The Caxton Initiative’s Namesake

William Caxton

William Caxton brought the printing press to England in 1476, but perhaps he should be remembered for a certain humility as much as for being a technological innovator or “early-adopter,” for by curating the first set of printed books in English he helped preserve books that may otherwise have been lost to us, contributed to the establishment of an English canon, and set the tone for prefaces to what Chaucer might call “old books” for many years to come. One example of his humble preservation of a book can be seen in the case of Mallory’s Morte Darthur, which, had Caxton not printed it, might have become unknown or unavailable to readers for about 300 years, from the end of the 15th century until the discovery of the Winchester Manuscript in 1934 (a discovery that in fact depended upon Mallory’s book already being known and appreciated and thus that may not have been the happy occasion it was had Caxton’s printing not already popularized the text). So if you like Mallory’s book itself, or the film Excalibur which is based upon it, or T.H. White’s The Once and Future King which is also based upon it and which in turn serves as the basis for the animated film The Sword in the Stone, then you should be grateful for Caxton.

We should also be grateful for Caxton’s work as an editor, for he began printing books at a time when the English language was in flux due to the Great English Vowel Shift and continued influences from French and Latin. For various practical reasons (which Caxton himself explains in prefaces to some of his editions), printing necessarily encourages and propels the standardization of language, and Caxton explicitly recognized the need for an editor to contribute to this standardization for the purpose of reaching and establishing a wide readership. Though we might mourn the loss of dialect for various historical and aesthetic reasons, the standardization of language has numerous practical benefits, and Caxton’s early contributions to the standardization of English have had longstanding effects.

When teaching the History of the English Language, one comes to recognize both the importance of Caxton to the English literary tradition but also how unlikely most readers and even scholars are to know about Caxton and his contributions to the world of books that they so love and inhabit. Indeed, it seems likely that one would never encounter Caxton’s name outside medieval studies in general or a course on the History of the English Language in particular. So Caxton may be the most influential person in the history of English letters that most people have never heard of. And there’s something delightful (if a bit unjust) about his relative obscurity.

Rather than promote his own interests (though one suspects and hopes that his printings ultimately turned a profit), Caxton promoted the work of others, and we should honor and emulate his devotion to the good things that others have done. The Caxton Initiative, then, is our humble attempt to imitate William Caxton by promoting the good work that others are doing rather than (or in addition to) trying to do independently good work of our own. There’s a special kind of greatness that involves quietly doing one’s utmost to see that others succeed. It’s the kind of greatness exhibited by the teacher who never publishes anything and never wins any awards and may ultimately be largely forgotten even by her beloved students but nevertheless devotes her life to the charitable work of guiding young souls to truth, goodness, and beauty. There must be a special sphere in Paradise for souls such as these.