Book of Days

Most all the printers I know (and as a letterpress printer myself, I know a lot of them) are a salty bunch who are never lacking for good stories, creative profanity, and a hankering for a beverage with spirit. And here, on this 24th of August, comes a spirited celebration just for us printers. It is Bartlemas: St. Bartholomew’s Day, known also as St. Bartlemy’s Day. It is the traditional date of the celebratory printers’ Wayzgoose. Wayzgooses (Wayzgeese?) nowadays are celebrated all year round at the various places where letterpress printers congregate (we’re taking part at a Wayzgoose in Boca Raton, Florida, on October 14; you should come!)… but years and years ago, Bartlemas and the Wayzgoose went hand in hand.

The Wayzgoose is a particularly English celebration, one that comes out of the shifting of the seasons. By the time we reach Bartlemas in the seasonal round, we are a full eight weeks past the summer solstice. Sunlight is waning: the autumnal equinox is just a month away. With it, day and night are equal, and once it passes, darkness overtakes light. In the days before glazed glass windows, Bartlemas was also the signal that it was time to paper the windows in preparation for winter. Once the windows were papered, it was also time, once again, to illuminate the print shop with lanterns and candles. For papermakers and printers both, Bartlemas was an important time of year. Not to mention the bookbinders, as well: St. Bartholomew is a patron saint of book artists and bookbinders. This comes from his martyrdom: St. Bart was one of the original Twelve Apostles, and he met a bitter end, flayed alive and crucified upside down. The flaying has made him a patron saint of butchers, tanners… and the bookbinders, too, for they typically bound books in leather. He is also a patron saint of cheesemakers and beekeepers: the honey harvest typically begins at Bartlemas. In Cornwall, mead is blessed on this day.

But back to the printers. Randall Holme, in 1688, gave us this description of the Bartlemas Wayzgoose:  “It is customary for all journeymen to make every year, new paper windows about Bartholomew-tide, at which time the master printer makes them a feast called a Wayzgoose, to which is invited the corrector, founder, smith, ink-maker, &c. who all open their purses and give to the workmen to spend in the tavern or ale-house after the feast. From which time they begin to work by candle light.” It is, no doubt, a day with a long history of tavern printshop talk and robust drinking songs, hearty laughter and good cheer. For all involved in the Black Art: printers and printers’ devils both.

Image: Ancient Printing-Office engraving from The Every-Day Book by William Hone, London, 1827.