Colard Mansion and the Evolution of the Printed Book

Abstract

Initially, printing was but one step in the evolution of book production at the end of the Middle Ages. The precursors of the first printers in Belgium and France were not the university stationers but the organized scriptoria which produced vernacular texts for the French-speaking aristocracy. Colard Mansion of Bruges was, throughout his life, both a printer and a scribe. His principal patron, Louis of Bruges, had one of the largest aristocratic libraries of manuscript books. Mansion circulated some of his original literary works only as deluxe manuscripts. He introduced copper engraving for the exact duplication of miniature illustrations. The size of his printed editions was comparable to the size of contemporary manuscript editions. Colard Mansion sought not to supplant the scribal arts but to perfect them. Printing became a source of dramatic social and intellectual change only after Colard Mansion's death.

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