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Title: The English provincial printers, stationers and bookbinders to 1557
Author: E. Gordon Duff
Release date: April 29, 2024 [eBook #73493]
Language: English
Original publication: Cambridge: University Press, 1912
Credits: Alan, deaurider and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ENGLISH PROVINCIAL PRINTERS, STATIONERS AND BOOKBINDERS TO 1557 ***
The Sandars Lectures
1911
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
London: FETTER LANE, E.C.
C. F. CLAY, MANAGER
[Illustration]
Edinburgh: 100 PRINCES STREET
Berlin: A. ASHER AND CO.
Leipzig: F. A. BROCKHAUS
New York: G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Bombay and Calcutta: MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD.
_All rights reserved_
The English Provincial
Printers, Stationers and
Bookbinders to 1557
by
E. GORDON DUFF, M.A. Oxon.
Sometime Sandars Reader in Bibliography
in the University of Cambridge
Cambridge
at the University Press
1912
TO
MY FRIEND
ALFRED WILLIAM POLLARD
PREFACE
The work of the provincial printers, stationers and bookbinders forms
a subject of the greatest interest, and one which has hitherto hardly
received adequate attention.
The presses of the two University towns, Oxford and Cambridge, have
been very fully treated, and, in a lesser degree, those of St Alban’s
and York, but with these exceptions the remaining towns have been
curiously neglected, and our knowledge concerning such important
printing centres as Ipswich, Worcester and Canterbury seems to have
advanced but little since Herbert issued the third volume of his
Typographical Antiquities over a hundred and twenty years ago. The
period during which these three cities possessed printing presses was
an eventful one in England owing to religious and political troubles,
and it is probable that among the many anonymous and secretly printed
books issued at that time, a certain number were produced in the
provincial towns.
There is still much to be learned about these provincial presses. The
careers of the printers, their types, their woodcuts, their ornaments
have still to be traced, and a number of books which have disappeared
within recent years remain to be rediscovered.
For the benefit of anyone desiring to follow up the subject more fully
two appendices have been added to the present book. The first contains
a title list of all the provincial books issued during the period, with
an indication of the libraries where they are preserved; the second,
a list of bibliographical works and articles, general and particular,
dealing with the provincial press.
My thanks are due for permission to have facsimiles made from books
in their charge to the Warden and Fellows of New College, Oxford,
the Master and Fellows of Magdalene College, Cambridge, and to the
authorities of the British Museum and the Cambridge University Library.
E. G. D.
_October 1911._
LIST OF PLATES
1. TITLE-PAGE OF THE ANTONIUS SIRECTUS, PRINTED
FOR H. JACOBI _to face_ p. 26
From the unique copy in the Library of New College, Oxford.
2. COLOPHON AND DEVICES FROM WHITINTON’S GRAMMAR,
PRINTED AT YORK BY URSYN MYLNER IN
1516 _to face_ p. 57
From the unique copy in the British Museum.
3. TITLE-PAGE OF FISHER’S SERMON, PRINTED AT CAMBRIDGE
BY JOHN SIBERCH IN 1522 _to face_ p. 82
From the copy in the Library of Magdalene College, Cambridge.
4. TITLE-PAGE OF THE EXHORTATION TO THE SICK,
PRINTED AT IPSWICH BY JOHN OSWEN IN 1548 _to face_ p. 110
From the copy in the Sandars Collection, University
Library, Cambridge.
LECTURE I.
OXFORD.
In the two series of lectures that I had the pleasure of delivering
in Cambridge as Sandars Reader in 1899 and 1904, I dealt with the
printers, stationers, and bookbinders of Westminster and London from
1476 to 1535, the period from the introduction of printing into England
by William Caxton to the death of his successor, Wynkyn de Worde. In
the present series I propose to turn to the provincial towns and trace
the history of the printers, stationers, and bookbinders who worked in
them from 1478, when printing was introduced into Oxford, up to 1557.
I have extended the period to 1557, because in that year a charter was
granted to the re-formed Company of Stationers, and in this charter
was one very important clause, “Moreover we will, grant, ordain, and
constitute for ourselves, and the successors of our foresaid queen,
that no person within this our kingdom of England, or dominions
thereof, either by himself, or by his journeymen, servants, or by
any other person, shall practise or exercise the art or mystery of
printing, or stamping any book, or any thing to be sold, or to be
bargained for within this our kingdom of England, or the dominions
thereof, unless the same person is, or shall be, one of the society of
the foresaid mystery, or art of a stationer of the city aforesaid, at
the time of his foresaid printing or stamping, or has for that purpose
obtained our licence, or the licence of the heirs and successors of our
foresaid queen.”
The effect of this enactment was virtually to put an end to all
provincial printing, and with the exception of a few Dutch books,
printed under a special privilege at Norwich between 1566 and 1579, and
a doubtful York book of 1579, no printing was done outside London until
1584-5, when the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford once more started
their presses.
Within the period I have chosen, printing was exercised in ten towns,
and the presses fall roughly into three groups. The first contains
Oxford, St Alban’s, and York, the second Oxford’s revived press,
Cambridge, Tavistock, Abingdon, and the second St Alban’s press, and
the last group Ipswich, Worcester, and Canterbury. Besides these there
are one or two towns which, while not having presses of their own, had
books specially printed for sale in them, as for example Hereford and
Exeter, where the resident stationer commissioned books from foreign
printers. And lastly, there must be noticed the places which have
been claimed as possessing a press on account of false or misleading
imprints, such as Winchester and Greenwich.
The first book issued from the Oxford press, the _Expositio in symbolum
apostolorum_, a treatise by Tyrannius Rufinus on the Apostles’ Creed,
was finished on the 17th of December 1478. By an error of the printer
an x was omitted from the figures forming the date in the colophon,
and thus the year was printed as m.cccc.lxviii. [1468] in place of
m.cccc.lxxviii. [1478], and round this false date a wonderful legendary
story was woven some two hundred and fifty years ago.
In 1664 a certain Richard Atkyns published a tract, entitled _The
Original and growth of Printing_, written to prove that printing was a
prerogative of the Crown. To strengthen his case he quoted this Oxford
book, produced, as he claimed, much earlier than anything by Caxton,
and also told a wonderful story of the introduction of printing into
England, said to have been derived from a manuscript in the archives at
Lambeth Palace.
According to this account, Thomas Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury,
having heard of the invention of printing at Haarlem, where John
Gutenberg was then at work (a strange fact which might simplify the
researches on early printing!), persuaded Henry VI. to endeavour to
introduce the art into England. For this purpose, Robert Turner, an
officer of the Robes, taking Caxton as an assistant, set out for
Haarlem, where, after infinite trouble and considerable bribery, a
workman named Frederick Corsellis was persuaded to return with them to
England. On his arrival he was sent under a strong guard to Oxford, and
there set up his press, under the protection of the King.
It is needless to say that the whole story is a fabrication, and a
curiously clumsy one. At the beginning of 1461 Henry VI. was deposed by
Edward, so that these events must have taken place in or before 1460,
and it is strange, with all the materials ready, nothing should be done
for nearly ten years. The information about Gutenberg, who invented
printing at Mainz and was never outside Germany, being engaged at
printing in Haarlem, is preposterous. Lastly, no trace of the documents
has ever been found. It is strange how Atkyns should have fixed on the
name Corsellis for his mythical printer, for this uncommon name was
that of a family of wealthy Dutch merchants settled in London at the
time. Just ten years after the publication of Atkyns’ book, a Nicholas
Corsellis, lord of the manor of Lower Marney, Essex, was buried in the
church there, and on his tomb are some verses beginning,
“Artem typographi miratam Belgicus Anglis
Corsellis docuit.”
Are we to infer from this that the family was a party to the fraud?
The story, however, was revived about the middle of the eighteenth
century, when Osborne, the bookseller, in his catalogue of June 1756
offered for sale an edition of Pliny’s Letters, printed by Corsellis
at Oxford in 1469. In his note he added that the printer had produced
other works in 1470, and that fragments of a Lystrius of this date
were known. Herbert continues the story as follows: “This raised the
curiosity of the book collectors, who considered this article as a
confirmation of what R. Atkins had asserted about printing at Oxford.
They all flocked to Osborne’s shop, who instead of the book, produced
a letter from a man of Amsterdam filled with frivolous excuses for
not sending them to him. They were disappointed, and looked on the
whole as a Hum; however, the _Plinii Epistolæ_ and _G. Lystrii Oratio_
afterwards appeared at an auction at Amsterdam and were bought for the
late Dr Ant. Askew, and were sold again at an auction of his books by
Baker and Leigh in Feb. 1775.”
These two books passed apparently to Denis Daly, then to Stanesby
Alchorne, afterwards to Lord Spencer, and are now in the Rylands
Library. The forgeries were made by a certain George Smith, much
given to that class of work, and passed on to Van Damme, a bookseller
of Amsterdam, who sold the Pliny to Askew for fifteen guineas. The
inscriptions in the books are the clumsiest forgeries, which could not
deceive anyone, while the books themselves were apparently printed at
Deventer, early in the sixteenth century, by a well-known printer,
Richard Paffroet. Listen now to the remarks of the erudite Dr Dibdin
in the Bibliotheca Spenceriana. “Meerman has a long and amusing note
concerning Van Damme and George Smith, from which it would appear
that the latter had imposed upon the bookseller, Van Damme, in the
annexed subscription to the volume, and that Van Damme acknowledged
the imposition to one Richard Paffraet of Deventer. If this be true,
the Dutch bibliopole acted a very dishonest part in selling the volume
to Dr Askew for fifteen guineas!” If instead of long arguments about
the types of the books or the probabilities of the dates, they had
considered the books themselves, it might surely have occurred to them
that it was at least unlikely that the physician, Gerard Lystrius,
a friend and contemporary of Erasmus, should have published a work
in 1470, while the next work issued by him did not appear until
1516. Besides the forged imprint, the Lystrius has at the end a long
spurious note in Dutch purporting to be written by J. Korsellis in
1471, stating that the book had been sent him by his brother, Frederic
Corsellis, from England. In order to kill two birds with one stone, the
writer drags into the note the mythical inventor of printing, Laurens
Janszoon Coster.
Oxford’s claim to having introduced printing into England was first
disputed by the Cambridge University librarian, Dr Conyers Middleton,
in his _Dissertation on the Origin of Printing_, published in 1735.
He originated the theory that a numeral x had fallen out of the
date or been accidentally omitted, and, after citing several early
examples of such a mistake, continued: “But whilst I am now writing,
an unexpected Instance is fallen into my hands, to the support of my
Opinion; an Inauguration Speech of the Woodwardian Professor, Mr Mason,
just fresh from our Press, with its Date given ten years earlier than
it should have been, by the omission of an x, viz. MDccxxiv., and
the very blunder exemplified in the last piece printed at Cambridge,
which I suppose to have happen’d in the first from Oxford.” Middleton
also brought forward what has remained the strongest argument against
the authenticity of the date, the occurrence in the book of ordinary
printed signatures, which are found in no other book until several
years later. Finally, he pointed out the very great improbability of
the interval of eleven years between the book of 1468 and the two books
of 1479. The last person to cling to the 1468 date, doubtless from a
sense of duty, is Mr Madan of the Bodleian. In his exhaustive work on
the early Oxford press, after having fully put forward the arguments
for and against, he sums up the situation as follows: “The ground has
been slowly and surely giving way beneath the defenders of the Oxford
date, in proportion to the advance of our knowledge of early printing,
and all that can be said is that it has not yet entirely slipped away.
It is still allowable to assert that the destructive arguments, even if
we admit their cumulative cogency, do not at the present time amount to
proof.”
Another earlier writer on this question ought to be mentioned, Samuel
Weller Singer, since he wrote a small book entirely confined to the
question of the authenticity of the date. It was entitled “_Some
account of the book printed at Oxford in 1468. In which is examined its
claim to be considered the first book printed in England._” A small
number of copies were privately printed; and the author came to the
conclusion that, in his own words, “The book stands firm as a monument
of the exercise of printing in Oxford, six years older than any book of
Caxton’s with date.” Singer is said to have changed his views on the
subject later on, and to have called in and destroyed as many copies as
possible. His book may be classed as a curiosity for another reason.
The original issue was said to consist of fifty copies privately
printed, and as many copies as possible were afterwards destroyed by
the author, yet it is a book of the commonest occurrence in secondhand
catalogues.
The researches of later years, carried out more scientifically, have
produced some definite information. In the first place, the source of
the type in which the book is printed has been ascertained. It was used
in 1477 and 1478 at Cologne by a printer named Gerard ten Raem, who
printed five books with it; a _Vocabularius Ex quo_ issued in October
1477, two issues of a _Modus Confitendi_ published in January and
October 1478 and a _Donatus_ and _Æsopus moralizatus_, both without
date. These books are very rare; the only one in the British Museum or
Bodleian being the _Donatus_. The Rylands Library contains the _Modus
Confitendi_ with the October date. The University Library possesses the
_Modus_ of January and the unique copy of the _Æsop_.
Now not only are the types of the Oxford and Cologne printers
identical, but both men made similar mistakes in the use of certain
capitals, and we find both in the _Modus Confitendi_ and in the
_Expositio_ a capital H frequently used in place of a capital P. This
must be regarded as more than a mere coincidence and strong evidence of
a connexion between the two presses. The Oxford printer also printed
his capital Q sideways in his earliest book.
The printing of the Cologne _Modus Confitendi_ was finished “in
profesto undecim millium virginum,” that is on October 20; that of the
Oxford _Expositio_ on December 17. This gives an interval of eight
weeks between the issue of the two books, a time much too short to
allow of the same printer having produced both books, even if there
were not other reasons against it. Who then was the printer from
Cologne who introduced printing into Oxford? I think we are quite
justified in believing that he was the Theodoric Rood de Colonia, whose
name is first found in an Oxford book of 1481. Mr Madan considers it
would be unsafe to assume that Rood was the printer of the first three
books, no doubt because the type in which they are printed disappeared
absolutely and was never used again. But analogous cases are not
unknown. For his first book the St Alban’s printer used a beautiful
type which, except as signatures in two other books, never appeared
again.
It is extremely unfortunate that a source from which we might no doubt
have learnt something about the introduction of printing into Oxford,
and some details about the first printer, seems irrevocably lost. This
is the volume of the registers of the Chancellor’s court covering the
period between 1470 and 1497. In the volumes that remain, which contain
records of all proceedings brought before the court, there are numerous
references to stationers, and it may be taken as another piece of
evidence against the 1468 date that there is no reference whatever to
printing or printers between the years 1468 and 1470.
The two books which followed the _Expositio_ are a Latin translation of
the _Nicomachean Ethics_ of Aristotle by Leonardus Brunus Aretinus, and
a treatise on original sin by Ægidius de Columna. The first, a quarto
of one hundred and seventy-four leaves, is dated 1479, but no month
is mentioned. By this date the printer had discovered which way up a
capital Q should stand, and we find it always correctly printed, though
some minor mistakes of the _Expositio_ are continued, such as using a
broken lower-case h sometimes for a b and sometimes, upside down, for a
q. The general printing of the book was however improved, and the lines
more evenly spaced out to the right-hand edge.
The second book, the treatise of Ægidius, _De peccato originali_, is
dated March 14, 1479, but this date may be taken as 1479-80. In this
book we find red printing introduced for the first and last time in an
Oxford book. It is by far the rarest of the early Oxford books, perhaps
on account of its small size, for it contains only twenty-four leaves,
and the three copies known were all bound up in volumes with other
tracts. The Bodleian copy belonged to Robert Burton and came to the
library with his books; that in Oriel College Library was in a volume
with the _Expositio_ and some foreign printed quartos, which, though
kept together, was rebound in the eighteenth century. The third copy,
now in the Rylands Library at Manchester, was, until about thirty years
ago, in a volume with the _Expositio_ and three foreign printed tracts,
including an edition of Michael de Hungaria’s _Tredecim sermones_, a
book which has at the end a curious sermon containing a notice of the
ceremony of incepting in theology at Oxford and Cambridge, with a few
sentences in English. The volume had belonged to a certain A. Hylton in
the fifteenth century, and was in its original stamped binding, a very
fine specimen of contemporary Oxford work. The volume was sold in an
auction about 1883, and the purchaser ruthlessly split up the volume
and disposed of the contents. The two Oxford books found their way into
Mr Quaritch’s hands, who sold the _Expositio_ to an American collector,
while the Ægidius was bought by Lord Spencer to add to the fine series
of Oxford books at Althorp.
These first three Oxford books form a perfectly distinct group. In
them but one fount of type is used, and they are without any kind of
ornament. It is, however, quite impossible to suppose that an interval
of eleven years separated the printing of the first and second books.
The press-work of the second shows a slight improvement on the first,
but only what the experience gained in printing a first book would
enable the printer to carry out on a second attempt.
The next group of books, four in number, centring round the dates 1481
and 1482, are the Commentary on Aristotle’s _De anima_ by Alexander
of Hales, dated October 1481, the Commentary on the Lamentations of
Jeremiah by John Lathbury, a Franciscan and D.D., of Oxford, dated July
31, 1482, and two books known only from fragments, an edition of Cicero
_Pro Milone_, and a grammar in English and Latin.
These books are mostly printed in a new type, a peculiarly narrow
gothic, of the Cologne school, and curiously resembling some used a
little later by another Theodoricus at Cologne.
The Alexander of Hales is a folio of two hundred and forty leaves
printed in double columns, and some copies have a woodcut border
round the first page of text. This was probably an afterthought of
the printer, for he has made no allowance for it in the size of the
page, and the border extends out over two inches beyond the text, with
the inevitable result that no copy, even in the original binding, has
escaped being cut down. This is the first occurrence of a border in an
English book. The design consists of elaborate spirals of flowers and
foliage, amid which are a number of birds; it is a very well-designed
piece of work, but it was probably obtained from abroad. At least
sixteen copies of this book are known, and one, in the library of
Brasenose College, is printed upon vellum, but is unfortunately
imperfect. A copy purchased for Magdalen College, Oxford, at the time
of its issue, cost thirty-three shillings and fourpence.
The Lathbury, like the Alexander, contains the printed border only in
certain copies. Altogether about twenty copies are known, of which four
are in Cambridge. Those in Westminster Abbey and All Souls College,
Oxford, are printed upon vellum, and the latter is a particularly fine
copy in the original stamped binding. A curious point about it is that
four names occur, signed at the bottom of the leaves in various parts
of the volume. It was considered at one time that these might be the
names of press correcters, but from comparison with similar sets of
markings in other books, Mr Madan came to the conclusion that they were
those of the persons who supplied the vellum. It is clear that more
copies on vellum than are known must have been printed, since a number
of fragments have been found in bindings.
The Alexander contains a full colophon stating that it was printed in
the University of Oxford by Theodoric Rood of Cologne on the 11th of
October 1481. The Lathbury has nothing but the date, the last day of
July 1482.
The Cicero _Pro Milone_ is known only from two sets of fragments
rescued from the bindings of books. Four leaves were presented to the
Bodleian in 1872, and four other leaves were found later in the library
of Merton College, where perhaps more may still be discovered. The book
was a quarto and was made up in gatherings of six leaves and probably
consisted of about thirty leaves. A page contains only nineteen lines
which are widely leaded. Though not found in other Oxford books, this
spacing was not uncommon in editions of texts without notes printed
abroad, and was intended to afford space to the student to write
glosses over the words.
This edition of the _Pro Milone_ is further interesting as being the
first classic printed in England, the next being an edition of Terence
issued in separate plays by Pynson between the years 1495 and 1497,
followed after a considerable interval by an edition of Virgil from
the same press. The English printers no doubt saw that it was quite
hopeless to compete with the cheap and well-printed foreign editions.
The _Latin Grammar_ is known only from two leaves found in a
book-binding, and they were acquired by the British Museum in 1872.
What book they came from is not known, but in 1871 they were in the
hands of Messrs Ellis & Green, and were described in the _Athenæum_.
From the frequent references to Oxford in the text, it has been
supposed that the work was compiled in Oxford. Stanbridge was spoken
of as a probable author, but Bradshaw suggested John Anwykyll, first
master of Magdalen School, who had been recommended to the founder for
his skill in a new style of grammatical teaching which had met with
general approbation.
After the publication of these four books, the type with which their
text was printed disappears altogether, but is replaced by one of very
similar appearance, and besides this, two other new founts came into
use. This activity may perhaps be explained by the theory that Thomas
Hunte, the Oxford stationer, had entered into partnership with Rood.
In the Alexander de Hales of 1481 we find Rood’s name alone, while in
the only book of the last group which contains a full colophon, the
Phalaris of 1485, the names of both are given. To Hunte’s influence
may perhaps be traced the acquisition of a fount of type of much more
English appearance, and probably, since it contained a w, intended for
use in English books.
To the years 1483 and 1484 six books may be ascribed. Two editions of
Anwykyll’s grammar, Hampole on Job, a work on Logic, the _Provincial
Constitutions_ of England with the commentary of William Lyndewode, and
a sermon by Augustine on almsgiving.
The editions of Anwykyll’s grammar may be taken first, since in one
copy we find an inscription showing that it was bought in 1483. The
book consists of two parts, the Latin grammar, and a supplement
containing sentences of Terence with English translations, known as the
_Vulgaria Terentii_. The part containing the grammar is excessively
rare. Of one issue one fragment is known, consisting roughly of half
the book, now in the Bodleian Library. It was originally bound up
with other tracts, and the volume was found along with some other old
books in an attic at Condover Hall, Shropshire, by Mr Alfred Horwood
when engaged in an examination of family archives for the Historical
Manuscripts Commission.
The other issue is known only from six leaves, all in Cambridge,
three in the University Library, two in Corpus, and one in Trinity
libraries. Two reprints of the grammar were issued on the Continent,
one by Richard Paffroet at Deventer in 1489, consisting of seventy-six
leaves, and another at Cologne by Henry Quentell about 1492, containing
sixty leaves. From a comparison of the various fragments with these
foreign editions certain conclusions may be drawn. Anwykyll had divided
his grammar into four parts, and in the edition represented by the six
Cambridge leaves these parts were arranged in their proper sequence,
one, two, three, and four. In the edition, however, represented by
the Bodleian fragment, and in both foreign editions, the parts are
arranged, one, three two, four. The last quire of the Bodleian edition
was signed m, and it was followed by the _Vulgaria Terentii_ signed
n to q. The Cambridge edition of the grammar extended at any rate to
signature n.
Since in reprints the tendency is generally to compress, it is most
probable that the Cambridge edition was the earlier, a conclusion
rendered more likely from the arrangement of the books in their correct
order. For some reason this order was altered in the fresh issue, the
printing was compressed, and the _Vulgaria_ printed to go at the end.
It would be natural for the foreign printers to take the most recent
issue as their model, in this case the edition represented by the
Bodleian fragment.
We may conclude then that the first Oxford issue consisted of
Anwykyll’s grammar alone, the second the grammar re-arranged and
compressed, with the _Vulgaria Terentii_ added as a supplement.
The _Vulgaria_ was, however, certainly sold alone, for two of the
five copies known were bound up with other tracts and without the
grammar in original bindings. A copy in the Bodleian has an interesting
inscription stating it was bought in 1483 by John Green out of gifts
made by his friends.
The work of Richard Rolle of Hampole on Job is known from four copies,
three of which were until quite recently in the University Library.
One of these was parted with as a duplicate in 1893, and is now in
the Rylands Library at Manchester. The fourth copy, up to the time
unnoticed, appeared in the auction of Mr Inglis’s books in 1900, when
it was bought by Mr Bennett of Manchester, and passed with his whole
library into the wonderful collection of Mr Pierpont Morgan of New
York. The volume consists of sixty-four leaves, and the last few pages
are taken up with a sermon of Augustine, _De misericordia_.
The separately printed _Excitatio ad elemosinam faciendam_ of Augustine
was probably issued about the same time. Only one copy is known and it
was originally bound in a volume with other fifteenth-century tracts,
two of which are dated 1482 and 1484. This volume was at one time in
the Colbert collection, which was finally dispersed by auction in
1728, when the volume was Lot 4912 and sold for one livre ten sous. It
ultimately came to the British Museum, where it lay for long unnoticed,
having been entered in the catalogue as printed by A. Ther Hoernen at
Cologne, but in 1891 it was recognised as a product of the early Oxford
press, and transferred to the select cases.
The next book in this group is a work on Logic, or rather a collection
of nineteen logical treatises strung together to form a systematic
work. It is generally associated with the name of Richard Swineshede
from the occurrence of his name at the end of the seventeenth
treatise. He was a monk of the Cistercian abbey of Swineshead in
Lincolnshire, and a fellow of Merton College, Oxford, so that, as is
fitting, one of the two known copies of the book is in Merton Library.
The other copy is in the library of New College. A considerable number
of fragments of this book have been found used in bindings, and there
are odd leaves in the University Library and in the libraries of
Trinity and St John’s, Cambridge.
The _Constitutiones Provinciales_ with the commentary of William
Lyndewode, Wilhelmus de Tylia nemore, as he is called in the text,
is by far the largest and most important book issued by the Oxford
press, and the first edition of Lyndewode’s great work. It is a large
folio of three hundred and fifty leaves, printed in double columns,
with forty-six lines of text, or sixty of commentary, to the column.
On the verso of the first leaf, missing in the majority of copies, is
a woodcut of a doctor seated writing at a desk under a canopy, with a
tree on either side. This represents, however, not Lyndewode compiling
his commentary, but Jacobus de Voragine at work on the _Golden Legend_,
a book which the Oxford press appears to have made some preparations
for publishing.
This is the most common of the early Oxford books. Mr Madan enumerates
twenty copies, but others have since come to light. One copy is known
printed upon vellum. It was purchased at the M’Carthy sale for one
hundred francs, and is now in the Bibliothèque Nationale. The vellum
copy, quoted by Hartshorne, as in the library of St John’s College,
does not exist, though that library possesses two on paper. One copy
in Cambridge, that in the library at Corpus, is worthy of special
mention, as its handsome stamped binding bears every mark of being the
work of Caxton.
In 1485 the Phalaris was issued. This is a Latin translation by
Franciscus Aretinus of the spurious Letters of Phalaris. At the
commencement are some verses by Petrus Carmelianus, the Court poet,
and at the end an interesting colophon in twelve lines of Latin verse
setting forth that the book was printed by Theodoric Rood of Cologne in
partnership with the Englishman, Thomas Hunte. It continues that Jenson
taught the Venetians, but Britain has learnt the art for itself and
that in future the Venetians may cease from sending their books to us
since we are now selling books to others.
It is a curious and amusing coincidence that Jenson should here be
mentioned as introducing printing into Venice in place of the real
first printer, John of Spire, for Jenson’s often repeated claim to be
the first printer of Venice rests upon exactly the same grounds as the
Oxford printer’s claim to be the first printer in England, a date in a
colophon with a numeral, x, accidentally omitted.
The _Decor Puellarum_ printed at Venice by Jenson, with the date
printed 1461 in place of 1471, led many early writers to consider him
the first printer of Venice and of Italy, and it is possible that a
copy of the book, having found its way to Oxford, deceived the writer
of the verses in the Phalaris. If in return a copy of the _Expositio_
could have reached Venice, its “1468” would have just given it the lead
of the first Venice book, the _Cicero_ of 1469, by one year.
Another grammar was printed about this time, the _Doctrinale_ of
Alexander de Villa Dei, with a commentary. Probably what the Oxford
printer issued was not the complete work but the section _De nominum
generibus_. Of this book two leaves only are known, preserved in a
binding in St John’s College, Cambridge. These were first noticed by
Henry Bradshaw, who found also some leaves of the Oxford Anwykyll in a
similar binding in Corpus. When the two books, Hollen’s _Præceptorium_
printed by Koburger at Nuremberg in 1505, from St John’s, and the
_Fortalitium fidei_ printed at Lyons in 1511, from Corpus, were
compared, it was clear that they must have been bound by the same
binder almost at the same time, for, besides the fragments of Oxford
books found in both, the binder had used in each fragments of one and
the same vellum manuscript. From the occurrence of these fragments Mr
Gibson has claimed the binding as Oxford work, but as the fragments
were binder’s, not printer’s waste, that is they were from books that
had been in circulation, no very strong argument can be deduced from
them. I have in my own collection a book bound at Cambridge by Garrat
Godfrey, with his signed roll, of which the boards are entirely made of
fragments of the Oxford Lyndewode.
After 1485 we hear no more of Rood, but it was for a time considered
possible, if not probable, that he was identical with another printer
named Theodoric, who printed some books at Cologne in 1485 and 1486
in a distinctive type remarkably resembling that used by Rood in the
Hales and Lathbury. The supposition had much in its favour; the types
were undeniably alike, both being of the same class as that used by
Ther Hoernen, another Cologne printer. The name Theodoricus again
was extremely uncommon. Panzer gives only three in the fifteenth
century, the Oxford and Cologne printers, and the well-known Thierry
Martens, the printer of the Low Countries. There was no proof, and
there was no direct evidence of any kind, but the hypothesis was not
quite groundless. For some reason, in a review of Vouillième’s work
on Cologne printing, Proctor fell upon this “myth formed without
a particle of evidence,” as he called it, though it was only from
information in the book reviewed that any new facts about Theodoric
were derived. Vouillième discovered documents showing that the Cologne
Theodoric was a son of Gertrude Molner, who subsequently married Arnold
Ther Hoernen, and after his death in 1483 or 1484, Conrad von Boppard.
The last book from the early Oxford press was an edition of the _Liber
Festivalis_ or _Festial_, consisting of sermons for holy days and
certain Sundays of the year, compiled by John Mirk, prior of Lilleshall
in Shropshire. Though generally spoken of as a mere reprint of Caxton’s
edition, it varies very considerably in the text, and when Caxton
issued a new edition he copied from this rather than his own earlier
version.
This is the only Oxford book which was illustrated, and the
illustrations are very interesting. A series of eleven large oblong
woodcuts occur, and all have been mutilated by having some two inches
cut off the blocks to allow of their being used on a small folio page.
No other editions of the _Festial_ are illustrated, and Bradshaw
pointed out that these cuts were really part of a set intended to
illustrate an edition of the _Golden Legend_. In the Lyndewode, issued
about 1483, the printer had used one of these cuts in a complete state,
so that as early as 1483 he had evidently been considering the issue
of a _Golden Legend_ and had begun to make preparations. But Caxton in
London was at work on the same book, and, finishing his translation
in November 1483, no doubt issued his volume early in 1484. From his
prologue we learn that the labour and expense of production were so
heavy that he was “halfe desperate to have accomplissed it”; and we can
quite understand the Oxford printer hesitating to embark upon a rival
edition of a book so expensive to produce, and with which the market
had just been supplied. The smaller illustrations belong to a set made
for a _Book of Hours_, but no edition containing them is known to exist.
In this book occurs also the only woodcut initial letter used at the
press, a very roughly cut G without any ornament. Though of the very
poorest appearance, it was used with considerable frequency; for it is
found between fifty and sixty times at the usual commencement of the
sermons “Good men and women.”
Four copies of the book are known. Two in the Bodleian, very imperfect,
and one in the Rylands Library wanting the first two leaves. The finest
is at Lambeth, which wants only the last, blank, leaf.
The printing of the book was finished in 1486, “on the day after Saint
Edward the King,” presumably March 19; but there is nothing to show
whether this would be the year 1486 or 1487 of our reckoning. The only
other provincial press of the fifteenth century, that of St Alban’s,
stopped also in 1486, but so far no good reason has been suggested
for this simultaneous cessation. That it was due to any political or
religious motive, as is sometimes stated, is very improbable; the
growing foreign competition seems a more reasonable cause.
From the very earliest times there appear to have been two classes
of stationers in Oxford, those who were sworn servants of the
University, and those who worked independently. A deed of 1290 shows
that the parchment makers, illuminators, and text writers were in the
jurisdiction of the Chancellor of the University, and in 1345 the
Chancellor was acknowledged to have jurisdiction over four official
stationers. A most interesting deed of 1373 sets forth that “There
are a great many booksellers in Oxford who are not sworn to the
University; the consequence of which is, that books of great value are
sold and carried away from Oxford, the owners of them are cheated,
and the sworn stationers are deprived of their lawful business. It is
therefore enacted that no bookseller, except the sworn stationers or
their deputies, shall sell any book, being either his own property
or that of another, exceeding half a mark in value, under pain of,
for the first offence, imprisonment, for the second, a fine of half a
mark, for the third, abjuring his trade within the precincts of the
University.” The university stationers in their official capacity had
to value manuscripts offered as pledges for money advanced, they seem
also to have supplied books to the students at a fixed tariff, and
acted as intermediaries between buyer and seller when a student had a
book to sell. For these duties they received an occasional fee from
the University.
At the time when printing was introduced, we find the same two classes,
the University stationers, almost always Englishmen, and the unofficial
booksellers and bookbinders, mainly foreigners.
The most important stationer in the fifteenth century was Thomas
Hunte, who, we have seen, was for a time a partner with Theodoric Rood
the printer. His name first appears in 1473, in which year he sold a
Latin Bible, now in the British Museum, and he was then one of the
official University stationers. Between 1477 and 1479 he was living in
Haberdasher Hall in the parish of St Mary the Virgin. These premises in
Cat Street belonged to Oseney Abbey and seem to have been a favourite
situation with stationers. In 1479, besides Hunte, a bookbinder, Thomas
Uffyngton, who bound for Magdalen College, also resided there. After
the appearance of Hunte’s name in the Phalaris of 1485 we find no
further mention of him, but his widow was occupying the same premises
in 1498.
Another stationer who visited Oxford and was apparently connected with
it was Peter Actors, a native of Savoy. On a leaf used in the binding
of a French translation of Livy in the Bodleian is a list of books
which he and his partner, John of Aix-la-Chapelle, left with Thomas
Hunte on sale or return in 1483. His headquarters, however, must have
been in London, for in 1485 he was appointed Stationer to the King.
It is thus mentioned in the _Materials for a history of Henry VII._,
“Grant for life to Peter Actoris, born in Savoy, of the office of
stationer to the King; also licence to import, so often as he likes,
from parts beyond the sea, books printed and not printed into the
port of the city of London, and other ports and places within the
kingdom of England, and to dispose of the same by sale or otherwise,
without paying customs, etc., thereon and without rendering any
account thereof.” Richard III., in an act of 1484, had given special
encouragement to foreigners for bringing books into this country or
for settling here as booksellers, binders or printers, and there is
every evidence that this facility was freely taken advantage of. From
the two or three rather conflicting entries relating to the grant
to Peter Actors, it is not quite clear whether his appointment was
made originally by Richard III. and confirmed by Henry VII. after his
accession, or whether it originated with the latter. At any rate from
the act and from this appointment we have definite evidence that both
kings looked with favour on the book-trade and encouraged it by all
means in their power.
The son of Peter Actors, Sebastian, certainly lived in Oxford in the
parish of St Mary the Virgin, and was a stationer and bookbinder. In
the University archives is the record of a grant of administration
after his death dated April 23, 1501. In this a claim is made by a John
Hewtee, who had married his sister Margaret, on behalf of her father,
Peter Actors, for the tools used in binding.
Among the binding material belonging to the father we may probably
include three panel stamps of which impressions are known. Two of them
are ornamented with spirals of foliage and flowers enclosing fabulous
animals in the curves, while in the centre are two dragons with
their necks entwined. Round one of these panels runs the inscription,
“Ho mater dei memento Maistre Pierre Auctorre,” while the other has
an inscription in French, but no binder’s name. The third panel has
a conventional acorn design upon it without any inscription. So far
we have not traced these panels to a date early enough for them to
have been used by Sebastian Actors, but about 1520 they are used in
conjunction with other tools found on Oxford work.
Another stationer, George Chastelain, is first mentioned in the imprint
of a grammar printed by Pynson about 1499, “Here endeth the Accidence
made at the instance of George Chastelayn and John Bars.” There is
no indication where he was then at work, but in 1502 he was admitted
as a servant to the liberties of the University. About 1507 Pynson
printed for him an edition of the _Principia_ of Peregrinus de Lugo,
an extremely rare book, of which, however, there is a copy in the
University Library. In this his address is given as the sign of St John
Evangelist in the street of St Mary the Virgin. He was a bookbinder as
well as a stationer, and in the registers of Magdalen College frequent
mention is made of him between 1507 and 1513 as binding books for their
library. He died in 1513, and his will was administered by Mr. Wutton
and Henry Jacobi, a stationer. An inventory of his goods was made by
Howberch, a University stationer, and Richard Pate, and the value
returned at £24.
Some time between 1512 and 1514 a stationer named Henry Jacobi migrated
from London to Oxford. From 1506 to 1508 he had been in partnership
with another bookseller named Joyce Pelgrim, and assisted by a wealthy
London merchant named Bretton they issued several books together.
Between 1509 and 1512 Jacobi published books alone, though he appears
to have still been helped by Bretton.
One book is known printed for Jacobi at Oxford, an edition of the
_Formalitates_ of Antonius Sirectus. An imperfect title-page and a few
leaves were found by Proctor in the binding of a book in New College
Library, and shortly afterwards a copy of the book, wanting a greater
part of the title, was identified in the British Museum. It is a quarto
of twenty-two leaves, and was printed in London by W. de Worde. On the
title-page is the very finely engraved device of Jacobi, probably newly
cut, and found in no other of his books, though it was used again in
a mutilated state by his successor; and below the device an imprint
stating that the book was to be sold in the University of Oxford at the
sign of the Trinity, by Henry Jacobi, a London bookseller. His shop in
London in St Paul’s Churchyard had also the sign of the Trinity. Jacobi
made his will on September 8, 1514, and died shortly after. On November
9 his wife renounced her executorship, and administration was granted
to William Bretton, the rich merchant who had assisted him throughout
his career. On December 11 administration of the effects of Jacobi was
granted at Oxford also to Bretton through his agent, Joyce Pelgrim,
Jacobi’s former partner.
[Illustration: TITLE-PAGE OF THE ANTONIUS SIRECTUS, PRINTED FOR H.
JACOBI.]
The most interesting figure among the early Oxford stationers is
undoubtedly John Dorne or Thorne. In 1507 he was a printer at
Brunswick, and printed an edition of the grammar of Remigius
entitled _Dominus que pars_, the first book to be printed in that town.
In 1509 he printed an edition of the _Regimen Sanitatis_, and with
this second book his career as a printer seems to have ended. Later
he moved as a bookseller to Oxford, and a valuable memorial of his
stay there is preserved in the shape of his day-book or ledger for the
whole year 1520. This curious little manuscript is in the library of
Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and was for long erroneously catalogued
as a catalogue of books in the monastery of St Frideswide. Its great
interest remained unrecognised. Dibdin was shown it on a visit to
Oxford, but as might be expected failed to see its value and took no
further notice of it. Coxe, in his catalogue of manuscripts preserved
in college libraries, gave a correct account of it in 1852, and finally
in 1885 it was admirably edited by Mr Madan and published in the
Collectanea of the Oxford Historical Society. At the end of January
1886 a separate copy was sent to Henry Bradshaw, who immediately set
to work upon it, and on the 4th of February he sent to Mr Madan a thin
bound folio volume of notes, to which he had prefixed a title-page, “A
Half-Century of Notes on the Day-book of John Dorne.” This was the last
piece of work which Bradshaw finished, and within a week of sending it
he was dead.
Dorne’s ledger throws full light on the trade of an unprivileged
stationer in a University town. His supply of books necessary for
the schools was small. These no doubt would be mostly bought from
the licensed University stationer; but all other classes are well
represented. Of liturgical books he sold a very large number, and
naturally the various works of Erasmus were in great demand. The number
of English books sold was relatively small, though there are frequent
entries of single sheets, almanacks, and ballads. Such cheaper and
popular stock would find a ready sale when he set up his stall at the
St Austin’s and St Frideswide’s fairs. Towards the end of May when
business was quiet after St Austin’s fair, he went abroad for a couple
of months, presumably to arrange for the supply of fresh stock, though
his absence did not coincide with the time of the Frankfurt fair. The
ledger begins again on August 5, “post recessum meum de ultra mare.” In
October came St Frideswide’s fair, when he sold books to the amount of
£17, 9s. 6d. as against the £14, 4s. 10d. which he received at the St
Austin’s fair in May. Probably during fair time he would have to close
his ordinary shop, and transfer his business for the time to a stall in
the precincts of the fair itself.
Besides being a bookseller, Dorne was also a publisher on a small
scale. An edition of the _Opus Insolubilium_, a book used in the
schools at Oxford, and printed by Peter Treveris at Southwark for
I. T., has been known for some time from a copy in the library of
Corpus Christi College, Oxford. The I. T. was considered to stand for
John Thorne, the English form of Dorne. This has been confirmed by a
recent discovery. From the sale in 1906 of the library of the Duke of
Sutherland at Trentham Hall, a most interesting volume was secured
for the University Library. It contained three tracts connected with
Oxford. The first was the _Libellus Sophistarum_ printed at London by
Wynkyn de Worde, of which there were several editions. The second was
another copy of the _Opus Insolubilium_ mentioned above; but the third
was an entirely unknown book, an edition of the _Tractatus secundarum
intentionum logicalium_. This has a clear imprint starting that the
book was to be sold by John Thorne in the year 1527. At the end of
the last two pieces is the device of the printer, Peter Treveris. We
find frequent entries of these two books in Dorne’s ledger of 1520,
so that evidently, finding the sale so good, he determined to have
editions printed for himself. It is only from this recent discovery
that we are able to attach the date of 1527 to these books printed
at Oxford, but this fits in most curiously with an assertion made
by the Oxford antiquary, Anthony a Wood. Herbert, in his account of
Treveris, wrote: “Mr Wood thought he had printed a Latin grammar of
Whitinton’s at Oxford in 1527 as also books about and before that time,
but we have not met with any such.” Wood does not speak of any other
books except the edition of Whitinton’s grammar, and from his giving
the exact date we must either conclude that he was referring to a
genuine book which he had seen, or else had seen a copy of this book
printed for Dorne and had confused it with some other tract. Wood is
also responsible for the assertion that Wynkyn de Worde printed for
a while in Oxford, and asserts that a lane called Grope Lane had its
name altered to Wynkyn Lane as a memorial of his work there. For this
statement there seems no foundation, but it is quite probable that W.
de Worde had more considerable dealings with the Oxford stationers
than we know at present. He printed a book for Jacobi, to which I have
already referred, and when the press was restarted at Oxford in 1517
he supplied some of the material. So much new information has come to
light recently about the Oxford book-trade, that we may fairly hope for
more, and perhaps discover further dealings there of De Worde.
From the twelfth century onward Oxford appears to have been a great
centre of book-binding, not only as the seat of a University, but from
the number and importance of the religious houses in its immediate
neighbourhood. From various records and registers we get the names
of individual binders in an unbroken series. While we can point to
exquisite bindings produced at London, Durham, and Winchester as early
as the twelfth century, and while doubtless similar fine bindings were
produced in Oxford, yet strangely enough and very unfortunately we
cannot point to any definite specimen of a decorated Oxford binding
earlier than the second half of the fifteenth century. From about 1460
to the end of the century, on the other hand, examples are plentiful,
and the bindings of this period have a very distinctive style of their
own. The old styles of binding seem to have lingered on in Oxford and
even some of the old tools.
The earliest binding which we can definitely point to as executed
there is on a volume of sermons written in 1460. The decoration
consists of stamps arranged as parallelograms one inside the other and
covering the main part of the side. One of the stamps used on this
binding, depicting a strange bird, is the identical stamp found on a
twelfth-century binding in the British Museum. On the back are found
small roundels arranged in sets of three, an ornament very common
on all early Oxford bindings, and a single stamp on which the three
roundels are engraved seems peculiar to Oxford work. Three manuscripts
in Magdalen College, Oxford, written and bound between 1462 and 1470,
are of similar early style, and might from their appearance and dies
be considered two centuries older. The advent of Rood in Oxford agrees
in point of time with the introduction of a class of binding very
distinctive in style. The centre of the side contains a panel composed
of horizontal rows of stamps and enclosed by a frame formed with an
oblong stamp of foliage twined round a staff. On spaces outside the
frame are stamped roses and roundels in sets of three. The stamps
employed on these bindings show a distinct foreign influence, and many
of them are almost identical with those used by foreign binders notably
of the Low Countries. Some bindings, certainly produced in Oxford about
this time, have not only foreign dies upon them but have them disposed
in quite a foreign style, and are probably the work of foreign binders
settled in the town. The number of different dies used on Oxford
bindings, between 1480 and 1500, is very large. Gibson, in his work on
the subject, gives drawings of nearly a hundred; and though some of
these are of the simplest character and in no way distinctive, many of
them are both clever in design and extremely well engraved.
One or two Oxford bindings of the time show a curious return to another
early English style in which the ornament was disposed in circles
or part of circles. The finest example is on the Lathbury in the
University Library. The centre of each side is ornamented with a circle
formed by the repetition of a die depicting two birds drinking from a
cup. This die was evidently cut for use in this special way, for the
top is wider than the bottom, like the stones of the arch of a bridge,
so that when stamped side by side they would work round into a circular
form. Another binding of the same style is in the library of St John’s
College, Cambridge, and both bear the most extraordinary resemblance,
allowing for the different shape and style of the dies, to the covers
of the Winchester Domesday book written in 1148 and bound about the
same time.
Early bindings fall into three classes, those ornamented with small
dies, in vogue until about the end of the fifteenth century, panel
stamped bindings used in the early part of the sixteenth, and, finally,
the bindings decorated by a roll tool which begin about 1520. We cannot
suppose that the Oxford stationers did not use panel stamps, but so
far none can be identified as peculiar to Oxford. The panels of Peter
Actoris have been already spoken of, but it is not certain they were
ever used in Oxford. Henry Jacobi, who came to Oxford from London
about 1512 and died in 1514, had certainly various panels which he had
used in London, but he may not have transferred them to Oxford. Of
stationers or binders who lived and worked in Oxford alone no single
panel has yet been identified. Unfortunately, not a single book printed
for or at Oxford in the early sixteenth century is known in an original
binding.
In good specimens of roll-tooled bindings again Oxford is singularly
deficient, in curious contrast to Cambridge, which rivals if not
surpasses London in this class of work. There are no fine broad rolls,
and only one bearing initials. This is a roll engraved with a waving
spray of foliage containing in the curves the initials R. H. M. I. What
these initials stand for is unknown, and the roll is only claimed as an
Oxford one from its use on the covers of a Brasenose College register.
For the rest of the century Oxford binding is entirely uninteresting.
LECTURE II.
SAINT ALBAN’S, YORK, AND HEREFORD.
The only other provincial town besides Oxford which possessed a
printing press in the fifteenth century was St Alban’s, where an
unnamed printer started to work about the year 1479. As to who the
printer was we have no clue beyond the simple statement made by Wynkyn
de Worde in the colophon of his edition of the _Chronicles of England_,
“Here endyth this present cronycle of Englonde wyth the frute of tymes,
compiled in a booke and also enprynted by one somtyme scole master of
saynt Albons, on whoos soule God have mercy.” The printer is therefore
generally known as the schoolmaster-printer. Sir Henry Chauncy, when
he wrote his history of Hertfordshire, was not to be deterred by this
vagueness from giving this printer a name, and he appears in that work,
and others based on it, as John Insomuch. The proof is clear. The
printer printed only two books in English. One begins: “In so muche
that it is necessari to all creaturis of cristen religyon;” the other,
“In so much that gentill men and honest persones.” What further proof
could be wanted that the printer’s surname was Insomuch? As to the
printer’s Christian name having been John, the arguments would appear
to have been less weighty, at any rate no authority has condescended
to mention them.
Whoever the printer may have been, he was probably not a foreigner,
at any rate no foreign design can be traced in his type, which is
perhaps modelled on Caxton’s, though differing considerably. Though
as a schoolmaster he might be supposed to have been connected with
the Abbey, there is no reference to it in his colophons, which always
mention clearly the town of St Alban’s. The saltire on a shield, which
occurs in his mark, was alike the arms of the Abbey and of the town.
The first book issued from this press was a small work of Augustinus
Datus, usually called _Super eleganciis Tullianis_, of which the only
known copy is in the Cambridge University Library. It is a small quarto
of eighteen leaves and is printed in a peculiarly delicate gothic
letter. It has no date, only the simple colophon, “Impressum fuit opus
hoc apud Sanctum Albanum.” The type is very graceful and clear; it
looks almost like the production of an Italian workman copying from a
Caxton model, though, as I have said, we have no reason for supposing
the printer to have been a foreigner. For some reason he seems not to
have been satisfied with it, and so far as we know no other book was
ever printed in it and beyond being used for signatures in two later
books, no further use was made of it. This first book also stands apart
from the rest in being without printed signatures, which would at
once place it without any further proof at the head of the list of St
Alban’s books.
In 1480 the printer issued his first dated book, the _Rhetorica Nova_
of Laurentius de Saona, and in this the influence of another press
can be clearly traced. The printer had discarded his first fount and
obtained a new one with a strong superficial resemblance to Caxton’s
Type No. 2*, the very type which Caxton had used to print his edition
of the same book. There is one curious point about this book which is
rarely met with, it is partly a quarto and partly an octavo; that is,
it is partly made up from large sheets of paper folded three times, and
partly from small sheets folded twice. A somewhat similar example may
be found in the _Chronicles_ printed by Machlinia, which is a folio,
with a few pages quarto. This is the most common of the Latin books
issued by the St Alban’s printer, for at least five copies are known,
one of which is in the University Library.
The other book which the printer issued in 1480 is printed in
another new type, quite the ugliest and most confusing of English
fifteenth-century types, and full of bewildering contractions. It is
an edition of the _Liber modorum significandi_ of Albertus, and the
only known copy, which had belonged to Tutet and Wodhull, is now in the
Bibliothèque Nationale. Three more books were printed in this type,
Joannes Canonicus on the _Physica_ of Aristotle, Antonius Andreæ on
the _Logica_, and the _Exempla Sacræ Scripturæ_. The first of these is
a folio printed in double columns, and two copies are known, one in
the Bodleian, and the other in the library of York Minster, while a
number of odd leaves are in the library of Clare College, and a few at
Peterhouse.
Of the _Antonius Andreæ_ three copies are known, one in Norwich
Cathedral, another wanting two leaves in Jesus College, Cambridge,
and the last wanting eight leaves in Wadham College, Oxford. The
Cambridge and Norwich copies are both in their original bindings. The
signatures in this book are curious, for the printer, having come to
the end of his first alphabet, continued with contractions and then
signed two more sheets one “est” and the other “amen.” Bradshaw,
comparing the Cambridge and Norwich volumes side by side, found some
variations pointing to the reprinting of certain sheets. The _Exempla
Sacræ Scripturæ_ is known from two copies, one in the British Museum,
and one said to be in the Inner Temple Library, though its existence
is doubtful. For a long time the Museum copy was lost sight of. When
Blades began to work on the St Alban’s printer with a view to writing
a preface to the facsimile of the _Book of St Alban’s_, he was anxious
to see a copy of this book. Herbert had quoted copies as in His
Majesty’s library and the Inner Temple, but neither were forthcoming.
The authorities in London thought it probable that the book was in the
Bibliothèque Nationale. In those days there were no special catalogues
of the British Museum Incunabula, or Early English Books, though as a
matter of fact this book has not been included in the latter, and his
researches were at a standstill. Finally, quite by accident, Bradshaw
found it in the general catalogue, under the heading, “Bible, Latin,
Parts of, Incipiunt.”
The book is a quarto of eighty-eight leaves, the Museum copy wanting
five. It has a plain colophon stating that it was printed in the town
of St Alban’s in 1481.
After the issue of these six books within a period of about two years,
the printer seems to have ceased work for a time. When he recommenced
in about three years, both the character of his work and of the books
he issued had changed. He gave up the printing of Latin and discarded
the very confused type he had been using previously.
The _Chronicles of England_, one of the two English books issued by
the St Alban’s printer, is undated, but is ascribed to the year 1485.
It agrees generally with the _Chronicles_ printed by Caxton, but
has histories of popes and ecclesiastical matters interpolated. The
prologue states that it was compiled at St Alban’s in 1483, and W. de
Worde tells us that it was compiled and printed by the schoolmaster.
The book is a folio of 290 leaves, and, though at least twelve copies
are known, only one, that in the library of the Marquis of Bath at
Longleat, is perfect. One copy is known printed upon vellum. It
belonged at an early date to the old family library of the Richardsons
of Brierly Hall in Yorkshire, and passed by inheritance to Miss Currer
of Eshton Hall in the same county, herself a collector of some note
in the early part of the nineteenth century. It wanted a leaf and a
half, and four leaves, though original, were printed on paper. On the
advice, I believe, of Dibdin, these four genuine leaves were replaced
by facsimiles on vellum, and the two missing leaves also similarly
supplied. At the Currer sale in 1862 the volume was sold for £365, and
passed later into a private collection.
For the first time at this press we find red printing used for the
initials and paragraph marks; there are also a few diagrams and
one small rough woodcut depicting a jumble of towers, spires, and
turrets, and equally suitable for the two cities which it professes to
represent, London and Rome. At the end is the printer’s device, Italian
in style, a double cross rising from a circle. In the circle is a
shield bearing a saltire cross, the arms alike of the town and abbey of
St Alban’s.
The last book from this press was the famous _Book of St Alban’s_, “the
book of hawking and hunting and also of coat armours.” It is a small
folio of ninety leaves. As might be supposed from its popular nature
copies are now excessively scarce, and out of some dozen which are
known, not one is absolutely perfect. This book marks another advance
in printing, for it contains the earliest known examples of colour
printing in England, the shields of arms being printed in red, blue,
and yellow inks. About the authorship of this book there has been much
controversy. The middle portion, on hunting, which is in verse, ends
with the words, “Explicit Dam Julyans Barnes in her book of hunting.”
The authoress has been variously identified with ladies of very varying
degrees, from the high born if somewhat mythical Juliana Berners,
prioress of the nunnery of Sopwell, down to the lowly dame who wrote it
to instruct the infants who attended St Julian’s school at St Alban’s,
that is St Julian’s bairns!
Of the book of blasyng of arms it is distinctly stated that it was
translated and compiled at St Alban’s, and it seems to have been
derived to a great extent from a treatise on the subject written by
Nicholas Upton in 1441, and dedicated to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester.
Whatever may have been the share taken by Juliana Berners in the two
books of hawking and hunting they were certainly not original work, but
appear to have been derived in great part from a fourteenth-century
treatise, the Venerie de Twety. Hawking, hunting, and a knowledge of
heraldry were considered necessary accomplishments, so that the three
treatises were collected and published in one volume for the education
of “gentlemen and honest persons.” Two types are used in these English
books, the text type, first used in the _Laurentius de Saona_ of 1480
and then superseded, which is a fairly close imitation of Caxton’s type
2*, and a larger church type for headings, used only in the _Book of St
Alban’s_. This last is identical with Caxton’s type 3, and it is clear
that the printer had obtained from Caxton the small amount necessary
for its occasional use. Far too much importance has been attached to
this appearance of Caxton’s type at St Alban’s, and a good deal of
nonsense written about the transference of type to St Alban’s in 1486
and its recurrence in London at a later date. As Caxton possessed the
punches and matrices and type-moulds, there was nothing simpler than
for him to supply sufficient type to his fellow-worker at St Alban’s
to enable him to vary his page by setting up his chapter headings in a
larger type contrasting with the text.
A little over thirty years ago a most preposterous attempt was made
in a series of letters published in the _Athenæum_ to prove that the
schoolmaster printer of St Alban’s was the real printer of many of
the books attributed to Caxton at Westminster. A number of quite
irrelevant assertions were made and vague arguments brought forward
of which the following is apparently the strongest. Because Caxton’s
edition of the _Description of Britain_, printed in 1480, has not
the place of printing mentioned in the colophon, while some of the
later editions speak of the _Chronicles_ and _Description of Britain_
as printed by the schoolmaster of St Alban’s, therefore Caxton’s
edition was printed at St Alban’s. This is surely a quite unwarranted
argument from the fact that W. de Worde preferred to reprint the St
Alban’s edition rather than Caxton’s. The writer sums up as follows.
“Putting all these facts together they form very strong circumstantial
evidence that Caxton had two presses at work at one and the same
time, at Westminster and St Alban’s; that what he could not print at
Westminster, for lack of time and space, he had printed for him by this
schoolmaster at St Alban’s, and that all the books of Caxton’s which
bear no date or place come from St Alban’s.” The writer also asserts
that all Caxton’s early books were printed by him at St Alban’s before
he moved his press to Westminster. One other strange assertion about
the St Alban’s press remains to be noticed. It is both the newest and
the most absurd. Under the article, St Alban’s, in the latest edition
of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, the history of the early press is
summed up in these few lines. “On a printing press, one of the earliest
in the kingdom, set up in the Abbey, the first English translation of
the Bible was printed.”
As at Oxford, the St Alban’s press ceased its work in 1486 for no
reason that we can explain, but most probably owing to competition.
The Oxford and St Alban’s printers must both have seen that in Latin
books they could not hope to compete with their foreign rivals, either
in excellence of workmanship or in cheapness, and each made a final
effort by the production of books in English where foreign rivalry
would not be felt.
Just as at Oxford, too, a second press was at work for a few years in
the sixteenth century, which will be noticed later; but a period of
nearly fifty years elapsed between the stopping of the first, and the
beginning of the second.
York, both as the leading city in the North of England and from its
ecclesiastical importance, was from very early times an important
centre of book production. The text writers and illuminators of
manuscripts had formed themselves into a guild as early as the time of
Edward III., while the bookbinders became a separate company in 1476.
Like most of the leading provincial towns, York was very jealous of
its privileges and made stringent regulations as regards its trade and
business. In 1488 the various crafts connected with books passed a
bye-law enacting that no person, secular or religious, not franchised
or allowed by the craft, should bring in or set out any work. Poor
priests were allowed to augment their salaries by the practice of text
writing and illumination, and any priest might write and illuminate
books provided they were for his own use, or to be given away in
charity.
York books may be divided into three groups. 1. Those actually printed
in York. 2. Those printed elsewhere but containing a York stationer’s
name. 3. Those printed elsewhere, without a stationer’s name, but
obviously intended for sale in the city.
The earliest book connected with York belongs to the last group. It is
a _Breviary_ for York use, and was printed at Venice by a well-known
printer of such books, Johann Hamman or Hertzog of Landau in 1493, at
the costs of Frederick Egmont, an English bookseller. The book is a
beautifully printed octavo of 478 leaves, printed in double columns
in red and black. One copy only is known, now in the Bodleian. It
belonged at one time to Ralph Thoresby, the Yorkshire antiquary, then
to Marmaduke Fothergill, whose widow presented his library to the
Dean and Chapter of York in 1731. This volume, however, did not reach
the Minster library, but passed into the collection of Edward Jacob,
the antiquary, who died in 1788. At his sale it was bought by Richard
Gough. Gough in his will bequeathed his topographical collections
to the Bodleian, and English service books being connected with the
uses of Salisbury, York, and Hereford were fortunately classed as
topography. By this means the liturgical collections of the Bodleian
were increased with thirty-nine _Missals_, twenty-one _Breviaries_,
twenty-five _Horæ_ and twenty-one _Manuals_ and _Processionals_ besides
_Psalters_, _Hymnals_, _Graduals_, and other books.
This _Breviary_ is the only book printed for York in the fifteenth
century, yet though text writing seems to have flourished well up to
1500, the importation of printed books soon showed the advantage of
printing over writing, and the stationers began to commission service
books.
The first York stationer was Frederick Freez, who was admitted a
freeman of the city of York in 1497 as a bookbinder and stationer. He
may also have been a printer, for in the records of a lawsuit held at
York in 1510 he is styled “buke-prynter,” and fellow-townsmen would
hardly have called him this without reason. Nothing printed by him is
known, though Herbert suggests that a proclamation on vellum of the
time of Henry VII. issued at York, mentioned by Bagford, might have
been printed by him. In 1500 he and his wife, Joanna, were admitted
members of the Corpus Christi Guild. In March 1506 the Corporation
passed an order “that Frederick Freez, a Dutchman and an alien
enfranchised, should dwell and inhabit upon the common ground at the
Rose, otherwise the Bull in Conyngestrete, for ten years, at three
pounds yearly rent.” Freez is spoken of as a Dutchman, and his proper
name was no doubt Vries or De Vries. For some reason, perhaps through
marriage, the name, Freez, was changed to Wandsforth, a not uncommon
Yorkshire name, and, though Frederick does not seem to have used it
himself, his brother, Gerard, certainly assumed it, and in his will
calls both himself and his brother Wandsforth, making no reference to
his original name, Freez.
Frederick is but a shadowy person. His name is found in no colophon,
and the only definite connexion with book-selling of which we have
evidence, is the inevitable lawsuit, for Pynson brought an action
against him in 1505. He was certainly still alive in 1515, when he
is mentioned as living in the parish of St Helen on the Walls. He is
known to have had two sons, Valentine and Edward. The first took up his
freedom by patrimony in 1539, but he appears soon after to have fallen
a victim, with his wife, to religious persecution. Fuller writes of
them, “They were both of them born in the city and both gave their
lives therein at one stake for the testimony of Jesus Christ, probably
by order from Edward Lee, the cruel Archbishop.” Though Fuller, relying
on Foxe, assigns this event to the impossible date of 1531, the account
may be taken as founded on fact.
The other son, Edward, who, according to Foxe, had been apprenticed at
York to be a painter and was afterwards a novice monk, was convicted
of heresy at Colchester through painting texts upon the walls of the
inn which he was decorating. He was imprisoned in London, his wife and
child were cruelly killed, and he himself so barbarously treated that
he never afterwards recovered his wits.
The first York stationer, whose name is found in a printed colophon,
is Gerard Freez, or Wandsforth, as he more often called himself, the
brother of Frederick Freez. The first book printed for him was an
edition of the _Expositio Hymnorum et Sequentiarum_, produced by Pierre
Violette at Rouen in 1507. A perfect copy of both parts is in the John
Rylands Library, which was formerly in the wonderful collection formed
by Richard Vaughan at Hengwrt; an imperfect copy is in the Bodleian,
and copy of the _Expositio Sequentiarum_ is in the Bibliotheca
Columbiniana at Seville. Though this book is an edition of the ordinary
Exposition of the Hymns and Sequences according to Salisbury use, yet
the words “ad usum Sarum” have been omitted from the title, perhaps as
being considered prejudicial to its sale in York. On the title-page is
a woodcut of a scholar seated at his desk, and its occurrence here in
a book with Violette’s name was the means of identifying the printer of
the first book printed for sale in Scotland, a grammatical treatise by
Joannes de Garlandia, which has the same woodcut on the title-page. The
year previous to printing this York _Expositio_, Violette had printed a
Sarum _Expositio Sequentiarum_, and presumably an _Expositio Hymnorum_
now lost, for Andrew Myllar at Edinburgh.
About this time editions were also issued of the _Missal_, _Breviary_,
and _Directory_ of York use. Of the _Missal_, apparently only two
copies, both imperfect, are known. When perfect it consisted of 232
leaves, with two columns of forty-three lines. The colophon states that
it was printed “impensis honesti viri Petri Violette,” but Violette was
himself the printer, and his name occurs engraved in the large initial
M on the title-page. The book has no date, but may be assigned to about
1507, and the copy sold in the Cholmley sale in 1902 contained the
autograph of Dr Martin Colyns, an official of the court of York who
died in 1509. The other copy known is the fine copy in the Bodleian,
which wants only leaf 117, the leaf preceding the Canon of the Mass,
which would have contained a woodcut of the Crucifixion. The _Breviary_
is known from a single copy formerly in the collection of Mr Blew, and
now in the University Library. It is a small octavo volume containing
both parts, the Pars Hiemalis and the Pars Æstivalis, and, if perfect,
should have filled about 600 leaves. It is, however, very imperfect,
wanting both beginning and end, title-page and colophon, so that any
information which either might have contained is now lost.
Of the last book, the _Directorium_, no copy is known, but we know of
its existence from documentary evidence to be referred to later.
On one of his journeys, presumably to sell books, Gerard Wandsforth
was taken ill at King’s Lynn in Norfolk. There on October 3, 1510,
immediately before his death, he executed his will. He described
himself as a stationer of York, and desired to be buried within the
church of St Margaret before the chapel of the Holy Trinity at Lynn.
He adds the clause, “Also I require for the love of Jhesu Christ for
to be a brother of the Trinity guild kept there, and to pay therfor as
the custom of the guild requireth.” To his brother, Frederick, and his
brother’s son, Valentine (there is no mention of Edward), he leaves
legacies. Then follows, “To Richard Watterson of London xl. s., to the
which Richard, Mr Wynkyn de Word, can inform you. Item I giff to the
said Mr Wynkyn xl. s., which I howght him.” The executors were his
brother Frederick, Ralph Pulleyn, a goldsmith of York, and Mr Maynard
Weywik of London. The will was proved at York on October 24. As there
is no mention of wife or children, we may presume he was unmarried. The
bequests to Richard Waterson and Wynkyn de Worde are interesting. We do
not know at present of any Richard Waterson, a stationer in London, but
a Henry Watson, and the names are easily confused, was at the time an
apprentice to W. de Worde, and we have a reference to another book not
now known, printed at London by Hugo Goes, who printed later at York,
and Henry Watson. The coincidence of names, though it may not mean
anything, is certainly curious. From his owing money to De Worde we may
presume he obtained stock from him, and we find all the York printers
and stationers had dealings of one sort or another with De Worde.
Ralph Pulleyn, the goldsmith, seems to have acted towards Wandsforth
as Fust did to the first printer Gutenberg, advancing money to assist
him in trade. The third executor, Mr Mayner Weywik, is passed over
without notice by Davies in the account of the will in the _History
of the York Press_, but his connexion is fairly easily explained. In
the lists of persons admitted to the freedom of York in 1529-30 is a
stationer, Johannes Warwyke, son of Edward Warwyke, merchant. Thus the
Warwyke family were connected with York and also with the business of
a stationer. Mr Mayner Warwyke, who was like Ralph Pulleyn, a partner
with Wandsforth, appears to have renounced his executorship and sold
his share in the business to Pulleyn. Probably as he lived in London
he did not see his way, after Wandsforth’s death, to continuing in the
business at York.
Shortly after the proving of the will in October 1510, probably at the
beginning of 1511, a suit was brought by Frederick Wandsforth against
his co-executor, Ralph Pulleyn, and the evidence brought forward throws
a considerable amount of light on the early York book trade. The
following abstract of the proceedings is given by Davies.
“It appears that the testator, Gerard Wandsforth, his friend Ralph
Pulleyn, and another friend Mr Manard (Mr Mayner Weywick), had made a
considerable purchase of books as co-partners in equal third shares.
The books, which, it is stated, were bought in France, consisted of
252 missals, 399 portifers (breviaries), and 570 Picas all printed
upon paper. The whole were consigned to the care of Wandsforth, who
deposited them in a room or chamber of his house, near the church of
St John del Pyke at York, of which chamber Ralph Pulleyn had a key.
As soon as the death of Wandsforth became known at York, Pulleyn
hastened to the house of the deceased and took possession of all
the books deposited there, not only those which had been bought in
partnership, but others which were the sole property of Wandsforth, and
caused them to be carried to his own house in Petergate. He alleged
he was justified in taking this course by having advanced money to
Wandsforth to enable him to defray the cost of printing some books
and purchasing others. It was natural that Frederick, the testator’s
brother, should feel much aggrieved by Pulleyn’s grasping conduct, and
upon their encountering each other in the street of Petergate, near
Pulleyn’s residence, high words passed between them which ended in
an affray. When Frederick charged the goldsmith with detaining from
him the property he was entitled to as his brother’s executor, and
thus preventing him from paying his brother’s debts and legacies, and
fulfilling the trusts of his will in other respects, Pulleyn said to
him, ‘You shall have your brother’s goods delivered to you that ever I
had of his.’ But when they went together to Pulleyn’s house only part
of the books were offered to be given up, and these Frederick refused
to accept, insisting upon having the whole. It was then that, to
enforce his rights, he resorted to legal proceedings against Pulleyn.
Whilst the suit was pending, the contending parties were induced, by
the good offices of friends, to agree to refer all matters in dispute
to the arbitration of Sir John Symson, priest, one of the vicars
choral of the cathedral, and Mr John Scauseby, a gentlemen residing in
Goodramgate, and a formal deed of reference was executed. The books
which had been purchased by the testator, jointly with Pulleyn and
Manard, they divided into three equal parts and had them valued by John
More, a moneylender, who lived in Walmgate, whose estimate amounted to
the sum of £86, 19s. 8d. Those belonging solely to the testator, of
which Pulleyn had taken possession, consisted of about 300 volumes,
some bound and some not bound, which were estimated to be worth about
£20. These were chiefly books used in the services of the church, as
Primaria, Doctrinalia, Hymni et Sequentiæ; with some Alphabeta, and
others, both in Latin and English, the titles of which unfortunately
are not stated. The award of the arbitrators was in favour of Frederick
Wandsworth, the complainant in the suit. It was pronounced in the
presence of Ursin Milnour, and three other persons, who are described
as laics of the respective dioceses of Rouen, Durham, and York.”
The original documents of this suit are still preserved in the registry
of the Dean and Chapter of York, and it is much to be desired that a
full reprint of them might be issued, as it is clear that they contain
many points of interest passed over by Davies in his abstract, as well
as names which might afford valuable evidence.
The books belonging to Wandsforth which are mentioned by name are,
we have seen, _Primaria_, _Doctrinalia_, _Alphabeta_, and _Hymni et
Sequentiæ_.
The only trace of an early York _Horæ_ or _Primer_ now known is an
unfolded imperfect quarter-sheet containing six out of eight leaves
of signature P among the Bagford fragments in the British Museum.
The book was of very small size, a 32º with fourteen lines to a full
page printed in black and red. The type is apparently Pynson’s, and
it is the only known book printed by him connected with York. But
another proof of his connexion with York has lately come to light, for
there has been found in the Plea Rolls for 1505 a notice of a lawsuit
brought by Pynson against Frederick Frees, bookseller of York, for
£5, 10s. 6d., perhaps relating to this very book. The _Doctrinalia_
and _Alphabeta_ were presumably school books, while the _Hymni et
Sequentiæ_ belonged to the edition already described. The foreign
printed books belonging jointly to the partners consisted of _Missals_,
_Breviaries_, and _Picas_. The _Missal_ and _Breviary_, printed at
Rouen by Violette, have already been described, but no copy of a
foreign printed York _Pica_ (or _Directorium_) is known. An edition,
shortly to be described, was printed in York in February 1509-10, which
is described in the colophon as revised and amended, and perhaps it was
reprinted from the lost foreign edition. Its competition might account
for the large number (570) remaining of the earlier edition in the
hands of Wandsforth’s executors.
The books actually printed in York are six in number, and are the work
of two printers, Hugo Goes and Ursyn Mylner. Goes has been conjectured
from his name to have been related to Matthias van der Goes, a printer
of Antwerp, but for this no proof is forthcoming. In 1509-10 he printed
an edition of the York _Directorium_, of which two copies are known,
one in York Minster wanting about fifteen leaves, the other in the
library of Sidney Sussex College wanting only the last leaf, which
would either have been blank or have contained a printer’s device.
Davies in his _History of the York Press_ has been singularly
unfortunate in his account of this book. He quotes the very inaccurate
transcript of the colophon printed by Ames, and then adds: “Neither the
copy in the library of Sidney Sussex College nor that belonging to the
Dean and Chapter of York now contains the leaf upon which this colophon
was printed. It is to the valuable work of Ames that we are indebted
for the only record of it that has been preserved.” Davies or his
informant was probably misled by its occurring three pages before the
end of the book. It gives full information, stating that the book was
printed at York by Hugo Goes in the street called Steengate on the 18th
of February 1509. The work begins with a preface by Thomas Hannibal,
doctor of laws and canon of York, who, later, brought the golden rose
from the Pope to Henry VIII., praising the edition as revised and
corrected by Thomas Hothyrsall, vicar choral of the Minster. Then
follows another preface in which it is stated that “the pica with
its table which was composed by Robert Avissede, priest and formerly
chaplain of the church of St Gregory in the great city of York, will
last as long as the world endures.” It has still 118 years to run.
The book is printed with a fount of type which had belonged to Wynkyn
de Worde, and which he had discarded shortly after 1500.
Besides the _Directorium_ Goes is credited with two other books,
editions of the _Donatus Minor cum Remigio_ and _Accidence_. In 1664
Christopher Hildyard, a barrister in York, issued a little book on the
antiquities of the city, and his own copy with manuscript additions is
now in the British Museum. One of his notes relates to these books, of
which he gives a fairly full description with the titles and imprints.
They were bound up with a grammar printed by W. de Worde in 1506. He
ends his note thus: “The book I have by me, new bound up by Mr Mawburn
of York, bookseller, 1667, July 12.” Of the Wynkyn de Worde grammar
of 1506, we know of an imperfect copy in the library at Lambeth, but
of the two grammars printed by Goes in the Steengate, all traces have
disappeared. Hildyard’s description is so clear and exact that there is
no reason whatever for doubting his accuracy, and we can only hope that
they have not been destroyed, but may be rediscovered some day on some
unexplored library shelf.
What became of Goes is not known, but his name is connected with
another very mysterious lost book. Amongst the numerous manuscript
collections made by John Bagford, with a view to writing a history of
printing, is the following entry, copied apparently from a colophon.
“Donatus cum Remigio impressus Londiniis juxta Charing Cross per me
Hugonem Goes and Henery Watson with the printers device H. G.” Puzzling
as this entry is, I think it must be taken as representing something
which Bagford had seen, for he was hardly clever enough to invent, if
it is a forgery, so tantalisingly ingenious an imprint. He would not
have known, unless he carefully studied prefaces and epilogues, that at
this time W. de Worde had in his employment an assistant named Henry
Watson, nor was his eye correct enough to recognise that the type used
by Goes at York was obtained from W. de Worde, even had he seen a
copy of the York _Directorium_, which is most improbable. Yet here he
combines in one address as partners two men who had both been closely
connected with Wynkyn de Worde.
Whatever may be said against Bagford, there is no doubt that he was
assiduous, if not always very accurate, in transcribing titles and
imprints of scarce books that came in his way, and it is from his
memoranda that much information on missing books has been recovered.
Whether Goes worked in London before or after his sojourn in York, is
impossible to determine until some further information, or the lost
_Donatus_ itself, is forthcoming. The earliest printer, at present
known, who was established near Charing Cross is Robert Wyer, who was
at work as early as 1524. Ames, under H. Goes, gives the vague entry:
“He also printed a Latin Grammar at London in quarto, formerly among
Lord Oxford’s books,” but this may merely be derived from Bagford’s
notes. Lastly Ames quotes a broadside in the possession of Thomas
Martyn, “A wooden cut of a man on horseback with a spear in his right
hand and a shield, with the arms of France, in his left. Emprynted at
Beverlay in the Hye-gate by me Hewe Goes, with his mark or rebus of a
great H and a goose.” Martyn died in 1771, and since his time no trace
of this broadside has been found.
Ursyn Mylner, the second printer in York, has a much clearer history
than his predecessor. He was born in 1481, but we find no mention of
him until 1511, unless he is the Ursyn who supplied some books for
the King’s library in 1502. In 1511 he was a witness in the lawsuit
which we have previously described. About 1513 he printed two _Nova
Festa_ of York use. The first is an edition of the _Festum Visitationis
Beate Marie Virginis_, and the colophon stated that it was newly
printed by Ursyn Mylner dwelling in the churchyard of the minster
of St Peter. This book was chronicled by Ames as in the collection
of Thomas Rawlinson, and again I must add the sad statement, all
traces of it have since been lost. I searched through Rawlinson’s
sale catalogue--sixteen volumes--without result, but last year in the
Bodleian I came across a note-book among the Rawlinson manuscripts in
which he had entered fairly full notices of some of his books, and here
I found the colophon as given by Ames. The date of the book can be
accurately settled. In 1513 the Convocation of York ordered the Feast
of the Visitation to be kept as a Festum Principale; by 1516 Mylner had
moved to a new address.
The second of the _Nova Festa_ was a small supplement to the Sanctorale
of the _Breviary_ and the only copy known, found in the binding of
a book, is in the library of Emmanuel College. The book in which it
was found was printed in 1512, and from the fact that these leaves,
which are printer’s waste, were used in the binding, this binding may
perhaps be attributed to Mylner. The tract consists of four leaves
in 8°, with thirty-three and thirty-four lines to the page, and
commences with a large initial P printed in colour. The text is in
red and black, and many of the lines end with small type-ornaments.
It is slightly mutilated, but has most of the colophon, which runs:
“Impressum Ebor per me Ursin Mylner commemorantem in simiterio
ministerii Sancti Petri.” In the colophons to both these _Nova Festa_
we find _commemorantem_ in place of _commorantem_. It is probably
the tract referred to vaguely in the introduction to Wordsworth and
Proctor’s edition of the Sarum _Breviary_ as “An English monastic
Breviary supplement, with anthems and responds for St Thomas and St
Edmund of Canterbury, was printed at York about 1513.” Presumably their
information about it was obtained from Henry Bradshaw. In the more
recently issued book on the Old English Service Books, York is credited
with no printed _Nova Festa_.
After printing these two small tracts Mylner moved to a new workshop.
In the lawsuit of 1511 he was spoken of as living in the parish of
St Michael le Belfry, and the two tracts were printed “in cimiterio
ministerii Sancti Petri,” but both addresses probably refer to the same
place, as the church of St Michael’s le Belfry stands alongside the
minster on the south side. A small passage adjoining this church, and
forming the south entrance to the minster close, was formerly known as
Bookbinders Alley.
[Illustration: COLOPHON AND DEVICES FROM WHITINTON’S GRAMMAR, PRINTED
AT YORK BY URSYN MYLNER IN 1516. ]
Mylner moved to Blake Street in the parish of St Helen. It seems
probable that his earlier shop, within the precincts of the minster,
would be in the liberties, and outside the jurisdiction of the
municipal authorities, but Blake Street was another matter, and he
would not be allowed to carry on his business as a printer without
having been admitted to the freedom of the city. In 1515-16, therefore,
we find the name Ursyn Mylner, prynter, entered on the roll of freemen.
He did not obtain his freedom by patrimony, so that he had probably
served his full term of apprenticeship.
In December 1516 he issued a _Grammar_ of Whitinton. It is a small
quarto of twenty-four leaves and only one copy is known. It was sold
in Thomas Rawlinson’s sale in 1727 for one shilling, being bought by
his brother Richard, and at the latter’s sale it was bought by M. C.
Tutet; it is now in the British Museum. On the title-page is a woodcut
of a schoolmaster with three pupils seated on a bench before him. This
woodcut originally belonged to Govaert van Ghemen, who used it at Gouda
in an _Opusculum grammaticale_ printed there in 1486. About 1490, when
he moved to Copenhagen, he parted with some of his material, and this
cut, with a fount of type and some woodcut initials, passed into the
hands of Wynkyn de Worde, who used it in several grammars issued about
1500. At the end of the book, below the colophon, is the printer’s
device. This consists of a shield hanging from a tree supported by a
bear, an allusion to the name Ursyn, and an ass. The shield is divided
per pale, and bears on the one half a windmill, on the other a sun. The
mill is obviously for Mylner, but what the sun is for is not clear. We
see that Mylner had some connexion with Wynkyn de Worde, whose sign was
the sun; and it is perhaps just possible that this might refer to some
trade partnership between the two men. Below the device is an oblong
cut containing a ribbon in which the name Ursin Mylner is printed in
full. In the centre is his trade-mark.
In this same year we find him mentioned as a bookbinder, entered in the
accounts of the minster as paid for binding books for the choir.
After 1516 we find no further mention of Mylner. He was then only about
thirty-five years old and may possibly have moved elsewhere; but no
trace of him is found. From this time onwards to 1533 almost the whole
York book-trade was in the hands of John Gachet, a stationer from
France. Gachet’s name is first found in 1509, when, in partnership with
another stationer, Jacques Ferrebouc, he commissioned Wynkyn de Worde
to print for him an edition of the York _Manual_. This _Manual_ is a
very curious book. The colophon states clearly that it was printed in
London by Wynkyn de Worde dwelling in the street called Fleet Street
at the sign of the Sun, or in St Paul’s Churchyard under the image of
Our Lady of Pity, for John Gachet and James Ferrebouc, partners. In
spite of this assertion it is plain that the book was printed abroad.
The paper, the type of the text and music staves, the illustrations,
all are obviously foreign, and the particular device of De Worde on
the title-page is only found in books printed for him in Paris. The
colophon unfortunately does not state where Gachet and Ferrebouc were
living, but the latter was certainly just before and after 1509 in
Paris. Perhaps Gachet may have been the travelling member of the firm
and have journeyed as far as York on his business tours. By 1514 he
was certainly settled there, for in that year he was admitted a brother
of the Corpus Christi Guild. In 1516 and 1517 he published a series of
service books, a _Missal_, a _Processional_, a _Manual_, a _Hymnal_,
and a _Book of Hours_.
The _Missal_ is a fine folio of 200 leaves, and there is a perfect copy
with two leaves printed on vellum, which formerly belonged to Bishop
Moore, in the University Library. Another copy, slightly imperfect,
was given to Pembroke College Library by the Master, Bishop Launcelot
Andrews, in 1589. Besides these, five other copies are known. The
initial M of the word Missale on the title-page is a very large and
elaborate letter, having a scroll up the centre limb on which is
engraved the printer’s name M. P. Holivier. Similar ornamental letters
containing their names were used by other Rouen printers, such as Morin.
The _Processional_ is without date, and the colophon states that it was
printed at Rouen by Olivier for John Gachet, alias de France. A copy
of this edition is at Ripon, and there are perhaps others; but both Dr
Henderson, in his list of York service books, and Davies have mixed up
this edition with the later dated edition of 1530.
Of the _Manual_, also undated, only one copy is known, in the library
bequeathed to Dublin by Narcissus Marsh, the Archbishop. It has no name
of printer, but only the statement on the title that it was printed
for Gachet. The _Hymnal_ is known from two copies, one in the British
Museum, and another in the library of St John’s College, Cambridge.
It fortunately has a full imprint and colophon stating that it was
printed for Gachet by Olivier and finished on the 5th of February 1517.
By an oversight in the printing of the Museum copy, four pages have
been left quite blank.
After issuing this series of service books Gachet left York and moved
to Hereford, where he published a book in May, but of his movements
during the next few years we know nothing. Soon after his leaving
York, two Rouen booksellers issued a _Missal_ and _Book of Hours_,
but in the interval between 1517 and 1526 no York books were issued.
In this latter year Gachet once more appeared at York and published a
_Breviary_, printed for him at Paris by François Regnault, the first
York book printed at a Paris press, most of the previous service books
having been printed at Rouen.
Between 1530 and 1533 Gachet issued another series of service books,
two _Missals_, a _Processional_, and a _Breviary_. A _Missal_ and a
_Processional_ were issued in 1530, and, though neither contains a
printer’s name, they were certainly printed at Rouen. On the title-page
of the _Missal_ is the large M with the name Holivier engraved upon
it, but by 1530 Olivier had ceased to print, and the book may be
ascribed to his successor, Nicholas le Roux. Three copies are known
of this _Missal_, two in Oxford and one in Marsh’s Library, Dublin.
One of the Oxford copies was, sometime in the seventeenth century,
bound in two volumes, with most disastrous results, for now one volume
is in the Bodleian, the other in the library of Queen’s College. The
_Processional_ is an octavo of ninety-six leaves. Both Dr Henderson
and Davies have in their descriptions confused this edition with the
earlier undated one issued about 1516. The present has the date 1530
upon the title-page, but contains no name of printer or place; the
colophon merely states that it was printed for Gachet. The copy in
the Bodleian is a very fine one and contains the signature J. Brooke,
probably Sir John Brooke, the Yorkshire Royalist. It is in its original
binding apparently executed in York, as the boards are lined with
unused sheets of the York _Breviary_ printed for Gachet in 1526. The
British Museum copy has four quires, that signed F and the last three,
printed in a different type, though the text agrees page for page with
the ordinary copies. In them the colophon ends, “Impressum expensis
honesti viri Johannis Gachet, in eadem civitate commorantis,” but in
the Museum impression the final words, “in eadem civitate commorantis,”
have been omitted. No edition is known from which these four quires
in the Museum copy could have been taken. It may be that the original
stock of these sheets was damaged in some way and reprints made to
supply their place, an occurrence of which several examples are known,
otherwise they are the only remains of an edition now lost.
The last book with a York stationer’s name in the colophon was a
_Breviary_ printed in August 1533 by Regnault at Paris for Gachet. In
the same year Regnault printed a _Missal_. This has not Gachet’s name
in the colophon, but was to be sold at Paris in the Rue St Jacques
at the sign of the Elephant, Regnault’s own address. Regnault had
been the most important printer of English service books, and we know
from a letter written by him to Cromwell in 1536, that he had a
place of business in London from which he supplied the booksellers.
By that time, however, his trade in such books had almost altogether
disappeared.
Perhaps on account of the restrictions placed upon alien stationers by
the act of 1534, we find among others taking out letters of denization
in 1535 “John Gachet, alias Frenchman, of the city of York bookbinder,
from the dominion of the King of France,” but we find no further
mention of him as dealing in books, nor do we know anything of his
later career. We meet, however, with other members of the family. In
1543 John Gachet, Frenchman, of the parish of St Michael le Belfry,
occurs in a list of soldiers sent from York to Newcastle. If this
was a son of our stationer, he died shortly afterwards, as in 1551
administration of the effects of John Gachet, son of John Gachet of
York, stationer, dying at Rawcliffe, was granted to George Gachet, his
brother. A William Gachet, stationer, was admitted to the freedom of
the city in 1549-50, and the will of another William Gachet of York is
dated 1551.
The books which had been printed specially for York booksellers had
consisted entirely of service books, and about 1534 most of these
ceased to be printed, being suppressed or falling into disuse. Thus
though we afterwards find a continuous succession of stationers at
York, no books are known specially printed for them. The enterprising
stationers had all been foreigners, and foreigners were not viewed with
favour in York or elsewhere at that period. They seem to have absorbed
most of the trade to the detriment of the natives, so that we find
in 1554 the Company of Bookbinders and Stationers of York passing a
bye-law that no stranger or foreigner should sell any book or books
within the city, except freemen of the same city. Earlier acts had
prohibited the taking of foreign apprentices, so that the acts and
this bye-law combined absolutely prohibited any foreigner engaging in
the book trade in the city. The later stationers were all natives; and
if they had energy they did not show it in the form of commissioning
books. When the service books began to be reissued in Mary’s reign,
no York stationer’s name is connected with them. Of those that were
issued all were printed in London and sold by London booksellers. Then
came the Stationers’ Charter of 1557 and with it the extinction of the
provincial trade.
From the Fabric rolls of York Minster, from the registers of freemen,
and from various other sources, we obtain the names of a number of
bookbinders who worked at York during the latter half of the fifteenth
and the first half of the sixteenth centuries. A Thomas Messingham
bound books for the Minster in red leather, probably the bright red
deer skin often found at that period. Frederick Freez is called
bookbinder, and about 1494 Peter Moreaux, another bookbinder, was made
a freeman. John Welles, John Meltynbe and John Gowthwaite took up
their freedom as bookbinders before 1557, and others, Thomas Newell
and Edward Huby, who were not freemen, are mentioned in accounts as
binders. Unfortunately we cannot point to any definite bindings as
produced by these men, but it is not improbable that a full and careful
examination of the old bindings preserved in the Minster Library might
produce some good results, at any rate this source of information still
remains to be worked. A late writer on bookbinding, with more daring
than discretion, ascribes one or two marks found on bindings to York
binders. He writes as follows: “G. W., whose trade-mark occurs on the
covers of many books bound in England, exercised his craft between 1489
and 1510. Either he or his son was probably associated later on with
another stationer, I. G.; an elegantly designed stamp bearing both
cyphers adorns many bindings executed between 1512 and 1535. These
may perhaps be the trade-marks of Gerard Freez or Wandsforth, brother
of Frederick, bookseller and binder of York, 1507-10, and of John
Gachet, stationer and bookseller of Hereford and York, who was still
carrying on business in 1535.” This is all futile suggestion. Gerard
Wandsforth, who died in 1510, left no children, and John Gachet did
not come to York until after Wandsforth was dead. Moreover the mark
assigned by this authority to G. Wandsforth and read as G. W. is by
all rules of traders’ marks W. G. If anything is discovered about York
bookbinding, it will not be by this class of idle speculation. All that
can be said is that we know of numerous York bookbinders, so that very
many bindings were produced there, and no doubt numbers still remain
awaiting identification.
In Gachet’s career as a stationer, a long period, the nine years
between 1517 and 1526, remains unaccounted for. He had published a
series of York service books in 1516 and 1517, the last, a _Hymnal_,
being dated February 5, 1517. For some reason he became dissatisfied
with York, and moved to seek business elsewhere, and in May 1517 he
appears to have been living in Hereford, where he issued an edition of
the _Ortus Vocabulorum_ with his name in the colophon.
Though printing was not actually practised in Hereford, three books at
least are known which were printed for sale there. In 1502 the very
beautiful Hereford _Missal_ was printed at Rouen by Pierre Olivier
and Jean Mauditier for a Rouen stationer, Jean Richard. We know
accidentally that about the time this _Missal_ was printed Richard was
in England, for he was party to a lawsuit at Oxford, and he may have
journeyed to Hereford to dispose of this book. But though intended
for sale in the diocese, the imprint contains no mention of any local
stationer. In 1505 a Hereford _Breviary_ was issued by a stationer
named Ingelbert Haghe, who was under the patronage, as he expressly
tells us in the preface, of that “illustrissima virago” Margaret,
countess of Richmond and Derby, a generous patroness of printers. Haghe
was himself originally a Rouen stationer, but had come over and settled
in England. On some loose leaves in the Bodleian originally forming the
lining of the binding of a bible is an inscription stating that the
book was bought from Ingelbert the Hereford bookseller in 1510 about
the day of the Lichfield fair. The Hereford _Breviary_ is a very rare
book. The Bodleian has the Pars Estivalis which came from the Colbert
sale. A copy was in Richard Smith’s sale in 1682, when it was sold
for three shillings and eightpence. This may be the copy given at the
end of the seventeenth century to Worcester Cathedral Library by Dr
George Benson, prebendary of Worcester and dean of Hereford. The third
copy known is in private hands. It would seem that Ingelbert and his
patroness Margaret quarrelled over the production of this book, for in
the plea-rolls of 1505, the year in which it was issued, he is cited
as defendant in a suit brought by Margaret, Countess of Richmond, the
King’s mother, to recover the sum of one hundred shillings. He is there
called stationer and bookseller of London, so that he may have had a
shop in both places. Unfortunately we have only the mere mention of the
case without any reference to its purpose, but the coincidence of the
date and the known connexion of the Lady Margaret with the issue of the
_Breviary_ make it probable that it formed the subject of the dispute.
The only other Hereford book known is an edition of the _Ortus
Vocabulorum_, of which the only known copy, once in the magnificent
collection of Richard Vaughan of Hengwrt, is now in the Rylands
Library, Manchester. The colophon states that it was printed in 1517
at Rouen by Eustace Hardy at the costs of Jean Caillard, a stationer
in business at Rouen, and John Gachet living at Hereford. The copy is
quite perfect and in good condition, and has the further interest of
being in its original stamped binding. After this single venture we
hear no more of Gachet at Hereford, or of anything being published
there.
LECTURE III.
OXFORD SECOND PRESS AND CAMBRIDGE.
After an interval of about thirty years the Oxford press restarted on
a brief career, this time apparently with the official sanction of the
University. The first book issued was a commentary by W. Burley _Super
libros posteriorum Aristotelis_. It is a small tract of ten leaves, and
was finished on December 4, 1517. The printer, John Scolar, lived in
St John’s Street, near Merton College. Nothing is known of him before
he appears at Oxford as a printer, and nothing of his career in the
University. Mr Madan remarks, “Although Scolar uses the arms of the
University (their earliest occurrence in print), yet the registers of
the University almost ignore the fact that for the second time the
greatest literary invention since speech and writing were known was
silently at work in its midst.” The expression “almost ignore” is
rather disingenuous. Whether the registers did or did not ignore John
Scolar we shall never know, since the volume covering the years from
1515 to 1526 is lost.
The text and notes of this volume are printed in two sizes of
black-letter type, apparently identical with that used by Wynkyn de
Worde. Some of the initials and the woodcut at the end are certainly
his, and it would appear as though Scolar had obtained from him the
type which had been used for printing the work of Sirectus, published a
year or two earlier at Oxford by Jacobi.
The next book, finished on May 15, 1518, is Dedicus’ _Questiones super
libros Ethicorum Aristotelis_. A very interesting fact about it is the
statement on the last leaf that the printer had a privilege for it for
seven years granted by the Chancellor. No one was to print it in the
University or sell copies printed elsewhere under pain of confiscation
of the books and a fine of five pounds sterling. The notice ends with
the expressive Latin adage, “Cornicum oculos configere noli.”
This is the first privilege which I have found in an English printed
book, the next, six months later, having been granted by the King for
Cuthbert Tonstall’s _Oratio in laudem matrimonii Mariæ et Francisci_.
This privilege prevented anyone either reprinting it in England or
selling foreign printed copies for the space of two years. This may
seem a short time, but the subject was only of passing interest. The
rise, growth, and scope of these privileges, which are the foundations
of copyright, form a subject which has hitherto received little or no
attention even from writers on copyright, though I think it would go
far to prove that the perpetual copyright, which later on was claimed
by the stationers, was never legally recognised, but that the power
granted them by the charter enabled them to impose and uphold arbitrary
restrictions which were not legally binding.
On the title-page of this and the preceding work is John Scolar’s
device, the shield of the University surmounted by a cap and supported
by two angels. On the shield are the arms, the book with seven seals
between the three crowns, but the motto on the book in place of the
present “Dominus illuminatio mea” is “Veritas liberabit, bonitas
regnavit.” Another woodcut containing the Royal arms and supporters is
used in these books, which had been used previously by W. de Worde.
In June 1518 three books were printed: _Questiones de luce et lumine_,
a tract of eight leaves, Burley’s _Principia_, also of eight leaves,
and a Grammar of Whitinton. A new Oxford book from Scolar’s press was
discovered recently in a volume of tracts in the British Museum. It is
an edition of the _Opus insolubilium_, a text-book for the schools.
It consisted originally of four leaves, but the last is unfortunately
missing. On the first leaf is the woodcut of the University arms in
fresh condition. This tract may perhaps be the first production of
Scolar’s press.
The _Questiones de luce et lumine_ has on the title-page a small rough
woodcut depicting the visit of the Magi, belonging to a series made to
illustrate a _Book of Hours_; and on the title of Burley’s _Principia_
is a small neat woodcut, rather Italian in style, of a master seated
before a desk with a pupil standing before him. At the end is a woodcut
of the arms of England supported by the greyhound and dragon. Below are
two portcullises, and above two angels hold ribbons bearing the motto
“Hec rosa virtutis de celo missa sereno
Eternum florens regia sceptra feret.”
This woodcut was part of the material obtained by the Oxford printer
from W. de Worde, and which after the cessation of the press was
returned to him. We find him using it in some of his later books, by
which time it had become slightly damaged by wormholes.
We hear no more of Scolar in Oxford after 1518, when he probably left
the city; but his place was taken by Charles Kyrfoth, who issued in
February 1519 a _Compotus manualis ad usum Oxoniensium_, a little
treatise of arithmetic illustrated by wood engravings of the open hand
with values attached to each part. It is a small tract of eight leaves,
and we learn from Dorne’s accounts that its price was one penny. In the
colophon Kyrfoth gives his address, as did Scolar, as St John’s Street,
and as he used the same device of the University Arms, we may conclude
he had taken on Scolar’s business. On the title-page is a large and
curious woodcut divided horizontally into three portions. In the upper
is a row of seven books. In the centre a master in an embroidered robe
and crowned with laurel is seated at a desk, while on either side of
him are scholars taking notes. In the lower part are five men in gowns
holding books. In the text are four diagrams of hands. The only copy
known of this book is in the University Library. Beyond the occurrence
of his name in this colophon we know nothing further of Kyrfoth. He
probably left Oxford soon after the issue of this book, for his name is
not found in the list of inhabitants in the Subsidy Rolls of 1524.
Scolar, as we said above, left Oxford in 1518, but we meet with him
again ten years later; for in 1528 he printed a _Breviary_ for the
use of the Benedictine Monastery at Abingdon, which will be noticed
hereafter.
Between 1527 and 1557 nothing was printed at or for Oxford. The books
printed for John Dorne, described in an earlier lecture, were the last
enterprise of an Oxford publisher. Nor apparently was there any wish to
continue printing, for while Cambridge was careful during the changes
brought about by various acts to preserve her liberties, and when the
act of 1534 against foreign stationers was passed to obtain a special
exemption enabling the University to employ foreign stationers or
printers, Oxford was content to let matters take their course. The roll
of stationers continued unbroken, and here and there an interesting
man, such as Garbrand Harkes, stands out, but there is little of
interest to chronicle before the revival of the press at the end of the
sixteenth century.
While Oxford was credited by many early bibliographers with a book
printed in 1468, which was not really printed until 1478, so many of
the same authorities credited Cambridge with a book printed in 1478
which was not printed at Cambridge at all. The mistakes and confusions
about this book, only finally cleared up by Bradshaw in 1861, form a
curious comedy of errors.
Among the documents used by Strype when writing his life of Archbishop
Parker was a catalogue of the books bequeathed to Corpus Christi
College by the archbishop, in which was an entry: “Rhetorica nova,
impressa Cantab, fo. 1478.” This entry was communicated by Strype to
Bagford, then collecting materials for a history of printing, and
Bagford in his turn wrote about it to Tanner. Tanner’s brother passed
on the information to Ames, who inserted it at the head of his account
of Cambridge printing, and from him it was copied by other writers,
including Herbert.
In the meanwhile Conyers Middleton in his _Dissertation concerning the
origin of Printing in England_, had turned the error into a new groove.
Describing the edition printed at St Alban’s in octavo in 1480, he
remarks: “The same book is mentioned by Mr Strype among those given
by Archbishop Parker to Corpus Christi College in Cambridge; but the
words, ‘Compilata in Universitate Cantabrigiæ,’ have drawn this learned
antiquary into the mistake of imagining that it was printed also in
that year at our University, and of doing us the honour of remarking
upon it; so ancient was printing in Cambridge!”
If the University Librarian, as Middleton then was, in place of being
facetious, had stepped down the street and examined the book for
himself, much subsequent confusion would have been avoided. He must
have had a poor opinion of Strype if he supposed that that learned
antiquary would describe as a folio printed at Cambridge in 1478 an
octavo with a printed colophon, “impressa apud Villam Sancti Albani.
1480.”
But Middleton’s plausible suggestion seems to have gained ground, and
the Corpus volume was passed over as a copy of the St Alban’s book
until 1861, when Bradshaw, at work on the manuscripts in the library
accidentally met with it, and saw at once that it was not the St
Alban’s book, but an unknown Caxton edition. It has no colophon, so
that the concluding words “Compilata in Universitate Cantabrigiæ,” and
the date 1478, might well deceive a casual observer into thinking it
was printed at Cambridge in that year.
Printing was introduced into Cambridge at the beginning of the year
1521 by John Lair of Siberch or Siegburg, a town a few miles south-west
of Cologne. Like most of the foreign printers settled in England, he
made but little use of his proper surname, but used the place name
instead and called himself John Siberch.
Nothing is known as to the date of his settling in Cambridge, but it
was probably in 1519 or early in 1520, for in May of the latter year
an edition of Richard Croke’s _Introductiones in rudimenta Græca_ was
printed for him by Eucharius Cervicornus at Cologne.
Croke was at this time Professor of Greek at Cambridge, but he was
compelled to have his work printed abroad, since no English printer
of the time possessed a fount of Greek type. Had he acted on his own
initiative, he would probably have employed a printer of Paris where
he had studied, or Leipzig where he had recently been a professor,
both of which towns had excellent Greek presses. But if Siberch, a man
presumably with practical knowledge, was already settled in Cambridge,
what could be more natural than for the professor to hand over the
arrangements of the printing to him, while he in his turn would no
doubt entrust the work to a printer of the town from which he himself
came, and not improbably to the master with whom he had himself worked.
This, of course, is conjecture, but some curious evidence of Siberch’s
having been in Cambridge when Croke’s book was published, came to light
accidentally in 1889. In that year a volume was found in the library of
Westminster Abbey printed at Paris in 1519, which had evidently been
bound in Siberch’s workshop. In the binding were several manuscript
and printed fragments. The printed fragments consisted of leaves of
the Papyrius Geminus printed by Siberch in 1522 and two leaves of a
hitherto unknown edition of Lily’s Grammar; amongst the manuscript
fragments was a letter to Siberch, to be referred to later, and a
piece of the manuscript of Croke’s _Rudimenta Græca_, bearing upon it
the rough pencil mark indicating the commencement of a new sheet and
a fresh page, both agreeing with the printed book. The copy then had
been returned from abroad, not to the author Croke, but to the man who
had commissioned the book, Siberch. Had Siberch been abroad when the
book was printed, he would either have corrected the proofs with the
copy at Cologne, and in that case would hardly have troubled to bring
over the then useless copy with him to England, or else proofs with the
copy would have been sent to Croke, in which case we should not have
expected to find it as waste in Siberch’s shop.
What Siberch’s exact position was in relation to the University is
not quite clear. Dr Caius speaks of him as the University printer,
but no direct evidence of this has been forthcoming. Mr Gray has,
however, pointed out to me an entry in one of the Grace books recently
printed, and which he was unaware of when writing his life of Siberch
for the Bibliographical Society. This was one of the graces passed in
congregation during the year from the feast of St Michael the Archangel
[September 29], 1520 to the corresponding date of the following year.
It runs: “Obligatur doctor Manfeld loco et vice magistri Norres pro
summa pecunie quam recepit Johannes bibliopola ab universitate.” This
debt is entered regularly in the proctors’ accounts, printed in
another recently-printed Grace book, from 1520-21 up to 1524-25, and
the sum mentioned is twenty pounds.
We have therefore the clearest evidence that some time between
September 1520 and September 1521 the University had advanced to
Siberch the sum of twenty pounds, and I think we are quite justified in
concluding that this was to assist him in his business as a printer.
The sum of twenty pounds is considerably more than a University
stationer’s fee, and must have been granted for a special purpose. If
the exact date of the grace in the year could be ascertained, it would
probably throw some light on the question. If early enough, it might be
the cost of material to enable him to set up his press.
It is not until October 1521 that he uses the words, “Cum gratia et
privilegio.” Bradshaw, in a bibliographical note on the book in which
they first appear, writes: “In his dedication to Bishop Fisher he [that
is, Siberch] styles himself ‘Io. Siberch Cantabrigiensis typographus,’
and it must have been on this occasion and through Bishop Fisher’s
influence that he obtained leave to place ‘Cum gratia et privilegio’ on
his title-pages.” This privilege was not I think the King’s privilege,
such as London printers had just begun to obtain, but more probably one
granted by the Chancellor similar to that given to Scolar the Oxford
printer by the Oxford Chancellor, and this would further point to
Siberch’s official connexion with the University.
The house where he lived and printed was described by Dr Caius as
situated between the Gate of Humility and the Gate of Virtue, forming
part of some property bought by Caius in 1563 from Trinity College. It
bore the sign of the King’s arms, which accounts for the use by Siberch
in his books of two woodcuts containing the Royal arms. In the same
house Erasmus lived when he was lecturing at Cambridge, and we know
from his letters that he was on intimate terms with Siberch and the
contemporary Cambridge stationers to whom he sends greetings by name at
the conclusion of one of his letters.
Having obtained some type Siberch started to work for himself, and his
first production was a speech of Dr Henry Bullock delivered before
Wolsey when the Cardinal visited the University in the autumn of 1520.
This is a small pamphlet of eight leaves, devoid of all ornament,
and it was published between February 13, the date of the dedication
and the end of the month, in 1521. The type used appears to be new,
but where it was obtained is not settled. It bears a very strong
resemblance to some of Pynson’s, but is not quite identical. At present
we do not know much about the early business of type-cutting, but it
seems clear that, soon after the commencement of the sixteenth century,
different printers went to a common source for their type, and that
type-cutting was not a part of the printer’s business, as it was when
printing was first invented, but a special trade. New types would thus
tend to conform more to a common model. Of this first Cambridge book
four copies are known, but unfortunately there is no copy in Cambridge,
the four copies being in the British Museum, the Bodleian, the Lambeth
Library, and Archbishop Marsh’s Library, Dublin. The Bodleian copy had
belonged to Richard Burton, the author of the _Anatomy of Melancholy_,
the Lambeth one to Archbishop Bancroft, so that at any rate for a few
years, between 1646 and 1662, this latter copy was with the rest of the
Archbishop’s books upon the shelves of the University Library.
About April, in 1521, according to Bradshaw’s calculation, Siberch’s
second book appeared, the sermon of Augustine, _De miseria ac brevitate
vitæ_, a book of twelve leaves. The printer had added a little to his
stock of type, for there is a Greek motto on the title-page which is
also enclosed between two border-pieces.
This type is interesting as the first genuine moveable Greek type used
in England. A year or two earlier W. de Worde had introduced a few
words of Greek into an edition of one of Whitinton’s Grammars, but
the words were roughly cut on wood. Pynson did not begin to use Greek
until 1524 in a work by Linacre, and in the preface he offers a curious
apology for its imperfections, praying the reader to pardon missing
breathings or accents, since he had but recently cast the Greek types
and had not prepared a supply sufficient to finish the work completely.
The amount of Greek printing in all Siberch’s books put together is
very small, hardly enough to call for the cutting of a special fount,
for it must be borne in mind that a Greek fount is infinitely larger
and more complex than a Roman. One specially complicated fount used at
Venice in 1486 contained about 1350 sorts. It seems probable therefore
that we must look to some foreign source for this type, and its
identification might throw some further light on Siberch’s business
career.
The two border side-pieces, each containing three small scenes in
canopied compartments relating to the Last Judgment, evidently
form part of a set for use in a _Book of Hours_. These identical
border-pieces have not been found used elsewhere, but are evidently
copied from, and resemble in every detail, two of a set used in a _Book
of Hours_ printed at Kirchheim. Very little, however, can be deduced
from similarity of design, for printers copied designs which pleased
them from any source, and often with such extraordinary accuracy as to
require very careful scrutiny to distinguish the copy from the original.
This is the rarest of all Siberch’s books, for only one copy is known,
now in the Bodleian. It formerly belonged to John Selden and went with
the rest of his books to Oxford by bequest in 1659.
Of the next book four copies are known. It consists of a translation
of Lucian’s πὲρι διψάδων by Henry Bullock, and a reissue of the
latter’s Oration. On the title-page Siberch uses for the first
time his ornamental border with the Royal arms at the base. A very
curious statement, that this border is the first specimen of English
copperplate engraving, has found its way into a number of books.
Its earliest appearance seems to be in Herbert’s _Typographical
Antiquities_, where a so-called facsimile is given. Now this facsimile
itself is a very roughly-executed metal engraving, and from the text it
is clear that Herbert made his description from this rough engraving
and not from the book itself. The proof of this is clear. The engraver
has added a rough facsimile of the two-lined colophon, immediately
below the border, and Herbert, assuming it to be part of the
title-page, has so described it in his text. The most cursory glance
would show this border to be a woodcut, but the old statement goes on
being repeated.
The fourth book, Baldwin’s _Sermo de altaris sacramento_ was issued in
the summer, probably August, of 1521. In this is found for the first
time the smaller device of the Royal arms. Eight copies of the book are
known, two being in the University Library while another has lately
been discovered in the library of Magdalene College. One of those in
the University Library, which it is suggested may be an early copy sent
to Nicholas West, bishop of Ely, to whom the book is dedicated, shows
some variations from the ordinary copies. It is clear that it is an
early issue, since the border is without a small break noticeable in
other copies, and the first word of the title-page, Reverendissimi, has
been misprinted Reverndissimi, a mistake almost immediately noticed and
corrected. In this book, for the first time, Siberch begins to use one
of his ornamental capitals, a fine six-line S.
Siberch’s fifth book, _Erasmus De conscribendis epistolis_, was issued
in October 1521. This is a more important book in point of size than
any which preceded it, containing eighty leaves, whereas the largest of
the others only ran to twenty. It also shows certain marks of advance.
We find for the first time a frequent use of fine initial letters,
and it is the first book for which the printer obtained a privilege,
unfortunately not printed in full. Four copies of this book are known,
two in the British Museum, and two in Cambridge College Libraries, St
John’s and Corpus. The last copy has the additional interest of being
bound by a contemporary Cambridge stationer, Nicholas Speryng, and
bears his mark and initials on the binding.
The Erasmus was followed by Galen _De Temperamentis_, translated from
the Greek by Linacre. This is the commonest of Siberch’s books, at
least twelve copies being known, but some of these show important
variations. The first intention seems to have been to issue the _De
Temperamentis_ alone, and it was so printed off on sixty-six leaves,
with the signatures A⁴, Q⁶. Later it was determined to add another
small treatise _De inequali intemperie_, so the last two leaves of
the first issue, containing the end of the _De Temperamentis_ were
cancelled, and two new sheets R⁴ and S⁶ added. Finally a preliminary
quire of eight leaves was printed, making the complete book consist
of seventy-four leaves. One copy of the first state is known, first
noticed by Mr Bowes in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, in 1894.
On the verso of the penultimate leaf is a woodcut of the Adoration
of the Shepherds and the colophon, on the verso of the last leaf the
small block of the Royal arms and the date 1521. A transitional copy,
containing the first issue with the end uncancelled, but the additional
sheets added, is in the library of the Royal College of Physicians.
All the remaining copies are of the revised issue. In it the last two
leaves are mainly occupied with a list of the errata which had been
found in the _De Temperamentis_, and on the verso of the last leaf is
the device of the Royal arms. The woodcut of the Shepherds found in
the early copies has not as yet been traced to an earlier source. It
is apparently Low Country work of the fifteenth century; Sir Martin
Conway ascribes it to about the year 1485.
Two copies of the Galen were printed on vellum, both of which are
now in Oxford, one in the library of All Souls College, the other in
the Bodleian. This latter copy possesses a curious pedigree. It was
presented to the Bodleian in 1634 by Thomas Clayton, Regius Professor
of Medicine. In a long Latin note which he has written in the volume
he states that it was given by Linacre to Henry VIII. who in his turn
gave it to Cuthbert Tonstall, and after passing through various hands
it had come into his possession, and he finally has deposited it in
the Bodleian. It is an interesting copy, but whether it ever belonged
to Henry is very doubtful. It is in the original binding, but this is
simply an ordinary stationer’s binding impressed in blind with the two
panels of the Royal arms and Tudor rose used by many of the London
binders of the time. Again one sheet has been incorrectly printed. In
printing the reverse side of a sheet in signature S, the workman has
laid the sheet the wrong way round on the form and consequently the
pages follow one another in the wrong order, a fruitful and common
cause of waste sheets. Finally the ornamental initials in the early
part of the book have not been printed in, and no attempt has been made
to supply them by hand. It does not seem probable that so poor a copy
would have been presented to the King. An early inscription shows that
it belonged to Tonstall, who gave it to Richard Sparchford, archdeacon
of Shropshire, who gave it to the church of Ludlow.
The seventh book is a translation into Latin by Richard Pace of the
sermon preached by John Fisher, bishop of Rochester, in London, to
an audience said to have numbered thirty thousand, on the occasion
of the public burning of Luther’s works. In this book for the first
time Siberch made use of the device with his initials and mark within
a chain work frame showing white on a black background, an uncommon
style of device and one unlike any other used in England at the time.
Of this book only four copies are known, two in the Bodleian, one in
the library of Magdalene College, Cambridge, and one in the Rylands
Library, Manchester.
The last dated of the early Cambridge books is the _Hermathena_ of
Papyrius Geminus, issued on December 8, 1522. No less than three
different states of the title-page are known. The first is quite free
from ornament, in the second an attempt seems to have been made to
supply the want of the old border device, and the upper part of the
title is enclosed in a frame made by two horizontal border-pieces
joined at the sides by a plain fine. In the third state, a third
border-piece has been added at the bottom of the page and the black
lines extended on either side to join all three. The book contains
twenty-six leaves, the last leaf containing on the recto the colophon
and printer’s device, on the verso the small _arma regia_ device. Six
copies are known. With the title in the first state one copy remains,
which formerly belonged to Bradshaw and is now in the University
Library. Of the second state there are three copies, in Archbishop
Marsh’s Library, in Lincoln Cathedral, and in St John’s College,
Cambridge. Of the third state the two copies belong to the British
Museum and the Duke of Devonshire. These last two copies are both
printed on vellum, but the museum copy wants the last leaf containing
the colophon and devices.
[Illustration: TITLE-PAGE OF FISHER’S SERMON, PRINTED AT CAMBRIDGE BY
JOHN SIBERCH IN 1522.]
The publication of another Cambridge book, an edition of the Grammar of
Lily and Erasmus, was proved by the discovery in 1889 of two leaves,
found with some other most interesting fragments in the covers of a
book in Westminster Abbey Library.
The Grammar is the _De octo orationis partium constructione libellus_
written for the use of St Paul’s School. It was composed originally by
William Lily, and Colet, the founder of the school, sent the work to
Erasmus to emend. Erasmus so altered it that Lily would not permit it
to be called his work, and as Erasmus for his part refused to put his
name to Lily’s work, the book was published anonymously. It became very
popular, and many editions were issued abroad for the English market,
so that it is just such a book as a Cambridge printer might be expected
to print rather than to import.
These nine books comprise the whole output of the early Cambridge
press. Though Cambridge obtained a special privilege shortly afterwards
giving the right to print, the right was never exercised, and nothing
was produced in the town until the two Universities restarted their
presses towards the end of the sixteenth century.
The bookbindings that can definitely be assigned to Siberch are
at present few in number. He used one fine roll divided into four
rectangular compartments, containing a pomegranate, a turretted gateway
with portcullis, a Tudor rose, and three fleurs-de-lys, all surmounted
by a royal crown and within canopied archways. Below the fleurs-de-lys
are his initials. This is a purely English design, and the tool was no
doubt made for him after his arrival in Cambridge. Immediately Siberch
gave up work, about 1523-24, the tool passed to Speryng, who mutilated
it, so that we know fairly well the period during which it was used
when undamaged. Its use in conjunction with other tools enables more
of Siberch’s material to be identified. In the University Library
is a copy of the _Epistolæ_ of Paulinus, bishop of Nola, printed at
Paris in 1516, whose binding is impressed with two well-executed panel
stamps separated from each other by this roll. On one is depicted St
Roche tended by an angel for the plague and a dog bringing him food,
on the other St John Baptist, standing on a mound and preaching to
four persons seated below him. These two saints were popular subjects
for binding panels, and a number of varieties, mostly copied one from
another, are known, but this particular pair are especially well
designed and engraved, and were chosen by Dibdin to reproduce in his
_Bibliographical Decameron_.
On a folio in the library of Clare College, Siberch’s signed roll
is found used with another roll or band containing figures of seven
peasants, one piping, the rest dancing with hands joined, a very
favourite design with Netherlandish binders.
The two panel stamps and this second roll are all foreign in
appearance, and were no doubt brought by Siberch from abroad. After
he gave up work they remained in England. I have a work of Erasmus,
printed in 1532, certainly bound in this country, which has the two
panels on the binding, while the roll with dancing figures occurs on a
binding in St Paul’s Cathedral Library, lined with waste leaves of an
Almanac for 1544. It is not improbable that Siberch had other panels,
for we find, soon after he ceased to bind, stamps which were certainly
his used in conjunction with others exactly similar in style. I saw
lately a work of Erasmus, dated 1524, on which this St Roche panel was
used, and with it was a panel with St Michael, and these two occur
together elsewhere. One point, however, must certainly be noticed. The
one panel binding that we can with certainty attribute to Siberch has
three bands on the back, as was usual in the case of English bindings.
Every other binding with his stamps which I have seen has four bands,
and a binder would be most unlikely to change his habits on such a
point.
The letter of Peter Kaetz to Siberch, referred to earlier, is of the
greatest interest. It is written on one side of an oblong piece of
paper, with the address on the other side. Unfortunately parts of
the ends of some of the lines are missing, making parts of certain
sentences vague, especially at the beginning, but generally the meaning
is fairly clear. It has been translated by Mr Hessels as follows:
“Know, Jan Siborch, that I have received your letter as [well as
specimens] of your type, and it is very good; if you can otherwise
... and conduct yourself well then you will get enough to print. So
I remain still in London because my master comes; I expect him from
day to day, therefore I cannot even know when I cross, but so soon as
I cross I shall do the best that is in my power. Item, I have told
Peter Rinck three or four times of the Pater noster, but he tells me
that he cannot find it; and Gibkerken has not yet given Jacob Pastor
the ring, but he carries it every day on his hand and he will not give
it to Jacob Pastor. Item, I send you 25 prognostications and 3 New
Testaments small. The prognostications cost one shilling sterling the
25, and the 3 New Testaments cost 2 shillings and 6 pence sterling, so
there is still due to you, which I remain in your debt. I have no more
New Testaments, otherwise I should have sent you more. I have nothing
else to write except [to ask you to] deliver the accompanying parcel to
Niclas, and greet Baetzken for me with your whole family, and do not
forget yourself. Petrus Kaetz.”
Among the fragments found with it was part of the manuscript copy of
Croke’s book printed in May 1520, a sheet of the Papyrius Geminus
printed in 1522, and two leaves of the Lily’s _Grammar_. The book in
which they were found must have been bound after December 1522, but the
tools on the binding are not those known to have been used by Siberch,
and the book may have been bound after Siberch ceased work by someone
occupying his old workshop or who had obtained his waste material.
From internal evidence the letter would appear to have been written
in 1521 just after Siberch had started printing, the reference to the
excellence of the type, of which proofs had apparently been sent, and
the remark by Kaetz that if Siberch conducted himself well he would get
enough to print, both pointing to this conclusion. One small point may
be noticed here in passing. The tone of the letter is that of an older
to a younger man, or at any rate, of a man to one of his own age. Now
in the colophons of books printed for Kaetz between 1523 and 1525 he is
spoken of as “juvenis” and this may be taken as a slight argument for
believing that in 1521 Siberch was a young man also.
The master to whom Kaetz referred was very possibly Christopher
Endoviensis or Van Ruremond, who, when Kaetz set up in business on
his own account, printed books for him. Van Ruremond we know printed
English prognostications, single folio broadsides such as would be sold
at a penny a piece, which as we know from Dorne’s day-book was the
usual price of a single sheet, so that he may have been the printer
of these supplied to Siberch at twenty-five for a shilling. The New
Testaments were probably of a Latin version since they are called Nova
Testamenta in the letter. Nicholas, to whom a packet was sent, was, we
may suppose, Speryng.
After 1522 Siberch seems to have relinquished his business as a
printer and stationer. We have no reference to him in accounts, and
as his name does not occur in the Subsidy Rolls of 1523-24 it may be
considered as fairly certain that he was not then in Cambridge. That
he had definitely given up work is clearly shown by the dispersal
of his material. The smaller neatly-executed cut of the Royal arms
went to his friend Peter Kaetz, who, taking it with him on his return
to Antwerp, used it in the edition of the Dutch Bible printed for
him there in 1525 by Hans Van Ruremonde. Apparently the same block
appears in an edition of Erasmus and Lily’s Grammar published at
Antwerp by Godfried van der Haeghen in 1527 for sale in St Paul’s
Churchyard. The fine border of the Galen also went to Antwerp and is
found eventually on the title-page of a Dutch Prognostication of 1536
printed by Hendrick Pietersen van Middleburch. From a comparison of a
recently-issued facsimile of the Dutch book with the original Cambridge
book, it is clear the border is identical in both. What has now to be
done is to trace it between 1522 and 1536. Lastly, the fine binding
roll which he possessed passed into the hands of Nicholas Speryng who
attempted to obliterate the initial I upon it and substitute an N. The
latest binding on which it is found in an unmutilated state is on a
book printed at Venice and finished on November 10, 1522, so that the
binding cannot be earlier than 1523. The mutilated tool is found used
with others belonging to Speryng on the binding of a book printed in
1524.
For a considerable time after 1522 we have no information. The debt of
twenty pounds continued to be entered in the proctor’s accounts up to
the year 1524-25, after which it dropped out. In 1538-39 the debt is
re-entered in a most interesting memorandum which may be translated
thus: “Note; that twenty pounds sterling are owing to the university
by ‘Dominus’ John Lair, an alien priest, and Doctors Rydley, Bullock,
Wakefelde, and Maundefelde, and it has their bond signed by all their
hands, and sealed with their seals.” After several entries of a similar
tenor we come to the final one in the Audit book under the year 1553.
“John Syberche owes out of the money advanced to him [xx. li.], as is
evidenced by his bond contained in the common chest, and his guarantors
are Doctors Rydley, Bullocke, and Manfyld, together with Mr Wakfyld.”
It would thus appear that like many another, Siberch was so influenced
by the religious movements of the time, that he forsook his business in
order to serve the Church, and it is therefore in this sphere that we
should seek for further information about him. He seems also to have
made use of his proper name Lair, sometimes corrupted into Law, rather
than the name Siberch he had used as a printer.
Perhaps further search in this new direction may result in fresh
discoveries.
The stationers of Cambridge, like the stationers of Oxford, were of
two classes, those officially appointed by the University and those
who traded independently. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
there are frequent references to the rights of the University over the
stationers. They had certain official duties, such as the valuation
of books and the supply of the necessary school books at fixed rates,
and the stationers chosen by the University received a small fee or
salary for such work. After the middle of the fifteenth century the
stationers can be traced in an unbroken series, but though we know
their names and find entries of their business in accounts, there, at
present, our information ceases. Five names are given in Mr Gray’s
account of the early Cambridge stationers for the second half of the
fifteenth century, Gerard Wake, John Ward, Fydyon, perhaps Fitzjohn,
William Squire, and Walter Hatley. Of these, two, Wake and Hatley, were
bookbinders, and perhaps some of their work may yet be identified, and
if one single volume could be ascribed to either with certainty and
the stamps they used definitely ascertained, then much of their work
could be traced. William Squire is only known from receiving a settled
fee of thirteen shillings and fourpence between the years 1482-6. He
may perhaps, since we find the names Squire and Lesquier often used
indiscriminately, be identical with the stationer William Lesquier
whose goods were administered at Oxford in February 1501-2. Peter
Breynans, another bookbinder, is mentioned in 1502, and a Lawrence
Topfeller in 1506.
In May 1503 the award of Margaret, Countess of Richmond, and three
other arbitrators was agreed to and signed. This covenant between
the town and University contained special references to stationers,
and enacted that only those stationers and binders who had always
practised their trade should be considered under the jurisdiction of
the University, a certain number, then in business, being exempted.
Our knowledge of early Cambridge bookbinding is curiously different
from what we know of Oxford. There our knowledge of fifteenth-century
work is full, and of early sixteenth almost a blank. For Cambridge
there is a splendid series of early sixteenth-century work, while
fifteenth-century specimens are almost unknown or at any rate
unidentified. Mr G. J. Gray’s excellent monograph, lately published
by the Bibliographical Society, has fully put on record what is
known about Cambridge binding, and has the advantage of being well
illustrated. The earliest examples facsimiled in his work are
ornamented by means of the roll-tool, but there is a series of bindings
ornamented with dies in the earlier manner produced probably about
1500, which may with considerable probability be ascribed to a
Cambridge binder. These bindings are very distinctive in appearance
and may easily be distinguished from others of the same period. One
peculiarity enables us to identify this binder’s work even when on
the shelves. He always ruled two perpendicular lines down the back.
The leather used is nearly always the red-tinted variety which seems
peculiar to Cambridge. The scheme of decoration of the sides consisted
of a large centre panel divided by diagonal lines into a kind of
diamond-shaped lattice work, and in each division thus formed a die
was stamped. These dies, mostly square or diamond-shaped, contained
conventional flowers or strange animals and birds. The best two, which
are very finely engraved, have two cocks fighting and a pelican feeding
her young. This binder also made frequent use of a small tool of a
spray of foliage, plain and not enclosed in a frame, and this he used
to build up borders and to finish the ends of the bands, a noticeable
peculiarity. The boards were usually lined with vellum.
When Dr James prepared his catalogue of manuscripts in the library of
Pembroke College, the librarian, Mr Minns, added an appendix containing
an account of the early printed books and a plate of facsimiles of
stamps used on some of the bindings. Those numbered 21 to 32 belonged
to this binder and occur on four bindings. Three of these are on
printed books ranging between 1478 and 1490. The fourth specimen is
more important as affording a definite clue to a Cambridge origin, for
it is on the second volume of the college register. A search for and
examination of such bindings as remain in Cambridge might result in the
discovery of some inscription or other evidence which might enable us
to identify the binder.
The earliest of the important sixteenth-century binders and stationers
is Garret Godfrey, and his name is first found affixed to a deed in
1503 which itself relates to the position of stationers and bookbinders
in the University. He was a native of the Low Countries, and from the
occurrence of the name Graten on some waste sheets extracted from some
of his bindings, is supposed to have come from Graten in Limburg. He
seems to have occupied a good position in Cambridge, and was chosen as
one of the churchwardens of St Mary the Great in 1516, and continued to
fill offices in connexion with the church for several years. He died in
1539 and was buried in St Mary’s, while his will, dated September 12,
was proved on October 11.
Godfrey was well supplied with binding tools, and we find him in
possession of at least five rolls. The most important contains
figures of a griffin, a wyvern, and a lion, separated from each other
by branches of foliage. Below the lion are the binder’s initials,
the second having a sign like an arrow-head springing from the top,
representing presumably his merchant’s mark. The workmanship of this
roll very much resembles that of some of the fine London rolls of the
time, those for example of John Reynes or Thomas Symonds, and it is
quite probable that they may all have been engraved by the same man.
Godfrey’s second roll is divided into five divisions. The first
four contain a turretted gateway with portcullis, a fleur-de-lys, a
pomegranate, and a Tudor rose, each under a canopy and surmounted by
a Royal crown. The fifth contains the binder’s initials G. G. and
between them a shield charged with three horse-shoes. This introduction
of a private heraldic shield into a bookbinder’s ornament, is, so far
as my experience goes, quite without parallel and certainly requires
explanation. Occurring as it does, between the binder’s initials,
it must obviously have some connexion with him, and the initials
are certainly those of Garret Godfrey. The late Sir Augustus Franks
suggested that the initials stood for Guido Gimpus. The name is not
mentioned by Burke in his _Armorial_, but Papworth allows a coat
“sable, three horse-shoes argent,” to a family, Vytan-Gimpus, on the
authority of Glover’s _Ordinary_. A third roll containing the Royal
emblem in compartments, in the same order as in the previous one, also
contains his initials, but with no arms. This is a much narrower roll
than the second, and poorer in design. The fourth and fifth rolls have
no mark or initials, one is of diaper work, the other of interlaced
strap work. In addition Godfrey used a few small dies.
Nicholas Speryng, the second stationer, came originally from the
Low Countries, and is found settled in Cambridge, perhaps as early
as 1506, certainly by 1513. It seems likely that he had worked as a
binder before coming to Cambridge, and that he brought some of his
binding tools with him. An examination of his bindings shows that he
often worked in a more old-fashioned style and with older tools than
Godfrey. The ornamental frames on the sides of his bindings are in
many cases built up by a repetition of single stamps, a troublesome
system superseded by the invention of the roll. As he possessed the
stamps he would naturally use them, but he would not have had them
engraved had the use of the roll been then known to him. The two panel
stamps which he used are also probably of foreign make. These contain
representations of the Annunciation on the one side, and St Nicholas
restoring the three murdered children on the other. The Annunciation
was a very favourite subject with bookbinders, especially those of the
Low Countries, while the St Nicholas had reference to the binder’s
Christian name. It is curious to notice that the surname has been
wrongly engraved, and reads Spiernick in place of Spierinck. Some years
ago some fragments of an edition of Holt’s Grammar, the _Lac Puerorum_,
printed in English at Antwerp by Adrian van Berghen, were found in
the Bodleian, which, from the indentations still remaining on them,
had clearly formed the boards of one of these bindings, and on one of
the fragments the name Speyrinck was written. The piece of paper had
doubtless formed the wrapper of a parcel addressed to him.
Speryng’s rolls were all engraved after he came to England. The finest,
apparently engraved by the same hand as Godfrey’s, contains figures of
a dragon, a lion, and a wyvern amidst sprays of foliage. Between the
wyvern and dragon, in a wreath, are his mark and initials. A smaller
roll is divided into five compartments, the first four containing a
fleur-de-lys, a turretted gateway, a pomegranate, and a Tudor rose,
each surmounted by a Royal crown and under a canopy, while the fifth
contains his mark and initials. It is an almost exact copy of one of
Godfrey’s rolls, with the badges arranged in a different order. There
are two varieties of this roll. In the earlier the binder’s initial
S is a rather badly engraved letter of a curious script form, but at
a later date it has been re-engraved in the more usual form. Weale,
describing the earlier state in one place, reads the initials N. G.,
and in another ascribes the roll to Segar Nicholson, a later Cambridge
stationer.
Speryng had also a roll of diaper work resembling, though clearly
differing from, Godfrey’s, and another roll with a graceful pattern of
twining foliage and flowers. He also, like Godfrey, had several dies.
There is a binding in Westminster Abbey Library on a copy of a _Codex
Justiniani_ printed at Paris in 1515 which both Godfrey and Speryng
appear to have had a hand in with remarkable results. First the volume
was bound by Godfrey, who ornamented the side with a framework made
with his fine broad roll, with two parallel impressions of the same
roll inside the panel. The volume somehow came later into Speryng’s
hands. He filled up the vacant spaces with his own diaper roll, and
then stamped his ornamental roll with his initials over Godfrey’s,
mixing the ornaments in hopeless confusion. We find the body of
Speryng’s wyvern with the head of one of Godfrey’s animals, and so on.
One roll used by Speryng had belonged to Siberch, and I found it many
years ago on a binding in Westminster Abbey Library. Commenting on
this binding Mr Gray writes: “We have evidence of Siberch’s grand roll
being used by Spierinck on the binding of a Faber, Paris, 1526; the J
is obliterated by the N being stamped over it, but not completely, for
Siberch’s initial can be plainly seen underneath, and this roll was
used with one of Spierinck’s own.” This explanation is hardly clear.
Speryng did not use Siberch’s roll on the binding and then attempt to
stamp an N over the J. What he did do was to try and cut on the brass
tool itself an N which should replace the J, but the work was clumsily
done and portions of the J still show.
The binding of the Faber just mentioned is stamped with Siberch’s
mutilated roll and one of Speryng’s diaper rolls, and this was the
only known example of the use of the mutilated roll. Not long ago,
however, I found in the library of Queen’s College, Oxford, a copy
of the _Decretals_ of Panormitanus printed at Lyons in 1524 in four
large folio volumes in a magnificent Cambridge binding. On it is used
the mutilated roll of Siberch, Speryng’s largest signed roll, and his
smaller floral roll. Speryng died about the end of 1545 and was buried
in St Mary’s Church. His will, dated August 20, 1545, was proved on
January 27 following.
In 1523 an act was passed to prevent the taking of alien apprentices,
and a further act of 1529 prohibited aliens, not householders, from
exercising any handicraft, but in both acts the two Universities of
Oxford and Cambridge were exempted. In the latter year Wolsey was
petitioned by the University to be allowed to have three foreign
licensed booksellers, and when in 1534 the act was passed restricting
the dealings of foreign stationers, special permission was granted to
Cambridge to elect three stationers or printers who might be aliens or
natives. No similar privilege was either asked for by or granted to
Oxford.
The University immediately appointed the three stationers, Nicholas
Speryng, Garret Godfrey, and Segar Nicholson, who appear to have been
themselves instrumental in procuring the grant. Strangely enough the
date of this grant providing for increased activity apparently exactly
coincides with a remarkable cessation of work. No book is known bound
by Speryng printed later than 1533, though he did not die until the
end of 1545, while the latest dated book bound by Godfrey, who died
in 1539, is 1535. After this date we find no more fine bindings. The
beautiful broad rolls and panel stamps went out of fashion and were
superseded by narrow rolls of formal renaissance ornament. As at Oxford
the succession of stationers and binders continued unbroken; but their
work is of little interest.
LECTURE IV.
TAVISTOCK, ABINGDON, ST ALBAN’S SECOND PRESS, IPSWICH, WORCESTER,
CANTERBURY, EXETER, “WINCHESTER,” AND “GREENWICH.”
The next place after Cambridge is Tavistock, where a book was printed
in 1525. It was an edition of the _De consolatione philosophiæ_ of
Boethius, translated into verse and divided into eight-line stanzas.
In most manuscripts of the poem the author is given as Johannes
Capellanus, but at the end of this edition are some verses whose first
and last letters give the names of the patroness, Elizabeth Berkeley,
and the translator, Johannes Waltwnem or Walton, said to have been a
canon of Oseney. The colophon runs: “Enprented in the exempt monastery
of Tavestok in Denshyre. By me, Dan Thomas Rychard, monke of the sayd
monastery. To the instant desyre of the ryght worshypful esquyer
Mayster Robert Langdon, anno d. MDXXV.” It was no doubt produced at the
expense of Robert Langdon of Keverell, a rough woodcut of whose arms
occurs at the end of the book. He was a wealthy Cornish gentleman, who
married an heiress and died in 1548.
The book is printed in a neat and clear black-letter. On the title-page
is a woodcut of the Almighty seated in a diamond-shaped panel, the
outside angles being filled with symbols of the four evangelists.
Copies of this book are not so rare as is generally supposed. There are
two in the Bodleian, and one in Exeter College, Oxford. One is in the
Rylands Library, another in St Andrews University, while Lord Bute, Mr
Christie Miller, and the Duke of Bedford all have examples.
The only other Tavistock book known is the _Charter and Statutes of the
Stannary_, printed nine years later. The colophon runs: “Here endyth
the statutes of the stannary, Imprented yn Tavystoke ye xx. day of
August, the yere of the reygne off our soveryne Lord Kynge Henry ye
viii. the xxvi. yere.” The book is in quarto, and contains twenty-six
leaves of thirty or thirty-one lines. On the title-page is a woodcut
of the King’s arms supported by angels, which occurs several times
elsewhere in the book. The colophon is on the penultimate leaf, and
on the recto of the last leaf is a woodcut of the crucifixion of St
Andrew, on the verso the same woodcut of the Almighty as is used in the
Boethius. Of this book only one copy is known, in the library of Exeter
College, Oxford. It is a most beautifully preserved example, entirely
uncut, and was bequeathed to the college with a number of other rare
books by the Rev. Joseph Sandford.
The press at Abingdon is represented by one book only, and of that
only one copy is known, preserved amongst Archbishop Sancroft’s books
in the library of Emmanuel. It is a _Breviary_ printed for the use of
the brethren of St Mary’s Monastery, the black monks of the order of
St Benedict. It is printed in red and black, in double columns, with
thirty-four lines to the page, and there are no headlines, catchwords,
or numbers to the leaves. When complete it should have contained 358
leaves, but unfortunately two leaves of the Kalendar containing the
months from May to August are missing. The Kalendar at present consists
of four leaves, three signed AI, AII, AIII, and one unsigned leaf; and
the missing two leaves should have come between AII and AIII, which
looks as though the printer had originally omitted them by mistake.
But so important an error could not remain uncorrected. A very curious
point about the book is that one part is set up entirely in quires
of sixes, while the rest is set up in a way common to several early
English printers, in quires alternately of eight and four leaves, thus
doing away with the half sheet. The colophon states that the book
was printed by John Scolar in the monastery of the blessed virgin at
Abingdon, in the year of our Lord, 1528, and of Thomas Rowland, the
abbot, the seventeenth year. Another colophon gives the more exact
date of September 12. Throughout the book occur some curious woodcut
initials. Two, a large E and S, are exceedingly bad copies of good
work. A large C contains the figure of a knight in armour, a very close
copy of one used earlier at Cambridge.
The printer, John Scolar, is doubtless the Oxford printer of 1517-18,
but where he had been or what he had been doing in the intervening
ten years we have not the slightest evidence to show. Since he is
not mentioned among the stationers and booksellers in the Oxford Lay
Subsidy Roll of 1524, we may presume he was not in the town.
The last of these monastic presses was at St Alban’s. The earlier
press, spoken of in a previous lecture, was at work from about 1480 to
1486, but we have no reason for believing that it was connected with
the abbey. The town is specifically mentioned in the colophons with
no reference to the abbey, nor is any person connected with the abbey
mentioned as favouring or assisting in the production of the books. As
regards the revived press the case is quite different. The books were
produced at the request of the abbot, Robert Catton, or his successor,
Richard Stevenage, and the latter’s close connexion with the press is
shown by the occurrence of his initials in the device placed at the end
of some of the books.
The second St Alban’s press was at work from 1534 up to the time of the
suppression of the abbey in 1539. One book, however, may be earlier
than this date, a _Breviary_ of St Alban’s use. The unique copy is in
the library of the Marquis of Bute at Cardiff Castle, but I have never
had an opportunity of examining it, nor have any facsimiles from it
been published, so that it is impossible to determine when or where it
was printed. The librarian at Cardiff Castle considers it to have been
printed at the abbey about 1526.
In 1534 was issued the _Lyfe and passion of Seint Albon prothomartyr
of Englande_, translated by John Lidgate, and printed at the request
of Robert Catton, abbot of St Alban’s. This book, of which two copies
are known, has no printer’s name or place of printing, but is generally
ascribed to Herford’s press. The next book is Gwynneth’s _Confutation
of Frith’s Book_, dated 1536. Of this there is a copy in the University
Library. It again contains no printer’s name, but has a device having
in the centre the initials R. S. joined by a band, standing for Richard
Stevenage, the last abbot of St Alban’s. In 1537 there is an edition
of the _Introduction for to lerne to reken with the pen_. A copy was
mentioned by Ames as in the possession of W. Jones, Esq., but this has
since disappeared, though a last leaf containing the device is said to
be amongst the Bagford fragments. There may be some confusion between
this and Bourman’s edition, whose device was very similar to the one
used by Herford. The description given by Herbert makes no mention of
printer, place, or device, merely the date 1537.
Three more books are quoted by Herbert under the year 1538. _A godly
disputation between Justus and Peccator_, _The rule of an honest
life_, written by Martin, bishop of Dumience, and _An epistle against
the enemies of poor people_. Two, if not three, appear to have had
full colophons, stating that they were printed at St Alban’s by John
Herford for Richard Stevenage, but unfortunately no copies of any of
these books are now known, so that we have no book which contains
Herford’s name which was printed at St Alban’s. These three books were
originally mentioned in Maunsell’s catalogue, but Herbert’s entries are
considerably fuller and must have been derived from some other source.
There is no reason to doubt their genuineness, and we know from other
evidence that Herford was at St Alban’s.
An undated book, printed at St Alban’s by Herford, was in Lord
Spencer’s collection, and is now at Manchester. It is entitled, _A
very declaration of the bond and free wyll of man: the obedyence of
the gospell and what the very gospell meaneth_. This book, hitherto
unknown to bibliographers, contains the name of the place only, and has
no date or printer’s name.
In 1539 Herford appears to have been indiscreet and to have printed
some very unorthodox book. Among the State papers is a letter from
Stevenage, the abbot, to Thomas Cromwell, in which he writes: “Sent
John Pryntare to London with Harry Pepwell, Bonere [Bonham] and Tabbe
of Powlles churchyard stationers, to order him at your pleasure. Never
heard of the little book of detestable heresies till the stationers
showed it me.” The book spoken of must have been considered to be of
importance, when three of the leading London stationers were sent down
to make inquiries about it. It may be that this was the undated book
last mentioned, for it alone is without the name or device of the abbot
himself, yet if the printer had thought that he was publishing anything
obnoxious to the powers, he would hardly have added “printed at St
Alban’s” to his book. The abbot’s letter was dated October 12, and two
months later the abbey was handed over to Henry VIII.’s commissioners.
Of Herford we hear nothing more for five years.
On the suppression of the abbey the printing material was moved to
London, where it was used for a short time by a printer, Nicholas
Bourman. Now the name of the last abbot of St Alban’s was Richard
Stevenage or Boreman, and it is quite probable that this Nicholas
was some relative to whom the presses and type were entrusted during
Herford’s absence. The device used by Bourman was almost identical with
that used at St Alban’s by Herford, the initials of Richard Stevenage
in the latter being replaced by N. B., and a book which had been
printed in the abbey, the _Introduction to learn to reckon with the
pen_, was reprinted by Bourman in 1539. The last definite date in a St
Alban’s book is 1538, and, in the following year, Herford, the printer,
was taken to London and presumably imprisoned or punished. The abbot
was left with the printing material on his hands, which we may suppose
from the occurrence of his initials in the device to have been at any
rate partly his property. He therefore transferred it to London for the
use of his relative until such time as Herford could resume work. This
Herford did in 1544, and Bourman transferred the material back to him.
After this Bourman’s name is found in no book, though he was a member
of the Stationers’ Company and lived to the year 1560.
The death of Henry VIII. and the accession of Edward VI. in 1547 gave a
fresh impetus to printing, and presses were set up in three new towns,
Ipswich, Worcester, and Canterbury. For some years previous to this no
book had been printed outside London, and with the religious opinions
changing from day to day, even the London printers themselves hardly
knew what they might or might not issue without fear of prosecution.
Numbers of persons who had fled abroad returned, and with them came an
immense number of foreigners seeking refuge from their own religious
persecutions abroad. As might be expected, the three new presses were
mainly devoted to printing books on the religious questions then
occupying the attention of the public.
At Ipswich, some years before printing was introduced there, we find
a book issued by a publisher. This was an edition of the _Historia
Evangelica_ of Juvencus, and its imprint stated that it was to be sold
at Ipswich in 1534 by Reginald Oliver. A copy occurred in the first
part of Heber’s sale and was bought by Thorpe, the bookseller, but
since then all trace of it has disappeared. The edition was probably
that printed by Joannes Graphaeus at Antwerp with Oliver’s imprint
added to a certain number of copies, and this is rendered more likely
by the fact that the same printer issued in the same year an edition of
the _Rudimenta-Grammatices_, a school-book which had been prescribed in
1528 by Cardinal Wolsey for use in the school which he had just founded
at Ipswich. Wolsey prescribed the use of this book and others, not only
for the use of his special school at Ipswich, but throughout England,
and we find a number of editions printed at Antwerp to be sent over
to England for sale. Juvencus was one of the authors whose book was
recommended for use.
Of Reginald Oliver we hear nothing more. He took out letters of
denization in 1535 in which he is described as “of Phrisia,” and is
perhaps the Reynold Oliver who translated a tract about an earthquake
in Mechlin in 1546 printed by Richard Lant.
As a stationer Oliver would be also a bookbinder, and perhaps the
panel stamp may be assigned to him signed with the initials R. O. and
a trade-mark. The panel is divided by a vertical line into two halves
each filled by a large medallion. That on the right contains the Tudor
rose, the left the Royal arms. In the left-hand upper corner is a
shield with the cross of St George, in the right the binder’s mark.
If he had been a London binder, this would have contained the city
arms. There is nothing to connect this binding with Oliver except the
initials, but these are uncommon, and no other stationer with them is
known.
The first person to begin printing at Ipswich was a certain Anthony
Scoloker, whom most writers have considered to be a foreigner, but
who is definitely spoken of in the Subsidy Rolls as an Englishman. He
was an educated man, printing translations of his own from French and
German, and it is not improbable that he had left England on account
of religious persecutions, and had returned under the milder rule
of Edward. His settlement in Ipswich for a few months may perhaps
be traced to the influence of Richard Argentine, a schoolmaster and
physician of that town, who was a vigorous reformer in the reign
of Edward, a violent Catholic in the time of Mary, and a penitent
Protestant again under Elizabeth, dying in 1568 as rector of St Helen’s
in Ipswich.
Of the seven books printed by Scoloker at Ipswich, three were
translations by himself, three by Argentine, while the seventh was
translated by Richard Rice, Abbot of Conway. The first book issued
was _The just reckoning of the whole number of years to 1547_
translated by Scoloker from the German; of this an imperfect copy is
in the University Library. His two other translations were _A Godly
disputation between a shoemaker and a parson_, of which there is a copy
in a private library, and _The Ordinary for all faithful Christians_.
Of this there is a copy in the Rylands Library. Argentine’s three
translations are Luther’s _Sermon upon John xx. and the true use of the
keys_, Ochino’s _Sermons_, and Ulrich Zwingli’s _Certain precepts_.
Copies of these three books are not uncommon. The book translated by
Rice was Hermann’s _Right Institution of Baptism_.
The _Just Reckoning_ was translated by July 6, 1547, and, we may
presume, printed shortly afterwards, but the remaining six books
were all printed in the first five months of 1548. The dates of the
translations of the three books by Argentine are January 28, January
30, and February 13. At the end of Zwingli’s _Certain precepts_,
the earliest of Argentine’s translations, occurs Scoloker’s device,
a hand reaching from the clouds and holding a coin to a touchstone
inscribed “Verbum Dei.” From the clouds in the left-hand corner a face,
representing the Holy Spirit, blows upon the stone. Below is printed
the text, “Prove the spirits whether they be of God.”
Scoloker’s residence in Ipswich was a short one, probably because he
did not meet with sufficient encouragement, and by June 1548 he was
settled in London, for a book by John Frith, dated June 30, was issued
by Anthony Scoloker and William Seres, dwelling without Aldersgate.
This was printed by Scoloker and has his device on the last leaf. At
London he continued in business until at least 1550.
The next printer to be noticed is John Overton, if indeed he ever
existed, for it may be stated at once that nothing is known of him but
his name. This is found in the colophon of Bale’s _Catalogue of British
Writers_ from the time of Japhet, son of the most holy Noah, up to the
year 1548, which states explicitly that the book was printed at Ipswich
in England by John Overton on July 31, 1548. On the other hand we find
on the title-page of a number of copies a no less definite statement
that the book was printed at Wesel by Theodoricus Plateanus on July 31,
1548. One thing is clear from an examination of the book itself, and
that is that it was certainly printed abroad, and Bale himself, in the
introduction which he wrote to John Leland’s little book, entitled _The
laborious journey and search of John Leland_, writes, “Since I returned
home again from Germany where as I both collected and emprinted my
simple work _De Scriptoribus Britannicis_.” Most writers have tried
to make the two statements agree by suggesting that the main body of
the book was printed abroad and brought over in sheets, and that it
was completed after its arrival with two sheets printed by Overton at
Ipswich. But these sheets unfortunately are in exactly the same type as
the rest of the book. The Ipswich colophon occurs in all copies of the
book, but the Wesel imprint only in some. A possible explanation may be
found in the legal restrictions regarding the importation of foreign
books. As regards copies sold abroad it would not matter where they
were printed, but imported copies might meet with difficulties. Hence
perhaps the Ipswich colophon and the suppression of the Wesel imprint.
The suspicion which gathered round the book and its imprints naturally
spread to the printer himself, Theodoricus Plateanus. Was he a real
person or not? Like John Overton, his name was only known from its
occurrence in this book, and it was often assumed to be fictitious.
A recent fortunate discovery made by Mr Murray of Trinity has proved
that he was a genuine printer. Fragments of several books in Latin and
German were found used in the binding of an English law-book, and
on one of these was a colophon, dated 1548, the same date as Bale’s
_De Scriptoribus_, “Drück tho Wesel by Dirick van der straten,” and
leaves of Bale’s book were among the fragments. The discovery is
particularly fortunate, not only as supplying the printer’s real name,
which may enable us to trace him further, but also as showing us new
founts of type undoubtedly used by him, and which were used also in
several foreign printed English books which up to now could only be
conjecturally assigned to certain towns or presses. Besides the _De
Scriptoribus Britannicis_ several other of Bale’s works can now be
definitely assigned to him.
The last of the three Ipswich printers and the most important was
John Oswen, perhaps from his name and later connexion with Wales, a
Welshman. He printed in the town apparently only during the latter half
of 1548, but in that period issued ten if not more books. These are
all without exception works of the reformers, Calvin, Oecolampadius,
Melanchthon, and others. Calvin is represented by two books, _A brief
declaration of the feigned sacrament_, and _A treatise on what a
faithful man ought to do dwelling among the papists_. Of the latter
book there is a copy in the University Library, of the former no copy
is at present known.
Melanchthon’s book _Of the true authoritie of the Church_, and
Oecolampadius’ _Epistle, that there ought to be no respect of
personages of the poor_, are both quoted by Herbert though no copies
seem to be known at present.
Of the remaining six books, there are copies of two in the University
Library, bequeathed by Mr Sandars. These are: _A new book containing
an exhortation to the sick_, of which another copy is in the British
Museum, and a curious little 16mo volume, _An invectyve agaynst
dronkennes_, of which the Cambridge copy is the only one known. Several
bibliographies speak of it as a fragment, but though not in good
condition it wants only the last leaf which would have been blank, or
contained a device: all the text is complete.
There are copies of two other books in the library of Clare College,
Peter Moone’s _Short treatise of certain things abused in the Popish
church long used_, and John Ramsey’s _Plaister for a galled horse_.
Both these books are rhyming attacks on the Catholics. There is another
copy of the first in the British Museum, but the two leaves in the
University Library which were supposed to belong to this edition are
really from the press of William Copland in London. Of Ramsey’s book
the copy at Clare is the only one known, but another edition was
printed at London by Raynalde in the same year. The next book is a
translation of Anthony Marcourt’s work, entitled, _A declaration of
the Mass_; of this there is a copy in the Bodleian, and finally there
is another issue of Hegendorff’s _Domestical or household sermons_, of
which there is a copy in the British Museum.
[Illustration: TITLE-PAGE OF THE EXHORTATION TO THE SICK, PRINTED AT
IPSWICH BY JOHN OSWEN IN 1548.]
Oswen and Scoloker between them printed within a year at least eighteen
books at Ipswich, all of them expounding the religious views of the
reformers, and examples of fourteen are known. Though there may have
been other inducements which caused these printers to settle in that
town, no doubt one of the chief reasons was its accessibility to the
Continent. Numbers of English people who had fled abroad during the
religious troubles of Henry’s reign were pouring back into the country,
and many would pass through Ipswich, and would purchase to carry with
them for their own use and for their friends copies of the books
which set forth the religious views for which they had undergone such
hardships, but which seemed at last to be on the winning side. Again
Ipswich, while easy to get to, was equally easy to get away from, so
that perhaps discretion caused the printers to wait and see how their
books were received before they definitely settled in an inland town.
Oswen, though he continued in business a few months longer than
Scoloker, seems also to have found Ipswich an unremunerative centre
for his work, and towards the end of 1548, crossing with his material
from the east to the west of England, settled at Worcester. On January
6, 2 Edward VI., that is at the beginning of 1549, Oswen obtained a
privilege from the King to print “every kind of book or books set forth
by us concerning the service to be used in churches, ministration of
the sacraments, and instruction of our subjects of the Principality of
Wales and marches thereunto belonging for seven years, prohibiting all
other persons whatsoever from printing the same.” What this privilege
definitely meant, or what use Oswen made of it, is not clear. He
certainly printed nothing concerning the service of the church, or for
the instruction of the subjects, specially adapted to the Principality
of Wales. He printed editions of the Prayer-book and New Testament,
but they were in English and varied in no respect from the editions
put forth by the authorised printers, Whitchurch and Grafton. The
three or four Welsh books issued in the vernacular during the period
in which his privilege was in force, Salisbury’s Dictionary in English
and Welsh and Introduction to Welsh pronunciation, extracts from the
laws of Hoel, and the Epistles and Gospels in Welsh, books both for the
instruction of the subject and the service of the Church, were printed
by other printers. For these, or some of them, at any rate, privileges
had been obtained from Henry VIII. By the beginning of 1549 Oswen was
settled in Worcester in the High Street, issuing a book as early as
January 30. Besides his printing office in Worcester he appears to have
had another shop absolutely on the Welsh border, for at the end of some
of his colophons are the words: “They be also to sell at Shrewsbury.”
Oswen’s four editions of the New Testament, from 1548 to 1550, as given
by Herbert, seem to resolve themselves into one quarto edition dated
January 12, 1550. Of the Prayer-book there were certainly three issues.
The first is a quarto dated May 24, 1549. It contains an injunction
which “streightly chargeth and commaundeth that no maner of person do
sell this present boke unbounde, above the price of II Shillinges and
two pence ye piece. And the same bound in paste or in boordes, not
above the pryce of thre shillynges and eyght pence the piece.” The next
edition, a folio, dated July 30, 1549, has a similar injunction fixing
the price at two shillings and sixpence unbound, and four shillings
bound. It will be noticed that His Highness’s Council in their wisdom
decreed that the cost of binding a quarto and a folio should be exactly
the same, namely eighteen pence. The last issue, the rarest of all, was
a folio printed in 1552. Apart from Prayer-books and Testaments we
know of seventeen books printed by Oswen in the four years between 1549
and 1553. Seven in 1549, five in 1550, three in 1551, and two in 1553.
The first book issued in 1549 was Henry Hart’s _Consultorie for all
Christians_. This is dated January 30, but is probably 1549 rather than
1550, since the printer has printed at the beginning his newly-granted
privilege in full.
Six other books are dated 1549. Of these three, Hegendorff’s _Household
Sermons, The Dialogue between the seditious anabaptist and the true
Christian_, translated by John Veron, and the _Spiritual Matrimony
between Christ and the Church_, are given by Herbert, but he had
apparently never seen copies and none are at present known. Of
_Certeyne sermons appointed by the King’s majesty to be read_, there
are two copies in the British Museum. Herbert quotes _A message from
King Edward VI., concerning obedience to religion_, as printed by Oswen
at Worcester, August 5, 1549. This is apparently another edition of the
message “to certain of his people assembled in Devonshire” printed by
Grafton in July, but addressed to the people of Wales.
The last of the year’s books was a _Psalter_ printed in red and black
and issued on September 1, of which there is a copy in the British
Museum.
For the year 1550 there are four books, and of these one St Ambrose,
_Of opression_, said to be translated by Oswen himself, is known only
from the entry in Herbert, derived from Maunsell’s catalogue. The other
three, Zwingli’s _Short pathway to the Scriptures_, _The godly sayings
of the old, ancient faithful fathers_ translated by John Veron, and
Gribald’s _Notable and marvellous epistle_, are known, the first two
from copies in the University Library and elsewhere, the last from a
copy in the Bodleian. To the end of this year we may ascribe a very
rare little octavo, _Almanack and prognostication for the year of our
Lord_ 1551. _Practised by Simon Heringius and Lodowyke Boyard_. In
April 1551 a new edition was issued of Bullinger’s _Dialogue between
the rebel Anabaptist and the true Christian_, which is known from
copies in the Bodleian and Brasenose College Library. Herbert had
quoted an earlier edition of 1549, of which no copy is known and which
is perhaps due to some confusion with the present edition. Bullinger’s
_Most sure and strong defence of the baptism of children_, translated
by John Veron, was also issued this year, and a copy is in the
Bodleian. The third and last book of 1551 was issued in May, Hooper’s
_Godly and most necessary annotations in the XIII. chapter to the
Romans_, of which there is a copy in the University Library.
From May 1551 until May 1553, exactly two years, no dated book is known
from Oswen’s Worcester press, except the folio Prayer-book of 1552. Nor
is there any undated book to be ascribed to these years, for Oswen’s
books, so far as we know, are all dated. This is another of those
unaccountable gaps that we so often find in the career of a printer.
The last two Worcester books were issued in 1553, a _Homily to be read
in time of pestilence_, written by Bishop Hooper and dated May 18, and
the _Statutes of the seventh year of Edward VI._ A copy of the _Homily_
is in the University Library. It is a handsomely printed thin quarto,
and has on the title-page besides four border-pieces, a woodcut of the
Royal arms with supporters, and another of the youthful king seated on
his throne. The _Statutes_ are described by Herbert from a copy in his
own possession, but where it is at present is not known.
Oswen printed altogether at Worcester some twenty-one books, so that it
heads the list of provincial presses as regards numbers. The press is
also noticeable for the comparative excellence of the printing and the
variety of good border-pieces and initial letters, very much superior
to the material used by most of the contemporary printers. From the
class of books he issued we can well understand the cessation of his
press as soon as Mary succeeded to the throne.
There remain three books to be noticed which appear to be connected
with Oswen. These are John Sawtry’s _Defence of the marriage of
priests_, another book with a similar title by Philip Melanchthon, and
lastly a _Treatise of baptism and the Lord’s Supper_. The colophon of
the first runs: “Printed at Awryk by Jan Troost, 1541 in August,” that
of the second, “Printed at Lipse by Ubryght Hoff,” while the title-page
says, “Translated out of latyne into englisshe by Lewes Beuchame in the
yere of the Lorde 1541 in August.” The colophon of the last runs: “At
Grunning 1541 April 27.” The three books are obviously from the same
press; initials, borders, type, all agree, and copies are in some cases
bound together. They are no less obviously printed in England, but by
whom? The only clue so far is an initial M which appears identical with
one used by Oswen, while on the other hand the borders do not occur
in any of Oswen’s books though he uses a large selection. Again, why
should all three books be dated 1541 which, if they were the work of
Oswen, must be a false date. Though admitting the clue which connects
them with Oswen, it would be safer for the present until more evidence
is forthcoming to class them under “printer unidentified.”
At present, though a good start has been made in the Catalogue of Early
English Books in the University Library, a very great deal remains to
be done, and if done at all to be done very carefully, on the subject
of books with fictitious imprints or with none at all. Hitherto if
there was anything the least strange in the appearance of a book, or if
its subject were of a controversial nature, it was promptly docketed
“printed at a secret press on the Continent.” That many such books were
printed at Continental presses is quite clear, but in the majority of
cases any danger in connexion with such books was not to the printer,
but to the person who introduced them into this country. In consequence
the foreign printers rarely tried to deceive, and once their types are
properly identified, it is not difficult to ascribe foreign printed
books to their right printers. But on the other hand, I suspect that
a considerable number of books now generally ascribed to Continental
presses were really produced in this country. The wording of various
enactments against seditious books makes it clear that the authorities
of the period at any rate considered that numbers were printed in this
country, and if that is so we must look for them outside the ordinary
and known productions of our regular printers. If we take away all
the unsigned books which may be clearly ascribed to foreign presses,
a very large number will still remain about which we know, for the
present at any rate, little or nothing.
Canterbury was the last of the provincial towns to start a press, and
its first book was an edition of the _Psalter_ printed in 1549. One or
two early writers, however, quoted a book printed there about 1525. The
title runs: _A goodly narration how St Augustine the Apostle of England
raysed two dead bodies at Longcompton, collected out of divers authors,
translated by John Lidgate, Monke of Bury_. Printed at St Austens at
Canterburie in 4to. No copy of the book is at present known, but it is
conjectured that, like another book connected with Canterbury, _The
history of King Boccus and Sydracke_, it may have been printed by a
London printer, “at the coste and charge of Dan Robert Saltwoode, monke
of St Austen’s at Cantorbery.”
John Mychell, the first printer, seems to have begun his career in
London, where he printed two books, the _Life of St Margaret_ and the
_Life of St Gregory’s mother_, at a printing office with a long and
interesting history, _The long shop in the Poultry_. He probably worked
there between the tenancies of Richard Kele, who left it in 1546, and
his apprentice Alde, who worked there later. Mr Allnutt, in an article
on Provincial Presses, asserts that he quitted Canterbury for London in
the reign of Queen Mary and quotes these two books as proof, but that
would mean that he came to London after 1555, in which case we might
expect to find some mention of him in the Stationers’ Registers, and at
that time, too, the long shop in the Poultry was occupied by another
printer. I think it may be taken for certain that he went from London
to Canterbury.
Mychell’s first Canterbury book, the _Psalter or psalms of David after
the translation of the great Bible_, printed in 1549, is an extremely
rare book. The only copy quoted by bibliographers is one which was in
Dr Lort’s sale in 1791. This copy passed to Lord Spencer and is now in
the Rylands Library. It was reissued again in 1550 and a copy is in
the University Library. The only known copy of the other book issued
in 1550, John Lamberd’s _Treatise of predestination_, is also in the
University Library. In 1552 and 1553 there were at least three issues
of a _Breviat Chronicle_ compiled or at any rate edited by Mychell
himself.
The nine undated books which he issued were mainly theological and
controversial. One of these, entitled _Newes from Rome concerning the
blasphemous sacrifice of the papisticall Masse_, was printed for E.
Campion. It is curious, considering the title of the book, that this
E. Campion was in all probability the London bookseller of the time,
Edmund Campion, the father of the celebrated Jesuit martyr.
Two others are quoted by Herbert, _A short epistle to all such as
do contempne the marriage of us poor preestes_ and _The spirituall
matrimonye betweene Chryste, and the Soul_, no copies of either being
at present known, though a title-page of the second is among the
Bagford fragments.
Mychell printed also an edition of Stanbridge’s _Accidence_, of
Lidgate’s _Churl and Bird_, and of Robert Saltwood’s _Comparison
between four birds_. Saltwood was keeper of the chapel of the Virgin
Mary at Canterbury when on December 4, 1539, he signed the surrender.
His name is not found after this nor does he appear in the list of
pensioners. He seems to have taken an interest in poetry, and it was
for him that the _Boccus and Sydracke_ was printed, so perhaps we may
trace to his instigation the separate works of Lidgate which Mychell
printed. In the colophon to his own book Saltwood is described only as
monk, with no mention of Canterbury, and the place of printing is not
stated, so that it may have been issued by Mychell at London.
Mary’s succession seems to have caused the cessation of the press,
and certainly the class of theological works, which had been its main
output, was not such as would be received with favour under the changed
conditions.
Mychell, however, still remained at Canterbury, though his press was
idle. The only piece of printing that can be assigned to him after
Mary’s accession is a semi-official tract of four leaves. _Articles
to be enquyred in thordinary visitacion of the most reverende father
in God, the Lorde Cardinall Pooles grace Archebyshop of Caunterbury
wythin hys Dioces of Cantorbury. In the yeare of our Lorde God M. V.
C. Lvi._ Pole was only consecrated Archbishop in March 1556, so that
the pamphlet must have been printed after that date. No perfect copy
is known, but the first and last leaves, which belonged to Herbert and
which he described in his _Typographical Antiquities_, are now in the
Douce Collection in the Bodleian. The pamphlet is unique in another
respect, as it is the only piece of provincial printing in England
issued during Mary’s reign.
Ames in his _History of Printing_, published in 1749, mentions two
books printed for Martin Coffin, a stationer living at Exeter. The
first, an edition of Stanbridge’s _Vocabula_, was printed at Rouen
by Lawrence Hostingue and Jamet Loys. This would put the date about
1505 when these two printers were in partnership and before 1508 when
Hostingue left Rouen.
The other book is an edition of _Catho cum commento_, also printed
at Rouen by Richard Goupil who was at work about 1510. This is also
mentioned in Bagford’s notes. The first of these books was sold in
Thomas Rawlinson’s sale where Ames probably saw it, and the second may
perhaps have been bound up with it, but since that sale in 1727 all
traces of them have disappeared.
Martin Coffin remained some time longer in England, for we find him
taking out letters of denization in the year 1524 on April 28, and in
these he is described as a bookbinder.
Lastly we may notice two books printed abroad which, by having the
names of English towns printed in their colophons, have sometimes
been considered as the productions of English provincial presses. The
earlier of the two is _The Rescuyinge of the Romish Fox_ written by
William Turner under the pseudonym of William Wraghton. The book is a
violent attack on Stephen Gardiner, then Bishop of Winchester, and ends
with the colophon: “Imprinted have at Winchester. Anno Domini, 1545.
By me Hanse Hit Prik.” The obvious meaning is that the fictitious Hans
Hitprik has imprinted the book against the bishop, not at the town, of
Winchester. Nevertheless the book has been quoted over and over again
as a Winchester printed book.
The second book is Luther’s _Faythfull admonycion of a certen true
pastor_, with the colophon, “Imprinted at Grenewych by Conrade Freeman
in the month of May 1554. With the most gracious licence and privilege
of God almighty, King of heaven and earth.” This last sentence is quite
enough to show the nature of the work, and that the name of the place
and printer are alike fictitious.
Both books are apparently from the press of Christopher Froschover at
Zurich, a prolific printer of controversial books.
In Seyer’s _Memoirs of Bristol_, published in 1823, the claim was put
forward for the existence of an early press at Bristol on the strength
of extracts from some manuscript Kalendars to the effect that “In the
year 1546 a press for printing was set up in the castle which is used
daily to the honour of God.” No trace of anything printed at Bristol in
the sixteenth century has been found, and perhaps the date quoted may
be an error for 1646, about which time a press was certainly at work in
the town issuing sermons and other tracts.
When we consider the places where presses were at work during this
period, or where stationers lived who commissioned books, it seems
surprising that other towns of equal or greater importance have nothing
to show printed or published in them. So much that has come down to us
has survived by so slender a chance that there is always the hope that
further information may be found and other towns added to our list.
Hereford is only represented in a colophon by the unique copy of one
book, Exeter by two books which have been lost for over a hundred and
fifty years.
Chester, for example, is a town where we might have expected to find
books printed or published. The stationers there were certainly
important, for they formed themselves along with the heraldic painters
and embroiderers into a company which obtained a charter from the Mayor
and Aldermen on the feast of St Philip and St James in 1534, formally
enrolled in 1536. After some trouble I ran the registers of the Company
to earth, but unfortunately the first volume has been lost, so that
the records between the years 1536 and 1587 are missing, and any
information about the period we are now concerned with, irrecoverable
at present.
Chester was the centre of a large and important district, and was
also the chief port of embarkation for Ireland (it was from there
that Edward King set out on his ill-fated voyage), so that we might
well expect its stationers to have published something, or some
printer to have set up a press. And there are many other towns in a
similar position. We know from records that they supported a number
of stationers, and it is hard to believe that nothing was printed for
them, even an almanack.
Within the period we have been examining, roughly the hundred years
since the invention of printing up to the passing of the Stationers’
Company’s Charter in 1557, printing had been practised in nine
provincial towns. The two fifteenth-century presses, Oxford and St
Alban’s, ceased simultaneously in 1486. York, away in the north of
England, had a press at work between 1509 and 1516. Then comes a
curious revival; a second press at Oxford from 1517 to 1519, a press
at Cambridge in 1521 and 1522, at Tavistock in 1525 and 1534, at
Abingdon in 1528, and a second at St Alban’s from 1534 to 1538. Then
came the Reformation and the accompanying changes in the old order
of things after which not one of the old presses ventured to start
again. The accession of Edward VI. seems to have given a new impetus
to book-production, and the remaining three of the early provincial
presses were started during his reign, Ipswich working in 1547 and
1548, Worcester from 1548 to 1553, and Canterbury from 1549 to 1556.
When we come to sum up the books produced, it must be admitted that
the output was miserably small. Between 1478 and 1556 the provincial
presses of England issued about one hundred and eleven books, not three
books in two years; twenty-one more books were printed for provincial
stationers, bringing up the number to one hundred and thirty-two, not
two books a year. Between 1478 and 1516, thirty books were printed
in three towns; between 1517 and 1538, twenty-six in five towns; and
between 1548 and 1556, fifty-five books in three towns. The output of
many foreign provincial towns far surpassed that of all the English put
together.
But in looking at the history of the book trade in England during the
period, one point is especially striking, the very great disproportion
between the numbers of printers and of stationers. The books produced
by the English presses formed but an infinitesimal portion of the
literature circulated in the country. The number of printers we can
reckon fairly accurately, for there must be few, if any, who have left
no trace; with stationers it is quite otherwise, for we are almost
entirely dependent on records and registers, of which vast numbers
have utterly perished. In these early times, fortunately for us, if
unfortunately for themselves, people seem to have been continually
engaged in lawsuits, and it is from records of law pleas and actions
that much of our information is derived, though often it consists of
mere names.
It is very difficult for us now to arrive at a clear conception of the
position of a stationer or the character of the book trade of that
period. Reading and writing were not very common accomplishments,
books were relatively expensive and purchasers must have been few,
yet in a small town like Bury St Edmund’s we find about the year 1505
no fewer than six stationers. We know the names of six, there may
have been more, yet how were even six to earn a livelihood? The trade
of a stationer then was more comprehensive than now, for he was a
bookseller and a bookbinder, but even then his business cannot have
been large and would hardly be sufficient to keep him. It is clear,
however, from numerous contemporary references, that stationers often
engaged in other business apart from their own. We find them dealing in
various things besides books, but by far the most favourite occupation
supplementary to selling books was to keep a public-house. Numbers
of the early stationers are spoken of also as beer brewers. In the
Oxford University Archives we constantly find licences granted to the
booksellers to sell wine or beer. The early English printer, Jean
Barbier, who had worked at London and Westminster at the end of the
fifteenth century, is cited in a London lawsuit as “Johannes Barbour
nuper de Coventre, bere brewer, alias dictus Jehanne Berbier nuper de
Coventre, prenter.” Anthony de Solen, the first printer at Norwich,
was admitted a freeman of that city on the condition “that he shall not
occupye eny trade of marchandise eyther from the parts beyonde the seas
or from London, but onely his arte of prynting and selling of Renysh
wyne.” References to this dual business are very frequent, and it seems
to have continued as late as the seventeenth century.
The importation of foreign books into England during the end of the
fifteenth and early part of the sixteenth centuries must have been very
large. The revival of learning was setting in, the country was gaining
a reputation for scholarship and attracting foreign students, and every
encouragement was given by the authorities to the book trade. In the
grant given to Peter Actors, he was allowed to import books without
paying customs, so that there was some tax upon imported books, though
it was probably very slight.
For almost every class of book of a learned character the English
purchaser was dependent on the foreign printer, and English scholars as
a rule sent their own works to the Continent to be printed on account
of the greater facilities and probably also for the lesser cost.
The two classes of tradesmen who dealt in books were well described
by Fuller in the seventeenth century. The one he calls “stationarii,
publickly avouching the sale of staple books in standing shops, whence
they have their names,” the other he designates “circumforanean
pedlers, ancestors to our modern Mercuries and hawkers.” No doubt,
as on the Continent, the stationer was accustomed to send round
periodically a van laden with books from town to town, and village to
village, and, putting up at the village inn, advertise and show his
wares there.
The chief opportunity for selling books was at the various fairs, and
to these the agents of the London booksellers would journey, not only
to sell books to the public, but to do wholesale business with the
local stationers. It is quite clear that a large number of important
foreign printers and publishers kept premises in London, and their
representatives would also be present at the fairs. These fairs were
very important centres of trade. They continued for a week, sometimes
two, and while they continued, the ordinary shops of the town were
compelled to close. There is evidence to show that to the principal
fairs many of the London booksellers went themselves, leaving their
shops in charge of an assistant. In 1487 an attempt was made by the
Corporation of London to prevent London freemen attending local fairs,
but a general outcry was made that many goods, amongst them books,
would not be obtainable, and the ordinance was repealed. The subject
of the book trade at fairs is too large to be considered here, but
it must be remembered that by far the largest fair in England, a not
unworthy rival to Frankfurt, was held at Sturbridge by Cambridge, and
it retained its reputation for bookselling for some centuries.
After the first quarter of the sixteenth century the freedom of the
foreign book trade was menaced by many ominous acts culminating in the
act of 1534, which seriously interfered with the sale of foreign books
and the trade of the foreign stationer, and about the same time the
disuse and suppression of the various service books destroyed another
branch of the trade.
The book trade received a further severe blow from the literary side
by the advent in England of what was contemptuously styled by many of
the old scholars with distrust and dislike, the “New Learning,” the
teachings of Luther, Melanchthon, and the reformers. The revival of
learning and classical study which had given so great an impetus to
the book trade was superseded by religious and doctrinal quarrelling,
which, though for a time encouraging the importation of controversial
pamphlets, soon brought down upon all concerned the heavy hand of
authority, with the result that, while the literature of the “New
Learning” was prohibited, the demand for books of other classes had
ceased.
The last twenty years of Henry VIII.’s reign was an anxious time for
printers and booksellers; it seemed impossible to foretell what might
safely be printed. Books which one year were condemned to be burnt
appeared a couple of years afterwards, “cum privilegio regali.” During
these years, therefore, we find the provincial press almost entirely
unrepresented: between 1538 and 1548 not a single book was printed,
at any rate overtly, and in the ten years before that, hardly half a
dozen. As we have seen, the short reign of Edward VI. saw more books
printed in the provincial towns than had been produced since the
invention of printing, but this fruitful time was short.
The accession of Mary was marked by an outpouring of seditious books
which naturally did not please the ruling powers. Several enactments
were issued against them, seemingly with little effect. Finally, in
1557, Philip and Mary, “considering and manifestly perceiving that
several seditious and heretical books, both in verse and prose,
are daily published, stamped and printed by divers scandalous,
schismatical, and heretical persons, not only exciting our subjects
and liegemen to sedition and disobedience against us, our crown
and dignity, but also to the renewal and propagating very great and
detestable heresies against the faith and sound catholic doctrine of
holy mother the church,” determined upon a decisive step. The weapon
they forged was ingenious. They granted a Charter to the Stationers’
Company forbidding anyone to print who did not belong to it. The
stationers were naturally active in putting down anything which
competed with themselves, while the King and Queen could in their turn
keep a firm grasp on the stationers. The various enactments of the
Stationers’ Charter practically put an end to the provincial book trade.
In my brief survey of the subject I hope I have at any rate shown
some of the many points of interest with which it abounds. It is
one moreover eminently associated with the name of Mr Sandars. The
provincial presses always had a great attraction for him, and to his
liberality the University Library is indebted for many of the specimens
it possesses.
Perhaps what may have struck you most is how much we have yet to learn
on the subject, how little we really know. A good deal of what has been
said has been, not about books which we now possess, but about books
which we have lost. A cloud of obscurity still hangs over the subject,
but the cloud has a silver lining. Think how much there still remains
for us to discover.
APPENDIX I.
LIST OF BOOKS PRINTED BY PROVINCIAL PRINTERS OR FOR PROVINCIAL
STATIONERS.
NOTE.
When more than three copies of a book are known, only three are quoted,
preference being given to those in the great libraries.
KEY TO LIBRARIES.
A British Museum.
B Bodleian.
C Cambridge University.
D John Rylands Library.
E Bibliothèque Nationale.
F Lambeth Palace.
G Balliol College, Oxford.
H Brasenose College, Oxford.
I Clare College, Cambridge.
J Corpus Christi College, Oxford.
K Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
L Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
M Exeter College, Oxford.
N Jesus College, Oxford.
O Jesus College, Cambridge.
P Merton College, Oxford.
Q New College, Oxford.
R Oriel College, Oxford.
S Queen’s College, Oxford.
T St John’s College, Cambridge.
U St John’s College, Oxford.
V Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.
W Trinity College, Cambridge.
X Wadham College, Oxford.
Y York Minster.
Z Norwich Cathedral.
Aa Westminster Abbey.
Bb Ripon Cathedral.
Cc Lincoln Cathedral.
Dd Worcester Cathedral.
Ee Archbp. Marsh’s, Dublin.
Ff Ushaw, St Cuthbert’s College.
Herb. = Herbert’s Typographical Antiquities.
Priv. = Copy in a private collection.
I. OXFORD.
1478.
Rufinus. Expositio in simbolum apostolorum 4to A.B.C.
1479.
Aristotle. Textus ethicorum 4to A.B.D.
Egidius. De peccato originali 4to B.D.R.
1481.
Alexander de Hales fol. A.B.C.
1482.
Lathbury. Expositio super trenis Jheremie fol. A.B.C.
1485.
Phalaris. Epistolæ 4to D.J.X.
1486.
Mirk. Liber festivalis fol. B.D.F.
s.a.
Alexander de Villa Dei. Doctrinale (_fragments_) 4to T.
Anwykyll. Latin Grammar Ed. I. (_fragments_) 4to C.K.W.
Anwykyll. Latin Grammar Ed. II. 4to B.
Augustine. Excitatio 4to A.
Cicero. Pro Milone (_fragments_) 4to B.P.
Hampole. Explanationes in Job 4to C.D. Priv.
Latin Grammar (_fragments_) 4to A.
Lyndewode. Constitutiones provinciales fol. A.B.C.
Swyneshede. Insolubilia 4to P.Q.
Terentius. Vulgaria 4to A.B.C.
_John Scolar._
1517.
Burley. Super libros posteriorum Aristotelis 4to B.U.
1518.
Burley. De materia et forma 4to B.C.N.
Dedicus. Super librosethicorum Aristotelis 4to A.B.C.
Laet. Prenostica (_fragments_) b.s. C.J.
Questiones de luce et lumine 4to B.C.N.
Whitinton. De heteroclitis nominibus 4to B.C.N.
s.a.
Opus insolubilium 4to A.
_Charles Kyrfoth._
1519.
Compotus manualis 4to C.
_Richard Pynson for George Chastelayn_
s.a. (1507).
Lugo, P. de. Principia 4to A.C.D.
_Wynkyn de Worde for Henry Jacobi._
s.a. (1513).
Sirectus. Formalitates 4to A.Q.
_Peter Treveris for John Dorne._
1527.
Tractatus secundarum intentionum 4to C.
s.a. (1527).
Opus insolubilium 4to C.J.
II. ST ALBAN’S.
_Schoolmaster Printer._
1480.
Albertus. Liber modorum significandi 4to E.
Saona, L. de. Rhetorica nova 8º A.B.C.
1481.
Canonicus, J. In physica Aristotelis fol. B.Y.
Exempla sacræ scripturæ 4to A.
1486.
Book of St Alban’s fol. A.B.C.
s.a.
Andreæ, A. In logica Aristotelis (1481) 4to O.X.Z.
Chronicles of England (1485) fol. A.D.K.
Datus, A. Super eleganciis Tullianis (1479) 4to C.
_John Herford._
1534.
Life and passion of St Alban 4to A.B.
1536.
Gwynneth. Confutation of Frith 8º A.C.
1537.
Introduction to reckon with the pen (_fragment_) 8º A.
1538.
Disputation between Justus and Peccator 8º Herb.
Epistle against enemies of poor people 8º Herb.
Rule of an honest life 8º Herb.
s.a.
Breviary of St Alban’s 8º Priv.
Declaration of bond and free will 8º D.
III. HEREFORD.
_Rouen for Ingelbert Haghe._
1505.
Breviarium Herfordense 8º B. Dd.
1517.
_Eustace Hardy, Rouen, for J. Caillard and J. Gachet_
Ortus Vocabulorum 4to D.
IV. EXETER.
_L. Hostingue and J. Loys, Rouen, for Martin Coffin._
s.a. (1505).
Stanbridge. Vocabula 4to Herb.
_R. Goupil, Rouen, for Martin Coffin._
s.a. (1510).
Cato cum commento 4to Herb.
V. YORK.
_Hugo Goes._
1509.
Directorium Sacerdotum 4to V.Y.
s.a.
Accidence 4to.
Donatus 4to.
_Ursyn Mylner._
1516.
Whitinton. De consinitate grammatices 4to A.
s.a. (1514).
Festum Visitationis Beatæ Mariæ 8º Herb.
Supplement to Breviary 8º L.
_P. Violette, Rouen, for Gerard Wandsforth._
1507.
Expositio Hymnorum et sequentiarum 4to B.D.
_Wynkyn de Worde for J. Gachet._
1509.
Manuale Eboracense 4to B. Bb.Ff.
_P. Olivier, Rouen, for J. Gachet._
1516.
Missale Eboracense fol. A.B.C.
1517.
Hymni 4to A.
s.a. (1516).
Manuale 4to Ee.
Processionale 8º Bb.
_F. Regnault, Paris, for J. Gachet._
1526.
Breviarium 8º A.B.C.
_(N. le Roux), Rouen, for J. Gachet._
1530.
Missale 4to B.S. Ee.
Processionale 8º A.B. Ff.
_F. Regnault, Paris, for J. Gachet._
1533.
Breviarium 16º A. Priv.
VI. CAMBRIDGE.
_John Siberch._
1521.
Bullock. Oratio 5to A.B.F.
Augustinus. Sermo 4to B.
Lucian. πὲρι διψάδων 4to A.F.T.
Balduinus. Sermo de altaris sacramento 4to B.C.W.
Erasmus. De conscribendis epistolis 4to A.K.T.
Galen. De temperamentis 4to A.B.C.
1522.
Fisher. Contio 4to B.D.
Papyrius Geminus. Hermathena 4to A.C.T.
s.a.
Lily. De octo partibus orationis constructione (_fragments_) 4to Aa.
_Eucharius Cervicornus, Cologne, for J. Siberch._
1520.
Croke. Introductiones in Rudimenta Græca 4to Cc.
VII. TAVISTOCK.
_Thomas Rychard._
1525.
Boethius. Book of Comfort 4to B.D.M.
1534.
Statutes of the Stannary 4to M.
VIII. ABINGDON.
_John Scolar._
1528.
Breviarium Abendonense 4to L.
IX. IPSWICH.
_Anthony Scoloker._
1547.
Reckoning of years to 1547 8º C.
1548.
Hermann. Right institution of baptism 8º Priv.
Luther. Sermon on John xx. 8º A.B.
Ochino. Sermons 8º A.B.C.
Ordinary for all faithful Christians 8º D.
Zwingli. Certain precepts 8º A.B.C.
s.a.
Disputation between shoemaker and parson 8º Priv.
For _Reginald Oliver_.
1534.
Juvencus. Historia Evangelica 8º.
_John Oswen._
1548.
Calvin. Declaration of the feigned sacrament 8º Herb.
Calvin. The mind of the godly J. Calvin 8º A.B.C.
Exhortation to the sick 8º A.C.
Hegendorff. Domestical sermons 8º A.B. Priv.
Marcourt. Declaration of the Mass 8º B.
Melanchthon. Of the authority of the Church 8º Herb.
s.a.
Book of Prayers (_fragments_) 16º Priv.
Invective against drunkenness 16º C.
Moone. Treatise of things abused 4º A.I.
Oecolampadius. Epistle ... of the poor 8º Herb.
Ramsey. Plaister for a galled horse 4º I.
_Theodoricus Plateanus, Wesel, for John Overton._
1548.
Bale. Illustrium Britanniæ scriptorum summarium 4to A.B.C.
X. WORCESTER.
_John Oswen._
1549.
Book of Common Prayer fol. A.B.
Book of Common Prayer 4to A.C.
Bullinger. Dialogue between anabaptist and Christian 8º Herb.
Certain sermons appointed by the King’s Majesty 4to A.
H.H. Consultorie for all Christians 8º C. Priv.
Hegendorff. Domestical sermons 8º Herb.
Message sent by the King’s Majesty 16º Herb.
Psalter or Psalms of David 4to A.
Spiritual matrimony between Christ and Church 16º Herb.
1550.
Almanack and prognostication for 1551 8º.
Ambrose. Of oppression 16º Herb.
Gribald. Notable and marvellous epistle 8º B.
New Testament 4to A.G.
Veron. Godly sayings of ancient fathers 8º A.B.C.
Zwingli. Short pathway to the Scriptures 8º A.B.C.
1551.
Bullinger. Defence of the baptism of children 8º B.
Bullinger. Dialogue between anabaptist and Christian 8º B.H.
Hooper. Godly annotations in Romans xiii. 8º A.B.C.
1552.
Book of Common Prayer fol. B.
1553.
Hooper. Homily in time of pestilence 4to A.B.C.
Statutes 7 Edward VI. fol. Herb.
XI. CANTERBURY.
_John Mychell._
1549.
Psalter or Psalms of David 4to D.
1550.
Lamberd. Treatise of predestination 8º C.
Psalter or Psalms of David 4to C.
1552.
A breviat chronicle 8º A.B.
A breviat chronicle 8º A.
1553.
A breviat chronicle 8º A.
1556.
Pole. Visitation articles 4to B.
s.a.
Erasmus. Two dialogues 8º A.C.
Hurlestone. News from Rome (for E. Campion) 8º A.B.C.
Lidgate. Churl and bird 8º B.
Melanchthon. Confession of faith of the Germans 8º Herb.
Ridley. Exposition on Philippians 8º B.C.
Saltwood. Comparison between four birds 4º Priv.
Short epistle of the marriage of priests 8º Herb.
Spiritual matrimony between Christ and the soul (_fragment_) 16º A.
Stanbridge. Accidence 4to C.
APPENDIX II.
LIST OF AUTHORITIES.
_General._
ALLNUTT, W. H. English provincial presses. (Bibliographica, Pt. V., pp
23-46.) 8º. London, 1896.
ALLNUTT, W. H. Notes on printers and printing in the provincial towns
of England and Wales. (Library Association Proceedings.) 8º. London,
1879.
AMES, J. Typographical antiquities: being an historical account of
printing in England. 4to. London, 1749.
BRITISH MUSEUM. Catalogue of books in the library of the B.M., printed
in England, Scotland and Ireland, and of books in English, printed
abroad to the year 1640. 3 vols 8º. London, 1884.
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY. Early English printed books, 1475-1640.
Compiled by C. E. Sayle. 5 vols. 8º. Cambridge, 1900-7.
COTTON, H. A typographical gazetteer. Second edition. 8º. Oxford, 1831.
DUFF, E. G. A century of the English book trade. Short notices of all
printers, stationers, bookbinders and others connected with it, from
1457 to 1557. (Bibliographical Society Publications.) 4to. London,
1905.
DUFF, E. G. Early English printing. A series of facsimiles of all the
types used in England during the sixteenth century, with some of those
used in the printing of English books abroad. Fol. London, 1896.
DUFF, E. G. Early printed books. 8º. London, 1893.
HAZLITT, W. C. Bibliographical Collections and Notes. 8 vols. 8º.
London, 1867-1903.
HERBERT, W. Typographical antiquities. Begun by Joseph Ames. 3 vols.
4to. London, 1785-90.
PLOMER, H. R. A short history of English printing, 1476-1898. 4to.
London, 1900.
PLOMER, H. R. Some notices of men connected with the English book
trade from the Plea Rolls of Henry VII. (Library, Third Series, I.,
pp. 289-301.) 8º. London, 1910.
WEALE, W. H. J. Bookbindings and rubbings of bindings in the National
Art Library, South Kensington. 2 parts, 8º. London, 1894-98.
_Cambridge._
BOWES, R. Biographical notes on the University printers, from the
commencement of printing in Cambridge to the present time. (Cambridge
Antiquarian Society Proceedings, vol. v., pp. 283-363). 8º. Cambridge,
1886.
BOWES, R. Fascimiles of title-pages and colophons of early Cambridge
books. (A series of photographs and lithographs.) 4to. Cambridge
[1879].
BOWES, R. On a copy of Linacre’s Galen de Temperamentis, Cambridge
1521, in the library of Trinity College, Dublin. (Cambridge
Antiquarian Society Proceedings, vol. ix. p. 1.)
BOWES, R., and GRAY, G. J. John Siberch: bibliographical notes,
1886-1905. 4to. Cambridge, 1906.
BRADSHAW, H. Doctissimi viri Henrici Bulloci oratio. With a
bibliographical introduction by the late Henry Bradshaw, M.A. 4to.
Cambridge, 1886.
FOSTER, J. E. On two books printed by Siberch, in All Souls College,
Oxford. (Cambridge Antiquarian Society Proceedings, vol. viii. p. 31.)
8º. Cambridge.
GRAY, G. J. The earlier Cambridge stationers and bookbinders, and the
first Cambridge printer. (Bibliographical Society, Monographs, No.
13.) 4to. Oxford, 1904.
GRAY, J. P., AND SONS. A note upon early Cambridge binders of the
sixteenth century. 4to. Cambridge, 1900.
JENKINSON, F. J. H. On a letter from P. Kaetz to J. Siberch.
(Cambridge Antiquarian Society Proceedings, vol. vii. p. 188.) 8º.
Cambridge, 1890.
JENKINSON, F. J. H. On a unique fragment of a book printed at
Cambridge early in the sixteenth century. (Cambridge Antiquarian
Society Proceedings, vol. vii. p. 104.) 8º. Cambridge, 1890.
_Ipswich._
BECK, F. G. M. A new Ipswich book of 1548. (Library N.S., vol. x. pp.
86-9). 8º. London, 1909.
_Oxford._
ATKYNS, R. The original and growth of printing. 4to. London, 1664.
BLADES, W. The first printing press at Oxford. (Antiquary, 1881, I.,
pp. 13-17.)
BOWYER, W. The origin of printing, in two essays. 8º. London, 1774.
GIBSON, S. Abstracts from the wills and testamentary documents
of binders, printers and stationers of Oxford, 1493-1638.
(Bibliographical Society Publications.) 4to. London, 1907.
GIBSON, S. Early Oxford bindings. (Bibliographical Society Monographs,
No 10.) 4to. Oxford, 1903.
HESSELS, J. H. Fragments of a Latin Grammar. With an additional note,
by W. Blades. (Athenæum, 1871, II., pp. 593, 622.) 4to. London, 1871.
LINDSAY, T. M. An Oxford bookseller in 1520 [John Dorne]. (Report of
Stirling’s and Glasgow’s Public Library.) Glasgow, 1907.
MADAN, F. A chart of Oxford printing “1468”-1900. With notes and
illustrations. (Bibliographical Society Monographs, No. 12.) 4to.
Oxford, 1904.
MADAN, F. The day-book of John Dorne. (Oxford Historical Society.
Collectanea, vol. i.). 8º. Oxford, 1885.
MADAN, F. The early Oxford press: a bibliography of printing and
publishing at Oxford, “1468”-1640. 8º. Oxford, 1895.
MIDDLETON, C. A dissertation concerning the origin of printing in
England. 4to. Cambridge, 1735.
POLLARD, A. W. A new Oxford book of 1517. (The Library N.S., vol. x.
pp. 212, 213.) 8º. London, 1909.
SINGER, S. W. Some account of the book printed at Oxford in 1468. 8º.
London, 1812.
_St Alban’s._
BLADES, W. The Book of St Alban’s. Printed at St Alban’s in 1486.
Reproduced in facsimile, with an introduction by William Blades. 4to.
London, 1901.
BLADES, W. The printer at St Alban’s. (Book-worm, I., pp. 169-172.)
8º. London, 1866.
BLADES, W. The schoolmaster printer of St Alban’s. (Antiquary, 1880,
I., pp. 28-30.)
BLADES, W. Some account of the typography of St Alban’s in the
fifteenth century. 8º. London, 1860.
SCOTT, E. Who was the schoolmaster printer of St Alban’s? (Athenæum,
1878, I., pp. 541, 763; II. pp. 497, 623.) 4to. London, 1878.
_Worcester._
BURTON, J. R. Early Worcestershire printers and books. (Associated
Architectural Societies’ Report, xxiv., pp. 197-213.)
_York._
DAVIES, R. A memoir of the York Press. 8º. Westminster, 1868.
DUFF, E. G. The printers, bookbinders and stationers of York up to
1600. (Bibliographical Society Transactions, V., pp. 87-108.) 4to.
London, 1900.
HENDERSON, W. G. Manuale et Processionale ad usum insignis ecclesiæ
Eboracensis. Edited by W. G. H. (Surtees Society, vol. 63.) 8º.
Durham, 1875.
HENDERSON, W. G. Missale ad usum insignis ecclesiæ Eboracensis. Edited
by W. G. H. (Surtees Society, vols. 59, 60.) 2 vols. 8º. Durham, 1874.
LAWLEY, S. W. Breviarium ad usum insignis ecclesiæ Eboracensis. Edited
by S. W. L. (Surtees Society, vols. 71, 75.) 2 vols. 8º. Durham,
1880-3.
RAINE, J. Fabric Rolls of York Minster. Edited by J. R. (Surtees
Society, vol. 35.) 8º. Durham, 1859.
Register of the Freemen of the City of York, 1272-1558. (Surtees
Society, vol. 96). 8º. Durham, 1897.
SKAIFE, R. H. Register of the Guild of Corpus Christi in the City of
York. Edited by R. H. S. (Surtees Society, vol. 57.) 8º. Durham, 1872.
INDEX.
Abingdon, printing, 70
_Accidence._ _See_ Stanbridge, J.
Actors, Margaret, 24
Actors, Peter, 23-25, 32, 125
Actors, Sebastian, 24, 25
Acts affecting printers, 1, 2, 23, 24, 42, 44, 62, 63, 71, 96, 126-128
Ægidius de Columna, _De peccato originali_, 9, 10
_Æsopus moralizatus_, 8
Albertus, _Liber modorum significandi_, St Alban’s, 36
Alchorne, Stanesby, 5
Alde, John, 117
Alexander de Hales, 11, 12, 14,19
Alexander de Villa Dei, _Doctrinale_, Oxford, 19
Allnutt, W. H., 117
_Almanac for_ 1544, 85
_Almanac for_ 1551, J. Oswen, 114
_Alphabeta_, 50, 51
Ambrose, St, _Of oppression_, J. Oswen, 113
Ames, J., 52, 54, 55, 71, 102, 119, 120
Andreæ, A., on _Logica_ of Aristotle, 36
Andrews, L., 59
Atkyns, R., _Original and growth of printing_, 3, 4
Antwerp, printing, 52, 87, 88, 105
Anwykyll, J., _Grammar_, Oxford, 13-15, 19
Aretinus, F., 18
Aretinus, L. B., 9
Argentine, Richard, 106, 107
Aristotle, _De anima_, Oxford, 11;
_Logica_, St Alban’s, 36;
_Nichomachean Ethics_, Oxford, 9;
_Physica_, St Alban’s, 36
Askew, Anthony, 5
_Athenæum, The_, 13, 40
Augustinus, St, _De miseria ac brevitate vitæ_, J. Siberch, 77;
_De misericordia Dei_, Oxford, 16;
_Excitatio ad elemosinam faciendam_, Oxford, 14, 16
Austin, St, Fair, 28
Avissede, R., 52
Awryk, printing, 115
Baetzen, 86
Bagford, J., 44, 53, 54, 71, 102, 118, 120
Baldwin, _Sermo de altaris sacramento_, J. Siberch, 79
Bale, J., _De scriptoribus Britannicis_, 107-109
Bancroft, R., 77
Barbier, Jean, 124
Bars, John, 25
Bath, Marquis of, Library, 38
Bedford, Duke of, Library, 99
Bennett, Richard, 16
Benson, George, 65
Berghen, A. van, 94
Berkeley, Elizabeth, 98
Berners, Juliana, 39, 40
Beuchame, Lewis, 115
Beverley, printing, 54
_Bible_, Dutch, 87
Bibliotheca Columbiniana. _See_ Seville
Bibliothèque Nationale, 17, 36, 37
Bindings:
Cambridge, 19, 80, 83-86, 88-97
Caxton, 18
Fragments in, 12, 13, 17, 19, 26, 65, 74, 83, 86, 94
Ipswich, 105
Low Countries, 31
Oxford, 10, 12, 30-33
Panel Stamps, 24, 25, 32, 81, 83, 84, 94, 105
Price of, 112
Winchester, 32
York, 58, 61, 63, 64
Blades, W., 37
Blew, W., 46
Bodleian Library. _See_ Oxford
Boethius, _De consolatione philosophiæ_, Tavistock, 98
Bonham, W., 103
_Book of Common Prayer_, J Oswen, 112-114
_Book of Hours._ See _Horæ_
_Book of St Alban’s_, 39, 40
Boppard, C. von, 20
Borders, 11, 12, 77-79, 82, 87, 115, 116
Bourchier, T., 3
Bourman, N., 102-104
Bowes, R., 80
Bradshaw, H., 13, 19, 20, 27, 37, 56, 71, 72, 75, 77, 82
Brasenose College. _See_ Oxford
Bretton, W., 26
_Breviary_, Abingdon, 70, 99;
Hereford, 65, 66;
St Alban’s, 101;
York, 43, 46, 49, 51, 60, 61
_Breviary_, Supplement, York, 55
_Breviat Chronicle_, J. Mychell, 118
Breynans, Peter, 90
Bristol, printing, 121
British Museum, 8, 13, 16, 23, 26, 31, 37, 51, 53, 57, 59, 60, 61, 69,
76, 79, 83, 110, 113
Brooke, Sir John, 61
Brunswick, printing, 26, 27
Bullinger, H., _Defence of the baptism of children_, J. Oswen, 114;
_Dialogue between Anabaptist and Christian_, J. Oswen, 114
Bullock, H., 88;
Translation of _Lucian_, 78;
_Oratio_, J. Siberch, 76, 78
Burley, W., _Principia_, J. Scolar, 69;
_Super libros posteriorum Aristotelis_, J. Scolar, 67
Burton, R., 10, 77
Bury St Edmunds, 124
Bute, Marquess of, Library, 99, 101
Caillard, Jean, 66
Caius, Dr J., 74-76
Calvin, J., _Brief declaration of the feigned, sacrament_, J. Oswen,
109; _Treatise on what a faithful man ought to do_, J. Oswen, 109
Cambridge libraries:
Caius College, 75
Clare College, 36, 84, 110
Corpus Christi College, 14, 18, 19, 71, 72, 79
Emmanuel College, 55, 99
Jesus College, 37
Magdalene College, 79, 82
Pembroke College, 59, 91
Peterhouse, 36
St John’s College, 17, 19, 32, 59, 79, 82
Sidney Sussex College, 52
Trinity College, 14, 17, 76
University Library, 8, 14, 16, 17, 25, 28, 32, 35, 36, 46, 59, 70,
77, 79, 82, 84, 101, 106, 109, 114, 118
Campion, E., 118
Canonicus, J., _In Physica Aristotelis_, St Alban’s, 36
Carmelianus, P., 18
_Catho cum commento_, M. Coffin, 120
Catton, R., 101
Caxton, W., 3, 18, 20, 21, 35, 36, 40, 41, 72
_Certain sermons appointed by the King_, J. Oswen, 113
Cervicornus, E., 73
Chastelayn, G., 25
Chauncy, Sir H., 34
Chester, Stationers’ Company, 122
Cholmley sale, 46
Christie Miller Library, 99
_Chronicles of England_, Caxton, 38;
Machlinia, 36;
St Alban’s, 38;
W. de Worde, 34, 41
Cicero, M. T., _Pro Milone_, Oxford, 11-13
Clayton, T., 81
Coffin, Martin, 119, 120
Colbert, J. B., 16, 65
Colet, J., 83
Cologne, printing, 7, 8, 15, 16, 19, 20, 73
Columna, Æg. de. _See_ Ægidius
Colyns, Dr Martin, 46
_Compotus manualis ad usum Oxoniensium_, C. Kyrfoth, 70
Condover Hall, 14
Conway, Sir M., 81
Copenhagen, printing, 57
Copland, W., 110
Copyright, origin of, 68
Corpus Christi College. _See_ Cambridge, Oxford
Corpus Christi Guild, York, 44
Corsellis, F., 3, 4
Corsellis, J., 6
Corsellis, N., 4
Coster, L. J., 6
Coxe, O., 27
Croke, R., _Introductiones in rudimenta Græca_, 73, 74, 86
Cromwell, Thomas, 61, 103
Currer, Miss, 38
Daly, Denis, 5
Datus, A., _Super eleganciis Tullianis_, St Alban’s, 35
Davies, R., _York Press_, 48, 50, 52, 59, 60
_Decor Puellarum_, N. Jenson, 18
Dedicus, J., _Super libros Ethicorum Aristotelis_, J. Scolar, 68
_Description of Britain_, 41
Deventer, printing, 5, 14
Devonshire, Duke of, Library, 83
Dibdin, T. F., 5, 27, 38, 84
_Directorium Sacerdotum_, York, H. Goes, 52, 53, 54;
P. Violette, 46, 47, 49, 51
_Doctrinalia_, 50, 51
_Donatus_, G. ten Raem, 8
_Donatus minor cum Remigio_, H. Goes, 53, 54
Dorne, John, 26-29, 70, 71, 87
Dublin, Archbishop Marsh’s Library, 59, 60, 76, 82
Dublin, Trinity College Library, 80
Egmont, F., 43
Ellis and Green, 13
_Encyclopædia Britannica_, 41
Endoviensis, Chr. _See_ Ruremond
_Epistle against the enemies of poor people_, J. Herford, 102
Erasmus, D., 5, 28, 76, 83, 84;
_De conscribendis epistolis_, J. Siberch, 79, 80
_Exempla sacræ scripturæ_, St Alban’s, 36, 37
_Expositio Hymnorum_, York, G. Wandsforth, 45, 50, 51
_Expositio in symbolum apostolorum_, Oxford, 2, 8-10, 18
_Expositio Sequentiarum_, A. Myllar, 46;
York, G. Wandsforth, 45, 50, 51
Faber, J., 95, 96
Ferrebouc, Jacques, 58
_Festum visitationis Beate Marie Virginis_, U. Mylner, 55
Fisher, J., 75;
_Contio_, J. Siberch, 82
_Fortalitium fidei_, Lyons, 19
Fothergill, Marmaduke, 43
Foxe, J., 45
Frankfurt Fair, 28, 126
Franks, Sir A. W., 93
Freeman, Conrad, 121
Freez, Edward, 44, 45
Freez, Frederick. _See_ Wandsforth
Freez, Valentine, 44, 47
Frideswide, St, Fair, 28;
Monastery, 27
Froschover, Chr., 121
Fuller, T., 45, 125
Fydyon, 89
G. I., binder, 64
G. N., binder, 95
G. W., binder, 64
Gachet, G., 62
Gachet, John, 58-62, 64, 66
Gachet, W., 62
Galen, _De temperamentis_, J. Siberch, 80, 81, 88
Garlandia, J. de, _Grammar_, 46
Geminus, P. _See_ Papyrius
Gibkerken, 86
Gibson, S., 19, 31
Gimpus, Guido, 93
Godfrey, G., 19, 92-97
_Godly disputation between shoemaker and parson_, A. Scoloker, 106
_Godly disputation between Justus and Peccator_, J. Herford, 102
Goes, Hugo, 47, 51-54
Goes, M. van der, 52
_Golden Legend._ _See_ Jacobus de Voragine
Gouda, printing, 57
Gough, Richard, 43
Goupil, Richard, 120
Govaert van Ghemen, 57
Gowthwaite, John, 63
Graphaeus, J., 105
Graten, G. van. _See_ Godfrey
Gray, G. J., 74, 89, 90, 95
Greene, J., 16
Greenwich, 121
Gribald, N., _Notable and marvellous epistle_, J. Oswen, 114
Grope Lane, Oxford, 29
Grunning, printing, 115
Gutenberg, J., 3, 4
Gwynneth, _Confutation of Frith’s book_, J. Herford, 101
Haberdasher Hall, 23
Haghe, Ingelbert, 65, 66
Hales, A. de. _See_ Alexander
Hamman or Hertzog, J. _See_ Hertzog
Hampole, _Explanationes in Job_, Oxford, 14, 16
Hannibal, T., 52
Hardy, Eustace, 66
Harkes, Garbrand, 71
Harley, E., of Oxford, Library, 54
Hart, H., _Consultorie for all Christians_, J. Oswen, 113
Hartshorne, C. H., 17
Hatley, Walter, 89
Heber’s sale, 105
Hegendorff, _Domesticall sermons_, J. Oswen, 110, 113
Henderson, W. G., 59, 60
Hengwrt, Library, 45, 66
Henry VIII., 81
Herbert, W., 4, 29, 37, 44, 72, 78, 102, 109, 113-115, 118, 119
Herford, J., 101-104
Hermann, _Right institution of Baptism_, A. Scoloker, 107
Hertzog, J., 43
Hessels, J. H., 85
Hewtee, John, 24
Hildyard, Chr., 53
_History of King Boccus and Sydracke_, 117, 119
Hit Prik, Hans, 120
Hoff, Ubryght, 115
Holivier, P. _See_ Olivier
Hollen, _Preceptorium_, A. Koburger, 19
Holt, J., _Lac Puerorum_, A. van Berghen, 94
Hooper, J., _Godly annotations on Romans xiii._, J. Oswen, 114;
_Homily in time of Pestilence_, J. Oswen, 114
_Horæ_, 21, 69, 78;
York, 51, 59, 60
Horwood, A., 14
Hostingue, L., 120
Hothyrsall, T., 52
Howberch, 25
Huby, Edward, 63
Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, 40
Hunte, T., 13, 14, 18, 23
Hylton, A., 10
_Hymnal_, York, J. Gachet, 59, 64
Imposition, wrong, 81
Inglis, J. B., 16
Inner Temple Library, 37
Insomuch, John, 34
_Introduction to lerne to reckon with the pen_, J. Herford, 102;
J. Bourman, 104
_Invective against drunkenness_, J. Oswen, 110
Jacob, Edward, 43
Jacobi, H., 25, 26, 30, 32, 68
Jacobus de Voragine, _Golden Legend_, 17, 21
James, Dr M. R., 91
Jenson, N., 18
Jeremiah, _Lamentations_. _See_ Lathbury
John of Aix-la-Chapelle, 23
John of Spire, 18
John Rylands Library, 5, 8, 10, 16, 21, 45, 66, 82, 99, 102, 106, 118
Jones, W., 102
_Just reckoning of the whole number of years_, A Scoloker, 106, 107
Justinian, _Codex_, Paris, 1515, 95
Juvencus, _Historia evangelica_, 104, 105
Kaetz, Peter, 85-87
Kele, Richard, 117
Kirchheim, printing, 78
Kyrfoth, Charles, 70
Lair de Siborch, J. _See_ Siberch
Lamberd, J., _Treatise of predestination_, J. Mychell, 118
Lambeth Palace Library, 21, 53, 76, 77
Langdon, Robert, 98
Lant, Richard, 105
Lathbury, J., On _Lamentations_, 11, 12, 19, 32
Latin Grammar, 11, 13, 54.
_See_ also Anwykyll
Laurentius de Saona, _Rhetorica nova_, St Alban’s, 36, 40, 71
Lee, Edward, 45
Leipzig, printing, 73, 115
Leland, J., _Laborious journey_, 108
Le Roux, Nicholas, 60
Lesquier, W. _See_ Squire
_Libellus sophistarum_, W. de Worde, 29
_Liber Festivalis._ _See_ Mirk, J.
Lidgate, J., 101, 119;
_Churl and Bird_, J. Mychell, 118;
_Godly narration of St Augustine_, 117;
_Life of St Margaret_, J. Mychell, 117
_Life and passion of St Alban_, J. Herford, 101
_Life of St Gregory’s mother_, J. Mychell, 117
Lily, W., _De octo orationis partium constructione libellus_,
J. Siberch, 74, 83, 86;
G. van der Haeghen, 87
Linacre, T., 77, 81
Lincoln Cathedral Library, 82
Logic. _See_ Swyneshede, R.
London, St Paul’s Cathedral Library, 85
Longleat Library. _See_ Bath, M. of
Lort, Dr, 118
Loys, Jamet, 120
Lucian, πὲρι διψάδων, 78
Luther, M., _Faithfull admonition of a true pastor_. C. Freeman, 121;
_Sermon on John xxii._, A Scoloker, 106
Lyndewode, W., _Constitutiones provinciales_, Oxford, 14, 17, 19, 21
Lyons, printing, 96
Lystrius, Gerard, _Oratio_, 4, 5
MacCarthy, Count J., 17
Madan, F., 6, 8, 12, 17, 27, 67
Magdalen College. _See_ Oxford
Magdalene College. _See_ Cambridge
Manchester, Rylands Library. _See_ John Rylands
Manfield, Dr, 74, 88
_Manual_, York, J. Gachet, 58, 59
Marcourt, A., _A declaration of the Mass_, J. Oswen, 110
Marsh’s Library. _See_ Dublin
Martens, Thierry, 20
Martin, Bp. _Rule of an honest life_, J. Herford, 102
Martyn, Thomas, 54, 55
Mauditier, Jean, 65
Maunsell’s _Catalogue_, 102, 113
Mawburn, F., 53
Meerman, G., 5
Melanchthon, P., _Defence of the marriage of priests_, Ubryght Hoff,
115;
_Of the true authority of the churchs_, J. Oswen, 109
Meltynbe, John, 63
Merton College. _See_ Oxford
_Message from King Edward VI._, J. Oswen, 113
Messingham, T., 63
Michael de Hungaria, _Tredecim sermones_, 10
Middleton, Conyers, 6, 72
Minns, E. H., 91
Mirk, J., _Liber festivalis_, 20
_Missal_, Hereford, 65;
York, 46, 49, 51, 59, 60, 61
_Modus Confitendi_, G. ten Raem, 8
Molner, Gertrude, 20
Moone, P., _Short treatise of certain things abused_, J. Oswen, 110
Moore, Bp., John, 59
More, John, 50
Moreaux, Peter, 63
Morgan, J. Pierpont, 16
Morin, M., 59
Murray, A. G. W., 108
Mychell, J., 117-119
Myllar, Andrew, 46
Mylner, U., 50, 51, 55-58
_New book containing an exhortation to the sick_, J. Oswen, 110
New College. _See_ Oxford
Newell, Thomas, 63
_Newes from Rome_, J. Mychell, 118
Nicholson, Segar, 95, 96
Niclas. _See_ Speryng
Norres, Dr, 74
Norwich, printing, 2, 125
Norwich Cathedral Library, 37
_Nova Festa_, York, U. Mylner, 55, 56.
O. R., binder, 105
Ochino, B., _Sermons_, A Scoloker, 106
Oecolampadius, _Epistle_, J. Oswen, 109
Oliver, Reginald, 105, 106
Olivier, Pierre, 59, 60, 65
_Opus insolubilum_, J. Scolar, 69;
P. Treveris, 28, 29
_Opusculum grammaticale_, G. van Ghemen, 57
_Ordinary of all faithful Christians_, A Scoloker, 106
_Ortus Vocabulorum_, J. Gachet, 65, 66
Osborne, Thomas, 4
Oswen, John, 109-116
Overton, John, 107, 108
Oxford, Earl of. _See_ Harley
Oxford Libraries:
All Soul’s College, 12, 81
Bodleian, 8, 10, 14, 15, 21, 23, 36, 43, 45, 46, 55, 60, 61, 65,
69, 76, 78, 81, 82, 94, 99, 110, 114, 119
Brasenose College, 11, 33, 114
Corpus Christi College, 27, 28
Exeter College, 99
Magdalen College, 12, 25, 31
Merton College, 12, 17
New College, 17, 26
Oriel College, 10
Queen’s College, 60, 96
Wadham College, 37
Pace, Richard, 82
Paffroet, R., 5, 14
Panormitanus, _Decretals_, 96
Papyrius Geminus, _Hermathena_, 74, 82, 86
Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale. _See_ Bibliothèque
Paris, printing, 58, 60, 61, 95
Parker, M., 71, 72
Pastor, Jacob, 86
Pate, Richard, 25
Paulinus, _Epistolæ_, Paris, 84
Pelgrim, Joyce, 26
Pepwell, H., 103
Peregrinus de Lugo, _Principia_, R. Pynson, 25
Phalaris _Epistolæ_, Oxford, 14, 18, 23
_Pica._ See _Directorium_
Pietersen, H., 88
Plateanus, Th. _See_ Straten, D. van der
Plinius, _Epistolæ_, 4, 5
Pole, R., _Articles to be enquired at Visitation_, J. Mychell, 119
_Primer._ See _Horæ_
Privileges, 68
_Processional_, York, J. Gachet, 59, 60
Procter, F. _See_ Wordsworth, C.
Proctor, R. G. C., 20, 26
_Prognostication for 1536_, Dutch, H. Pietersen, 88
_Psalter_, J. Mychell, 117, 118;
J. Oswen, 113
Pulleyn, R., 47-50
Pynson, R., 13, 25, 44, 51, 76, 77
Quaritch, B., 10
Quentell, H., 15
_Questiones de luce et lumine_, J. Scolar, 69
Raem, G. ten. _See_ Ten Raem
Ramsay, J., _Plaister for a galled horse_, J. Oswen, 110
Rawlinson, R., 59
Rawlinson, T., 55, 57, 120
Raynalde, T., 110
_Regimen Sanitatis_, J. Dorne, 27
Regnault, F., 60, 61
Remigius, _Dominus que pars_, J. Dorne, 27
Reynes, J., 92
Rice, Richard, 106, 107
Richard, Jean, 65
Richmond, Countess of, 65, 66, 90
Ridley, Dr, 88
Rinck, P., 86
Ripon Cathedral Library, 59
Rolle of Hampole. _See_ Hampole, R.
Rood, Theodoric, 8, 12, 14, 18, 19, 23, 31
Rouen, printing, 45, 51, 59, 60, 65, 66, 120
Rowland, T., 100
Royal College of Physicians’ Library, 80
_Rudimenta grammatices_, J. Graphaesis, 105
Rufinus Tyrannius, _Expositio_. See _Expositio_
Ruremond, Chr. van, 87
Ruremond, Hans van, 87
Rychard, T., 98
Rylands Library. _See_ John Rylands
St Alban’s Press, 9, 22, 34-42, 72, 100-104
St Andrews University Library, 99
Salisbury, W., 112
Saltwood, R., 117, 119;
_Comparison between four birds_, J. Mychell, 118
Sandars, Samuel, 110, 128
Sandford, J., 99
Sawtry, J., _Defence of the marriage of priests_, Jan Troost, 115
Scauseby, Sir J., 50
Scolar, J., 67-70, 75, 100
Scoloker, J., 106, 107, 110, 111
Selden, J., 78
Seres, W., 107
Seville, Bibliotheca Columbiniana, 45
_Short epistle to such as condemn the marriage of priests_,
J. Mychell, 118
Shrewsbury stationer, 112
Siberch, J., 73-80, 84-89, 95, 96
Signs:
Arma Regia, Royal Arms, J. Siberch, 76, 79
Bull, F. Freez, 44
Elephant, F. Regnault, 61
Long Shop in the Poultry, J. Mychell, 117
Our Lady of Pity, W. de Worde, 58
Rose, F. Freez, 44
St John Evangelist, G. Chastelayn, 25
Sun, W. de Worde, 57, 58
Trinity, H. Jacobi, 26
Singer, S. W., 7
Sirectus, A., _Formalitates_, W. de Worde, 26, 68
Smith, George, 5
Smith, Richard, sale, 65
Solen, A., 125
Southwark, printing, 28
Sparchford, R., 81
Spencer, G. J. Earl, 5, 10
Speryng, N., 80, 84, 86-88, 93-97
Spire, John of. _See_ John
_Spiritual matrimony between Christ and the church_, J. Oswen, 113
_Spiritual matrimony between Christ and the soul_, J. Mychell, 118
Squire, W., 89, 90
Stanbridge, J., 13;
_Accidence_, H. Goes, 53;
J. Mychell, 118;
R. Pynson, 25;
_Vocabula_, M. Coffin, 120
Stationer to the King, 23
Stationers, University, Cambridge, 89, 90;
Oxford, 22
_Statutes of 7 Edward VI._, J. Oswen, 114, 115
_Statutes of the Stannary_, 99
Stevenage, R., 101-103
Straten, D. van der, 108, 109
Strype, J., 71, 72
Sturbridge fair, 126
Sutherland, Duke of, sale, 28
Swyneshede, R., _Logica_, Oxford, 14, 16
Symonds, T., 92
Symson, Sir John, 50
Tabbe, H., 103
Tanner, T., 71
Ten Raem, Gerard, 8
Terentius, P., 13;
_Vulgaria Terentii_, Oxford, 14, 15
Testament, New, Latin, 86, 87;
English, J. Oswen, 112, 113
Theodoric, 19, 20
Ther Hoernen, A., 16, 20
Thoresby, Ralph, 43
Thorne, J. _See_ Dorne
Thorpe, T., 105
Tonstall, C., _Oratio in laudem matrimonii Mariæ et Francisci_,
R. Pynson, 68
_Tractatus secundarum intentionum logicalium_, P. Treveris, 29
_Treatise of baptism and the Lord’s Supper_, Grunning, 115
Treveris, P., 28, 29
Trinity College. _See_ Cambridge, Dublin
Troost, Jan, 115
Turner, Robert, 3
Turner, W., _Rescuynge of the Romish fox_, H. Hitprick, 120
Tutet, M. C., 36, 57
Uffington, T., 23
Upton, N., 40
Van Damme, P., 5
Van der Haeghen, G., 87
Van der Straten. _See_ Straten
Van Ruremond. _See_ Ruremond
Vaughan, R., 45, 66
Vellum, books printed on, 11, 12, 17, 38, 44, 59, 81, 83
_Venerie de Twety_, 40
Venice, printing, 18, 43, 77
Veron, J., 113, 114;
_Godly sayings of the old fathers_, J. Oswen, 113
_Very declaration of the bond and free will of man_, J Herford, 102
Violette, Pierre, 45, 46
Virgilius Maro, P., 13
_Vocabularius Ex-quo_, G. ten Raem, 8
Voragine, J. de. _See_ Jacobus
Vouillième, E., 20
_Vulgaria Terentii._ _See_ Terentius
W. G., binder, 64
Wake, Gerard, 89
Wakefield, Dr, 88, 89
Waltwnem, J., 98
Wandsforth, F., 43-45, 47, 49-51, 63, 64
Wandsforth, G., 44, 45, 47-49, 64
Ward, John, 89
Warwyke, E., 48
Warwyke, J., 48
Waterson, R., 47
Watson, H., 47, 53, 54
Weale, W. H. J., 95
Welles, John, 63
Wesel, printing, 108, 109
West, Nicholas, 79
Westminster Abbey Library, 12, 73, 83, 95
Weywick, M., 47, 48, 50.
_See_ also Warwyke
Whitinton, R., _Grammar_, 29;
U. Mylner, 57;
J Scolar, 69;
W. de Worde, 77
Winchester binding, 30, 32
Winchester, printing, 120
Wodhull, M., 36
Wolsey, T., 76, 96, 105
Wood, Anthony à, 29
Worcester Cathedral Library, 65
Worde, W. de, 26, 29, 30, 34, 38, 41, 47, 48, 53, 54, 57, 58, 67, 69,
70, 77
Wordsworth, C., and F. Procter, _Breviary_, 56
Wraghton, W. _See_ Turner
Wutton, Mr, 25
Wyer, Robert, 54
Wynkyn Lane, 29
York Minster Library, 36, 52, 64
York, Stationers’ Company, 63
Zurich, printing, 121
Zwingli, U. _Certain precepts_, A Scoloker, 106, 107;
_Short pathway to the Scriptures_, J. Oswen, 113
PRINTED BY
TURNBULL AND SPEARS
EDINBURGH
Transcriber's Notes:
Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.
Perceived typographical errors have been changed.
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