:: Mrs. Pott's Investigation on Baconian Emblems ::

Mrs. Constance Mary Fearon Pott 1 began tracing the origins and their similarities of emblems and in particular to the emblem of the double AA on title pages in Bacon’s time, at various libraries. Though her research mentions nothing of the double AA, what she discovered is of interest:

Sotheby’s Principia Typographica, 2 which, for no apparent cause, breaks off at the end of the fifteenth century, and to which there is no true sequel, happens with likewise other manuscripts at the British Museum which was found an eight folio volume of blank sheets of water-marked paper. But these papers are all of foreign manufacture, chiefly Dutch and German, and the latest date on any sheet is about the same as that at which the illustrations stop in Sotheby’s Principia.

After Mrs. Pott’s search at the British Library on further manuscript emblems and water-marks in connection to Francis Bacon, she stumbled upon “two loose sheets are slipped between the pages in two volumes. One is classified as Pitcher, the other as Vase. They are specimens of the one-handled and two-handled pots of which we have so much to say.

“These are English, and we believe of later date than any of the specimens bound up in the collection. Their presence is again suggestive. They hint at the existence of an English collection somewhere.”

1 Mrs. Constance Mary Fearon Pott: Francis Bacon and his Secret Society

2 Brit. Mus. Press-mark 2050 G

Another particular points to the same conclusion. In Paper and Paper-making by Richard Herring, of which the third edition was printed in 1863 (Longmans), there are, on page 105, five illustrations of paper-marks. They are all specimens of the patterns used circa 1588 and later, and they are numbered 1418, 1446, 1447, 1449, 1450. These numbers evidently refer to a collection such as we have anxiously sought, but which we have been repeatedly assured is not known to exist. “That it does exist,” says Mrs. Pott, “we have not the slightest doubt; but where is it, and why is it withheld? Recently we have been told that the Trustees of the Bodleian Library at Oxford have secured a private collection of the kind, concerning which, however, no information is forthcoming to the present writer.”

Some background

Richard Herring tells us that “The curious, and in some cases absurd terms, which now puzzle us so much, in describing the different sorts and sizes of paper, may frequently be explained by reference to the paper marks which have been adopted at different periods. In ancient times, when comparatively few people could read, pictures of every kind were much in use where writing would now be employed.

Every shop, for instance, had its sign, as well as every public-house; and those signs were not then, as they often are now, only painted upon a board, but were invariably actual models of the thing which the sign expressed as we still occasionally see some such sign as a bee-hive, a tea-cannister, or a doll, and the like. For the same reason printers employed some device, which they put upon the title-pages and at the end of their books, and paper-makers also introduced marks by way of distinguishing the paper of their manufacture from that of others which marks, becoming common, naturally gave their names to different sorts of paper.” 3

3 Richard Herring: Paper and Paper-making, p. 103, 3rd edition, 1863.
See also Dr. Ure’s Mines and Manufactures Paper-making

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The Unsatisfactions

These conclusions are, really, in no way satisfactory. They are in direct opposition to facts, which present themselves in the process of collecting these water-marks facts such as these:

~That the same designs are often varied in the same book, some volumes containing as many as eight, twelve, or twenty-five variations of one pattern.

~That similar designs appear in books of widely different periods printed and published by various firms, whilst, so far as we have found, they appear in the MS., letters of only one limited period.

~That three kinds of water-marks (and so, according to Herring, paper from three different firms) are often found in one small book.

~That these water-marks, infinitely varied as they are, often contain certain initial letters which seem to connect them with private persons, authors, or members of a secret society.

~That, even in the present day, two or three firms use the same designs in their paper-mark..

Temple House, Gorhambury Park

These points assure that it is an error to suppose either the most ancient or the most modern paper-marks to be mere trade-signs. True, that there are now some such, which have been used, since the revival, as a fashion, of the hand-made or rough-edged paper. But these are quite easily distinguishable, and those who follow us in this investigation will have no hesitation in deciding to which class each paper belongs.

The double AA emblem associated with Francis Bacon.

On the other hand, Mr. Sotheby arrived, from his own point of departure, at the conclusion: “I venture to assert that until, or after, the close of the fifteenth century, there were no marks on paper which may be said to apply individually to the maker of the paper.”

With reference to any particular time or place at which this inestimable invention was first adopted in England, all researches into existing records contribute little. The first paper-mill erected in England is commonly attributed to Sir John Spielman, a German, who established one in 1588, at Dartford, for which the honour of knighthood was afterwards conferred upon him by Queen Elizabeth, who was also pleased to grant him a license for the sole gathering, for ten years, of all rags, etc., necessary for the making of such paper. It is, however, quite certain that paper mills were in existence here long before Spielman’s time.

Shakespeare, in 2 Henry VI., (the plot of which is laid at least a century previously), refers to a paper-mill.

In fact, he introduces it as ann additional weight to the charge, which Jack Cade brings against Lord Saye. An earlier trace of the manufacture in England occurs in a book printed in 1493. 4 and then by Caxton, about the year 1490, in which it is said of John Tate: "Which late hath in England do make thy paper thine. That now in our English this book is printed in."

4 De Proprietalibus Rerum, Wynken de Wordes, edition 1493

In the dictum of the Freemason Cyclopaedia it says “A very minute difference may make the emblem or symbol differ widely in its meaning,” and of Bacon’s similar hint as to the necessity for noting small distinctions in order to comprehend great things: “Everything is subtle till it be conceived.” 5

It is reasonable to attempt this explanation of the “little variations” that the symbol, whatever it maybe a bull’s head, unicorn, fleur-de-lis, vine, or what not illustrates some single, fundamental doctrine or idea. But the “little variations” may, as Mr. Sotheby agrees, afford pretty accurate information as to the country where, and the period when, the book was written or produced. They may even indicate the papermaker or the printer, or that the persons connected with the writing of the book were members of a certain secret society.

5 Promus: p. 186-18

Click on the above Plates 1-12 to see Mrs. Pott's research of emblems.
Continuing Plates follow here: Plate 13, Plate 14, Plates 15, Plates 16, Plates 17,
Plates 18, Plates 19, Plates 20, Plates 21, Plates 22, Plates 23, Plates 24,
Plates 25, Plates 26, Plates 27.

Unkown Paper Mills

If the paper used for printing books was usually made in the country where the books were printed (and this seems to be the most natural and reasonable arrangement), then we must inquire at what English mill was the paper manufactured which was to be the means of transmitting to a world then plunged in darkness and ignorance the myriad-minded and many-sided literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Tate's Paper-Mill

Tate’s mill was situate at or near Stevenage, in Hertfordshire; and that it was considered worthy of notice is evident from an entry made in Henry the Seventh’s Household Book, on the 25th of May, 1498: “For a reward given at the paper mill, 16s. 3d.” And again in 1499: “Given in reward to Tate of the mill, 6s. 3d.” The water-mark used by Tate was an eight-pointed star within a double circle. A print of it is given in Herbert’s Typis Antiquit., vol. i. p. 200. Tate died in 1514.

Still, it appears far less probable that Shakespeare alluded to Tate’s mill (although established at a period corresponding in many respects with that of occurrences referred to in connection) than to that of Sir John Spielman.

Standing, as it did, in the immediate neighbourhood of the scene of Jack Cade’s rebellion, and being so important as to call forth at the time the marked patronage of Queen Elizabeth, the extent of the operations carried on there was calculated to arouse, and no doubt did arouse, considerable national interest; and one can hardly help thinking, from the prominence which Shakespeare assigns to the existence of a paper-mill (coupled, as such allusion is, with an acknowledged liberty, inherent in him, of transposing events to add force to his style, and the very considerable doubt as to the exact year in which the play was written), that the reference made was to none other than Sir John Spielman’s establishment of 1588, concerning which we find it said: “Six hundred men are set to work by him. That else might starve or seek abroad their bread. Who now live well, and go full brave and trim, and who may boast they are with paper fed.” 6

6 Joel Munsell: A Chronology of Paper and Paper-making, fourth edition, 1870

The following is a list of the water-marks which Mrs. Pott’s research brought forth, found in books previous to the Baconian period, or in MSS., or other documents. The paper seems to be all foreign, from mills chiefly in Holland or Germany. Some of these figures were retained in the end of the sixteenth century and developed into other forms. Each figure seems to have been varied almost indefinitely. In her limited research she had seldom found two precisely alike, and there seem to be about sixty figures, not reckoning “nondescripts” and doubtful forms or variations:

ANIMALS. Quadrupeds Ape or Monkey, Bull, Cat (or Panther?), Dog (Hound or Talbot), Goat, Horse, Lamb (sorue-times with flag), Lion (rampant or passant), Panther, Pig, Hog, Swine, Stag (head or passant), Wolf. Birds. Cock, Duck (or Goose?), Eagle (sometimes spread, or with 2 heads or 4 legs), Goose, Pelican, Swan. Fish. Carp, Dolphin, Tortoise or Dolphin. Reptiles. Lizard, Newt, Serpent. Mythical. Dragon or Griffin, Mermaid, Phoenix, Unicorn.
FLOWERS. Bell-flower, Fleur-de-lis or Trefoil, Lily, Rose (five-petaled, or nondescript, four-petaled). Fruits. Cherries, Fig, Grapes, Pear, Pomegranate.
MISCELLANEOUS. Anchor (sometimes in a circle), Angel or Acolyte, Anvil, Ark, Bars with names, letters, etc., Battle-axe, Bell, Bow and Arrows, Cross Bow, Bugle or Trumpet or Horn, Cap (see Fool’s Cap), Cardinal’s Hat, Cask or Water-butt, Castle or Tower, Chalice, Circle (sometimes with cabalistic figures), Compasses, Cords or Knot, Cornucopia (or Horns), Crescent, Cross (Greek or Maltese), Crown, Fool’s Cap, Globe, Golden Fleece, Hambuer, Hand, Heart, Horn, Bugle, Trumpet, Cornucopia, Key, Crossed Keys, etc., Ladder, Lamp, Lance or Spear, Letters (chiefly when alone, P and Y), Lotus (?), Mitre, Moon, Moose’s Head, Mounts (3 or 7), Orb, Pope Seated, Reliquary (for Pot?), Scales on Balance, Shears or Scissors, Shell (or Fan?), Shield, Ship, Spear, Spiral line or Mercury’s Rod, Star, Sun or flaming disk, Sword, Triangle with cross, etc., Trumpet (see Horn), Vine (see Grapes), Water-butt (see Cask), Waves or Water, Wheel (sometimes toothed).

There are three paper-marks, which seem to especially associate with Francis Bacon and his brother Anthony. They are to be seen throughout the printed books, which are ascribed to Francis, and one in particular is in the paper in which he and Anthony, and their most confidential friends, corresponded, whether in England or abroad. These marks are:

1. The bunch of grapes.
2. The pot, or jug.
3. The double candlesticks

Explanation

The grapes and the pots appear, in somewhat rude forms, as early as the fourteenth century. The candlesticks seem in their earlier stages to have been towers or pillars. As candlesticks, even single, was failed to be found one earlier than 1580, and then in a MS., document.

The candlesticks were the latest and least frequent of the three, being used in the double form only in editions of Bacon’s works published after his death. Even this example is rather suggestive of a castle than of a candlestick, and as castles and towers of unmistakable forms (and sometimes showing an affinity to the mounts) appear in books published in Italy as early as the fourteenth century, it is possible that here we have some of the many scattered links in the chain of continuity in designs as well as ideas.

Sotheby had noted that grapes occur in books printed at Mentz, Strasburg, Nuremberg, Basle, and Cologne, and that they were produced by Caxton, but are not in any book printed in the Netherlands.

A watch-candle is the emblem of “care and observation.” In a letter to King James I., on May 31st in 1612, Bacon says: “My good old mistress [Queen Elizabeth] was pleased to call me her watch-candle, because it pleased her to say I did continually burn (and yet she suffered me to waste almost to nothing).”

In combination with the candlesticks are fleur-de-lis, trefoil, pearls, and other symbols of the Holy Spirit; sometimes an E C or C R; almost invariably grapes piled in a pyramid or diamond. The bunch of grapes, alone, or in combination with other figures, is the second great mark in Bacon’s books.

The pitcher or pot is impressed not only on the private letters of Francis and Anthony Bacon or perhaps it is safer to say, of the Bacon family and their confidential correspondents, but on the pages of nearly every English edition of works acknowledged as “Bacon’s” published before the eighteenth century.

There are certain accessories to the Baconian pitchers, one at least being always present: (1) a rising sun, formed by the cover or round top of the pot; (2) five rays; (3) pearls; (4) fleur-delis; (5) a four-petaled flower, or a Maltese cross; (6) a moon or crescent; (7) the bull’s horns in a crown; (8) grapes; (9) a diamond, triangle, ellipse, or heart.

Sometimes there are two handles distinctly formed, as SS; often on the body of the pot are letters they maybe initials, as A B, and F B, often found in the correspondence of the brothers; or S S, Sanctum Sanctorum, etc.; R C, Rosy Cross; F or F F, Frater or Fratres; G G, Grand Geometrician God, according to Freemason books in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries paper marks were used throughout the works which were the products of the Renaissance.

These paper-marks are not mere manufacturers’ signs, but that they have a mutual relation and connection, and that they were and are means of conveying secret information to the members of some widely-spread society.

The society was not a mere trade-guild, but that it was moved by motives of religion, and, in its highest branches at least, was a Christian philosophical society, or a society for promoting Christian knowledge.

The subject matter of the books does not necessarily affect the paper-marks. The three marks, the double candlesticks, the grapes, and the pitcher or pot, are notably “Baconian,” the pot especially being found in all Bacon’s acknowledged works, and throughout the correspondence of Anthony and Francis, especially when their correspondent was of the Reformed Church.

Where any one pattern is varied many times in the same book, there is usually no other mark except in the fly leaves. The extraordinary but not unaccountable habit of tearing out the fly-leaves at the beginning and end of valuable books of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries often makes it impossible to declare that the book in hand possessed no other mark besides those which we see. Mrs. Pott states “the fly-leaves were wont, in many of our Baconian books, to be very numerous: five or eight are common numbers for the sheets. They were probably intended for the making of notes, a practice which Bacon enjoins and so highly commends.”

In old, untouched libraries there are usually some books where the fly-leaves have been thus utilised. Perhaps, when filled with notes, they were to be taken out, and forwarded to some central point of study, either to an individual or to a committee, who should by their means add to the value of any subsequent edition or collection, which might be published.

It is certain that fly-leaves have been stolen for the sake of the old paper, for etching or for forged reprints; but this does not account for the fact that certain books, when sent, without any special orders, to be repaired by a Freemason binder, have returned with this large number of fly-leaves restored; in many of our public libraries such extra leaves in books rebound have paper-marks.

In Bacon’s acknowledged works the changes are rung upon the three paper-marks, the pot, the grapes, and the candlesticks, the latter being apparently the rarest of the three. Usually one or two of these patterns are combined with one extra mark. With time enough and help to examine every edition of every book concerned in this inquiry, it is hardly to be doubted that a real scheme could be drawn up to demonstrate the precise method of the use of paper-marks.

The pots seem to be in one edition at least of every work produced by Francis or Anthony Bacon, or published under their auspices. Two handles to the pot seem to mean that two persons helped in the construction of the book. Next, in republications, compilations, or collections of any kind, grapes prevail, and that the candlesticks only appear when the volume which includes them is to be considered complete. The Baconian pots have been found first in a book 1579-80, and not later than 1680 a period of one hundred years. They, like the rest of the marks, increase in size from about one inch to seven inches. The use of the Baconian grapes seems to have begun about 1600, and to have continued only in France after 1680. The double candlesticks appeared later still, after the death of Francis Bacon, and remained in use for about fifty years. The three marks all disappeared in England about 1680.

Not only is the nature of the paper-mark thus varied in each book, but the forms of each figure are varied to a surprising extent. No two volumes, often no two parts of the same volume, treatise, poem, or play, contain marks, which are identical. For instance, in Ben Jonson, 1616, there are at least fifteen different forms of the pot, two of which are sometimes in one play. In Selderi’s History of Tithes, 1618, the variations are as frequent. In Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, 1621, there are at least thirty half-pitchers, no two of which seem to be alike.

“Again”, continues Mrs. Pott’s, “we have not succeeded in finding any form of mark precisely repeated in books of different titles, editions, or dates.” In the writing-paper of the Bacon family and their friends, there is almost as striking a variety in the representation of the same figure or pattern. It is certain that these marks were not of the same kind as the ornaments, etc., on letter-paper of the present day, in which crests, monograms, etc., are adopted by certain individuals and retained by them for some time at least.

In letters in Baconian correspondence, written in rapid succession by the same person, the marks are found different, and on the other hand, different persons writing, the one from England and the other from abroad, occasionally used paper with precisely similar marks. It would seem that, in such cases, paper had been furnished to these correspondents from some private mill.

There are, in combination with some designs, or apart from them, bars on which appear some times of paper-makers, as “Ricard,” “Rapin,” “Conard,” “Nicolas,” etc. These seem to be chiefly in the foreign paper. But often these bars are as cabalistic as the rest of the designs, or they seem to contain the initials of the producer of the book, not, of its true author. The pots have no bars in connection with them; perhaps the letters upon them render further additions unnecessary.

In conclusion

Mrs. Pott’s conclusion was that further investigation be made into the following:

which were the very earliest paper-mills in England
to whom did they belong
what were the water-marks on the paper produced there
which was the first printed book for which the paper was made in England
from what foreign mills did our English printers import paper
at what date did the papers with the hand and the pot receive the distinctive additions which, for want of a better name, we have termed Baconian
in what books may we see the very latest examples of the candlesticks, the grapes, and the pot in the paper
when and why was the use of paper-marks in printed books discontinued
was the discontinuance simultaneous and universal? Was there truly a discontinuance of the system of secret marks, or, rather, did a change or modification take place, in order to adapt these secret marks to the exigencies of modern requirements in printing and book-making?
when Sir Nicholas Bacon, in his youth, resided for three or four years in Holland, did he visit and study the manufactories of paper? Does any record show him mixed up in any business relations with paper manufacturers?
what part did the old printers and publishers play in the secret society? For instance, John Norton (Lady Anne Bacon’s cousin) and the Spottisworths (both families in which these trades have in an eminent degree flourished ever since).
did the Baconian water-marks remain in use until circa 1680, in fact, for just one hundred years from the time when the first document of the Rosicrucian society was published.
was it intended that, by the end of the period of one hundred years, all the posthumous works of Francis Bacon, “My cabinet and presses full of papers,” should have been published by his followers, and did the system of water-marks in printed books cease at that period.
are printers and paper-makers, as a rule, Freemasons and do they mutually co-operate and understand each other’s marks
if not, what reasons do they adduce for the mystery which is still cast over simple matters connected with their useful and beneficent crafts, and for the unusual difficulties which are met with in obtaining any good books or any trustworthy information upon the subjects which we have been considering
is there any period at which modern Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism propose to clear up and reveal these apparently useless and obstructive secrets or, what is supposed to be the advantage, either to the public or to individuals, in keeping up these or other mystifications, historical or mechanical.

Once, doubtless, helpful and protective, guides as well as guardians, they now seem to be mere stumbling-blocks in the way of knowledge. But who are they who have the right and the power so to manipulate the printed catalogues of our public libraries as to enable them to convey hints to the initiated of books specially to their purpose; and to repress open references to certain books or documents which would tell the uninitiated too much?

I must close this subject with my own experience in researching Bacon’s well-known pyramid letter at the British Library and at the British Museum Library. I add their answer to my investigations, without naming the person; this allows me to protect this source, which I deem necessary, in case this document springs forth in future ages and becomes a beacon of light to those Mrs. Pott states above:

17 March, 2008
Dear …

My apologies for the delay in this reply. Further to my last message, our Manuscripts curator has just contacted me to say that she has consulted colleagues here, and at the British Museum, who consider that it is one of those mythical sources which are alleged to be in the British Museum / British Library but are not here and probably don't exist.
Apparently we do get asked for it from time.
Best wishes

Lochithea's Baconian Books

Baconian sites worth browsing through in regards to Bacon's double AA emblem are: New Advancement & Light of Truth