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312 gymnasium (as the high school of the time was then designated) of some reputation; it was a favorable location for an early printer; it was in Utrecht that the mutilated blocks of the Speculum were printed by John Veldener in 1483.

The book containing the Eulogy on Pope Pius, which must have been printed after the year 1459, and the Abecedarium, with its evenly spaced lines and its arrangement in octavo, are specimens of the typography, not of the second, but of the third, quarter of the fifteenth century. The Latin editions of the Speculum were, no doubt, printed before the Dutch editions; but when we consider the activity of nearly all the early printers, and their frequent publication of popular books, it is hazardous to concede to the Latin editions a priority of more than five years. But Dutch bibliographers claim that the earlier editions of the book were printed at least thirty-three, perhaps fifty, years before the arrival of German printers in the Netherlands. To support this claim, they refer to passages or annotations in old manuscript books, which seem to show that printed books were common in the Netherlands during the middle of the century. These passages and annotations demand critical examination.

There is an entry in an old diary which, on its first reading, produces the impression that printed books were sold in Bruges as ordinary merchandise in the first half of the fifteenth century. This entry was made by one Jean le Robert, abbot of St. Aubert in Cambray, then a city of Burgundy.