An Essay in the History of Gold-Tooled
Bindings by Herbert P. Horne
London 1894
double qualities of stationer and bookbinder, to declare, which of these two they would in future
elect to follow. Not only was this article ignored by several' libraires-relieurs '; but the wardens,
who had been nominated by the king to admin. Minster the affairs of the Guild for a term of three
years, continued in office, and otherwise acted, in contravention of the statutes. On the 24th
March 1/598, forty-seven of the elder freemen represented to the civil authorities, that more
than thirty persons had been admitted by the wardens, to the freedom of the Guild, of which
the greater number had not satisfied the provisions of the statutes, with regard to their
apprenticeship. These irregularities were at length corrected: and the members of the
community proceeded to the election of wardens, on the 31st May 1698, in accordance with the
statutes. By its provisions, two wardens were to be annually elected for the term of two years;
there being always four wardens in office, at anyone time. Of these officers, we possess a
complete list from the year 1698, to the year 1775; among who were many binders of celebrity.
The entire and final separation of the booksellers and printers; from the binders and gilders, did
not take place until 1730; the two Guilds having continued to celebrate their religious
ceremonies together, notwithstanding their severance in secular matters. In that year they came
to an agreement, which was designed to terminate all future difficulties: and the binders and
gilders retired to the Church of St. Hilaire, where they re-established their confraternity.
In 1776, an attempt was carried out by Turgot to suppress the whole of the city Guilds of Paris:
but upon the dismissal of that minister by Louis XVI., they were reconstituted by an Edict,
promulgated in the same year; and the act of their final suppression was reserved' for the
Revolution. By a decree of the Assembly, 17th March 1791, the Guild of Binders and Gilders, in
common with the other city guilds, ceased to exist.
Such, briefly, is the history of the Guild of St. Jean; from which let us now turn, to that of the
individual binders, and their work. The earliest gold-tooled bindings of France recall those
stamped bindings of the fifteenth century, the boards of which are ornamented by parallel rolls
of ornament, running from the head to the tail of the volume. The copy on vellum, presented to
Henry VIII. by Thomas Linacre, of his translation into Latin of Galen's Methodus Medendi, Paris,
1519, which is still preserved among the books of the Old Royal Collection [CO 19. e. 17.], is
bound in this manner; and the exceedingly rare bindings of Louis XII., examples of which are
figured in M. Guigard's Nouvel Armorial, show the same characteristics. It is not, however, until
the reign of François I., that the influence of Italian art plainly asserts itself, in the work of the
French gilders; and of this influence, the bindings executed for that monarch, 'non minus litteris,
quam armis clarus,' says Angelo Boccha of him in the notice of his library, remain the principal
examples.