| By Author | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Title | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Language |
|
Download this book: [ ASCII ] Look for this book on Amazon Tweet |
Title: The printers, stationers and bookbinders of Westminster and London from 1476 to 1535
Author: Duff, E. Gordon (Edward Gordon)
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The printers, stationers and bookbinders of Westminster and London from 1476 to 1535" ***
The Sandars Lectures
1899 and 1904
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE,
C. F. CLAY, MANAGER.
London: FETTER LANE, E.C.
Glasgow: 50, WELLINGTON STREET.
[Illustration]
Leipzig: F. A. BROCKHAUS.
New York: G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS.
Bombay and Calcutta: MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD.
[_All Rights reserved_]
The Printers, Stationers
and Bookbinders
of Westminster and London
from 1476 to 1535
By
E. GORDON DUFF, M.A. Oxon.
Sometime Sandars Reader in Bibliography in
the University of Cambridge
Cambridge
at the University Press
1906
Cambridge:
PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A.
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
TO
FRANCIS JOHN HENRY JENKINSON
IN REMEMBRANCE OF MUCH KINDNESS
AND MUCH PLEASANT WORK
IN CAMBRIDGE
PREFACE
The lectures contained in the present volume I delivered as Sandars
Reader in two series, the first in the Lent Term 1899, the second in
the May Term 1904 and they are thus separated by an interval of five
years. Of the first series a small edition was privately printed for
presentation, but never published, the second series is now printed
for the first time. Though the second part forms a continuation of the
first, the two are quite distinct. With the close of the fifteenth
century many important changes took place in the English book-trade,
and its conditions altered to a great extent, so that the period
from 1476 to 1500 has many essential points of difference from the
period between 1501 and 1535 and they can with advantage be treated
separately. I have thought it best therefore not to attempt to combine
the two series, but to issue them, with certain corrections and
additions in their original form.
It remains to express my sincere thanks to Dr Jenkinson, the University
Librarian who was kind enough to read the proofs, and to Mr H. G. Aldis
to whom I am indebted for the excellent index.
E. G. D.
_April, 1906._
LIST OF PLATES
(_These plates are the full size of the originals._)
1. TITLE-PAGE TO W. DE WORDE’S EDITION OF THE
‘BOOK OF GOOD MANNERS’ _to face_ p. 36
From the unique copy in the University Library, Cambridge.
2. MACHLINIA BORDER USED BY R. PYNSON IN
‘APHTHONII SOPHISTAE PRAEEXERCITAMENTA’ _to face_ p. 56
From the copy in the University Library, Cambridge.
3. PAGE OF THE SARUM BREVIARY PRINTED BY R. DE
NOVIMAGIO AT VENICE IN 1483 _to face_ p. 74
From the unique copy in the Bibliothéque Nationale.
4. BINDING OF FREDERICK EGMONT ON A COPY OF
‘LAVACRUM CONSCIENTIAE’ PRINTED AT ROUEN _to face_ p. 114
From the example in the library of Caius College, Cambridge.
5. UNRECORDED DEVICE USED BY W. DE WORDE IN
THE ‘MANIPULUS CURATORUM’ OF 1502 _to face_ p. 132
From the unique copy in the Bodleian Library.
6. TITLE-PAGE TO R. REDMAN’S EDITION OF LYNDEWODE’S
‘CONSTITUTIONS’ OF 1534 _to face_ p. 176
From the copy in the University Library, Cambridge.
7. DEVICE OF CHRISTOPHER ENDHOVEN FROM THE SARUM
‘PROCESSIONALE’ PRINTED AT ANTWERP IN 1525 _to face_ p. 222
From the copy in the Bodleian Library.
PART I.
1476-1500.
LECTURE I.
THE PRINTERS AT WESTMINSTER.
While the history of the invention and introduction of the art of
printing into the various countries of Europe is not only obscure,
but still the subject of endless controversy, the history of its
introduction into England is now practically settled.
There are no troublesome and incomprehensible documents as in the case
of France. No questionable references or undatable fragments such as
Dutch and German bibliographers have to contend with. The only attempt
that has been made to bring forward an earlier printer than William
Caxton is founded upon the misprinted date in the first book printed at
Oxford.
In 1664, while the Company of Stationers and the King were quarrelling
over the question which had or should have the most power in matters
pertaining to printing, a certain Richard Atkyns put forth a tract,
now exceedingly rare, called _The Original and Growth of Printing_. In
this tract, intended to uphold the King’s rights, attention was drawn
for the first time to the Oxford book. “A book came into my hands,”
writes Atkyns, “printed at Oxford, A.D. 1468, which was three years
before any of the recited authors would allow it to be in England.”
Around this book Atkyns wove a wonderful romance, in the style of
the earlier legends about Coster and Gutenberg. Rumours of the new
art, he suggests, having reached England, trusted men were sent over
to bribe or kidnap an eligible printer and bring him over secretly,
along with a press, type, and other _impedimenta_, to England. This
was accordingly done, and a certain Frederick Corsellis was conveyed
into England, and set up a press in Oxford. One curious point has
escaped all commentators on this story, and that is that a real person
named Corsellis did come over to England from the Low Countries about
that time, and was an ancestor of several well-known London families
in Atkyns’s time, such as the Van Ackers, the Wittewronges and the
Middletons.
Atkyns referred for evidence to documents which have never been found,
and his story has met with the disbelief it deserved, but the Oxford
book with the date of 1468 not only exists, but still has supporters
who consider, or say they consider, the date to be genuine.
Singer in the early part of the century wrote a book in favour of its
authenticity, though, as he afterwards attempted to suppress his work,
we may conclude he had changed his opinion. Mr Madan of the Bodleian,
in his recent admirable history of Oxford printing, clings hesitatingly
to 1468, “but quaere” as he would himself say. Generally, however it
is agreed that the date is a misprint for 1478. The book has printed
signatures, which are not known to have been used before 1472, and
when the book is placed alongside the two others issued from the same
press in 1479 and printed in the same type, it falls naturally into
its proper place, taking just the small precedence which its slightly
lesser excellence of workmanship warrants.
Having now disposed of Caxton’s only rival, let us turn to Caxton
himself. It would, I think, be out of place here to recapitulate
however shortly the history of Caxton’s early life, since it has been
so fully and excellently done in that standard book Blades’s _Life
of Caxton_. What is more to our purpose is to pass on to the time
when, as an influential and prosperous man, he laid the foundations
of his career as a printer. By 1463 Caxton had been appointed to
the office of governor of the English nation in the Low Countries,
a post of considerable importance, and entailing the supervision
of trade and traders, and this office he held until about the year
1469. At this latter date he was also in the service of the Duchess
of Burgundy, though in what capacity is not stated; but he certainly
employed himself at her request in making translations of romances.
The _Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye_, a well-known romance of the
period, was translated between the years 1469 and 1471, and presented
to the duchess in September of the latter year. In the prologue of the
printed edition Caxton explains that after the duchess had received
her copy, many other persons desired copies also, but that finding the
labour of writing too wearisome for him, and not expeditious enough for
his friends, he had “practised and learnt, at his great charge and
expense, to ordain the book in print, to the end that every man might
have them at once.”
Now in 1471, when Caxton finished his translation of the _Recueil_,
he was living at Cologne, a city remarkable even at that time for the
number of its printers, and the first town that Caxton had visited
where the art was practised. He had just finished the tedious copying
of a large manuscript, so that the advantages of printing would be
manifest to him; and we may be tolerably certain that it was about this
time and at this town that he took his first lessons in the art and
mastered the mechanical processes.
Printing by this time had ceased to be a secret art, nor was there
such a demand for books as to make it a very valuable one. The printed
books of Germany had at an early date found their way to Bruges, and
people’s eyes were accustomed to the sight of the printed page, though
the nobles still preferred manuscripts, as being more ornamental and
costly. There are copies in the Cambridge University Library and at
Lambeth of the _Cicero de officiis_, printed at Mainz by Schoiffer in
1466, which were bought in 1467 at Bruges by John Russell, afterwards
Bishop of Lincoln, when abroad on a diplomatic mission; and a speech of
his, delivered at Ghent in 1470, on the occasion of the investiture of
the Duke of Burgundy with the order of the Garter, was one of Caxton’s
earliest printed productions.
A very strong piece of evidence to my mind that Caxton learnt at
Cologne is to be found in the epilogue to the English translation of
the _De proprietatibus rerum_, by Bartholomæus Anglicus, which was
printed by W. de Worde, Caxton’s apprentice and successor, in 1496.
This epilogue, written by De Worde himself, contains these lines:--
And also of your charyte call to remembraunce,
The soule of William Caxton, first prynter of this boke,
In Laten tonge at Coleyn, hymself to avaunce,
That every well disposyd man, may theron loke.
Now this is a perfectly clear statement that Caxton printed a
_Bartholomæus_ in Latin at Cologne, and we know an edition of the
book manifestly printed at Cologne about the time Caxton was there.
The type in which it is printed greatly resembles that of some other
Cologne printers, and it seems to be connected with some of Caxton’s
Bruges types. At any rate, the story cannot be put aside as without
foundation. It is not, of course, suggested that Caxton printed the
book by himself or owned the materials, but only that he assisted in
its production. He was learning the art of printing in the office where
this book was being prepared, and his practical knowledge was acquired
by assisting to print it.
Returning to Bruges, he set about turning his knowledge to account,
and in partnership with a writer of manuscripts, named Colard Mansion,
began to make or obtain the necessary materials.
Between the years 1471, when Caxton had learned the art at Cologne,
and 1474, when he set about obtaining material, printing-presses
had started work at Utrecht, Alost, and Louvain. Caxton would most
naturally turn for assistance to a town in his own neighbourhood, and
there is very little doubt that this town was Louvain, and that the
printer who assisted him was John Veldener.
About 1475 their first book was issued, the _Recuyell of the Historyes
of Troye_, the first book printed in the English language. It is
a small thick folio of 352 leaves, and though not uncommon in an
imperfect condition, is of the very greatest rarity when perfect. Two
other books were printed by 1476, _The Game and Playe of the Chesse_
and the _Quatre derrenières choses_, the latter a very rare book, of
which only two copies are known.
In 1476 Caxton obtained a new fount of type, and leaving the first
fount with Colard Mansion, who continued to use it for a short time,
prepared to set out with his new material for England.
It must have been early in 1476 that Caxton returned and set to work.
He took up his residence in Westminster at a house with the heraldic
sign of the “Red Pale,” which was situated in the Almonry, a place
close to the Abbey where alms were distributed to the poor, and where
Margaret, Countess of Richmond, the mother of Henry VII., and a great
patroness of learning, built alms-houses. The exact position of
Caxton’s house is not known, but it was probably on some part of the
ground lately covered by the Westminster Aquarium.
The first dated book printed in England was the _Dictes or Sayengis
of the Philosophres_, translated from the French by Earl Rivers, a
friend and patron of Caxton, and edited by Caxton himself, who added
the chapter “concernyng wymmen,” a chapter which, with its prologue,
exhibits a considerable amount of humour.
It is interesting to notice that, as the book is in English, we alone
of European nations started our press with a book in the vernacular.
The ordinary copies of the _Dictes_ are without colophon, though
the printer and year are in the epilogue, but a copy formerly in the
Althorp Library and now at Manchester has an imprint which states
that the book was finished on the 18th November, 1477. Although we
count the _Dictes or Sayengis_ as the first book printed in England on
account of its being the first dated book, it is quite possible that
some may have preceded it. Between the time of Caxton’s arrival in
1476 and the end of 1478 about twenty-one books were printed, and only
two have imprints, so that the rest are merely ranged conjecturally by
the evidence of type or other details. Now in 1510 W. de Worde issued
an edition of _King Apolyn of Tyre_, translated from the French by
one of his assistants, Robert Copland, who in his preface writes as
follows: “My worshipful master Wynken de Worde, having a little book
of an ancient history of a kyng, sometyme reigning in the countree
of Thyre called Appolyn, concernynge his malfortunes and peryllous
aduentures right espouuentables, bryefly compyled and pyteous for to
here, the which boke I Robert Coplande have me applyed for to translate
out of the Frensshe language into our maternal Englysshe tongue at the
exhortacion of my forsayd mayster, accordynge dyrectly to myn auctor,
gladly followynge the trace of my mayster Caxton, begynnynge with small
storyes and pamfletes and so to other.” Now this Robert Copland was
spoken of a little later as the oldest printer in England, so that he
may well have known a good deal about the beginning of Caxton’s career.
We find a very similar case in Scotland. Printing was introduced there
mainly for the purpose of printing the Aberdeen _Breviary_, but the
first thing the printers did was to issue a series of small poetical
pieces by Dunbar, Chaucer, and others, an exactly similar kind of set
to the small Caxton pieces in the Cambridge University Library.
In connexion with these Caxton pieces I noticed the other day a strange
statement. The writer was speaking of Henry Bradshaw’s knowledge of
Caxton, and went on to say that “to his bibliographical genius the
Cambridge University Library owes the possession of its many unique
Caxtons and unique Caxton fragments.” The library, however, owes
them mainly to the much-maligned John Bagford, who collected the
early English books which came to the University with Bishop Moore’s
library. The monstrous collection of title-pages in the British Museum,
generally associated with Bagford’s name, was made by the venerated
founder of English bibliography, Joseph Ames.
Before the end of 1478 Caxton had printed about twenty-one books.
Of these sixteen were small works, all containing less than fifty
leaves; of the others the most important is the first edition of the
_Canterbury Tales_, of which there is, I think, no perfect copy. Blades
speaks of a fine perfect copy in the library of Merton College, Oxford,
and remarks also that Dibdin ignorantly spoke of it as imperfect. In
Dibdin’s time, however, it certainly was imperfect, for I have seen
some notes of Lord Spencer’s referring to his having sent some leaves
from an imperfect copy to the college to assist them in perfecting
their own, a courtesy which they repaid by presenting to the library at
Althorp their duplicate and only other known copy of _Wednesday’s Fast_
printed by W. de Worde in 1532.
Among the other books of the period of special interest is the
_Propositio Johannis Russell_, which has often been ascribed to the
Bruges press, as the speech of which it consists was delivered in the
Low Countries. Lord Spencer’s copy had a curious history. It is bound
up in a volume of English and Latin MSS., and in the Brand sale in 1807
the volume appeared among the MSS., with a note, “A work on Theology
and Religion with five leaves at the end, a very great curiosity, very
early printed on wooden blocks, or type.” It was bought by the Marquis
of Blandford for forty-five shillings, and at his sale ten years after
cost Lord Spencer £126.
Another interesting book is the _Infancia Salvatoris_, of which the
only known copy is at Göttingen, being one of the two unique Caxtons
which are in foreign libraries. It was originally in the Harleian
Library, which was sold entire to Osborne the bookseller, and was
bought with many other books for the Göttingen University. It is in
its old red Harleian binding, with Osborne’s price, fifteen shillings
marked inside, and the note of the Göttingen librarian: “aus dem
Katalogen Thomas Osborne in London 12 Maii 1749 (No. 4179) erkauft.”
In the first group of books comes also the only printed edition of the
_Sarum Ordinale_ or _Pica_, which was superseded by Clement Maydeston’s
_Directorium Sacerdotum_. Unfortunately the book is only known from
some fragments rescued from a binding and now in the British Museum.
To it refers the curious little advertisement put out by Caxton, the
only example of a printer’s advertisement in England in the fifteenth
century, though we know of many foreign specimens: “If it plese ony
man spirituel or temporel to bye ony pyes of two and thre comemoracions
of salisburi use, enpryntid after the forme of this present lettre
whiche ben wel and truly correct, late hym come to westmonester in to
the almonesrye at the reed pale and he shal haue them good chepe.” So
far the advertisement; below it is the appeal to the public, “Supplico
stet cedula.” It seems curious that this should be in Latin, for one
would naturally suppose that the ones most likely to tear down the
advertisement would be the persons ignorant of that language.
Two copies of this advertisement are known, one in the Bodleian, and
another, formerly in the Althorp collection, at Manchester. It has been
suggested that both copies may have been at one time extracted from
some old binding in the Cambridge University Library. The example at
Manchester certainly belonged at one time to Richard Farmer, who was
University Librarian, but the Bodleian example was found by Francis
Douce in a binding in his own collection.
The group of eight small books in the University Library which I spoke
of as perhaps printed earlier than the _Dictes or Sayengis_ were
originally all bound together in one volume in old calf, and lettered
“Old poetry printed by Caxton.” This precious volume contained the
_Stans Puer ad Mensam_, the _Parvus Catho_, _The Chorle and the Bird_,
_The Horse the Shepe and the Goose_, _The Temple of Glas_, _The Temple
of Brass_, _The Book of Courtesy_, and _Anelida and Arcyte_, and of
five of these no other copies are known.
About 1478-9 was issued the _Rhetorica Nova_ of Laurentius of Savona,
of which two copies are known, one in the Library of Corpus Christi
College, Cambridge, the other in the University Library of Upsala. Now
although this book had been known and examined by many for two hundred
years, and is printed in the most widely used of Caxton’s types, yet it
was not recognised as a Caxton until it was examined by Henry Bradshaw
in 1861. The colophon says that the work was compiled in the University
of Cambridge in 1478, and it was in consequence described by all the
early writers as the first book printed at Cambridge. Strype wrote
an account of the Corpus copy to Bagford, who in his turn wrote of
it to Tanner, and he in his turn communicated it to Ames. Ames then
inserted it at the head of his list of books printed at Cambridge, and
the mistake, as is usual in such cases, was copied in turn by each
succeeding writer on printing.
In 1480 considerable changes are to be found in Caxton’s methods of
work, owing no doubt to competition, for in this year a press was
started in London by a certain John Lettou. He appears to have been a
practised printer, and his work is certainly better than Caxton’s, his
type much smaller and neater, and the page more regularly printed. He
also introduced into England the use of signatures. Signatures are the
small letters printed at the foot of the page which were intended to
serve as a guide to the bookbinder in gathering up the sheets. From the
earliest times they were added in writing both to manuscripts and the
earliest printed books, but about 1472 printers began to print them in
type, and the habit soon became general. Caxton’s use of signatures
begins in 1480 and was doubtless copied from the London printer.
At the beginning of 1480 Caxton had printed an indulgence in his large
type, the second of his founts, and immediately afterwards the London
printer issued another edition in his small neat type. Caxton promptly
had another fount cut of small type, and issued with it a third edition
of the indulgence.
It is a matter much to be regretted that Henry Bradshaw never issued
one of his _Memoranda_ on the subject of these indulgences, for he had
collected much interesting information, and was the first to point out
the variations in the wording of the different issues as well as the
discoverer of several unknown examples.
The year 1481 saw the introduction of illustrations, which were first
used in the _Mirror of the World_. In it there are two sets of cuts,
one depicting various masters, either alone or with several pupils,
the other are merely diagrams copied from those found in manuscripts
of the work. These diagrams are meagre and difficult to understand,
so much so that the printer himself has put several in their wrong
places. The explanatory words inside the diagrams, which would no
doubt have been printed in type had Caxton had a fount small enough,
are written by hand. It is interesting to notice that in all copies of
the book the same handwriting is found, though I am afraid it would be
unsafe to conclude it to be Caxton’s. The period from 1480 to 1483 is
the least interesting as regards Caxton’s books. Besides the _Mirror
of the World_ only two books contain woodcuts; the _Catho_, and the
second edition of the _Game and Playe of the Chesse_. The two cuts in
the _Catho_ had been used before in the _Mirror_, but the sixteen in
the chess-book are specially cut, though clearly by a different artist
from the one who made those for the _Mirror_. Mr Linton in his book on
wood-engraving expressed the opinion that many of these cuts were of
soft metal, treated in the same manner as a wood-block, but whenever we
find any of them in use for a long period, the breaks which occur in
them and the occurrence sometimes even of worm-holes show that the cut
must have been of wood.
Among the other books of this period are the first and second editions
of _Caxton’s Chronicle_ and _Higden’s Polycronicon_. The unique copy
of the Latin _Psalter_ in the British Museum, a Caxton which remained
unidentified until fairly recently, also belongs to about 1480, but
perhaps the most interesting book of all is the first edition in
English of _Reynard the Fox_. This was translated by Caxton from the
Dutch, the translation being finished in June, 1481, and the book
evidently printed at once. It is curious that this book, which would
lend itself so readily to illustration, was not printed with woodcuts,
but Caxton after using them in 1481 made no further move in this
direction until 1484, when another group of illustrated books appeared.
It always looks as though Caxton, and indeed his own words tend to
prove it, was much more interested in the literary side of his work
than in the mechanical, and therefore only called in the aid of the
wood-engraver when he thought it absolutely necessary. He wished his
books to be purchased on their merits alone, and therefore did not try,
like the later printers, to use illustrations merely to attract the
unwary purchaser. On the other hand, as none of the other printers in
England issued illustrated books, he had no competition to contend with.
A book which may have been printed about this time, but if so has
entirely disappeared, is a translation of the _Metamorphoses of Ovid_.
In the Pepysian Library is a MS. of books x.-xv., with the following
colophon: “Translated and fynysshed by me William Caxton at Westmestre,
the 22 day of Apryll, the yere of our lord 1480 And the 20 yere of the
Regne of Kyng Edward the fourth.” It seems very improbable Caxton would
have taken the trouble to make this translation had he not intended
it to be printed, and he mentions it in one of his prologues amongst
a series of books which he had translated and printed. This MS. was
bought by Pepys at an auction in 1688.
Another interesting point to be noticed about it is that it contains
the autograph of Lord Lumley who inherited the library formed by the
Earls of Arundel. Now William Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel, was one of
Caxton’s patrons, and the manuscript may have been presented to him by
Caxton himself.
The period from 1483 to 1486 is more interesting. First in order comes
the first edition of Mirk’s _Liber Festivalis_ and its supplement the
_Quattuor Sermones_. The next is a small quarto pamphlet known as the
_Sex quam elegantissimæ epistolæ_, and consisting of letters that
passed between Sixtus IV. and the Venetian Republic. The only copy
known was found bound up in a volume of seventeenth century theological
tracts in the library at Halberstadt, and was sold in 1890 to the
British Museum for £200. After these come a series of English writers,
Lidgate’s _Life of our Lady_; Chaucer’s _Canterbury Tales_, _Troilus
and Cressida_, and _Hous of Fame_; Gower’s _Confessio amantis_, and the
_Life of St Wenefrede_. The _Canterbury Tales_ is the second edition
published by Caxton, and has a peculiarly interesting preface by the
printer, in which he tells us that having some six years before printed
the _Canterbury Tales_, which were sold to many and divers gentlemen,
one of the number had complained that the text was corrupt. He said,
however, that his father had a very fine MS. of the poem which he
valued highly, but that he thought he might be able to borrow it.
Caxton at once promised that if this could be done, he would reprint
the book. This second edition is ornamented with a series of cuts of
the different characters, and one of all the pilgrims seated together
at supper at an immense round table. This cut does duty several times
later on as the frontispiece of Lidgate’s _Assembly of the Gods_.
In the same year as the _Canterbury Tales_ appeared two other
illustrated books, the _Fables of Esop_, and the _Golden Legend_. The
_Esop_ has one large full-page cut of Esop used as a frontispiece and
which is found only in the copy at Windsor Castle, and no less than
a hundred and eighty-five smaller cuts, the work of two if not three
engravers, one being evidently the man who made the cuts for the
chess-book.
The _Golden Legend_ is the largest book ever printed by Caxton. It
contains 449 leaves, and is printed on a much larger-sized paper
than he ever used elsewhere, the full sheet measuring about two feet
by sixteen inches. The frontispiece is a large woodcut representing
the saints in glory, while in addition there are eighteen large and
fifty-two small cuts, the large series including one of the device of
the Earl of Arundel, to whom the book is dedicated. The three dated
books of 1485 are all especially important. The first is the first
edition of the _Morte d’Arthur_, surely the most covetable of all
Caxton’s books. For many years only one copy was known in the library
of Osterley Park, and many were the attempts made by the two great
Caxton collectors in the early years of last century, Lord Spencer and
his nephew, the Duke of Devonshire, to obtain the treasure. The Duke of
Devonshire almost succeeded, but was foiled by some awkward clause in a
deed. However, another copy appeared at a sale in Wales, wanting eleven
leaves, but otherwise in beautiful condition, and this was bought by
Lord Spencer. The Osterley Park copy was sold in 1885 for £1950, and
went to America, and after several changes of ownership is now in the
fine library of Mr Hoe of New York. The other two dated books are the
_Life of that Noble and Christian Prince, Charles the Great_, and the
_History of the Knight Paris and Fair Vienne_. Both of these books were
translated by Caxton from the French. Only one copy of each is known,
and both are in the British Museum.
After 1485 Caxton’s energy began to decline, or at any rate we know of
fewer books having been issued during the period from 1486 to 1489. The
_Speculum vitæ Christi_ and the _Royal Book_ belong to 1486, and are
illustrated with woodcuts of a very much superior execution to those
which had been previously in use; they are not large, but are simply
and gracefully designed. Besides the regular series in the _Speculum_
specially cut for it, a few very small and rather roughly designed cuts
are found, evidently cut for use in one of the editions of the Sarum
_Horae_, which were issued at an earlier date, but of which nothing
now remains but a few odd leaves. It is interesting to notice that in
neither edition of the _Speculum_ which he printed did Caxton use the
full series of the cuts which had been engraved for it; for, several
years afterwards, one or two cuts occur in books printed by Caxton’s
successor, evidently part of the series, and which he had never used
himself. To this time may be ascribed the newest Caxton discovery, two
fragments printed on vellum of an edition of the _Donatus Melior_,
revised by Mancinellus, which were discovered some few years ago by
Proctor in the binding of a book in the library of New College, Oxford.
In 1487 Caxton was anxious to issue an edition of the Sarum _Missal_,
and, not considering his own type suitable for the purpose,
commissioned a Paris printer named William Maynyal to print one for
him. Who this Paris printer was is a matter of mystery. In 1489
and 1490 he printed two service books for the use of the Church of
Chartres, but is not otherwise known. A George Maynyal, probably a
relation, printed at Paris about 1480, and M. Claudin conjectures on
somewhat vague grounds, that both were English. The _Missal_ is a very
handsome book, printed in red and black, with two fine woodcuts at the
Canon. The only known copy, which belongs to Lord Newton of Lyme Park,
appears to have met at an early date with bad treatment, and wants some
seventeen leaves, mostly at the beginning.
In this book for the first time Caxton uses his well-known device,
consisting of his trade or merchant’s mark, with his initials on either
side.
Whether this device was cut in England or abroad has long been a vexed
question, but as it has no resemblance to any foreign device of the
period, and as the execution is poor and coarse, we may conclude safely
that it is of native work. Caxton, no doubt, wished to call attention
to the fact, which might have escaped notice, that the book was
produced for him and at his cost; and so when the copies of the book
had been delivered to him at Westminster he had the device cut, and
stamped it on the last leaf of each copy. In this edition the portion
of the marriage service in English has been omitted by the printer, who
has left blank spaces for it to be filled in with the pen. There was
an edition of the Sarum _Legenda_ issued about the same time, which is
known now only from a few odd leaves rescued from book-bindings. It
agrees in every way typographically with the _Missal_, it is in the
same type, has the same number of lines to the page, every detail the
same, so I think we have good reason for supposing that it also was
printed by Maynyal for Caxton. Bradshaw suggested Higman, the Paris
printer, as the printer of these fragments, so that Maynyal may have
had some business connexion with him.
The second edition of the _Golden Legend_ came out shortly after this,
that is about 1488, and is a difficult book to explain typographically.
About 200 leaves are of the first edition, while the beginning, a small
piece of the middle, and the end are of the second. Now it is curious
that no copy in existence seems to be correctly made up with the full
number of second edition leaves, and the most probable explanation
seems to be that part of the stock happening to get damaged, a reprint
was made to complete what was left, and that sheets were picked
indiscriminately. The most nearly perfect second issue that I have seen
is the one at Aberdeen, but it is imperfect at beginning and end. The
copy in the Hunterian Museum at Glasgow has a second edition ending,
and also part of the first quire of the second issue.
In 1489 two editions of an indulgence from Joannes de Gigliis were
issued, printed in a type used nowhere else by Caxton and not mentioned
by Blades. The earliest noticed of these indulgences was discovered
in the following manner. Cotton, who found it at Dublin, published an
account of it in the second series of his _Typographical Gazetteer_ in
1862, and he there described it as a product of the early Oxford press.
Bradshaw obtained a photograph of it, and at once conjectured from
the form and appearance of the type that it was printed by Caxton. He
immediately communicated his discovery to Blades, who, however, refused
to accept it as a product of Caxton’s press without further proof, and
it was never mentioned in any edition of his books on that printer. The
necessary proof was soon afterwards forthcoming, for Bradshaw found
that in a book printed by W. de Worde in 1494, the sidenotes were in
this identical type, and as De Worde was the inheritor of all Caxton’s
material, this fount must have belonged to him.
About the same year were issued two unique books, _The History of
Blanchardin and Eglantine_, and the _Four Sons of Aymon_.
The _Blanchardin_ is unfortunately imperfect, wanting all the end, and
it is impossible to say of how much this consisted. The _Four Sons of
Aymon_ is also imperfect, wanting a few leaves at the beginning. Both
books were formerly in the Spencer Library. The _Doctrinal of Sapience_
published in 1489 is a translation by Caxton from a French version, and
one particular copy of it in the Royal library at Windsor is worthy
of special notice. It is printed throughout upon vellum, a material
which Caxton hardly ever used, the only other complete book so printed
being a copy of the _Speculum Vitæ Christi_ in the British Museum. This
particular copy of the _Doctrinal_ has also a special chapter added “Of
the negligences happyng in the masse and of the remedyes” which is not
found in any other copy. That it was specially printed is evident from
its concluding words, “This chapitre to fore I durst not sette in the
boke by cause it is not conuenyent ne aparteynyng that euery layman
sholde knowe it.”
During the last year or two of his life most of the books issued by
Caxton were of a religious nature. Some would have us believe that
this was owing to illness or a premonition of his own approaching end,
some to the fact that his wife, if the Maud Caxton who was buried in
1490 was his wife, was just dead. Both these ideas seem to me rather
fanciful. He no doubt printed what was most in demand. One book issued
about this time was certainly not religious. It is a free paraphrase
of some portions of the _Æneid_ and was translated by Caxton from the
French. It does not pretend to be a translation of the original, but
was abused soundly by Gavin Douglas, who issued a translation in
1553, for its many inaccuracies. Amongst the religious books I may
mention the _Ars Moriendi_, a little quarto of eight leaves, which was
discovered by Henry Bradshaw in a volume of tracts in the Bodleian, and
of which no other copy is known, and the very interesting _Commemoratio
lamentationis beate Marie_, which is in the University Library at Ghent
and which is one of the two unique Caxtons on the Continent. It was, I
believe, picked up by one of the librarians bound in a volume of tracts
and by him presented to the University Library. This Caxton bought for
a trifle in Belgium may be considered as the real successor to the
imaginary one picked off the stall in Holland by the celebrated Snuffy
Davy of the _Antiquary_.
The _Fifteen Oes_ is another of these religious books. Its name is
taken from the fact that each of the fifteen prayers of which it is
composed begins with O, and it was printed as a supplement to a Sarum
_Horæ_, with later editions of which it was generally incorporated. It
contains a beautiful woodcut of the Crucifixion, and is also the only
existing book printed by Caxton which had borders round the pages.
That a _Horae_ to accompany it was printed is most probable, for the
Crucifixion is only one of a set of cuts which was used, together with
the borders, in an edition printed about 1494.
Though most of the books at this time can only be arranged
conjecturally it is probable that the last book printed by Caxton was
the _Book of Divers Ghostly Matters_. It consists really of three
tracts, each separately printed, the _Seven Points of True Love_, the
_Twelve Profits of Tribulation_, and the _Rule of St Benet_; but as
they are always found bound together, they are classed as one book.
There is one cut in the second treatise taken from the _Speculum_
series, but no other illustrations.
Caxton used during his career eight founts of type, of which six only
are included in Blades’s enumeration. The late French type which
appeared about 1490-91, and is found in a few of the latest books,
such as the _Ars Moriendi_ and the _Fifteen Oes_, Blades considered
not to have been used until after Caxton’s death; and the type of the
1489 indulgences was not mentioned at all. Blades’s arrangement, too,
of the books under their types, though correct in a certain way, is a
very misleading one, for he takes the types in their order, and then
arranges all the books under the type in which the body of the book
is printed. Now this leads to considerable confusion when different
types were in use together. For instance, Caxton started at Westminster
with types 2 and 3, and both are used in his first book, but Blades
puts the books in type 3 after all those in type 2, and thus the Sarum
_Ordinale_, perhaps the second book printed in England, certainly one
of the earliest, comes thirty-sixth on his list. Now, though Blades’s
arrangement was not a chronological one, most writers have made the
mistake of thinking so, and have followed it as such, as may be seen,
for instance, in the list appended to Caxton’s life in the _Dictionary
of National Biography_, which follows Blades’s arrangement without any
reference to his system or mention of the types.
Caxton printed in England ninety-six separate books, and, counting in
the three printed by him at Bruges, and the Sarum _Missal_, altogether
one hundred, of which ninety-four are mentioned by Blades. It is true
that Blades describes ninety-nine books, but he includes two certainly
printed at Bruges after Caxton had left, and three printed by De Worde
after Caxton’s death. But it is not the mere number of the books he
printed that makes Caxton’s career so remarkable, but the fact that
he edited almost every book he issued, and translated a large number.
He himself says that he had translated twenty-two, and the statement
was made at a time previous to his making several others, and when we
consider that amongst his translations is to be included such a large
book as the _Golden Legend_, we can only wonder that he printed as much
as he did.
Of the exact date of his death we have no evidence, but it evidently
must have taken place in 1491. It is unfortunate, too, that no copy
of his will has been preserved; for the collection of documents in
Westminster Abbey, where it might, with most probability, have been
expected to be found, has been searched in vain. The will, besides the
interesting personal details which it might supply, would most likely
give some information about those engaged with him in business, the
assistants who worked his presses, or the stationers who sold his books.
Of his family we know next to nothing. We know that he was married
and had a daughter named Elizabeth, who was married to a merchant
named Gerard Croppe, from whom she obtained a deed of separation
in 1496. Had Caxton had a son he would probably have continued the
printing business. As it was the printing materials were inherited by
his assistant or apprentice Wynkyn de Worde, who continued to carry
on work in his old master’s house at Westminster. In his letters of
denization, taken out so late as the 20th April, 1496, he is described
as a printer, and a native of the Duchy of Lorraine. His name, De
Worde, which some have fallen into the mistake of deriving from the
town of Woerden in Holland, is clearly taken from the town of Wörth
in Alsace; indeed, the printer sometimes uses the form Worth in place
of Worde. Although he inherited Caxton’s business, which was no doubt
a flourishing one, he seems to have started on his own account with
very little vigour or enterprise. Indeed, so torpid was the press at
that time that foreign printers found it worth their while to produce
and import reprints of Caxton’s books for sale in this country, books
to which I shall refer more fully in a future lecture. We soon see
that we have to deal now with a man who was merely a mechanic, and who
was quite unable to fill the place of Caxton either as an editor or a
translator, one who preferred to issue small popular books of a kind
to attract the general public, rather than the class of book which had
hitherto been published from Caxton’s house.
For the first two years De Worde contented himself with using Caxton’s
old types, of which he appears to have possessed at least five founts,
and in that time he printed five books, the _Book of Courtesy_, the
_Treatise of Love_, the _Chastising of God’s Children_, the _Life of
St Katherine_, and a third edition of the _Golden Legend_. Why this
book should have been so often printed is rather a mystery, for, while
Caxton issued two editions and De Worde another two before 1500, at the
end of the century a considerable number of Caxton’s edition still
remained for sale at the price of thirteen shillings and fourpence, not
a large sum for those days and considering the size of the book.
The _Book of Courtesy_, which is known only from two leaves in the
Douce collection at Oxford, was a reprint from Caxton’s edition, of
which the only known copy is in the Cambridge University Library.
In the waste leaves in the Bodleian, De Worde’s device is printed
upside-down, and for this reason perhaps the sheet was rejected and
used to line a binding, and thus preserved for us. The _Treatise of
Love_ was printed for the translator, whose name unfortunately does not
appear, but the translation is dated 1493, and the printing is clearly
of the same year. The _Chastising of God’s Children_, a deplorably dull
book, is interesting typographically as being the first book printed
at Westminster with a title-page. Why Caxton never introduced this
improvement it is hard to say, for he must have seen many books in
which they were used, and a book with one was printed at London before
his death.
The imprint of the _Golden Legend_ is curious, for though it is dated
1493 it contains Caxton’s name. De Worde seems to have reprinted from
an earlier edition, merely altering the date, or perhaps he meant the
words “By me William Caxton” to refer to the translator rather than the
printer.
In 1493, very nearly at the close of the year, De Worde’s first type
makes its appearance in an edition of the _Liber Festivalis_, the
second or companion part of the book, the _Quattuor Sermones_, coming
out early in 1494. The type has a strong French appearance, though it
retains several characteristics and even a few identical letters of
Caxton’s founts. It is curious that up to this time De Worde had not
put his name to any book, though most of them contain his first device,
a copy on a small scale of Caxton’s, and evidently cut in metal.
In 1494 two important books were issued, the _Scala perfeccionis_ of
Walter Hylton, a Carthusian monk, and a reprint of the _Speculum Vitæ
Christi_, both being in the late French type of Caxton. The _Scala
perfeccionis_ is a rare book when it contains the last part, which is
only found in two or three copies. It has on the title-page a woodcut
of the Virgin and Child under a canopy, and below this the sentence
beginning “Sit dulce nomen domini nostri Jesu Christi benedictum,” but
the engraver in cutting the block has not attempted to cut the words
properly, but merely to give their general appearance, so that the
result though decorative is almost impossible to decipher.
The _Speculum_ of this year has many points of interest, the chief
perhaps being that Caxton’s small type No. 7 is found in it, the only
time it is used in a printed book, though it had been used before in
1489 for printing indulgences. The text of the book is in Caxton’s
French type, but the sidenotes are in this small Caxton type up to
about the middle of the book, whence the notes are continued in the
same type as the text. Up till a year or two ago only one copy of this
book was known, in Lord Leicester’s library at Holkham, but lately
another copy, imperfect and in bad condition, turned up amongst some
rubbish in the offices of a solicitor at Birkenhead, and is now in the
Rylands Library at Manchester. Three editions of the _Horae ad usum
Sarum_, two in quarto and one in octavo, printed in the same type as
the other two books, may also be ascribed to 1494. The two in quarto
are evidently reprinted from the last edition of Caxton’s of which the
little treatise called the _Fifteen Oes_ formed part, for they have
the same borders, and the woodcuts are clearly of sets which belonged
to Caxton. The octavo edition is quite different, having no borders,
and the woodcuts so far as is known, for the book is only known from a
fragment, belong to a set which do not appear to have been used again.
The most famous of the cuts used at this time is one of the Crucifixion
formerly used by Caxton in the _Fifteen Oes_, of which a facsimile
is given by Dibdin in the second volume of his _Typographical
Antiquities_, page 79. He erroneously remarks about it in another
place, “The woodcut of the Crucifixion was never introduced by Caxton,
it is too spirited and elegant to harmonise with anything that he
ever published.” It was used frequently after this time by De Worde,
and affords us towards the end of the century one of the most useful
date-tests for undated books. Between May, 1497, and January, 1498,
part of the cap of the soldier who stands on the right of the cross was
broken away, so that any book containing this cut with the cap entire
must be before 1498. In 1499 the cut began to split, and in 1500 it
split right across. Towards the end of 1500 one of the two border lines
at top and bottom was cut away. Of course there are for De Worde’s
books many date-tests, and when they can be worked in various ways and
in conjunction, the result may be taken as very fairly accurate. If it
were only possible to get once together all the scattered undated books
for comparison, they could easily be arranged in their exact order.
In 1495 appeared the _Vitas Patrum_, “the moste vertuouse hystorye
of the deuoute and right renowned lyves of holy faders lyvynge in
deserte, worthy of remembraunce to all wel dysposed persones, whiche
hath be translated out of Frenche into Englisshe by Wylliam Caxton of
Westmynstre, late deed, and fynysshed at the laste daye of his lyff.”
The delay in the bringing out of this work may be due to the large
number of illustrations, for it is profusely illustrated; the cuts,
however, are very rudely designed and engraved.
In the Pepysian Library at Cambridge is a unique edition of the
_Introductorium linguæ latinæ_, edited very likely by Horman, which
has the words in the preface, “Nos sumus in anno salutis Millesimo
quadringentesimo nonagesimo quinto (1495),” which I certainly take to
be the year of printing, especially as another edition of the same
book in the Bodleian, also unique, has the last word of the date,
quinto, altered to nono, and must have been printed before July, 1499.
The small tracts printed from 1495 to 1497 are very difficult to date
with any precision, but there are a few of particular interest which
may be ascribed to that period, such books, for instance, as the
_Information for Pilgrims to the Holy Land_, a work well worth reading
for amusement, which cannot be said of many of these books; Fitzjames’s
_Sermo die lune in ebdomada Pasche_, the _Sermo pro episcopo puerorum_,
the _Mirror of Consolation_, and the _Three Kings of Cologne_.
1496 is the year usually ascribed to the edition of Trevisa’s
translation of the _De proprietatibus rerum_ of Bartholomæus Anglicus,
and I quoted earlier four lines of verse saying that Caxton had printed
the book in Latin at Cologne. The three last lines of the same stanza
referring to another matter are also very interesting. Having spoken of
Caxton it continues:--
And John Tate the yonger joye mote he broke
Whiche late hathe in Englond doo make this paper thynne
That now in our englyssh this boke is prynted inne.
The watermark of this paper is an eight-pointed star in a circle. The
supply of this paper does not appear to have been kept up for long, for
I have only found it in two other English books. The _Bartholomæus_
contains some very good woodcuts, finer than others of the period,
and the press-work seems rather more regular than usual, so that
perhaps we may accept the statement of Dibdin that “Of all the books
printed in this country in the fifteenth century, the present one is
the most curious and elaborate, and probably the most beautiful for
its typographical execution.” It is only fair to say, however, that
the copy described by Dibdin was a very exceptional one. In 1496 also
came out a reprint of the well-known _Book of St Alban’s_, as it is
generally called, a treatise on hunting, hawking, and heraldry, with
the addition in this issue of the delightful chapter on fishing with an
angle, our earliest printed treatise on the art. There is a woodcut of
the angler at the beginning, and we see him busily at work with a large
tub beside him, just like the German fisher of to-day, into which he
may put his fish and keep them alive.
This book would naturally appeal especially to the richer class, and
De Worde not only took especial pains with it, but struck off copies
upon vellum, some of which have come down to our own day. From a
typographical point of view the book is of great interest, for it is
printed throughout in a foreign type which made its appearance in
England on this occasion only. It was used at Gouda by Govaert van
Os, but he seems to have discarded it about 1490 when he removed to
Copenhagen. Besides acquiring this fount De Worde also obtained a
number of woodcut capital letters, which are used in all his earliest
books, and one or two woodcuts, which he used frequently until they
were broken and worn out. It has always been a puzzle to me why, if De
Worde had had this fount of type beside him for several years, he never
used it before, and why, having used it this once, he never used it
again. Not a single letter ever appears in another book, and yet the
type is a handsome one.
1498 saw the issue of three fine folios: the _Morte d’Arthur_, of which
the only known copy is in the John Rylands Library at Manchester,
the _Golden Legend_, of which the only known perfect copy is in the
same library, and lastly the _Canterbury Tales_ of Chaucer. The only
perfect copy of this book was sold lately in the Ashburnham sale for
£1000, and is now in a private library in America. The first of these
three books, the _Morte d’Arthur_, is a reprint of Caxton’s edition,
but it differs from it in having illustrations. These are no doubt of
native workmanship, and might be justly described as the worst ever
put into an English book, being coarsely drawn, badly designed, and
incompetently engraved. The _Golden Legend_ is a mere reprint of the
earlier editions, but is interesting for two points in the colophon.
The first is an example of the carelessness of the printers. The words
in the earlier editions run, “Thus endeth the legend named in latin
legenda aurea, that is to say in Englysshe the golden legende, for lyke
as golde passeth all other metals, so this legende exceedeth all other
books, wherein be contained all the high and great feasts of our lord”
and so on. In this edition a line has been omitted, and the words run,
“For like as golde passeth all other metalles, wherein ben contained
all the highe and grete festes of our lord.” Now although the omission
makes nonsense of the whole sentence, it is reprinted exactly the same
in the later editions issued by De Worde and Julian Notary.
The other point is the date in the colophon, which runs, “Fynysshed at
Westmynster, the viii day of Janeuer, the yere of oure lorde Thousande
. cccc. lxxxxviii. And in the xiii year of the reygne of kynge Henry
the VII.” Now as the 13th year of Henry VII ran from August 22, 1497,
to August 21, 1498, it is clear that De Worde in speaking of January
8, 1498, meant 1498 as we would calculate, and not 1499, and therefore
that he began his year on the first of January and not on the 25th of
March, a most important point to be settled in arranging dated books.
Another later proof as to De Worde’s dating may be mentioned. In the
tracts which he printed between January 1 and March 25, 1509, he speaks
of himself as printer to the king’s mother, but after Henry VIII
succeeded in 1509 he styles himself printer to the king’s grandmother,
so that he clearly used our method of dating.
About the year 1498, De Worde introduced his second device, the largest
of the three used in the fifteenth century. It is almost square, with a
broad border, and having Caxton’s mark and initials above a flowering
plant. Between July and December, 1499, a series of small nicks was cut
all round the outside edge, and this gives us a useful clue to checking
the dates of several books.
In 1499, De Worde brought out an edition of _Mandeville’s Travels_. It
was not the first edition published in England by a year or two, but it
was the first with illustrations, and most realistic illustrations they
are. No doubt it was a very popular book, and the two copies known,
one in the Cambridge University Library, the other at Stonyhurst, are
both imperfect. Fortunately by means of the two we can obtain an exact
collation. This year seems to have been a very busy one. While the
dated books in the other years of the fifteenth century never rise
above four, in this year there are ten, and a considerable number of
undated books can be assigned to this year as well. Among them are
a number of small poetical pieces by Lidgate, reprints of Caxton’s
editions. One of these reprints shows how careless a printer W. de
Worde was. He reprints the _Horse, the Shepe, and the Ghoos_, from a
copy of Caxton’s wanting a leaf, but never noticing anything wrong
prints straight ahead, making of course nonsense of the whole.
All De Worde’s quarto tracts were got up in the same style, the title
at the top of the first leaf printed in one of Caxton’s types, below
this a woodcut not always very apposite to the subject of the work.
There were two stock cuts of masters with large birches and their
pupils seated before them, one of these being among the material
obtained from Govaert van Os. These of course were suitable for
grammars and school-books. Caxton’s cuts for the Sarum _Horae_, the
Crucifixion, The tree of Jesse, the three rioters and three skeletons,
the rich man and Lazarus, and David and Bathsheba, came in very useful
for theological books. The only special cut, that is, one specially
cut for the particular book and not belonging to a series, that I have
found, is that on the title of the _Rote or mirror of consolation_,
which depicts seven persons kneeling before an altar, above which two
angels hold a monstrance.
At the end of the year 1500, De Worde moved from Westminster into Fleet
Street at the sign of the Sun, the earliest book from the new address
being dated May, 1501. This from the point of view of the bibliographer
was an extremely well-timed move, for we can at once put all books
with the Westminster imprint as before 1501, and all with the London
one after 1500, thus dividing clearly the fifteenth and sixteenth
century books. At the time of his moving he seems to have got rid of a
considerable portion of his stock; some seems to have been destroyed
and some sold, for many cuts which had belonged to De Worde or to
Caxton are found afterwards in books printed by Julian Notary. De Worde
seems to have been a successful business man, for when he moved into
Fleet Street he occupied two houses close to St Bride’s Church, one his
dwelling-house and the other a printing-office, for which he paid the
very high tithe rent of sixty-six shillings and eightpence.
The number of books printed by Wynkyn de Worde in the fifteenth
century, counting in different editions of the same book, is 110, and
of a considerable number of these only a single copy is known. It would
seem probable that the printer, when issuing a small book, printed
only a small number of copies, preferring to set up the type for a new
edition rather than burden himself with much unsaleable stock. And it
is curious how these various editions have been accidentally preserved.
Only two copies are known of a book called the _Rote or mirror of
consolation_, printed by De Worde in the fifteenth century, one of them
is in the Pepysian library, the other in Durham Cathedral. Yet these
two are of quite different editions, the one at Durham being certainly
about 1496, the other certainly after the middle of 1499. Of the _Three
Kings of Cologne_ we have two editions, though only three copies are
known. Indeed, for some time it was thought that each copy represented
a different edition, as the copy in the British Museum, evidently bound
up separately out of a volume of tracts, had had the last page of the
tract preceding it bound in in place of the correct title-page.
Looking at the very large number of small books which De Worde printed
between the end of 1496 and 1500, it is surprising how many are known
from single copies. I have kept for many years a register of all the
copies of early English books which are to be found anywhere, and
taking the quartos printed by W. de Worde, which number altogether 70,
I find that out of that number 47, that is more than two-thirds, are
known to us now from single copies or fragments. And I feel certain
that we owe the preservation of the majority of these to a cause
we are now doing our best to destroy. A few worthy people centuries
ago made collections of these tracts and bound them up in immensely
stout volumes, which gave them an air of importance in themselves, and
tended to preserve the tracts inside in a much better manner than if
bound separately. I do not think I am exaggerating when I say that a
hundred and fifty of the rarest that De Worde printed during his whole
life would have been found a hundred years or so ago bound up in about
twelve volumes. Some twenty-two of the rarest of W. de Worde’s in the
Heber Library came to him in one volume. Thirteen unique tracts which
sold at the Roxburghe sale for £538, were in a single volume when the
Duke purchased them fourteen years before for £26. I need only refer
you to the University Library, a large number of whose unique Caxton
and De Worde tracts came in three or four volumes. Then again, when so
many are known only from fragments or single copies we may imagine what
a large number have absolutely disappeared.
Some have been lost of late years or have disappeared since they were
described. Three unique W. de Worde books of the fifteenth century were
supposed to have perished in a fire in Wales in 1807 but fortunately
they had been sold by the owner of the library a short time before the
fire. Others seem to have drifted into libraries whose owners know
nothing about them. There is a unique De Worde printed before 1501,
entitled the “_Contemplacyon or meditacyon of the shedynge of the blood
of our lorde Jhesu Cryste at seven tymes_.” This was seen and described
by Herbert, who very likely saw it when it was sold at the Fletewode
sale in 1774. Since then we have no record of the book, and though
every year more information about private collections is published I
can come upon no trace of it.
Beside the genuine books which have disappeared, by this I mean books
which have been described by a trustworthy bibliographer, there are
others which may reasonably be supposed to have existed, and one clue
to these is afforded by the woodcuts. W. de Worde for example had
certain series of cuts, specially made for certain books; but when
he wished to decorate the title-page of a small tract, which was not
itself to be otherwise illustrated, he used an odd cut out of his
sets. Now when we can trace in different tracts odd cuts, manifestly
belonging to a series, we may reasonably suppose that the book for
which the series was engraved must have been printed.
To give a couple of instances. In the unique copy of Legrand’s _Book
of good manners_ in the University Library without date, but printed
about the middle of 1498, are two cuts, which really belong to a series
made to illustrate the _Seven wise masters of Rome_. These cuts are
fairly accurate copies of those used by Gerard Leeu in his edition of
1490. At a considerably later date De Worde did issue an edition of
the _Seven wise masters_, illustrated with the series of which the two
mentioned above formed part, and showing at that time marks of wear.
Now as De Worde had the series cut by the beginning of 1498, I think it
most probable that an edition of the book was then issued, for it is
unlikely that he would go to the trouble of cutting the set unless he
was preparing to print the book.
[Illustration: There begynneth a lytell boke called good manners.]
Again, before the end of the fifteenth century De Worde had a series
to illustrate _Reynard the Fox_. One cut is found on the first leaf
of an edition of Lidgate’s _The Horse, the sheep, and the goose_, in
the University Library, another on the title-page of Skelton’s _Bowge
of Court_ in the Advocates’ Library at Edinburgh. In the collection
of the University Librarian is a fragment of an edition of _Reynard_,
evidently printed by W. de Worde about 1515, and this contains a third
cut agreeing absolutely in size, in workmanship, and in style with the
other two.
In this case again it seems probable that an edition illustrated with
these cuts appeared before 1500.
The last press at Westminster during the fifteenth century is that of
Julian Notary, which while it started in London about 1496 and only
moved to Westminster in 1498, is more suitably taken in this place on
account of its connexion with Wynkyn de Worde.
The first book issued was an edition of _Albertus de modis
significandi_, printed in a neat Gothic type, but containing no
information in its colophon beyond that it was printed in London at
St Thomas the Apostle’s, probably close to the church of that name,
and not at a house with that sign. There is also a printer’s mark
containing three sets of initials, I. N. for Julian Notary, I. B. for
Jean Barbier, and I. H. for someone unidentified, but who there are
some reasons for supposing to have been Jean Huvin, a printer at Rouen,
who was associated in the production of books for the English market.
In 1497 the same printers issued an edition of the _Horae ad usum
Sarum_, very neatly printed, and with delicate borders round the
pages. All that remains of the book is a fragment of four leaves,
rescued from a book-binding, but this luckily contains the colophon,
telling us that it was printed at St Thomas the Apostle’s, for W.
de Worde. This book also contains the device with the three sets of
initials.
In 1498 appeared a Sarum _Missal_, the first edition printed in
England, and though otherwise well got up, the musical parts have the
drawback of being without notes, only the staves having been printed,
though whether this was done by design or merely because the printers
had no musical type remains unknown. From the colophon of the _Missal_
we learn that the printers, Julian Notary and Jean Barbier, had settled
at Westminster, and had printed the book at the command and expense of
W. de Worde. On the last leaf is Caxton’s device, and on the title-page
that of the printers. Of this book five copies are known, and of the
four I have examined, the copy in the University Library is the only
perfect one. About the fifth, belonging to the Duke of Sutherland, I
have no information.
I. H. it is clear had left the firm, and though the printers use the
same device as before, the initials I. H. have been cut out of it.
In 1499 Jean Barbier also disappeared, for in the edition of the _Liber
Festivalis_ and _Quattuor Sermones_ which appeared in that year the
printer’s mark has again been altered. All initials have been cut out
and the name Julianus Notarii inserted in type. This form of the name
suggests that he was not a notary as is generally stated, but the son
of one. I have never been able to see a perfect copy of this book
though Herbert describes one which he said was in the Inner Temple
Library, but my inquiries there met with no success. Hain in his
_Repertorium Bibliographicum_ mentions a copy which seems not to be the
one noticed by Herbert.
In April, 1500, Notary printed a most minute edition of the _Horae
ad usum Sarum_, it is in 64s as regards folding, and a printed page
measures an inch and a quarter by an inch. Only a fragment of it is
known, a quarter sheet containing sixteen leaves, but that luckily
contains the colophon. It was very likely copied from another edition
of the same size, which was printed at Paris the year before, but
this point cannot be determined, as the only copy of the latter which
existed was burnt with the greater part of the Offor collection. All
we know now of it is the meagre note in the auctioneer’s catalogue,
“imperfect, but has end with imprint”--and he has not given the imprint!
The colophon of Notary’s _Horae_ tells us that it was printed in King
Street, Westminster. King Street is the short street at the bottom of
Whitehall in a straight line between Westminster Abbey and the Foreign
Office, though in Notary’s time it appears to have extended from
Westminster to Charing Cross. Lewis, in his life of Caxton, says that
Caxton’s printing-office was in King Street, but I do not know of any
reason for his assertion.
The last of Notary’s books printed at Westminster is an edition
of Chaucer’s _Love and complaintes between Mars and Venus_, with
some other pieces. This rare little book, having passed through the
collections of Farmer, the Duke of Roxburghe, Sir Mark Masterman Sykes
and Heber, is now at Britwell. The colophon runs: “Thys inpryntyde in
westmoster in kyng strete. For me Julianus Notarii.” In spite of the
word For, I think the book was printed by Julian Notary himself. It
contains two cuts, reversed copies of two of Caxton’s.
At what time Notary left Westminster cannot at present be settled, but
probably almost immediately after W. de Worde. When his next dated
book was issued in 1503 he had moved to London, and with his departure
from King Street to Pynson’s old house near Temple Bar printing ceased
altogether in Westminster.
LECTURE II.
THE PRINTERS AT LONDON.
The art of printing was introduced into London in 1480, three years
after Westminster, two years after Oxford, and probably one year after
St Alban’s, by a printer called Joannes Lettou. The name evidently
denotes that he came originally from Lithuania, of which the word
Lettou is an old form. One thing is at once apparent when we come to
examine his work, and that is that he was a skilled and practised
printer, producing books entirely unlike Caxton’s, and bearing every
appearance of being the work of a foreign press. Where he learned to
print it is impossible to find out, but whence his type was obtained no
one can have the least doubt: it was certainly brought from Rome.
The type is identical with that used by a printer at Rome in 1478 and
1479, who really ought to have some connexion with English printing
as his name was John Bulle. In his Roman books he describes himself
as from Bremen. If it were possible to arrive at any explanation how
a man from Bremen could be described as a Lithuanian, I should at
once assume John Lettou and John Bulle to be identical, since the
one apparently begins where the other leaves off. However, until some
reasonable explanation is forthcoming it will be best to consider them
as different people.
Lettou seems to have been assisted during the first two years of his
career by a certain William Wilcock, but who this man may have been I
have not been able to discover, unless he was a certain William Wilcock
who is mentioned in the State Papers as having been presented to the
living of Llandussell in 1487. The two books printed by Lettou were
the _Questiones Antonii Andreae super duodecim libros metaphisice_ and
the _Expositiones super Psalterium_ of Thomas Wallensis. Both these
books are printed in a neat small Italian gothic, with two columns to
the page and forty-nine or fifty lines in a column. The first of the
two books, the _Antonius Andreae_, is a small folio of 106 leaves,
and almost all the six known copies are imperfect. The book is very
probably reprinted from the edition printed at Vicenza in 1477, the
only earlier edition than the present, which, like it, is edited
by Thomas Penketh. Penketh was a friar of the Augustinian house at
Warrington, but went later as teacher of theology to Padua. He returned
to Oxford in 1477, where he also taught theology, and was probably
living there when his book was being printed at London.
The second of these two books is printed in exactly the same style and
form as the first, with the exception of having fifty lines to the
column in place of forty-nine. In the imprint the book is ascribed
to the “Reverendissimus dominus Valencius,” that is Jacobus Perez de
Valentia, who was, however, not the author of this work, though he did
write a commentary on the Psalms. The real author was a certain Thomas
Wallensis or de Walleis. Henry Bradshaw, who discovered the mistake,
gives the following explanation of it: “This edition is printed from
an incomplete copy, and from the words of the colophon ‘Reverendissimi
domini Valencii,’ the final s having been misread as an i, the work has
been confounded with the commentary of Jacobus Perez de Valencia, which
was printed at that place in 1484 and 1493. The v for w and the absence
of the Christian name would also serve to create the confusion, or at
any rate to perpetuate it.”
Three editions of the indulgence of John Kendale were printed by Lettou
in 1480. The first two have been preserved in a very curious manner.
It was a common custom of the early binders to paste a thin strip of
vellum down the centre of each quire of paper in order to prevent
the thread which ran down the centre of the quire and stitched it to
the bands of the binding from cutting through the paper. A copy of a
foreign printed Bible, which appears to have been bound in England,
perhaps by Lettou himself, and which is now in the library of Jesus
College, Cambridge, has the centre of each quire throughout the book
lined with a strip of vellum, part of cut up copies of these two
indulgences. Indulgences having their year printed upon them soon
went out of date, and as they were of vellum and printed only on one
side were very much used by bookbinders for lining bindings. These
two indulgences were issued early in the year and have the date 1480,
but no mention is made of the pontifical year of the pope. The third
indulgence, of which a copy is in the British Museum, also dated
1480, has besides, the date of the pontifical year, “the year of our
pontificate the tenth,” and as the popes dated like the kings, from the
exact date of their accession or coronation, this copy must have been
printed after August 7, 1480, on which date the tenth year of Sixtus IV
began.
After the printing of his two books and editions of the indulgence,
Lettou entered into partnership with a printer called Wilhelmus
de Machlinia, a native, as his name shows, of Mechlin in Belgium.
Together they printed five books, the _Tenores Novelli_ of Littelton,
the _Abridgement of the Statutes_, and the _Year-books_ of the
thirty-third, thirty-fifth, and thirty-sixth years of Henry VI.
For these books the printers used a small very cramped black letter,
abounding in abbreviations, and often difficult to read. It appears to
have been designed after the law hand of the period. The edition of
the _Tenures_ is the only one of these books with an imprint, and it
contains the names of both printers, and the statement that the book
was printed in the city of London, “juxta ecclesiam omnium sanctorum.”
There were, however, several churches in London at this time dedicated
to All Saints, and it is not possible now to settle which particular
one was meant. Complete sets of these five books are in the British
Museum and the Cambridge University Library.
The entire change in the character of the books produced after
Machlinia had joined Lettou shows that his strong point was legal
printing, and during his continuance in business he seems to have
printed all the law-books issued in England. But perhaps the
most marked peculiarity of his partnership is the extraordinary
deterioration in the books produced. The work of Lettou was marked by
excellence of typography and the many improvements introduced by an
evidently practised printer. As soon as Machlinia joined him the work
became slovenly. It might be supposed that Mr William Wilcock, who
had defrayed the expense of Lettou’s work, had either tried it as a
speculation and found it a poor one, or had only wished the two books
to be specially printed for his own use and had then left the printer
to shift for himself. It is curious, too, that Lettou’s neat type
should have entirely disappeared. The real reason for this probably was
that though it was very neat it had none of the abbreviations necessary
in a type used for printing law-books.
While Lettou remained in the firm the work, though much deteriorated,
retained a certain amount of regularity. All the books had signatures
and were regular in size, though their appearance was not good. After
the issue of these five books Lettou seems to have ceased printing, but
the type was used for one more book, which it will be well to notice
here, _The History of the Siege of Rhodes_. This was written in Latin
by Gulielmus Caorsin, vice-chancellor of the Knights of Malta, and was
translated into English by John Kay, who styles himself poet-laureate
to Edward IV. It gives an account of the great victory of the Rhodians
against the Turks and the death of Mahomet.
It is the only early English printed book which we cannot definitely
ascribe to any particular printer. By most early writers it was classed
as a production of Caxton, and Dibdin places it under Caxton in his
_Typographical Antiquities_, though he there expresses a doubt as to
its being his work. “The typography,” he says, “is so rude as to induce
me to suppose that the book was not printed by Caxton. The oblique
dash for the comma is very coarse; and the adoption of the colon and
the period, as well as the comparatively wide distances between the
lines, are circumstances which, as they are not to be found in Caxton’s
acknowledged publications, strongly confirm this supposition.” Five
years later, writing in the _Bibliotheca Spenceriana_, he seems to have
settled more accurately. “I have very little doubt,” he writes there,
“of its having been executed by Lettou and Machlinia, or by the former
of these printers, rather than by Caxton. The letters, however, great
and small, especially the larger ones, and some of the compound smaller
ones, bear a strong resemblance to the smallest types of our first
printer; but on a comparison with those of the _Tenures_ of Lyttelton
and the _Ancient Abridgement of the Statutes_, printed by Lettou and
Machlinia, the resemblance is quite complete.” The type is certainly
that used by Lettou and Machlinia, and the considerable difference in
appearance from the other five books is caused by the text being in
English, which makes more difference than would be imagined, and also
that there are very few of the abbreviations which crowd the other
books. Then again the lines of type are spaced out, giving the page a
much lighter appearance.
Though the dedication is to Edward IV, it does not necessarily follow
that the book was printed before his death, for the early printers in
reprinting a manuscript would keep to the preface as there written.
It might, however, have been printed as early as 1483, and immediately
the law books had been completed. Who the printer was I do not think
can ever be settled. When it was printed Machlinia had probably started
by himself with his new types, and I do not think it can have been
printed by Lettou, as it has not the signatures to the pages which he
invariably used.
We may, I think, date the break up of the partnership of John Lettou
and William de Machlinia about 1482-83, and from that date onwards
Machlinia worked alone. He seems to have made a fresh start with new
type, for he has at least three founts which had not been used before.
The difficulties in the way of making any arrangement or arriving at
any definite conclusions about his books are very great. We know that
he printed at least twenty-two books, and not one single one is dated.
Signatures, directors, headlines, seem to be present or absent without
rule or reason. There is hardly any method of arranging the books in
groups, every book stands alone in splendid isolation.
The only division possible is according to the type used in the books,
and in this way we can separate them into two groups. Those of the
first group are printed in two founts of a square gothic type, and as
in colophons of the two books in this series which possess them the
printer speaks of himself as living near the “Flete-bridge,” we call
these books the ones printed in the Fleet-bridge type. The other group
are in a regular English type, similar in general appearance to some
of Caxton’s or that used by the printer of St Alban’s, and in the
imprint to one of these books Machlinia speaks of himself as printing
in Holborn, so that we speak of this series of books as printed in the
Holborn type. As Flete-bridge was at the east end of Fleet Street and
a considerable distance from Holborn it is impossible that these two
addresses could apply to one office.
It is probable that the Fleet-bridge group is the earlier, so we will
take it first. In it there are altogether eight books. Three folios,
the _Tenures of Lyttelton_, the _Nova Statuta_, and the _Promise of
Matrimony_, four quartos, the _Vulgaria Terentii_, the _Revelation of
St Nicholas to a Monk of Evesham_, and two books by Albertus Magnus,
the _Liber Aggregationis seu de secretis naturae_, and the _Secreta
mulierum_, and one small book, probably a 16º, an edition of the _Horae
ad usum Sarum_.
The two books of Albertus Magnus are certainly the most neatly printed,
the press work being tidy and regular, which was not generally the case
with this printer’s productions.
The copy of the _Secreta mulierum_ in the University Library is an
interesting one, though, unfortunately, imperfect. On the first leaf
which is blank there is a certain amount of writing, amongst other
things the following sentence: “Annus domini nunc est 1485 in anno
Ricardi tercii 3º.” This note, supposing it to have been written at the
time to which it refers, and there is no reason to doubt it, must have
been written between June 26 and August 22, 1485, showing that at any
rate the book was printed before that date. The other book of Albertus
Magnus, the _Liber aggregationis_, has a colophon stating that it was
printed by “William de Machlinia in the most wealthy city of London,
near the bridge vulgarly called the Flete-bridge.” The wealth of London
seems to have impressed the alien printer, for he always applies the
word “_opulentissima_” to that city.
The small _Horae_ we have little information about, for we know of
its existence only from nineteen leaves scattered about the country.
There are eight in Corpus Christi College, Oxford, seven in the British
Museum, four in Lincoln Minster, and two in the University Library,
Cambridge. These have all been extracted from bindings, and in the
cases where we know the particular bindings from which they came these
bindings were the work of the same man, whose initials were W. G.
From the way in which the leaves were printed, and the way in which
they were afterwards folded, a point too technical and difficult of
description to touch on here, we may pretty safely say that the _Horae_
was a 16º and not an 8º. It may be worth while remarking that the early
printers used only the simple folding, which with each successive
folding exactly halves the size of the previous one. The sheet folded
into two leaves produced folio size, this folded again once made 4to,
folded again 8º, again 16º, again 32º, and again 64º. The duodecimo or
12º, which depends on more complicated folding, was quite unknown.
The _Horae_, so far as we can see from what remains, contained no
illustrations, but it had an engraved border which was used round the
pages beginning certain portions of the book. This engraved border we
afterwards find in Pynson’s hands, and it is the only definite link
connecting him with this press. Bradshaw, in his paper on the “Image of
Pity,” suggests that Ames, who quoted this book in his _Typographical
Antiquities_, had seen a complete copy, but as he describes it merely
as “a book of devotions on vellum” and adds no particulars I think that
he simply described it from the few leaves in his own possession, which
are now in the British Museum in the great so-called Bagford volumes of
despoiled title-pages.
The _Revelation of St Nicholas to a Monk of Evesham_ is one of the most
remarkable volumes of the fifteenth century, very well worth reading,
for it is full of early English stories and allusions. (I may say in
passing that Mr Arber has issued a cheap reprint of it.) The story
tells of a man who was taken through purgatory and was shown various
people whom he had known or heard of and listened to their stories.
It seems to me very curious that no other editions of the book were
issued in early times: it seems exactly the kind of book which must
have been popular. Typographically, the book is interesting as showing
an excellent example of wrong imposition, that is that when the one
side of the sheet had been printed, the other side was put down upon
its form of type the wrong way round, and consequently the pages come
all in their wrong order, page 1 being printed on the first side of the
first leaf, page 14 follows it on the other side, then page 16, then
page 4, and so on. Now, most printers who had done this stupid thing,
and it was not an uncommon accident, would have destroyed the sheet
and reprinted it. Not so Machlinia. He printed off some more copies of
the wrong sheet and, cutting it up, pasted the four pages in their
proper places. In one of the two known copies this has had unfortunate
results, for some curious inquirer, noticing the pages pasted together,
has tried to separate them to find out what was underneath, and they
have suffered severely in the process.
The _Vulgaria Terentii_ is the last of the quartos in this group.
It is a book that was often printed, but of the present edition the
copy in the University Library is the only one remaining, and it,
unfortunately, is slightly imperfect.
Of the folios, the _Nova Statuta_ is the most important, and also by
far the commonest, for I have examined over a dozen copies myself,
and I know of a good many more. The book must have been printed after
April, 1483, as the subject-matter runs up to that date, while an
action in Chancery relating to it was tried between 1483 and 1485. The
_Promise of Matrimony_, another folio in this type, consisting only of
four leaves, relates to the agreement made in 1475 between Edward IV
and Louis XI for the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth of York and
Prince Charles, afterwards Charles VIII, King of France.
I have noticed that in nearly all the copies of the law-books printed
by Lettou and Machlinia, or Machlinia alone, that I have examined, the
initial letters, which were filled in by hand in colour, appear to have
been done by the same person; the letter roughly in red, and a twirl
or two by way of ornament in pale green or blue. I suppose the subject
of the books was so severely practical that unless this had been done
before the book left the office it would never have been done at all.
However, in English printing generally, though the spaces were left
for fine initials, I can remember very few books with them filled in
in any but the plainest way, a contrast to the beautiful work so often
found in Italian books.
The last group of books, which number fourteen, are called the Holbom
type books, because, in the imprint of one of the two books that
contain them we find the words, “Enprente per moy william Maclyn en
Holborn.” The general type used for the text of these books is very
remarkably like that used by Veldener at Utrecht and by John Brito at
Bruges, and may, perhaps, have been obtained by Machlinia from abroad,
though it is of the same school of type as several used in England.
The most important book issued in this series is an edition of the
_Chronicles of England_. It is a very rare book, but there is an
imperfect copy in Cambridge in the Barham collection in Pembroke
College. The space for the initial letters, as is usually the case with
early books, has been left blank to be filled in by the rubricator, but
in one copy that I have seen, the initials have been filled in in gold,
not gold leaf, but gold paint, and this is the only example of its use
that I have found in an early English book. Another curious point about
the book is that though it is a folio, a folio of 238 leaves, yet in
all copies leaves 59 and 66, the first and last leaves of a quire, are
printed on quarto paper. I thought once that perhaps for some reason
these leaves had been cancelled and reprinted, but it seems more
probable that the printer had for the moment run out of his supply of
ordinary-sized paper, and had to use some of a much larger size cut in
half. A similar case of mixed papers is found in the _Nova Rhetorica_
printed at St Albans in 1480, which is partly quarto and partly octavo.
Three editions were published by Machlinia of the curious _Treatise of
the Pestilence_ by Canutus or Kamitus, Bishop of Westeraes in Sweden,
and of each edition only one copy is known, one in the British Museum,
one in the University Library, and one sold lately in the sale of
the Ashbumham Library and now at Manchester. I must warn anyone who
uses Dibdin’s _Typographical Antiquities_, that the facsimile page of
the book which he gives is made up from the upper part of the first
leaf of the Cambridge copy and the lower part of the same leaf of the
Manchester copy, which he must have seen when it was in the possession
of Triphook, the bookseller, so that the resulting facsimile is rather
puzzling. The fact that one of these editions, that in the British
Museum, has a title-page, makes us inclined to put it to rather a late
date, but at any rate it is the earliest title-page in an English
printed book.
Another book in this group, by far the commonest and best known, is
the _Speculum Christiani_, ascribed to a writer named John Watton,
a curious medley of theological matter interspersed with pieces of
English poetry. The colophon states that the book was printed for and
at the expense of a merchant named Henry Vrankenbergh. About this
merchant I could find out nothing until, curiously enough, on my last
visit to Cambridge a fortnight ago, my attention was drawn by a friend
to a note in the Descriptive Catalogue of ancient deeds in the Record
Office, where is a note of a “Demise to Henry Frankenbergk and Barnard
van Stondo, merchants of printed books, of an alley in St Clement’s
Lane, called St Mark’s Alley, 10th May, 1482.”
This is, I believe, the earliest note relating to foreign stationers or
merchants of printed books in England, but I hope from the same source
we may expect to obtain many more as soon as the endless series of
documents in the Record Office are calendared.
An edition of the _Vulgaria Terentii_ was also printed in this type. An
almost perfect copy was added to the British Museum Library some years
ago, and a considerable portion of another copy is in the library of
Caius College.
Machlinia also printed two of the _Nova Festa_, the _Festum
visitationis beate Marie virginis_ and the _Festum transfigurationis
Jesu Christi_. The first of these is only known from two leaves which
had been used to line the boards of the binding of Pynson’s _Dives and
Pauper_. Of the second a beautiful and perfect copy is in the library
of the Marquis of Bath. It is curious to notice that it contains not
only the feast according to the Sarum use, but also according to the
Roman use.
The last three of Machlinia’s books to be noticed are the three which,
though undated themselves, contain certain evidences of date. The first
of these contains the statutes made in the first year of Richard III,
and, as this first year ran from June 26, 1483, to June 25, 1484, the
book cannot be earlier than the second half of the latter year.
The second book is one about which I am very much inclined to doubt
whether it was printed by Machlinia at all, but rather by Veldener,
who used apparently identical type; and though I have had for several
years under my charge at Manchester the only copy of the book known I
cannot make up my mind about it. It is an edition of the _Regulae et
ordinationes_ of Innocent VIII, and could not at any rate have been
printed before the very end of 1484. The type seems newer in appearance
than any of Machlinia’s, though to all appearance identical. Dibdin,
with his usual readiness, helps us by remarking, “It presents us with
the same character or general appearance of type as that which Caxton
and Machlinia occasionally used. It is not much unlike the St Alban’s
type.”
The last production is a Bull of Innocent VIII confirming the marriage
of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. It was reissued in 1494 by
Alexander VI, and there the date is given as 27th March, 1486.
Two copies of this Bull are known, one in the library of the Society
of Antiquaries and one in the Rylands Library, Manchester. Both are in
poor condition, and show signs of having been used at one time to line
the boards of a binding.
Richard Pynson was by birth a native of Normandy, but practically
nothing is known of his personal history. It is probable that he was
educated at the University of Paris, for we find in a list of students
in 1464 the name “Ricardus Pynson Normannus,” and this may very well
be the printer. It was, however, in Normandy that he learned to
print, probably from Guillaume le Talleur, a noted printer of Rouen,
as may be seen by certain small habits connected with printing which
he fell into, and which are very typical of Rouen work. Although we
have only circumstantial evidence, evidence depending on a number of
almost trifling details to back up the statement, it seems now almost
certain that Pynson succeeded Machlinia. My own impression is that
he succeeded immediately on the death or retirement of the latter,
with hardly any interval. A very strong reason for this impression is
that had any long time elapsed between the cessation of Machlinia’s
press and the commencement of Pynson’s, England would have been left
without a printer who could set up law French. Caxton and Wynkyn de
Worde were presumably unable to do it, at any rate they printed no
books of the kind except some statutes of Henry VII, and it must be
remembered that in Henry VII’s reign for the first time the statutes
were written in English. I do not mean to suggest that Pynson ever
worked with Machlinia, but only that when the latter ceased to work
Pynson came over and started in his place, perhaps taking over some
of his printing material or even starting work in his old office. The
engraved border which Machlinia had used in his Sarum _Horae_, the only
piece of ornament he seems to have possessed, we find used afterwards
by Pynson, and it is a very common thing to find Pynson’s earliest
bindings lined with waste leaves of Machlinia’s printing. Had Pynson
worked with Machlinia we should have expected the latter’s founts of
type to have passed into his hands, as Caxton’s were inherited by
Wynkyn de Worde, but they did not. Indeed they totally disappeared, and
what we do find of Machlinia’s in Pynson’s hands is merely the refuse
that we might expect a printer to find in an office just vacated by
another. Had Pynson not been ready to take over the place this waste
stuff would have been destroyed. The question is, then, when did
Machlinia cease or Pynson begin? I should say that Machlinia ceased
much later than is supposed and Pynson began much earlier, and that the
two events happened between 1488 and 1490. At first when Pynson arrived
he was without material, so he commissioned Le Talleur at Rouen to
print for him the two law-books most in demand, _Littelton’s Tenures_
and _Statham’s Abridgement of Cases to the end of Henry VI_.
[Illustration]
Probably in 1490-1491 he began printing on his own account. His
first dated book was issued in November, 1492, but five books, if
not more, can be placed earlier; these are an edition of Chaucer’s
_Canterbury Tales_, a _Latin Grammar_, a poetical book, and two or
more _Year-books_. The _Chaucer_ is a particularly fine book, printed
in two sizes of type, a larger for the poetry, and a smaller for the
prose, which is printed in two columns. It is also illustrated with a
set of woodcuts illustrating the different pilgrims. It is interesting
to notice that these cuts were altered in some cases while the book
was passing through the press in order to serve as the portrait of
another pilgrim. The serjeaunt with a little alteration becomes the
doctor of physick, the squire becomes the manciple. There has been a
good deal of controversy as to the date of the printing of this book
and whether it could have appeared before Caxton’s death in the latter
part of the year 1491. Pynson in his prologue, which is rather confused
and difficult to understand, says, speaking of Chaucer: “Of whom I
among alle other of his bokes, the boke of the tales of Canterburie,
in whiche ben many a noble historie of wisdome policie mirth and
gentilnes. And also of vertue and holynes whiche boke diligently
ovirsen and duely examined by the pollitike reason and ouirsight of my
worshipful master William Caxton accordinge to the entent and effecte
of the seide Geffrey Chaucer and by a copy of the seid master Caxton
purpos to imprent, by ye grace, ayde, and supporte of almighty god.”
I think had Caxton been dead Pynson would have alluded to it in some
way, speaking of him, perhaps, as “my late worshipful master” or “my
worshipful master late dead.” The term worshipful master does not imply
that Pynson had been an apprentice or assistant to Caxton, but was
merely a courteous way of referring to the printer and editor whose
work he was about to reprint. Blades in his life of Caxton, speaks
of Pynson’s having used Caxton’s device, but this mistake has arisen
through a made-up book in the British Museum, a copy of Bonaventure’s
_Speculum vite Christi_. The copy wanted the end, and some former
owner, in order to make the book look more complete, has added a leaf
with Caxton’s device printed on it.
The _Latin Grammar_ is known only from three leaves, one in the
Bodleian and two in the British Museum. The leaf in the Bodleian
appears from an inscription upon it to have been used to line a binding
as early as 1494. The book was printed entirely in the large black type
of the _Chaucer_, the first of Pynson’s types, and which he does not
appear to have used after 1492.
Another book printed about this time was a book of poetry of a quarto
size. All that is at present known of this book are two little strips
making part of a leaf, and each containing six lines of verse, three
on each side. I found these fragments a year or two ago amongst a
bundle of uncatalogued leaves in the Bodleian, but was not able at the
time to determine from what book they came. The story is apparently of
someone who having been in purgatory is allowed to revisit the world
in order to warn others of what he had seen there. This was a common
story, and the occurrence of part of a line “But y the goste of guido”
makes it certain that the fragments belong to some version of a work
called _Spiritus Guidonis_.
The two other books in this series are two year-books, for the
first and ninth years of Edward IV. All these early books, with the
exception, of course, of the poetry fragments, contain Pynson’s
first device, which consists of his monogram in white upon a black
background, not at all unlike in style that used by Le Talleur at
Rouen, with whom he had been associated. When the device was used in
November, 1492, a small alteration had been made in it, so that from
the state of the device as well as by the type used we are able to
settle which books belong to this earliest group.
In 1492 Pynson’s first dated book appeared, an edition of the
_Doctrinal_ of Alexander Grammaticus, editions of which had already
been printed abroad in considerable numbers. Pynson’s was not copied
from any of these, having a different commentary, but who this
commentary is by I have not yet been able to ascertain.
This book was only discovered quite lately, and I came upon it by a
fortunate accident. The owner, or rather guardian, of it happened to
have read in some book that the earliest dated book of Pynson’s was
issued in 1493. Knowing that he had an earlier one he wrote to the
British Museum about it, and I heard casually that the book had been
sent to them to examine. I went up to London immediately to see if I
could see the book, but was told it had been returned, nor could I
obtain any information as to where it was to be found. Luckily, the
owner was so far interested as to write a note to one of the papers
mentioning the existence of the book, and also the place where it was
preserved--the Grammar School at Appleby. The following Saturday I set
off to Appleby, and had the pleasure of examining it at my leisure.
It is a beautiful copy, quite perfect, in its original binding, and,
as one would have hoped, with end leaves taken from Machlinia’s
_Chronicle_. It has a perfectly clear Latin imprint which runs: “And
thus ends the commentary of the Doctrinale of Alexander, printed by
me Richard Pynson of the parish of St Clement Danes outside the bar
of the new Temple at London the 13th day of the month of November in
the year of the incarnation of our Lord 1492.” From this colophon it
is clear that if Pynson did commence work in Machlinia’s old office,
which was in Holborn, he had by this time removed to other premises.
The commentary in the book is printed in a very small, neat type which
Pynson had probably had made for him abroad, as it contained no w. I am
sorry that the discovery of this book has thrown out of order the list
of Pynson’s types which I gave in the introduction to my _Facsimiles
of Early English Printing_. In 1903 this volume was sold by the school
trustees, and is now in the British Museum.
In 1493 appeared Henry Parker’s _Dialogue of Dives and Pauper_, which
was always considered, before the discovery of the _Doctrinale_,
Pynson’s first dated book. It is printed in a new and handsome type,
and this is the only dated book in which it is used, though there
are four undated quartos in the same type, which may be put down to
the same year. These are the _Festum nominis Jesu_, one of the _Nova
Festa_ printed as supplements to the Sarum _Breviary_, the _Life of St
Margaret_, Lidgate’s _Churl and Birde_, and an edition apparently of
some statutes or a similar work known from two leaves in the library
at Lambeth. Of the _Festum nominis Jesu_ one copy is known, bound
up in a volume with several other tracts, among them being Caxton’s
_Festum transfigurationis Jesu Christi_. It was for a while in the
Congregational Library in London but was eventually sold to the British
Museum. Three printed leaves from the beginning of the poem amongst
the fragments in the Bodleian are all that remain of the _Life of St
Margaret_. The Lidgate’s _Churl and Birde_ after passing through the
sales of Willett, the Marquis of Blandford, Sir F. Freeling and B. H.
Bright, passed with the Grenville Library into the British Museum.
Two editions of Mirk’s _Liber Festivalis_, each known from a single
copy, one in the Pepysian Library, the other in the University Library,
belong probably to this time. The various changes in the book are
interesting to trace. In the earliest editions there are no references
to, or additional chapters for, the new feasts which were then coming
into use; then come editions with the extra feasts printed together
at the end as a kind of supplement to the book, and finally we get
the editions with these extra feasts put into their proper places in
the body of the book. The edition in the Pepysian Library is without
these extra feasts, while that in the University Library has them as
a supplement of ten leaves at the end. In the next edition, which was
printed about the end of 1493 by W. de Worde, the feasts have been
incorporated into their proper places.
In 1494 Pynson reverted to his earlier types and issued a translation
by Lidgate from Boccaccio called the _Falle of Princes_, remarkable
for its charming woodcuts. In this book, for the first time, Pynson
used his second device, a large woodcut containing his initials on a
black shield with a helmet above on which is perched a small bird.
This I imagine is meant for a finch, a punning allusion to his name,
since pynson is the Norman name for a finch. Round the whole is a
border of flowering branches, in which are birds and grotesque beasts.
This device supplies us later with a most useful date test, for the
edge split in 1496 and the piece broke off entirely towards the end of
1497. After 1498 the use of this device was discontinued but it was not
destroyed, and it made a solitary reappearance, in a sadly mutilated
state in an edition of a grammar of Whitinton in 1515. Probably in this
year (1494) Pynson issued his edition of the _Speculum vitae Christi_,
of which an almost perfect copy is in King’s library. It is illustrated
with a large number of neat woodcuts, which are copied more or less
from Caxton’s illustrations to the same book, though they are by no
means identical with them, as has been often stated. As a general
rule Pynson’s cuts are of very much better execution and design than
either Caxton’s or De Worde’s, and though not in all cases good, as for
instance in the _Canterbury Tales_, yet they never sink to the very
bad drawing and engraving so often found in the works of the other two
printers.
An edition of the _Hecyra_ of Terence bears the date January 20, 1495,
but no other dated book of this year is known, and 1496 was hardly
better, having only the two grammars, the _Liber Synonymorum_ and
_Liber Equivocorum_, the latter usually wrongly attributed to Joannes
de Garlandia; but many undated books of very considerable interest
appeared about this time. Two of these, the _Epitaph of Jasper_, _Duke
of Bedford_, and the _Foundation of Our Lady’s Chapel at Walsingham_
are to be found in the Pepysian Library. Jasper Tudor, Duke of Bedford,
and half-brother of Henry VI, died on December 21, 1495, and the book
must have been printed early in 1496. It is ostensibly written by one
Smarte, the keeper of the hawks to the Duke, and begins as follows:--
Rydynge al alone with sorrowe sore encombred
In a frosty fornone, faste by Severnes syde
The wordil beholdynge, whereat much I wondred
To se the see and sonne to kepe both tyme and tyde.
The ayre ouer my hede so wonderfully to glyde
And how Saturne by circumference borne is aboute
Whiche thynges to beholde, clerely me notyfyde
One verray god to be, therin to haue no dowte.
The end runs:--
Kynges prynces moste souerayne of renoune
Remembre oure maister that gone is byfore
This worlde is casual, nowe up nowe downe
Wherfore do for your silfe, I can say no more
Honor tibi Deus, gloria et laus
Qd’ Smerte maister de ses ouzeaus.
This poem has been attributed to Skelton, though I do not know for what
reason. On the title-page is a special cut, not used elsewhere, of
Smarte kneeling, with his hawk on his wrist, and presenting with his
other hand a book to a person standing. The _Foundation of Our Lady’s
Chapel at Walsingham_ is a small tract relating to the priory of the
Augustinian canons of St Mary, once one of the most important places of
pilgrimage in England, and which was described by Erasmus. The first
leaf, which would have contained the title, is wanting, but the text
begins on the second:--
Of this chapell se here the fundacyon
Bylded the yere of crystes incarnacyon
A thousande complete, sixty and one
The tyme of Sent Edward kyng of this region.
About this time appeared the first English edition of _Mandeviles
Travels_, the only edition, I think, issued without illustrations, and
a little reprint of Caxton’s _Art and Craft to Know Well to Die_, of
which the only known copy, formerly Ratcliffe’s, is in the Hunterian
Museum at Glasgow.
Another poetical tract is the _Life of Petronylla_, beginning:--
The parfite lyfe to put in remembraunce
Of a virgyn moost gracious and entere
Which in all vertu had souereyn suffysaunce
Called Petronylla petyrs doughter dere.
This little tract consists of four leaves, and though only three copies
are known at present it is probable that more are in existence, for
the book seems to occur in all the sales of large libraries which have
occurred within the last hundred years.
About 1496 Henry Quentell, a Cologne printer, had issued the first
edition of the _Expositio Hymnorum et Sequentiarum_, according to the
use of Sarum, but it was found that several hymns and sequences were
omitted, so Pynson issued two supplements, one of sixteen leaves to the
hymns, another of six to the sequences.
Another rather quaint book issued about this time is a kind of
vocabulary or phrase book in English and French. “Here is a good book
to lerne to speak french, Vecy ung bon liure a apprendre a parler
fraunchoys.” The book contains also specimens of letters in French
relating to trade, in fact it was evidently intended as a manual for
people who had business relations with France.
Two more editions of the _Nova Festa_, the _Festum transfigurationis_
and the _Festum nominis Jesu_ were issued about this time. The only
copies known of these two books are in a private library in Somerset,
and I have not yet had an opportunity of examining them.
In 1497, or perhaps slightly earlier, Pynson began to use his third
device, made probably to take the place of the second which had split,
and taking warning from it he had the new one cut in metal. The device
consists of the shield and monogram supported by a man and a woman,
with the helmet and bird above. The border, which is cut on a separate
piece, contains birds and foliage, with the Virgin and Child and a
saint in the bottom corners. In the lowest part of the frame a piece
in the form of a ribbon has been cut out for the insertion of type. In
consequence of the weakness of that particular place the small piece
of border below the ribbon began to be pushed inwards, and by 1499
there was a distinct indentation in the border. This got deeper and
deeper year by year, until the piece broke off entirely in 1513. The
first dated book in which it occurs is the 1497 edition of Alcock’s
_Mons perfectionis_, but it occurs in several of the undated books that
can be placed about 1496.
Between 1495 and the end of 1497 Pynson issued the plays of Terence,
the first classic (with the exception of an Oxford edition of the _Pro
Milone_, which is known from a few leaves) that had been printed in
England. The six plays were evidently issued separately and not as a
volume, for they differ considerably typographically. There is some
difficulty, too, in determining in what order they were issued.
In 1498 there are seven dated books, one of them being the sermon of
Bishop Alcock called _Gallicantus_, and he is so pleased with jesting
on his name that he prefaces the text of his sermon with a little black
picture of a cockerel, which he also used as a device. Another edition
of the _Doctrinale_ of Alexander the Grammarian was issued this year,
but I have not yet seen the book, as the only copy known belongs to
Lord Beauchamp.
In 1499 a very interesting book was printed by Pynson. This was the
_Promptorius Puerorum_, a Latin-English dictionary ascribed to a monk
of Lynn. The imprint tells us that the book was printed for Frederick
Egmondt and Peter post pascha. Frederick Egmondt was an important
stationer, and no doubt Peter post pascha was a stationer also, though
what name in the vernacular can be represented by post pascha remains
an unsolved riddle. Mr Albert Way, in his edition of the _Promptorium
parvulorum_, applies a curious amount of misplaced ingenuity to the
question of the identity of these two stationers. “We find about
the time in question,” he says, speaking of the name Egmondt, “a
distinguished person of that family, possibly the patron of Pynson,
Frederic, son of William IV, Count of Egmond. In 1472 he received from
his uncle, the Duke of Gueldres, the lordship of Buren; he was named
governor of Utrecht by the Archduke Maximilian in 1492; two years
later Buren was raised to a count in reward of his services. There was
a Peter, an illegitimate brother of his father, who might have been
living at that time; what was his surname does not appear.” Another
book printed about this year was the _Elegantiarum viginti praecepta_,
a book which I am fond of for a peculiar reason. I found once a leaf
of it in the Signet Library, Edinburgh, and, not knowing that any copy
was in existence, set to work to reconstruct the book from the leaf.
I counted the lines, and comparing with foreign editions, conjectured
the size and structure of the book, and knowing how Pynson would make
a title-page with a woodcut, and the woodcut he would probably use,
I made up a description of the book, taking the title from an early
bibliography. At last I heard of a perfect copy in a private library
which the owner was kind enough to allow me to examine. When the book
arrived I found I had not only got the collation right, but by a lucky
inspiration had selected the correct woodcut for the title-page. As it
happens I might have spared myself the trouble, for I found afterwards
a fairly accurate collation of the book in an authority I had not
consulted.
A curious prognostication for 1499 is in the Bodleian. It is addressed
to Henry VII, and was drawn out by a William Parron, who lived at
Piacenza and called himself doctor of medicine and professor of
astrology. Another prognostication for 1502, by the same author, was
printed by Pynson, and some fragments are in the library of Westminster
Abbey. He also wrote an astrological work on Henry, Duke of York,
afterwards Henry VIII, in 1502, of which there are manuscripts in the
British Museum and Bibliothèque Nationale, but it does not seem ever to
have been printed.
The _Missal_ which Pynson printed in 1500 is perhaps the finest book
printed in the fifteenth century in England. It was produced at the
expense of Cardinal Morton, whose arms appear at the beginning, and
Pynson has introduced into the borders and initials a rebus on the
name consisting of the letters Mor surmounting a barrel or tun. Five
copies of this book are known, three being on vellum. One of the latter
copies, slightly imperfect, is in the library of Trinity College,
Cambridge. In the copy at Manchester all the references to St Thomas
and his service, which had been scraped out and erased according to
the command of Henry VIII, have been entirely filled in by some pious
seventeenth century owner in gold.
In the imprint, after setting forth that the book was printed at the
command of Cardinal Morton, Pynson adds the date, January 10, 1500.
Now, as Cardinal Morton died on September 15, 1500, I think we have
here a strong piece of evidence that Pynson, like De Worde, began his
year on January 1. For if he had begun it on March 25, then January 10,
1500, would be after the Cardinal was dead, and Pynson would surely
have spoken of him as lately dead, or in some way alluded to the loss
of his patron.
The _Book of Cookery_, belonging to the Marquis of Bath, was also
printed this year. It begins: “Here beginneth a noble boke of
festes royalle and cokery, a boke for a pryncis housholde or any
other estates, and the makynge therof accordynge as ye shall fynde
more playnly within this boke.” Then follows an account of certain
great banquets, the feast at the coronation of Henry V; “the earle
of Warwick’s feast to the king, the feast of my lorde chancellor
archbishop of York at his stallacion in York,” and so on. After the
account of the feasts comes the more practical Calendar of Cookery.
Two editions of the _Informatio Puerorum_, a small grammatical work
founded upon the _Donatus_, were issued about this time. In the
colophon of one it is stated that the book was printed for George
Chasteleyn and John Bars. I have found no reference anywhere to John
Bars, but George Chasteleyn was an Oxford bookseller, carrying on
business at the Sign of St John the evangelist in that city. It was for
him also that in 1506 Pynson printed an edition of the _Principia_ of
Peregrinus de Lugo. About this time there was no press in Oxford, so
that books for use in the schools had to be printed in London.
In a scrap-book in the British Museum are some leaves of an edition
of the romance of _Guy of Warwick_ which may be ascribed to Pynson,
and they are printed in a curious mixture of his early types. These
leaves were discovered in 1860 in the binding of a copy of Maydeston’s
_Directorium Sacerdotum_, printed by Pynson in 1501, and an account
of them was sent by their discoverer, who signs himself E. F. B.,
to _Notes and Queries_. Now, of this edition of the _Directorium_,
only two copies are known, one in the British Museum and one in Ripon
Cathedral, and I should very much like to know from which copy these
leaves were obtained.
During all the period from 1490 to 1500 Pynson was busy issuing
editions of law-books, more than a quarter of his productions being
of this class, and it is probable that a considerable number more
printed in the fifteenth century may yet be discovered. They are not
of a nature to attract much interest, and are generally very badly
catalogued, or catalogued in collections and not separately, and in one
great English library at least they have no more detailed press mark
than Law Room, so it is needless to say I have not yet examined such
books as they may have in that library.
Though he did not print so many books as De Worde in the fifteenth
century, nevertheless Pynson was evidently a more enterprising and
careful printer. He had seven distinct founts of type, all of which
were made for him and not inherited from other printers, and the
works he produced were of a much more scholarly nature, though this
becomes more apparent in his work during the sixteenth century. His
patrons were often learned and distinguished men, for whom he produced
such splendid work as the _Morton Missal_, and he became later the
recognised king’s printer. In the fifteenth century he printed
altogether eighty-eight books known to us.
Pynson, like De Worde, very considerately moved to a new address at the
end of the century; previous to 1501 he was in St Clement’s parish,
outside Temple Bar, which was the limit, I think, of the parish, but
afterwards moved inside Temple Bar, where he carried on business at
the Sign of the George. The colophon to the _Book of Cookery_, printed
in 1500, says, “Imprinted without Temple Bar”; the colophon to the
_Directorium Sacerdotum_ of 1501 says, “intra barram novi templi,” so
that the date is pretty accurately fixed.
LECTURE III.
THE STATIONERS.
In speaking of the history of the printed book in the fifteenth century
I have so far dealt only with the printers of London and Westminster;
to-day I propose to touch on the books printed abroad for the English
market and the stationers who sold them. In the early days the
different businesses of a publisher, a bookseller, and a bookbinder
were often carried on by one man, who was called a stationer. He bought
books wholesale, sometimes having whole editions specially printed for
him, he bound them, and then sold them like an ordinary bookseller. He
also probably in England, as was certainly done on the Continent, sent
round vans full of books to the various provincial towns, timing his
arrival as far as possible to coincide with the local fairs.
A considerable number of the books printed abroad for sale in England
have no connexion with any particular stationer, but were probably
brought over by an agent of the printer and sold in lots to different
stationers.
The earliest book printed abroad definitely for sale in England is the
edition of the Sarum _Breviary_ printed at Cologne about 1475. Of this
book nothing is left but a few leaves, and the imprint, if it possessed
one, is not known. Only one other book is known printed in the same
type, an edition of the _Homilies_, but it, unfortunately, has no
imprint, so that we have no clue as to who may have been the printer.
I cannot help thinking that perhaps Caxton may have had something
to do with having this book printed, commissioning it either on his
own account or for some friend in England, for it is unlikely that a
printer in so distant a town would have issued such a book on his own
account, and the probable date of its printing coincides more or less
with Caxton’s departure for England.
In 1483 a book was printed at Venice for sale in England, curiously
enough another edition of the Sarum _Breviary_. The copy in the
Bibliothèque Nationale, the only one known, is a very beautiful book,
printed on vellum and quite perfect. There is a rather painful history
attached to it. In 1715 this unique book came to the University
Library, Cambridge, as part of the library of Bishop Moore which was
presented to the University by George I. In the latter half of the
eighteenth century it appears to have been purloined along with a
great many other rarities by a certain Dr Combe. It then found its way
into the collection of Count Justin MacCarthy, who formed the largest
library of books printed on vellum ever brought together by a private
collector (he had over 600 of such books), and at his sale in 1815 it
was purchased for the Paris Library for fifty-one francs. The printer
of the book, Reginaldus de Novimagio, does not appear to have had
any connexion with England, nor does the imprint mention for whom the
book was produced. It is curious that he should have been chosen as
the printer of this _Breviary_, for it seems to have been the only
liturgical work he issued, and nothing among his other productions has
any connexion with England. Of course English people passed through
Venice in large quantities as it was the starting-point for pilgrims
to the Holy Land, and many ecclesiastics of high position went on this
journey, so that perhaps one of these travellers, seeing the beautiful
work done at Venice, and knowing that no printer at home was equal to
the task of producing such a book in a fitting manner, commissioned
the printing of the _Breviary_. It is sad to think that so beautiful a
book has been lost to England through the dishonesty of a reader in the
Library. We can only regret that the negotiations between the Duke of
Devonshire and the representatives of Count MacCarthy for the purchase
of the library _en bloc_ fell through, and that the Duke and Lord
Spencer, who both bought considerably at the sale, did not secure it,
for then at any rate it might have been in England, though not in its
proper place.
[Illustration]
In the year 1484 some important Acts were passed relating to the
trading of foreigners in this country. The ninth chapter ends:
“Provided always that this act or any parcel thereof, or any other act
made, or to be made in this said parliament, shall not extend, or be
in prejudice, disturbance, damage, or impediment, to any artificer, or
merchant stranger, of what nation or country he be, or shall be of, for
bringing into this realm, or selling by retail, or otherwise, any
books written or printed, or for inhabiting within this said realm for
the same intent, or any scrivener, alluminor, binder or printer of such
books, which he hath, or shall have to sell by way of merchandise, or
for their dwelling within this said realm, for the exercise of the said
occupations; this act or any part thereof notwithstanding.”
This Act it will be seen, which was not repealed until 1534, gave
absolute liberty to foreign printers and stationers to trade and
reside in England. That it succeeded in its object of encouraging the
immigration of stationers and craftsmen and the importation of books,
is clear from the words of the Act of 1534: “Whereas by the provision
of a Statute made in the firste yere of the reygne of Kynge Richarde
the thirde, it was provided in the same acte that all strangers
repayryng into this realme might lawfully bring into the saide realme
printed and written bokes to sell at their libertie and pleasure. By
force of which provision there hath comen into this realme sithen the
makynge of the same, a marvellous number of printed bookes and dayly
doth. And the cause of the making of the same provision semeth to be,
for that there were but few bookes and fewe printers within this realme
at that time, whiche could well exercise and occupie the said science
and crafte of printynge. Nevertheless, sithen the making of the saide
provision, many of this realme being the Kinges naturall subjectes,
have given them so diligently to lerne and exercise the saide craft of
printing that at this day there be within this realme a great number
of connyng and experte in the said science or crafte of printing, as
able to exercise the saide crafte in all pointes as any stranger in any
other realme or country.”
Though the preamble of this Act speaks only of printing, it was mainly
directed against the foreign bookbinders and stationers. By it it was
forbidden to import any foreign printed books ready bound, and no one
was to buy from any foreigner residing in England any books except “by
engrosse,” that is, wholesale. This you will see completely stopped the
trade of the foreign binder in the English market, and absolutely did
away with the foreign stationer in England. One effect of the Act is
apparent in the extraordinary number of letters of denisation taken out
at that date. In 1582 Christopher Barker wrote: “In the time of King
Henry VIII there were but few printers and those of good credit and
competent wealth, at whiche time and before there was another sort of
men, that were writers, lymners of bookes and dyverse thinges for the
Churche and other uses called stacioners; which have and partly to this
day do use to buy their bookes in grosse of the said printers, to bynde
them up and sell them in their shops, whereby they well mayntayned
their families.”
The fifty years then between 1484 and 1534 are the really interesting
years in the history of the English book trade, when it was free and
unprotected, but though we have a fair amount of information about the
latter half of this time, the earlier half is almost destitute of any
kind of records. The books of the original company of stationers in
London have all disappeared, and we are dependent mostly on incidental
references in deeds, in wills, or other legal documents.
Two years before the Act was passed, namely in 1482, we know of two
foreign booksellers who had come to London, Henry Frankenberg and
Bernard van Stondo, who rented an alley in St Clement’s Lane called
St Mark’s Alley. From their names they would appear to have come from
the Low Countries, but we know nothing about them or their business
beyond the fact that Frankenberg commissioned his fellow-countryman,
William de Machlinia, who was printing in London, to print for him
an edition of the _Speculum Christiani_, about which I spoke in my
last lecture. Their names in the deed and Frankenberg’s name in a
colophon are the only clues we have to the existence of two probably
important booksellers. So also in the very year of the Act we find
foreign dealers in books trading in Oxford with the resident university
stationer. In 1485 Peter Actors, a native of Savoy trading in London,
was appointed by Henry VII, Stationer to the King.
About 1486 at Louvain, Egidius vander Heerstraten printed an edition of
the _Regulae Grammaticales_ of Nicolas Perott, which contains a great
number of passages in English. These are very curious, and seem to have
been translated by one not very conversant with the language. Here is a
passage which refers to the fifteenth century substitute for compulsory
football: “who someuer of my discipulis goyeth awey fyrst from the
gammyng wt owt my licence i shal smyte his hande wyt a rode. And yf
he do the samyn thyng twyss i shall also beet hym wyt a leyshe.” In
another place, having translated the Latin phrase, “Quintilianus est
eloquens sed nihil ad Ciceronem,” “Quintilian is a wel spoken man but
nothyng to Tully,” he adds another and more personal example: “Helia
Perott is fayr but nothing to Penelope.”
I am not sure whether we ought to consider this book as one printed for
the purpose of exportation to England, or whether it was not rather
intended for the use of English students at the foreign universities.
This is made more probable from the fact that in a few cases we have
words translated into Dutch prefaced by “as we say.” I have seen
it stated that a similar edition was printed by the same printer
with explanations in French, but I have not been able to verify the
existence of any copy.
About 1486, too, was issued the first edition of the Sarum _Missal_,
printed, it is supposed, at Basle by Wenssler, though some doubts have
been raised as to whether it was really printed at Basle on account of
the appearance of the music type. It is a very handsome folio volume
of 278 leaves, printed in a large Gothic type in red and black. The
printer has not attempted to print the English portions of the wedding
service, but has left blank spaces where they occur, so that they might
be written in by hand. The first few editions of the Sarum _Missal_ are
all similar in this respect, but it is curious that Caxton, who had an
edition specially printed for him, should not have supplied the printer
with correct copies for these small portions of the service.
In the next few years a few grammatical books were issued, printed
as a rule in the Low Countries. In 1486 Gerard Leeu printed the
_Vulgaria Terentii_, a series of Latin sentences with translations
into English, an edition reprinted from the Oxford one of a year or two
earlier. This book is sometimes found printed as a supplement to the
_Grammar_ by John Anwykyll, and of this _Grammar_ there are two foreign
editions, one printed by Paffroed at Deventer in 1489, and another
rather later by Henry Quentell at Cologne. The _Grammar_ does not
contain an author’s name, but in the prefatory verses written by Petrus
Carmelianus he is referred to as Joannes. There are also verses written
to William Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester, and founder of Magdalen
College, Oxford, congratulating him on having persuaded this Joannes to
edit the _Grammar_. The book is supposed to have been intended for the
use of the Magdalen College School, in which the two grammarians John
Anwykyll and John Stanbridge were masters, and is supposed to have been
the work of Anwykyll. The two earliest editions were printed at Oxford,
but by 1486 the Oxford Press had stopped work and the two succeeding
editions were printed abroad.
The _Liber Equivocorum_ and _Liber Synonymorum_, the former wrongly
attributed to Joannes de Garlandia were also printed in the Low
Countries, the first at Deventer by Paffroed, the second at Antwerp by
Thierry Martens in 1493. The _Liber Synonymorum_ has the commentary of
Galfridus Anglicus. A copy of this book sold in the Ratcliffe sale in
the last century was described as having been printed at Antwerp in
1492, but this must have been, I suppose, a misprint for 1493.
Three more books printed in the Low Countries I ought to mention
before turning to France. One is an edition of Clement Maydeston’s
_Directorium Sacerdotum_, printed by Gerard Leeu in 1488, of which
there is a copy in the Cambridge University Library.
Another is an edition of the Sarum _Horae_, also printed by Leeu, which
I am afraid has to be spoken of at present as a lost book. The only
fragment known, an unused half sheet containing eight leaves, had been
used to line the binding of a copy of the _Scriptores rei rusticae_
printed at Reggio in 1496, in Brasenose College library; Bradshaw saw
the fragment and took down a description of it, but on its return to
Oxford it was mislaid and is not to be found.
The third book is another edition of the Sarum _Breviary_, printed at
Louvain in 1499 by Thierry Martens. The only copy known is in the Musée
Plantin at Antwerp. Leaving the Low Countries for a time we will turn
to France.
The _Missal_ printed for Caxton in 1487 I have already described in an
earlier lecture, so I can pass on to the edition which succeeded it,
that printed by Martin Morin, the celebrated printer of Rouen in 1492.
This Morin was by far the most important of the Norman stationers and
printers, and he appears to have excelled in the printing of service
books, for he was employed by printers and publishers from all parts to
print the service books for the special uses of the towns where they
resided.
For England he printed altogether six service books in the fifteenth
century. Three _Missals_, two _Breviaries_, and a _Liber Festivalis_,
and of these the _Missal_ of 1492 is the earliest. The two copies known
of this book, both slightly imperfect, are in the British Museum and
the Bodleian. It contains, like the earlier edition printed for Caxton,
two full-page engravings before the Canon of the Mass, not one only, as
is more generally the case.
The two later _Missals_ which he issued, one without date but about
1495 and another dated 1497, appear to have been mixed up by all
writers. The undated edition appears the rarest, for the only copy
which I have noted is in the British Museum. Of the dated edition I
have notes of five; one at Windsor in the Royal library, one in St
Catharine’s College, one at Chatsworth, one in the Aberdeen University
Library, and the fifth at Kinnaird Castle. I owe my knowledge of the
existence of this last copy to almost the last book in which one would
seek for bibliographical information, that handy work of reference
_Who’s Who_. Both editions are very handsome books, remarkable for
their fine titles and initial letters.
Of the two _Breviaries_ which Morin printed the earliest is dated 1496,
and the only copy known is in the University Library at Edinburgh, to
which it was bequeathed in 1577 by Clement Litill, who left a number
of valuable books to that library, of which he was practically the
founder. It is a magnificent folio volume of 437 leaves, and contains a
fairly full imprint, which after a deal of very grandiloquent language
tells us that the book was printed at the cost of Jean Richard, “by
the industry of that man skilled in printing, Mr Martin Morin, a not
unworthy citizen of that great city Rouen.” Morin’s colophons I may
note rarely err on the side of modesty. The Jean Richard mentioned
was a stationer of Rouen, and one who appears to have had considerable
dealings with England. I do not think he was a printer, as is often
stated, and he describes himself as a dealer in books, not a printer,
using sometimes the word merchant of books and sometimes the word
stationer.
It was for him that Morin printed in 1499 an edition of Mirk’s _Liber
Festivalis_ and _Quattuor Sermones_, a copy of which is in the Sandars
collection in the University Library. For him also, in 1500, a Sarum
_Manual_ was printed by Petrus Olivier and Joannes de Lorraine, of
which there is a copy in the Bodleian, and during the early years of
the sixteenth century a considerable number of service books for the
English market were printed at his expense.
The names of a number of early stationers who probably traded between
Rouen and England are to be found in the imprints of the early Sarum
_Missals_, for as the printing of them entailed a good deal of expense
a number of booksellers would combine to pay for the edition. Rouen
seems to have been, amongst all the towns of France, the most connected
with England as regards the book trade. It was there many of our
printers, as well as the first Scottish printers, learned their art or
obtained their materials, while stationers from that town crossed over
and sold their books in this country.
We know that Ingelbert Haghe, the publisher of the Hereford _Breviary_
of 1505, came over himself and sold books at Hereford and in the
country round. On the fly-leaf of a Bible formerly in the library of
Gloucester Cathedral is a Latin inscription which runs: “I gave to the
Hereford bookseller called Ingelbert for this and the six other volumes
of the Bible 43 shillings and fourpence, which I bought at Ludlow the
year of our Lord’s incarnation 1510, about the day of the Lichfield
fair.” Whether the Bible is still in the Gloucester Cathedral library
I do not know, but the fly-leaves which once belonged to it are in a
bundle of scraps in the Bodleian.
Another Rouen printer issued in 1495 an edition of the _Liber
Festivalis_. His name was James Ravynell, and this is the only book
that he is known to have printed. It is an exact copy of the edition
printed by W. de Worde in 1493 and ’94, and the type used in it has a
very clean and new appearance. At the end is a device with the initials
P. R., which looks as though it might have been made for another member
of the family, though we know of no other printer of the name. The fact
that he uses the English form of the Christian name in the imprint, “By
me, James Ravynell,” looks as if he was an Englishman who had migrated
to Rouen.
The device consists of the initials P. R. on a shield suspended by a
belt from a tree and supported by two muzzled bears. Below the shield
two birds hold up a wreath. Round the whole runs the text: “Junior
fui etenim senui et non vidi justum derelictum nec semen ejus querens
panem.” The name Ravynell is a curious one, and may be a corrupted
spelling of a commoner name, though it is still borne by some families
of Huguenot descent.
Another mysterious book, which from its type may very well have
been printed at Rouen, is an edition of the little grammar called
_Parvula_. It consists only of four leaves, and the only copy known is
at Manchester. The book ends: “Here endeth a treatise called parvula,
for the instruction of children. Emprentyd by me Nicole Marcant.” In
the exasperating way common to some printers both the date and place
of printing are omitted. As to the date I am inclined to put it before
1500, but the place is more difficult to settle. Nicole Marcant is an
unknown printer, but may very well be a member of one of the numerous
families of Marchand or Mercator, for there were several printers of
that name, though none so far as I know named Nicholas.
If we except the _Missal_ printed for Caxton in 1487 it was not until
1494 that the Paris printers began to work for the English market, and
the books they produced were almost all liturgical. The only exceptions
are three editions of grammatical works, two of the _Liber Equivocorum_
wrongly ascribed to Joannes de Garlandia, and one of the _Liber
Synonymorum_, the first two printed by Baligault and the last by Hopyl.
The first liturgical book was an edition of the Sarum _Breviary_,
printed in 1494 by Pierre Levet. For a long time only one copy was
known, that in the library at Trinity College, Dublin, but not long ago
the University Library was fortunate enough to secure a second example,
a very beautiful copy in its old binding.
In one thing the Paris printers excelled all others, and that was in
the production of books of Hours. These were turned out in the last few
years of the century by hundreds of thousands, and though they are now
of very common occurrence and very often of little interest, they are
still much sought after by certain classes of collectors, especially
those who like what they call pretty books. Of course, when these books
were printed for the use of out of the way places they have often great
liturgical interest, and being printed no doubt in small quantities are
very rare. The English service books having been relentlessly destroyed
at the Reformation are very rare indeed. Altogether in the fifteenth
century twenty-seven editions of the Sarum _Horae_ were printed,
fifteen in England, one at Antwerp, one at Venice, and ten in Paris.
Nine English editions were printed before one was issued at Paris, but
these latter when once they got a footing in England easily defied
competition. The changes in the text of these books during the last
ten years of the century are very curious and interesting. The _Horae_
was not a service book proper, but a manual of private devotion, and
so long as it contained certain fixed and definite parts additional
prayers could be added at will. Consequently the editions vary greatly,
and each publisher seems to have aimed at inserting new and popular
prayers, and by 1500 the book had increased to almost double the bulk
of its forerunner of ten years earlier.
In speaking of these books there is one point on which a word of
warning may be said. And that is about dating editions which have no
date in the imprint. All such are usually put down to 1488, which is
the first date printed in the calendar of moveable feasts. As this
calendar was made out for a nineteen year cycle running on to 1508 it
was naturally not reprinted for many years, and therefore is no test
for dating the printing of the book. The ten editions printed at Paris
are the work of about five printers, of whom the most important was
Felix Baligault.
The study of these French books of Hours is not an easy one, as there
is so much confusion between printers and publishers. In some cases
I am afraid the publishers used the words “printed by” in a quite
unwarrantable manner, and claimed to have produced books which they
had done nothing more than pay for. Then again quite half the editions
produced for sale in England are without any imprint, so that we are
left to conjecture who was the printer from the type or cuts used in
the books. To further bewilder us, sets of cuts passed from printer to
printer, and are very untrustworthy guides in assigning books. If one
printer issued a _Horae_ with a fine set of cuts they were promptly
copied by his rivals, who in their turn sold their old sets to less
wealthy printers, in fact some sets of cuts change hands almost every
year.
These books are all got up in the same style, the text surrounded on
every page by deep borders containing figures of saints and martyrs or
pictures from the Dance of Death.
One unique edition, printed by Jean Poitevin about 1498, was picked
up lately in Ireland and bought by the librarian of Trinity College,
Dublin, for a small sum.
A service book of great interest is the first edition of the Sarum
_Manual_, of which the only known copy is in the library at Caius
College. It bears on its first leaf a Latin inscription stating that
it was given to the College of the Annunciation of the Blessed Mary
at Cambridge by Humphrey de la Poole, son of the Duke of Suffolk, for
the use of the college, in September, 1498. The book is a folio of
164 leaves, beautifully printed in red and black by Berthold Rembolt
of Paris. It has no date, but the Greek in the printer’s device reads
ΧΕΡΕΘΗΚΙ, and must therefore be after 1496, when it read ΧΕΡΕΘΙΚΗ, and
as the book was presented in 1498 we may fairly safely fix the date of
printing about the beginning of 1498. Unfortunately the last leaf is
missing, which may have contained an imprint giving the exact date and
stating for whom the book was printed.
The last service book to be noticed is a Sarum _Missal_ printed by Jean
du Pré at Paris in 1500. Unfortunately all the copies of this book are
imperfect, though from the three copies known an exact collation can be
made. Another _Missal_ was printed at Paris in the same year by Higman
and Hopyl for two unknown persons, I.B. and G.H.
All these service books though most interesting liturgically are
almost the most uninteresting class of book to the bibliographer. They
were issued by well-known printers, and are hardly different from the
great mass of foreign service books. From them early in the sixteenth
century, however, we derive a good deal of information about the
stationers, especially as regards the provincial presses; for in the
case of a town like York hardly anything seems to have been printed
beyond liturgical books.
So far the books we have been speaking of have been for the most part
in Latin, with some sentences here and there in English, printed, of
course, for the English market, but not of much interest from the
point of view of literature. But we now come to another small group
of English books, printed entirely in English, of very much greater
interest.
In 1492 and 1493, when, just after the death of Caxton, the English
press was almost at a standstill, Gerard Leeu of Antwerp printed four
English books of considerable interest. Three of them were reprints
of books already printed by Caxton, Lefevre’s _History of Jason_,
the _History of Paris and Vienne_, and the _Chronicles of England_.
The fourth book was _The Dialogue or Communyng between the Wise King
Solomon and Marcolphus_. Of this there does not seem to have been any
other English edition, though many Latin ones were printed in the
fifteenth century, and it is possible, though hardly probable, that
Caxton might have printed an edition which has entirely disappeared.
Lefevre’s _History of Jason_ is a small folio of ninety-eight leaves,
illustrated with a number of half-page cuts clearly made to illustrate
the book in which they first appear. They were used in several editions
of the _Jason_ in different languages, the earliest in Dutch having
been printed by Bellaert at Haarlem about 1485. There are copies of
the English edition at Trinity College, Dublin, and in the library at
Chatsworth, and a third copy, slightly imperfect, is in the University
Library.
The _History of Paris and Vienne_, which was printed exactly three
weeks after the _History of Jason_, is a still rarer book, only one
copy being known, which is in the library at Trinity College, Dublin.
It, like the _Jason_, is illustrated with a series of half-page wood
engravings, which Mr Conway, in his _History of the Woodcutters of the
Netherlands_, conjectures to have been originally used in an edition
printed by Bellaert at Haarlem, which has now entirely disappeared, and
then to have passed from his possession into the hands of Gerard Leeu.
It is a small folio of forty leaves, and the copy at Dublin is bound up
with the _Jason_ and the _Chronicles_.
The next book to be noticed, the _Dialogue or Communyng between the
Wise King Solomon and Marcolphus_, is very interesting, being the only
English edition of this version of a widespread and popular story. It
tells how Solomon, seated on his throne, is confronted by Marcolphus,
a misshapen rustic who answers with a certain coarse wit the questions
put to him by the king. Later on the king visits Marcolphus, who in
his turn comes to reside at court, but his behaviour there is so
insolent that the king can hardly put up with it. After a series of
escapades Marcolphus is banished from the court, and finally sentenced
to be hanged. He is allowed as a favour to choose his own tree, and
consequently he wanders with his guards through the Vale of Josaphath
to Jericho, over Jordan, through Arabia and the wilderness to the Red
Sea, but “never more could Marcolf find a tree that he wold choose to
hang on.” The curious result of this is that he went home and lived
happily ever afterwards.
The book itself has only one illustration, which is used twice, on the
recto and verso of the title-page, representing Marcolphus and his wife
Polycana standing before Solomon, who is seated upon his throne. This
cut found its way over to England, and was used by several successive
printers for editions of _Howleglas_.
The only copy known of _Solomon and Marcolphus_ is in the Bodleian,
and was in a volume of tracts bequeathed with his library by Thomas
Tanner, Bishop of St Asaph. The volume contained originally five
separate pieces. Two by Wynkyn de Worde, the _Three Kings of Coleyne_
and the _Meditations of St Bernard_, two by Caxton, the _Governayle of
Health_ and the _Ars moriendi_, and the _Solomon and Marcolphus_. I am
sorry to say that the two Caxtons have been cut out of the volume and
bound separately.
The last of the four books to be noticed is the edition of the
_Chronicles of England_. While the _Chronicles_ were being printed
Gerard Leeu died, or perhaps it would be more correct to say was
murdered. One of his workmen named Henric van Symmen, who was also a
type engraver, struck work and determined to set up in business on
his own account. This led to a quarrel, and blows succeeded words.
The workman, it appears, in the course of the quarrel struck Leeu a
blow on the head, and this proved so serious that he lay very ill
for three days and then died. The workman was promptly secured and
brought up for trial for the killing of his master, but it was probably
considered that he had received a certain amount of provocation, and
his punishment took the form of a fine. He was sentenced to pay into
the Duke of Burgundy’s exchequer the sum of forty guelden. Gerard Leeu
seems to have been a good master and a kindly man if we may judge from
the colophon put to the _Chronicles_: “Enprentyd In the Duchye of
Braband in the towne of Andewarpe In the yere of our lord M.cccc.xciii.
By maister Gerard de Leew a man of grete wysedom in all maner of
kunnyng: whych nowe is come from lyfe unto the deth, which is grete
harme for many a poure man. On whos sowle god almyghty for hys hygh
grace haue mercy. Amen.”
The book contains no illustrations beyond a woodcut of the arms of
England on the title-page.
Leeu seems to have intended to print more English books, for the type
in which all but the _Chronicles_ are printed was a special fount cut
in imitation of English type, with a curious lower-case d for use when
that letter occurred at the end of a word. His death, so soon after the
cutting of the type, put an end to all such plans. The custom, however,
of printing English books at Antwerp revived at the very beginning of
the sixteenth century, for Adrian van Berghen printed an edition of
Holt’s _Lac Puerorum_, and John of Doesborch issued a whole series of
English popular books, some of them remarkably curious.
Among the stationers who came to England from abroad the most important
was certainly Frederick Egmont. He was probably a Frenchman, but his
printing was mainly done in Venice, and he seems to have been the agent
of the Venetian printer Johannes Hertzog de Landoia. From this Venetian
press came a large number of service books for English use, editions
of the _Breviary_ and _Missal_. The Sarum _Horae_ on the other hand is
only represented by one edition, issued about 1494, of which only a few
leaves are known.
Egmont during his earliest years as a stationer was connected with no
press except that of Hertzog, and we do not know of any books by this
printer produced for any other English stationer, so that as regards
liturgical books for English use known to us only from fragments we
are justified, I think, in attributing to Egmont as stationer such as
we can determine from their type to have been printed by Hertzog.
The first book in which his name occurs is an edition of the _Breviary_
according to the use of York, of which the only known copy is in the
Bodleian, having been originally in the great liturgical collection
of Richard Gough. It is a small thick octavo of 462 leaves, and was
issued in May, 1493. Two if not three editions of the Sarum _Breviary_
in octavo were printed about this same time, but we know of their
existence only from fragments discovered in bindings. Fragments of
one edition are in a binding in the library of St John’s College,
Cambridge, of another in a binding at Lambeth, while some leaves of
probably a third edition are in the library of Corpus Christi College,
Oxford.
In 1494 Egmont had commissioned Hertzog to print for him two editions
of the Sarum _Missal_, one in folio, the other in octavo. The folio
edition is of great rarity, but there is a beautiful though slightly
imperfect copy in the Sandars collection in the University Library.
The title-page is wanting and also the leaf containing the engraving
of the Crucifixion which should precede the Canon of the Mass. In the
imprint we are told that the book was finished on the 1st of September,
1494, by John Hertzog de Landoia for Fredericus de Egmont and Gerardus
Barrevelt. This Gerardus Barrevelt was clearly a partner of Egmont’s
as their initials occur together in the device on the title-page. This
device is remarkable for the delicacy of its execution. It consists of
a circle divided by a perpendicular line produced beyond the top of the
circle, the projection being crossed by two bars. In the left-hand
half of the circle are the initials and mark of Egmont, in the right
those of Barrevelt. The whole is enclosed in a square frame, and the
background contains sprays of leaves. It so resembles in style and
appearance the mark used by the printer John Hertzog that we may be
pretty certain it was cut under his supervision at Venice.
The octavo _Missal_ of 1494, a much commoner book than the last, was
issued in December. On the last leaf is Hertzog’s mark and the words,
“Fredericus egmont me fieri fecit.” There is no mention of Barrevelt,
and the double device does not occur in the book, which makes it
appear as though this edition was printed for Egmont alone. Both these
editions of the _Missal_ contain exquisitely designed woodcut initials,
the most graceful to be found in any early book.
In the Bodleian there is a copy of the “Pars estivalis” of the Sarum
_Breviary_ printed at Venice in 1495, which contains again the device
of Egmont and Barrevelt, though the imprint mentions Egmont’s name
only. After 1495 we hear nothing more of Egmont until 1499, when he
seems to have got rid of his former partner Barrevelt and joined with
a man named Peter post pascha, and these two commissioned Pynson to
print them an edition of the _Promptorium Puerorum_. After 1499 Egmont
disappeared for a long time; we know of him working as a bookbinder,
and it is probable that he stayed on for some time in England, for he
is mentioned as a witness in a law-suit in London in 1502. When he does
reappear it is in Paris, where he had some books printed for him about
1517-1520.
It is very disappointing that we have practically no information about
Frederick Egmont, for it is clear from the number of books that he had
printed for him in Venice that he must have been a stationer of very
considerable importance. The colophons of his books give, beyond his
mere name, no information whatever about him: we do not even know in
what part of London or under what sign he lived. The stationers seem
always to have settled in St Paul’s Churchyard, and I cannot help
thinking that part of that district may have been “in the liberties,”
as it was called, of some church. Though the Act of Richard allowed
foreigners to come over and trade, yet I do not suppose his Act could
override the rights of the trade guilds. It certainly did not in York,
for there a stationer must be a freeman by right or by purchase before
he could carry on certain businesses, that of a stationer amongst the
number, within the city. There were, however, certain liberties where
an alien could live and trade; and we find at York that their earliest
stationer, Gerard Wanseford, does not appear in the city register.
Having taken up his abode within the liberty of St Peter, he was
privileged to carry on business there without being a freeman of the
city.
In the same way in London, I suppose, the various trades had their
rights and could prevent foreigners from competing, except they resided
within the liberties. Of course there was a Stationers’ Company in
London in the fifteenth century, though unfortunately most of the
records relating to it have disappeared, and it would protect its own
members. We see in the early bindings how ostentatiously the binders
who were freemen decorated their bindings with the arms of London, and
there is no doubt that as far as trading in the City was concerned the
foreigner was considerably handicapped in comparison with the freeman.
We know from the few early documents remaining that the London Company
of Stationers was a powerful and important body, and the members of it
must certainly have enjoyed certain privileges.
Nicholas Lecomte was another stationer who appears to have been settled
in England by 1494, in which year, so far as I know, his first dated
book appears. M. Madden, a French writer on early printing, in the
fifth volume of his _Lettres d’une Bibliographe_, speaks of Hopyl
having printed a book for Lecomte in 1493. Several times in writing
to him I asked for some information about this book, its whereabouts
or its name even, but though he sent always voluminous replies to
my letters, he never would touch on this particular point. I think,
therefore, we may consider that this 1493 book never existed, and
take the 1494 book as the first. This was an edition of the _Liber
Synonymorum_, printed by Hopyl, of which there are copies in the
University Library, the British Museum, and the Bodleian.
In the imprint Lecomte is described as living in London by St Paul’s
Churchyard at the sign of St Nicholas. His device depicts St Nicholas
restoring to life the three children who had been killed and pickled, a
favourite subject of the early bookbinders.
I think it is worth noting here, that so far as I can discover the
sign of a house was not in any way permanent, but could apparently
be changed at will. I noticed this in reading through a catalogue or
_précis_ of some thousands of deeds relating to property in London at
this time and a little earlier. We find endless notices of houses with
changed signs, “the tenement now called the Rose, formerly the Lion,”
the “house called the Bull, formerly called the Rose,” and so on.
Naturally if a house got celebrated for any reason it would be politic
to keep the sign, but there seems to have been no compulsion to do so.
In 1495 an edition of Mirk’s _Liber Festivalis_ and _Quattuor Sermones_
was printed by Hopyl for Lecomte. This contains Lecomte’s device at the
end of the _Liber Festivalis_ and a curious device at the end of the
_Quattuor Sermones_, used sometimes by Hopyl, but which does not bear
on its face any appearance of having been made for him.
At the time when this book was printed Hopyl had in his office as press
corrector an Edinburgh man called David Lauxius, the earliest Scotchman
we know of employed in a printing-office. He afterwards became a
schoolmaster at Arras, and appears to have been a man of considerable
ability, and a friend of the celebrated Parisian printer and editor,
Badius Ascensius, who addresses to him some of the prefatory letters in
his grammars. What Scotch name is represented by the Latin Lauxius no
one has yet been able to determine.
The last book printed for Lecomte was printed at Paris by Jean
Jehannot, and is an edition of the Sarum _Horae_. It is a book of very
great rarity, but there are two copies in Cambridge, one in Trinity
College, and the other in the Sandars collection in the University
Library, the latter containing a small supplement not found in the
other copies, and which was not originally intended to form part of
the book, since the prayers in it are not referred to in the list
of contents. The imprint is curious; it states that the edition has
been revised and corrected in the celebrated University of Paris, and
printed for Nicolas Lecomte of that University, settled for the time
being in England as a merchant of books. I do not know whether this
means merely that he was educated at the University or whether he was
one of the privileged stationers attached to it, though in the latter
case he would hardly have come to settle in England. Like Frederick
Egmont, Lecomte was also a bookbinder.
Before the end of the century another stationer was settled in England
whose name we know, John Boudins. We know of only one book printed
for him, an edition of the _Expositio Hymnorum et Sequentiarum_ of
Salisbury use, which was printed at the beginning of 1502 by Bocard of
Paris. Boudins was probably then an old man, for his will is dated the
11th of October, 1501, and it was proved on the 30th of March, 1503. He
lived in the parish of St Clement’s, Eastcheap, and was apparently a
naturalised Fleming, and an immigrant from Antwerp.
A great difficulty in the way of tracing these stationers, especially
those from the Low Countries, is the very sparing use they made of
their proper surnames. In legal documents such as wills or letters of
denization the formal name would be given, whereas in ordinary parlance
and in the imprints of books they would be spoken of by a kind of
nickname taken from the town from which they came, like William de
Machlinia, Wynkyn de Worde, and so on. So that we should probably
find, if we had more information on the subject, that in many cases
two men who are treated as different may turn out to be only one man
under two names. The number of stationers that existed at this time
in England was probably very large, and it is sad to think that our
information on the subject is so meagre. Of course unless the stationer
was wealthy enough or in a good way of business he would not be able
to commission whole editions of books from a foreign printer, and
therefore he would not have his name in the imprint. Then again the
greater part of a stationer’s stock would consist of foreign books
which were not necessarily printed for England. For information of this
class we can only look to manuscript sources, accounts kept by the
bookseller, lists of imported books, and so on.
There exists, for instance, a list of books for sale at Oxford in 1483
by Thomas Hunte, which has been edited by Mr Madan for the Oxford
Historical Society. At the head of the list is the following sentence
in Latin: “Here follows the inventory of the books which I, Thomas
Hunte, stationer of the University of Oxford, have received from Master
Peter Actors and John of Aix-la-Chapelle to sell, with the price of
each book, and I promise faithfully to return the books or the money
according to the price written below as it appears in the following
list.” The two men mentioned were travelling stationers from London,
supplying so much stock to the bookseller on a system of sale or return.
A document such as the _Day-book of John Dorne_, the journal or
account-book of an Oxford bookseller in 1520, which was edited by
Mr Madan for the Oxford Historical Society, and about which Henry
Bradshaw wrote his _Half-century of Notes_, the last piece of work
which he finished, is a find of the utmost importance in our subject,
and it is perhaps not too much to expect that more documents of this
kind may be forthcoming. In the account-book we notice that after the
21st of May up to the 3rd of August there is an entire blank, and Dorne
begins his account-book again “post recessum meum de ultra mare.” I
think we should be safe in concluding that these months were spent
abroad on business and in the purchase of books.
Sometimes such information is found amongst the waste leaves used to
make boards for bindings. The University Librarian read a note before
the Antiquarian Society here giving an account of a letter on business
matters written from a foreign printer to John Siberch, the first
printer in Cambridge, which was found among other waste matter used
to make the boards of a binding now in Westminster Abbey Library, and
letters of bookbinders have been found in the same way.
We have not, unfortunately, any book however meagre on this subject
which might serve as a basis on which to build up information. Isolated
facts turn up occasionally here or there, but there being no regular
place for us to put them they drop out of sight again. And it is only
when we have collected a number of these facts and begin to find the
links that piece them together that we can arrive at any definite
knowledge of the subject.
I do not suppose we may expect to find much new information from
books themselves, but from manuscript sources a good deal may yet be
discovered. Within the last year or two many documents relating to
stationers and printers of the early sixteenth century have been found
at the Record Office, and there must be many more still to be found
there; besides, the documents in the Record Office are only a part of
our great collections.
However, as I said before, what we most want is an account as full as
possible of the booksellers and stationers up to 1535, giving us all
the information that has yet been discovered, to serve as a groundwork
for what may be found in the future.
LECTURE IV.
THE BOOKBINDERS.
From the very earliest times the bookbindings produced in England were
remarkable for their beauty and richness. The finest were of gold,
ornamented with gems, but their value has led to their destruction,
and I do not think that there is any early binding of this class now
in existence. Leather was very soon recognised as a suitable material
for book-covers, being easily worked and capable of receiving a
considerable amount of ornament. The earliest leather binding known is
on a beautiful little manuscript of St John’s Gospel, taken from the
tomb of St Cuthbert, and now preserved in the library of Stonyhurst
College. It is of red leather, and the centre of the side is ornamented
with a raised ornament of Celtic design, while above and below are
small panels filled with interlaced lines, executed apparently with a
pointed tool and coloured yellow. This binding is generally considered
to be of the tenth century, though there are some reasons for thinking
that it may have been executed later, but if this is so the present
binding must have been copied from an earlier one.
Excellent as the early work had been, that of the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries is unsurpassed. The leather bindings executed at
Durham for Bishop Pudsey between 1153 and 1195 are marvellous both for
their detail and for their general effect. It was the custom of binders
of this period to build up a bold and effective pattern covering the
whole side of the book by means of a large number of dies, beautifully
engraved with different designs. On the four volumes of Bishop Pudsey’s
Bible, now in the Cathedral library at Durham, no less than fifty-one
different dies are used, and when we remember that Bishop Pudsey was
one of the great builders of the cathedral, it is not surprising that
the ornamentation on the dies used in these bindings should resemble
the carved work in the cathedral. There are in the Cathedral library
seven of these early bindings, and, unfortunately, they have suffered
a considerable amount of mutilation at a not very remote date, for
visitors on payment of a small gratuity to the person who looked after
the library were allowed to cut out with a penknife one of the stamps
to keep as a curiosity. A few more Durham bindings, easily recognised
by the dies, are scattered in different libraries in London and in
France.
At Winchester, also, and London very beautiful work of the same class
was produced, the circular form of decoration being very much made use
of. Perhaps the finest piece of Winchester work now in existence is the
binding of the _Winchester Domesday Book_ in the library of the Society
of Antiquaries, of which a facsimile was published in the illustrated
catalogue of the exhibition of bookbindings at the Burlington Fine
Arts Club. Some very fine work, too, probably executed at Winchester,
is to be found on some manuscripts in the library of the Faculty of
Medicine at Montpellier executed before 1146 for Henry, son of Louis
VII of France.
The metal dies with which these bindings were stamped were practically
indestructible, but it is curious to notice that they hardly ever
appear to have been used after the twelfth and early thirteenth
centuries. In Westminster Abbey library is a copy of the _Epistolae_ of
Ficinus, printed in 1495, which has its covers ornamented with early
Winchester stamps, and another binding worked with twelfth century dies
is on a fifteenth century printed book in the library of Corpus Christi
College, Cambridge.
In all these early bindings one is especially struck with the
extraordinary taste and balance in the decoration. The dies themselves
are beautiful, and the pattern in which they are built up is also
beautiful, and yet neither are unduly emphasised. In later bindings
the die became smaller and less finely cut. It was not intended to be
decorative in itself, but only to help to build up patterns, and the
bindings in consequence lose much of their interest.
Oxford, I believe, is generally credited with clinging somewhat
strongly to old traditions, and certainly its bookbinders did so in
the fifteenth century. From the earliest times bookbinding had been
considerably practised there and continued without a break, and no
doubt that is why the old styles lingered for so long. The bindings
produced there towards the end of the century form the connecting
link between the old styles and the new. They represent the last
survival of the early English school of work, that very distinctive
English style which depended so much on the disposal of dies into large
circles, or parallelograms one inside the other, such as we find in the
Winchester and Durham bindings of the twelfth or thirteenth centuries.
That this circular work was not the haphazard freak of a single binder
we can see from the fact that several of the dies are wider at the top
than at the bottom, so that when placed together side by side they
would naturally work round to a circular form, like the stones forming
the arch of a bridge. These dies are in many cases foreign in design
and may have been introduced by Rood, the first printer, but the style
of binding is essentially English. Some bindings of a rather similar
appearance, though never with any circular ornament, were produced in
the Low Countries. On nearly all Oxford bindings will be found little
groups of three small circles, so small that they might have been done
with the end of a watch-key, and arranged in a triangle. This ornament
I have never seen on any but Oxford work. One habit connects the Oxford
binders with those of the Low Countries, and that is their habit of
always, when possible, lining the boards of the binding with leaves
of vellum rather than paper. All the other English binders used paper
generally for this purpose. It is owing to this custom of using vellum
that many copies of _Indulgences_ issued by the early printers have
been preserved, for, as they were only printed on one side, the binder
could paste them down with the printed side next the boards and the
clean side outwards. An Oxford binding with an inscription stating
that it was bound in “Catte Strete” in 1467 was formerly in the British
Museum: the manuscript which it covered has been rebound and the old
binding has disappeared.
Caxton, as one would naturally expect, followed the style of binding
which he had become used to during his residence at Bruges, though it
is interesting to notice that one at least of his dies was directly
copied from early London work and applied in the same manner. His
general method of covering the side of his binding was to make a large
centre panel contained by a framework of dies or lines running about
an inch from the edge of the side and intersecting each other at the
corners as in the frame known as an Oxford frame. The large panel thus
produced on the side was divided into lozenge-shaped compartments
by diagonal lines running both ways from the frame, and in each of
these compartments a die was stamped. The die most commonly found
on his bindings is a square one with some fabulous winged monster
engraved upon it, and this very die we find later in the hands of a
stationer in London named Jacobi. The broad frame was often made up
by repetitions of a triangular stamp, pointing alternately right and
left, and containing the figure of a dragon. This stamp is interesting,
not only because the use of a triangular stamp was very uncommon, but
because it was an exact copy of one used by a London binder about the
end of the twelfth century. Very few of Caxton’s own books in their
original binding have come down to our time, but there is a copy of
the second edition of the _Liber Festivalis_ in the British Museum
which was clearly bound by him, and the _Boethius_ which was found in
the Grammar School at St Alban’s was also in its original cover. The
_Royal Book_ formerly in the Bedfordshire General Library, and now in
the collection of Mr J. Pierpont Morgan, is in an absolutely similar
binding to the _Liber Festivalis_ in the British Museum, ornamented
with the same die, while the boards were lined with two waste copies
of an _Indulgence_. Caxton’s bindings were invariably of leather; he
never used vellum as many writers have stated. Blades, who was amongst
the number, refers to a vellum-bound Caxton in the Bodleian, and states
that it is the original binding; but had he examined the book more
carefully he would have found that it was made up from two copies,
and that the binding therefore could not well be original. Indeed the
particular binding was put on in the seventeenth century while the book
belonged to Selden. Selden’s bindings had good need to be flexible, for
one of his customs did not tend to improve bindings. He used to buy his
spectacles, like the youth in the _Vicar of Wakefield_, by the gross,
and whenever he stopped reading a book he put in the pair he happened
to be using to mark the place. It was quite a common thing, soon after
his library came to the Bodleian, for spectacles to drop out of the
books as they were taken incautiously from the shelves.
Of course the number of bindings which can with certainty be ascribed
to Caxton is necessarily small, we can in the first place take only
those on books printed by him, and which contain distinct evidence from
the fragments used in the binding that they came from his workshop. By
means of the stamps used on these we can identify others which have no
other materials for identification. Caxton used sometimes wooden boards
in his bindings and sometimes waste leaves of printed matter pasted
together. These pads of old printing frequently yield most valuable
prizes. The copy of Caxton’s _Boethius_, found by Blades in the library
of the St Alban’s Grammar-school, had its boards made of printed
matter, which, when carefully taken to pieces, were found to be made
of fifty-six half-sheets of paper, forming portions of thirteen books
printed by Caxton, three of which were quite unknown.
Caxton’s binding stamps passed with his printing material to his
successor, Wynkyn de Worde. I found in a college library at Oxford a
book with these stamps, evidently bound by De Worde, and the boards
were lined with waste leaves of three books printed by him, one being
unknown, and one by Caxton. De Worde’s bindings are the least easily
identified of any in the fifteenth century, for beyond these few dies
of Caxton’s there are none that can definitely be ascribed to him,
and even the various bindings that might be ascribed to him from the
fragments found in them vary so much in style and decoration that it
seems impossible that they could have all come from one shop. Perhaps
he had really no binding establishment of his own, but got such work as
he required done by others.
Wynkyn de Worde, as we learn from his will, employed several binders.
He left bequests to Alard, bookbinder, his servant, and to Nowel, the
bookbinder in Shoe Lane. James Gaver, who was one of his executors, was
one of the large family of Gavere, binders in the Low Countries, and
though, when he took out letters of denization on his own account in
1535 he is described as a stationer, no doubt he was also a bookbinder.
The square stamp with a dragon, which had belonged to Caxton and which
must have passed to De Worde, found its way early in the sixteenth
century with other dies of Caxton’s into the hands of another
stationer, Henry Jacobi.
The bindings which were produced by Lettou and Machlinia, so far as we
are able to identify them, are very plain. The sides are divided by
diagonal lines into diamond-shaped compartments, and in each is stamped
a small and uninteresting die. The Latin Bible in the library of Jesus
College, Cambridge, which has every quire lined with slips of vellum,
portions of two cut-up copies of Lettou’s _Indulgence_, and presumably
bound by him, has its binding ornamented with diagonal lines within a
frame formed of square dies containing the figure of a fabulous animal.
In the diamond-shaped compartments formed by the diagonal lines is a
small impressed cinquefoil. Another Lettou binding, on the copy of
the _Wallensis_ printed by him in 1481 in the Bodleian, is ornamented
simply with diagonal lines, but has no small stamps.
There is another English binder of this time whose name we do not know,
who produced some very good work. Bradshaw, I think, considered that
he worked at Norwich. There are a number of his books in Cambridge
libraries, and he used very often a red-coloured leather, which is
common in Cambridge bindings. His dies are Low Country in type,
and very much resemble those used at Oxford, but his work can be
recognised by two peculiarities. He always ruled two perpendicular
lines down the backs of his books, and always ornamented the ends of
the bands, the bands being those ridges on the back where the leather
covers the string or cord on which the quires are stitched. Where these
bands ended on the sides he printed a kind of ornament of leaves. He
also, like the Oxford binders, almost always lined his boards with
vellum. His dies, about eighteen in number, are well engraved, one in
especial representing two cocks fighting, being very finely executed.
Pynson’s earliest bindings are as a rule very plain. Like the other
binders of the time he ruled diagonal lines across the sides of his
books, and put a small die in each division. Sometimes he did not even
use a die, but contented himself with plain lines, as, for instance,
on the copy of his first dated book of 1492 in the British Museum. His
bindings, like Machlinia’s, are very plain, and the dies used are small
and poor.
Another binder, perhaps at St Alban’s, produced bindings not unlike
Pynson’s, but he is identified by a small circular die which he used,
which has on it the figure of a bird.
Another binder whose initials were W. G., but whose name we do not
know, produced a large number of bindings in the fifteenth century. It
is from his bindings that all the fragments of Machlinia’s _Horae ad
usum Sarum_ have been recovered, for he seems to have used up a copy
for lining his boards, and luckily several books bound about that time
have been preserved. Bradshaw found a curious case of the preservation
of two volumes bound in the same workshop about the same time. In the
library of St John’s College, Cambridge, is a copy of a book printed at
Nuremberg in 1505, which has in its cover some leaves of early Oxford
printing. In the library at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, is an
exactly similar binding on a book printed at Lyons in 1511, which also
contains some early Oxford leaves. Now it is clear that the same man
must have bound these books about the same time, because we find in
both, along with the refuse Oxford leaves, some leaves from one and the
same vellum manuscript.
There is one English binder, who worked before the end of the fifteenth
century, who is distinctly worthy of special mention on account of the
striking originality of his method of decoration and designs. His name,
unfortunately, we do not know, but as one of his most frequently used
dies represents a balance or pair of scales it has been conjectured
that this may be a rebus on his name, such as many binders used, and
that he was called “Scales.” Two volumes executed by this binder are
known, which were done for a certain William Langton, and the centre
panel is ornamented with a rebus on the name Langton, the letters Lang
over a barrel or tun, while the rest of the side is filled up with
little stamps. This Langton may perhaps be identified with the William
Langton who was a prebendary of Lincoln and afterwards of York at the
end of the fifteenth century. Another even more curious binding by this
same man is in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He
has disposed his dies so as to form a large heraldic shield, covering
the whole side of a folio volume, a style of adornment quite unique so
far as I am aware, and as an ornament extremely effective, though I
am afraid the heraldry is hardly sufficiently accurate to enable us to
determine for whom the volume was bound.
The bindings that I have spoken of so far were all produced in a slow
and laborious manner, as each die had to be impressed separately.
Towards the end of the fifteenth century, however, when the printers in
England began to issue books of a small size, a new system of binding
was introduced, by which the labour of the binder was very considerably
lessened, while the amount of decoration applied was increased.
The invention and use of the panel stamp, that is of a large stamp
which should ornament the side of the book with one picture, was a
great step forward. It was a great advantage commercially as it saved
much time, and in some ways it was an advance artistically. By its
means the whole side of the book was ornamented at once, instead of by
a series of dies impressed one after the other. And as the working out
of a binding had ceased to be its main point and the beauty of the die
itself was more emphasised, this invention did away with the building
up of a pattern altogether, and depended entirely on the excellence in
design and workmanship of the stamp. Mr Weale assigns the date 1367 to
the earliest panel stamp known to him, produced by a certain Lambertus
de Insula at Louvain, but this is only because the manuscript on which
it occurs bears that date. Without some further evidence I should be
inclined to think this date rather too early, and would not date any
panel stamp before the fifteenth century.
There is no doubt that the binders of the Low Countries were the
earliest to introduce this style of binding, and they produced very
excellent work; and the earliest panel stamps we find in use in
England are Netherlandish in execution, either used in this country by
foreign workmen, who had come over and settled, or obtained by native
binders from abroad. The earliest stamps were no doubt for the most
part of metal, and therefore practically indestructible, and we know
that they often passed out of the hands of their proper owner and
were used by other binders, even though the name of their original
owner was engraved upon them. As an example I may mention a book-cover
in the Douce collection in the Bodleian, on which two stamps are
impressed side by side. One has the name John Guilibert, the other
the inscription, “Omnes sancti angeli et archangeli dei, orate pro
nobis. Ioris de Gavere me ligavit in Gandavo.” A still more marvellous
example, and one almost certainly bound in England, is in the library
of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. It has on the two covers, besides
innumerable dies, no less than nine panels, two signed Woter Vanduffle,
three signed Martinus de Predio, and four signed Jacobus, illuminator.
The binding almost looks like a sample put out to show a specimen of
every stamp and die in the establishment. The Woter Vanduffle stamp
seems very early. I have in my own collection an English heraldic
manuscript of about the middle of the fifteenth century or slightly
earlier in its original binding impressed with the two panels of that
binder.
In these earliest panels the inscription nearly always runs
perpendicularly, either in the centre of the panel, cutting it in two,
or at the side of the picture. One peculiarly distinctive feature of
the earliest panels is the presence of four indentations, more or less
deep and clearly defined at each corner. These were made most probably
by the heads of the nails by which the metal plate was affixed to a
block before used for stamping. These four marks never seem to occur
in later panels, which, if they have any, have only two, considerably
larger in size, one at the top and one at the bottom. It has long been
a vexed question as to whether these stamps were made of metal or of
wood, but it is probable that both materials were used, and that the
majority of English stamps were of wood. As no heat was applied and
the leather treated when it was damp and soft, a wooden stamp would be
sufficiently strong, and I have found by experiment that soft leather
takes an excellent impression from a wooden block. I have, however,
in my own collection a binding struck from a broken plate, and the
appearance of the break shows clearly that the stamp must have been of
metal.
The earliest definitely English panel stamp is on a loose binding in
Westminster Abbey library. It has on it the arms of Edward IV, with two
small supporting angels. The rest of the binding is covered with small
dies, one in the shape of a heart, the other a _fleur de lys_. It is a
great pity that the book which was in this binding has been lost, as it
might have contained some clue to information about the binding.
Wynkyn de Worde, in spite of his enormous business, does not seem to
have ever used a panel with his name or device, at least so far not
one has been found, but with other printers and stationers the case is
different. Pynson used two panels. One is a copy of one of his devices,
having his initials on a shield with the helmet and crest above, while
around all is a floral border. The other has in the centre a large
Tudor rose, surrounded by intertwined branches of vine leaves and
grapes. This latter panel was a popular one, and several variations of
it are to be found, all of which are probably of the fifteenth century.
The only copy at present known of the Pynson panel with his mark
was acquired not long ago by the British Museum. I had known of the
existence of the copy for some time, as it had belonged to a Manchester
bookseller who had described it to me. He had sold the book, but had
no record of the purchaser, and knew nothing of him further than
that he lived in London. One day while I was working in the Museum
a visitor came in with this identical book and offered it for sale.
The book itself was a copy of the _Abridgement of the Statutes of_
1499. Herbert, in his _Typographical Antiquities_, describes a copy of
the _Imitation of Christ_, printed by Pynson, which was in a similar
binding, and perhaps that may still be in existence; but I am sorry
to say that the collectors at the beginning of the present century
ruthlessly destroyed all old bindings, and would not have anything
on their shelves except bound in morocco or russia by Roger Payne or
Charles Lewis. There is not one single old leather binding in the whole
of the Spencer library, though we know that many of the books when
bought were in their original covers.
[Illustration: BINDING OF FREDERICK EGMONT.]
Frederick Egmont, the stationer about whom I spoke in my last lecture,
had several panels. The first has as its central ornament the Tudor
rose, and round it are vine leaves and grapes. Round the whole is
an arabesque floral border containing the initials and mark of
Egmont. This design was common at the time, there being several other
panels almost identical, one of which was used by Pynson. Another more
important panel is an almost exact copy of the device of Philippe
Pigouchet, the Paris printer. A wild man and woman, standing on
either side of a tree covered with some kind of fruit, bear in one
hand flowering boughs while with the other they assist in supporting
a shield suspended by a belt from the branches above them. Upon the
shield are Egmont’s mark and initials. The device of the wild man and
woman was for some reason very popular at this time and for a short
period afterwards. It was used by Bumgart at Cologne, and at Edinburgh
by Walter Chepman and Thomas Davidson. It was used by Pigouchet
and other Parisian printers, and by Peter Treveris, who printed in
Southwark at the sign of the “Wodows,” and the references to it in
colophons are very numerous. This panel of Egmont’s not only bears his
mark and initials, but is inscribed on the lower margin, “Fredericus
Egmondt me f[ecit].” Three copies only of this binding are known,
a very fine copy at Caius, a poor copy at Corpus Christi College,
Cambridge, and one in my own collection. Books which are stamped on
the front with this panel generally have on the back a plainer panel
containing three rows of arabesques of foliage surrounded by a border,
having ribbons in the upper and lower portion inscribed with the names
of the four Evangelists. This panel not infrequently occurs alone,
without Egmont’s signed panel, and may have been left by him in England
when he returned to France.
Nicholas Lecomte, the other foreign stationer settled in England in
the fifteenth century, and of whom I spoke in my last lecture, also
used panels with his initials and mark. He had not a pictorial panel,
but a formal one of rather Low Country type. The centre of the panel
is divided into two parts, each containing four spirals of foliage
encircling the figures of beasts and birds, while around all is a
border of grapes and vine leaves. At the bottom of the border are the
initials N.C., with a mark which almost exactly corresponds with the
initials and mark found in his device in the books printed for him. A
very fine specimen of this binding is in the University Library.
The majority of the early panels are pictorial, and in some cases they
are very elaborate and ornamental. The pair used by a binder whose
initials were A. R. are especially fine. On one side is the salutation
of Elisabeth with the Almighty and the Holy Ghost above, in the top
corners are the Tudor emblems, the rose and portcullis. Round the whole
is a diaper border with a shield in each corner, one the arms of St
George, another of the City of London, a third with two cross swords,
and a fourth with two cross keys. The panel on the other side has in
the centre St John standing preaching to some people who sit in the
foreground. On the left is St James, on the right King David, while
the lower part is taken up with a picture of David and Bathsheba. This
binding is very rare, and I know of only two examples, one in my own
collection and one in the University Library. This binder had several
other panels; there is one in the University Library with a figure of
St Roche, and there are two on a book at Aberdeen with the Baptism of
Christ, and the Annunciation.
It is curious that the subjects of these panels should have been
invariably religious, scenes from the Bible or pictures of saints, and
that we never find subjects from popular stories. The most frequent
subject of all was, I think, the Annunciation, and then single figures
of saints, St Barbara being one of the most popular. The binder very
often used a panel with a figure of the saint after whom he was named.
Nicolas Spering, who worked at Cambridge, has a panel with the picture
of St Nicholas restoring to life the three children who had been
killed and pickled by the innkeeper. Another binding which is probably
English, though it might be French, has on one side St Barbara with
her palm branch and three-windowed tower, and on the other the Mass of
St Gregory. In the border there occurs a delightful little figure of a
mermaid with a comb in one hand and a looking-glass in the other.
About 1500 a particular pair of panels came into great vogue amongst
the bookbinders. One had upon it the arms of England, supported by the
dragon and greyhound, the other the Tudor rose supported by angels.
Round the rose runs a ribbon with the motto:--
Haec rosa virtutis de celo missa sereno
Eternum florens regia sceptra feret.
In the top corners we generally find shields with the arms of St George
and of London, while in the base below the rose or shield occur the
initials and marks of the binders. This general use of the royal arms
together with the use of the arms of London points, I think, to some
trade guild to which these binders belonged. Foreigners, though they
might still use the royal arms, do not use the City arms, putting
something else in the place, sometimes the French shield, sometimes
merely an unmeaning ornament. It is a very popular but erroneous
opinion held by a great many people that these bindings with the royal
arms were produced for the king, Henry VII or Henry VIII as the case
may be. It would be just as reasonable to imagine that all the shops
with the royal arms over the door were private residences of the king.
Of course, the fiction is kept up in order to increase the price of the
books; “from the library of Henry VIII” looks well in catalogues. Even
in the sumptuous work recently issued on the historic bookbindings in
the Royal Library at Windsor this mistake has been repeated.
A very large number of these bindings exist, all very similar; but
unfortunately, although in many cases they bear the binder’s initials
and mark, we cannot discover his name; on the other hand again we know
the names of many binders, but we cannot identify their work; the
mere fact that the initials on a binding agree with the initials of
a binder’s name does not of necessity determine that the particular
binding was produced by that binder; a good deal more proof is
necessary.
A certain number of these bindings have been settled as the work of
a certain man in another way. When the binder was a printer, or a
stationer of sufficient importance to have books printed for him, then
we can identify the mark on his bindings by means of the mark used in
the books.
For instance, to take an early example. We have bindings by Julian
Notary, the printer, which bear his initials and mark, and the mark, of
course, is the same as the one he uses in his books, while in them his
name is in full. So again the work of Henry Jacobi, an important London
stationer of the early sixteenth century, was traced by the mark which
he uses in some of his books.
We know the names of a considerable number of early binders from the
registers of the grant of letters of denization and other manuscript
sources, but unfortunately we have no link between them and the
bindings. In this country it was not necessary, as it was in some
parts of the Low Countries, to register the design of a binding, and
though many of the Low Country bindings look the same, you will find on
examination that the detail varies and each design was protected.
The binder who is best known in connexion with these stamped bindings
is John Reynes, whose work is by far the most commonly met with, and
who is almost the only producer of stamped bindings mentioned by any
early bibliographer. His best-known panel is called “Redemptoris mundi
arma,” and consists of all the emblems of the Passion arranged in a
heraldic manner upon a shield. Reynes was certainly employed as a
binder by Henry VIII, as we know from early accounts, and so far as I
have seen all the copies of the king’s _Assertio septem sacramentorum_,
which remain in their original binding, were bound by him. It is
fortunate that Reynes put his mark and name in one printed book,
otherwise we should not have been able to identify him as the binder.
He had also two very well-executed panels, one depicting the fight of
St George and the dragon, and the other the Baptism of Christ.
The period during which these panel stamps were produced in England
was roughly the forty years from 1493 to 1534. The passing of the Act
against foreign workmen in the latter year had no doubt a good deal to
do with the falling off of the work, but the invention of a binding
tool called a roll seems to have finally put an end to the use of the
panel. The roll was a tool made in the form of a wheel, which saved a
very great deal of time in ornamenting the sides of a book, and which
was used very widely in England during the sixteenth century. At first
when the roll was broad and well cut, as the earliest examples almost
always were, it produced a very satisfactory appearance, but it soon
became narrower and more finely cut, and therefore showing to much less
advantage on the side of a large book, and finally about the end of the
century its use was almost entirely given up.
Almost the earliest and the finest of the roll bindings were those
produced by the Cambridge stationers. Nicholas Spering beside his panel
had several fine rolls which contain his initials and mark.
Naturally the foreign booksellers who sent books over to England
found it to their advantage to put them into popular bindings, such
as would attract purchasers, and many of these bindings have a
distinctly English character. The exploits of St George and St Michael
are favourite subjects, and are often treated in a most decorative
manner. There is one specially fine example dating from about 1500, and
probably Rouen work, which has St George on one side and St Michael on
the other. The binder has not put his initials, but his device, which
occurs on one side, is a head on a crowned shield. It is worth noticing
that the material of which these foreign bindings are made is often
sheepskin rather than calf, which is nearly always used in English
work. One binder, whose initials were A. H. and who used the Tudor
rose, though without the arms of London, produced very good work, but
almost always on this sheepskin, which was not a suitable leather for
giving a clear impression.
It is very interesting to watch how in the later panel bindings
the lettering gradually deteriorated and became simply part of the
ornament. I have three panels, all copied one from the other, and
in the first the legend running round the panel is quite clear and
correct. In the second the letters are confused, though the general
appearance of each separate word is preserved and they can be read.
In the last example letters and words are all run together, and the
general result is wholly unreadable.
So, too, the old style of work with the pictures of saints or Biblical
scenes was given up about 1530 for bad Renaissance patterns of pillars
and classical heads, which are so uninteresting, not to say ugly, that
we can hardly regret the speedy disuse of the panel stamp.
Now it must always be remembered that in England at any rate very
few of these early bindings are signed, and that therefore to assign
particular bindings to particular men is not often possible, but
comparison may enable us to attribute them to particular districts,
and even to particular places. What is wanted is that every small
point about these bindings should be studied carefully and compared in
different examples, because it is mainly by circumstantial evidence
that we can arrive at any knowledge about them. We must class our
bindings by a system similar to that lately adopted for identifying
criminals. The presence or absence of one particular point merely
divides a number of bindings into two divisions. This point, taken in
conjunction with a second point, narrows the field immensely, and we
can soon put the bindings into groups more or less accurately.
Anyone who works at all amongst old bindings will soon begin to note
points which are common to certain bindings, and which most probably
mean a certain thing. For instance, anyone working at the subject would
soon perceive that as a rule octavo or quarto books in an English
binding have three bands to the back, that is three projecting ridges
on which the leaves are stitched, while foreign bindings have four
or more. Of course this is not an absolute rule but it will be found
correct in nine cases out of ten. To take another local instance. A
very great number of early Cambridge bindings, and some that may have
been produced at places not far distant, are remarkable for the curious
red colour of the leather used. The binding has the appearance of
having been painted over with red, and then the red almost all rubbed
off again. This is probably caused by some peculiarity in the process
of tanning or dressing. Whenever I see this curious red colour I
promptly put down the binding as a Cambridge one, and a more careful
examination generally proves it to be correct.
If the boards of the binding have a groove running down the edge you
may be fairly certain that the book inside is printed in Greek. If a
binding has four clasps, one at the top and bottom as well as two in
their usual place, you may be sure that the binding is Italian. Most
of these old bindings had clasps or ties of ribbon to keep them shut,
but in nearly all cases these have disappeared, and the reason is this.
In the early times books were always put on the shelves back first and
with the fore edge to the front, on which was written the title of the
book. Naturally, when readers wanted to take down a book they pulled
at it by the clasp or ribbon till that came off, just as now-a-days
when books are placed backs outwards the ordinary reader pulls them
out by the top of the back, till that comes off. In many cases the
ribbons were of alternate colours, a white opposite a green and a green
opposite a white. Of course as soon as books were put in the shelves
with the backs outwards the use of ribbons was discontinued, for it was
awkward to push into its place a book with two large bows of ribbon in
front. The use of ribbons you will notice has been lately revived by
some faddists who have no sense of the fitness of things.
These bindings that we have been considering were of course what we
should call trade bindings or publishers’ bindings. Very few people
seem to have had books especially bound for them, and those kind of
bindings had generally gilded ornaments upon them, which are not found
on early stamped work. The custom of impressing coats of arms on books
did not begin until about 1535, when it was started by some Scottish
collectors, the earliest known armorial stamp having been used by
William Stewart, Bishop of Aberdeen.
The books specially bound for Henry VIII were ornamented in what was
called the Venetian manner, that is with tools obtained perhaps from
Venice, but clearly cut in imitation of those used by Aldus for his
bindings; the binder of these books was the well-known stationer,
Thomas Berthelet.
While these bindings and their designs afford valuable bibliographical
information, the materials employed in making the bindings are also
often of great importance. The boards were often made of refuse printed
leaves pasted together, and were always lined, after the binding was
completed, with leaves of paper or vellum, printed or manuscript. To
show you how important these fragments may be, I may mention that of
the books printed in England or for England in the fifteenth century
no less than fifty-three are known only from fragments obtained from
bindings. The great find of Caxton fragments made by Blades at St
Alban’s I have mentioned before. Not long ago I took to pieces the
boards of a primer of Edward VI and obtained the title and some other
leaves of Constable’s _Epigrams_, printed by Pynson in 1520, and of
which but one perfect copy is known, four leaves of a Whitinton’s
_Grammar_ printed by W. de Worde, eight leaves of an early _Abridgement
of the Statutes_, probably printed by Middleton, a perfect copy of
an unknown edition of the _Ordynaunce made in the time of ye reygne
of kynge Henry VI to be observed in the Kynge’s Eschequier by the
offycers_ _and clerkes of the same for takyng of fees of ye kynges
accomptis in the same courts_, printed by Middleton, and last an
unknown broadside ballad relating to the burning of Robert Barnes in
1540, printed for Richard Bankes by that little-known printer, John
Redman, who put his name only to one or at the most two known books.
From a binding in Westminster Abbey some years ago came two leaves of
an unknown early Cambridge book, Lily’s _De octo orationis partium
constructione_, edited by Erasmus, and lately at Oxford Mr Proctor
found in a binding in New College some fragments of a _Donatus Melior_
on vellum, printed by Caxton, a hitherto unknown book. As Bradshaw
said over twenty years ago: “It cannot be any matter of wonder that
the fragments used for lining the boards of old books should have an
interest for those who make a study of the methods and habits of our
early printers with a view to the solution of some of many difficulties
still remaining unsettled in the history of printing. I have for many
years tried to draw the attention of librarians and others to the
evidence which may be gleaned from a careful study of these fragments;
and if done systematically and intelligently it ceases to be mere
antiquarian pottering or aimless waste of time.”
Of course the majority of fragments found in bindings are of no value,
and should not be moved; indeed, fragments should never be taken out of
bindings unless it is absolutely necessary, for by doing so the binding
is almost certain to suffer some injury.
* * * * *
To study effectively the early English book a certain knowledge about
these early bindings is required, for the printer, as we have seen,
was probably his own binder. What I said about the stationers applies
also to the binders, their history is an almost unworked subject,
new details are found from time to time, but we have no work on the
subject to which we can add them, and our knowledge at present consists
mostly of isolated facts. Bradshaw, writing twenty years ago, spoke
of the subject as still in its infancy, and I am afraid that English
bibliographers cannot boast of much progress. This is not, perhaps, to
be much wondered at when we consider how few are willing to work on
in the steady, quiet way which he practised and taught. We can do no
better than follow in the path that he pointed out, add fact to fact,
and detail to detail, avoiding vain theories and idle speculations, so
that whatever advance we make in our knowledge of the subject, whether
it be much or little, it may at any rate be accurate, and serve as a
secure foundation for the work of the future.
PART II.
1501-1535.
LECTURE V.
WYNKYN DE WORDE AND THE POPULAR PRINTERS.
In the four lectures which I had the privilege of giving as Sandars
Reader in the Lent term of 1899 I dealt with the printers, stationers,
and bookbinders of London and Westminster in the fifteenth century. In
the present series I propose to continue their history up to the year
1535.
The date which has been fixed upon is not a purely arbitrary one, but
has been chosen for two reasons. In the first place, it is the year
in which Wynkyn de Worde, by far the most important and prolific of
all the early English printers, died, and secondly, it just includes
and allows us to examine the remarkable change brought about in the
English book trade by the passing of the Act relating to printers
in the twenty-fifth year of Henry VIII, which came into force on
Christmas-Day, 1534.
Though Westminster was joined with London in the earlier lectures, it
ceased after 1500 to have any printers of its own, for in that year
De Worde moved to London to be nearer the centre of trade, and he
was followed almost immediately by Julian Notary. In this lecture I
am going to take, besides De Worde, all the printers and stationers
who were connected with him in business, and who formed what might be
called the popular school of printers, who neglecting legal, political,
and learned books, such as were issued by the King’s Printers, confined
their attention to books of a lighter and more ephemeral kind.
Wynkyn de Worde, who had probably been an assistant of Caxton’s
from the time of the introduction of printing into England in 1476,
was certainly married and settled in Westminster by 1480, in which
year his wife Elizabeth is mentioned in a deed. He inherited all
Caxton’s printing material and continued to lease his old house and
printing-office from the Abbot of Westminster, John Esteney, in whose
account-book he is entered from the year 1491 onward. Mr Scott, of the
British Museum, who first made known these entries, which he had found
when calendaring the Abbey muniments, noted that he was called Jan
Wynkyn in them, and wrote a letter to the _Athenaeum_ to point out that
the printer’s Christian name, hitherto unknown, was John. It appears to
me that about this name there is some confusion or mistake.
Wijnand or Wynkyn is itself a Christian name, and De Worde like most
other foreign printers made use of his Christian name joined to the
name of the place from which he came. Thus we have Joannes Lettou (John
of Lithuania), Willelmus de Machlinia (William of Malines), Jan van
Doesborch, Christopher van Ruremond, John Siberch, and so on, while
we have no example of a surname joined with the name of a place. In
all the hundreds of colophons to De Worde’s books, in his patent of
denization, even in his will, there is no hint of such a name as Jan,
and the combination Jan Wynkyn could only mean John the son of Wynkyn.
We must presume that De Worde knew better than the Abbot what his own
name was and that the Abbot’s entry is the result of some confusion. I
am the more anxious to point out this confusion about the name because
entirely without my knowledge and after I had returned my last proof
the editor of the _Dictionary of National Biography_ inserted this
piece of information, extracted from Mr Scott’s letter, in my notice of
Wynkyn de Worde, and thus made me responsible for a statement which I
do not in the least believe.
De Worde continued to print in Caxton’s house until some time in 1500,
when he moved to the sign of the Sun in Fleet Street. The position
of the house can be settled almost exactly. It is described as over
against, that is, opposite the Conduit, and this was situated in Fleet
Street, just where Shoe Lane entered it on the north side. De Worde’s
house being in St Bride’s parish and near the church must have been on
the south side of the street and therefore opposite the entrance of
Shoe Lane. He rented two houses, one no doubt a dwelling-house, the
other his printing-office, and for these he paid a rent of sixty-six
shillings and eight-pence. On leaving Westminster De Worde either
destroyed or parted with a considerable portion of his printing
material. Some of his type used up to this time never appears again,
and many of the wood blocks used to illustrate his books are found in
the hands of other printers, more especially Julian Notary.
The year 1501 was apparently mostly taken up with settling into his new
premises; for this year his output was the smallest during his whole
career, and we know of but one dated book issued in it, a new edition
of Bishop Alcock’s _Mons Perfectionis_ which appeared on May 27. Three
copies of this book are known, in the libraries of Peterborough and
Lincoln Cathedrals, and the third in the University Library, which came
in the bequest of Mr Sandars.
On April 22, 1502, De Worde issued an edition of the _Manipulus
Curatorum_, which is worthy of notice. It is a very small octavo,
printed in a small neat black-letter, and all the copies I have seen,
with one exception, have on the title-page the small square early
device of the printer. The copy, however, which belonged to Richard
Farmer and is now in the Bodleian, has a device of De Worde which so
far as I know is found in no other book. It is, like his most common
device, divided into three parts. The upper contains the sun, two
planets, and thirty-six stars, the middle Caxton’s mark and initials,
and the lower the unicorn and Sagittarius above a ribbon containing
De Worde’s name in full. The engraver has made a not uncommon mistake
and has engraved the large initial _C_ so that it prints the wrong way
about. Another device of De Worde’s had the mark reversed, but that was
not so obvious an error; in this case the printer seems to have thought
the mistake too flaring and to have suppressed the device.
There is a curious little undated tract in the University Library which
cannot be later than the beginning of 1502, describing the doings of
Margerie Kempe of Lynn, a religious enthusiast who travelled about
the country with an axe asking people to cut her head off. In this De
Worde used, probably for the last time, the beautiful cut of the
Crucifixion which he had inherited from Caxton, but which beginning to
split in 1499 had now broken in half and was in other ways more or less
damaged.
[Illustration: UNRECORDED DEVICE OF W. DE WORDE.]
In 1504 De Worde began the use of his best known device, first used in
a _Grammar_ of Sulpitius, of which the unique copy is in the library
of Shrewsbury School. It is square in shape and divided into three
parts. In the upper are the sun, two planets, and twenty stars, in the
middle Caxton’s initials and mark, and in the lower the printer’s name
on a ribbon, above which are a dog and a centaur. This device was used
until 1518, when having got cracked and broken it was replaced by an
almost exact facsimile. This in its turn was used until 1528, when it
was replaced by a third copy. So similar to the eye are these three
varieties that no writer on bibliography has noticed the differences,
though they form the most valuable date test we have for De Worde’s
books, as it was this device he most generally used.
Towards the end of 1508 when Pynson was appointed printer to the King,
De Worde appears to have received some sort of official appointment as
printer to the Countess of Richmond and Derby, the King’s mother. He
had printed several books before this time at her request, a phrase
which I suppose meant that she had helped to defray the cost, but he
had not called himself specially her printer. In most of the books
printed in 1509 before the 29th June, when the Countess died, he gives
himself an official title, as printer to the King’s mother.
Among the books printed in 1508 is one entitled _The Book of Kerving_,
of which there were several editions. A copy of one of these editions,
which was in the collection of Rawlinson, contained the following rhyme
in an old hand,
Wynken de Worde
Sate at the borde
Wyth hys cosyn forde
And kyld hym with a sworde.
Below this the learned owner has written “Whether this last writing be
not a whymsy I know not but feare much it is.”
Two books of 1508 were printed on vellum, Fisher’s _Sermon on
the Fruitful Sayings of David_, and Richard of Hampole’s _Devout
Meditacions_, and there are copies of both in the British Museum.
The year 1509 was a very important one in De Worde’s life. The death
of Henry VII was very soon followed by that of Margaret, Countess of
Richmond and Derby, De Worde’s special patroness. However, the output
of books this year was the largest of any year of his life. The royal
funerals and the coronation would no doubt attract large crowds to
London and so encourage business. Out of some thirty books printed this
year I can only trace five as having been issued before Henry VII’s
death, that is roughly during the first four months of the year. To one
of these I should like to draw your particular attention. It is called
_Nicodemus Gospel_ and there is a copy in the University Library. Its
colophon runs “Enprynted at London in Flete strete at the sygne of the
sonne by wynkyn de worde, printer unto the moost excellent pryncesse
my lady the Kynges moder. In the yere of our lorde god MCCCCC.ix. the
xxiii. daye of Marche.” This colophon and that to the _Golden Legend_
of 1498 are two of the proofs we possess that De Worde began his year
on January 1 and not as was very common on March 25. The book you will
notice was issued on March 23, 1509, and Henry VII and his mother the
Countess of Richmond are both referred to as alive. Had De Worde begun
his year on March 25 and meant by March 23, 1509, March 23, 1510, both
these persons would have been dead. The point is interesting because
the custom of printers varied, and, as I shall show later, De Worde’s
contemporary Julian Notary dated the other way. In a few books printed
between the death of Henry VII and that of the Countess of Richmond and
Derby De Worde calls himself printer to the King’s grandmother.
About this time De Worde had a second shop in St Paul’s Churchyard with
the sign of Our Lady of Pity, but he does not appear to have kept it
long and it is only mentioned in some colophons of this year. It was
perhaps in reference to this sign that in some of his books he placed
at the end a small cut of Our Lady of Pity in place of his usual device.
The books issued in 1509 were of all kinds. Funeral sermons on Henry
VII and the Countess of Richmond, congratulatory poems addressed to
Henry VIII, and a very large number of popular poems and stories,
among them such books as _Richard Cœur de Lion_, _The Conversion of
Swearers_, _The Fifteen Joys of Marriage_, _The Parliament of Devils_,
and Hawes’s _Pastime of Pleasure_. Perhaps the most interesting of
all is the edition of Henry Watson’s version of the _Ship of Fools_.
Only one copy of this beautiful book is known, which is printed on
vellum and is preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale. Henry Watson
was an assistant of De Worde’s and acted partly as printer and partly
as translator. Another book of this year is worth noticing, the first
edition of the York _Manual_. Though it has a full and clear colophon
stating that it was printed by De Worde, in fact the statement is
repeated twice over, there can be no doubt that it was printed abroad;
the type both of text and music, the illustrations, the device, the
peculiar size of the paper all go to prove this.
In 1510 a much smaller number of books, only about eight, were issued.
The printer seems to have been taking a rest, for he never in any
future year prints so small a number. Two curious books were issued in
this year, _King Apolyn of Tyre_, and the _Birth of Merlin_, and in the
following year _The Demaundes Joyous_. This delightful though sometimes
unedifying little book of riddles contains specimens which I remember
having been asked as a child, and I suppose they are asked yet. “How
many cows’ tails would it take to reach the moon?” with the simple
answer “One if it were long enough.” “How many sticks go to a crow’s
nest?” “None, for lack of feet.”
In 1512 appeared the _History of Helias, Knight of the Swan_, another
book only known from a single copy printed on vellum, now in the
library of Mr Hoe of New York. One fact about the book is worth noting
for the benefit of future bibliographers and that is that neither in
the catalogue of the sale in which it appeared nor, consequently,
in Mr Hazlitt’s description in his last volume of _Bibliographical
Collections and Notes_, is there any reference to the book being
printed on vellum.
In 1512 there appeared also the first grammatical work by Whittinton,
whose various books became so popular that De Worde sometimes issued as
many as four editions of one work in a year. At that time printers had
not enough type to admit of their keeping it standing for any length of
time, and as labour was very cheap they preferred to reset the type for
small editions and not print off a very large edition, which perhaps
might lie on their hands for a long time.
So many and so varied were the productions of De Worde’s press--he
printed between seven and eight hundred known books--that it is hard
to pick out any for special notice. In 1515 he issued an edition of
the _Way to the Holy Land_, which was reprinted in 1524. In 1516
Capgrave’s _Nova Legenda Angliae_, of which a copy on vellum is in the
Bibliothèque Nationale. In 1517 we have _Troylus and Cressede_; in 1518
_Oliver of Castile_. In 1519 the _Orchard of Syon_, of which several
copies were printed on vellum. In 1521 he issued a book of _Christmas
Carolles_, of which there is a fragment in the Bodleian; it contains
the well-known carol,
“The bores head in hande bring I
With garlands gay and rosemary
I pray you all synge merely
Qui estis in convivio.”
In 1522 an edition of the _Mirror of Golde for the sinful soul_
appeared with De Worde’s name in the colophon, but the edition is
identical with one issued simultaneously by John Skot. From the type it
is clear that Skot was the printer, and an examination of several of
De Worde’s books about this time shows that they were also produced by
Skot.
Erasmus begins about this time to be represented amongst De Worde’s
books by his _Colloquiorum formulae_, _De copia verborum_, _Good
manners for children_, and a few others, but the printer does not seem
to have printed many editions, which is the more remarkable as the
booksellers’ accounts of the time point to a large demand for Erasmus’
books.
In 1530 appeared the _Book of Songs_, of which there is a copy in the
British Museum, and it is the first genuine music-book printed by De
Worde. The book contained songs for four and three parts, but the one
volume known contains the bass only. From this time onwards most of
the printer’s work was confined to reprinting earlier editions, and
only about one in twenty were new books; a good deal of his work was
done by other printers, as can be seen from the type, and in the last
few years we find him printing books for other people. For his old
apprentice John Byddell he printed four or five books in 1533 and 1534,
two editions of Erasmus’ _Enchiridion Militis Christiani_, a _Life of
Hyldebrande_, and another work.
His last book was curiously enough a little poem, _The Complaint of the
too soon maryed_. I do not know whether he considered it applicable to
his own case, but his own marriage had taken place more than 55 years
before.
De Worde died apparently at the very beginning of 1535, for his will
dated June 5, 1534, was proved on the 19th January following. It is
much to be regretted that this most valuable document has never been
reprinted in full, for both the published abstracts (Herbert’s _Ames_,
119, 120, and Plomer’s _Abstract of Wills_, 3, 4) omit important names.
To each of his apprentices, who are not named, he leaves books to the
value of three pounds. To Robert Darby, Robert Maas, John Barbanson,
Hector, Simon [Simon Martynson?], John Wislyn, and Alard, a bookbinder,
bequests are left, and they are described as servants, that is people
who were then working for him, either apprentices who had served their
full time or journeymen. John Butler, James Gaver, and John Byddell
are each described as “late my servant.” Besides these, legacies were
left to Henry Pepwell, John Gowghe, and Robert Copland, and “Nowell
the bokebinder in Shoo lane.” This latter was a certain Noël Havy, a
Frenchman who came to England in 1523, married an English wife, became
a denizen, and continued in business until after 1550. John Byddell
and James Gaver were made executors and continued to live and carry on
business in his house.
De Worde’s wife had long been dead, and no children, if he had any,
seem to have survived him. He ordered his executors to purchase land
in or near London which should produce at least twenty shillings a
year to be given to St Bride’s Church to keep an obit for his soul,
and we learn from the Survey of Chantries made in February 1547 that
the sum thus expended was thirty-six pounds. Of De Worde’s work as a
bookbinder we know little. He inherited the binding tools which had
belonged to Caxton, and there are several bindings on which these are
used, notably, a very fine example in the library of Corpus Christi
College, Oxford, which can with certainty be ascribed to him. Early in
the sixteenth century, when panel stamps were generally used, Caxton’s
dies seem to have been parted with, but we cannot at present point to
any panel as having been used by De Worde. It will be noticed, however,
that the three binders mentioned in the will, Alard, who was then in
his employment, James Gaver, a former assistant, and the independent
workman Noël Havy of Shoe Lane were all foreigners, and therefore most
probably used their own panels of foreign design.
James Gaver belonged to a well-known family of Low Country binders
and would doubtless use panels similar to theirs. When we find early
printed English books in their original bindings it is fairly safe to
assume these bindings to have been executed in England, for there could
have been practically no exportation of such books, and we know of a
considerable number stamped with distinctly Netherlandish panels. This
James Gaver continued to live with Byddell after De Worde’s death at
the sign of the Sun and issued one book with his name, an edition of
Stanbrydge’s _Accidence_ from that address in 1539. Whether or no this
book was really printed by him is uncertain; for it is identical, with
the exception of the colophon, with an edition printed nominally by
Nicolas Bourman. At the end of Gaver’s edition is a very rude woodcut
of the Sun (used as a printer’s device and referring to the sign of
the shop), which had been used previously by Lawrence Andrewe in his
edition of the _Mirrour of the World_.
Gaver had taken out letters of denization on March 2, 1535 in which
he is described as James Gaver, stationer, from the dominion of the
Emperor. In 1541 he is entered in the Returns of Aliens and pays a
tax of £1. 7_s._ He died in 1545 and his will was proved on June 15.
He there calls himself a bookseller and requested that he might be
buried in St Bride’s Church, before the altar of St Catherine, “neare
unto Wynkyn de Worde sometyme my master.” The overseer to the will was
William Stewarde, a stationer, his son-in-law.
Julian Notary, who had been printing in Westminster since 1497, moved
soon after 1500 into St Clement’s parish, just outside Temple Bar.
He appears to have taken possession of the shop lately vacated by
Pynson, which during the latter’s tenancy seems to have had no sign. By
Notary it was given the sign of the Three Kings. The first dated book
from this new address was an edition of the _Golden Legend_ issued in
February 1504. Just as from the very full colophon of the preceding
edition issued by W. de Worde in 1498 it is clearly proved that De
Worde began his year on the first of January, so from the colophon of
this edition we can prove that Notary did the opposite and began his
year on the twenty-fifth of March. It runs as follows. “Whyche werke I
dyde accomplysshe and fynysshe at Tempell barr the xvi daye of Feverer.
The yere of oure lorde a Thousande ccccciii. And in the xix yere of the
reygne of kynge Henry the vii. By me Julyan Notary. Thys emprynted at
Temple Barre by me Julyan Notary.” Now the 16th of February 19 Henry
VII was 1504 in our ordinary computation, so that Notary clearly did
not end his year until March 24. This _Golden Legend_ contains a very
curious and mixed collection of illustrations. Some had belonged to W.
de Worde and some to Caxton. There are besides five metal engravings
in the “_manière criblée_,” obtained doubtless from abroad, and some
curious engraved initial letters which had apparently belonged to André
Bocard. It would be exceedingly interesting could we trace the history
of these _criblée_ cuts and discover whence Notary obtained them.
The designs were clearly taken from a set of compositions the work
of a Lower Rhine engraver about 1450-60, known as the “master of St
Erasmus,” of which a complete set may be found in the British Museum.
Notary’s, however, are not direct copies but probably imitations of
some _criblée_ prints copied from the original designs. Such sets are
at Munich and Berlin, and another of a similar class may be found in
the editions of the _Horologium Devotionis_, printed at Cologne by
Ulric Zel about 1490, and John Landen, a few years later. Notary’s are
very exact copies from these, but engraved the reverse way, a common
occurrence in copies.
In 1507 Notary issued a very curious book, the first edition of
_Nicodemus Gospel_, which I mention here slightly out of its turn as it
contains three more _criblée_ cuts and is the only other book except
the _Chronicles of England_ in which they are found. Only one copy of
the book is known and its history is interesting. It appeared in the
auction catalogue (p. 354) of Richard Smith’s books, sold in 1682,
bound up in a volume of tracts, and after the sale it disappeared.
On the authority of the catalogue it was mentioned by successive
bibliographers, but no one had seen it and its whereabouts was unknown.
I was beginning to think that it never existed and that the entry in
Smith’s catalogue was founded on a mistake, when to my delight, on
a recent visit to Dublin, I found the identical volume in Archbp.
Marsh’s library. It had been bought at Smith’s sale in 1682 by Bishop
Stillingfleet, and the whole of his library of printed books was bought
at his death by Marsh and transported to Dublin. As Marsh’s library has
never had a printed catalogue and has not been much used, its contents
are very little known, though I am glad to say a catalogue of the Early
English books is about to be printed. Besides the _Golden Legend_,
Notary printed in 1504 an edition of the _Chronicles of England_, and a
now lost edition of the Sarum _Hymns and Sequences_ of which he issued
another edition in the following year.
At the beginning of 1508 an edition of the _Scala Perfectionis_
appeared, and the copy described by Herbert is similar to the one which
came to the University Library with Mr Sandars’s collection. Herbert
describes his as in an original binding with Notary’s mark, and the one
bequeathed by Mr Sandars is similarly bound.
In 1510 Notary issued an edition of the _Sermones discipuli_ by John
Herolt having on the title-page a very interesting imprint which,
translated, runs as follows, “These [_i.e._ the Sermons] are to be sold
(where they have been printed) at London in the suburb of Temple Bar
near the porch of St Clements in the house of Julian Notary, printer
and bookseller, carrying on business under the sign of the Three Kings.
And they will also be found for sale in St Paul’s Churchyard at the
same man’s little shop [cellula] from which also hangs the same sign
of the Three Kings.” Apparently a sign was personal property and could
be moved by the owner if he moved to another shop. If, however, he
became possessed, on the death of the earlier owner, of a shop with
a well-known sign, he would retain it in preference to his own. As
an example of the first case we find Rastell giving the sign of the
Mermaid to three successive places of business. On the other hand when
Byddell succeeded De Worde, he did not transfer his own sign Our Lady
of Pity, but retained De Worde’s well known sign of the Sun.
What Notary was doing between 1510 and 1515 is unknown, but during that
period he issued no dated book. One thing, however, is clear. He had
given up his printing-office in the Strand and had moved to a house in
St Paul’s Churchyard with the sign of St Mark, and there he issued in
1515 another edition of the _Chronicles of England_. Though the sign is
not mentioned the address is very clear. “Dwelling in Paul’s churchyard
beside the west door by my lord’s palace.” In 1516 he was mentioned as
living at the sign of St Mark at the west door. This sign, however,
did not please him, and by 1518 he had replaced it with the old sign
of the Three Kings. That these two signs succeeded each other on the
same house and did not refer to two different houses is I think clear
from the wording of the following two colophons. “Imprinted in London
in Poules chyrche yarde at the weste Doore besyde my lorde of London’s
palase. At the sygne of saynt Marke”; and “Inprinted in London ... in
Paules chirche yarde at the weste dore besyde my lorde of london’s
palayse, at the sign of the thre kynges.”
Among Notary’s undated books is a very curious little tract called _A
merry gest and a true howe Johan Splynter made his testament_. The
only copy known is in the library of Britwell Court. It begins on the
verso of the first leaf,
This Johan Splynter as every man tell can
Was the Rentgatherer of Delft and Sceydam.
On the title is a curious woodcut which occurs also on another small
tract, the _Mery geste of a Sergeaunt and Frere_.
The best known of Notary’s books is his edition of the _Shepherdes
Calendar_, a curious medley of matter which was first printed in a
translation at Paris by Verard in 1503. That translation was made by
a Scotchman who knew very little French, so that the result is rather
peculiar. The book was revised and printed by Pynson in 1508 and also
later by Wynkyn de Worde. In the only known copy of Notary’s edition
the colophon is mutilated and the date partly destroyed, but as it was
printed in Paul’s Churchyard at the Three Kings the date may be safely
fixed at about 1518.
Notary made use of two panel stamps on his bindings. One contains
in the centre a Tudor rose round which run two ribbons supported by
angels. On the ribbons is the motto
Hec rosa virtutis de celo missa sereno
Eternum florens regia sceptra feret.
In the upper corners are shields with the cross of St George and the
arms of the City of London, while below the rose are the binder’s
mark and initials. The other panel contains an escutcheon bearing the
arms of England and France quartered, ensigned with a royal crown and
supported by a dragon and greyhound; the arms of St George and the
City of London are in the upper corners.
Of these two panels there are two varieties differing in minor details.
They may readily be distinguished by the N in the device, which in the
rarer variety has the cross stroke the wrong way.
Robert Copland was for many years an assistant to Wynkyn de Worde,
and some have suggested even to Caxton himself from the ambiguous use
of the word “master” in the prologue to _King Apolyn of Tyre_, where
he speaks of himself as “gladly followynge the trace of my mayster
Caxton.” As Copland did not die before 1548 it is very improbable,
though not impossible, that he could have worked under Caxton at
Westminster. As an assistant to De Worde he translated a considerable
number of popular books from the French and edited others, often adding
quaint introductions or prefatory verses. About 1514 he appears to have
started in business on his own account, for some copies of the _Dying
Creature_ printed by W. de Worde in that year have his device on the
last leaf. This consists of his mark and initials on a shield hanging
from a tree and surrounded by a garland of roses and supported by a
stag and hind. Round it is the text from Proverbs xxii., “Melius est
nomen bonum quam divitie multe.” Like many English devices of the time
it is copied from a French one. The garland round the shield refers to
the sign of his shop the Rose Garland in Fleet Street, though the first
book from this address was not issued until later. A small law-book
issued about this time, though it contains his name and device was
issued from De Worde’s house, the Sun. In 1515 he began to work at the
Rose Garland and issued a book called the _Justice of Peace_, of which
a copy is in the Cambridge University Library. His next dated book was
Barclay’s _Introductory to French_, and after this there is a gap of
seven years. Altogether before 1535 he printed only some twelve books.
The explanation of this is, I believe, that his press was largely
subsidised by De Worde. Many books issued by De Worde have prefatory
or ending verses written by “Robert Copland the book-printer,” and
most bibliographers have therefore rashly asserted that they must be
reprints of editions which he had previously issued. Copland printed
entire editions for De Worde and therefore they contain De Worde’s name
and address, but Copland as their printer added his introduction.
Another point which seems to prove his dependence on De Worde is that
after the latter’s death in 1535 up to about 1547 we have no trace
of Copland printing at all. He continued to translate and revise for
others but the only reference to him as a practical printer is to be
found in Andrew Borde’s _Pryncyples of Astronomye_ printed about 1548,
in which the author speaks of his _Introduction to Knowledge_ as “now
a pryntyng at old Robert Copland’s the eldest printer of England.”
As this book was finished and issued by William Copland, it may be
presumed that Robert died about 1548.
Henry Pepwell, who worked at the sign of the Trinity in St Paul’s
Churchyard, was a native of Birmingham. Of his life we know nothing
before the year 1518, when he issued an edition of the _Castle of
Pleasure_. In 1520 he printed an edition of the _Christiani Hominis
Institutum_, a translation into Latin verse by Erasmus of a little
tract by Colet. In this he made use of a device which had belonged to
his predecessor at the sign of the Trinity, a stationer named Henry
Jacobi, but with the name Jacobi erased from the block. Between 1518
and 1523 Pepwell printed eight books, and their rarity may be gauged
from the fact that two are only known from fragments, four from single
copies, and of the remaining two there are in one case two copies, in
the other four.
Pepwell must have been a leading member of the trade, for in 1525 he
was appointed, together with Lewis Sutton, a warden of the Company of
Stationers. He was a friend of Stokeslay, the Bishop of London, and
of his agent Thomas Dockwray, who was afterwards the first warden of
the new Stationers’ Company. In 1531 he issued an edition of Eckius’
_Enchiridion locorum communium adversus Lutheranos_, printed for him
at Antwerp by Michael Hillenius. Bale in one of his works mentions
this book as follows “No lesse myght harrye pepwell in Paules church
yearde have out of Michael Hillenius howse at Antwerp at one tyme than
a whole complete prynte at the holye request of Stokyslaye. In a short
space were they dyspached and a newe prynte in hande, soche tyme as he
also commaunded Barlowes dyaloges to be preached of the curates through
out all hys dyocese.” The existence of this book was for long doubtful
until I finally found the title-page in one of the volumes of Bagford’s
collections and shortly afterwards I found a perfect copy which had
belonged to Latimer in the library of Westminster Abbey.
Pepwell as an important bookseller and good Catholic was probably of
great assistance to the authorities in their crusade against heretical
books. In 1533 Vaughan writes to Cromwell, “The Bishop of London,
Stokeslay, has had a servant [Dockwray] in Antwerp this fortnight. If
you send for Henry Pepwell, a stationer in Paul’s Churchyard, who was
often with him, he will tell you his business.”
In 1535 he received by the will of W. de Worde a legacy of four pounds
in printed books. In 1539 he issued two grammars of Lily for the use
of St Paul’s School, but though he is clearly stated in the imprint
to have been the printer, there is very little doubt that they were
printed at Antwerp. The only copies known of these grammars are bound
up with some others by Colet in a small volume now in the Pepysian
Library bought by Pepys at Richard Smith’s sale in 1682.
In October, 1539, Pepwell, accompanied by William Bonham and Henry Tab,
was sent by Cromwell to St Albans to inquire about a heretical book
which had been issued from the press there. This I believe to have been
a hitherto unknown and unique book “_A very declaration of the bond and
free will of man_” issued at St Albans without date or name of printer.
The printer was however John Herford, who came to London, in custody of
the three stationers to be dealt with by Cromwell.
Pepwell died at the beginning of 1541 and his will was proved on the
8th February, William Bonham the printer being one of the supervisors.
Two-thirds of his property was left to Ursula his wife and the
remaining third to his children, who were all under age and are
not mentioned by name, though no doubt the Arthur Pepwell who was
afterwards a member of the Stationers’ Company was one.
John Skot commenced to print in 1521, and issued on May 17 _the Body of
Policy_, of which there is a copy on vellum in the Cambridge University
Library. At this time he was living in St Sepulchre’s parish without
Newgate and printed there six books. The _Mirror of Gold for the Sinful
Soul_, the _History of Jacob and his twelve sons_, the _Book of maid
Emlyn_, and two law tracts. In these is found his first device, having
his mark and initials on a shield surmounted by a helmet and supported
by two dragons. He used a fount of narrow black-letter, and it is clear
that besides his own books he printed several for De Worde.
His next move was to St Paul’s Churchyard, where he printed eight
books, but only two are dated, the _Commendations of Matrimony_ of 1528
and _Nicodemus Gospel_ of 1529. Besides these there were three law
tracts, two grammars, and an edition of _Every Man_. At this address
he began to use a device, exactly copied down to the misprint in the
motto, from one used at Paris by Denis Rosse, but so carelessly cut
that both his name and monogram are printed backwards. He also made
use of his first device with his monogram inserted on the shield in
place of his mark. Either before or after his residence in St Paul’s
Churchyard, but probably before, he printed an edition of Stanbridge’s
_Accidence_ “Without Bishopsgate in saint Botolphs parish at George
Alley gate.”
In 1531 John Toy issued an edition of the _Gradus_ _comparationum_
which has Skot’s device at the end and was probably printed by him,
though his name is not mentioned. By 1537 he had moved to Fauster
Lane in St Leonard’s parish, but before this he had got into trouble
over a book of which apparently no fragment remains. This publication
was an outcome of the extraordinary religious troubles connected with
the impostures of Elizabeth Barton, the Maid of Kent, which were put
down by Cranmer, and the maid and her associates executed in 1533.
Amongst the documents connected with the case was the confession of
the printer, and Cranmer entered among his notes “to remember that Dr
Bokking did put unto Skotte all the Nun’s book to print and had five
hundred of them when they were printed and the printer two hundred.”
This perhaps refers to a tract entitled “_A miraculous work of late
done at Court of Strete in Kent, published to the devoute people of
this tyme for their spiritual consolation by Edward Thwaytes, Gent._,”
of which some manuscript copies exist.
At Fauster Lane Skot printed one book the _Rosary_, dated 1537, and
five undated books, _The Golden Litany_, _Nicodemus Gospel_, _The
Nut-browne Maide_, _The Book of Herbs_, and _The Battle of Agincourt_.
After 1537 we have no trace of him.
Several writers have supposed that he may have been the same person
as a printer of the same name who appeared at Edinburgh in 1539, and
passed an adventurous career in that town and at St Andrews up to about
the year 1571. There seems nothing to support the theory beyond the
similarity of names, and an examination of the typography of the two
printers shows that they must have been different people.
Of John Butler, the next printer to be noticed, next to nothing is
known. Ames asserted on the authority of Maurice Johnson, a gentleman
to whom he was indebted for many startling pieces of information, that
he was a judge of the Common Pleas. There was a John Boteler a judge,
but when he was sitting on the bench our John Butler was engaged as
a journeyman with Wynkyn de Worde, who in 1535 left by will to “John
Butler late my servant as many printed books as shall amounte to the
value of vi£ sterling,” a very considerable legacy for the time.
His only dated book, an edition of the _Parvulorum institutio ex
Stanbrigiana collectione_ was issued in 1529. The colophon states
that it was printed “for John Butler,” but it absolutely agrees
typographically with other grammatical tracts printed “by John Butler”
though the type of all is apparently identical with that used by John
Skot. Besides the one dated book there are eight undated. Five are
grammatical tracts of little interest, and the remaining three are _The
Jeaste of Sir Gawayne_, _The Doctrynale of good servantes_, and _The
Convercyon of Swerers_. It is interesting to notice that of all the
books printed by Butler but one copy is known.
The _Expositiones terminorum legum Anglorum_ of 1527, attributed by
Herbert and others to this printer, is clearly the work of Rastell.
Butler carried on business at the sign of St John Evangelist in Fleet
Street and used as a device a small woodcut of St John with the
inscription cut upon it “Initium sancti euangelii secundum Johannem.”
This cut was not originally intended for a printer’s mark, but was one
of a series engraved for a _Horae_. Whether or not he was really a
practical printer it is impossible to determine, for the words “printed
by” are not always to be taken as literally true. Several books of
this period are known, identical except as regards the wording of the
colophon, which profess to have been printed by different printers; and
many books which bear the name of one printer in the colophon can be
clearly proved to be the work of another.
John Toy has to be included as a printer in this lecture on the faith
of the colophon of one book, but probably, like some early stationers,
he was not always strictly truthful and said “printed by” when he
meant “printed for.” However, in the Bodleian Library there is an
edition of the _Gradus comparationum_ whose colophon runs, “Imprinted
at London in Poules chyrche yard, at the sygne of saynte Nycolas by me
John Toye. The yere of our lorde God M.D.XXXI, the XXX day of May.”
But the book ends with the device of the printer John Skot, and it is
probable that he really printed it. In 1534 Toy had an edition of the
_Shorter Accidence_ of Stanbridge printed for him at Antwerp by Martin
de Keyser, and of this there is a copy in the Cambridge University
Library. In 1534 Leonard Cox wrote a letter to “The Goodman Toy at the
sign of St Nicholas in Pauls Churchyard” relating to the printing of
some translations of portions of the Paraphrase of Erasmus, perhaps
the Epistle to Titus which appeared some time later. Toy, like many in
his business appears to have married the widow of another stationer
Nicholas Sutton. Toy died in 1535 and his will is preserved in the
Prerogative Court of Canterbury.
Richard Bankes, who began to print in 1523, was the first of a series
of printers who lived at “The long shop in the Poultry beside St
Mildred’s church door at the stocks,” and the first book he issued was
a collection of stories which he called “goodly and right pleasant,”
though they hardly merit that description, entitled _The IX Drunkardes_.
This very curious little book, of which the only copy known is in the
Bodleian, sets forth the evils of drink as exemplified by various
Scriptural characters. It is a translation from the Dutch and is
illustrated with a number of foreign woodcuts and borders.
From 1523 to 1526 Bankes printed five dated books and then ceased to
work for thirteen years, though he had one book printed for him by
Robert Copland in 1528. When he next appears as a printer in 1539 he
was living next the White Hart in Fleet Street and was apparently
subsidised to print the works of Richard Taverner, an ardent reformer,
a religious writer, and M.P. for Liverpool.
In 1540 immediately after Cromwell’s death a series of ballads
attacking and defending him were written by Thomas Smyth, clerk of the
Queen’s Council, and William Gray, a servant of Cromwell’s. These came
before the notice of the Privy Council and the two authors together
with Richard Bankes the printer were summoned to appear at eight
o’clock in the morning on Sunday, 3rd January 1541. The notice of this
trial brings up a new point of great interest to bibliographers.
Copies of these ballads are still extant in the library of the
Society of Antiquaries, several with Bankes’s full imprint, and in
the indictment he is spoken of as “noted to be the printer.” When the
case came on however Bankes absolutely denied that he had printed
them and laid the blame on Robert Redman lately deceased, and Richard
Grafton, who confessed he had printed some of them. On January 4 Smyth,
Gray and Grafton were committed to the Fleet. This account shows that
the colophons of the early printers, especially in the case of small
fugitive pieces, are not to be implicitly trusted, and emphasizes the
necessity of a careful study of type. Such a study also often shows
that some of the smaller printers were probably not printers at all,
but had their books printed for them.
Bankes last appears in 1545, when he issued with Richard Lant the Booke
of Cookery, of which there is a copy in the Hunterian Museum at Glasgow.
Lawrence Andrewe, who printed in Fleet Street near Fleet Bridge at the
sign of the Golden Cross, was a native of Calais and seems to have had
some connexion with John of Doesborch, the Antwerp printer, for whom he
translated several Dutch books into English, among them the _Valuation
of gold and silver_, and a book called _The wonderful shape and nature
that our Saviour Christ Jesu hath created in beasts, serpents, fowls_,
etc. He only issued two books with a date, two editions of Jerome of
Brunswick’s _Boke of Distillacyon_; and not only were they printed in
the same year, but they were finished on two consecutive days, the 17th
and 18th of April. These two editions vary throughout, and the reason
for the double issue seems inexplicable. His undated books comprise
editions of Aesop’s _Fables_, and the _Mirror of the World_, in folio,
the latter being ornamented with a profusion of miscellaneous woodcuts
obtained from various sources; and the _Directory of the conscience_
and the _Debate and stryfe betwene Somer and Wynter_ in quarto. The
_Debate_ was to be sold “at the signe of seynt John Evangelyst in saynt
Martyns parysshe besyde Charynge crosse” presumably by Robert Wyer
and may therefore be dated about 1530. In 1529 Andrewe was apparently
associated with Peter Treveris in the production of the _Grete
Herball_, for some copies contain his device. This device consisted of
his mark on a large shield within a frame of pillars and festoons of
very florid work. In some of the initials in his books his mark will be
found, showing that they were specially engraved for him. About 1534 a
certain printer named Leonard Andrewe, who may have been a relation,
was an assistant to John Rastell.
Though about all these early printers we have but meagre information,
the career of Thomas Godfray is particularly obscure. His name is
found in over thirty books; only two contain an address, in each
different, and only one a date. The dated book is the _Chaucer_ of
1532 printed at London by Thomas Godfray, itself a curious puzzle. It
was edited by William Thynne and had a preface by Sir Brian Tuke, and
a copy discovered by Henry Bradshaw in the library of Clare College,
Cambridge, has the inscription “This preface I sir Bryan Tuke knight
wrot at the request of Mr Clarke of the Kechyn then being, tarying for
the tyde at Grenewich.” Now Leland, the antiquary, distinctly states
that this edition was issued by Thomas Berthelet, and as he was a
contemporary of Godfray and Berthelet his words cannot be lightly
passed over. The title-page border used by Godfray in the _Chaucer_
and the _Gift of Constantine_ [1534] was used by Berthelet as early as
1535; and he used in the same year another border frame which Godfray
employed in the _Introductorie for to lerne French_ by Giles Dewes and
which was cracked during the printing of that book. Though we have no
direct evidence of the fact it would seem as though Godfray’s press
was subsidized by Berthelet, to a great extent, perhaps, owing to the
latter’s occupation with official work. Another point to be noticed
is that Godfray never mentions any sign, and this is nearly always
found to be the case with printers who worked for others and not for
themselves. Two of Godfray’s books can be dated from outside evidence.
_The Gift of Constantine_ was issued early in 1534, for on April 1
Marshall, at whose expense it was published, wrote to Cromwell, “I
send you two books now finished of the Gift of Constantine. I think
there was none ever better set forth for defacing of the pope of Rome.”
He also writes, “On the book of Constantine I have laid out all the
money I can make, and for lack of it cannot fetch the books from the
printers.” The second book is Christopher Saint-Germain’s _Answer to
a Letter_ which cannot be earlier than 1535, a date found in the book
itself. Godfray worked at one time in the Old Bailey and at another,
probably later, at Temple Bar, where he would be close to Berthelet. He
made no use of any device.
LECTURE VI.
RICHARD PYNSON AND THE LEARNED PRINTERS.
Having treated in my last lecture of Wynkyn de Worde and his followers
who represent the popular printers of the time, I come to-day to
Richard Pynson and his school, who represent the more learned press.
We have Haukins and Redman, Pynson’s successors; William Faques who
preceded and Thomas Berthelet who succeeded him as printer to the King;
and the two Rastells, John and William, brother-in-law and nephew to
Sir Thomas More, distinguished in the law.
Pynson, who had learned to print in Normandy, came to England some
time before 1492 and started as a printer outside Temple Bar, near the
church of St Clement Danes, where he continued up to 1500. In 1500,
while still living there he along with his servants were the victims
of a murderous attack from a riotous gathering headed by one Henry
Squire. In his evidence before the Star-Chamber Pynson stated that his
servants were so terrified by frequent threats and attacks that they
had left him, and his business was suffering in consequence. This is
quite likely to have been the cause of his moving, since he would be
much safer and better protected within the City. The move was not a
distant one for it was to a house which had belonged to the College
of St Stephen in Westminster with the sign of the George next to St
Dunstan’s Church in Fleet Street, at the corner where Chancery Lane
runs into it. He was still but a few doors from Temple Bar, but this
time on the right side of it. The year 1500 was also an important
one to Pynson, for in that year Cardinal Morton died, who had been a
valuable patron, and at whose cost the beautiful Sarum _Missal_ of 1500
had been produced.
The first book issued by Pynson at his new address was an edition of
the Sarum _Directorium Sacerdotum_, of which there is a perfect copy
at Ripon, and an imperfect one in the British Museum, which belonged
to Cranmer. The colophon sets forth that it was printed “intra barram
novi templi” in 1501, so that the date of Pynson’s move to St Dunstan’s
parish is clearly defined as between the publication of the _Book of
Cookery_ in 1500 and this _Directorium_ in 1501.
The only other book issued this year was a small tract describing the
escort and reception to be accorded to Katherine of Aragon.
Before speaking further of Pynson I should like to refer to a point
which I emphasized when speaking of De Worde and Notary, that is,
the method he followed in dating his books. In my former lectures I
asserted that he probably began his year on January 1, and for this
reason. The beautiful _Missal_ printed at the expense of Cardinal
Morton was finished on January 10, 1500, and the Cardinal died in
September of that year. If Pynson meant by his January 10, 1500, what
we should call 1501, then the book would have been issued after the
Cardinal’s death, and though the colophon tells us that the book was
printed at his command and expense, it has no mention of his being dead.
The book called the _Rule of St Benet_ has sometimes been pointed
out as a proof of Pynson beginning his year on March 25. The words
in the preface run, “We have ... caused it to be emprinted by our
wel beloved Rycharde Pynson of London printer. The XXII. day of the
monethe of January, the yere of oure Lorde M.CCCCC.XVI. and the VIII.
yere of the reigne of oure soverayne lorde kynge Henry the VIII.” In
this case January 22, 1516, is clearly what we should call 1517, but
then the words are not those of the printer but of the author, and it
is noteworthy that the printer in his colophon gives no date at all.
Doubtless a detailed examination of all books printed between January
1, and March 25, would settle the question, but such an examination is
at the present time very difficult. To perform such work exactly a very
large number of minute tests have to be formulated and applied, and
library after library visited, frequently three or four times as new
developments are discovered. When the day comes that our best libraries
have adequate photographic facilities these questions will be nearer
solution. In 1502 Pynson printed nine books, mostly of a liturgical or
scholastic nature, the only one deserving of particular notice being
the Sarum _Processional_ issued in November. Of this book one copy is
known printed upon vellum, which is now in the library of St John’s
College, Oxford.
In 1503 Pynson printed three books, the first English translation of
the _Imitatio Christi_, a new edition of the _Directorium Sacerdotum_,
and an edition of the _Mirror of the Life of Christ_. This last book
I can only give on the authority of the catalogue of Edwards the
bookseller, in 1794, for I do not know where any perfect copy is
preserved. A slightly imperfect copy however presumably of this edition
was sent to me to examine a few years ago. In 1504 the only dated book
is a very fine Sarum _Missal_, of which there is a copy in Emmanuel
College and a copy on vellum, slightly imperfect, in Manchester. A
curious work on natural philosophy by Hieronymus de Sancto Marcho
issued in 1505 has Pynson’s device on the title, though it seems
probable that he was not the printer. The printer, whoever he was,
had not a full supply of numerals, and in place of the two 5’s in the
date he has printed two small black-letter h’s as the nearest approach
in type to the numeral. The remaining books of this year are of small
interest.
In 1506 Pynson issued an edition of the _Principia_ of Peregrinus de
Lugo for the Oxford bookseller George Castellain. The imprint runs
“per Ricardum Pinson cum Solerti cura ac diligentia honestissimi
juvenis ac prudentissimi Hugonis Meslier.” Nothing whatever is known
of this assistant of Pynson’s, whose name occurs only in this book. In
this same year was issued an edition of the _Kalendar of Shephardes_,
which has a curious preface referring to the earlier edition of 1503,
which was translated from the French into the Scottish language and
printed at Paris by Antoine Verard; and also a Sarum _Manual_ of which
there are two copies on vellum, one in the library of Corpus Christi
College, Cambridge, the other at Stonyhurst. In 1507 two noteworthy
books were issued, an edition of the _Golden Legend_, of which the
unique (and happily quite perfect) copy is at Lambeth, and a Sarum
_Breviary_, of which two copies are known, both printed on vellum and
not quite perfect. The copy in the Rylands Library, the one described
by successive bibliographers, was in the collections of Ratcliffe and
Count MacCarthy but the date had been cut out of the colophon and the
book was usually ascribed to 1508. However, four years ago another copy
appeared for sale in an auction and was bought by a private collector.
In it the colophon was quite perfect and gave the exact date, August
25, 1507.
Some time after May, 1508, on the death of William Faques, Pynson
succeeded to the office of Printer to the King; so that he was not as
usually stated appointed by Henry VIII. At first an annuity of two
pounds was paid him and in 1515 the sum was raised to four pounds. The
office of King’s Printer though in many ways lucrative was not without
its drawbacks. Though he obtained all Government work he was compelled
to lay aside his other work until it was finished, which must sometimes
have been inconvenient.
The stirring events of 1509 seem to have had no effect on Pynson’s
work, and while W. de Worde issued some thirty dated books he contented
himself with five, and only one was of any importance from a literary
point of view. This was Alexander Barclay’s translation of Brant’s
_Ship of Fools_. This fine folio is printed in black-letter and roman
type and contains a number of excellent woodcuts. It also contains
the full-page cut of Pynson’s arms here used for the first time, and
probably only lately granted to him on his appointment as King’s
Printer, which carried with it the title of Esquire. A small work of
Savonarola issued on the eighth of September this year is interesting
as being the first dated work issued in England printed entirely in
Roman letter, though it is not improbable that the undated oration of
Peter Gryphus also issued this year may be a month or two earlier.
It is quite evident on examining the various accounts paid to Pynson
by the King that a great deal of his official work has absolutely
disappeared. In the many cases where definite proclamations, statutes,
or similar productions are quoted, hardly any evidence of their
existence is now to be found. Of course having once served their
purpose they would become obsolete and mere waste, but as many were
printed on vellum--in one case we find 400 skins printed, in another
450--it seems impossible that all could have been entirely destroyed.
Numbers no doubt found their way into the hands of the bookbinders and
were used to line bindings, for which purpose, having one side blank,
they were very suitable; and it is from old bindings that the greater
number of those extant have been recovered.
In 1511 he issued the _Pylgrymage of Sir Richard Guylforde_, a most
interesting book to read, as it gives a vivid description of a journey
to the Holy Land and of the death and burial of Sir Richard while there.
Among the books of 1513 was an edition of Lidgate’s _Sege and
Destruccyon of Troye_, of which he printed several copies on vellum,
one of which is in Pepys’s collection, as he did also of the _Statutes
of War_, which appeared in the same year, though no copies are now
known. Another lost book of this year would have had peculiar interest.
Ammonius wrote to Erasmus, shortly after Flodden, “Petrus Carmelianus
has just published an epitaph on the King of Scots, stuffed full of
womanly abuse, which you may soon read printed in Pynson’s type.” For
the next few years there is little of interest to chronicle in his work.
In 1521 was issued Henry VIII’s book the _Assertio septem
sacramentorum_. As might be expected many copies were printed on
vellum and sent round as presents to the princes of Europe, generally
containing an inscription in the King’s hand. Four copies at least are
now in existence, two being in the Vatican. About this book there is a
curious story. Montaigne in the journal of his voyage to Italy in 1581
said, “I saw the original of the book that the King of England composed
against Luther which he sent about fifty years since to Pope Leo X
subscribed of his proper hand with this beautiful Latin distich, also
of his hand,
Anglorum rex Henricus, Leo decime, mittit
Hoc opus, et fidei testem et amicitiae.
Unfortunately there is still extant among the State papers a letter
from Cardinal Wolsey to Henry in which the Cardinal writes, “I do send
also unto your highnes the choyse of certyne versis to be written in
the booke to be sent to the pope of your owne hande.” So much for the
royal author.
Between 1522 and 1525 the first edition of Froissart was issued
in two folio volumes, and it is one of those books that puzzle
the bibliographer as there are many variations and cancels in the
different copies. In 1522 appeared Tunstall’s _De arte supputandi_,
generally described as the first English printed book on arithmetic. A
presentation copy on vellum is in the University Library and another
imperfect vellum copy in Christ’s College. In 1526 appeared an edition
of Chaucer to which I think proper attention has not been paid. It is
generally described as consisting only of the _Canterbury Tales_, but
this is not the case. The book was issued in various parts of which
the _Canterbury Tales_ is one, and other works were issued in other
parts though no library contains a complete set. How many parts really
existed I do not know, but it looks as if the intention had been to
issue the complete works. In 1526 and 1527 editions of Henry’s VIII
letters against Martin Luther were issued, but unlike the _Assertio_ no
copies seem to have been printed on vellum.
Beyond the issue of three small law-books in 1528 Pynson seems to have
issued nothing up to his death in 1530, and there is no obvious reason
to account for this. There is something rather mysterious about the
relations between Pynson and Robert Redman, who will be noticed later,
for all the books printed by the latter between 1528 and the death of
Pynson, when he succeeded to his shop, bear no address, and it is just
possible that some arrangement had been made between them. The bindings
produced by Pynson are of very rare occurrence. He used two panels of
a small size. One contains his mark within a broad border and is very
similar in design to his device. The other contains the Tudor rose in
the centre with a border of foliage and flowers and vine-leaves in the
corners. There is an example in the British Museum.
Pynson died at the beginning of the year 1530 and his will dated
November 1529 was proved on the 18th of February following. He left
property in Chancery Lane and Tottenham but there is little of interest
in the will itself. He left bequests to his two apprentices John Snowe
and Richard Withers on condition of their faithfully serving out their
apprenticeships. At the time of his death he had only one child alive,
his daughter Margaret, who had married first a certain William Campion,
probably a stationer, by whom she had two daughters, Amye and Joane,
and secondly a man named Warde. Pynson’s son Richard is described as
lately deceased, but he had left a daughter Joan who was old enough to
be married in 1537. It is almost certainly this son Richard, and not
as usually asserted his father, who took out letters of denization in
1513, for Richard Pynson the elder could never have risen to be King’s
Printer and to have the right to bear arms without having been made a
denizen. Everything points to the fact that he was not only denizened
but naturalised, but the son who from his age must have been born
abroad would require letters of denization also.
After Pynson’s death at the beginning of 1530 a certain John Haukins
completed and issued the curious book on which Pynson had been at
work for some time, _L’Eclarcissement de la langue Française_ by John
Palsgrave. The history of this book is somewhat mysterious. At the end
of 1523 an indenture was made out between John Palsgrave and Pynson
for the printing of 60 reams of paper at six and eightpence a ream.
Another indenture of the same year was for printing 750 copies of
_Lesclarcissement de la lange Francoys_, containing three sundry books.
Pynson engaged to print daily a sheet on both sides [that is four
pages] and Palsgrave agreed not to keep him waiting for copy.
The final indenture dated January 18, 15 Hen. VIII [1524], between
John Palsgrave, prebendary of St Paul’s, and Richard Pynson citizen
and stationer of London, arranges for the printing of a book named
_Lez le Clarissimaunt de la lange Francois_, containing three books,
with certain tables and a French vocabulist. Palsgrave will pay six
and eightpence for each ream of paper 20 quires; 750 copies are to
be printed, of which Pynson shall have as many as, at a price agreed
between them, will pay him at the above rate. Clauses to be inserted
that Pynson shall not print more than 750 till that number is sold,
and that Palsgrave shall deliver the copy from time to time truly
corrected. The book as we now have it consists of three parts. The
first has the title, introduction, and index, and a privilege from the
King dated September 2, 1530, so that the printing must be after that
date. The second contains two books, one on pronunciation, the other
on the nine parts of speech and ends with Pynson’s device. The third
part contains the third book with tables of words and ending with this
colophon, “Thus endeth this booke called _Lesclarissement de la langue
Francoyse_, whiche is very necessarye for all suche as intende to lerne
to speke trewe frenche; the imprintyng fynyssed by Johan Haukyns the
XVIII daye of July. The yere of our lorde god, M.CCCCC. and XXX.” In
the preface of the author to the King he speaks of his having formerly
written two “sundrie” books on the subject which he had “offred” to
the Princess Mary, the King’s sister, and Charles Brandon, Duke of
Suffolk, her husband. These two books I take to be the two contained
in the second part of _Lesclarcissement_ which were certainly printed
by Pynson. A curious piece of information about the book occurs in a
letter dated April 13, 1529, written by Stephen Vaughan to Cromwell. In
it he says that “he wishes to learn French and when in London asked Mr
Palsgrave for one of his books, which he refused. Requests Cromwell to
get one for him, as Palsgrave will not refuse him. Hears he has told
Pynson to sell them only to those he names lest his profit as a teacher
should be diminished. Would esteem one no less than a jewel and will
send Cromwell something of greater value in return.”
Now in Pynson’s first agreement he was to print 60 reams of paper,
that is 1200 quires and 750 copies of the book. This gives to each
copy of the book 1-3/5 quires of paper, and taking twenty sheets
to the quire, each book would contain 64 leaves. The middle part
of _Lesclarcissement_ consists of 60 leaves without any title-page
or prefatory matter. My theory is that this portion with a title
and preface was issued in or soon after 1524. We see that Palsgrave
was very chary of selling copies, so that many would remain in the
printer’s hands. At a much later date the large third part containing
the vocabularies was put in hand and finished in July, 1530, by John
Haukins. The copies of the middle part were added to it, their old
title and prefatory matter cancelled and a new title, index, and
prefatory matter printed for the whole book some time after September
1530.
As the wording of the agreements mentioned above is slightly ambiguous,
a word of explanation is necessary. The 6_s._ 8_d._ which Palsgrave
paid per ream was the price of the paper itself and not the printing of
it. Palsgrave was to pay for the paper and Pynson was to have so many
copies to sell at a rate agreed upon as would repay him his outlay in
printing. The average cost at that time for printing in comparison to
paper was as four to one. The ream costing 6_s._ 8_d._, the printing
and printer’s profit of the ream would amount to £1. 6_s._ 8_d._, thus
the total cost of a ream, paper, printing, and all would be £1. 13_s._
4_d._ I have collected many notices of the price of printing-paper from
the time of Arnold’s _Chronicle_ (about 1496) during the whole of our
period, and while writing-paper went so high as thirty-four shillings
and fourpence a ream, printing-paper was invariably 6_s._ 8_d._
William Faques, who succeeded Peter Actors, the first stationer to the
King, as the first King’s Printer, is but a very shadowy figure, and
of his life we know nothing. He was a native of Normandy, and Herbert
suggests, but without any reason, that he may have learned his art with
Jean le Bourgeois. The only date connected with his books is 1504, in
which year he printed a proclamation on the coinage, the _Statutes of
the Nineteenth Year of Henry VII_, and a Latin _Psalter_. This last
book shows that unknown or not Faques was a skilful printer, for it is
one of the most beautiful books issued from the early English press.
The type is sharp and brilliant, the printing in red well done, and
each page is surrounded with a chain-like border. On the first leaf
is the printer’s device, a very uncommon one, consisting of two
triangles. On one is the verse (Psalm xxxvii. 16) in black letters on
a white ground, “Melius est modicum iusto super divitias peccatorum
multas.” On the second triangle in white letters on a black ground the
text (Prov. xvi. 32), “Melior est patiens viro forti et qui dominat.”
Thus stopping suddenly, not only in the middle of a verse, but the
middle of a word.
In the centre is his monogram transfixed by an arrow. The presence of
this arrow is very puzzling, for it also plays an important part in the
device of Richard Faques, William’s successor. The early printers were
very fond, where possible, of introducing punning allusions into their
devices, and this arrow may have some connexion with the name Faques.
Of the _Psalter_ some six copies are known, and one printed upon vellum
is in the library of Emmanuel College.
The _Statutes_, of which only the British Museum copy is known, has a
fairly full colophon, “Here endeth the statutes holden at Westmestyr
the xxv day of Janiuere in ye xix yere of ye moste nobyll reigne
of kynge Henry the VII. Enprynted in London within Seynt Helens be
Guillam Faques ye kyng Prynter.” St Helens was in Bishopsgate Ward. Two
other books with Faques’ name are known, an edition of the _Vulgaria
Terentii_, and the homily of Origen, _De beata Maria Magdalena_. Both
these little books are without date and both are stated to have been
printed in Abchurch Lane. Two copies are known of the Origen, of the
_Vulgaria_ the only known copy is in the library of Corpus Christi
College, Cambridge. These books are curious in having the top part of
the title cut in wood, a peculiarity which Pynson copied immediately
afterwards, perhaps employing the same woodcutter.
William Faques no doubt died in 1508 for R. Pynson was appointed King’s
Printer in that year. He was succeeded in business by Richard Faques,
who was presumably a near relation and a foreigner, and we may discard
as a fable the statement made to Ames by “Mr Thomas Wilson of Leeds, in
Yorkshire,” who in a letter 2 April, 1751, informed him that Richard
Fawkes, printer, was second son of John Fawkes, of Farnley Hall, in
the said county, Esq.; and in a pedigree he had of that family he was
called printer, of London.
In 1509 Richard Faques issued the _Salus corporis salus anime_ of
Gulielmus de Saliceto, a book printed with his predecessor’s type
and with the chain ornament, and in 1511 issued with W. de Worde
an edition of the Sarum _Missal_. His device, very well cut, is a
copy of that used by Thielman Kerver, but with some alterations. Two
unicorns standing amid flowers and foliage support a shield hung from
a large arrow on which are the initials R.F. and a maiden’s head, in
reference to the sign of the shop where he carried on business, the
Maiden’s Head in St Paul’s Churchyard. Below on a ribbon his name is
cut, Richard Faques. In 1521 when we next find a dated book he had
removed to another shop in the churchyard with the sign of the A. B.
C. He had also made a change in his device, anglicising his name by
cutting out the “ques” of Faques and inserting “kes” in its place in
type. It is interesting to notice that in all the five dated books
which he issued he made a change in the spelling of his name, each time
making it more English. In 1509 it was Fax, in 1511 Faques, in 1521
Fakes, in 1523 Faukes, and in 1530 Fawkes. In 1523 besides his shop
in St Paul’s Churchyard he had a dwelling-house, where probably he
printed, in Durham Rents, in the Strand. In the assessment of Aliens
for the subsidy of 1524 as printed by the Huguenot Society a Richard
Far is given in the Strand, and I think it is quite likely that Far is
a misreading for Fax. A good deal of the Strand was in Westminster,
and in the Westminster denization roll of 1544 is one Amelyne Faxe,
widow, aged 70 years, in England 55 years. “Hath the Kinge’s Magestie’s
proteccion of his grace gyft to Richard Faxe her husbond, late
deceased, to remayn and dwell within this realm, but her landlorde will
not suffre her to dwell in house.”
The Richard Fawkes here mentioned, if he was the same as the printer,
died in 1538 and was buried in the parish of St Martin in the Fields.
The last book issued by R. Faques was the _Mirrour of Our Lady_ of
1530 printed at the desire and instance of the abbess and general
confessor of the Monastery of Syon. It is a beautiful volume with
several woodcuts, one of them signed E. G. similar to one in a Pynson
book, and a number of curious initial letters. A certain Michael Fawkes
was joined with Robert Copland in 1534-5 in printing an edition of
the _Tree and_ XII _frutes of the holy goost_, and also printed the
_Consolation of timorouse and fearfull consciencys_ of which there is a
copy in the British Museum, but beyond this nothing is known of him.
Robert Redman began to print in the year 1523, his first book, of
which there is a copy in the Cambridge University Library, being an
edition of Fitzherbert’s _Diversite de courtz_. His next dated book,
an edition of the _Magna Charta_, was issued in 1525, and in this his
address is given at the sign of the George in St Clement’s parish,
elsewhere described as just outside Temple Bar. Considering the custom
of printers in successively occupying the same houses, it is probable
that this is the same printing-office as that used first by Pynson and
then by Julian Notary. Now at this time Pynson was at work close by on
the other side of Temple Bar and his sign was also the George, and when
Redman not only used his sign but began to issue editions of the books
he had been accustomed to print, we can understand the older printer
becoming very indignant. The publication of an edition of Littleton’s
_Tenures_ by Redman apparently brought matters to a crisis, and Pynson
in his edition of the same book issued in 1525 gave expression to
his feelings in a somewhat strongly worded “letter to the reader.”
In it he points out how much more correct and well printed his work
is as compared with that of Robert Redman, or more properly Rudeman,
for among a thousand it would be hard to find one more unskilled. He
wonders how he can call himself a printer, unless the devil made him
one when he made the cobbler into a skipper. Formerly the scoundrel
professed himself as skilled a bookseller as ever came from Utopia,
well knowing a thing can be called a book when it has merely the
appearance of one and little else. He finishes up by abusing him for
daring to promise that he could print the laws of England properly, and
asks the reader to judge for himself. To this invective Redman returned
no answer but continued to issue his books as before, and though
Pynson on one or two other occasions repeated his attacks they produced
no effect, unless perhaps the addition to his colophons which Redman
sometimes printed, “Si deus nobiscum quis contra nos.”
It was suggested by Herbert and others that Redman removed into Fleet
Street before April 18, 1527. There certainly is an edition of the
_Modus tenendi unum hundredum_ of that date with a distinct colophon
stating that the book was printed by Redman at the George in St
Dunstan’s parish that is within Temple Bar, outside being St Clement’s
parish. But this date must be a misprint, not only because colophons
of 1528 again give him as living in St Clement’s parish, but also he
could hardly have occupied Pynson’s house while the latter was still at
work. It is a curious point to notice that during the period between
1528 and 1530 Redman gives no address in his books. Immediately on
Pynson’s death, however, at the beginning of 1530 Redman not only moved
into his house, but took over part of his material, and for the future
made use of one or other of his old rival’s devices. Previous to this
he had no distinctive device, but made use of some small cuts, one of
the Infant Christ seated, another of St George, and a third of the
Trinity. He used in all, three of Pynson’s devices, the original black
block with the white monogram with which Pynson had first started, a
rarer small metal device, not often used, which has a pierced ribbon at
the bottom in which the printer’s name could be inserted in type, and
the large late wood-block. On March 23, 1530, he issued the first book
from his new address, an edition of the _Natura Brevium_. The book
is dated March 23, 1529, but this must of course mean 1530, and shows
that at any rate as regards law-books Redman began his year on March
25. To law-books Redman mainly confined his attention, and the books
in other classes which he issued are not as a rule of much interest.
He appears not to have had much initiative, but contented himself with
reprinting popular books. In 1533 this practice led him into trouble,
for in February of that year he was bound over in the sum of 500 marks
not to sell the book called ‘_The division of the Spiritualty and the
Temporalty_’ nor any other book privileged by the King. The printing of
this book had been granted to Berthelet, who as King’s Printer would
be in a position to enforce his rights. It was of this book that More
wrote in his _Apology_, “And in this poynt they lay for a sample the
goodlye and godlye, milde and gentle fashion used by him, whosoever
he was, that now lately wrote the booke of the division betwene the
temporaltie and the spiritualtie, which charitable mild manner they say
that if I had used, my woorkes would have been read both of many moe,
and with much better will.” The authorship though unknown to More is
generally ascribed to Christopher St Germain.
Among the more interesting books printed by Redman may be mentioned
editions of the _Life of Christ_, _The Frute of Redempcion_, _The
Pomander of Prayer_, Fewterer’s _Myrrour of Christes Passion_ written
in 1533 and printed the year after, and Whitford’s _Dayly Exercise_ in
which he complains, like Caxton, that having been asked to write out
his book over and over again he had thought better to print it and
thus save himself so much labour.
A very curious border piece was sometimes used by Redman, as for
instance in the English translation of Lyndewode’s _Constitutions_ of
1534 and the _Book of Justices of Peas_, which contains in the lower
margin the initials I. N. and I. M. Who these initials refer to I have
not been able to discover, but the design of the border was popular and
was used by Pynson and at Antwerp by Michael Hillenius, while it is
also found in some of Tindale’s books. It may have been engraved for
some stationer and afterwards obtained by Redman. The last important
work on which Redman was engaged was a folio edition of the _Bible_,
which he printed in partnership with Thomas Petyt for Berthelet.
Redman died in 1540 between October 21, the date of his will, and
November 4, when it was proved. He left his property to be divided
into three parts. The first for bequests and funeral expenses, the
second to his wife, and the third to his children. One of his executors
was his son-in-law Henry Smith, a stationer and printer of law-books
who lived at the sign of the Trinity, without Temple Bar, in St
Clement’s parish, perhaps the very house which had once been in the
occupation of Redman, who had used a device of the Trinity as one of
his early marks. Redman’s wife Elizabeth, whose maiden name had been
Pickering, continued to carry on the business by herself for a short
while, but retired on her remarriage with Ralph Cholmondeley, when the
printing-office and its effects passed to William Middleton.
[Illustration: TITLE-PAGE TO R. REDMAN’S EDITION OF LYNDEWODE’S
‘CONSTITUTIONS’ OF 1534.]
A certain John Redman, born in 1508 and who was in business as a
stationer at least as early as 1530, may have been a relation, though
there is no direct proof. He printed at Southwark a small work of
Cicero for Robert Redman which lends some probability to the theory,
and on Robert’s death in 1540 he appears to have moved to London to a
shop in Paternoster Row with the sign of Our Lady of Pity.
Thomas Berthelet, Pynson’s successor as King’s Printer, seems to have
been at one time in his employment as apprentice or assistant, and may
most probably be identical with the Thomas Bercula or Berclaeus who
speaks of himself as the printer in several books issued by Pynson. The
earliest in which this name appears is an edition of the _Vulgaria_
of Whitinton issued in 1520, and after the editor’s preface is a
short address to the reader by Thomas Bercula Typographus. There is
no definite statement to connect Bercula and Berthelet and yet it is
hard to see who else the name could apply to. Berthelet may have come
into the business to take the place of Pynson’s son Richard who had
died, but it is curious that there is no reference to him in Pynson’s
will. In 1524 Berthelet married his first wife, for it seems most
probable that he is the person referred to in the following entry in
the register of marriage licences granted by the Bishop of London,
“1524 August 23 Thomas Barthelett of St Dunstan in the West and Agnes
Langwyth, widow, at St Bride’s, Fleet Street.” In 1528 he started
business on his own account, his first book being Thomas Paynell’s
translation of the _Regimen sanitatis Salerni_: ‘This boke techying
al people to governe them in helthe.’ The colophon runs “Imprinted
in London in Flete Strete in the House of Thomas Berthelet nere to
ye cundite at ye signe of Lucrece. Anno domini 1528, mense Augusto.”
Another work of Paynell’s, entitled _The Assault and Conquest of
Heaven_, was issued in 1529. Berthelet’s shop must have been further
east than Pynson’s and close by Wynkyn de Worde’s, though it is
impossible to say on which side of Fleet Street it stood. Two other
early books often quoted as earlier than 1530 may be noted here. One is
a work by Wakefield on the divorce controversy, quoted by Wood in the
_Athenae Oxonienses_ and dated by him 1528, the other is an edition of
the _Statutes_, the first book of Berthelet’s given by Herbert and said
to be dated 1529. The first of these, of which there is a copy in the
Bodleian, is without date, but from the subject-matter cannot be before
1533 and from the fact that the printer is styled King’s Printer could
not be earlier than 1530. For this latter reason also the _Statutes_
of 1529 must be non-existent. One or two books, such as Erasmus on the
Lord’s Prayer, in which he does not style himself King’s Printer, may
perhaps be assigned to before 1530.
On February 15, 1530, immediately after Pynson’s death, Berthelet was
appointed Printer to the King with an annuity of four pounds. Just
a few days before he had issued an edition of Paynell’s translation
of the _Regimen sanitatis Salerni_ which is very interesting as
illustrating a point I have several times referred to. The book is
dated February, 1530, and Berthelet is not spoken of as King’s Printer,
a fact he emphasized very particularly as soon as he had risen to
that position. We may conclude therefore that in this colophon
February 1530 does not mean February 1531 and that therefore Berthelet
calculated his year as beginning on January 1.
After the Royal appointment Berthelet’s press started on an active
career, and the first book issued, naturally one on the political
question then engaging the attention of Europe, was an important work
on the subject of the royal divorce. This was the first edition, in
Latin, of the _Determinations of the most famous Universities_, written
and collected for the purpose of strengthening the King’s position.
It was issued in April and an English translation appeared in the
following November. In June two proclamations were issued, one for the
punishing of “vagabondes and sturdy beggars,” the other for “dampning”
erroneous books and heresies, and prohibiting the translation of
Scripture. The first of these is printed on one sheet of paper, the
second on a sheet and a half, and the printer was paid for 1600 of the
two £8. 6_s._ 8_d._, that is, one penny each for the single sheet and
a penny halfpenny for the sheet and a half. In each penny the cost of
the paper represented one-fifth, for “paper royall” which was then used
for printing cost six and eightpence a ream, the remaining four-fifths
representing all the cost of printing and the profit.
The number of proclamations printed by Berthelet now in existence is
very large, but nothing to compare with the number which he must really
have printed. Looking at such documents as his three year’s accounts
which have been preserved, and casual entries in records, it is clear
that not a tithe is represented by existing specimens, though we are
more lucky in his case than in Pynson’s, almost every one of whose
productions in this class has been destroyed.
In 1531 Berthelet issued the first edition of Sir Thomas Elyot’s _Book
named the Governour_, a work he frequently reprinted, and he seems to
have published all Elyot’s works, which with their various editions
amount to a considerable number. In 1533 he issued the _Dialogue
betwixte two englyshe men, wherof one was called Salem and the other
Bizance_. This work written by Christopher St Germain was an answer to
Sir Thomas More’s _Apology_, which in its turn was an attack upon St
Germain’s _Division of the Spiritualty and Temporalty_.
More’s answer to the first mentioned book was printed by William
Rastell in the same year and entitled _The Debellacyon of Salem and
Bizance_.
Among the many beautiful borders which Berthelet used for his books
there is one about which a word of warning should be said. It has
engraved upon it the date 1534, and as it was in use for several years
it has given rise to great confusion in the dating of books.
In 1537 was issued the celebrated _Institution of a Christian Man_,
called the Bishops’ Book in contradistinction to the _Necessary
Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man_, or King’s book, issued
in 1543. Both are versions of the same work, but the first has a
Preface of the Prelates to Henry VIII, the second has an introduction
by the King.
In 1542 Sir Thomas Elyot published his Latin dictionary, and he
appears to have issued or intended to issue a copy on vellum, for in
the Bodleian are five leaves so printed, consisting of the title, the
prologue to Henry VIII in English, an address to the reader in Latin,
and the table of errata. In 1542 he printed another book upon vellum,
Lily’s _Introduction of the Eight Parts of Speech_.
In 1540 a work by Nicholas Borbonius was issued at Basle in which there
is a Latin poem addressed by the learned author to Berthelet and worded
in a most laudatory style. There is no doubt that Berthelet’s printing
and beautiful type were alone in England able to rival the work of the
foreign printers.
On the accession of Edward VI in 1547, Berthelet lost his position
as King’s Printer, and a new one, Richard Grafton, was appointed, a
custom now for the first time introduced, as hitherto the appointment
had been for life. For the succeeding eight years of his life we lose
the familiar “Regius Impressor” of his colophons, and this helps in a
small degree in the dating of undated books. He seems, however, to have
become much less active after the loss of his privilege and probably
left much of the printing business in the hands of his nephew Thomas
Powell, who succeeded him, and his servants. The various purchases of
land which he made from time to time point to his having built up a
considerable fortune, and apart from his purchases in or about London
he had estates in Hereford.
Besides being printer to Henry VIII Berthelet was also the Royal
bookbinder, and it is hard to speak too highly of his skill and taste
in this direction. The beauty of the Italian bindings seems to have
greatly struck his fancy and it is supposed that he brought over some
workmen from Venice both to work for him and to teach his own men. In
his accounts rendered to the King, some of which fortunately have
been preserved, he speaks of books decorated in the Venetian manner,
and the tools used on them are direct copies of those used by Aldus
of Venice and other contemporary Italian binders. He made use of
one very distinctive tool, similar to some found on Oriental work,
by means of which the design appears upon the leather plain while
the whole background is gilt. A good deal of the King’s binding was
done in velvet or white leather. To show the relative value of books
and binding take the following entry, “Item delyuered to the kinges
the XXIII day of January [1542] a booke of the psalter in Englishe
and Latyne, the price VIII_d._, and a booke entitled Enarracones
Evangeliorum Dominicalium, the price XII_d._ and for the gorgious
byndyng of them backe to backe IIII_s._ IV_d._” Or again, “Item
delyuered unto the kinges highnes the XV day of January [1542] a New
Testament in Latyne and a Psalter Englishe and Latyne bounde backe
to backe in white leather, gorgiously gilted on the leather, the
bookes came to IIs. the byndynge and arabaske drawyng in golde on the
transfile IIII_s._”
It is worth noticing, however, that such tenants of Berthelet as were
bookbinders were all Frenchmen.
The date of Berthelet’s death has been only surmised and never given
correctly by bibliographers. Fortunately he held land from the King,
so that at his death an inquest was held by the escheator, and full
and interesting details are preserved among the _Inquisitiones post
mortem_. From this source we learn that his death took place on
September 26th, 1555; that Margaret Berthelet was his second wife, and
that his eldest son Edward was born on July 24th, 1553. His will,
made two days before his death, was proved on November 9th, and by it
he left estates to his widow and his two sons Edward and Anthony and
legacies to apprentices, godchildren, and charities. A considerable
bequest also went to his nephew Thomas Powell, presumably his sister’s
son, who succeeded him in business.
We have an account of Berthelet’s funeral, preserved in Henry Machyn’s
diary:
“The sam day at afternone was bered master Barthelet sqwire and prynter
unto Kyng Henry; and was bered with pennon and cote-armur, and IIII
dosen of skochyons, and II whytt branchys and IIII gylt candyllstykes
and mony prestes and clarkes, and mony mornars, and all the craftes of
prynters, boke-sellers, and all stassyoners.”
Among all the early presses that of Berthelet was preeminent for
good workmanship. Though he avoided as far as possible the use of
illustrations, all the ornamentation he used was in good taste, and in
beauty and variety of type he surpassed all printers of the century.
John Rastell stands quite apart from other early English printers.
Nearly all we know about them comes from the books they printed while
we know little or nothing about their lives. In the case of Rastell
we know a good deal about his career, but little about his books.
He is said to have been born in London, and was educated at Oxford,
afterwards entering Lincoln’s Inn and practising the law, in which he
was very successful. He must have been of considerable social position,
for he married Elizabeth More, the sister of Sir Thomas More. Some
time before 1516 he printed an edition of the _Liber Assisarum_, in
which he refers to the projected publication of Fitzherbert’s _Great
Abridgement_, which appeared in three majestic volumes in that year.
About 1520 he moved his printing establishment to a house, “next Paul’s
gate,” which he named the Mermaid, the same sign that he had previously
used elsewhere, and a lawsuit which took place about 1534 in connexion
with this house throws considerable light on the printer’s habits. He
appears to have left all practical work to his assistants, going off
to his house in the country for months at a time and subletting part
of the printing-office to other tenants, among whom were successively
William Bonham, John Heron, Thomas Kele, and John Gough, all of them
stationers.
Up to the year 1526 Rastell had issued only four dated books, all
connected with the law, but in that year he started out in an entirely
new style and published two extraordinary books, _The merry jests of
the widow Edith_, and the _Hundred mery tales_, neither such as we
should have expected from so grave a printer. About 1529 appeared his
_Pastime of People_, remarkable for a number of large, clumsy woodcuts.
Much has been written about this book and its variations, and it is
generally asserted that the British Museum copy is the only perfect one
known. There is, however, a very fine and perfect copy in a private
library in this country. Another curious book he issued is Lucian’s
_Necromantia_, of which there is a copy at Shirburn Castle.
In 1530 Rastell was drawn into the religious controversies then
becoming violent, and wrote and printed his _New Boke of Purgatory_
in defence of the Romish doctrine. This was answered by John Fryth in
his _Disputation of Purgatory_. Several controversial pamphlets were
written by the two opponents with the result that Rastell became a
convert to the Protestant religion. This change appears to have been a
cause of trouble to Rastell, who writing to Cromwell in 1536 laments
the loss of both business and friends. His law earnings, which had
been over twenty nobles a term, had fallen to under forty shillings
a year and his printing business had fallen off proportionately, and
there is no book definitely known to exist dated later than 1530. While
most of Rastell’s books are legal in character, he is also the printer
of several curious interludes or plays such as the _Interlude of the
four elements_, the _Interlude of women_, _Play concerning Lucretia_,
Skelton’s _Magnificence_, Heywood’s _Gentleness and Nobility_. The
reason for his printing these is not far to seek. He was extremely fond
of giving performances of plays at his house and the records have been
preserved of a curious lawsuit brought against him by a theatrical
costumier on account of dresses supplied. Rastell in 1536 freely
expressed his opinions against the paying of tithes, and perhaps on
this account or some other not now known was thrown into prison, where
he shortly after died. His will dated April 20 and proved October 12
is a rather remarkable document. He had but little to leave. His house
which had been made over to his wife on their marriage he bequeaths to
her. To his eldest son William only forty shillings, and to his other
son John a small annuity he had been left by his grandmother. Other
small sums were left to Cromwell and the Lord Chancellor, and for one
of his two executors he nominated the King himself, who very naturally
renounced probate.
John Rastell’s son William was born about 1508 and went to Oxford
in 1525, where though according to Wood he studied diligently he
took no degree. His first book, issued in 1530, while his father was
still printing, was an edition of Caesar’s _Commentaries_ in Latin
and English. His books, like his father’s, may be divided into three
distinct classes, legal treatises, controversial works mostly by More,
and plays and interludes. Amongst the latter are Heywood’s _Play of
Love_, _The Pardoner and the Friar_, the _Play of the Weather_, and
_Johan Johan the husband and Tib the wife_, copies of them all being in
the library of Magdalene College, Cambridge. Another play, Medwall’s
_Interlude of Nature_, is in the British Museum. While still a printer
he appears to have studied law, having been admitted a student in
1532, while he was called to the bar in 1539, where he practised with
considerable success. Unlike his father he remained through life a
staunch Catholic, and when Edward VI succeeded to the throne, he with
many others of his faith sought refuge abroad. He lived in Louvain
until Mary came to the throne when he returned to England and was
rapidly advanced in his profession, until in 1558 he was made a judge
in the Queen’s Bench, a position which he retained until 1563. Shortly
afterwards he returned to Louvain, where he died on August 27, 1565.
After he had given up printing on his own account William Rastell
compiled and edited a considerable number of important law-books which
continued to be reprinted for a long period. But the work by which he
is best known is the edition of the complete works of his uncle Sir
Thomas More, published in two volumes folio in 1557 by Richard Tottell.
LECTURE VII.
THE STATIONERS OF LONDON AND THE FOREIGN TRADE.
The history of the stationers and the book-trade in England during
the period between 1500 and 1535 is very obscure and information
is difficult to obtain. That the number of stationers was very
considerable we know from incidental references, and though references
are fairly numerous it is almost impossible in the present state of
our knowledge to combine isolated facts into any connected story. One
point is quite clear, and every new discovery only tends to emphasize
it, and that is that the book-trade with the Continent and the dealings
of foreign stationers in this country were infinitely more extensive
and important than is usually supposed. While other countries had a
perfectly adequate supply of printers and stationers of their own and
imported little from their neighbours and practically nothing from
England, here the reverse was the case. In the time of Richard III
there were but four printers in England, one in Westminster, one in
London, one in Oxford, and one in St Alban’s, so that we can quite
understand the Act of 1484, which was so strong an encouragement
to foreigners to trade here in books, and the resulting influx of
aliens. There were hardly any restrictions upon foreign trade and
there was a ready market for foreign printed books, so that it is not
surprising that the more important foreign publishers dealt largely
with this country. They appear to have set up stalls and shops in the
neighbourhood of St Paul’s, where probably the Company of Stationers
would not have power to interfere, and to have placed agents in charge
of them. Besides this they sent agents round to the various provincial
fairs, which at that time were the greatest business centres in the
country, with waggon loads of books for sale.
Our sources of information about these stationers are very scattered
and also very inadequate. Chief amongst them are of course the vast
masses of documents, only partially explored, preserved in the Public
Record Office. The list of denizations and the Returns of Aliens
have been printed by the Huguenot Society, and these give a little
information, though unfortunately the business of the person is often
not stated and there is also the further difficulty of his being
entered under his correct surname, a name which in the ordinary course
of business he rarely made use of himself. The names too are most
carelessly spelt and entered. One man for instance occurs under the
following names, Frinnorren, Fremorshem, Formishaa, Bringmarshen, and
Vrimors. The lists of denizations are of little use as far as our
present period is concerned, for from 1509 to 1534 only 240 persons are
entered, though in 1535 the large number of 172 was reached owing to
pressure being put upon strangers from the Low Countries. In this total
of 412 only seven are mentioned as having business connected with the
book-trade; in fact in these lists of denizations the occupation of
only about one in twenty-five is mentioned. The only returns of aliens
before 1535 are the imperfect ones in connexion with the subsidies
granted to Henry VIII in 1523-25, and in these the occupations are but
very rarely entered. These returns are therefore useless in giving
information about otherwise unknown stationers; we can only attempt to
trace persons whose names are already known, and this is rendered the
more difficult as people are arranged anyhow, according to the ward
they inhabited, and there is as yet no index to the book.
Taking all persons residing in England connected with the book-trade,
printers, binders, and stationers, from 1476 to 1535, it would not, I
think, be far from the mark to state that two-thirds were aliens.
By the Act of 1484 they were exempted from the restrictions imposed on
other workmen, and they could by residing close to St Paul’s or in the
liberties of St Martin’s or Blackfriars escape from the jurisdiction
of the wardens of the Stationers’ Company or the Lord Mayor. Though
the immigration of foreigners was always encouraged by Government,
it evoked the bitterest hostility from native craftsmen and was the
frequent cause of those fights and squabbles which culminated in the
famous Mayday riots of 1517. As a case in point may be mentioned
the proceedings in the Star Chamber about the end of the fifteenth
century, when Richard Pynson sued Harry Squire and others for
assaulting and attempting to murder him and his servants. He stated
that his assistants were so threatened and assaulted that they had
been compelled to leave, and that consequently his business was at a
standstill. This perhaps may have been the reason for his leaving St
Clement’s parish and settling within the City in 1500.
Many aliens in order to obtain the privileges of a native took out
letters of denization, but these privileges only commenced from the
date of the grant and were not retrospective as in the case of a patent
of naturalization. Letters of denization allowed a man to hold, but
not to inherit lands; nor did they confer any benefit on the children
born previous to the date of the grant. In 1512 an Act was passed for
levying a subsidy, and it was ordained that every alien made a denizen
should be rated like a native, but that aliens not denizened should pay
a double rate. In 1515 this was reversed and denizens again compelled
to pay a double rate.
In 1523 as a set-off for levying a subsidy Henry VIII gave assent to an
Act which ordered that no alien, denizen or not, using any manner of
handicraft within the realm should from henceforth take any apprentice
except he be born under the King’s obedience; that no alien should keep
more than two alien journeymen; and that aliens using handicrafts in
London and two miles round should be under the search and reformation
of the wardens of the handicrafts within the City of London. This Act
seems to have been very laxly enforced, and was practically repeated by
a decree of the Star Chamber in 1528, which contained the additional
clause that no stranger, not being a denizen and who was not a
householder before 15th February 1528, should keep house or shop where
he should exercise any handicraft. Finally, in 1534 the celebrated
Act against foreign printers and binders was passed, whose terms and
effects will be noticed later.
From the earliest times London citizens had been forbidden by their
oath of freedom from taking any foreign born apprentice, and the Act
of 1523 laid a similar prohibition on all aliens, so that the foreign
element was slowly and surely eliminated.
The authorities of the City of London were strongly opposed to
admitting any foreigners to the freedom of the City. In a letter from
Thomas Berthelet to Morisine written in 1540 he writes, “My lorde mayor
told me ... that but one stranger born was made freeman these 40 years.
I fear the answer is somewhat feigned, for instead of one stranger made
freeman this 40 years, there have been six or more. Perhaps they do it
to show that they esteem not the liberty of London so light as to admit
a stranger born so suddenly when the King’s natural subjects must do so
long and painful a service before they can enjoy it.”
The great centre of trade during this period was St Paul’s Churchyard,
and the shops there were of two kinds. There were the substantial
houses round the cathedral, where the printer or stationer could carry
on his business and dwell, but clustered in every direction against
the very walls of the church were booths and sheds and stalls. These
were simply “lock up” shops of one story, many with flat roofs for
people to stand on to view processions, and were used by booksellers
and such printers as had printing-offices elsewhere. In Strype’s life
of Parker we have a description of a shop set up at a later date by Day
the printer, “Whereupon he got framed a neat handsome shop. It was but
little and low and flat-roofed, and leaded like a terrace, railed and
posted, fit for men to stand upon in any triumph or show, but could
not in any wise hurt and deface the same. This cost him forty or fifty
pounds.”
Even the most important printers had stalls before their houses, for
we read in an account of a lawsuit in 1536 resulting from an attack
on some Frenchmen in Fleet Street, that one of them, endeavouring
to escape, concealed himself under the King’s Printer’s (_i.e._
Berthelet’s) stall. Thomas Symonds, a stationer, who was a witness in
a lawsuit in 1514, speaks of himself as standing before his stall at
seven in the morning, not so very early an hour at a period when the
Privy Council assembled at eight.
Though London was the head-quarters of the trade, the stationers did
not confine their attention to the City, but travelled about the
country attending the various fairs, where so far as we can judge from
such few early accounts as are still preserved, a very considerable
portion of their trade was done. Great fairs such as that of Sturbridge
brought booksellers from far and near, and so great was their fame as
a bookselling centre that even at the end of the seventeenth century
the great London dealers sent down vast consignments of books which
were sold by auction by the leading London auctioneers. All the more
important stationers too paid frequent visits to the Continent and
attended the great fair at Frankfurt, the principal opportunity for
seeing all the latest publications and the recognised time and place
for the transaction of business.
In treating of these early stationers I propose first of all to take
those who lived and carried on business solely in London, and then to
pass on to those who traded both in London and on the Continent. Of
very many we know little but the name, and these I can but pass over,
touching only on those who are known as publishers of books, or about
whom we have some definite information.
The first of these is a certain John Boudins, or Baldwin as he called
himself in English, who lived in the parish of St Clement’s, Eastcheap.
We know of him from one book, an edition of the Sarum _Expositio
Hymnorum et Sequentiarum_ which was printed for him at Paris by André
Bocard in 1502, and which is apparently the first edition with the
preface of Badius Ascensius. Boudins died shortly after the publication
of the book, for his will dated October 11, 1501, was proved March 30,
1503. He was a native of the Low Countries.
A certain Andrew Rue, who had succeeded his brother John, who had died
in 1493, was a stationer like his brother in St Paul’s Churchyard. He
died in 1517 leaving legacies to relations in Frankfort and others. To
Thomas Wallis, priest of St Faith’s, he leaves a bound copy of the book
of sermons called _Dormi Secure_, and to David Owen of the same church
a copy of Quentin’s sermons. Two of the executors of his will were John
Reynes and Joyce Pelgrim, both to be noticed shortly.
Richard Nele is mentioned as a stationer in a document of 1525, when he
petitioned to be transferred to the Company of Ironmongers.
John Taverner, another stationer, was paid £4 in 1521 for binding the
books for use in the Chapel Royal. He died in 1531 and his will was
proved in November of that year. In the year following John Sedley,
Warden of the Craft of Stationers, died.
It would be useless here, as well as extremely tedious, to go on
enumerating the names of stationers of whom we know so little, so
I will pass on to some about whom we possess some more definite
information.
Joyce Pelgrim, a native of the Low Countries, was early settled in
London and in 1504 issued the first book specially printed for him, an
edition of the _Ortus Vocabulorum_ printed at Paris by Jean Barbier,
who had himself but lately left England. This book is only known from
some fragments preserved in a binding in Lord Crawford’s library.
Before 1506 he entered into partnership with Henry Jacobi, and the two,
assisted with money by a wealthy merchant, William Bretton, a grocer
and member of the Staple at Calais, issued several books connected with
the service of the Church. The first and most important was an edition
of the _Constitutiones Provinciales_ of William Lindewode, issued some
time after May, 1506. It was printed at Paris by Wolfgang Hopyl in a
most ornate manner and the title-page is one of the most beautiful to
be found in an early book, the combination of small woodcuts, woodcut
borders, printer’s devices, and red and black printing forming a most
rich and harmonious whole. Two service books, a Sarum _Horae_ and a
_Psalterium cum Hymnis_, followed at the beginning of 1507. In 1510 for
the same patron they issued the _Pupilla Oculi_ of Joannes de Burgo and
the _Speculum Spiritualium_ of Richard of Hampole printed by Hopyl, as
well as another _Horae_ printed by Kerver.
On their own account the stationers did little, issuing in 1507 and
1508 three school books. Pelgrim, after the publication of the _Ortus
Vocabulorum_ of 1504 does not seem to have issued any books on his own
account, but he was always connected with William Bretton, and acted
as his agent in 1514. He lived in Paul’s Churchyard at the sign of St
Anne, though nothing is heard of the shop after 1506. It may be that it
was one of the many swept away to make room for the new schools built
by Colet, for we know that the Trinity, where Pelgrim’s partner Jacobi
lived, was close by.
Henry Jacobi, probably a Frenchman, was apparently a much more
important stationer than Pelgrim and some things point to his having
been a citizen of London. He is first mentioned in 1504 as a stationer,
and in 1505, as we learn from a note in a MS. in the British Museum,
he supplied a large number of books to the King. Shortly after this he
joined as a partner with Pelgrim and together they printed books for
William Bretton. In 1509 he appears to have separated from his partner,
for in the colophon of the _Ortus Vocabulorum_ printed by Pynson his
name is found alone. In 1510 he went over to France and his name is
found in the colophons of some small tracts of Savonarola, printed in
Paris in 1510 and 1511 by Badius Ascensius. In 1512 he was back in
London, and issued an edition of the Sarum _Diurnale_ printed for him
at Paris by Hopyl. Francis Byrckman also appears to have been concerned
in the publication of this book for his device is printed at the end.
About this time Jacobi issued a _Legenda Francisci_ printed for him by
Jean Barbier at Paris and a _Regula Benediciti_ printed by W. de Worde.
Soon after 1512 Jacobi migrated to Oxford, where he opened a shop
with his old sign of the Trinity and published there an edition of
the _Formalitates_ of Antonius Sirectus, printed for him in London by
Wynkyn de Worde. A copy of the title-page was found by Mr Proctor in a
binding in New College, Oxford, and a copy of the book itself, minus
the greater part of the title, was subsequently traced in the British
Museum. Jacobi did not long survive his migration to Oxford, but died
there in 1514, and on the 11th December administration of his effects
was granted to William Bretton through his agent Joyce Pelgrim, while
his will was proved the same year in London.
The devices used by Pelgrim and Jacobi were four in number. In the
books printed for W. Bretton a large block containing his coat of arms
is used. After its first appearance a mistake in the heraldry was
discovered and the shield was cut out and a new one inserted in the
block, a very early example of what is technically known as plugging.
It is curious that this device, though a private coat of arms, was
afterwards copied and used as a device by the Paris printer Egidius
Gourmont. The device used by Pelgrim and Jacobi together was a blank
shield on a ribbon with the motto “Nosce teipsum” with their initials
and marks on either side. Jacobi used in the Sirectus a representation
of the Trinity with his mark and name in full below on a ribbon. In the
books printed for them by Hopyl another device of the Trinity is found.
The bindings produced by the Trinity stationers were of two classes.
The folio books were tooled with small dies, the smaller books stamped
with panel stamps. Several copies of the _Lyndewode_ of 1506 are in
existence tooled with identical dies, and one of these copies is lined
with unused sheets of the _Ortus Vocabulorum_ printed for Pelgrim in
1504. The panel stamps all appear to have belonged to Henry Jacobi, for
at present none have been found with Pelgrim’s mark. Like many other
stationers of the time he used the two panels, having on one side a
shield bearing the arms of France and England and supported by a dragon
and greyhound and on the other the Tudor rose between two scrolls,
supported by angels and containing these verses,
Hec rosa virtutis de celo missa sereno
Eternum florens, regia sceptra feret.
Of these he had three series. In the first his initials and mark are
quite plain and simple, just as we find them printed on the title-page
of the _Lyndewode_. In the second series the ornament was a little
more profuse and the mark and initials are omitted under the rose,
leaving the space blank. In the last series the ornamentation is more
complicated and the initials and mark are so much elaborated that the I
of Iacobi looks almost like an A. In conjunction with the second series
of panels a square die containing the figure of a dragon is found which
had belonged to Caxton and must have been obtained from W. de Worde.
Two other panels which belonged to Jacobi are much more foreign in
appearance. On one is a figure of Christ seated on a tomb surrounded
by the emblems of the Passion, on the other Our Lady of Pity. Round
both runs a legend, and at the end of the second the binder’s initials,
H.I., occur joined by a knot.
The example of this binding in the Bodleian, very much rubbed and worn,
is on some small tracts by Savonarola, two of which were printed for
Jacobi in 1510. The binding has on the end fly-leaf an inscription
saying that the book was bought by John Yonge, “Aconensis,” in 1510,
and this must be after September 10 of that year, when Yonge was
appointed Master of St Thomas of Acres. If Jacobi really was in Paris
in 1510 and 1511, this book must have been bound there, and perhaps
these two small panels were cut abroad for the purpose of stamping
these small volumes for which his other panels would have been too
large.
Though Jacobi died in 1514 and Pelgrim is not mentioned after this
date, the business at the sign of the Trinity still continued. This we
know from a unique but unfortunately imperfect book in the Bodleian. It
is called “_Donate and accidence for children enprynted at Parys. Anno
Domini 1515._” The imprint on the title states that it was to be sold
at Paris at the sign of the Striped Ass by Philippus de Couvelance and
in St Paul’s Churchyard at the sign of St Katherine or the Trinity. The
last leaf which might have contained a colophon is wanting. This Philip
de Couvelance was apparently the son of Jean de Cowlance, whose device
was the striped ass (asinus riguatus) and who was the same person as
Joannes Confluentinus or Jean de Coblentz, whose name occurs frequently
in the prefaces of early books.
Birckman perhaps may have had something to do with the sign of the
Trinity, for he seems to have been in partnership with Jacobi in
1512 and used the device of the Trinity on some of the service books
of English use which he issued. However by 1518 the shop was in the
occupation of Henry Pepwell, who has been noticed before.
The sign of the “striped ass” commemorates the exhibition of a zebra,
the first seen in France, which was shown at the Saint-Germain fair
towards the close of the fifteenth century.
John Reynes, in many ways the best known of these early stationers, was
a native of Wageningen in Gueldres and took out letters of denization
on June 7, 1510. Though described in the Subsidy rolls of 1523 as a
stationer, he appears to have undertaken other kinds of business, for
in 1524 we find him supplying cloth and cotton at the funeral of Sir
Thomas Lovell. In 1527 he began his business as publisher by issuing
a magnificent edition of Higden’s _Polycronicon_, printed for him at
Southwark by Peter Treveris, which is remarkable for the excellence of
the illustrations. Very fortunately too his mark is engraved at the
foot of the title-page and thus gives us the only clue by which we
can identify his large series of stamped bindings. In this same year,
Reynes in partnership with W. de Worde and Ludovicus Suethon, which
name is I believe a misspelling for Sutton, commissioned a magnificent
edition of the Sarum _Gradual_, which was printed for them at Paris by
Nicolas Prevost, and of which the fine copy, formerly Gough’s, is in
the Bodleian. In 1530 another service book was printed for him abroad,
an edition of the _Psalterium cum Hymnis_ for the use of Sarum and
York. Ten years later he issued an _Introductorie for to lerne to rede
Frenche_ written by Giles Duwes, sometime librarian to Henry VIII, and
Tutor of the French language to the Princess Mary. The latest book
which Reynes issued was a Sarum _Processional_ which was printed for
him at Antwerp by the widow of Christopher van Ruremond.
Reynes was certainly in his time the most important stationer of
foreign birth settled in England, and his goods valued in 1523 at
£40. 3_s._ 4_d._ had risen in 1541 and 1544 to £100. The only other
foreigner of like importance was Arnold Birckman, who, however, was not
settled in this country, but only paid it passing visits and carried on
business by an agent.
Reynes’s chief fame now, however, rests on his bindings, which are the
most frequently found and best known amongst all the early English
series. The commonest are those ornamented with a broad roll containing
his mark and figures of a hound, a falcon, and a bee, with sprays of
foliage and flowers. He had also several series of panels. One pair
is particularly good. The first represents the baptism of Christ,
who stands in the stream while St John, kneeling, pours the water
on His head. The other is a spirited picture of St George and the
dragon fighting within an enclosure, round which run various animals
and huntsmen. Below are the initials I. R. joined by a knot which
must stand for John Reynes, as I have found these two panels used in
conjunction with his roll on a binding in the library of St John’s
College, Oxford.
A more ambitious panel contains what is called the “Arma Redemptoris
Mundi,” the emblems of the Passion displayed heraldically upon a
shield with two unicorns as supporters, and two small shields with
Reynes’s mark and initials. The companion panel is divided into two
parts, one containing the shield with the arms of England and France
supported by the dragon and greyhound, the other the Tudor rose with
the scrolls bearing the usual verses and supported by angels. These
contain, besides Reynes’s initials and mark, a shield with the arms
of the City of London, so that when these were cut he was probably a
freeman.
The last pair, which are late in style and were probably only made for
him near the end of his career, contain busts of warriors in medallions
between renaissance pillars, connected by ornamental arches, and the
whole enclosed within an ornamental border. In the centre between the
medallions is the binder’s mark.
Reynes died at the beginning of 1544 and his will, made April 8th,
1542, was proved on February 26th. It is a long document and contains
many points of interest. His two apprentices, Thomas Holwarde and
Edward Sutton, are to receive on coming out of their apprenticeship
one hundred shillingsworth of books to be valued according to the way
that Arnold and John Birckman sell them to the booksellers. Edward
Wright and Robert Holder, his assistants, are left ten pounds in books
on condition that they work for Lucy Reynes, the widow, for two years
and assist her to realise the stock. Money is left to the poor and for
a breakfast to the stationers who come to the funeral, and the residue
to the widow Lucy Reynes. It is clear from the fact that Reynes had
English apprentices, and from the way he speaks of the stationers, that
he had been made a freeman and member of the Company in spite of his
foreign birth.
Lucy Reynes did not long survive her husband, for her will, dated April
28, 1548, was proved October 25, 1549. She, like her husband, requested
to be buried in the Pardon Churchyard near St Paul’s.
Another stationer and binder whose work can fortunately be identified
is Thomas Symonds, a stationer of St Paul’s Churchyard. His name first
occurs in 1514 when he was a witness in a lawsuit quoted by Foxe in his
_Book of Martyrs_. He was employed by the officials of London Bridge,
and in their accounts for 1525-6 is the entry “paid to Thomas Symonds
for binding in boards 17 quires in parchment containing 17 accounts of
the bridge works, 6_s._” This original binding is still preserved and
is ornamented with a broad roll containing the binder’s mark, a castle
and portcullis, a fleur-de-lys, a unicorn, a rose, a pomegranate and
the royal arms.
Lewis Sutton was apparently a very important stationer, and must I
think be identified with the Ludovicus Suethon who in partnership with
John Reynes and W. de Worde commissioned the great Sarum _Gradual_
printed for them at Paris by Prevost in 1527. In foreign printed books
mistakes in names are not uncommon, and the rare Christian name Lewis
combined with two such similar sounding names as Suethon and Sutton,
renders the suggestion probable. In 1526 he and Henry Pepwell were the
two wardens of the Company of Stationers, which shows that he must
have held a high position in the trade. In 1534-5 he was defendant
along with Richard Draper, warden of the Goldsmiths, in an action
brought by John Gough and John Rastell the printer concerning the
latter’s printing-office. A later notice of him occurs in the letters
and papers of Henry VIII under the date of August 12, 1539. “Receipt
by Lewys Sutton, bookbinder of London, of 5 marks from William Hatton
of Haldenby for lands in Northamptonshire sold to him.” The will of
a Lewis Sutton described as belonging to the parish of St Michael le
Querne, London, and dated 1541, is amongst those preserved in the
Prerogative Court of Canterbury, and is probably that of the stationer.
There was another Sutton named Nicholas who was a stationer in London
and died shortly before 1531, who lived in St Paul’s Churchyard and was
probably related to the stationers named Toy.
A stamped binding is known having upon it the initials N. S. followed
by a tun, apparently a rebus on the name N. Sutton, and may very likely
be his work.
Another person who ought to be mentioned, though neither printer nor
stationer, is William Marshall, quoted by many writers as both. He was
strongly interested in the Reformation, and spent both time and money
in procuring the printing of books in support of the movement. He was
a friend of Cromwell, who assisted him with money, and there are in
the State papers many interesting letters from the one to the other
relating to the publication of such works as the _Gift of Constantine_
printed by Godfray, and _Erasmus on the Creed_ by Redman, issued in
1534; _De veteri et novo Deo_, printed by Byddell, and the _Defence of
Peace_ by Wyer, both of 1535. Of this latter book he sent twenty-four
copies to the monks of the Charterhouse, which they, under the order
of their superior, returned, with the exception of one copy which they
burnt. Two books, his _Pictures and Ymages_ and _The Chrysten Bysshop
and Counterfayte Bysshop_, were apparently printed by Gough, though
according to Herbert the latter book has a distinct colophon “Emprynted
by Wyllyam Marshall.” The most beautiful book printed for him was
the reformed _Prymer_ of 1535, the work of John Byddell. It is much
superior to the usual work of the time, and at least three copies are
known printed upon vellum. Like William Bretton, Marshall has printed
at the end of some of the books he had commissioned a large woodcut
representing his coat of arms.
John Growte, stationer and bookbinder, lived in the Blackfriars next
the church door. In 1532 and 1533 he commissioned the widow of Thielman
Kerver to print for him two editions of the Sarum _Horae_, which were
followed by another in 1534. Growte is identical with the mythical
Rouen stationer Jean Groyat, an error which has arisen through the
misreading of a colophon. An edition of the _Horae_ was printed in 1536
at Rouen “per Nicolaum le Roux pro Johanne groyat et Johanne marchant
in parochia sancti Macuti ad signum duarum unicornium manente.” A hasty
glance has assured someone that Groyat and Marchant were partners
living at the sign of the two unicorns, overlooking the fact that the
last word used in the colophon “manente” must apply to Marchant alone.
Groyat may very well be the proper spelling of Growte’s name, for he
was a foreigner, as we know from his being entered in the Returns of
Aliens.
During the period of which we are now treating the presses of Paris
and Rouen were actively at work producing books intended for the London
market. At Paris, Hopyl, Kerver, Petit, Chevallon, Hardouyn, Prevost,
Pigouchet, Higman, Rembolt, in fact all the best known printers and
stationers were thus employed. At Rouen we find Morin, Caillard,
Olivier, Violette, Bernard, Cousin, Richard, and others, and when we
consider that many printed twenty or thirty different editions, we can
arrive at some idea of the magnitude of the trade. The most important
of the Paris printers was Hopyl; his _Lyndewode_, his Sarum _Missals_,
and above all his _Antiphoner_, are splendid specimens of work which
no English printer of the time could have attempted to rival. Prevost
among other books is represented by a magnificent _Gradual_. Chevallon
issued the great Sarum _Breviary_ of 1531. Pigouchet and Kerver
continued the work they had done so well in the previous century, and
issued many editions of the Sarum _Horae_, while Higman and Rembolt
printed _Missals_.
Among the Rouen printers Martin Morin undoubtedly took the leading
position for beautiful work. He and Olivier produced a large number
of Sarum _Missals_ remarkable for their fine printing. With regard
to these missals there is one point to which I should like to draw
attention. Both Morin and Olivier possessed a very large initial M
for the title Missale, round the middle stroke of which their name
is engraved, Morin or Holivier. Now these letters being practically
indestructible, passed to their successors and were still used. This
at any rate in the case of Olivier has given rise to considerable
confusion, for he is quoted as the printer of books, as for instance
the York _Missal_ of 1530, which were issued long after he was dead.
Among other printers and stationers connected with the English trade
may be mentioned Macé, Bernard, Cousin, Violette, and Caillard.
Almost the entire French output consisted of liturgical books. Verard
however issued three--well, British--books, for two were in Scottish,
and we have it on Pynson’s authority that no one could understand them.
The third was Barclay’s translation of Gringore’s _Castle of Labour_,
printed when Barclay was himself in Paris about 1503.
Besides these a few grammatical tracts were issued, Violette issued an
English Donatus and Jacques Cousin a Stanbridge at Rouen.
The series of beautiful liturgical books which came from the presses
of Paris and Rouen afford us information also about many visiting
foreign stationers. The _Missal_ issued in 1500 by Jean du Pré, but
generally ascribed through a misreading of the colophon to 1502,
speaks of several new prayers just brought over from England by Jean
Antoine the stationer. A Terence of 1504, of which the only copy known
is in the University Library (picked up from a small old-book shop in
Liverpool), and a Sarum _Breviary_ of 1507 were printed for several
stationers living in London, one of whom was a certain Michael Morin,
no doubt a relative of the famous Rouen printer Martin Morin. Another
stationer whose name is found in the Terence is John Brachius, but
his name occurs nowhere else, and I have not been able to find out
anything about him. Guillaume Candos, at whose cost a Sarum _Missal_
was printed in 1509 by Pierre Violette, was apparently in England
for a time. Another Sarum _Missal_ quoted by Herbert, of which I can
trace no copy, was printed for W. de Worde and Michael de Paule, both
living in London. Jean Richard of Rouen, who printed so many fine Sarum
service books, also came over and was one of the parties in a lawsuit
in England at the beginning of the century. From another lawsuit we
find that Frederick Egmont, an important stationer of London in the
fifteenth century, was still in England, after 1500. I think it will be
found, as more documents come to light, that all the principal foreign
stationers paid visits to this country or kept agents in London. In
very many foreign printed service books we find the expression “to
be bought of the booksellers in Paul’s Churchyard.” I do not know
whether that is the equivalent of the modern “to be obtained of all
booksellers” or whether it only refers to a small clique of foreign
stationers.
Of all the foreign stationers who traded in this country none was more
important than Francis Regnault. He was the son of an earlier Francis
Regnault, and when a young man started as a stationer in London towards
the end of the fifteenth century. Though he returned to Paris about
1496 he still continued to keep a shop in London and probably paid
frequent visits to this country. When on the death of his father,
about 1518, he succeeded to the great printing business, his English
sympathies at once showed themselves, and from that time onward he
poured out a continuous flood of books for the English market. Between
the years 1519 and 1535 by far the larger portion of the service
books produced for England came from his presses. The Act of 1534, and
perhaps other causes, seem to have hampered his business to a serious
degree and in 1536 he addressed a letter to Cromwell on the subject.
The writer states that he lived in London forty years ago and since
returned to Paris and continued his trade as bookseller in London,
and likewise printed missals, breviaries, and Hours of the use of
Sarum and other books. That he has entertained at his house in Paris
honourable people of London and other towns of England. He understands
that the English booksellers wish to prevent him printing such books
and to confiscate what he has already printed, though he has never been
forbidden to do so, but his books well received. He asks permission to
continue to sell the said “usaiges” and other books in London and the
neighbourhood, and asks Cromwell to speak on his behalf to the King,
the chancellor and others. He adds that if any faults have been found
in his books he will amend them. Considering the date of this letter,
it seems much more probable that his troubles were caused not so much
by the jealousy of the English booksellers as by the falling off in the
demand for the class of books he produced.
Besides printing on his own account, Regnault printed also for English
printers. In 1534 he printed for Berthelet the _Interpretatio Psalmorum
Omnium_ of Joannes Campensis, and in 1538 an edition of the English
_New Testament_ for Grafton and Whitchurch, edited by Coverdale, and
intended to supersede the incorrect version printed shortly before at
Southwark by James Nicholson.
One of the latest important undertakings on which Regnault was
engaged was a folio edition of the English Bible printed for Grafton
and Whitchurch and overseen by Coverdale. The work was progressing
favourably when pressure was brought to bear upon the French
authorities, and the press, type, and the sheets already printed were
seized, most of the printed matter being burnt. By the influence of
Cromwell the type seems to have been recovered and conveyed to London,
where the work was finished in 1539. The usual account speaks of the
printers and presses being brought over as well, but that must, I
think, be a little poetical exaggeration, for the presses of England
were surely by that time adequate for such work.
In the library of St John’s College, Cambridge, is the unique copy on
vellum which was printed specially for Cromwell. The titles, woodcuts,
and all the initials throughout the volume are beautifully illuminated.
Regnault again attempted to obtain some favour for his books in
England, and a letter was written to Cromwell by Coverdale and Grafton
on his behalf. Speaking of him they write, “Whereas of long tyme he
hath bene an occupier into England more than xl yere, he hath allwayes
provyded soche bookes for England as they moost occupied, so that
he hath a great nombre at this present in his handes as Prymers in
Englishe, Missoles with other soche like: wherof now (by the company
of the Booksellers in London) he is utterly forbydden to make sale to
the utter undoying of the man. Wherfore most humbly we beseke your
lordshippe to be gracious and favourable unto him, that he may have
lycence to sell those which he hath done allready, so that hereafter
he prynte no moo in the english tong, onlesse he have an english man
that is lerned to be his corrector.”
From the concluding sentence it would appear that a special attack
had been made on these foreign printed service books because of their
incorrect printing, and everyone who has examined the very numerous
editions of the _Horae ad usum Sarum_ printed abroad must admit
that any complaints were fully justified. The booksellers evidently
succeeded in their opposition, for no more Paris printed service books
came to this country until the reign of Mary.
A solitary fragment, rescued like so many others from the binding of a
book and now preserved in the Bodleian, is the only record we possess
of the presence in England, nominally at any rate, of one of the most
important Paris booksellers of the sixteenth century. The fragment
consists of the first and last leaves of a little tract of four leaves
entitled, “_Psalterium beate marie virginis cum articulis incarnationis
passionis et resurrexionis domini nostri iesu xpi nuper editum_.”
Of the liturgical interest of the fragment this is not the place to
speak; our interest lies in the colophon, which runs “Imprynted at
London in Flete aley the .xxi. daye of October by Simon Voter.” This, I
take it, can refer to no one but the celebrated printer of that name,
but whether the colophon exactly means all that it states is another
matter. It would seem unlikely that so important a man should come to
London to print so small a tract, and besides it has no appearance of
English work. Like many others, he had probably an agent of his own in
London and printing the tract in Paris sent it to London for sale. The
type in which it is printed, a neat black letter, is what may be called
a stock type, that is, it was made by a man who made type-founding his
business and supplied various printers. On the title-page is a woodcut
of the Assumption of the Virgin which I have seen in no other book, but
which I hope may some day be the means of settling the real printer.
While speaking of these French stationers and their work, there is
one book which though without name of printer or place was printed in
English and intended for the English market and should certainly not
be passed over, especially as it is in some ways the most remarkable
book of the period. It is entitled _The Passion of our Lord Jesu
Christ with the Contemplations_, and was translated from the French
in 1508 and printed about the same time. The language is peculiar and
uncouth and mixed up with foreign expressions. The book is a very
large quarto equal in size to the ordinary small folio of the time,
printed in double columns. But the extraordinary point about the book
is the illustrations, large full-page woodcuts some twenty in number
and obviously and unmistakeably German. The style of woodcutting, the
dresses, the high-gabled houses, the storks nesting on the chimney-tops
are all distinctive. This last gave the immediate suggestion of
Strasburg and a very little search showed that the illustrations
were almost exact copies of a series engraved by Urs Graf and first
published in a volume entitled _Passio Jesu Christi_ printed in 1506 by
Knoblouch at Strasburg.
One of these cuts, the Crucifixion, occurs in the York _Manual_
printed ostensibly by Wynkyn de Worde in 1509 for John Gachet and James
Ferrebouc. Although the colophon of the book states emphatically twice
over that it was printed in London for De Worde I have always thought
it was printed abroad, not only because of this woodcut, but because
the type both of text and music is not De Worde’s and because the
device used in it is one only found in his foreign printed books and
therefore presumably kept abroad.
Much seems to point to Paris as the place of production of both
books, and a further piece of evidence exists in the fact that these
cuts are found in an edition of _Les Exposicions des epistres et
evangiles_ printed for Verard in 1511-12. I wrote on the subject of
the English book to M. Delisle, who very kindly made some enquiries at
the Bibliothèque Nationale, but at present no French original can be
traced nor could the Keeper of the Prints throw any further light on
the history of the cuts. The translation would appear to have been done
in England as it was done at the command of Henry VII. The only perfect
copy known is in the Bodleian, but there are fragments in bindings in
several libraries, among others Westminster Abbey and Corpus Christi
College, Cambridge.
While a serious blow was struck at the French book trade by the Act of
1534, which attacked the supply, Henry VIII himself did it much more
serious damage by destroying the demand. Almost the whole of the trade
done by the French booksellers consisted in the production and supply
of service books; and the great change which was taking place in the
services was gradually tending to do away with their use. After this
time we find no more editions of the old _Breviary_ or the _Missal_
produced at all, except for a short time in Mary’s reign, and these two
books had been mainly produced in France. The _Horae_ or _Primer_ still
continued in use, but its character was so much changed and so much
English introduced into it that it was as well produced in England. By
this time too the taste for the elaborate borders and illustrations
and sumptuous printing which marked the earlier work seems to have
disappeared, so that as a general rule the editions sent over from
abroad were as inartistic and badly printed as our own.
The competition of the Low Countries must also have had something to do
with the decay of French trade, for the Antwerp stationers boasted they
could undersell anyone, and certainly such later service books as were
printed abroad were printed at Antwerp.
Be the explanation what it may, the fact is clear that the date which
saw the passing of the Act of 1534 concerning books, saw the end of
French book production for the English market.
LECTURE VIII.
THE STATIONERS FROM ANTWERP AND THE BOOKBINDERS.
Though in regard to books printed for the English market France is
most important in numerical strength, it ranks far below the Low
Countries in point of interest. The productions of Paris and Rouen
consisted almost entirely of liturgical books and a few dictionaries
and grammars. From Antwerp on the other hand from the time of Gerard
Leeu in the fifteenth century onwards there was an almost unbroken
output of books in the English language. Leeu began with reprints of
some of Caxton’s books, Adrian van Berghen, the printer of _Arnold’s
Chronicle_, followed, then came Jan van Doesborch with his many curious
little English books, and then, most interesting of all, the various
editions of the English _Testament_ and the multitude of controversial
works caused by the religious dissensions in England.
Of Gerard Leeu, “an exceedingly pleasant person” as Erasmus called
him, and his English books, I gave some account in an earlier Lecture;
so I must begin the account of the sixteenth century with Adrian
van Berghen, Adryan of Barrowe as he calls himself in his English
imprints. He apparently began to print about the close of the fifteenth
century, living in a shop with the sign of the Great Golden Mortar in
the Market; in 1507 he had moved to the Corn Market behind the Town
Hall, and at a later date he settled in a house by the Cammerpoort
Bridge with the sign of the Golden Missal. In 1535 like many another
stationer he got into trouble in religious matters and was accused
of keeping and selling Lutheran books, of which a number had been
found in his house. In vain he protested that he knew nothing about
them and that they had been secretly put there by some enemy, for
after a lengthy trial he was found guilty and on January 3, 1536,
was sentenced to leave the state of Antwerp within three days, and
perform a pilgrimage to, of all places in the world, Nicosia in Cyprus.
Nothing further is known of him. But Adrian of Barrowe will ever be had
in grateful remembrance as the printer of _Arnold’s Chronicle_, for
in this he first published to the world the beautiful ballad of the
“Nut-browne Maid.”
A description of _Arnold’s Chronicle_ is a difficult matter to
undertake. It was one of the books which served as weapons to the late
Professor Chandler in his campaign against the subject catalogue of
the Bodleian. It contains a list of the London sheriffs, and a guide
to writing business letters, a list of the London churches, recipes
for making ink, and a variety of other miscellaneous information. And
in the middle, apropos of nothing, “The Nut-browne Maid.” Chronicle is
a misleading title, for the work is really a commonplace book and a
very interesting one. Fortunately this and the later edition printed
about 1520 by Peter Treveris are fairly common books and available
in a considerable number of libraries. There is a copy in the Parker
collection in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge,
interesting to the typographer from an accidental cause. The printer
when inking the forme accidentally pulled out a type which has fallen
sideways upon the top of the rest and impressed on the page an exact
full-length image of itself. From the few early examples of such faults
as are known it has been possible to obtain a good deal of information
as to the sizes and shapes of early types.
Adrian van Berghen printed also an English _Almanack_ for 1529 and
an edition of Holt’s _Lac Puerorum_. This latter is known only from
fragments, and some of these have a curious connexion with Cambridge.
Among a parcel of unidentified fragments in the Bodleian I came across
some pieces of this book which had at one time formed the pad or
boards of a binding. From the well indented marks on the paper it was
easy to identify the panel which had been stamped upon the binding as
the picture of St Nicholas raising the three children, with the name
underneath, Nicolas Spiernick, used by Nicolas Speryng, the Cambridge
stationer. But the interesting point about the fragments was that on
one of them was written the name of N. Speyrinck, thus connecting the
Spiernick of the binding with the name as used at Cambridge, Speryng.
It is perhaps not strictly right to have included Adrian van Berghen,
since he had not so far as we know any personal connexion with England;
but the interest of one at least of the English books which he printed
must serve as an excuse.
The next printer to be considered is Francis Birckman, the first of the
numerous bookselling family of that name, and himself a very important
stationer. He was a native of Cologne, who had his headquarters at
Antwerp while he carried on business in several other towns, and a
great part of his trade was with England. Panzer in his _Annales
Typographici_ does not mention him before the year 1513, but at an
earlier date he was issuing books for the English market and had a
shop in St Paul’s Churchyard. He is first mentioned in 1504, when in
partnership with a certain Gerard Cluen of Amersfoordt in Utrecht
he issued a Sarum _Missal_. Beyond the mention of his name in this
one book we know nothing of Gerard Cluen, but I think we may take
for granted that he was a relation of Birckman’s wife, Gertrude van
Amersfoordt. Of the _Missal_ but two copies are known, one in Trinity
College, Dublin, and the other, recently acquired, in the British
Museum. Between 1504 and 1510 Birckman’s name is not found, but after
that date he issued books continuously until about 1528. The history of
the Birckman family is very confused, but I cannot help thinking that
there were two branches both using the same Christian names. It seems
impossible otherwise to account for the large number of books printed
in various places almost at the same time, unless they were merely
commissioned and Birckman’s name put in the imprint. The Birckmans
were certainly always travelling about; at a little later date I find
one of them within three months at Antwerp, Cologne, London, Oxford,
and Cambridge. It is interesting to notice that he had combined his
business in Oxford with a visit to young Christopher Froschover,
nephew of the printer of the first English Bible of 1535, who was then
an undergraduate there.
All the authorities I have been able to consult are unanimous in
disagreeing on the history of the family of Birckman, but fortunately
at the moment we are only concerned with two, Francis the elder
and younger. The elder, whose place of business was in St Paul’s
Churchyard, must have been an important and rich man and seems to have
spared no expense in ornamenting his books. As an example I may mention
the great Sarum _Antiphoner_ in two folio volumes, of which there
is a copy in the Cambridge University Library. The fine title-pages
were not the stock-in-trade of the printer Hopyl, but were specially
engraved for Birckman, whose mark occurs in them. His Missals also were
profusely illustrated, which was not the general rule with such service
books.
Francis Birckman was dead before the year 1531, as we learn from the
sentence delivered in a lawsuit on April 4, 1531, and registered in
the sentence book of the Alderman’s Court at Antwerp. A certain John
Silverlink had delivered to Birckman a large consignment, over 700
copies, of English New Testaments, for which he was to be paid £28.
17_s._ 3_d._ and had only received £3. 7_s._ 3_d._ The action was
brought by the plaintiff against the guardians of Birckman’s children
to recover the remainder, which was ordered to be paid minus a sum
advanced by Francis Birckman to John van Remonde. His last book
appears to have been dated 1529. In 1530 an edition of the Sarum
_Processional_, printed at Paris by Prevost, was published in London
with the following colophon, “Venundatur Londonii in edibus junioris
Francisci Byrckman apud cimiterium divi Pauli.” This Francis was no
doubt a son of the earlier Francis, for though his device is different
his mark is the same. The device in the _Processional_ is the Hen
with her Chickens, no doubt referring to the sign of the Birckmans at
Cologne and Antwerp of the Fat Hen. This is the only book which I can
trace as having been sold in England by the younger Francis Birckman,
who probably returned abroad. He does not appear to have printed
much, for the business was mainly carried on by Arnold. At a little
later date there were certainly two Arnold Birckmans flourishing, one
who dealt principally in London, and who had a brother there also
in business named John. The other Arnold whose headquarters were at
Cologne was dead before 1541, in which year a work of Rupertus, _De
victoria verbi Dei_ was printed at Louvain for the widow of Arnold
Birckman.
John and Arnold were certainly very important stationers in London.
John Reynes was the only foreigner who surpassed them in wealth, and
when his stock was valued at £100, each of theirs was valued at 100
marks, that is, £66. 13_s._ 4_d._ They appear to have acted as foreign
agents for many of the London booksellers and to have travelled a great
deal from place to place. They did not however always bear the best of
characters, for Johann Ulmer writes to Bullinger, “The Byrckmans are
careless and by no means to be depended upon, therefore beware”; and
in another letter he complains, “The book has not yet reached me, the
Byrckmans are not at all to be trusted.” Erasmus was even more abusive
on the subject.
Jan van Doesborch, a printer of Antwerp who commenced business some
time shortly before 1508, carried on the tradition of printing English
books. Of some thirty-two books which he issued more than half are in
English and many of them of a very curious nature. He appears to have
inherited the business of Roland van den Dorp and his widow, and to
have taken on their premises with the sign of the Iron Balance near
the Cammerpoort. He is entered in the books of the St Lucas Gilde in
1508, the date of his first dated book, as an illuminator, and this
taste is shown in the lavish, if careless, way in which he illustrated
his books. Probably the first book he issued was the _Fifteen Tokens_,
a little tract describing the signs coming before the Judgement and
which he had himself translated from the Dutch. This was followed by
three grammars, one of which, Holt’s _Lac Puerorum_, has but lately
been discovered and is in a private collection. Then come an edition
of _Robin Hood_, known from an imperfect copy in Edinburgh, and a
fragment of _Eurialus and Lucrece_ also at Edinburgh. To the year 1518
may be ascribed the _Life of Virgilius_ and a dated book of that year,
beginning “This mater treateth of a merchauntes wife that afterwarde
went lyke a man and becam a great lorde and was called Frederyke of
Jennen.” Then we have the _History of Mary of Nemmegen_, an edition
of _Tyl Howleglas_, and the story of the _Parson of Kalenborowe_. A
last book worthy of mention is one beginning “Of the newe landes and
of ye people found by the messengers of the kynge of portyngale named
Emanuel.” Though naturally a much spoken of book as being about the
earliest of English books relating to America, really only one leaf of
the book is devoted to that subject.
Who the translator of these various books may have been is uncertain.
Two were definitely stated to have been done by Lawrence Andrewe,
the London printer, and Douce without any apparent reason suggested
that others might be the work of Richard Arnold. I think that perhaps
several were translated by Andrewe. In some verses appended to his
translation of the _Book of Dystyllacyon_ he writes,
After sondry volumes that I dyd deuyse
As tryfels of myrthe, which were laudable
Now mynded agayn, my pene to exercyse
In other maters to the reder more profitable
And thus abydynge pacyently, for a time seasonable
My mynde longe vexing with ymaginacyons
That my work before shold apere more comendable
Now have I performed a boke of dystyllacyons.
The “sundry trifles of mirth” might well be such books as _Frederick of
Jennen_, _The Life of Virgilius_, or _The Parson of Kalenborowe_. The
only two books to which he put his name as translator, _The wonderful
shape and nature that our Saviour Christ Jesu hath created in beasts,
serpents, fowles_, etc., and the _Valuation of gold and silver_, hardly
come under the head of “trifles of mirth.”
No doubt this large production of English books must have entailed
frequent visits to England and a shop or agent there, but the only clue
we have to John of Doesborch’s residence in this country is afforded by
the entry in the lists made for the subsidy of 1523, “De Johanne van
Dwysborow, extraneo, pro xls per annum ijs.,” and he is entered in the
parish of St Martin in the Fields.
I now come to two printers of Antwerp, in many ways the most
interesting of all, but of whom little is known and less has been
written. These are Christopher and Hans van Ruremond or Rémonde, who
were concerned very specially with the printing and dispersal of the
first English New Testaments. Whether or not these two men were related
is not very clear, but from the way they were connected in business it
seems very probable. Christopher, the more important of the two, was
known also as Christopher van Endhoven, which is the name used on his
device and under which he is entered in 1524 in the registers of the St
Lucas Gilde at Antwerp. Many have thought that Christopher van Ruremond
and Christopher van Endhoven were two persons, but as all the books in
the two names have the same type and woodcuts, and as in three cases
at least we find the device of Christopher van Endhoven and the name
of Christopher van Ruremond together, we may take them to be the same.
Besides if they were different persons it would be a very marvellous
coincidence that they should die on the same date, and their widows
simultaneously begin to carry on their businesses.
[Illustration]
Christopher began to print in 1523, issuing a Sarum _Manual_ and
_Processional_; this was followed by four more Sarum service books in
1524 and five in 1525. Until after February 6, 1525, all were printed
for Peter Kaetz, the later ones for Francis Birckman. In 1526 he
entered on a task which was destined to bring him into considerable
trouble, the printing of the _New Testament_ in English. In the
beginning of the year he printed a Sarum _Breviary_, but for the next
year we have nothing else from his press, for a reason to be noted
shortly. In 1527 he printed three _Missals_, one of Sarum use, and in
1528 three Sarum service books and a _New Testament_ in Dutch. For 1529
we have no books, and 1530 is represented by an English _Almanack_ and
two editions of the Sarum _Horae_.
In 1525 Christopher and Hans had printed a _Bible_ in Dutch, Hans
printing the greater part of the Old Testament and Christopher the
remainder and the New Testament. On October 30, 1525, Hans was summoned
before the town council of Antwerp for printing a book tainted
with Lutheran heresies, was ordered to leave the town and district
immediately, and go on pilgrimage to the Holy Blood at Wilsenaken
in Prussia, and was further forbidden to return to the town or
neighbourhood until he could produce a certificate that the pilgrimage
had been carried out. This he apparently objected to do and crossed
over to England.
Christopher, left in Antwerp, soon afterwards started on the very
dangerous undertaking of printing English New Testaments, which were
sent into England and sold there by Hans. In 1528 in the table of
certain persons abjured within the diocese of London we find “John
Raimund a Dutchman, for causing fifteen hundred of Tyndale’s New
Testaments to be printed at Antwerp and for bringing five hundred into
England.” John Raimund is clearly the English form of Jan Roemundt
and is probably identical with the Dutchman who earlier in the year
was in the Fleet for having sold to Robert Necton some 200 or 300
copies of the Testament. At the end of 1526 when these Antwerp printed
Testaments had found their way into England, a strong effort was made
by the English authorities to have them suppressed and the printer
punished. On November 24 John Hackett wrote to Wolsey saying there were
two printers in Antwerp who printed these books but that a proclamation
would soon be issued against them. On the 12th January, 1527, Hackett
again wrote that the Margrave had declared that according to the
Emperor’s last mandment these English books must be condemned to be
burnt, the printer Christopher Endhoven banished, and the third part
of his goods confiscated. The prisoner’s counsel however protested
against this judgement, saying that the Emperor’s subjects ought not
to be judged by the laws of other countries, and his plea seems to
have been successful, for Christopher does not appear to have been
banished, and continued to print at Antwerp. About the end of 1530 he
appears to have crossed over to England in connexion with the sale of
English Testaments, and the last act of the drama is tersely stated by
Foxe under the year 1531. An Antwerp bookseller named Christopher for
selling certain New Testaments in English to John Row, bookbinder, was
thrown into prison at Westminster and there died.
On the death of Christopher, Hans wished to return to Antwerp, but in
order to do so a certificate of his pilgrimage had to be obtained.
In the archives of the city there is an entry dated March 29, 1531,
that letters of the pilgrimage having been presented he was free
to reenter the city and district. He did not stay long abroad but
returned to London, and as an assistant to his fellow-countryman John
Nicholson, the printer of Southwark, has been the source of much
puzzle to commentators on the English New Testament; for I believe
him to be no other than John Hollybush, the so-called reviser of the
edition of 1538. The name John Hollybush has generally been considered
a pseudonym, and most modern authorities consider the person so
designated to have been Miles Coverdale. But Hollybush was a real
person, and in the troubled times of 1535, when inhabitants of the Low
Countries dwelling in England were forced to become denizened, we find
entered amongst others, “John Holibusche alias Holybusche of London,
Stationer otherwise bookbinder, born in Ruremund, under the obedience
of the Emperor.”
Now considering the prominent part that Hans van Ruremond, otherwise
John Raimund, had taken in the production and dispersal of the New
Testament, he is just the man to be identical with a stationer who
revised for the press a new edition. The whole family was identified
with the issue of English Testaments. Christopher printed them at
Antwerp, and after he had died in England for selling them, his
widow continued to print further editions. John had suffered penance
for selling them and was now, in more peaceable times, helping to
print them. Christopher’s son, also named John, became a printer in
Antwerp and printed Dutch Bibles and Testaments. One of the very
last Sarum service books printed, the _Processional_ of 1558, again
links Christopher van Endhoven and Christopher van Ruremond together.
Upon the title-page is the device with mark and initials, C. E. of
Christopher van Endhoven, while the colophon runs “Finit Processionale
ad usum Sarum Antverpie impressum per Melchiorem Endovianum, typis
Christophori Ruremunden. Anno m.c.lviii. mensis xxiii. Junii.”
Another stationer connected with Christopher and Hans van Ruremond was
a young man named Peter Kaetz, who acted for a while as their agent in
London and had a shop in St Paul’s Churchyard. The seven Sarum service
books, two _Manuals_, two _Processionals_, a _Horae_, a _Psalter_, and
a _Hymni cum notis_, which Christopher van Ruremond printed before
February 6, 1525, were all to be sold in London by Kaetz; after this
date his place was taken by Birckman. In the spring of 1525 Kaetz
returned to Antwerp and carried on business at the sign of the House of
Delft in the Cammerstraete, a house formerly occupied by Henri Eckert
van Homberg. Here he issued an edition of the _Bible_ in Dutch printed
by Hans van Ruremond. After this date we hear no more of him. Perhaps
like Hans van Ruremond he was involved in the religious troubles, and,
banished from Antwerp, found refuge in England. He was in communication
with Siberch, the first Cambridge printer, and amongst some fragments
rescued from a binding of Siberch’s in Westminster Abbey library was a
letter addressed to him by Peter Kaetz. In it Kaetz says he is waiting
in London for his master, on whose arrival he intends to cross over. He
also says, “I send you 25 prognostications and three New Testaments,
small size. The prognostications cost one shilling sterling the 25, and
the three New Testaments cost 2_s._ and 6_d._ sterling.” The puzzling
part about the letter is the date to which it should be assigned.
Many things point to its being before 1523 and yet the references to
the New Testament are not easily explained. The price is that at which
the English New Testament printed at Antwerp in 1526 by Christopher
van Ruremond was sold, and Hans van Ruremond had come into England
about this time to sell it. We know also that Christopher van Ruremond
printed prognostications in English. I should have been inclined to
put the letter down to some time in or after 1526, and to suppose that
the master for whom Kaetz waited was Hans van Ruremond. A person named
“Gibkerken” is mentioned in the letter, who may perhaps be a Dutch
stationer, John Gybken, who was first an assistant to John Cockes and
who afterwards rose to considerable eminence and was admitted as a
member of the Stationers’ Company. His son was also admitted a member
of the Company, although he was deaf and dumb.
The history of the printing and dispersal of the early editions of
the English Testament and the various prohibited controversial books
offers a very fascinating subject of study, and it is extraordinary,
considering the amount that has been written on the question, how
little is really known. I suppose the reason is that it has usually
been taken up from the theological rather than the bibliographical
side, and that writers on the subject though well versed in the history
of the Reformation knew nothing of scientific bibliography.
It is obvious that where the printer by his work placed himself in very
considerable danger, he would not be anxious to advertise himself and
would therefore let his books go out without any imprint or with a
fictitious one. Then comes in the study of type. It affords a far more
conclusive argument than any theories drawn from where the author was
living or where he would probably like to have his book printed. Then
again there is the common danger of taking for an early or original
edition what is merely a reprint with the original colophon unaltered.
An important English library purchased not very long ago at a high
price, a so-called first edition of Tindale’s _Parable of the Wicked
Mammon_, printed at Marlborowe in the land of Hesse by Hans Luft,
1528. But in spite of its having this information emblazoned in gold
upon its morocco cover, it is a reprint made about twenty years later
by Berthelet, a fact that should have been patent to anyone at all
conversant with English printing, seeing that the title-page is within
one of Berthelet’s best-known border frames.
Then, again, many of the books with foreign imprints were certainly
printed in this country. Upright Hoff of Leipsic and Ian Troost of
Aurich are both names assumed by John Oswen, the printer of Ipswich.
Cambridge has made an important start towards a real bibliography of
this subject by the publication of the third volume of Mr Sayle’s most
admirable _Catalogue of the Early English Books in the University
Library_. Only those who have worked on the subject can understand
how much patience, how much untiring labour, and how many often
disappointing searches must have been expended on every small fact
chronicled in the volume.
To return to these Early English Testaments printed in Antwerp. It
is quite clear that as soon as the edition printed by Schoeffer in
1525 had been issued and found a ready sale, the Antwerp printers set
to work to print rival editions. Fortunately we have a very clear and
contemporary account which there seems no reason for doubting. It
occurs in Joye’s _Apology_, written about 1534, and I will abbreviate
it as far as possible. “Thou shalt know that Tyndale translated and
printed the New Testament in a mean great volume but yet without
Kalendar, Concordances in the margin, and Table in the end. And anon,
after, the Dutchmen got a copy and printed it again in a small volume
adding the Kalendar in the beginning, Concordances in the margin, and
the Table in the end.” After speaking of the many faults in it he
continues: “After this they printed it again also without a corrector
in a greater letter and volume with the figures in the Apocalypse which
was therefore much falser than their first. When these two prints
(there were of them both about five thousand printed) were all sold
more than a twelvemonth ago [that is about the middle of 1533] Tyndale
was pricked forth to take the Testament in hand. But Tyndale prolonged
and deferred in so much that in the mean season the Dutchmen printed
it again the third time in a small volume like their first print, but
much more false than ever it was before.” Before this edition was put
in hand Joye had been asked to correct it, but refused, saying that
Tindale was about to bring out a revised edition: however two thousand
copies were printed and sold almost at once. A fourth edition was then
put in hand and Joye was again asked to correct it. He continues: “I
answered as before that if Tyndale amend it, with so great diligence
as he promiseth yours will be never sold. Yes, quod they, for if he
print two thousand and we as many, what is so little a number for all
England? and we will sell ours better cheap and therefore we doubt
not of the sale.” Joye seeing clearly that they were determined to
print whether he corrected or not, and seeing he was more qualified
than a native, undertook the task, and for the modest remuneration of
fourpence halfpenny for every sheet of sixteen leaves corrected the
edition published by the widow of Christopher van Endhoven in August,
1534. According to this statement, which is a very lucid one, between
the issue of Tindale’s octavo version in 1525 and Joye’s revision in
1534, three other Antwerp editions had been issued. The first in a very
small volume with a Kalendar, marginal notes, and a table. This must
be the edition printed by Christopher van Endhoven in 1526 for which
he was prosecuted. The second was of a larger size and had woodcuts
to the Apocalypse. The third was similar to the first, but much more
incorrectly printed. Here then are three editions as yet entirely
unidentified, and there are most probably more. The late Dr Angus
possessed the title-page of an edition of 1532 which from the tracing
reproduced in Demaus’ book on Tindale must have been a quarto.
Antwerp continued to print Testaments in increasing numbers. In 1534
and 1535 four editions were issued, and in 1536 when they were more
freely circulated, no less than seven. These are beyond our period,
but I cannot resist chronicling a fact lately come to light, which
gives the solution of a long-standing puzzle. In all the three quarto
editions of 1536, none of which has a printer’s name, is a woodcut
of St Paul with his foot resting on a stone. These cuts though almost
exactly similar are not identical. In one cut nothing is engraved on
the stone, and the edition containing it is known as the “blank stone”
edition. In another cut a mole is engraved on the stone, and the
edition is known as the “mole” edition. In the third there is what is
called an engraver’s mark, with the initials A. K. B., and that issue
is called the “engraver’s mark” edition. Now about this engraver’s
mark nothing was known. Not long ago, however, in turning over a large
volume of miscellaneous woodcuts in the Bodleian I came across an
example of this cut on what was manifestly the last leaf of a book.
Below the cut was this colophon, “Antwerp. Mattheus Cromme voor Adriaen
Kempe van Bouckhout, 1537.” Between 1537 and 1539 Crom printed for
Kempe several editions of Branteghem’s _Vita Jesu Christi_. In 1536
the cut occurs in the _Storys and prophesis out of the holy scriptur_
printed by Simon Cock. It would thus seem that Kempe first employed
Cock as his printer, but left him for Crom when the latter began
printing about 1537.
The specimens of bookbinding of this period, the best so far as stamped
bindings are concerned, offer a very difficult problem to the student.
What are English bindings and what are not, and how are they to be
distinguished? The more the subject is studied, the more difficult
these questions appear. There are bindings which are obviously English
just as there are others obviously foreign, but the great majority are
doubtful. It must be remembered that a very large number of binders
in England were foreigners, who would very likely bring their dies
and stamps with them from abroad, and finish their work in a foreign
manner. As their bindings were produced in England, they must be called
English bindings though in a foreign style, for we would not call
the Berthelet bindings, produced for Henry VIII in London by foreign
workmen with foreign dies, anything but English.
As an example of this confusion I would mention the binding on a copy
of the _Horae ad usum Sarum_ of 1506, printed for Pelgrim and Jacobi,
and now in the Bodleian. In the centre of the cover are two purely
Netherlandish panels, while round these runs a frame composed of two
dies which had belonged to Caxton. We know that the partners owned
several of Caxton’s dies, because they are found in conjunction with
Jacobi’s signed panels. As the _Horae_ was printed for them and has
their dies on the binding, it is clear they are the binders, but had
the Caxton dies been absent, no one could have put down the binding as
anything but Netherlandish.
The favourite English binding of this time consisted of two panel
stamps, one having the Royal Arms, the other the Tudor Rose with
mottoes, which I described before. In the base of these panels the
binder’s initials and mark generally occur. In some cases these
initials can with certainty be ascribed, because they occur with the
mark and full name in some printed book. Thus there is no mistake
about the bindings of Pynson, Notary, Jacobi, or Reynes. But in a
large number of cases there are merely initials, or initials with a
mark which has not been identified. Here the imagination steps in with
usually fatal results.
One set of these panels is signed R. O., and as O is an uncommon
initial for a surname the natural inclination is to attribute the
binding to Reginald Oliver. Another set has the initials R. L.: who
more likely than Richard Lant? All such suggestions are worthless
without proof, and until proved are not worth setting down. Other
binders using these panels were H. N. and G. G.
A binder whose initials were G. R. had two very handsome pairs of
panels. One panel contains the Royal Arms surrounded by the verse
beginning, “Confitemini dominum quoniam bonus,” while the corresponding
panel contains figures of four saints. The first of the second pair
is also the Royal Arms with the verse beginning “Laudate Dominum de
terra,” and the other has the figures of the four saints, George,
Barbara, Michael, and Katherine.
The Annunciation was a very favourite subject with bookbinders. One
of the handsomest panels of this kind was used by a binder, A. H.,
who used also a panel with the Tudor Rose. Though this shows that the
bindings were produced for the English market, the leather employed,
apparently sheepskin, suggests that they were executed abroad, perhaps
at Rouen.
Two other panels were in common use containing figures of St Sebastian
and St Roche. These were extremely popular, for at that time the
country was periodically visited with outbreaks of the plague, against
which these two saints were considered the guardians. Very often the
saint chosen for the binder’s panel had reference to his own Christian
name. John Reynes has a panel with St John Baptist. St George as the
patron saint of England was naturally popular. One beautiful binding
has on one side St George and the Dragon, and on the other St Michael
with the binder’s devices, a maiden’s head on a shield. This might be
the work of Richard Faques, who lived at the sign of the Maiden’s Head.
The roll binding, as apart from the panel binding, was ornamented by
means of a rolling tool, and at first these were large and ornamental,
but they gradually narrowed, and so became meagre or weak in detail.
Those in use at Cambridge are perhaps the finest of all, but this
is not the time to speak of them. Among London binders John Reynes
produced the best known roll, containing figures of a hound, a falcon,
and a bee with flowers and foliage. Another with an unknown binder’s
mark, contains a hound, a falcon, and a double-headed eagle on a
shield. The roll of another unknown binder bears a Tudor Rose, a
pomegranate, a shield with the arms of France and England, a turreted
gateway, a portcullis, a fleur-de-lys, and the binder’s mark.
Another handsome roll has the initials of I. G. and W. G. with figures
of a dragon, a gryphon, and foliage, and is not at all uncommon. In
Archbishop Marsh’s library at Dublin there is an example of such a
binding, tooled entirely in gold, the only example I have ever seen of
such work.
In the main design of all these English rolls there is very little
variation, the various royal emblems amidst foliage and flowers.
It is unfortunate that while we have so many initialled bindings which
cannot be definitely ascribed to particular binders, so also we have
the names of plenty of binders to whom we cannot allot bindings;
Alard and Noel Havy, De Worde’s binders, Giles Lauret, who lived
close to Havy in Shoe Lane, and John Rouse, who lived next door. John
Richardson, and John Row who was punished for buying Testaments. John
Pollard and Thomas Stoke who received pardon for some unknown offence
in 1533. Martin Dotier, the third offender, we do find afterwards, for
he commissioned one edition of a Sarum _Manual_ in 1543, and ended his
days as a brother of the Stationers’ Company.
Few binders or stationers of the time have left any definite record. I
have notes of at least four hundred persons connected with the English
book-trade between the years 1500 and 1535, but of very few is anything
known beyond the name. A mention in a will, an entry in a record or
tax-roll, or a mention in church or municipal accounts, is all that
remains to tell us of their existence.
I have referred before to the various difficulties with which the
foreign stationer had to contend, and year by year these difficulties
grew worse. The educated man was still entirely dependent on the
Continent for such books as he required, for before 1535 the literature
of the Renaissance was untouched by the native printers. Wynkyn de
Worde from start to finish, roughly speaking, never printed a classic,
but was content to turn out rhymes and romances to catch the popular
taste. Pynson, the more scholarly worker, was engaged on official or
semi-official publications. There was no press that could print in any
but ordinary type; even the most learned printer had not sufficient
Greek letters to print quotations; and this when foreigners came to
England to learn Greek.
No doubt the large importation of books was galling to the native
printers, but they do not seem to have lacked work, or if they did
it was only through their own want of energy. The bookbinders were
in a much worse case, because so many binders in this country were
foreigners, and no doubt large consignments of books came over ready
bound. The probability is that the foreigners had been better trained,
and could turn out cheaper and better work, and though that might
appeal to the purchaser, it would certainly injure their native rivals.
While for forty years the Italians had been issuing beautiful little
volumes in gilt bindings, the use of gilding on bindings was almost
unknown in England. It was not as though English printing was improving
as time went on. Indeed it became more and more careless and slovenly.
A printer here and there who had a subsidy and was sure of work, such
as Pynson and Berthelet, cast fine type and produced handsome books.
But the majority lagged far behind, and worn-out type and broken cuts
were the stock-in-trade of the ordinary printer. Then was passed the
Act of 1534, which declared the English printers to be at least the
equals of any foreign competitors, and restricted the importation of
foreign books. With the removal of the foreign competition native
work sank to its lowest level, and it was only when the religious
persecutions abroad drove numbers of refugee foreign printers to
England that English printing began to revive--for the time.
On Christmas Day, 1534, probably but a few days before the death of
Wynkyn de Worde, the famous Act of 25 Henry VIII concerning printers
and binders of books came into operation. The preamble is extremely
clear and interesting: “Whereas by the provision of a statute made in
the first year of the reign of king Richard III [1484] it was provided
in the same Act, that all strangers repairing into this realm, might
lawfully bring into the said realm printed and written books to sell
at their liberty and pleasure. By force of which provision there hath
come into this realm sithen the making of the same a marvellous number
of printed books, and daily doth; and the cause of making of the same
provision seemeth to be, for that there were but few books, and few
printers, within this realm at that time, which could well exercise and
occupy the said science and craft of printing; nevertheless, sithen
the making of the said provision, many of this realm, being the king’s
natural subjects, have given themselves so diligently to learn and
exercise the said craft of printing, that at this day there be within
this realm a great number of cunning and expert in the said science or
craft of printing, as able to exercise the said craft in all points,
as any stranger in any other realm or country. And furthermore, where
there be a great number of the king’s subjects within this realm, which
live by the craft and mystery of binding of books, and that there be a
great multitude well expert in the same, yet all this notwithstanding
there are divers persons, that bring from beyond the sea great
plenty of printed books, not only in the Latin tongue, but also in
our maternal English tongue, some bound in boards, some in leather,
and some in parchment, and them sell by retail, whereby many of the
king’s subjects, being binders of books, and having no other faculty,
wherewith to get their living, be destitute of work, and like to be
undone, except some reformation be herein had. Be it therefore enacted
by the king our sovereign lord, the lords spiritual and temporal, and
the commons in this present parliament assembled, and by authority
of the same, that the said proviso, made the first year of the said
king Richard III, from the feast of the nativity of our Lord God next
coming, shall be void and of none effect.”
This part of the Act, which seems to me essentially fair, simply
removed special privileges and put the foreign printers and stationers
on an equal footing with all other aliens. Then come two special new
enactments.
“And further, be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, that no
persons resiant or inhabitant within this realm, after the said feast
of Christmas next coming, shall buy to sell again, any printed books,
brought from any parts out of the king’s obeysance, ready bound in
boards, leather or parchment, upon pain to lose and forfeit for every
book bound out of the said king’s obeysance, and brought into this
realm and bought by any person or persons within the same to sell again
contrary to this Act, 6_s._ 8_d._”
This enactment was a great protection to native binders as prohibiting
all dealing in foreign bound books. The next paragraph was for the
benefit of the printers. “And be it further enacted, by the authority
aforesaid, that no person or persons inhabitant or resiant within this
realm after the said feast of Christmas shall buy within this realm of
any stranger born out of the king’s obedience, other than of denizens,
any manner of printed books brought from any the parts beyond the sea,
except only by engross and not by retail upon pain of forfeiture of
6_s._ 8_d._ for every book so bought by retail contrary to the form and
effect of this estature.”
The remainder of the Act treats only of penalties and restrictions as
to the price of books and bindings.
The clause about printing amounts to this, that no person not a
native or denizen could retail foreign printed books, and it seems
pretty clear that it was not so much intended for the advantage of
printers, as for giving fuller power to suppress the importation and
surreptitious sale of controversial books.
The alien printer, stationer, or binder, when denizened, was in this
position. He paid double subsidies and taxes, he could have none but
English-born apprentices and only two foreign workmen. He was under the
rule of the Warden of the Craft. He could not deal in foreign bound
books, nor buy books from foreigners except by engross. The alien
not denizened had the further restrictions that unless he had been a
householder before February 1528, he could not keep any house or shop
in which to exercise any handicraft, nor could he sell any foreign
printed books by retail.
Weighed down by these various disabilities the small foreign stationers
rapidly disappeared. A certain number who had lived here for some
time took out letters of denization and stayed on, but it was only to
struggle on.
If you wish to have a practical idea of what foreign work meant to
England, just glance at the list of Contents in Mr Sayle’s admirable
_Catalogue of the Early_ _English books in the University Library_.
Taking all the persons given in the list, from the earliest printing to
1510 connected with English books, we have the astonishing result of
three Englishmen, Caxton, a printer, Hunte, the Oxford stationer, and
W. Bretton, merely a patron of printing. The foreigners on the other
hand number forty-two. After 1510 the relative numbers rapidly alter,
and by 1535 the great majority were English. The hatred of the natives,
and the various Acts levelled against him, compelled the foreign
workman to disappear, and I am afraid that with his disappearance the
necessary competition which produced good printing disappeared also.
The fifty years of freedom from 1484 to 1534 not only brought us the
finest specimens of printing we possess, but compelled the native
workman, in self-protection, to learn, and when competition was done
away with his ambition rapidly died also. Once our English printing was
protected, it sank to a level of badness which has lasted, with the
exception of a few brilliant experiments, almost down to our own day.
INDEX.
Aberdeen University Library, 81
_Abridgement of the Statutes_, 44, 46, 114, 124
Actors, Peter, 77, 98, 169
Acts affecting printers and stationers, 74, 129, 187, 189-191, 208,
212, 236-239
Adryan of Barrowe. _See_ Berghen, A. van
_Advertisement_, Caxton’s, 9
Aeneas Sylvius. See _Eurialus_
Aesop, _Fables_, Caxton, 15;
Andrewes, 156
Alard, bookbinder, 107, 139, 140, 235
Albertus, _De modis significandi_, Notary, 37;
_Liber aggregationis_, Machlinia, 48;
_Secreta mulierum_, Machlinia, 48
Alcock, John, _Gallicantus_, Pynson, 1498, 66;
_Mons perfectionis_, Pynson, 1497, 66;
W. de Worde, 1501, 132
Aldus bindings, 124
Alexander VI., pope, 55
Alexander Grammaticus, _Doctrinale_, Pynson, 59, 60, 66, 109
Alien printers and stationers, 74-76, 120, 188-191, 235-240
_Almanack_, 1529, A. van Berghen, 216;
1530, C. van Ruremond, 223
Alost, 5
Althorp Library, 7, 8, 9, 10, 20, 114
Ames, Joseph, 8, 11, 50, 152, 171
Andreae, A., _Questiones_, Lettou, 1480, 42
Andrewe, Lawrence, 140, 155, 156, 221
_Anelida and Arcyte_, Caxton, 10
Angus, Dr, 230
_Antiphoner, Sarum_, W. Hopyl, 205, 218
Antoine, Jean, 206
Antwerp printing, 79, 85, 88, 91, 148, 149, 153, 155, 176, 200, 213
Antwerp stationers, 214-231
Anwykyll, J., _Grammar_, 79
Appleby Grammar School, 60
Arnold, Richard, 221;
_Chronicle_, 169, 214-216
_Ars Moriendi_, Caxton, 21, 22, 90
_Art and Craft to Know Well to Die_, Caxton, 64;
Pynson, 64
Arundel, Earl of, 14, 16
Ashburnham sale, 30, 53
Atkyns, R., _Original and growth of printing_, 1
B., A. K., engraver, 231
Badius, J., 96, 193, 195
Bagford, John, 8, 11, 148
Baldwin, John, 193
Baligault, Felix, 84, 86
Bankes, Richard, 125, 154, 155
Barbanson, John, 139
Barbier, Jean, 37, 38, 194, 196
Barclay, Alexander, 162, 206;
_Introductory to French_, 147
Barker, Christopher, 76
Barnes, Robert, 125
Barrevelt, Gerardus, 92, 93
Bars, John, 69
Bartholomæus, _De proprietatibus rerum_, 4, 29
Barton, Elizabeth, 151
Basle, 78
Bath, Marquis of, 54
_Battle of Agincourt_, J. Skot, 151
Beauchamp, Earl, 66
Bedford, Duke of, _Epitaph of_, 63
Bedfordshire General Library, 106
Bellaert, Jacop, 88, 89
Berclaeus, Thomas, 177
Bercula, Thomas, 177
Berghen, Adrian van, 91, 214-216
Bernard, St, _Meditations_, W. de Worde, 90
Berthelet, Anthony, 183
Berthelet, Edward, 183
Berthelet, Margaret, 182
Berthelet, Thomas, 156, 157, 158, 175, 176, 177-183, 192, 208,
228, 236;
bindings, 124, 232
_Bible_, Grafton and Whitchurch, 1539, 209;
Petyt and Redman, 1540, 176;
Dutch, C. & H. van Ruremond, 1525, 223, 226
_Bible, New Testament_, English, 208, 222-231;
Dutch, 1528, 223
Bibliothèque Nationale, 68, 73, 136, 137
Binder, royal, 181
Binders, 97, 101-126, 231-235
Bindings, 101-126, 231-235
Armorial, 123
Cambridge, 108, 117, 120, 122, 234
Characteristics, 122-3
Clasps and Ties, 123
Durham, 102, 104
Early English, 101-111
Foreign, importation prohibited, 76, 238
Fragments in, 107, 110, 124-5
Gilt, 182, 234, 236
Greek books, 123
Italian, 123
London, 102
Norwich, 108
Oxford, 103-4
Panel stamps, 111-121, 145, 197-8, 200-1, 232-4
Prices, 182
Roll ornaments, 120, 200, 202, 234
Rouen, 121, 233
Venetian style, 124, 182
Winchester, 102-4
Birckman, Arnold, 198, 200, 201, 219
Birckman, Francis, 195, 217-219, 222, 226
Birckman, Francis, jun., 218, 219
Birckman, John, 201, 219
_Birth of Merlin_, W. de Worde, 1510, 136
Blades, Wm, 3, 8, 19, 22, 23, 58, 106, 107
_Blanchardin and Eglantine_, Caxton, 19, 20
Blandford, Marquis of, 9, 61
Bocard, André, 97, 142, 193
Bodleian Library. _See_ Oxford
_Body of Policy_, J. Skot, 1521, 150
Boethius, A. M. T., _De consolatione philosophie_, Caxton, 106-7
Bonaventura, _Speculum vitae Christi_, Caxton, 16, 20, 58;
W. de Worde, 26;
Pynson, 58, 62
Bonham, William, 149, 184
_Book of Cookery_, Pynson, 1500, 69, 71, 159;
Bankes and Lant, 1545, 155
_Book of Courtesy_, Caxton, 10, 25;
W. de Worde, 24, 25
_Book of Divers Ghostly Matters_, Caxton, 21
_Book of Dystyllacyon_, 155, 221
_Book of Herbs_, J. Skot, 151
_Book of Justices of Peas_, R. Redman, 176
_Book of Kerving_, W. de Worde, 134
_Book of maid Emlyn_, J. Skot, 150
_Book of St Alban’s_, W. de Worde, 1496, 29
_Book of Songs_, W. de Worde, 1530, 138
_Book to lerne to speak French_, Pynson, 65
Book trade in sixteenth century, 187-192
Bookbinders. _See_ Binders
Borbonius, Nicholas, 181
Borde, Andrew, 147
Borders, 21, 27, 38, 49, 56, 157, 169, 176, 180, 194
Boteler, John, 152
Boudins, John, 97, 193
Bourman, Nicolas, 140
Brachius, John, 206
Bradshaw, Henry, 8, 11, 12, 18, 19, 21, 43, 50, 80, 99, 108, 109,
125, 156
Brand sale, 9
Brant, S., _Ship of Fools_, Pynson, 162;
W. de Worde, 135
Branteghem, G. de, _Vita Jesu Christi_, 231
Braunschweig, H. _See_ Jerome of Brunswick
Bretton, William, 194, 195, 196, 204
_Breviary_:
_Aberdeen_, 1509-10, 7
_Hereford_, 1505, 82
_Sarum_, 92;
Cologne, ab. 1475, 73;
Venice, 1483, 73;
Paris, 1494, 84;
Venice, 1495, 93;
Rouen, 1496, 81;
Louvain, 1499, 80;
Pynson, 1507, 162;
1507, 206;
Antwerp, 1526, 223;
Paris, 1531, 205
_York_, 1493, 92
Bright, B. H., 61
British Museum, 8, 9, 14, 16, 20, 44, 49, 50, 53, 54, 58, 60, 61,
68, 69, 70, 81, 95, 105, 109, 114, 134, 138, 142, 159, 165, 170,
172, 184, 186, 196, 217
Brito, John, 52
Britwell Library, 40, 145
_Bull of Innocent VIII._, Machlinia, 55
Bulle, J., 41
Bumgart, Herrman, 115
Burgo, J. de, _Pupilla Oculi_, Paris, 1510, 194
Burgundy, Duchess of, 3
Butler, John, 139, 152
Byddell, John, 138, 139, 140, 203, 204
C., N., binder’s stamp, 116
Caesar, _Commentaries_, W. Rastell, 186
Caillard, J., 205
Cambridge bindings, 108, 117, 120, 122, 216, 234
Cambridge printing, 11, 99, 125
Cambridge libraries:
Caius College, 54, 86, 115
Christ’s College, 165
Clare College, 156
Corpus Christi College, 11, 103, 110, 161, 170, 212, 216
Emmanuel College, 161, 170
Jesus College, 43, 108
King’s College, 62
Magdalene College, 186
Pepysian Library, 14, 28, 34, 61, 63, 149, 163
St Catharine’s College, 81
St John’s College, 92, 110, 209
Trinity College, 68, 96
University Library, 4, 8, 10, 25, 32, 35, 36, 37, 38, 44, 48, 49,
51, 53, 61, 73, 80, 82, 84, 88, 92, 95, 96, 116, 132, 143, 147, 150,
153, 165, 172, 206
Campensis, Joannes, _Interpretatio Psalmorum Omnium_, 1534, 208
Campion, Amye, 166
Campion, Joane, 166
Campion, William, 166
Candos, Guillaume, 206
Canutus, _Treatise of the Pestilence_, Machlinia, 53
Caorsin, Gul., _Siege of Rhodes_, 45
Capgrave, J., _Nova Legenda Angliae_, W. de Worde, 137
Carmelianus, Petrus, 79, 164
Castellain, George, 69, 161
_Castle of Labour_, A. Verard, 206
_Castle of Pleasure_, H. Pepwell, 1518, 147
_Cato_, Caxton, 10, 12
Caxton, Elizabeth, 23
Caxton, Maud, 20
Caxton, W., 3-24, 46, 57, 58, 73, 78, 88, 90, 130, 146
Binding stamps, 108, 139, 140, 197, 232
Bindings, 105-107
Border used by, 21, 27
Death, 23
Device, 18, 38, 58
Family, 23
Foreign reprints of his books, 24
Number of books printed, 22
Situation of printing office, 6, 39
Translations by, 14, 23, 28
Types, 6, 12, 22, 26, 56
Vellum books, 20, 125
Wife, 20
Woodcuts, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 21, 22, 27, 33, 142
_Charles the Great_, Caxton, 16
Chasteleyn, George. _See_ Castellain, George
_Chastising of God’s Children_, W. de Worde, 24, 25
Chatsworth Library, 81, 88
Chaucer, G., _Works_, Pynson, 1526, 165;
Godfray, 1532, 156, 157;
_Canterbury Tales_, Caxton, 8, 15;
Pynson, 57, 58;
W. de Worde, 30;
_Hous of Fame_, Caxton, 15;
_Mars and Venus_, Notary, 39;
_Troilus and Cressida_, Caxton, 15
Chepman, Walter, 115
Chevallon, Claude, 205
Cholmondeley, Ralph, 176
_Chorle and the Bird_, 10, 16
_Christmas Carolles_, W. de Worde, 1521, 137
_Chronicles of England_, Caxton, 13;
Leeu, 88, 90;
Machlinia, 52, 60;
Notary, 142-144
Cicero, _Paradoxes_, Redman, 177;
_De officiis_, Mainz, 1466, 4;
_Pro Milone_, Oxford, 66
Claudin, A., 17
Cluen, Gerard, 217
Coblentz, Jean de, 198
Cock, Simon, 231
Cockes, John, 227
Colet, John, 148
Cologne printing, 4, 65, 73, 79, 142, 219
Combe, Dr Charles, 73
_Commemoratio lamentationis beate Marie_, Caxton, 21
_Commendations of Matrimony_, J. Skot, 1528, 150
_Complaint of the too soon maryed_, W. de Worde, 138
Confluentinus, Joannes, 198
Congregational Library, London, 61
_Consolation of timorouse and fearfull consciencys_, 172
Constable, John, _Epigrammata_, Pynson, 1520, 124
_Contemplacyon or meditacyon of the shedynge of the blood_,
W. de Worde, 35
_Conversion of Swearers_, W. de Worde, 135;
J. Butler, 152
Conway, Sir W. M., 88
Copenhagen printing, 30
Copland, Robert, 7, 139, 146-7, 154, 172
Copland, William, 147
Corsellis, Frederick, 2
Cotton, Henry, 19
Cousin, Jacques, 205, 206
Couvelance, Philippus de, 199
Coverdale, Miles, 208, 209, 225
Cowlance, Jean de, 198
Cox, Leonard, 153
Cranmer, Thomas, 159
Crawford, Earl of, 194
_Criblée_ engravings, 142
Crom, Matthew, 231
Cromwell, Thomas, 149, 154, 157, 185, 203, 209
Croppe, Gerard, 23
Cuthbert, St, 101
Darby, Robert, 139
Dating, method of: Berthelet, 179;
Notary, 135, 141;
Pynson, 68, 159, 160;
Redman, 175;
W. de Worde, 31, 135
Davidson, Thomas, 115
Day, John, 191
_De veteri et novo Deo_, J. Byddell, 1535, 203
_Debate and stryfe betwene Somer and Wynter_, L. Andrewe, 156
_Defence of Peace_, 1535, 203
_Demaundes Joyous_, W. de Worde, 1511, 136
_Determinations of the most famous Universities_, Berthelet, 179
Deventer printing, 79
Devonshire, Duke of, 16, 74.
_See also_ Chatsworth Library
Dewes, G., _Introductorie for to lerne French_, T. Berthelet, 157;
J. Reynes, 200
_Dialogue betwixte two englyshe men_, T. Berthelet, 180
Dibdin, T. F., 8, 27, 46, 53
_Dictes or sayengis of the Philosophres_, Caxton, 6, 7
_Dictionary of National Biography_, 22, 131
_Directorium sacerdotum_. See Maydeston, C.
_Directory of the conscience_, L. Andrewe, 156
_Diurnale_, Sarum, W. Hopyl, 1512, 195
_Dives and Pauper_, Pynson, 54, 61
_Division of the Spiritualty and the Temporalty_, 175, 180
Dockwray, Thomas, 148, 149
_Doctrinal of Sapience_, Caxton, 20
_Doctrynale of good servantes_, J. Butler, 152
Doesborch, Jan van, 91, 130, 155, 214, 220-222
_Donate and accidence_, Paris, 1515, 198
_Donatus_, P. Violette, 206
_Donatus Melior_, Caxton, 17, 125
Dorne, John, 98
Dorp, R. van den, 220
Dotier, Martin, 235
Douce, Francis, 10, 25, 221
Douglas, Gavin, 20
Draper, Richard, 202
_Drunkardes, The IX_, R. Bankes, 154
Dublin: Marsh Library, 143, 234;
Trinity College Library, 84, 86, 88, 89, 217
Duff, E. Gordon, 60, 115, 116
Du Pré, Jean, 206
Durham bindings, 102, 104
Durham Cathedral Library, 34, 102
_Dying Creature_, W. de Worde, 1514, 146
Eckert van Homberg, Henri, 226
Eckius, J., _Enchiridion_, 1531, 148
Edinburgh printing, 151
Edinburgh, Advocates’ Library, 37
Signet Library, 67
University Library, 81
Edwards, bookseller, 161
Egmond, Count of, 67
Egmont, Frederick, 66, 67, 91-94, 97, 207;
bindings, 114-5
_Elegantiarum viginti praecepta_, Pynson, 67
Elyot, Sir T., _Book named the Governour_, T. Berthelet, 180
Endhoven, C. van. _See_ Ruremond, C. van
_Eneydos_, Caxton, 20
_Epitaph of Jasper, Duke of Bedford_, Pynson, 63
Erasmus, D., _Christiani hominis institutum_, H. Pepwell, 148;
_Colloquiorum formulae, De copia verborum, Enchiridion militis
christiani_, W. de Worde, 138;
_Exposition of the commune crede_, Redman, 203;
_Good manners for children_, W. de Worde, 138;
_Treatise upon the pater noster_, Berthelet, 178
Esteney, John, 130
_Eurialus and Lucrece_, J. van Doesborch, 220
_Every Man_, J. Skot, 150
_Exposicions des epistres et evangiles_, Verard, 1511-2, 212
_Expositio hymnorum_, A. Bocard for J. Boudins, 97, 193;
H. Quentell, 65;
Pynson’s Supplement, 65
_Expositiones terminorum legum Anglorum_, 1527, 152
Faques, Richard, 170-172, 234
Faques, Wm, 158, 162, 169-171
Far, Richard, 172
Farmer, Richard, 10, 39, 132
Fawkes, Michael, 172
Fawkes. _See also_ Faques
Faxe, Amelyne, 172
Faxe, Richard, 172
Ferreboue, James, 212
_Festum nominis Jesu_, Pynson, 61, 65
_Festum transfigurationis_, Caxton, 61;
Machlinia, 54;
Pynson, 65
_Festum visitationis_, Machlinia, 54
Fewterer, J., _Myrrour of Christes Passion_, R. Redman, 175
Ficinus, M., _Epistolae_, 1495, 103
_Fifteen Joys of Marriage_, W. de Worde, 135
_Fifteen Oes_, Caxton, 21, 22, 27
_Fifteen Tokens_, J. van Doesborch, 220
Fisher, John, _Sermon_, W. de Worde, 1508, 134
Fitzherbert, Sir A., _Diversite de courtz_, R. Redman, 1523, 172;
_Great Abridgement_, J. Rastell, 184
Fitzjames, R., _Sermo die lune_, W. de Worde, 28
Fletewode sale, 35
Foreign book-trade with England, 72-100, 187-8, 205-213, 214-231,
235-240
_Foundation of Our Lady’s Chapel at Walsingham_, Pynson, 63, 64
_Four Sons of Aymon_, Caxton, 19, 20
Frankenberg, Henry, 77
Frankfurt fair, 192
_Frederyke of Jennen_, J. van Doesborch, 220, 221
Freeling, Sir F., 61
Froissart, J., _Chronicle_, Pynson, 164
Froschover, Christopher, 218
_Frute of Redemption_, R. Redman, 175
Fryth, John, _Disputation of Purgatory_, 184
G., E., engraver, 172
G., G., bookbinder, 233
G., I., bookbinder, 234
G., W., bookbinder, 49, 109, 234
Gachet, John, 212
Galfridus Anglicus, 79
_Game and Playe of the Chesse_, Caxton, 6, 12
Garlandia, J. de, 63, 79
Gaver, James, 107, 139-141
Gavere, Ioris de, 112
Ghent binding, 112
Ghent University Library, 21
Gibkerken, 227
_Gift of Constantine_, T. Godfray, 157, 203
Gloucester Cathedral Library, 82
Godfray, Thomas, 156, 157, 203
_Golden Legend._ See Voragine, J. de
_Golden Litany_, J. Skot, 151
Göttingen University Library, 9
Gouda printing, 30
Gough, John, 139, 184, 203, 204
Gough, Richard, 92, 199
Gourmont, Egidius, 196
_Governayle of Health_, Caxton, 90
Gower, J., _Confessio amantis_, Caxton, 15
_Gradual, Sarum_, 1527, 199, 205
_Gradus comparationum_, J. Toy, 1531, 150, 153
Graf, Urs, woodcuts by, 211
Grafton, Richard, 155, 181, 208, 209
Gray, William, 154, 155
Greek type, 235
Grenville Library, 61
Gringore, P., _Castle of Labour_, Verard, 206
Growte, John, 204
Groyat, John, 204
Gryphus, P., _Oratio_, Pynson, 163
Gueldres, Duke of, 67
Guilford, Sir Richard, 163
Guilibert, John, 112
Gulielmus de Saliceto, _Salus corporis salus anime_, R. Faques, 171
_Guy of Warwick_ (Pynson), 70
Gybken, John, 227
H., A., bookbinder, 121, 233
H., I., printer, 37, 38
Hackett, John, 224
Haghe, Ingelbert, 82
Hain, L., _Repertorium Bibliographicum_, 39
Halberstadt Library, 14
Hampole, Richard de, _Devout Meditacions_, 134;
_Speculum Spiritualium_, 194
Hardouyn, Gilles, 205
Haukins, John, 158, 166, 167, 168
Havy, Noël, 139, 140, 235
Hawes, S., _Pastime of Pleasure_, W. de Worde, 1509, 135
Hazlitt, W. C., 136
Heber sale, 35, 40
Heerstraten, E. vander, 77
_Helias, Knight of the Swan_, W. de Worde, 1512, 136
Henry VII., 55, 68, 212
Henry VIII., 68, 164, 165, 212
Herbal, _The Grete Herball_, 1529, 156
Herbert, William, 35, 39, 114,143, 152, 169, 174, 178, 204, 207
Hereford bookseller, 82, 83
Herford, John, 149
Herolt, John, _Sermones discipuli_, J. Notary, 1510, 143
Heron, John, 184
Hertzog de Landoia, Joh., 91-93
Heywood, J., _Gentleness and Nobility_, J. Rastell, 185;
_Johan the Husband_, _Pardoner and the Friar_, _Play of Love_,
_Play of the Weather_, W. Rastell, 186
Hieronymus de Sancto Marcho, _De universali mundi machina_,
Pynson, 161
Higden, R., _Polycronicon_, Caxton, 13;
Treveris for Reynes, 1527, 199
Higman, J., 18, 205
Higman and Hopyl, 87
Hillenius, Michael, 148, 176
Hilton, W., _Scala perfectionis_, J. Notary, 1508, 143
_History of Jacob_, J. Skot, 150
Hoe, Robert, 16, 136
Hoff, Upright, 228
Holder, Robert, 201
Holkham Library, 26
Hollybush, John, 225
Holt, J., _Lac Puerorum_, A. van Berghen, 91, 216;
J. van Doesborch, 220
Holwarde, Thomas, 201
_Homiliarius_ (? Cologne, ab. 1475), 73
Hopyl, Wolfgang, 84, 87, 95, 96, 194-196, 205, 218
_Horae_, Paris editions, 84-86;
undated editions, 85;
J. Poitevin, 86
_Horae_, Sarum:
number of editions, 85;
Caxton, 17, 21, 33;
Leeu, 80;
Machlinia, 48, 49, 109;
Notary, 38, 39;
C. van Ruremond, 226;
W. de Worde, 27;
Venice, 1494, 91;
Paris, 1498, 96; 1506, 232;
1507, 194;
Paris, 1510, 194;
Paris, 1532, 1533, 1534, 204;
Rouen, 1536, 204;
Antwerp, 1530, 223
_Horologium Devotionis_, Zel, 142
_Horse the Shepe and the Goose_, Caxton, 10;
W. de Worde, 22
_Howleglas_, 89; J. van Doesborch, 220
_Hundred mery tales_, J. Rastell, 184
Hunte, Thomas, 98
Hunterian Museum, Glasgow, 19, 64, 155
Huvin, Jean, 37, 38
Hylton, W., _Scala perfeccionis_, W. de Worde, 26
_Hymni cum notis_, C. van Ruremond, 226
_Hymns and sequences_, J. Notary, 143
_Imitatio Christi_, Pynson, 114, 160
Imposition, wrong, instance of, 50
Indulgences, 104, 106;
Caxton, 12, 19;
Lettou, 12, 43, 108
_Infancia Salvatoris_, Caxton, 9
_Informatio Puerorum_, Pynson, 69
_Information for Pilgrims_, W. de Worde, 28
Initial letters, 93, 142;
filled in by hand, 51
Inner Temple Library, 39
Innocent VIII., 55
_Institution of a Christian Man_, T. Berthelet, 1537, 180
_Interlude of the four elements_, J. Rastell, 185
_Interlude of women_, J. Rastell, 185
_Introductorium linguae latinae_, W. de Worde, 28
Ipswich, 228
Jacobi, Henry, 105, 108, 148, 194-199, 232;
bindings, 119, 197, 198
Jacobus, illuminator, 112
Jean le Bourgeois, 169
_Jeaste of Sir Gawayne_, J. Butler, 152
Jehannot, Jean, 96
Jerome of Brunswick, _Boke of Distillacyon_, Andrewe, 155, 221
Joannes de Lorraine, 82
John of Aix-la-Chapelle, 98
John Rylands Library, 26, 30, 53, 55, 68, 84, 161, 162.
_See also_ Althorp Library
Johnson, Maurice, 152
Joye, G., 229, 230
_Justice of Peace_, R. Copland, 1515, 147
Kaetz, Petor, 222, 226-7
_Kalendar of Shephardes_, Pynson, 1506, 161
Kamitus, _Treatise of the Pestilence_, Machlinia, 53
Katherine of Aragon, 159
Kay, J., trans. _Siege of Rhodes_, 45
Kele, Thomas, 184
Kempe, Adriaen, 231
Kempe, Margerie, 132
Kendale, John, 43
Kerver, Thielman, 171, 205
Kerver, Thielman, Widow of, 204
Keyser, Martin de, 153
_King Apolyn of Tyre_, W. de Worde, 1510, 7, 136, 146
King’s bookbinder, 181
King’s printers, 133, 158, 162, 169, 170, 171, 175, 177, 178, 181
King’s stationer, 169
Kinnaird Castle Library, 81
_Knight Paris and Fair Vienne_, Caxton, 16
Knoblouch, Johann, 211
L., R., bookbinder, 233
Lambertus de Insula, 111
Lambeth Palace Library, 4, 61, 92, 162
Landen, John, 142
Langton, William, 110
Langwyth, Agnes, 177
Lant, Richard, 155, 233
Lauret, Giles, 235
Laurentius of Savona, _Rhetorica Nova_, Caxton, 10
Lauxius, David, 96
Lecomte, Nicholas, 95-97;
bindings, 116
Leeu, Gerard, 36, 78, 80, 88-91, 215
Lefèvre, R., _History of Jason_, 88
_Legenda Francisci_, Barbier for Jacobi, 195
_Legenda_, Sarum, 18
Legrand, J., _Book of good manners_, W. de Worde, 36
Leicester, Earl of, 26
Leland, John, 156
Le Roux, Nicolaus, 204
Le Talleur, G., 55, 57, 59
Lettou, John, 11, 41-44, 130;
bindings, 108;
with Machlinia, 44-47, 51
Levet, Pierre, 84
Lewis, J., _Life of Caxton_, 39
_Liber Assisarum_, J. Rastell, 184
_Liber Equivocorum_, Baligault, 84;
Paffroed, 79;
Pynson, 63
_Liber Festivalis._ _See_ Mirk, J.
_Liber Synonymorum_, Martens, 1493, 79;
Hopyl, 1494, 84, 95;
Pynson, 1496, 63
Lidgate, J., _Assembly of the Gods_, 15;
_Chorle and the Birde_, 10, 16;
_Falle of Princes_, Pynson, 1494, 62;
_Horse, Shepe, & Ghoos_, Caxton, 10;
W. de Worde, 32, 37;
_Life of our Lady_, Caxton, 14;
_Sege and Destruccyon of Troye_, Pynson, 1513, 163
_Life of ... Charles the Great_, Caxton, 16
_Life of Christ_, R. Redman, 175
_Life of Hyldebrande_, W. de Worde, 138
_Life of Petronylla_, Pynson, 64
_Life of St Katherine_, W. de Worde, 24
_Life of St Margaret_, Pynson, 61
_Life of St Wenefrede_, Caxton, 15
_Life of Virgilius_, J. van Doesborch, 220, 221
Lily & Erasmus, _De octo orationis partium constructione_,
Cambridge, 125
Lily, W., _Grammar_, H. Pepwell, 1539, 149
Lily, W., _Introduction of the Eight parts of Speech_,
T. Berthelet, 181
Lincoln Cathedral Library, 49, 132
Linton, W. J., 13
Litill, Clement, 81
Littleton, Sir T., _Tenores Novelli_, Letton and Machlinia, 44, 46;
_Tenures_, Machlinia, 48;
Pynson, 57, 173;
Redman, 173
London: introduction of printing, 11, 41;
bindings, 102
Louvain: printing, 5, 77, 80, 219;
binding, 111
Lucianus, _Necromantia_, J. Rastell, 184
Luft, Hans, 228
Lugo, Peregrinus de, _Principia_, Pynson, 1506, 69, 161
Lumley, Lord, 14
Lyndewode, W., _Constitutiones Provinciales_, W. Hopyl, 1506, 194,
197, 205;
_Constitutions_, R. Redman, 1534, 176
M., I., border-piece, 176
Maas, Robert, 139
MacCarthy, Count Justin, 73, 74, 162
Macé, Robert, 206
Machlinia, W. de: with Lettou, 44-47;
alone, 47-56, 77, 109, 130;
bindings, 108
Machyn, Henry, 183
Madan, F., 2, 98
Madden, J. P. A., 95
Magdalen College School, 79
_Magna Charta_, R. Redman, 1525, 173
Malory, Sir T., _Morte d’Arthur_, Caxton, 16;
W. de Worde, 30
Manchester. _See_ John Rylands Library
Maudeville, Sir J., _Travels_, W. de Worde, 1499, 32;
Pynson, 64
_Manipulus Curatorum_, W. de Worde, 1502, 132
Mansion, Colard, 5, 6
_Manual, Sarum_, B. Rembolt, Paris, 86;
Rouen, 1500, 82;
Pynson, 1506, 161;
C. van Ruremond, 1523, 222, 226;
for M. Dotier, 1543, 235
_Manual, York_, W. de Worde, 1509, 136, 212
Marcant, Nicole, 84
Marchant, John, 204
Marsh Library, Dublin, 143, 234
Marshall, William, 203, 204
Martens, Thierry, 79
Martinus de Predio, 112
Martynson, Simon, 139
_Mary of Nemmegen_, J. van Doesborch, 220
“Master of St Erasmus,” engraver, 142
Maydeston, C., _Directorium sacerdotum_, Caxton, 9;
Leeu, 80;
Pynson, 70, 71, 159, 161
Maynyal, George, 17
Maynyal, William, 17, 18
Medwall, H., _Interlude of Nature_, W. Rastell, 186
_Merry gest ... Johan Splynter_, J. Notary, 144
_Merry jests_, J. Rastell, 184
_Mery geste of a Sergeaunt and Frere_, J. Notary, 145
Meslier, Hugo, 161
Metal engravings, 26, 65, 142
Middleton, William, 124, 125, 176
_Miraculous work ... at Court of Strete in Kent_, 151
Mirk, J., _Liber Festivalis_, Caxton, 14, 105;
Hopyl, 96;
Morin, 80, 82;
Notary, 38;
Pynson, 61, 62;
Ravynell, 83;
W. de Worde, 25, 62, 83
_Mirror of Christes Passion_, R. Redman, 175
_Mirror of Consolation_, W. de Worde, 28
_Mirror of Golde_, 1522, 137, 150
_Mirror of the Life of Christ_, Pynson, 1503, 161
_Mirror of the World_, Caxton, 12;
L. Andrewe, 140, 156
_Mirrour of Our Lady_, R. Faques, 1530, 172
_Missal, Sarum_ (? Basle, ab. 1486), 78;
Maynyal for Caxton, 1487, 17, 80, 81, 84;
M. Morin, 1492, 80, 81;
Hertzog for Egmont, 1494, 92, 93;
Notary and Barbier, 1498, 38;
Pynson, 1500, 68, 159;
Higman and Hopyl, 1500, 87;
Jean du Pré, 1500, 87, 206;
Birckman and Cluen, 1504, 217;
Pynson, 1504, 161;
Violette, 1509, 207;
W. de Worde and R. Faques, 1511, 171;
C. van Ruremond, 1527, 223;
for W. de Worde and M. de Paule, 207
_Missal, York_, 1530, 206
_Modus tenendi unum hundredum_, R. Redman, 174
Montaigne, M. de, 164
Montpellier, Library of Faculty of Medicine, 103
Moore, John, bp of Ely, 8
More, Sir Thomas, 158, 183;
_Works_, 1557, 186;
_Apology_, 175, 180;
_Debellacyon of Salem and Bizance_, 180
Morgan, J. P., 106
Morin, Martin, 80-82, 205-6
Morin, Michael, 206
Morton, Cardinal, 68, 159
Musée Plantin, 80
Music. See _Book of Songs_, 138
N., H., bookbinder, 233
N., I., border-piece, 176
_Natura Brevium_, R. Redman, 175
_Necessary Doctrine and Erudition_, 1543, 180
Necton, Robert, 224
Nele, Richard, 193
Newton, Lord, 17
Nicholson, James, 208
Nicholson, John, 225
_Nicodemus Gospel_, J. Notary, 142;
J. Skot, 150-1;
W. de Worde, 134
Norwich binding, 108
Notary, Julian, 31, 33, 129, 131, 173;
at Westminster, 37-40;
at London, 141-6;
bindings, 119, 145, 232;
device, 37-8;
method of dating, 135, 141
_Nova Festa_, Machlinia, 54;
Pynson, 61, 65
_Nova Rhetorica_, St Alban’s, 1480, 52
_Nova Statuta_, Machlinia, 48, 51
Novimagio, Reginaldus de, 74
Nowell, bookbinder, 107, 139, 140
_Nut-browne Maide_, 151, 215
O., R., bookbinder, 233
_Of the newe landes_, J. van Doesborch, 220
Offor collection, 39
Oliver, Reginald, 233
_Oliver of Castile_, W. de Worde, 1518, 137
Olivier, Petrus, 82, 205
_Orchard of Syon_, W. de Worde, 1519, 137
_Ordinale_, Sarum, Caxton, 9, 22
_Ordynaunce ... Kynge’s Eschequier_, Middleton, 124
Origen, _De beata Maria Magdalena_, W. Faques, 170
Ortus Vocabulorum, 194, 197
Os, Govaert van, 30, 33
Osborne, Thomas, 9
Osterley Park Library, 16
Oswen, John, 228
Ovidius, _Metamorphoses_, 14
Owen, David, 193
Oxford libraries:
Bodleian, 10, 21, 25, 28, 58, 59, 61, 68, 81, 82, 83, 90, 95, 106,
108, 112, 132, 153, 154, 180, 198, 199, 210, 212, 216, 231, 232
Brasenose College, 80
Corpus Christi College, 49, 92, 112, 115, 139
Merton College, 8
New College, 17, 125, 196
St John’s College, 160, 200
Oxford, printing, 1, 2, 41, 79, 187;
booksellers, 69, 77, 98, 161, 196;
bindings, 103, 104
Paffroed, R., 79
Palsgrave, J., _L’eclarcissement de la langue Française_, 166
Panzer, G. W., 217
Paper-making in England, 29
Paris printing, 17, 18, 84, 85, 87, 96, 97, 161, 193, 194, 195, 196,
199, 205, 210, 214
_Paris and Vienne_, G. Leeu, 88
Parker, H., _Dives and Pauper_, Pynson, 1493, 54, 61
_Parliament of Devils_, W. de Worde, 135
Parron, William, 68
_Parson of Kalenborowe_, J. van Doesborch, 220, 221
_Parvula_, N. Marcant, 84
_Parvulorum institutio_, J. Butler, 1529, 152
_Passio Jesu Christi_, Strasburg, 1506, 211
_Passion of our Lord_ (ab. 1508), 211
_Pastime of People_, J. Rastell, 184
Paule, Michael de, 207
Paynell, T., _Assault and Conquest of Heaven_, 1529, 178;
trans. of _Regimen sanitatis Salerni_, T. Berthelet, 177, 178
Pelgrim, Joyce, 193-198, 232
Penketh, Thomas, 42
Pepwell, Arthur, 150
Pepwell, Henry, 139, 147-150, 199, 202
Pepwell, Ursula, 149
Pepysian Library. _See_ Cambridge libraries
Perez de Valentia, J., 42
Perott, N., _Regulae Grammaticales_, Louvain, 77
Peter Post Pascha, 66, 67, 93
Peterborough Cathedral Library, 132
Petyt, Thomas, 176
Pigouchet, Philippe, 115, 205
_Pilgrimage of Sir Richard Guylforde_, Pynson, 1511, 163
_Play concerning Lucretia_, J. Rastell, 185
Poitevin, Jean, 86
Pollard, John, 235
_Pomander of Prayer_, R. Redman, 175
Powell, Thomas, 181, 183
Prevost, Nicolas, 199, 205
Prices of paper and printing, 169, 179
_Processional, Sarum_, Pynson, 1502, 160;
N. Prevost, 1530, 218;
C. van Ruremond, 1523, 222, 225-6;
Antwerp, for J. Reynes, 200
_Proclamation on the coinage_, W. Faques, 1504, 169
_Proclamations_, T. Berthelet, 179
Proctor, R., 17, 125, 196
Prognostications, 68, 226-7
_Promise of Matrimony_, Machlinia, 48, 51
_Promptorium parvulorum_, 67
_Promptorius puerorum_, Pynson, 1499, 66, 93
_Propositio Johannis Russell_, Caxton, 4, 9
_Prymer_, J. Byddell, 1535, 204
_Psalter, Latin_, Caxton, 13;
W. Faques, 1504, 169, 170
_Psalter, Sarum_, C. van Ruremond, 226
_Psalterium beate marie virginis_, S. Voster, 210
_Psalterium cum hymnis_, 1507, 194;
1530, 199
Pudsey, Bishop, 102
Pynson, Margaret, 166
Pynson, R., 55-71, 158-169, 173, 174, 177, 189, 206, 235, 236
Arms, 162
Bindings, 109, 113-115, 165, 232
Borders, 49, 56, 176
Books printed by, 93, 124, 145, 195
Devices, 59, 62, 65, 174
King’s printer, 133, 162, 171
Method of dating, 68, 159, 160
Printing office, 40, 71, 141, 158, 159, 173
Types, 58, 60, 61, 62, 70
Woodcuts, 57, 62, 64
Pynson, R., junior, 166, 177
Quarto leaves in a folio volume, 52
_Quatre derrenières choses_, Caxton, 6
_Quattuor Sermones._ See Mirk, J., _Liber Festivalis_
Quentell, H., 65, 79
R., A., bookbinder, 116
R., G., bookbinder, 233
R., P., device, 83
Raimund, John. _See_ Ruremond, Hans van
Rastell, Elizabeth, 183
Rastell, John, 152, 156, 158, 183-186, 203;
_New Boke of Purgatory_, 184
Rastell, John, junior, 185
Rastell, William, 158, 180, 185, 186
Ratcliffe, John, 79, 162
Ravynell, James, 83
Rawlinson Collection, 134
_Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye_, Caxton, 3, 6
Redman, Elizabeth, 176
Redman, John, 125, 177
Redman, Robert, 155, 158, 165, 172-177, 203
Regnault, Francis, 207-209
_Regula Benedicti_, W. de Worde for Jacobi, 196
_Regulae et ordinationes_, Machlinia, 55
Rembolt, Berthold, 87, 205
Remonde. _See_ Ruremond
_Revelation of St Nicholas_, Machlinia, 48, 50
_Reynard the Fox_, Caxton, 13;
W. de Worde, 37
Reynes, John, 119, 193, 199-202, 219;
bindings, 232-234
Reynes, Lucy, 201, 202
Richard, Jean, 81, 82, 205, 207
_Richard Cœur de Lion_, W. de Worde, 1509, 135
Richardson, John, 235
Richmond, Countess of, 133, 134
Ripon Cathedral Library, 70, 159
Rivers, Earl, 6
_Robin Hood_, J. van Doesborch, 220
Roce, Denis, 150
Rolle, Richard. _See_ Hampole, Richard de
Rome, 41
Rood, Theodore, 104
_Rosary_, J. Skot, 1537, 151
Rosse, Denis, 150
_Rote or mirror of consolation_, W. de Worde, 33, 34
Rouen: printing, 37, 55, 80, 82, 83, 204-6, 214;
bindings, 233
Rouse, John, 235
Row, John, bookbinder, 224, 235
Roxburghe sale, 35, 39
_Royal Book_, Caxton, 16, 106
Rue, Andrew, 193
Rue, John, 193
_Rule of St Benet_, Caxton, 21;
Pynson, 160
Rupertus, _De victoria verbi Dei_, 1541, 219
Ruremond, C. van, 130, 200, 222-227, 230;
Widow of, 230
Ruremond, Hans van, 218, 222-7
Russell, J., bp of Lincoln, 4
St Alban’s, printing, 41, 149, 187;
binding, 109
St Alban’s Grammar School Library, 106, 107
St Andrews printing, 151
Saint Germain, C., _Answer_, 157;
_Division_, 175, 180;
_Dialogue_, 180
St Paul’s Churchyard, 191
Savonarola, _Sermo_, R. Pynson, 1509, 163;
Tracts, H. Jacobi, 1510, 198
Sayle, C. E., 228, 239
_Scala Perfectionis_, J. Notary, 1508, 143
“Scales” binder, 110
Schoeffer, J., 229
Schoiffer, P., 4
Scotland, introduction of printing, 7
Scott, E. J. L., 130
_Scriptores rei rusticae_, Reggio, 1496, 80
Sedley, John, 194
Selden, John, 106
_Sermo pro episcopo puerorum_, W. de Worde, 28
_Sermones dormi secure_, 193
Service books printed abroad for the English market, 78, 80-82,
84-87, 91-93, 205-210, 212-213, 222, 225, 226
_Seven Points of True Love_, Caxton, 21
_Seven wise masters of Rome_, W. de Worde, 36
_Sex quam elegantissimae epistolae_, Caxton, 14
_Shepherdes Calendar_, 145
Shirburn Castle Library, 184
_Short treatyse_ (Margerie Kempe), W. de Worde, 132
Shrewsbury School Library, 133
Siberch, John, 99, 130, 226
_Siege of Rhodes_, 45
Signatures first used, 3;
in England, 11
Signs:
A.B.C., R. Faques, 171
Fat Hen, Birckman, 219
George, Pynson, 71, 159, 173;
R. Redman, 173
Golden Cross, L. Andrewe, 155
Golden Missal, A. van Berghen, 215
Great Golden Mortar, A. van Berghen, 215
Iron Balance, R. van den Dorp, J. van Doesborch, 220
Lucrece, T. Berthelet, 178
Maiden’s Head, R. Faques, 171, 234
Mermaid, J. Rastell, 144, 184
Our Lady of Pity, W. de Worde, 135;
J. Byddell, 144;
J. Redman, 177
Red Pale, Caxton, 6
Rose Garland, R. Copland, 146, 147
St Anne, J. Pelgrim, 195
St John Evangelist, G. Chasteleyn, 69;
J. Butler, 152;
R. Wyer, 156
St Katherine, 198
St Mark, J. Notary, 144
St Nicholas, N. Lecomte, 95;
J. Toy, 153
Striped Ass, P. de Couvelance, 198, 199
Sun, W. de Worde, 33, 131, 146;
J. Byddell, 140, 144;
J. Gaver, 140
Three Kings, J. Notary, 141, 143, 144
Trinity, 198, 199;
H. Pepwell, 147;
H. Jacobi, 148, 195;
H. Smith, 176
Wodows, P. Treveris, 115
Silverlink, John, 218
Singer, S. W., 2
Sirectus, Antonius, _Formalitates_, 196
Sizes of books, 49
Skelton, John, 64;
_Bowge of Court_, W. de Worde, 37;
_Magnificence_, J. Rastell, 185
Skot, John, 137, 138, 150-53
Smarte, _Epitaph of Jasper, Duke of Bedford_, Pynson, 63
Smith, Henry, 176
Smith, Richard, 142, 149
Smyth, Thomas, 154, 155
Snowe, John, 166
Society of Antiquaries Library, 55, 102, 155
_Solomon and Marcolphus_, G. Leeu, 88, 89
Southwark printing, 177, 199, 208
_Speculum Christiani_, Machlinia, 53, 77
_Speculum Spiritualium_, W. Hopyl, 1510, 194
_Speculum vitae Christi._ _See_ Bonaventura
Spencer, Earl, 8, 16, 74.
_See also_ Althorp Library
Spering, Nicolas, 117, 120, 216
_Spiritus Guidonis_ (Pynson), 59
Squire, Henry, 158, 189
Stanbridge, John, 79, 206;
_Accidence_, J. Gaver, 140;
J. Skot, 150;
_Shorter Accidence_, 1534, 153
_Stans Puer ad Mensam_, 10
Statham, N., _Abridgement_, Rouen, for Pynson, 57
Stationer, business of, 72, 76
Stationer to the King, 1485, 77
Stationer, University, at Oxford, 77
Stationers:
foreign, in England,54;
fifteenth century, 72-100;
of London, 187-213;
aliens, 187-191;
from Antwerp, 214-231
Stationers’ Company, 76, 94, 95, 148, 188, 189, 227
Statutes first written in English, 56
_Statutes_, Machlinia, 54;
W. Faques, 169, 170;
T. Berthelet, 178
_Statutes of War_, Pynson, 1513, 163
Stewarde, William, 141
Stewart, W., bp of Aberdeen, 124
Stillingfleet, Bishop, 143
Stoke, Thomas, 235
Stokeslay, Bishop, 148, 149
Stondo, Bernard van, 53, 77
Stonyhurst Library, 32, 161
_Storys and prophesis_, S. Cock, 1536, 231
Strasburg printing, 211
Strype, John, 191
Sturbridge fair, 192
Suethon, Ludovicus, 199, 202
Sulpitius, J., _Grammar_, W. de Worde, 1504, 133
Sutherland, Duke of, 38
Sutton, Edward, 201
Sutton, Lewis, 148, 199, 202-3
Sutton, Nicholas, 154, 203
Sykes sale, 40
Symmen, Henric van, 90
Symonds, Thomas, 192, 202
Tab, Henry, 149
Tanner, Thomas, 11, 90
Tate, J., papermaker, 29
Taverner, John, 193, 194
Taverner, Richard, 154
_Temple of Brass_, Caxton, 10
_Temple of Glas_, Caxton, 10
Terentius, Pynson, 66;
Paris, 1504, 206;
_Hecyra_, Pynson, 1495, 63;
_Vulgaria_, Machlinia, 48, 51, 54;
G. Leeu, 78;
Oxford, 79;
W. Faques, 170
_Three Kings of Cologne_, W. de Worde, 28, 34, 90
Thwaytes, Edward, 151
Thynne, William, 156
Tindale, W., 228, 229, 230
Title-page, first English, 53;
first Westminster, 25
Title-pages, Collection of, in British Museum, 8
Toy, John, 150, 153, 154, 203
_Treatise of Love_, W. de Worde, 24, 25
_Tree and_ XII _frutes of the holy goost_, 172
Treveris, Peter, 115, 156, 199, 216
Trevisa, John, 29
Trinity stationers. _See_ Jacobi, Henry; Pelgrim, Joyce
Triphook, bookseller, 53
Troost, Ian, 228
_Troylus and Cressede_, W. de Worde, 1517, 137
Tuke, Sir Brian, 156
Tunstall, C., _De arte supputandi_, Pynson, 1522, 165
_Twelve Profits of Tribulation_, Caxton, 21
_Tyl Howleglas._ _See_ Howleglas
Type, side impression of, 216
Ulmer, Johann, 219
Upsala University Library, 11
Utrecht printing, 5, 217
_Valuation of gold and silver_, J. van Doesborch, 155, 221
Vanduffle, Woter, 112
Vatican Library, 164
Vaughan, Stephen, 168
Veldener, J., 5, 52, 54
Vellum, books printed on, 20, 30, 68, 73, 125, 134, 136, 137, 150,
160-5, 170, 180, 181, 204, 209
Venice printing, 73, 85, 91, 93
Verard, Antoine, 145, 161, 206, 212
Vergilius, _Eneydos_, Caxton, 20;
_Life of_, J. van Doesborch, 220, 221
_Very declaration of the ... will of man_, St Alban’s, 149
Violette, Pierre, 205, 206, 207
_Vitas Patrum_, W. de Worde, 1495, 28
Voragine, J. de, _Golden Legend_, Caxton, 15, 18, 23, 24;
W. de Worde, 24, 25, 30, 31, 135, 141;
Notary, 31, 141;
Pynson, 162
Voster, Simon, 210
Vrankenbergh, H., 53
Wakefield, R., _Kotser codicis_, T. Berthelet, 178
Wallensis, T., _Expositiones super Psalterium_, Lettou, 42, 43, 108
Wallis, Thomas, 193
Walsingham, _Foundation of Our Lady’s Chapel_, Pynson, 63, 64
Wanseford, Gerard, 94
Warde, son-in-law to Pynson, 166
Watson, Henry, 135, 136
Watton, John, 53
Way, Albert, 67
_Way to the Holy Land_, W. de Worde, 137
Waynflete, William, 79
Weale, W. H. J., 111
_Wednesday’s Fast_, W. de Worde, 8
Wenssler, Michael, 78
Westminster Abbey Library, 68, 99, 103, 113, 125, 148, 212, 226
Westminster printing, 1-40, 187
Whitchurch, Edward, 208, 209
Whitford, R., _Dayly Exercise_, R. Redman, 175
Whitinton, R., _Grammar_, W. de Worde, 124, 137;
Pynson, 1515, 62;
_Vulgaria_, Pynson, 1520, 177
Wilcock, William, 42, 45
Willett sale, 61
Winchester bindings, 102-104
_Winchester Domesday Book_, 102
Windsor, Royal Library, 20, 81
Wislyn, John, 139
Withers, Richard, 166
Wolsey, Cardinal, 164, 224
_Wonderful shape and nature_, J. van Doesborch, 155, 221
Wood, Anthony á, 178
Woodcut of Crucifixion, 21, 27, 33, 132-3
Woodcuts, 12, 57, 62, 64, 86, 88, 89, 91, 135, 141, 154, 156, 162,
172, 184, 194, 199, 211
Worde, Elizabeth de, 130, 139
Worde, W. de, 23-38, 56, 129-141, 146-7, 149, 150, 152, 162, 178,
199, 235
Bindings, 107, 108, 113, 139, 140, 197
Books printed by, 4, 7, 8, 90, 124, 145, 196, 207, 212
Death, 138
Devices, 25, 26, 32, 132, 133, 212
Method of dating, 31, 135, 141
Number of books printed, 34, 137
Printer to the King’s mother, 133-4
Printing office and shop, 33, 131, 135
Quarto tracts, 32
Removal to London, 33, 131
Types, 19, 24, 25, 26, 30, 131
Woodcuts, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 36, 37, 131, 133, 135, 142
Wright, Edward, 201
Wyer, Robert, 156, 203
_Year-books_, Lettou and Machlinia, 44;
Pynson, 57, 59
Yonge, John, 198
York, printing, 87;
stationer, 94
Zel, Ulric, 142
CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A., AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.
Transcriber's Notes:
Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.
Perceived typographical errors have been changed.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The printers, stationers and bookbinders of Westminster and London from 1476 to 1535" ***
Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.