Logo DBNL
The Golden Compasses (1969-1972)

The Golden Compasses

(1969-1972)–Leon Voet–rechtenstatus Auteursrechtelijk beschermd

The History of the House of Plantin-Moretus


Vorige Volgende

Chapter 6
Balthasar III Moretus (1674-1696)1.

‘Anno 1646. On the 24th day of July, a Tuesday, being the Eve of St. James and about full moon, between the fourth and fifth hours of the afternoon my first child and son called Balthasar was born in the building of the printing-office in the big room.’2. With these words the proud father recorded in his diary3. the birth of the boy who in the history of the Plantinian house came to be known as Balthasar III Moretus.

It is not certain what instruction the young Balthasar III received but the ‘règle journalière’ which father Balthasar II compiled, and which has been quoted above, shows how the daily routine was arranged.4. It was in all probability more an ideal timetable which was not strictly adhered to in practice. Anyway it seems from this ‘règle journalière’ that Balthasar III was given a training which was designed on the one hand to make

a gentleman of him, on the other to familiarize him with the printing business.

In August 1660 the fourteen-year-old boy was taken to Paris by his father and ‘put to lodge with Monsieur Le Gay, seigneur of Morfontaine’.1. Learning to be a man of the world began to take precedence over learning to become a master printer. In April 1663 he was back in Antwerp. The following year he went with other members of the family on a journey to Italy which kept him away from home for six months and took him through Germany and France.

The young man left an account of his travels.2. In it he carefully noted interesting and important facts about the libraries and universities visited, but wrote much more about the palaces, châteaux, theatres, parks, perspectives, fountains, rides, malls, and carriages, and on how the nobility behaved, while not a single church, relic, or wonder-working statue was omitted. The trait which had been only slightly in evidence in the father was much more marked in the son. Sabbe emphasized the former's social ambitions too strongly, but he was right about the latter.

While his son was away, Balthasar II obtained exemption for him from the deanship of the Guild of St. Luke and from the ‘civil watch and vigilant guild and corporation of the Chapel of Our Lady’,3. in pursuance of his usual policy of accepting as few as possible of those offices which were socially flattering but financially burdensome. A few years later, however, in 1670, Balthasar III was elected ‘master of the Chapel of Our Lady’, without there being any attempt to buy exemption this time.4. In 1685 he accepted, apparently without complaint, the post which his father had so greatly dreaded - chief almoner of the city of Antwerp.

It is very clear from their accounts that the Moretuses were never

niggardly when it came to eating and drinking, but with the election of Balthasar III as master of the chapel in 1670 began a long series of banquets such as the house of Plantin had never known before,1. and involved his father in much expense. An inspection of the bills (which give a glimpse of Breugelesque trenchermanship and inspire respect for the stomachs of the people of the seventeenth century) shows that they always run into thousands of guilders and it is easy therefore to understand why Balthasar II had hitherto preferred to spend a few hundreds on buying exemptions. With Balthasar III, however, a new generation had arisen in the house of Plantin, more concerned with outward display and willing and able to pay for it.

All these festivities were far surpassed by the banquet given by Balthasar II on the 9th, 10th, and 11th July 1673. This was the ‘return’ feast in response to the banquet given by the bride's family on the occasion of the marriage of the young Balthasar to Anna Maria de Neuf, daughter of Simon, lord of Hooghelande - a rich heiress from a titled family.

When his father died the following year, Balthasar III took over the management of the Plantin press, although under the supervision of and in partnership with his mother. Anna Goos was an energetic and capable woman, and gave her son more than just moral support. For his part Balthasar III, however ambitious and fond of display he may have been, still possessed the adroitness, prudence, and business flair of his ancestors - and the same deep-rooted pride in the dignity and status of the Plantin press. This was fortunate, for immediately after Balthasar II's death the firm was confronted by the most serious crisis to threaten it in the seventeenth century.

Under Balthasar II the Plantin press had geared itself more and more to the production of breviaries, missals, horae, officia, and other liturgical books. Under his son other types of books were printed only by exception: a few devotional and religious writings; three editions of the Martyrologium Romanum; and a very few publications of topical concern. In Balthasar III's day the long evolution that had begun in the last years of Plantin's life culminated in complete specialization in one particular category. Great quantities of this category of books were still sold and brought in large

profits, but within their narrow field the Moretuses had taken specialization even further in the sense that the greater part of their production was intended for a single ‘firm’, namely the Hieronymite Fathers of San Lorenzo in the Escorial near Madrid. About 1675 the Hieronymites began to contend with serious financial difficulties.

The deplorable condition of Spain's finances and her adverse balance of trade had forced the government into a series of monetary measures which brought little relief and only aggravated the difficulties, especially the shortage of money. The Hieronymites were no longer able to meet their financial obligations. Negotiations conducted through agents dragged on endlessly and inconclusively. Finally a Moretus family council, presided over by Anna Goos, decided that Balthasar III should be sent to Madrid to press the recalcitrant monks for payment.1.

The young Moretus left Antwerp on 21st March 1680 and arrived in the Spanish capital on 26th April. He was very graciously received by the monks and it was soon clear to him that their reluctance to pay was the result of very real problems. To pull the country out of the financial doldrums and relieve the money shortage, the Spanish government had suddenly raised the value of the copper currency considerably in relation to the silver coins: ‘by which change’, wrote Balthasar in the report he sent home, ‘a pistol is now worth only 48 reales de vellon instead of 110’. The results were disastrous: ‘The drastic change which the King has made to the copper currency is the cause of the greatest poverty and lamentation, both among the great and the small, and of extreme loss, and the unheard of dearness of all things is most noticeable.’ The consequence was that ‘all coffers are closed’ - including that of the Hieronymites.

The monks of San Lorenzo remained solvent, however, because they possessed extensive estates and many flocks of sheep. Father d'Alcozer, who negotiated with Balthasar on behalf of his order, suggested that the debt should be paid off by making over a fine house in Madrid on which the

builders were still busy. The sight of this residence stirred the heart of the young Moretus. There was an endless series of rooms, halls, and pavilions, a stable for more than forty horses, a mews for eight or ten coaches, quarters for servants, coachmen, and pages, roomy cellars, a large rain-water tank, and a fountain fed by spring-water. ‘It is truly a great and beautiful house, much larger than our whole Plantin Press and the entire area of the Vrijdagmarkt, Heilig Geeststraat, etc., put together, massively and splendidly built with as much space in it as the aforementioned area’, wrote Balthasar, estimating its value at approximately 100,000 fl.

The young man was won round to the proposed deal. D'Alcozer, a sound psychologist, managed to present the offer in the most favourable light and at the same time to give utterance to a few barely disguised threats. The building was eminently suitable for the installation of a press, and the Hieronymites were influential enough to see to it that such a press would obtain the monopoly for Spain and her dependencies. If the monks' conditions were not accepted then the Moretuses would not sell another book in the Iberian peninsula or in Italy.

Balthasar III discovered something else that worried him far more than any threat from an as yet hypothetical printing press. The Officina Plantiniana was not a philanthropical concern, and so when the Hieronymites had shown no signs of wanting to settle their accounts the Moretuses had reduced their shipments of books to Madrid. The Hieronymites had then turned to the firm of Anisson in Lyons, which had quickly stepped in and supplied the required liturgical works at prices the Plantin press could not compete with - and bearing the Moretus name! Balthasar was able to obtain a copy of one of these pirate editions and send it to Antwerp as evidence: a Missale Romanum with the address ‘Antverpiae, ex Officina Plantiniana apud Viduam et heredes Balthasaris Moreti’ and the year 1677. He added the information that a member of the Anisson family had been sent to set himself up in Madrid and establish closer contact with the Hieronymites.

Balthasar adjured his mother to accept the Hieronymites' conditions, and especially their house, otherwise the Moretuses would be left with nothing but irrecoverable debts and the prospect of losing the entire rezo trade with Spain. In Antwerp, Anna Goos held a council of war with members of the family and then dispatched a prompt answer. In it she did what she

could to hearten her son, brushing aside the monks' threat to set up their own press or to buy books elsewhere with the ironic remark that ‘no doubt they were going to use their cash for this’. At the same time she proposed a number of practical measures. Balthasar was formally forbidden to buy the house: ‘I give you only one order, to wit that you will not buy the said premises in Madrid at my expense.’ If necessary the Antwerp firm would be content with a bond and repayment spread over a number of years. In this Balthasar could act as he thought best - just as long as he did not accept the house.

Balthasar was disenchanted, for he had already pictured himself as the proud owner of a castle in Spain, and was afraid of d'Alcozer's anger. To his surprise, however, the Hieronymites proved amenable and ready to negotiate on the basis of repayment by instalment. Their accommodating spirit was perhaps partly due to the fact that Balthasar had counter-attacked and expressed himself vehemently on the subject of their underhand dealings with the Lyonese printers: ‘Rest assured that I have protested violently about the printing of our name on the books from Lyons’, he wrote to his mother on 26th June 1680.

After many further ‘debates, difficulties, and disputes’ Balthasar was able to report triumphantly on 1st July 1680 that agreement had been reached. Mutually satisfactory arrangements had been made whereby the Hieronymites were to settle their debts, and receive, and pay for, new deliveries of books; the Moretuses for their part retained their monopoly of the rezo romano.

It is obvious from letters and documents about the Madrid negotiations that until 1680 the Moretuses' Spanish trade had been based exclusively, or almost exclusively on agreements which had not been fully binding on both parties for the future, rather than on privileges and formal contracts. As Balthasar wrote home, relations had hitherto been regulated ‘merely by letters without either commitment or contract’. When Balthasar protested to the monks it was not so much because they had ordered books from Lyons, but rather because the Anissons had unlawfully printed the Moretus name on their own products. The Antwerp printer's great fear was that the Hieronymites, either from annoyance or calculation, would seize the opportunity of excluding the Moretuses from the Peninsula and bring in

competitors. The Hieronymites, through their influence at court, could easily have neutralized or annulled the few documents which the Antwerp firm could bring forward in defence of its position.

Now that agreement had been reached the monks proved most willing to sign a contract that would guarantee the rights of the Moretuses in the future and formally recognize their monopoly of the rezo romano in Spain. The ceremony took place in the monastery of San Lorenzo on 12th July 1680. In the early hours of the morning, the party having travelled at night to avoid the heat of the day, Balthasar III, accompanied by d'Alcozer and a number of other representatives of the monastery, arrived at the Escorial in ‘one of the King's coaches with six fine mules and various friends on horseback’. His reception was uncommonly cordial. Bells were rung to summon the whole community together to deliberate on the contract. The document was read out three times and then ‘solemnly approved and commended with unanimity’ and signed.

Balthasar had achieved his mission. On 24th July he set off home. The presses of the Officina Plantiniana could once again work at full pitch to supply the Spanish market; its viability as a large-scale capitalist enterprise was assured for almost another hundred years.

After his return to Antwerp Balthasar III assumed complete control of the press.1. Affairs proceeded smoothly, without incident - or at least none sufficiently notable to find its way into the records of the house.

At the end of his life Balthasar III had the satisfaction of being admitted to the nobility, the estate he had always so greatly admired. In the second half of the seventeenth century the Spanish government began to ennoble large numbers of middle class families, and the Antwerp printer decided to try his luck.2. On 7th October 1692 he received a request from the secretary to the Council of Brabant, Loyens - who had been persuaded to support Balthasar's case and was taking the necessary measures - to submit a picture of ‘the arms used from of old in your family... with its colours etc. so that it

may be constituted as a coat of arms’. This was in fact the crest of the Gras, or Grassis family, to which Adriana Gras, the mother of Jan I Moretus, had belonged. As commoners the Moretuses had no right to it, but through the years they had privately continued to regard this blazon as ‘belonging’ to their family. In 1597 Melchior Moretus, Jan I's son, had had the coat of arms engraved on his university thesis, printed at Louvain by Jan Maes (Masius). It was also drawn next to the name of Balthasar I in the register of benefactors of the Jesuit college at Halle, after he had generously donated books to the library there in 1631 - a recognition which brought Balthasar II a fine of 150 fl. in 1667. The Brabant herald of arms had come across this breach of aristocratic privilege and demanded the imposition of a suitable penalty as well as the erasing of the offending emblem from the register. Balthasar II pointed out that neither he nor his uncle were responsible and that it had been the Jesuits' idea to add the crest, but it was all in vain - he still had to pay.1.

Balthasar III Moretus was granted the title of Jonker (Esquire) by letters patent of 1st September 1692. ‘The arms used from of old’ was officially recognized as the family crest, just one detail being added: the eagle displayed sable on a field cheeky azure and argent was charged with an escutcheon in which a mullet or, being the golden star of the Magi that Balthasar I had chosen as his emblem and which figured in such profusion in his decoration of the Plantin house.

One very important point remained to be settled. The nobility was not permitted to degrade itself by engaging in such vulgar pursuits as commerce or industry. Balthasar III, however, wanted to continue with his business. On 11th October 1692 he petitioned King Charles II of Spain for permission to practise the trade of printer without forfeiting his newly-acquired title. Once again Loyens came to his aid. In one of his depositions he represented Balthasar as a grand seigneur ‘entretenant sa propre personne, sa famille et son menage point en bourgeois ou artisant, mais fort honestement avec caros,

chevaux, et valet a la maniere ordinaire et accoustumee de gentilhommes ou rentiers de cet pays’. The heraldic authorities were brought in to prove that printing ‘n'at deroge en aucune maniere a la Noblesse de ceux qui en ont ete les auteurs et augmentateurs’, that the printers ranked first ‘entre ceux qui travaillent a des ouvrages relevez’, that the king and his predecessors had repeatedly conferred titles on ‘peintres, sculpteurs, forgeurs de fer, faiseurs de poudres et semblables... pour les encourager plustost a s'evertuer d'avantage en l'exercice de leur art ou fabrique que de les detourner d'icelles’. If the manufacturers of cannon and gunpowder could be granted titles there was no reason for omitting printers! Balthasar won his case, but it was not until 3rd December 1696 that the necessary royal patent was granted - a few months after the printer had exchanged the temporal for the eternal.

The dream of nobility of Melchior, Balthasar I,1. and Balthasar II had finally been realized by the third of that name. This did not mean that the new aristocrats had no further conflicts with touchy heralds of arms. On 31st May 1703, eighteen days after his wedding, Jonker Balthasar IV Moretus was accused by the Brabant king of arms of having suffered his wife to be ‘addressed and honoured with the genteel title of Mevrouw [Mylady] by everyone and in particular by his servants’. The wife of a Jonker had no right to this and had to be content with the ordinary Mademoiselle or Jouffrouwe. Balthasar defended himself vigorously, maintaining that if such an offence had occurred then it was not at his behest and was the responsibility of persons he had no authority over. He even made the acid observation that, to provoke a flood of fines, it was only necessary to ‘get someone to use the title of Jonker or Mevrouw to various persons in public or elsewehere’.

In 1706 Balthasar IV was again faced with a similar charge, and again he countered adroitly. The charge must have been worded rather ambiguously, for he was able to make it appear ridiculous. How could he be accused of ‘allowing himself to be addressed with the title of Mevrouw’? This was hardly likely ‘seeing this title cannot be attributed to male persons’. Continuing in the same derisive vein he pointed out that if anyone called

his wife Mevrouw ‘by inadvertence or from ignorance’, she was not obliged to reply at once ‘I am no Mevrouw’. This charge was presumably dropped, as that of 1702 had been, and Balthasar IV, more fortunate than his grandfather, escaped the 100 fl. fine that had been demanded.


Vorige Volgende

Over het gehele werk

auteurs


Over dit hoofdstuk/artikel

auteurs