeons was inferior to thai number. In the hands of ignorance, many wounded men, who otherwise might have bcea preserved, probably suffered the loss of theii lives. Medicine, though more studied than na- tural philosophy in general, does not appear nith much greater lustre. Dr. Friend, in his History of Physic could not find one physician in this period whom he thought worthy of being ap- plauded. The Dietary for the Presenatian of Health, by Dr. Gilbert Kymer, and which is stiU extant, is said, however, to contain several curiont things, and some salutary advices.

From the opinions of Wiclif,* and the writing! of Chaucer, Lydgate, and others, the progress of knowledge was far inferior to what, from auspices so favourable to the cultivation and refinement of the human faculties, might rationally hare been predicted. In fact, this period is one of the most disgraceful, with respect to the subject be- fore us, that can be found in the histonr of Eng- land. It affords but few literary facts aM characters on which we can expatiate with much satisfaction. Several cireumstances contribnted to the neglect of learning ; the chief of which undoubtedly was the confusion of the times aris- ing from the civil wars that were occasioned by the long contests between the two rival houses of York and Lancaster. In the perpetual tumnlt and din of arms, and amidst the desolation that were spread through the kingdom, little oppoitn- nity was afforded for the pursuits of science, and the culture of the polite arts. Ignorance and barbarity obtained new tiiumphs over the minds of the multitude ; and in such a deplorable con- dition of the human mind, the clergfy had ample encouragement to suppress, with unrelentwg rigour, Uie smallest attempts at reformation, ana to bind the laitv closer still in the chains of absur- dity, error, ana superstition. And such was the inconsistency of the monarch, (Henry VI.) that whilst he himself read the scriptures constantly, and regarded them as an inestimable source of instruction and consolation, his subjects were persecuted, imprisoned, and burned alive, for

adopted f^ora Baber, vho lemarka, that " It is so qictt m the oldest document In which bis name is known to umtu, viz. in the Instrument whlcb nominated bin one or the cmtwnr to meet the pope's delefatcs In 1174-
 * This mode of spelliDK oar reformer's name, I hSfB

VjOOQ IC