(2) Overleaf: Christophe Plantin. Engraving by Joannes Wiericx, 1588. The original copperplate is also in the collection of the Plantin-Moretus Museum. With a biographical note written by Plantin's grandson Frans Raphelengius (cf. p. 5).

Part I
The Plantin-Moretus Dynasty

Chapter 1
Christophe Plantin, a Prince of Printers

In 1548 or 1549 Christophe Plantin, a humble French journeyman bookbinder, arrived in Antwerp with his wife Jeanne Rivière and his young daughter Margareta. He was to establish himself permanently in the city on the Scheldt and there acquire a reputation that still remains undimmed after four centuries.

Origin and youth1.

Who was Christophe Plantin? In 1606, scarcely seventeen years after the death of the great printer, Plantin's grandson, Balthasar I Moretus, was to claim in a letter to the bishop and the chapter of Antwerp that his grandfather belonged to a ‘race illustre’, but the family fortune and estates had gone to an elder brother.2. Names and details were given in a document of later date, preserved in the Moretus family:3. Plantin's father was Charles de Tiercelin, lord of La Roche du Maine, a captain who had won glory and renown in battle in the service of the French kings, but had been able to bequeath little more than his fame to his descendants. Charles de Tiercelin's sons had been obliged to make their own way in life. Christophe and one of his brothers went to Normandy. Intending to practise trade, they decided to change their name so as not to disgrace their noble family.

Riding across a meadow, they let their choice of name be inspired by certain plants: Christophe chose the plantain, his younger brother the leek, called porrée in French. ‘Plantin’ became a printer, ‘Porret’ an apothecary.

All his life the printer Plantin did in fact maintain the closest relations with the apothecary Pierre Porret, each addressing the other as ‘brother’, yet Plantin's origin must nevertheless have been more workaday and plebeian than later generations of the Moretus family permitted themselves to proclaim. The descendants of the printer, having become rich, seem to have mistaken their dreams of nobility for reality.

Plantin never claimed aristocratic birth for himself; in a letter to Jean Sylvius, lord of Sapigny,1. he soberly called himself a commoner [plebeius homo].2. In 1550 he had himself entered on the citizens' roll of Antwerp as the equally plain and modest ‘Christoffel Plantin Janssz[one] van Tours’ [Christophe Plantin, son of Jean, of Tours].3.

These assertions could perhaps be regarded as part of the smokescreen laid down by Plantin to protect his noble family from the shame done them by the branch that had gone into trade. Another document, however, has been preserved: a letter addressed to Christophe Plantin from none less than Pierre Porret himself, in which the latter outlines his ‘brother's’ youth - and at the same time gives details concerning his origin that sound anything but noble.

Before examining this interesting and remarkable document more closely, however, it is preferable to deal with the problem of the year and place of Plantin's birth.4. His widow and daughters included the words ‘he lived 75 years and departed this life on 1st July 1589’ in the epitaph on his

tombstone.1. The portrait that Jan Wiericx engraved in 1588 has ‘aet[atis] LXXIIII’, which would also make 1514 the year of Plantin's birth. But Frans Raphelengius, Plantin's grandson, was sceptical about this statement. In an interesting biographical note, written under a print of the Wiericx portrait (a note that is now in the Plantin-Moretus Museum, after passing through the hands of various families related to that of Raphelengius) he says that his grandfather was born in May 1520. But he goes on to point out that his parents and the other members of the family were convinced that his grandfather had already reached the age of 75 in 1589 - a conviction based on what Plantin himself had declared shortly before his death. Frans Raphelengius himself stuck to his first opinion, saying ‘I believe that grandfather was barely 70 years old; this is clear from numerous letters which I have had in my hands and which he wrote in his youth to Alexander Grapheus’.2.

These letters are not extant, but on the other hand a number of deeds were discovered in the Municipal Archives at Antwerp in which Plantin stated his age - and gave figures that come close to his grandson's estimate.3. In 1561 Plantin gave his age as 40, making 1521 the year of his birth, and in 1564 as ‘45 years or thereabouts’. In 1570 he was still 45 according to his own declaration, advancing his year of birth to 1525, but in 1572 he returned to something nearer the earlier figures, giving his age as 54 (year of birth 1518). Finally, in 1576, he quoted his age as ‘about 56 years’, which would make 1520 his year of birth.

In two other documents dated 30th April 15824. and 31st December 15835. respectively, and belonging therefore to the last few years of Plantin's life, the printer again indicated that he had been born in 1520. A portrait of Plantin by an unknown artist in the University of Leiden gives two figures that also point to 1520: ‘Anno 1584. Aetatis 64.’6.

Plantin himself seems thus to have had only a vague idea of his correct age, but although shortly before his death he cherished the conviction that he had been born in about 1514, in his younger years the printer had preferred dates that varied around 1520. In this case the opinion of the younger Plantin is more acceptable,1. and for want of more positive information it should be assumed that the great printer was born in or about 1520.

Plantin's birthplace also poses a problem of historical criticism. In the Antwerp citizens' roll, Plantin registered himself as being ‘from Tours’.2. It seems, however, that he did not mean Tours itself, but its district. Presumably Plantin, to avoid possible difficulties with the clerk who made the entry, chose to give the name of the large and well-known French city rather than the small place in its vicinity where he had actually been born. At all events Frans Raphelengius, the writer of the biographical note discussed above, in a eulogistic poem that he composed in 1584 ‘en l'effigie de mon père grand’, has his grandfather say: ‘près de Tours en Touraine a prins mon corps naissance.’3.

But in which of the many small places around Tours was Plantin born? Frans Raphelengius, in the biographical note, mentions Chitré near Chastellerault, but follows this immediately with a hesitant ‘ut puto’ [in my opinion]. Chitré in fact lies too far from Tours to be considered, quite apart from the fact that it is in Poitou. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, most biographers stated that Plantin was born in Mont-Louis, a few miles from Tours - without, however, bringing forward any proof. In the nineteenth century scholars began to show a preference for Saint-Avertin, which lies still closer to Tours, but again without advancing any decisive arguments.4. When examination of the sixteenth-century baptismal registers of Saint-Avertin, unfortunately only preserved from 1574, yielded a rich crop of Plantins whilst not a single one was to be found in the registers of Mont-Louis, modern scholars concurred with this view.5.

It may be concluded that in all probability Christophe Plantin was born in, or about, 1520 at Saint-Avertin near Tours. His father was called Jean.

This is more or less all that would be known about the first thirty years of Plantin's life were it not for the letter written by Pierre Porret on 25th March 1567 to his ‘brother’ Plantin.1. A remarkable letter in a remarkable year. It was remarkable because, as will be discussed later in more detail, 1567 was for Plantin the ‘year of the great fear’. Compromised by his association with Calvinists, involved in an anti-Spanish press at Vianen, the printer awaited fearfully the arrival of Alva and the threatening Spanish repression. In the letters that he wrote at the time to his powerful Spanish friends, he emphasized his Catholic orthodoxy in every possible way with monotonous regularity.

It was in that same year that Pierre Porret wrote a letter to the friend of his youth in which he relates how he, Porret, extolled Plantin's Catholicism to ‘monsieur le chevallier d'Angolesme’ (Henry of Angoulême, illegitimate son of Henry II and Grand Prior of France), explaining to this dignitary the reasons for their close friendship and describing Plantin's youth in detail, particulars that he repeats at great length to his friend - to someone, that is, who was after all much better acquainted with those particulars than Porret. It is as if Porret wanted to warn his friend: ‘this is all that I have said’.

The letter no doubt had a deeper significance, but presumably more by reason of certain details that Porret withheld and that very probably related to the religious opinions of Porret and Plantin in those years, than because of any inaccuracy in the details that were furnished.2. A number of facts,

including some concerning Porret's relations at Lyons and Plantin's stay in Caen, can be checked against other sources; they have been found correct.1.

What did Porret write to Plantin concerning his friend's youth?2. Plantin's father was a footman. Fleeing from the plague that had decimated his household - and, as far as can be made out from the context, had carried off Plantin's mother3. - he made his way to Lyons with his only surviving child and there entered the service of Claude Porret, the aged obedientiary of the church of Saint-Just, whom Jean Plantin had already served at the university. This person was actually Antoine Porret, according to documents from Lyons.4. Pierre Porret was a nephew of this ‘Claude’ Porret, in whose house he came to know Plantin and to love him as a brother.

‘Claude’ Porret had four other nephews, his sister's sons, whom he brought up in his house. One of these, Pierre Puppier, went to study at the universities of Orleans and Paris and was accompanied by Jean Plantin and his son. This was the end of Christophe Plantin's Lyons period, which must have been very short. No more than a child when he arrived at

Saint-Just,1. he seems to have stayed only for two or three years in Antoine Porret's house.2.

When Pierre Puppier had taken his doctor's degree and had become a canon, Plantin's father left the French capital and returned to Lyons ‘en atendant qu'il iroit à Tolouze’, presumably to accompany another Puppier to the university there.

He left his son in Paris with some money to continue his studies. His intention had been to take the boy with him to Toulouse: ‘mays il s'en alla sans vous’.3. Without pausing to elaborate on the drama of the young Plantin,4. left behind in Paris with insufficient means and quite alone, Porret continues in his imperturbable manner: ‘...ce que voyant, vous vous en allastes à Caen servir un libraire et puys, quelques ans après, vous vous mariastes audict lieu et moy je me mys aprentif appotiquère. Puys vous amenastes vostre mesnage en ceste ville, où nous avons tousjours estés ensemble et, en l'an 1548 ou 1549, vous allastes à Anvers où vous estes encore’ [Seeing this, you went to Caen and entered the service of a bookseller and then, after some years, you were married in that town and I was bound apprentice to an apothecary. Then you brought your family to this city of Paris, where we were constantly in each other's company and, in the year 1548 or 1549, you went to Antwerp, where you are still].

Thus Porret supplies quite a few interesting details but, whether deliberately or not, he suppresses at least as many. Why, for example, did Plantin's

father behave in this extraordinary fashion? A father who otherwise appears to have surrounded his child with every care, and who is depicted as a kindly man: the young Porret testified how he was always slipping him delicacies. Why did this solicitous father abandon his son? And what happened to father Plantin subsequently? Porret merely mentioned in passing that in 1567 Christophe Plantin had not yet been able to fulfil his desire of visiting his father's grave in Lyons. Apparently this was where Jean Plantin was buried and from the context it also appears that he must have died before 1562.1. Most important of all, why did Christophe choose not to remain in the printing centre of Paris and instead go to Caen?

These are probably questions to which it will never be possible to give conclusive answers. At all events two other sources confirm that Christophe Plantin was certainly active in Caen. They even give the name of his master, Robert II Macé, who lived from 1503 to 1563,2. and they state that it was in Macé's house that Plantin came to know Jeanne Rivière, the Norman girl who became his faithful life's partner.3. It is often implied that Plantin learnt printing from Robert Macé, although until about 1550 his employer was simply a bookseller and bookbinder.4. In his early years in Antwerp,

Plantin did in fact practise the trade of bookbinding, and it was this craft, rather than printing, that he must have learnt from Macé.

The chronology of this part of Plantin's career can be reconstructed roughly as follows: in 1534 or 1537, as a boy of about 14 or as a youth of about 17 years of age, he was left behind alone in Paris; shortly afterwards he made his way to Caen where, in 1545 or 1546 he must have married Jeanne Rivière, who presented him with a daughter in 1547; in 1546 or 1547 he probably returned to Paris,1. and finally, in 1548 or 1549, at the age of about 28 or 29, he left the banks of the Seine for those of the Scheldt.

The bookbinder Plantin in Antwerp (1548/49-1555)2.

According to Pierre Porret's statement in his letter of 25th March 1567, Plantin settled in Antwerp in 1548 or 1549. Balthasar I Moretus, however, in a letter of 1604, mentions only 1549, and most scholars, beginning with Max Rooses and Maurice Sabbe, have simply left it at that.

In recent years a document has been brought to light in the Antwerp Municipal Archives in which ‘Christoffel Plantyn Janssz. van Tours en Franche, boeckbindere’ declared that he had already resided in the town for four years.3. The document is dated 11th July 1552, which would put Plantin's arrival in the first half of 1548. It has already been shown, however, that Plantin was often confused about dates, and in the case in point - because of the war with France, French residents in Antwerp were under-

going investigation - it was rather in the interest of those questioned to exaggerate a little the length of their stay in the town on the Scheldt. The author is inclined to adopt Pierre Porret's cautious statement that Plantin arrived in Antwerp with his family in 1548 or 1549.

On 21st March 1550, ‘Christophe Plantin, son of John, of Tours, bookbinder’, having taken the prescribed oath, was registered as a citizen of Antwerp.1. In the same year he was admitted - as a printer - to the Guild of St. Lake,2. the corporation that in Antwerp included the practitioners of the various artistic crafts.

Christophe Plantin had come to feel at home in Antwerp. Except during the troubled period of 1583 to 1585, and his retirement to Paris in 1562-63, he never left ‘la preclara et famosa città, la bella, nobilissima et amplissima città’ as Ludovico Guicciardini, with Southern exuberance, expressed it, or, as Plantin himself rather more soberly put it,3. ‘ceste noble et renommée ville d'Anvers’. He sang the praises of the metropolis many times, as proudly as any native Sinjoor:

[Christophe Plantin, to the wise Senate and People of Antwerp. It is a great honour, Sirs, to see so many strangers come from the four corners of the Earth, despite a thousand perils, to bring what they possess of wisdom and of

power to make your town a cornucopia]. Plantin wrote his poem in the preface to the French edition of the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (1581) by his friend Abraham Ortelius.1.

The Frenchman Plantin became wholly assimilated in the life of Antwerp. But why did he venture on this great step, turning his back both on Paris, the French magnet, and on Lyons, that other important printing centre where he had spent his youth, choosing instead the Brabantine town on the Scheldt? In a letter to Pope Gregory XIII dated 9th October 1574, he set out his reasons in detail:2. ‘If I had taken only my personal interests into account, I could have secured for myself the benefits that were offered me in other countries and cities. I preferred Belgium (Belgica regio) and this city of Antwerp, however, before all others as a place in which to establish myself. What chiefly inspired this choice is that in my judgement no other place in the world could furnish more convenience for the trade I wished to practise. This city is easy of access; one sees the various nations congregating in the market-place, and here all the materials necessary for the practice of my craft are to be obtained; workers for all trades, who can be taught in a short time, are easily found; above all else I noticed, to the satisfaction of my religious belief, that this city and the whole country surrounding it far excel all neighbouring peoples in their great love for the Catholic religion, under the sceptre of a king who is Catholic in name and deed; finally it is in this country that the renowned University of Louvain flourishes, graced in all faculties by the knowledge of her many professors, of whose guidance, counsel and works I hoped to avail myself to the great benefit of the public.’

Naturally this letter should be considered critically. Plantin was in fact repeatedly requested by kings and princes to settle in their realms - after he had acquired international fame at Antwerp. But in 1548 or 1549 the Plantin who, after weighing up the pros and cons, decided to make his way to that city was no more than a small insignificant unit in the great anonymous mass of competent, and less competent, craftsmen. The man who wrote to Pope Gregory XIII was someone who had ‘arrived’ and was seeing his early years in the distorting mirror of success. It can also be

assumed that the religious motives are rather too strongly stressed - which is only normal in a letter addressed to the head of Roman Catholic Christendom.

Nevertheless the main reasons why Plantin ventured to Antwerp are indicated plainly enough: no other town in the world offered more opportunities to ambitious young men than the commercial metropolis of the West - capital and money-lenders, a network of communications that covered the globe, and experienced craftsmen in large numbers.1.

Yet even in Antwerp the way up was long and hard. Plantin had to take things steadily at first. He soon made friends and acquaintances, however, and just as quickly acquired a reputation for the quality of his work. In 1604, in the letter that has been cited above, Balthasar Moretus described the early years of the young bookbinder's career to the Jesuit writer Egidius Schoondonck:2. ‘When the late Christophe Plantin came to Antwerp from France in 1549, he was at first engaged in bookbinding and making small chests and boxes, which he covered with leather and gilded, or wondrously inlaid with small pieces of leather of different colours. No one equalled him in the making of such caskets, neither in Antwerp nor in the Netherlands. Thus he soon won fame with Mercury and the Muses, that is to say amongst the merchants and the scholars who, going frequently to the Exchange, in the vicinity of which Plantin lived, or coming from thence, were obliged to look at his wares. The scholars bought elegantly bound

books, the merchants caskets or other precious things that he made himself or had sent from France.’

As evidence, this enthusiastic eulogizing by a grandson is of course rather suspect. Nevertheless it is a very significant fact that in this period the magistrate of Antwerp gave Plantin many municipal registers to bind1. and that the town recorder (griffier), Alexander Grapheus, gave him numerous commissions and even appears to have advanced him money to open a shop.2. A number of beautifully bound volumes have been preserved which were made in Antwerp in this period. Experts have put forward quite convincing arguments for ascribing these to the young Frenchman.3. Plantin must have been a master craftsman in leather.

At the same time he was trying to augment his income. Plantin, ‘lyeur des livres et marchant, bourgeois manant de la ville d'Anvers’ [bookbinder and merchant, citizen of the town of Antwerp] concluded a contract on 14th March 1553 with Lambert Suavius, ‘architecteur de la cité de Liège’ for the purchase of 100 copies of the Acts of the Apostles at 10 stuivers each:1. at this date the bookbinder was already buying and selling engravings and it is possible that he was also selling books, albeit on a modest scale.2. Another trade, which did not demand too much of his time, probably brought in welcome extra money too. At least from 1556 onwards, Plantin acted as agent for his Parisian friend Pierre Gassen, ‘lingier de Messieurs, frères du Roi’, collecting the lace delivered by small manufacturers and sending it on to the French capital.3. It is possible that he also did this in the period 1549 to 1555, if not for Pierre Gassen, then for other principals in Paris. At all events, it is stated that his wife owned a lace shop at this time.4.

He was established at first in the Lombaardvest; somewhat later, at least from 1552, ‘in the street running from the new Exchange to the Meir, on the west side’; this is the present Twaalfmaandenstraat, the small street that

(3) Opposite: Bookbinding ascribed to Christophe Plantin. Morocco on board for a special edition (printed on blue paper) of Plantin's first book, Bruto's La institutione di una fanciulla... (1555). Preserved in the Plantin-Moretus Museum.

(6) Pages from Bruto's La institutione di una fanciulla nata nobilmente, the first book Plantin printed (1555).

still leads from the Exchange to the Meir.1. The new citizen of Antwerp was awaiting his opportunity. Then, in 1555, came the great turning point in his career. Plantin would then have been about 35 years old.

The turning point: the bookbinder becomes a printer (1555)

On 5th April 1555 de la Torre, Secretary to the Privy Council, put his elegantly flourished signature on the act giving an answer ‘sur la remonstrance faicte au privé conseil de l'empereur nostre Signeur de la part de Christoffle Plantin, imprimeur et libraire juré, résident en ceste ville d'Anvers’. The applicant obtained permission to print, or have printed: ‘Le premier, l'Institution d'une fille noble par Jehan Michiel Bruto; le second, Flores de Seneca et le III^e, le premier volume de Roland furieux, traduit d'italien en francois.’2.

Only a few weeks before the Council of Brabant had granted Plantin a commission as a printer,3. and only a few weeks later, Plantin's first edition left his new printing-presses: La Institutione di una fanciulla nata nobilmente; l'Institution d'une fille de noble maison,4. a manual in Italian and French on the

education of young ladies of noble birth, by the itinerant Venetian humanist Giovanni Michele Bruto, who was then staying in Antwerp.1.

Plantin offered a copy to Gerard Grammay, the receveur (tax-collector) of Antwerp, with a specially printed inscription addressed to this powerful and influential person: ‘Suivant la coustume d'un jardinier ou laboureur, qui pour singulier présent, offre à son signeur les primières fleurs des jeunes Plantes de son jardin ou métairie je vous présente cestuy primier bourjon sortant du jardin de mon Imprimerie...’2. The young Frenchman had started on the road that was to lead him to renown and immortality.

The idea of becoming a printer had undoubtedly been in Plantin's mind from the beginning. It was probably no momentary aberration that caused the bookbinder to have himself enrolled in the Guild of St. Luke in 1550 as a printer; it must have been a concrete expression of his ambition.3. Within a mere five years Plantin was able to realize this dream, in circumstances that have never been fully explained. Balthasar I Moretus, in his letter of 1604 to Egidius Schoondonck4. that has been quoted earlier in the chapter, gives the official family version of this turning point in Plantin's career: ‘When he had practised this craft and this trade (i.e. bookbinding and the manufacture of caskets) for some years, Gabriel de Çayas, the secretary of Philip II, learned to know and to love this able man, and as he wished to send a jewel of great value to the Queen of Spain, he ordered a casket from Plantin in which to place this precious stone. A few days later, de Çayas commanded Plantin to complete the casket and to bring it to his house that evening, as he had to send it by messenger to Spain early the next morning. Plantin did not neglect his task and towards nightfall he went out, accom-

panied by a lad to light his way; he himself clasped the box under his arm. He had just left the street near the Exchange where he lived, which led to the Meir Bridge, and had come to that familiar place where the crucifix now stands, when some drunken men in masks bore down upon him. They were looking for a zither player who had made fools of them and hurled I know not what gibe at them. Seeing Plantin, who was carrying a box, they thought they had found the man they were seeking and who had a zither under the arm. One of them immediately drew his dagger and followed after Plantin. Full of fear, the latter fled to some steps where he set down the casket and at the same moment felt himself stabbed by this villain; and so violently that the assailant had difficulty in withdrawing his deep-thrust dagger from the body of his victim. Plantin, a touching example of steadfastness and forbearance, spoke peaceably to these men: “Gentlemen, you are mistaken. What harm have I done you?” And they, hearing the voice of a peaceful man, ran away, crying as they fled that they had set upon the wrong man. Sick and half dead, Plantin returned home. Joannes Farinalius, a surgeon who was famous in those days, and Goropius Becanus, a physician of great repute, were called: both despaired of his recovery; but the Almighty preserved him beyond all expectation for the common good, and slowly he was healed. As he no longer felt strong enough for a trade in which there is much stooping and movement of the body, there came to him the idea of setting up a printing-press. He had often seen printing carried out in France, and had done it himself. With his native shrewdness he started the business, guiding and directing it with such understanding, with God's help, that even the earliest beginnings of this press were admired, not only in the Netherlands but throughout the world.’

In 1567 Plantin himself alluded to this attack and - in a condensed form that would be practically incomprehensible without the detailed account in his grandson's letter - gave the same version of it. In the letter, ‘Aux prudens et experts maistres d'écolles et tous autres qui s'employent a enseigner la langue françoise’, included in La première et la seconde partie des dialogues françois pour les ieunes enfans,1. published in 1567, Plantin gives an autobiographical note in verse form:

Both Plantin and his grandson, however, leave one very important point out of their accounts: where did the bookbinder obtain the capital to set up as a printer? In the sixteenth century establishing an officina did not demand the investment of an excessive sum of money, but by the same token considerable amounts were needed to keep the business going. Plantin could have earned and saved enough during his stay in Antwerp to provide himself with a printing-press and other equipment. But how did he manage for the working capital that he needed in order to buy paper and other materials, to pay his employees, and to begin on new books while waiting for some return on the money he had already invested in previous editions to come trickling back?

The account of the attack on Plantin (in 1554 or early 1555) is undoubtedly correct. The fact that his physical powers were curtailed would certainly have led him to choose a less strenuous occupation - even though he seems to have been binding books again as early as 1555, but presumably at a less wearing pace than before.2. The question of how he came by the capital to see him through this difficult period, however, remains an open one.

The Moretus family must have asked themselves this question in later years. They found an answer. In the same document that represented Plantin as the scion of a noble house, the story is told in detail of how the bookbinder recognized his assailants and forced them to pay him substantial damages. The money enabled him to set up as a printer.3. The document contains so many inaccuracies and so many apocryphal elements, that this

explanation could only be accepted if there were confirmation from other sources - and such sources are lacking.

Another document puts a totally different complexion on the matter, implying that the career of Plantin the printer had its beginnings in the religious outlook of Plantin the man.

Plantin the heretic1.

This revealing document is the Chronika des Hüsgesinnes der Lieften [Chronicle of the Household of Love], the manuscript chronicle, written in a Westphalian dialect, of the religious sect called ‘The House of Love’ (known in

England as the ‘Family of Love’).1. The founder and the leader of the sect was Hendrik Niclaes.

The compiler of the chronicle, a certain Daniel, appears to have known Plantin well, but to have been ill-disposed towards him. He relates how the Frenchman had learnt Dutch after his arrival in Antwerp, had studied the writings of Hendrik Niclaes, and had become a member of his ‘Family’. For the sake of safety this ‘prophet’ had withdrawn to Emden, which was fairly neutral in religious matters, but he frequently visited Antwerp where his son still lived. At that time he was looking for someone who would run the risk of printing his monumental Den Spigel der gerechticheit tho ene anschouwinge des warachtigen levens [The mirror of justice for a contemplation of the true life]. Plantin managed to interest some of his business friends in Paris in the Family of Love and to convince them of the desirability of publishing Den Spigel der gerechticheit. They supplied him with the necessary money for a press, while Hendrik Niclaes met the cost of the cast type, illustrations, and paper.

This was Daniel's tersely summarized explanation. Can his statement be believed, and did Plantin in fact bring out clandestine publications for the leader of this sect? In his study De geschriften van Hendrik Niclaes [The writings of Hendrik Niclaes] H. de la Fontaine Verwey, the greatest modern expert on heretical trends in the Netherlands of the sixteenth century, lists a whole series of publications, the printing of which he ascribes to Plantin.2.

The author is inclined to agree with this eminent Dutch scholar, although there is no irrefutable evidence to bring forward, only conjectures and probabilities. Rooses tries to prove on typological grounds that the Spigel der gerechticheit was printed by Plantin,1. but his arguments leave room for doubt and his investigation only concerns the second edition of the book, dated by De la Fontaine Verwey at about 1562. On the other hand, Colin Clair hesitates to accept Plantin as the printer of these works.2. His doubt has a subjective tinge: he cannot believe that the Frenchman Plantin would have produced a work that looks so Teutonic. The English scholar overlooks the fact that, according to Daniel, Hendrik Niclaes himself obtained the typographical material and imported at least some of it from Cologne.

There is a further piece of evidence that can be cited. In his letter of 20th October 1608, in which he analyses the religious beliefs of Plantin and Justus Lipsius at the request of the Archbishop of Canterbury,3. the Dutch preacher Saravia states explicitly that Plantin had printed what he refers to as the Speculum justitiae and other works by Hendrik Niclaes.4.

From this it may safely be assumed that between 1555 and 1562 Plantin in fact printed a number of works in the greatest secrecy at Hendrik Niclaes's expense. Whether or not the ‘Bible’ of the Family of Love of about 1555 or 1556 was a product of Plantin's press, and whether the first edition of Niclaes's chief work caused him to go over to printing, remains an open question. Daniel's text seems to state that was so, but it is also rather confused. He makes it appear as if the Parisian merchants only advanced Plantin money to print propaganda material for the Family of Love. But it would be equally possible to conclude from Daniel's twisted and prejudiced account that Plantin received a loan from French business friends who shared his religious opinions, but simply for the purpose of setting up his own print-

ing-press, without there necessarily being any conditions involved apart from purely financial ones, and that he only made an agreement to publish Niclaes's works after he had established himself as a printer. In the absence of further particulars it cannot be decided which of these two possibilities is nearer to the truth. What can be established is that Plantin obtained his initial capital from businessmen who, like himself, were imbued with the spirit of the Family of Love - whether or not he printed the first edition of the Spigel der gerechticheit, and whether or not this caused him to forsake bookbinding for printing. Plantin's career as a printer undoubtedly has its origin in his religious convictions.

The writer of the Chronika, however, took the poorest possible view of these convictions. According to him Plantin was a calculating opportunist who wormed his way into Niclaes's favour simply for the sake of his own selfish ends, abandoning the leader the moment those ends had been achieved. He even alleges that Plantin and Porret abused the trust placed in them and stole from the sect. In 1562 or 1563 they are supposed to have kept for themselves a casket of gems that a Parisian jeweller had intended to bequeath to Hendrik Niclaes.1.

These suggestions seem to be completely false and distorted, prompted by resentment at Plantin's later defection from the Family of Love and by envy of his success.2. As far as can be made out from letters written by, to, and about Plantin, he remained true for the whole of his life to the principles preached by Niclaes (and later by Barrefelt, the ‘prophet’ who seceded from the Family of Love) which he had learnt to know and to value in his first years in Antwerp.

It is possible to regard the Family of Love as an Anabaptist sect and it is still classified as such in the history books, but the reality seems to have been less clear cut, however, and less susceptible of precise definition. Niclaes and Barrefelt were dreamers and visionaries and their doctrine and preaching are veiled in a confused mysticism that defies sober analysis.

H. de la Fontaine Verwey, the authority on the subject, ably characterizes the prophets, their preaching and their influence in his study, Trois hérésiar-

(7) Opposite: Title-page of La magnifique et sumptueuse pompe funebre faite aus obseques et funerailles du tresgrand... empereur Charles Cinquiéme... This magnificent production was Plantin's first major work (1559), though in fact he only printed the very limited letterpress text, the actual publisher being Pierre Vernois.

(8) Plantin's first privilege, granted by the Privy Council of the Netherlands (Brussels, 5th April 1554 [Old Style]). It is written in French and allows Plantin to print three books and sell them in the Netherlands: Bruto's Institutione, Flores de Seneca, and Ariosto, Le premier volume de Roland furieux. They were all published in 1555.

(9) Part of one of the thirty-three copper-engravings from La... pompe funebre de Charles Cinquiéme. The engravings are all of different length and together form a frieze about 12 yards long.

ques dans les Pays-Bas du XVI^e siècle:1. ‘In this study we wish to draw attention to three religious sects, founded in the Netherlands by the three heresiarchs David Joris, Hendrik Niclaes, and Hiël (i.e. Barrefelt), who obtained a following in Switzerland, France, England, and even in America. The three founders resemble one another, as do their doctrines and their movements. All three were of the type that von Dunun-Borkowski has called “prophetic egocentrics”. They looked on themselves as prophets, as messiahs, as sanctified men, and they judged everything - the Scriptures, Christianity, Christ Himself, according to their personal religious experiences. They divulged their mysteries only to a small number of initiates who, like their leaders, believed themselves to be perfect and above the law. The sectaries, although they had an internal organization, did not wish to set up a church in the ordinary sense. To avoid scandal, the members of these sects held strictly to the religious observances of the country where they lived, whether Catholic or Protestant, giving a symbolic interpretation to the Mass and the sacraments. This attitude caused their opponents to call them hypocrites and opportunists. Quite often they were also imputed with the worst forms of licentiousness, such as the communal sharing of wives, etc.

These people, whose extravagant claims appear ridiculous, have been deliberately left out of the history of the religious and philosophical ideas of the sixteenth century. It is assumed that rational men could never have been beguiled by such absurd and confused theories, and that these sects were comprised of no more than a handful of fanatics or the simple-minded and had only a very ephemeral life. To think this is to misunderstand the sixteenth century when, especially in matters of religion, anything was possible.

The purpose of this study is to show that, on the contrary: 1. the three heresiarchs found a fairly large public, not among “the dregs of the Anabaptists” as Fruin the great Dutch historian thought, but principally among intellectuals; 2. the sects lived on for a long time after their founders' deaths; 3. their ideas were not without influence on what Paul Hazard has called “the crisis of the European conscience”.’2.

To sum up the teaching of these religious leaders it could be said that all that mattered to them was their love of God - ‘the spirit of Jesus Christ’ as Plantin himself expressed it.1. Dogma and ritual were of minor importance; tolerance and respect towards those who held different opinions was a duty and an obligation.

This was the essence of Plantin's religious faith. His views on the Catholic and Protestant churches are not expressed in his letters; the printer was careful not to commit his opinion on such burning problems to paper. However, Saravia gives in his letter the substance of a conversation that he had had with Plantin at Leiden, a conversation that illumines the latter's indifference towards the outward forms of religion. According to the Dutch preacher, Plantin only regarded the existing churches as necessary in so far as they provided people - particularly the imbeciliores of limited understanding and feeble spirit - with a firm anchorage. ‘Religions’, Plantin told, ‘are and always will be numerous and diverse and hostile to

one another. They all in fact have much hypocrisy and sham, but none the less they should not be condemned, as long as no wrongdoing can be imputed to them, because of the people of poorer intelligence. The common man needs something of this sort, otherwise he cannot grasp heavenly and divine matters.’1.

What emerges much more plainly from Plantin's correspondence is ‘the spirit of Jesus Christ’. The sober and successful businessman was at the same time a pious mystic. When speaking of religious matters he became just as prolix and confused as his mentors Niclaes and Barrefelt. In an intolerant age he pursued the ideal of toleration - and lived up to it in his own life: he was a man of high moral principles, with a profoundly humane spirit.

Plantin remained a heterodox mystic for the whole of his life, but the moulds in which this mysticism was cast varied to the extent that he listened to two different spiritual teachers. This evolution, however, was more apparent than real. It is practically impossible even for the experts to distinguish between the teaching of H.N. (as Hendrik Niclaes is usually referred to in contemporary texts and in Plantin's letters) and that of Hiël (the ‘Life of God’ as Hendrik Janssen van Barrefelt generally called himself). The distinction lies only in nuances that are usually too subtle for the twentieth-century mind to be able to gauge or comprehend.

The generally held view is that Plantin was first a member of the Family of Love, and then followed Barrefelt when the latter broke away from the sect to establish himself as an independent ‘prophet’ in about 1573.2. This

does not seem altogether correct to the present author; Plantin's correspondence suggests a rather different course of events. After settling in Antwerp, Plantin became a member of the Family of Love. His relations with Niclaes were at first very cordial and intimate: Plantin was undoubtedly an important propagandist for the sect, and possibly even one of its elders. There was some cooling off in the relationship in 1562 or 1563,1. but the printer remained a follower of Niclaes until 1567.2. Plantin's religious outlook in the years of his membership of the Family of Love are admirably revealed in the letters that he exchanged in May and June 1567 with that other visionary and scholar of genius, his fellow-countryman Guillaume Postel.3.

In 1567, Plantin came into direct contact with the Spanish king and the Spanish authorities in Spain and the Netherlands; this was also the time that Alva's reign of terror began.4. As far as can be made out, the printer then broke all contact with Hendrik Niclaes and the Family of Love as a safety precaution. At all events there is not a shred of evidence to connect Plantin with Niclaes's sect after that date.

When the Spanish Fury of November 1576 and the subsequent revolt of the Southern Netherlands against Spanish rule brought greater freedom of religion, Plantin did not re-establish contact with Niclaes. In any case the teacher was then leading a nomadic existence about which very little is known. Even the year and the place of his death is not certain: it is thought that Hendrik Niclaes died at Cologne in 1580 or 1581.

Earlier, in about 1573, Hendrik Janssen, called Van Barrefelt after his birthplace, Barneveld near Amersfoort, had seceded and formed his own sect. It was several years, however, before Plantin found his way to this dissident group. From 1579 to 1580, the printer undertook a number of

business journeys in Holland. He must have met Barrefelt there and fell under the spell of the man and his prophecies. He became equally ardent as a Barrefeltist as he had been as a member of the Family of Love.1. For his new mentor he published a number of books and tracts2. - again clandestinely - and became one of his foremost collaborators and propagandists.3. Plantin's religious sentiments in this autumn of his life, under Barrefelt's influence, are well illustrated by his letter to Ferdinand Ximenes.4. This time Plantin's friendship with his spiritual leader was ended only by death. Barrefelt survived his follower and friend by some years, but when and where he died remains a mystery.

Plantin was a mystic all his life, faithful to the ideas and ideals of toleration of the Family of Love and the Barrefeltists. He might well be accused of hypocrisy: to the world at large he presented himself as a pious Catholic. Plantin was in fact reproached with this,5. but in this connection H. de la Fontaine Verwey must again be cited:6. ‘It is not without reason that reference is made to the “unhappy people of the second half of the sixteenth century”. The two religions were locked in a struggle that seemed endless and threatened the world with total ruin. To those who in all conscience did not wish or were not able to choose between the two faiths, libertinisme offered a refuge and a solution. To repeat what has been said earlier: this “third force” of the sixteenth century should not be confused with the Libertines of the following century. Those we are discussing were neither atheists nor freethinkers; they were profoundly religious. If, having no belief in the

divine reality of ritual, they felt it was a matter of indifference whether they kept the observances of the Catholic or the reformed religion, this was not from hypocrisy or religious half-heartedness. If they were tolerant, it was not a matter of political calculation. Their acceptance of two religions one beside the other, their symbolic conception of the sacraments, and their tolerance are based on the mystic idea that religious quarrels are totally futile because, when truth appears, all dissensions, all antitheses, all that divides will vanish before the great harmony. Obviously this celestial harmony is a beautiful dream, but such dreams are much needed in the nightmare of unhappy times!’1.

It may even be wondered whether Plantin, in spite of his heretical opinions, did not continue to regard himself as a good Catholic at heart.2. At all events it would appear that he rather disliked the reformed faith: militant and fanatical Calvinism was not to his taste. Placed between Catholicism and Protestantism, his personal preference was for the old religion.

The first years as a printer (1555-1562)1.

In the first book that he printed, La Institutione di una fanciulla nata nobilmente, Plantin inserted a twelve-line poem of his own devising in honour of the author. He ended with the words ‘C(hristophe) P(lantin) Esperant mieus’ [C.P. Hoping for better things].

Plantin was right to put his trust in his stars, although it must be pointed out straight away that he did not merely wait passively for what fortune saw fit to drop in his lap. It was not without reason that in 1557 Plantin took as his motto Labore et Constantia, represented visually by a pair of compasses. The stationary point stood for constantia, the moving point for labor: this was how Plantin himself explained the symbolism of his printer's mark in the introductory pages of the first volume of his famed Biblia Polyglotta.2. It was Plantin's third mark. The first showed a vine-dresser pruning vine tendrils festooned around an elm, with the motto Exerce imperia et ramos compesce fluentes, which he used in 1555. The second was a vine tendril with the motto Christus vera vitis, used in 1556 and 1557.3. Plantin - and his descendants after him - continued to use this third printer's mark that so admirably reflects his outlook on life, and thus for three centuries the works that left the presses of the Officina Plantiniana bore the emblem of the compasses and the device Labore et Constantia.4.

By labour and perseverance Plantin succeeded in working his way up in a few years to become the foremost printer in what was then one of the greatest printing centres in the western world. At the same time he bought and sold books and engravings,5. maps and globes,6. and paper and leather;

he conducted a fairly profitable trade in lace with Pierre Gassen;1. for a few chosen customers he still made bookbindings, comb-cases, embroidered mirrors and boxes; and he arranged for large-scale bookbinding to order in Paris and possibly in Antwerp.2.

There is not a great deal of information about Plantin's early years as a printer, but the number of works that left his presses in the years 1555 to 1562 speaks for itself: 10 in 1555, 12 in 1556, 21 in 1557, 23 in 1558, 13 in 1559, 13 in 1560, 28 in 1561, and 21 in 1562, giving a total of 141.3. Compared with the firm's estimated total production of 1,500 to 2,000 works, these figures seem negligible. Their true significance emerges when they are compared with what other printers in Antwerp were producing at that time. Next to Plantin one of the most important figures among the Antwerp printers was Willem Silvius who, in a career that lasted from 1559 to 1580, brought out fewer books (about 120) than Plantin produced in his first seven years.

Plantin shot like a meteor into the Antwerp firmament, and from the start his sphere of activity was international. He used his contacts with Paris - and perhaps with his financial backers there - to gear much of his production to the French market and, from 1557 at least, he regularly visited the fairs at Frankfurt-on-Main, the great international mart for the European book-trade of that day.

In 1561 Plantin was already using four presses.4. Again this figure taken by itself does not mean very much and has to be seen in its historical perspective. In the sixteenth century - and even as late as the seventeenth - officinae with four presses in operation ranked among the larger capitalist enterprises. The famous firm of Estienne at Geneva never had more than

(10) Everything the printer owned was publicly auctioned at the Antwerp Vrijdagmark on 28th April 1562: first page of the inventary of the printer's possessions, with the prices they fetched on this auction.

(11) Title-page of Ravillian's Instruction chrestiene, a heretical book, allegedly printed by Plantin. The handwritten note at the foot of the page is by Plantin himself and states that he ‘did not make it nor had it made’. It is by no means impossible that this too was the work of three of Plantin's journeymen who had earlier printed the Calvanist Briefve instruction pour prier (1562) clandestinely and caused their master to go into temporary exile in Paris (cf. p. 40).

four presses. In Paris in the seventeenth century, printers with more than this number could still be counted on one hand.

Right from the start Plantin appears as a typographical star of the first magnitude. Making a start was difficult, however, even for a man who had adopted Labore et Constantia as his motto. In those early years Plantin often undertook work put out by his fellow printers and publishers in Antwerp, Paris and Cologne, or he transferred considerable numbers of copies of his own editions to them en bloc, on occasion with altered title-pages bearing the address and printer's mark of the buyer. Thus La Institutione di una fanciulla nata nobilmente, Plantin's first book, has the address and mark of the publisher Jan Bellerus. Only the modest ‘De l'imprimerie de Chr. Plantain’ [From the press of C. Plantin] in the colophon commemorates Plantin's share in this edition.

The works that he printed in this period were carefully turned out and some were illustrated, but as regards their contents they were generally of the easy-to-sell type. Nor were these early products gems of typography: some none too brilliantly illustrated travel accounts and literary works, a number of small dictionaries, treaties on popular medicine, some volumes of Latin verse, and half a dozen classical authors. A large percentage of the works was in French, some in Spanish and Dutch; many of them were reprints of books that had been previously published in France.

Just one work from this period is far above the average: La magnifique et sumptueuse Pompe funebre faite aus obseques et funerailles du tresgrand et tresvictorieus empereur Charles cinquiéme, celebrées en la vile de Bruxelles le XXIX. iour du mois de décembre M.D.LVIII, par Philippes roy catholique d'Espaigne son fils [The splendid and costly ceremony held on the occasion of the funeral rites of the very great and victorious Emperor Charles V, performed in the city of Brussels the 29th day of December 1558 by his son Philip, Catholic King of Spain]. This appeared in 1559, and was as magnificent in its production as the funeral procession had been.1. There were 33 copper engravings that placed end to end formed a frieze more than 30 feet long, and a short introductory text, editions of which appeared in Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish, German, and even ‘in all languages’;2.

altogether the most splendid and lavish album of a topical event that the sixteenth century produced.1.

Plantin's share in this work was limited, however. It was initiated and paid for by Philip's herald at arms, Pierre Vernois, who received a grant from the government for the purpose. The printing of the copper engravings, the most important part of the undertaking, was carried out in Hieronymus Cock's workshop that specialized in this. Plantin was only responsible for the printing of the fairly brief text. Nevertheless the fact that La magnifique et sumptueuse Pompe funebre bears the words ‘A Anvers, de l'Imprimerie de Christophle Plantin’ is in itself a significant indication of Plantin's importance in the printing world of this period. The herald at arms turned to the man who, because of his international commercial relations, could most swiftly and surely justify the money invested. He turned in fact to the foremost publisher and printer in the Netherlands.

The house in the Twaalfmaandenstraat, which Plantin had converted into a printing-office, must rapidly have become too small. As early as 1557 the printer moved to the Kammenstraat (which together with the Lombaardvest was the centre of the printing-trade in sixteenth-century Antwerp) to the Gulden Eenhoorn [Golden Unicorn], which he renamed De Gulden Passer [The Golden Compasses] in 1561.2. It was there in 1562 that he encountered the blow which almost put an end to his career and in any case marked the conclusion of the first phase of his activities as printer.

The flight to Paris (1562-1563)3.

At the end of February 1562 Margaret of Parma, Philip's governor-general in the Netherlands, addressed a letter to her ‘dear and loyal’ Jan van Immerseel, Margrave of Antwerp, commanding him to initiate a serious inquiry

into a heretical work, a copy of which had been delivered to her, apparently printed by Plantin. The conduct of Plantin, his family and his workpeople should be thoroughly investigated for, with the exception of a proof-reader and a servant-girl, they were strongly suspected of being ‘entachés des erreurs et sectes nouvelles’.

The authorities in Antwerp in this period do not appear as zealous heresy hunters - it is significant that in this instance, as in many others, the informer went straight to the central government at Brussels - but this formal command was difficult to evade. In his answer of 1st March, Jan van Immerseel declared that he had made his way forthwith to ‘le logist et imprimerie de Chr. Plantin, imprimeur à Anvers’. Plantin himself was absent. He had been in Paris for five or six weeks by this time. The margrave nevertheless succeeded, with the help of the proof-reader and ‘ung liseur estant espaignol’1. in laying hands on a number of copies of the heretical Briefve instruction pour prier, of which Margaret had sent him her copy. He also found the culprits, three of Plantin's journeymen, namely Jean d'Arras, Jean Cabaros and Barthélemy Pointer, all of French nationality.

On being interrogated the accused stated that they had printed this Calvinistic Instruction without Plantin's knowledge while he was in Paris and that the text had been sent from Metz by an uncle of Jean d'Arras. They said that the entire impression - a thousand copies - had already been dispatched to Lorraine.

On 12th March 1562 Margaret of Parma thanked her ‘very dear and well-beloved’ Van Immerseel for the zeal he had shown in this matter and in the similar investigation into the Dutch translation of the Briefve instruction pour prier. (For a short time this too was thought to have originated from Plantin's press, but after a number of Antwerp printers had given their opinion it was presumed on typographical grounds to have been printed in Emden.) The guilty journeymen would have to be given an exemplary punishment. As for Plantin, Article 23 of the Plakkaten, the

edicts against heresy, stated that the master-printer was answerable for his journeymen. In Brussels it was felt that there was good reason for suspecting that Plantin, his wife and other members of the family were not all that they appeared to be in matters of religion: ‘il sera requis de bien enfoncer la conduicte de son mesnaige.’ It would also be a good idea if the proofreader and the ‘liseur’ were interrogated. They had left Plantin's house but still resided in the town.

Brussels seems to have been very well informed. With the utmost dispatch the margrave set to work again. Before 17th March he was able to report that he had found a thousand of the fifteen hundred copies of the Briefve instruction pour prier. The rest had already been sent off, the greater part to Metz, a number to Paris. The guilty journeymen would pay dearly for their misdeeds: they had been sentenced to the galleys. As to the inquiries concerning Plantin, the proof-reader and the ‘liseur’ had unfortunately disappeared, leaving no address behind.

In a further letter dated 17th March, Van Immerseel filled in some more details. The copies of the heretical work found in Antwerp had been burnt.1. He had not received any suspicious reports about the ‘maisnaige dudit Plantin’. As the printer himself was still in Paris ‘y sollicitant certain procès’, Van Immerseel felt that he could hardly invoke Article 23. ‘Si esse que à son retour l'apelleray vers moy, pour oyr ses excuses.’

Van Immerseel concludes by lamenting an unforeseen difficulty: to whom should he deliver the three guilty journeymen? It was the custom in Antwerp for criminals to be fed by the town almoners, but after the sentence to the galleys had been passed these officials refused to meet the cost of keeping the journeymen. While waiting for the departure of the convoy the expense would be transferred to His Majesty and his exchequer: ‘Ce que facillement viendroit à couster bien bonne somme tant pour garde que aultrement en attendant les commissaires...’

This was the end of the official correspondence, or at least of what has been preserved of it, concerning the incident of the Briefve instruction pour prier. The legal hair-splitting between the town almoners and the government officials over the maintenance of the galley slaves seems to have saved the

culprits from an unhappy fate. This was certainly the case with Jean d'Arras: as early as May 1563 he turned up in Metz, where he began a new typographical career, working his way up in a few years to become the foremost Protestant printer in the town.1. His two workmates presumably slipped through the net at the same time.

Was Plantin as innocent in this affair as the margrave felt he could assume? There is no other evidence besides the margrave's statements, and Jan van Immerseel was hardly a fanatical heresy-hunter. If Plantin was a heretic, however, he had little liking for Calvin's doctrines and steadfastly refused to distribute Calvinistic writings. At the same time it appears that he did in fact leave early in January 1562 to travel to Paris2. and that he was involved in a lawsuit there.3.

The writer of the Chronika des Hüsgesinnes der Lieften supplies the information that Jeanne Rivière followed her husband to Paris with the children, and that all were affectionately received and given hospitality by Porret.4. According to the same witness, Plantin shortly afterwards rode from Paris to Kampen to find Hendrik Niclaes and implore his help and support. He then returned to Paris - by way of Antwerp. This lightning visit can be dated to March 1562.5. While Jan van Immerseel was absorbed in his

investigation of the printer's affairs, the latter actually called in at Antwerp and then disappeared again in the direction of the French capital, this time for a longer period.1.

In the opinion of the author it seems reasonable to assume that Plantin was in fact the dupe of his workpeople in this affair, that he did go to Paris on some business or other, and that the three journeymen made use of his absence to print the Briefve instruction pour prier.2. When Plantin became aware that the machinery of the law had been set in motion, for safety's sake he remained in Paris longer than was strictly necessary for his lawsuit or other business. Not until well into 1563, after an absence of a year and a half, did he return to Antwerp - no doubt after he had made sure that the affair had either blown over, or at least contained no further danger for him personally.

How Plantin kept himself in that year and a half of involuntary exile remains a question. Porret gave the printer and his family shelter and generous hospitality.3. The trade in lace with Gassen does not seem to have been completely stopped: through the agency of a certain Noël Moreau,

who later appears in the immediate circle of Plantin's friends, quantities of lace were dispatched to Paris on the printer's account.1. The author of the Chronika des Hüsgesinnes der Lieften hints at the less honourable activity mentioned earlier. It was in these months that Porret and Plantin are alleged to have stolen the box containing precious stones from the house of the Paris jeweller who had just died and who had intended to bequeath his possessions to the Family of Love.2. Hendrik Niclaes raised this ticklish question during the conversation at Kampen. Plantin declared that he did not know who had removed this precious box. The merchant had earlier sent him, in payment of his arrears, ‘three costly stones’ that the printer now wanted to sell.3. Considering Plantin's life and conduct it is most unlikely that he was guilty of the act with which the author of the Chronika imputes him.4. Be that as it may this text and the facts concerning the lawsuit show that the printer was owed quite considerable amounts of money in Paris at this time which, with the help of Porret and possibly of a number of minor transactions, enabled him to keep his head above water. He was even able to spend a fairly large sum on punches and matrices.5.

In Paris on 31st August 1563 Plantin drew up the balance-sheet of his

financial transactions with the linen-draper Pierre Gassen, who advanced him quite a substantial sum of money ‘to send to Antwerp’.1. On 10th September, Plantin's ‘journal’ at Antwerp was re-opened.2. He had already been there to see how the land lay: in June, July and August 1563 he appears to have squared accounts with the Antwerp amman, the legal officer who acted for the central government3. - and was immediately involved in settling another irksome matter with the authorities.

In a letter of 26th June 1563, Margaret of Parma invited ‘nostre chier et bien amé Christoffle Plantin’ to go to Brussels ‘pour quelques choses qu'avons à vous faire déclairer’.4. The idea was presumably to question Plantin about another suspect work, the Instruction chrestiene by Pierre Ravillian, published in Antwerp in 1562 ‘de l'imprimerie de Christof. Plantin’. In the same bundle that contained Margaret's letter, Max Rooses found a copy of the Plantin edition of 1558 (it is completely different from the 1562 edition), together with the ‘privilege’ that was granted for this work, and the manuscript of the 1562 edition, with the autograph and fully signed approval of the canon responsible for the parish of the Church of Ste. Gudule (now St. Michel) in Brussels. In the library of the Plantin-Moretus Museum, however, there is a copy of the 1562 edition with a handwritten note by Plantin himself on the title-page ‘Ceste impression est faussement mise en mon nom car je ne l'ai faicte ne faict faire.’5. The presence of this note, the type employed, the printer's mark (the original wood-block of which is preserved in the Museum) show clearly enough that this second revised and suspect edition of the Instruction chrestiene also originated in the Plantin printing-office. Yet Plantin categorically disowns this impression, even though he personally was completely covered by the canon's authorization. Probably it was once again a case of treacherous dealing on the part of Jean d'Arras and his companions, the more so as there are reasons for believing that Pierre Ravillian was in reality a pseudonym for Jean Taffin, Cardinal Granvelle's ex-librarian who had been converted to Calvinism. In 1558 -

the year in which the first edition was published - Taffin was staying in Antwerp with Plantin and in 1561 he turned up as a preacher in Metz, where Jean d'Arras was residing! It may even be possible that Plantin employed Jean d'Arras and Jean Cabaros on the recommendation of his old friend.1.

Be that as it may, the matter of the Instruction chrestiene seems to have been satisfactorily shelved. Plantin already had troubles enough: on 28th April 1562 all his goods had been sold under process of law in the same Vrijdagmarkt where today the Plantin building extends along the whole of the western side.

The facts are easy to reconstruct. In the archives of the Museum there is an inventory headed by the words: ‘Dese navolgende goeden toebehoorende Cristoffel Plantin indecammerstrate sijn vercocht by exercitie den achtentwintichsten Aprilis tweentsestich, ten versuerke van Loijs de Somere ende Cornelis van Bomberge’ [The following goods belonging to Christophe Plantin (residing) in the Kammenstraat have been sold by order on the twenty-eighth (day) of April (fifteen hundred and) sixty-two, at the request of Lodewijk van Somere and Cornelis van Bomberghen].2. The sale was carried out by order of the Antwerp amman.

The two merchants must have petitioned for this sale as creditors of Plantin. According to documents from the Municipal Archives a number of other creditors also put forward claims in this period, most of them after the sale, one before the sale but probably when it had already been arranged and announced.3. At first sight the procedure appears quite normal. There is one circumstance, however, that invites further inquiry. Plantin formed a company with one of these ‘remorseless’ creditors of April 1562, Cornelis van Bomberghen, immediately after returning to Antwerp! On 16th June 1563, three months before Plantin's return, the same van Bomberghen had, in the presence of the amman, formally guaranteed any sums that might have been wrongly charged to Plantin for the sale.4. All this suggests that the printer himself may have had some part in the official sale of his property.

In April 1562 it was still not certain what turn the matter of the Briefve

instruction pour prier might take. Whether Plantin was personally guilty or innocent, there was always the possibility that the authorities might hold him responsible under the heresy edicts, sentence him, and confiscate his property for the benefit of the exchequer. It is even possible that Plantin's movables had already been seized under a provisional court order or at least placed under seal.1. It is therefore conceivable that Plantin asked a few friends to forestall the authorities by staging this fictitious attachment for debt so that eventually, by this roundabout and embarrassing means, he could secure possession of his threatened property. But the printer had been able to secure his principal treasure in good time, namely his collection of punches and matrices for casting type.2. Consequently not a single punch or matrix was auctioned. Late in 1563, after the storm had blown over, Plantin entered his Antwerp home again and was able with a contented mind to draw up an impressive inventory, augmented by the purchases he had made in Paris from 1562 to 1563. He did not go empty-handed to the financial backers who opened up new possibilities for him at the end of 1563.

The inventory drawn up at the time of the sale of Plantin's possessions gives an idea of the financial progress the former bookbinder had made by 1562, seven years after going over to printing, and thirteen or fourteen years after his arrival in Antwerp. Altogether the sale realized the substantial sum of 1,200 Flemish pounds (= 7,200 fl.) or, to be more exact, 1,199 pond, 5 schellingen, and 10 penningen. The stocks of books and cast type accounted for the greater part of this sum, bringing in roughly 406 and 457 pond respectively. The stock of paper (about 93 pond), the wood-blocks and copperplates for illustrations (about 63 pond), the presses, including four printing-presses and a number of smaller bookbinder's presses (about

52 pond),1. brought the total of movable property connected with the business to about 1,075 pond.

This leaves only about 125 pond for Plantin's various household effects. This arid catalogue with the sale-prices noted after each item does not give the impression of excessive luxury: a few tables and chairs, kitchen utensils, an imposing quantity of beds and bed-linen, some of which should be included among the commercial effects, for like most sixteenth-century master craftsmen Plantin housed not only maids and servants, but also apprentices, and even journeymen and what would now be termed ‘administrative staff’. There was a still more impressive quantity of baskets, chests and trunks, filled with all kinds of junk, besides two halberds and three flutes. There was not a single painting or piece of ornamental furniture. It was still a far cry from the luxurious furnishings to be seen in the present Plantin-Moretus Museum that evoke the patrician standards of Plantin's successors.

From the total of 1,200 pond (7,200 fl.) realized by the compulsory sale a number of creditors' claims must be deducted, but if the surmise concerning the true significance of the sale is correct, then these should not be estimated at too high a figure. In fact after Plantin's creditors had been paid, the amman transferred to the printer a sum of just under 480 pond, the proceeds from the sale of his property.2. This sum was paid in six instalments, five between 17th June and 19th August 1563, and the last on 28th March 1564.3. This means that the debts, fictitious or otherwise, placed before the amman represented barely three-fifths of the amount raised by the sale. Plantin's other assets must also be taken into account: the money in his possession; his own apparently considerable claims as a creditor; a stock of books, possibly fairly large, in the warehouse at Frankfurt; and his collection of punches and matrices. At the moment of the disaster Plantin's assets, after deduction of his debts, can be estimated at a total of about 10,000 fl., which was a considerable sum for those days. In 1562 the Antwerp printer was already a man of means. Nevertheless as far as he and his family were concerned he

contented himself with the essentials; practically everything was invested in the business.

The master of the Gulden Passer emerged unscathed from the perils of 1562 to 1563 and was able immediately to widen his scope, thanks to the support of one of his ‘creditors’.

The period of the ‘Compagnie’ (1563-1567)1.

On 26th November 1563, in one of the rooms in the spacious Antwerp residence of Karel van Bomberghen, lord of Haren, five people put their signatures to five copies of a long text. They undertook to enter into partnership, forming a company that was to last for eight years, but was renewable after four. The company, for reasons which those concerned thought it unnecessary to specify, was considered to have come into being on 1st October of that year. The fifth and last to sign was Christophe Plantin who affirmed in his vigorous and typically French handwriting: ‘Je Christophle Plantin approuve tout ce qui est contenu cy dessus.’2.

The printer, only just back from his enforced exile, with little more than the punches and matrices that he had managed to save,3. and a small number of books and engravings that for some reason had not ended up in the Vrijdagmarkt,4. had been able to insure that his business would continue on a wider basis than before; he had formed a printing company with four financial backers who could put at his disposal an amount of working capital that was remarkable for those days. The man who took pity on Plantin, or, to put it more accurately, who saw in the calm, reliable, hardworking printer an interesting investment for his money, was Cornelis van Bomberghen, who figured so largely in the affair of April 1562.

It was undoubtedly Cornelis van Bomberghen who persuaded some of his

relations to enter the company and to open their purses. These were his cousin Karel van Bomberghen, lord of Haren, in whose house the company was officially established; Johannes Goropius Becanus, the physician who had attended Plantin in 1555, and who was married to Catherina de Cordes, grand-niece of the two Van Bomberghens and the sister of Karel's second wife; and lastly Jacob de Schotti, Cornelis's brother-in-law. In February 1566 a fourth member of the family became a partner. This was Fernando de Bernuy, a nephew of the Van Bomberghens on his mother's side and also the guardian of Becanus's stepson.

At all events it was Cornelis van Bomberghen who invested the largest amount of money in the company and assumed responsibility for supervising its finances and keeping the accounts. Plantin, as what would now be termed the technical manager, and Cornelis van Bomberghen directed the company: ‘et sera ladite imprimerie des livres latins, grecqs, hébrieux, francois, italiens, ou telz que seront trouvez propres et idoines par l'advis dudit Cornille de Bomberghe et Plantin, selon qu'ilz jugeront en conscience pouvoir estre au proufit de ladite compagnie.’ The rest of the partners contented themselves with the passive role of financial backers.

The assets of the company were divided into six parts, of which Cornelis van Bomberghen reserved three for Plantin and himself. The three other partners received one share each. In return Cornelis paid 600 pond (3,600 fl.) into the general fund as initial capital, while his three relatives (and later Fernando de Bernuy) each provided 300 pond (1,800 fl.). Plantin's contribution was made in kind. He supplied the typographical material and equipment, in particular his fine collection of matrices and punches, valued at an estimated 200 pond (1,200 fl.). These, however, were simply loaned to the company and remained the property of the printer. Similarly the matrices of Hebrew characters were placed at the disposal of the company by Cornelis van Bomberghen, but remained his personal property. They came originally from Karel's father, the famous Daniel van Bomberghen, who printed Hebrew works in Venice at the beginning of the sixteenth century.

Apart from the profits distributed pro rata among the partners, the two ‘managers’ received a number of special payments. For taking care of the book-keeping Cornelis van Bomberghen received 80 écus a year, while Plantin was entitled to 400 fl. a year ‘as his salary’. The latter received a

further 150 fl. a year to rent suitable premises, 60 fl. for the use of his matrices, and in addition to this a lump sum of 50 fl. for the small items that are necessary in the day-to-day running of a printing-press, but are difficult to keep account of: ‘de vieux linges, de feu, d'utensiles de ménage, des lessives et autres menutez.’ It was also laid down in the deed of foundation that works published by the company should bear only the name of Plantin, with the exception of those in Hebrew which, being produced with Cornelis van Bomberghen's type, had to mention his name.

With the working capital provided by the partners Plantin's company entered on a period of expansion. To the two presses in operation on 1st January 1564 a third was added in February of the same year, a fourth in April, and a fifth in October. A sixth press was put to work in 1565. At the beginning of January 1566 the number was increased to seven, a phenomenal figure for the time.1. Plantin then had a total of 33 printers, compositors and proof-readers.2. Measured by sixteenth-century standards, this was the equivalent of a large modern concern with some thousands of employees.

On New Year's Day 1564 the first edition, a Virgil in 16mo, left the new Plantin presses. By the time their last work, the A.B.C. et petit catechisme, had been registered on 28th August 1567, the company had put a total of 209 editions on the market.3. Such figures are eloquent enough without further comment. Business was more strongly concentrated on the wholesale trade than in the previous period and based chiefly on the Antwerp booksellers, the Paris market, and the Frankfurt fairs. The fast-growing firm demanded the full attention of the master. The side-lines that had brought in welcome extra money for Plantin in the preceding years were either stopped or curtailed. The former bookbinder virtually ceased to practice this craft. He remained fairly active, however, as Pierre Gassen's agent in the trade with Paris in lace.

The works produced were still of the sort that was easy to sell. There was a preponderance of classical authors, followed by devotional books and the volumes of profusely illustrated parables that were termed ‘emblems’. But even at this date a number of scientific treatises draw the attention, among

them the medical textbook by Andreas Vesalius and Valverda, Vivae imagines partium corporis humani (1566), and botanical studies by Rembert Dodoens and Garcia ab Horto (1566). The Hebrew Bibles and Plantin's first Greek editions also deserve mention.

The Gulden Passer in the Kammenstraat soon became too cramped for the steadily growing concern. In 1564 Plantin moved for the fourth and penultimate time. He remained, however, in the Kammenstraat. From the 11th to the 15th July of that year his eighteen employees, aided by porters and waggoners, lugged the entire contents of the Gulden Passer to the house called the Grote Valk [Great Falcon] farther along the street. This house was in its turn re-christened the Gulden Passer: on 16th August Plantin paid Pieter Huys, the well-known painter, the sum of 5 fl. 5 st. for ‘l'enseigne du compas pour pendre à la maison nouvelle’.1.

The partnership had been entered into for eight years, renewable after four. Plantin in fact kept the company accounts up to the end of the first term, to 5th October 1567.2. Yet the last edition entered up for the company was completed on 28th August,3. while the journal ended on 13th July of that year.4. On 30th August 1567 Plantin wrote to Gabriel de Çayas, the secretary to Philip II mentioned earlier, explaining in a long letter how he had severed relations with his partners when he had realized that their religious convictions were hardly orthodox and had paid them off immediately, although this had had the effect of seriously curbing his activities.5. The same theme is taken up in various other letters that he addressed to influential Catholic personages at this time.

What had happened? Goropius Becanus must have belonged to the same heterodox sect as Plantin. Jacob de Schotti's orthodoxy does not appear to have been doubtful, at least not sufficiently so to be disturbing. The two Van Bomberghens and Fernando de Bernuy, however, although they may have belonged to the Family of Love,6. were fiery Calvinists. During and

after the Iconoclasm at Antwerp (20th-23rd August 1566), they resolutely made themselves known as such and played an important part in the city's Calvinist consistory.

When the tide turned early in 1567 and Margaret of Parma's forces were pressing hard on the rebels, so that it began to look as if Antwerp too would be obliged to open its gates to the royal troops, the two Van Bomberghens decided it was high time to take precautions. In January Cornelis van Bomberghen sold his share in the company to his brother-in-law Jacob de Schotti and in February he disappeared from the Netherlands. He was probably accompanied on his flight by Karel van Bomberghen. How the latter realized his share in the undertaking is hard to say. It is even possible that the lord of Haren may have ceased to be part of the company as early as February 1566, and that Fernando de Bernuy did not actually buy a new share, but simply took over that of his kinsman. These and other small mysteries connected with the break-up of the partnership could only be cleared up by a systematic study of the accounts.

Fernando de Bernuy was just as ardent a Calvinist, and just as compromised as the two Van Bomberghens. He may have waited a little longer to see how the situation would develop, but the news of Alva's arrival must have encouraged him to make haste: on 13th July 1567 the company's journal closed with the payment of about 800 pond to this shareholder. That de Bernuy had already placed a safe distance between himself and the Netherlands by this time and received the money via intermediaries are possibilities that cannot be entirely ruled out.

Plantin must also have severed his financial ties with Goropius Becanus and Jacob de Schotti in the same period, thereby regaining his freedom of movement. He could therefore truthfully declare, in his letter of 30th August 1567 to de Çayas, that he had disassociated himself from his too Protestant partners, even though his explanation was not quite as full as it might have been. Plantin certainly made this move, but not the moment the Van Bom-

(12) Opposite: Deed of partnership between Plantin and members of the Van Bomberghen family (26th November 1563). On the second and final page the signatures of the five partners may be read: Joannes Goropius Becanus, Karel van Bomberghen, Cornelis van Bomberghen, Jacob Schotti, Christophe Plantin.

(13) Benedictus Arias Montanus. Oil painting on panel by Rubens. Montanus is portrayed wearing the mantle of a knight in the Spanish military order of St. James. The portrait was commissioned by Balthasar I Moretus between 1630 and 1636.

berghens and de Bernuy had revealed their true sympathies. He only took the step when his Calvinist partners were likely to be crushed in the machinery of repression and he himself was in danger of being dragged after them to destruction. It is even conceivable that the initiative for liquidation came as much from the other partners as from Plantin. The Van Bomberghens and de Bernuy may have insisted on settling their affairs before their flight, so that they could take as much in the way of cash or liquid assets abroad with them as possible. The two remaining partners, Jacob de Schotti - who had become the principal shareholder after the transfer of Cornelis van Bomberghen's portion - and Goropius Becanus, were relatively neutral in their religious opinions and therefore less of a danger to Plantin. Because of the uncertainties of the times, however, and realizing that their family enjoyed little popularity in government circles, they may also have prepared for the possibility of a hasty departure and wanted liquidation.

The break with his Calvinist partners, moreover, was not as drastic as Plantin made it appear in his letters to pro-Spanish persons at this time. Even after August 1567 he was frequently in contact with the Van Bomberghens, borrowing money from them on some occasions; these contacts and transactions, however, were carefully camouflaged in his correspondence and in his accounts.1.

In August 1567 Plantin was left on his own, but this time with a well-equipped printing-office and a still substantial working capital. Nevertheless payment of the amounts owed to his partners, and the troubled times that did anything but encourage the buying of such luxuries as books, must certainly have curbed his activities.

In these troubled months the printer was wrestling with serious financial problems. In January 1567 he complained that only three of his seven presses were working;2. in August of the same year he affirmed there were

still only four in operation.1. On the other hand he was successful in finding a source from which he could obtain ready money, the commodity he most needed. Late in 1566, when Paris was momentarily peaceful and therefore relatively eager to buy, he had set up a well-appointed bookshop in Porret's house in the rue Saint-Jacques, where he might hope to place a considerable stock of his books.2. At the same time he had found a number of powerful Spanish patrons through whom he had been able to win the support of Philip himself for certain of his plans. He could face the future with a calmer mind than in 1562 and 1563.

Nevertheless for Plantin 1567 was the ‘year of the great fear’, the only time in his long career when his head was seriously in danger. He became involved in the distasteful matter of a clandestine anti-Spanish press. When Alva rode into Brussels at the head of his tercios on 22nd August 1567 and the repression set in, the printer had reason to fear the worst.

This crisis was not only to pass: Plantin's attempts to break out of the net that enmeshed him led to a new period of expansion, greater even than the previous one. It led to the zenith of his career - and the beginning of his great financial difficulties.

The year of the great fear (1567)3.

In the province of South Holland, a few miles south of Utrecht, lies the small town of Vianen, in the sixteenth century the most important possession of the proud family of the Brederodes. During and after the Iconoclasm the seigniory was the headquarters of the Protestant Hendrik van Brederode, the ‘Great Beggar’. There were already a few printers established at Vianen, but so far as can be discovered their equipment was rather rudimen-

tary. At the end of 1566 a new printer arrived in this ‘midden of sectarians’, or ‘hydra of revolt’ as Viglius ab Aytta more elegantly put it.

He was probably much better equipped than his Dutch colleagues, but barely had time to install himself. At the beginning of 1567 the foot companies and cavalry of Margaret of Parma started swiftly to roll up the Protestant positions. At Oosterweel near Antwerp on 13th March the inexperienced recruits of the Calvinist leader de Toulouze were surprised and massacred. On 11th April the Prince of Orange left the city on the Scheldt to head for Germany by way of Breda. On 27th April it was the turn of Hendrik van Brederode to leave Amsterdam to seek safety over the eastern frontier. On 3rd May Margaret's troops marched into Vianen.

The new printer was swept along in the general flight and hurried over the German border to the safety of Wesel. He does not seem to have had the time or opportunity to print much: perhaps one or two religious tracts by Hendrik Niclaes, although these are more likely to have been printed in Wesel. There remains little doubt, however, as to what the printer would have produced in the midden of sectarians had Brederode and his Protestant ‘beggars’ been able to stand their ground. The man had more than likely come to Vianen to set up an anti-Spanish, and presumably pro-Calvinist, press. The printer was a certain Augustijn van Hasselt. The man behind the scenes who furnished Van Hasselt with materials and enabled him to establish his printing-press, was his former employer on whose pay-roll he was entered as a journeyman printer until 2nd November 1566 - Christophe Plantin.

Plantin cannot be called a commercial adventurer. He lacked the ruthless, self-assured effrontery of such types. But he did possess their reckless spirit. His dare-devil gambling with fate carried him to the highest point of fame and prestige that a printer has ever reached - and soured his old age with racking financial worries. There is a whole world of difference, however, between recklessness and the patronizing of such an enterprise as that at Vianen. The hope of financial gain can have been only slight; the likelihood of reaping the whirlwind so much the greater.1. As a man of

peace, Plantin always kept as far as possible from the political arena. In religion his sympathies certainly did not extend towards fanatical and belligerent Calvinism.

Augustijn van Hasselt was also a member of the Family of Love and had actually been sent by Hendrik Niclaes to Plantin to learn the craft of printing. He later became printer to the sect in Cologne. It might at first be thought that the idea was to set up a propaganda centre of the Family of Love within Hendrik van Brederode's sphere of influence. The Calvinists, however, were just as implacable and violent in their dealings with zealots of anabaptist tendencies as were the Catholics. The leader of the Family of Love thoroughly disapproved of the venture and censured Plantin as well as Van Hasselt;1. nevertheless he helped to cushion them to some extent from its unfavourable financial consequences.2. The Vianen enterprise was certainly not begun on the initiative of Niclaes's sect.

Taking all these factors into account, it would appear that Plantin was forced into this adventure against his will by Calvinist elements. The real culprits are not far to seek. When these events took place the Officina Plantiniana was still a company. Three of Plantin's partners were ardent Calvinists - and Karel van Bomberghen was the brother of Antoon van Bomberghen, Hendrik van Brederode's fierce lieutenant who was killed by a shot from a Spanish harquebus in October 1568, when the army of William of Orange was crossing the Gete.

It may be assumed that it was Plantin's Calvinist partners who, influenced by their kinsman Antoon van Bomberghen, aimed at setting up the anti-

Spanish press at Vianen, and that Plantin followed them only reluctantly. Nevertheless the fact remains that he was a party to this enterprise and that he was disloyal of his own free will to the Spanish authorities. This time not even the most benevolently disposed official could interpret the edicts in his favour. Plantin's head was at stake.

Plantin could have secured his safety, like his partners, by going abroad - to Paris, where his recently fitted out Compas d'Or in Pierre Porret's house could have afforded him an excellent opportunity of starting again; to Frankfurt-am-Main, where the magistrates seemed disposed to show the great printer all kinds of favours, should he wish to settle in their town.1. Plantin, however, was already too deeply rooted in Antwerp and he resolved to weather the storm there. In this risky game of chance he did not rely solely on his own boldness to carry the day.

Augustijn van Hasselt, the dangerous link between Antwerp and Vianen, sat safe and sound in Germany and therefore the Spanish authorities could not force confessions out of him by torture. The presses at Vianen had scarcely been installed and had been able to do little or no harm; consequently the authorities, who had more on their hands than they cared for in those troublous days, had no special reason to look into this particular matter.

For the rest, Plantin took a number of precautions. He had Van Hasselt write him a letter on 10th March 1567, shortly before his flight to Wesel, in which the journeyman apologized for having gone to Vianen against Plantin's orders.2. In his letters to pro-government elements, the printer related how many of his journeymen had left his officina, lured ‘to Vianen and I know not where’ by the hope of higher wages.3.

Plantin's gamble paid off. The secret was well guarded at the time. It was so well kept that it needed all the perspicuity of Dr. H. Bouchery to

reconstruct this shadowy episode in Plantin's career from the few scattered shreds of material available. Yet Dr. Bouchery has shown that at least one highly-placed official had his suspicions, even if he did not actually see through what was going on.

Before the Iconoclasm, Plantin and Cornelis van Bomberghen had stood surety for a substantial amount on behalf of a ‘Monsigneur Claude de Withem, signeur de Risbourg’. Claude de Withem only partly met his obligations, so that Plantin had to make up the rest out of his own pocket. This involved the considerable sum of 2,630 fl. The printer repeatedly pressed for repayment, but did no more than try to move the recalcitrant debtor by lamenting his own pitiful financial condition. At no point did he adopt the peremptory tone he normally employed in such cases and which he even dared to use to Philip II.

The reason for this gentle manner was that in 1567 Claude de Withem was the ‘lieutenant de haut et puissant Signeur Monsigneur le conte de Meghen’, the same Count van Meghen who routed Brederode's army and took Vianen. As Van Meghen's lieutenant, De Withem could have heard of matters that Plantin little cared to have revealed. The printer must have received a warning letter, an ‘advertissement’ couched in unspecific terms, from De Withem as late as July 1568, to which he replied on the 1st August with a humble expression of thanks and a long explanation of how and when he had broken with Cornelis van Bomberghen.

Claude de Withem left it at the ‘advertissement’ and not paying his debts. Everybody else concerned in the clandestine press was similarly silent. The Vianen affair was shelved, though for many long months Plantin must have lived in fear and trembling. At least as early as December 1566 Plantin began literally to bombard his important Spanish and pro-Spanish connections with letters in which he emphasized his Catholic orthodoxy with great vehemence and even greater discursiveness. From December 1566 - that is to say when the Protestant cause appeared by no means lost, when Plantin had not yet separated from his Calvinist partners, and when he had just installed Augustijn van Hasselt at Vianen.

This might be regarded as a conscious and purposeful betting on two horses. The vehemence of Plantin's declarations of religious orthodoxy, however, makes it seem likely that, as has already been stressed, he did not