Primers > Page 1
Child’s Primer
Manuscript book on parchment Northern France, second half of the 15th century
Plimpton MS 287
A cross, an alphabet, “Pater noster qui es in celis,” “Ave maria gracia plena.” Here are the basics for learning to read, and the basics for learning to pray for a well-to-do child in 15th-century France. This booklet is an expensive one: parchment stained purple, albeit now faded to brown; writing in silver ink, albeit now oxidized, with ruling in gold. In lines 8–9, small gold dots expunge — they “ex-punctus,” or remove with points — the mistaken duplicate copying of the words “adveniat regnum” (kingdom come). The booklet was a gift in 1860 from John Ruskin to an adored 12-year-old, Rose La Touche.
Gift of George Arthur Plimpton
Child’s Primer
Manuscript book on parchment England, third quarter of the 15th century
Plimpton MS 258
A cross, an alphabet, “In the name of the father,” “Fadir oure that art in hevenes hallowed be thi name,” “Hayle mari ffull of grace the lord be with the.” Here are the basics for learning to read, and the basics for learning to pray for a middle-class child in 15th-century England. This medieval “Dick-and-Jane” is small with only the rudiments of red decoration; and it’s in the local vernacular.
Gift of George Arthur Plimpton
Tabvlae abcdariae pveriles
[Leipzig: Valentin Babst, circa 1544]
Plimpton 372 1544 T11
This broadside is the oldest known example of a single-page primer, a forerunner of the hornbook and the battledore. The type and the border woodcut blocks are the same as those used to print Luther’s Der Kleine Catechismus, printed by Valentin Babst in Leipzig in 1549. The text was devised by Petrus Platearus, schoolmaster of Zwickau in Saxony, consisting of three alphabets in Roman and Gothic letters, the Tabula syllabarum, and the Paternoster.
Gift of George Arthur Plimpton