The Biography And Typography of William Caxton Englands First Printer

specially abounded, having been greatly favoured by Philip the Good, who had been almost from a child brought up in the Court of England, and who in 1446 gave great privileges to the Mevchant Adventurers under the name of The English Nation, by which title they were ever after commonly known in foreign parts. So greatly were the Duke's dominions indebted to the trade in wool and cloth with England, that Philip the Good, when he instituted in 1429 a new Order of Knighthood, adopted for its title and badge " The Golden Fleece." The " Athenaeum" for December 5th, 1863, gives a curious account of the choice of this name. " Philip, wearied with suggestions for the name and badge of his new Order, at last said it might be named in some reference to the season of the year in which the matter had been discussed. That season included the months of July, August, September, October and November. As the initial letters of those months (the same in French and Dutch as in English) made the word Jason, the name of the Hero of the Golden Fleece, the conclusion was hilariously arrived at that the new Order should be named accordingly." Caxton issued out of his apprenticeship about 1446, and became a freeman of his guild, though, as this happened abroad, no notice of it occurs in the Company's books. It would appear that he immediately entered into business on his own account, and that he prospered, for in 1450 we find him iu Bruges, and so far successful as to be thought s...