The Sandars Lectures
1911
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
London: FETTER LANE, E.C.
C. F. CLAY, MANAGER
[Illustration]
Edinburgh: 100 PRINCES STREET
Berlin: A. ASHER AND CO.
Leipzig: F. A. BROCKHAUS
New York: G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Bombay and Calcutta: MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD.
_All rights reserved_
The English Provincial
Printers, Stationers and
Bookbinders to 1557
by
E. GORDON DUFF, M.A. Oxon.
Sometime Sandars Reader in Bibliography
in the University of Cambridge
Cambridge
at the University Press
1912
TO
MY FRIEND
ALFRED WILLIAM POLLARD
PREFACE
The work of the provincial printers, stationers and bookbinders forms
a subject of the greatest interest, and one which has hitherto hardly
received adequate attention.
The presses of the two University towns, Oxford and Cambridge, have
been very fully treated, and, in a lesser degree, those of St Alban’s
and York, but with these exceptions the remaining towns have been
curiously neglected, and our knowledge concerning such important
printing centres as Ipswich, Worcester and Canterbury seems to have
advanced but little since Herbert issued the third volume of his
Typographical Antiquities over a hundred and twenty years ago. The
period during which these three cities possessed printing presses was
an eventful one in England owing to religious and political troubles,
and it is probable that among the many anonymous and secretly printed
books issued at that time, a certain number were produced in the
provincial towns.
There is still much to be learned about these provincial presses. The
careers of the printers, their types, their woodcuts, their ornaments
have still to be traced, and a number of books which have disappeared
within recent years remain to be rediscovered.
For the benefit of anyone desiring to follow up the subject more fully
two appendices have been added to the present book. The first contains
a title list of all the provincial books issued during the period, with
an indication of the libraries where they are preserved; the second,
a list of bibliographical works and articles, general and particular,
dealing with the provincial press.
My thanks are due for permission to have facsimiles made from books
in their charge to the Warden and Fellows of New College, Oxford,
the Master and Fellows of Magdalene College, Cambridge, and to the
authorities of the British Museum and the Cambridge University Library.
E. G. D.
_October 1911._
LIST OF PLATES
1. TITLE-PAGE OF THE ANTONIUS SIRECTUS, PRINTED
FOR H. JACOBI _to face_ p. 26
From the unique copy in the Library of New College, Oxford.
2. COLOPHON AND DEVICES FROM WHITINTON’S GRAMMAR,
PRINTED AT YORK BY URSYN MYLNER IN
1516 _to face_ p. 57
From the unique copy in the British Museum.
3. TITLE-PAGE OF FISHER’S SERMON, PRINTED AT CAMBRIDGE
BY JOHN SIBERCH IN 1522 _to face_ p. 82
From the copy in the Library of Magdalene College, Cambridge.
4. TITLE-PAGE OF THE EXHORTATION TO THE SICK,
PRINTED AT IPSWICH BY JOHN OSWEN IN 1548 _to face_ p. 110
From the copy in the Sandars Collection, University
Library, Cambridge.
LECTURE I.
OXFORD.
In the two series of lectures that I had the pleasure of delivering
in Cambridge as Sandars Reader in 1899 and 1904, I dealt with the
printers, stationers, and bookbinders of Westminster and London from
1476 to 1535, the period from the introduction of printing into England
by William Caxton to the death of his successor, Wynkyn de Worde. In
the present series I propose to turn to the provincial towns and trace
the history of the printers, stationers, and bookbinders who worked in
them from 1478, when printing was introduced into Oxford, up to 1557.
I have extended the period to 1557, because in that year a charter was
granted to the re-formed Company of Stationers, and in this charter
was one very important clause, “Moreover we will, grant, ordain, and
constitute for ourselves, and the successors of our foresaid queen,
that no person within this our kingdom of England, or dominions
thereof, either by himself, or by his journeymen, servants, or by
any other person, shall practise or exercise the art or mystery of
printing, or stamping any book, or any thing to be sold, or to be
bargained for within this our kingdom of England, or the dominions
thereof, unless the same person is, or shall be, one of the society of
the foresaid mystery, or art of a stationer of the city aforesaid, at
the time of his foresaid printing or stamping, or has for that purpose
obtained our licence, or the licence of the heirs and successors of our
foresaid queen.”
The effect of this enactment was virtually to put an end to all
provincial printing, and with the exception of a few Dutch books,
printed under a special privilege at Norwich between 1566 and 1579, and
a doubtful York book of 1579, no printing was done outside London until
1584-5, when the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford once more started
their presses.
Within the period I have chosen, printing was exercised in ten towns,
and the presses fall roughly into three groups. The first contains
Oxford, St Alban’s, and York, the second Oxford’s revived press,
Cambridge, Tavistock, Abingdon, and the second St Alban’s press, and
the last group Ipswich, Worcester, and Canterbury. Besides these there
are one or two towns which, while not having presses of their own, had
books specially printed for sale in them, as for example Hereford and
Exeter, where the resident stationer commissioned books from foreign
printers. And lastly, there must be noticed the places which have
been claimed as possessing a press on account of false or misleading
imprints, such as Winchester and Greenwich.
The first book issued from the Oxford press, the _Expositio in symbolum
apostolorum_, a treatise by Tyrannius Rufinus on the Apostles’ Creed,
was finished on the 17th of December 1478. By an error of the printer
an x was omitted from the figures forming the date in the colophon,
and thus the year was printed as m.cccc.lxviii. [1468] in place of
m.cccc.lxxviii. [1478], and round this false date a wonderful legendary
story was woven some two hundred and fifty years ago.
In 1664 a certain Richard Atkyns published a tract, entitled _The
Original and growth of Printing_, written to prove that printing was a
prerogative of the Crown. To strengthen his case he quoted this Oxford
book, produced, as he claimed, much earlier than anything by Caxton,
and also told a wonderful story of the introduction of printing into
England, said to have been derived from a manuscript in the archives at
Lambeth Palace.
According to this account, Thomas Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury,
having heard of the invention of printing at Haarlem, where John
Gutenberg was then at work (a strange fact which might simplify the
researches on early printing!), persuaded Henry VI. to endeavour to
introduce the art into England. For this purpose, Robert Turner, an
officer of the Robes, taking Caxton as an assistant, set out for
Haarlem, where, after infinite trouble and considerable bribery, a
workman named Frederick Corsellis was persuaded to return with them to
England. On his arrival he was sent under a strong guard to Oxford, and
there set up his press, under the protection of the King.
It is needless to say that the whole story is a fabrication, and a
curiously clumsy one. At the beginning of 1461 Henry VI. was deposed by
Edward, so that these events must have taken place in or before 1460,
and it is strange, with all the materials ready, nothing should be done
for nearly ten years. The information about Gutenberg, who invented
printing at Mainz and was never outside Germany, being engaged at
printing in Haarlem, is preposterous. Lastly, no trace of the documents
has ever been found. It is strange how Atkyns should have fixed on the
name Corsellis for his mythical printer, for this uncommon name was
that of a family of wealthy Dutch merchants settled in London at the
time. Just ten years after the publication of Atkyns’ book, a Nicholas
Corsellis, lord of the manor of Lower Marney, Essex, was buried in the
church there, and on his tomb are some verses beginning,
“Artem typographi miratam Belgicus Anglis
Corsellis docuit.”
Are we to infer from this that the family was a party to the fraud?
The story, however, was revived about the middle of the eighteenth
century, when Osborne, the bookseller, in his catalogue of June 1756
offered for sale an edition of Pliny’s Letters, printed by Corsellis
at Oxford in 1469. In his note he added that the printer had produced
other works in 1470, and that fragments of a Lystrius of this date
were known. Herbert continues the story as follows: “This raised the
curiosity of the book collectors, who considered this article as a
confirmation of what R. Atkins had asserted about printing at Oxford.
They all flocked to Osborne’s shop, who instead of the book, produced
a letter from a man of Amsterdam filled with frivolous excuses for
not sending them to him. They were disappointed, and looked on the
whole as a Hum; however, the _Plinii Epistolæ_ and _G. Lystrii Oratio_
afterwards appeared at an auction at Amsterdam and were bought for the
late Dr Ant. Askew, and were sold again at an auction of his books by
Baker and Leigh in Feb. 1775.”
These two books passed apparently to Denis Daly, then to Stanesby
Alchorne, afterwards to Lord Spencer, and are now in the Rylands
Library. The forgeries were made by a certain George Smith, much
given to that class of work, and passed on to Van Damme, a bookseller
of Amsterdam, who sold the Pliny to Askew for fifteen guineas. The
inscriptions in the books are the clumsiest forgeries, which could not
deceive anyone, while the books themselves were apparently printed at
Deventer, early in the sixteenth century, by a well-known printer,
Richard Paffroet. Listen now to the remarks of the erudite Dr Dibdin
in the Bibliotheca Spenceriana. “Meerman has a long and amusing note
concerning Van Damme and George Smith, from which it would appear
that the latter had imposed upon the bookseller, Van Damme, in the
annexed subscription to the volume, and that Van Damme acknowledged
the imposition to one Richard Paffraet of Deventer. If this be true,
the Dutch bibliopole acted a very dishonest part in selling the volume
to Dr Askew for fifteen guineas!” If instead of long arguments about
the types of the books or the probabilities of the dates, they had
considered the books themselves, it might surely have occurred to them
that it was at least unlikely that the physician, Gerard Lystrius,
a friend and contemporary of Erasmus, should have published a work
in 1470, while the next work issued by him did not appear until
1516. Besides the forged imprint, the Lystrius has at the end a long
spurious note in Dutch purporting to be written by J. Korsellis in
1471, stating that the book had been sent him by his brother, Frederic
Corsellis, from England. In order to kill two birds with one stone, the
writer drags into the note the mythical inventor of printing, Laurens
Janszoon Coster.
Oxford’s claim to having introduced printing into England was first
disputed by the Cambridge University librarian, Dr Conyers Middleton,
in his _Dissertation on the Origin of Printing_, published in 1735.
He originated the theory that a numeral x had fallen out of the
date or been accidentally omitted, and, after citing several early
examples of such a mistake, continued: “But whilst I am now writing,
an unexpected Instance is fallen into my hands, to the support of my
Opinion; an Inauguration Speech of the Woodwardian Professor, Mr Mason,
just fresh from our Press, with its Date given ten years earlier than
it should have been, by the omission of an x, viz. MDccxxiv., and
the very blunder exemplified in the last piece printed at Cambridge,
which I suppose to have happen’d in the first from Oxford.” Middleton
also brought forward what has remained the strongest argument against
the authenticity of the date, the occurrence in the book of ordinary
printed signatures, which are found in no other book until several
years later. Finally, he pointed out the very great improbability of
the interval of eleven years between the book of 1468 and the two books
of 1479. The last person to cling to the 1468 date, doubtless from a
sense of duty, is Mr Madan of the Bodleian. In his exhaustive work on
the early Oxford press, after having fully put forward the arguments
for and against, he sums up the situation as follows: “The ground has
been slowly and surely giving way beneath the defenders of the Oxford
date, in proportion to the advance of our knowledge of early printing,
and all that can be said is that it has not yet entirely slipped away.
It is still allowable to assert that the destructive arguments, even if
we admit their cumulative cogency, do not at the present time amount to
proof.”
Another earlier writer on this question ought to be mentioned, Samuel
Weller Singer, since he wrote a small book entirely confined to the
question of the authenticity of the date. It was entitled “_Some
account of the book printed at Oxford in 1468. In which is examined its
claim to be considered the first book printed in England._” A small
number of copies were privately printed; and the author came to the
conclusion that, in his own words, “The book stands firm as a monument
of the exercise of printing in Oxford, six years older than any book of
Caxton’s with date.” Singer is said to have changed his views on the
subject later on, and to have called in and destroyed as many copies as
possible. His book may be classed as a curiosity for another reason.
The original issue was said to consist of fifty copies privately
printed, and as many copies as possible were afterwards destroyed by
the author, yet it is a book of the commonest occurrence in secondhand
catalogues.
The researches of later years, carried out more scientifically, have
produced some definite information. In the first place, the source of
the type in which the book is printed has been ascertained. It was used
in 1477 and 1478 at Cologne by a printer named Gerard ten Raem, who
printed five books with it; a _Vocabularius Ex quo_ issued in October
1477, two issues of a _Modus Confitendi_ published in January and
October 1478 and a _Donatus_ and _Æsopus moralizatus_, both without
date. These books are very rare; the only one in the British Museum or
Bodleian being the _Donatus_. The Rylands Library contains the _Modus
Confitendi_ with the October date. The University Library possesses the
_Modus_ of January and the unique copy of the _Æsop_.
Now not only are the types of the Oxford and Cologne printers
identical, but both men made similar mistakes in the use of certain
capitals, and we find both in the _Modus Confitendi_ and in the
_Expositio_ a capital H frequently used in place of a capital P. This
must be regarded as more than a mere coincidence and strong evidence of
a connexion between the two presses. The Oxford printer also printed
his capital Q sideways in his earliest book.
The printing of the Cologne _Modus Confitendi_ was finished “in
profesto undecim millium virginum,” that is on October 20; that of the
Oxford _Expositio_ on December 17. This gives an interval of eight
weeks between the issue of the two books, a time much too short to
allow of the same printer having produced both books, even if there
were not other reasons against it. Who then was the printer from
Cologne who introduced printing into Oxford? I think we are quite
justified in believing that he was the Theodoric Rood de Colonia, whose
name is first found in an Oxford book of 1481. Mr Madan considers it
would be unsafe to assume that Rood was the printer of the first three
books, no doubt because the type in which they are printed disappeared
absolutely and was never used again. But analogous cases are not
unknown. For his first book the St Alban’s printer used a beautiful
type which, except as signatures in two other books, never appeared
again.
It is extremely unfortunate that a source from which we might no doubt
have learnt something about the introduction of printing into Oxford,
and some details about the first printer, seems irrevocably lost. This
is the volume of the registers of the Chancellor’s court covering the
period between 1470 and 1497. In the volumes that remain, which contain
records of all proceedings brought before the court, there are numerous
references to stationers, and it may be taken as another piece of
evidence against the 1468 date that there is no reference whatever to
printing or printers between the years 1468 and 1470.
The two books which followed the _Expositio_ are a Latin translation of
the _Nicomachean Ethics_ of Aristotle by Leonardus Brunus Aretinus, and
a treatise on original sin by Ægidius de Columna. The first, a quarto
of one hundred and seventy-four leaves, is dated 1479, but no month
is mentioned. By this date the printer had discovered which way up a
capital Q should stand, and we find it always correctly printed, though
some minor mistakes of the _Expositio_ are continued, such as using a
broken lower-case h sometimes for a b and sometimes, upside down, for a
q. The general printing of the book was however improved, and the lines
more evenly spaced out to the right-hand edge.
The second book, the treatise of Ægidius, _De peccato originali_, is
dated March 14, 1479, but this date may be taken as 1479-80. In this
book we find red printing introduced for the first and last time in an
Oxford book. It is by far the rarest of the early Oxford books, perhaps
on account of its small size, for it contains only twenty-four leaves,
and the three copies known were all bound up in volumes with other
tracts. The Bodleian copy belonged to Robert Burton and came to the
library with his books; that in Oriel College Library was in a volume
with the _Expositio_ and some foreign printed quartos, which, though
kept together, was rebound in the eighteenth century. The third copy,
now in the Rylands Library at Manchester, was, until about thirty years
ago, in a volume with the _Expositio_ and three foreign printed tracts,
including an edition of Michael de Hungaria’s _Tredecim sermones_, a
book which has at the end a curious sermon containing a notice of the
ceremony of incepting in theology at Oxford and Cambridge, with a few
sentences in English. The volume had belonged to a certain A. Hylton in
the fifteenth century, and was in its original stamped binding, a very
fine specimen of contemporary Oxford work. The volume was sold in an
auction about 1883, and the purchaser ruthlessly split up the volume
and disposed of the contents. The two Oxford books found their way into
Mr Quaritch’s hands, who sold the _Expositio_ to an American collector,
while the Ægidius was bought by Lord Spencer to add to the fine series
of Oxford books at Althorp.
These first three Oxford books form a perfectly distinct group. In
them but one fount of type is used, and they are without any kind of
ornament. It is, however, quite impossible to suppose that an interval
of eleven years separated the printing of the first and second books.
The press-work of the second shows a slight improvement on the first,
but only what the experience gained in printing a first book would
enable the printer to carry out on a second attempt.
The next group of books, four in number, centring round the dates 1481
and 1482, are the Commentary on Aristotle’s _De anima_ by Alexander
of Hales, dated October 1481, the Commentary on the Lamentations of
Jeremiah by John Lathbury, a Franciscan and D.D., of Oxford, dated July
31, 1482, and two books known only from fragments, an edition of Cicero
_Pro Milone_, and a grammar in English and Latin.
These books are mostly printed in a new type, a peculiarly narrow
gothic, of the Cologne school, and curiously resembling some used a
little later by another Theodoricus at Cologne.
The Alexander of Hales is a folio of two hundred and forty leaves
printed in double columns, and some copies have a woodcut border
round the first page of text. This was probably an afterthought of
the printer, for he has made no allowance for it in the size of the
page, and the border extends out over two inches beyond the text, with
the inevitable result that no copy, even in the original binding, has
escaped being cut down. This is the first occurrence of a border in an
English book. The design consists of elaborate spirals of flowers and
foliage, amid which are a number of birds; it is a very well-designed
piece of work, but it was probably obtained from abroad. At least
sixteen copies of this book are known, and one, in the library of
Brasenose College, is printed upon vellum, but is unfortunately
imperfect. A copy purchased for Magdalen College, Oxford, at the time
of its issue, cost thirty-three shillings and fourpence.
The Lathbury, like the Alexander, contains the printed border only in
certain copies. Altogether about twenty copies are known, of which four
are in Cambridge. Those in Westminster Abbey and All Souls College,
Oxford, are printed upon vellum, and the latter is a particularly fine
copy in the original stamped binding. A curious point about it is that
four names occur, signed at the bottom of the leaves in various parts
of the volume. It was considered at one time that these might be the
names of press correcters, but from comparison with similar sets of
markings in other books, Mr Madan came to the conclusion that they were
those of the persons who supplied the vellum. It is clear that more
copies on vellum than are known must have been printed, since a number
of fragments have been found in bindings.
The Alexander contains a full colophon stating that it was printed in
the University of Oxford by Theodoric Rood of Cologne on the 11th of
October 1481. The Lathbury has nothing but the date, the last day of
July 1482.
The Cicero _Pro Milone_ is known only from two sets of fragments
rescued from the bindings of books. Four leaves were presented to the
Bodleian in 1872, and four other leaves were found later in the library
of Merton College, where perhaps more may still be discovered. The book
was a quarto and was made up in gatherings of six leaves and probably
consisted of about thirty leaves. A page contains only nineteen lines
which are widely leaded. Though not found in other Oxford books, this
spacing was not uncommon in editions of texts without notes printed
abroad, and was intended to afford space to the student to write
glosses over the words.
This edition of the _Pro Milone_ is further interesting as being the
first classic printed in England, the next being an edition of Terence
issued in separate plays by Pynson between the years 1495 and 1497,
followed after a considerable interval by an edition of Virgil from
the same press. The English printers no doubt saw that it was quite
hopeless to compete with the cheap and well-printed foreign editions.
The _Latin Grammar_ is known only from two leaves found in a
book-binding, and they were acquired by the British Museum in 1872.
What book they came from is not known, but in 1871 they were in the
hands of Messrs Ellis & Green, and were described in the _Athenæum_.
From the frequent references to Oxford in the text, it has been
supposed that the work was compiled in Oxford. Stanbridge was spoken
of as a probable author, but Bradshaw suggested John Anwykyll, first
master of Magdalen School, who had been recommended to the founder for
his skill in a new style of grammatical teaching which had met with
general approbation.
After the publication of these four books, the type with which their
text was printed disappears altogether, but is replaced by one of very
similar appearance, and besides this, two other new founts came into
use. This activity may perhaps be explained by the theory that Thomas
Hunte, the Oxford stationer, had entered into partnership with Rood.
In the Alexander de Hales of 1481 we find Rood’s name alone, while in
the only book of the last group which contains a full colophon, the
Phalaris of 1485, the names of both are given. To Hunte’s influence
may perhaps be traced the acquisition of a fount of type of much more
English appearance, and probably, since it contained a w, intended for
use in English books.
To the years 1483 and 1484 six books may be ascribed. Two editions of
Anwykyll’s grammar, Hampole on Job, a work on Logic, the _Provincial
Constitutions_ of England with the commentary of William Lyndewode, and
a sermon by Augustine on almsgiving.
The editions of Anwykyll’s grammar may be taken first, since in one
copy we find an inscription showing that it was bought in 1483. The
book consists of two parts, the Latin grammar, and a supplement
containing sentences of Terence with English translations, known as the
_Vulgaria Terentii_. The part containing the grammar is excessively
rare. Of one issue one fragment is known, consisting roughly of half
the book, now in the Bodleian Library. It was originally bound up
with other tracts, and the volume was found along with some other old
books in an attic at Condover Hall, Shropshire, by Mr Alfred Horwood
when engaged in an examination of family archives for the Historical
Manuscripts Commission.
The other issue is known only from six leaves, all in Cambridge,
three in the University Library, two in Corpus, and one in Trinity
libraries. Two reprints of the grammar were issued on the Continent,
one by Richard Paffroet at Deventer in 1489, consisting of seventy-six
leaves, and another at Cologne by Henry Quentell about 1492, containing
sixty leaves. From a comparison of the various fragments with these
foreign editions certain conclusions may be drawn. Anwykyll had divided
his grammar into four parts, and in the edition represented by the six
Cambridge leaves these parts were arranged in their proper sequence,
one, two, three, and four. In the edition, however, represented by
the Bodleian fragment, and in both foreign editions, the parts are
arranged, one, three two, four. The last quire of the Bodleian edition
was signed m, and it was followed by the _Vulgaria Terentii_ signed
n to q. The Cambridge edition of the grammar extended at any rate to
signature n.
Since in reprints the tendency is generally to compress, it is most
probable that the Cambridge edition was the earlier, a conclusion
rendered more likely from the arrangement of the books in their correct
order. For some reason this order was altered in the fresh issue, the
printing was compressed, and the _Vulgaria_ printed to go at the end.
It would be natural for the foreign printers to take the most recent
issue as their model, in this case the edition represented by the
Bodleian fragment.
We may conclude then that the first Oxford issue consisted of
Anwykyll’s grammar alone, the second the grammar re-arranged and
compressed, with the _Vulgaria Terentii_ added as a supplement.
The _Vulgaria_ was, however, certainly sold alone, for two of the
five copies known were bound up with other tracts and without the
grammar in original bindings. A copy in the Bodleian has an interesting
inscription stating it was bought in 1483 by John Green out of gifts
made by his friends.
The work of Richard Rolle of Hampole on Job is known from four copies,
three of which were until quite recently in the University Library.
One of these was parted with as a duplicate in 1893, and is now in
the Rylands Library at Manchester. The fourth copy, up to the time
unnoticed, appeared in the auction of Mr Inglis’s books in 1900, when
it was bought by Mr Bennett of Manchester, and passed with his whole
library into the wonderful collection of Mr Pierpont Morgan of New
York. The volume consists of sixty-four leaves, and the last few pages
are taken up with a sermon of Augustine, _De misericordia_.
The separately printed _Excitatio ad elemosinam faciendam_ of Augustine
was probably issued about the same time. Only one copy is known and it
was originally bound in a volume with other fifteenth-century tracts,
two of which are dated 1482 and 1484. This volume was at one time in
the Colbert collection, which was finally dispersed by auction in
1728, when the volume was Lot 4912 and sold for one livre ten sous. It
ultimately came to the British Museum, where it lay for long unnoticed,
having been entered in the catalogue as printed by A. Ther Hoernen at
Cologne, but in 1891 it was recognised as a product of the early Oxford
press, and transferred to the select cases.
The next book in this group is a work on Logic, or rather a collection
of nineteen logical treatises strung together to form a systematic
work. It is generally associated with the name of Richard Swineshede
from the occurrence of his name at the end of the seventeenth
treatise. He was a monk of the Cistercian abbey of Swineshead in
Lincolnshire, and a fellow of Merton College, Oxford, so that, as is
fitting, one of the two known copies of the book is in Merton Library.
The other copy is in the library of New College. A considerable number
of fragments of this book have been found used in bindings, and there
are odd leaves in the University Library and in the libraries of
Trinity and St John’s, Cambridge.
The _Constitutiones Provinciales_ with the commentary of William
Lyndewode, Wilhelmus de Tylia nemore, as he is called in the text,
is by far the largest and most important book issued by the Oxford
press, and the first edition of Lyndewode’s great work. It is a large
folio of three hundred and fifty leaves, printed in double columns,
with forty-six lines of text, or sixty of commentary, to the column.
On the verso of the first leaf, missing in the majority of copies, is
a woodcut of a doctor seated writing at a desk under a canopy, with a
tree on either side. This represents, however, not Lyndewode compiling
his commentary, but Jacobus de Voragine at work on the _Golden Legend_,
a book which the Oxford press appears to have made some preparations
for publishing.
This is the most common of the early Oxford books. Mr Madan enumerates
twenty copies, but others have since come to light. One copy is known
printed upon vellum. It was purchased at the M’Carthy sale for one
hundred francs, and is now in the Bibliothèque Nationale. The vellum
copy, quoted by Hartshorne, as in the library of St John’s College,
does not exist, though that library possesses two on paper. One copy
in Cambridge, that in the library at Corpus, is worthy of special
mention, as its handsome stamped binding bears every mark of being the
work of Caxton.
In 1485 the Phalaris was issued. This is a Latin translation by
Franciscus Aretinus of the spurious Letters of Phalaris. At the
commencement are some verses by Petrus Carmelianus, the Court poet,
and at the end an interesting colophon in twelve lines of Latin verse
setting forth that the book was printed by Theodoric Rood of Cologne in
partnership with the Englishman, Thomas Hunte. It continues that Jenson
taught the Venetians, but Britain has learnt the art for itself and
that in future the Venetians may cease from sending their books to us
since we are now selling books to others.
It is a curious and amusing coincidence that Jenson should here be
mentioned as introducing printing into Venice in place of the real
first printer, John of Spire, for Jenson’s often repeated claim to be
the first printer of Venice rests upon exactly the same grounds as the
Oxford printer’s claim to be the first printer in England, a date in a
colophon with a numeral, x, accidentally omitted.
The _Decor Puellarum_ printed at Venice by Jenson, with the date
printed 1461 in place of 1471, led many early writers to consider him
the first printer of Venice and of Italy, and it is possible that a
copy of the book, having found its way to Oxford, deceived the writer
of the verses in the Phalaris. If in return a copy of the _Expositio_
could have reached Venice, its “1468” would have just given it the lead
of the first Venice book, the _Cicero_ of 1469, by one year.
Another grammar was printed about this time, the _Doctrinale_ of
Alexander de Villa Dei, with a commentary. Probably what the Oxford
printer issued was not the complete work but the section _De nominum
generibus_. Of this book two leaves only are known, preserved in a
binding in St John’s College, Cambridge. These were first noticed by
Henry Bradshaw, who found also some leaves of the Oxford Anwykyll in a
similar binding in Corpus. When the two books, Hollen’s _Præceptorium_
printed by Koburger at Nuremberg in 1505, from St John’s, and the
_Fortalitium fidei_ printed at Lyons in 1511, from Corpus, were
compared, it was clear that they must have been bound by the same
binder almost at the same time, for, besides the fragments of Oxford
books found in both, the binder had used in each fragments of one and
the same vellum manuscript. From the occurrence of these fragments Mr
Gibson has claimed the binding as Oxford work, but as the fragments
were binder’s, not printer’s waste, that is they were from books that
had been in circulation, no very strong argument can be deduced from
them. I have in my own collection a book bound at Cambridge by Garrat
Godfrey, with his signed roll, of which the boards are entirely made of
fragments of the Oxford Lyndewode.
After 1485 we hear no more of Rood, but it was for a time considered
possible, if not probable, that he was identical with another printer
named Theodoric, who printed some books at Cologne in 1485 and 1486
in a distinctive type remarkably resembling that used by Rood in the
Hales and Lathbury. The supposition had much in its favour; the types
were undeniably alike, both being of the same class as that used by
Ther Hoernen, another Cologne printer. The name Theodoricus again
was extremely uncommon. Panzer gives only three in the fifteenth
century, the Oxford and Cologne printers, and the well-known Thierry
Martens, the printer of the Low Countries. There was no proof, and
there was no direct evidence of any kind, but the hypothesis was not
quite groundless. For some reason, in a review of Vouillième’s work
on Cologne printing, Proctor fell upon this “myth formed without
a particle of evidence,” as he called it, though it was only from
information in the book reviewed that any new facts about Theodoric
were derived. Vouillième discovered documents showing that the Cologne
Theodoric was a son of Gertrude Molner, who subsequently married Arnold
Ther Hoernen, and after his death in 1483 or 1484, Conrad von Boppard.
The last book from the early Oxford press was an edition of the _Liber
Festivalis_ or _Festial_, consisting of sermons for holy days and
certain Sundays of the year, compiled by John Mirk, prior of Lilleshall
in Shropshire. Though generally spoken of as a mere reprint of Caxton’s
edition, it varies very considerably in the text, and when Caxton
issued a new edition he copied from this rather than his own earlier
version.
This is the only Oxford book which was illustrated, and the
illustrations are very interesting. A series of eleven large oblong
woodcuts occur, and all have been mutilated by having some two inches
cut off the blocks to allow of their being used on a small folio page.
No other editions of the _Festial_ are illustrated, and Bradshaw
pointed out that these cuts were really part of a set intended to
illustrate an edition of the _Golden Legend_. In the Lyndewode, issued
about 1483, the printer had used one of these cuts in a complete state,
so that as early as 1483 he had evidently been considering the issue
of a _Golden Legend_ and had begun to make preparations. But Caxton in
London was at work on the same book, and, finishing his translation
in November 1483, no doubt issued his volume early in 1484. From his
prologue we learn that the labour and expense of production were so
heavy that he was “halfe desperate to have accomplissed it”; and we can
quite understand the Oxford printer hesitating to embark upon a rival
edition of a book so expensive to produce, and with which the market
had just been supplied. The smaller illustrations belong to a set made
for a _Book of Hours_, but no edition containing them is known to exist.
In this book occurs also the only woodcut initial letter used at the
press, a very roughly cut G without any ornament. Though of the very
poorest appearance, it was used with considerable frequency; for it is
found between fifty and sixty times at the usual commencement of the
sermons “Good men and women.”
Four copies of the book are known. Two in the Bodleian, very imperfect,
and one in the Rylands Library wanting the first two leaves. The finest
is at Lambeth, which wants only the last, blank, leaf.
The printing of the book was finished in 1486, “on the day after Saint
Edward the King,” presumably March 19; but there is nothing to show
whether this would be the year 1486 or 1487 of our reckoning. The only
other provincial press of the fifteenth century, that of St Alban’s,
stopped also in 1486, but so far no good reason has been suggested
for this simultaneous cessation. That it was due to any political or
religious motive, as is sometimes stated, is very improbable; the
growing foreign competition seems a more reasonable cause.
From the very earliest times there appear to have been two classes
of stationers in Oxford, those who were sworn servants of the
University, and those who worked independently. A deed of 1290 shows
that the parchment makers, illuminators, and text writers were in the
jurisdiction of the Chancellor of the University, and in 1345 the
Chancellor was acknowledged to have jurisdiction over four official
stationers. A most interesting deed of 1373 sets forth that “There
are a great many booksellers in Oxford who are not sworn to the
University; the consequence of which is, that books of great value are
sold and carried away from Oxford, the owners of them are cheated,
and the sworn stationers are deprived of their lawful business. It is
therefore enacted that no bookseller, except the sworn stationers or
their deputies, shall sell any book, being either his own property
or that of another, exceeding half a mark in value, under pain of,
for the first offence, imprisonment, for the second, a fine of half a
mark, for the third, abjuring his trade within the precincts of the
University.” The university stationers in their official capacity had
to value manuscripts offered as pledges for money advanced, they seem
also to have supplied books to the students at a fixed tariff, and
acted as intermediaries between buyer and seller when a student had a
book to sell. For these duties they received an occasional fee from
the University.
At the time when printing was introduced, we find the same two classes,
the University stationers, almost always Englishmen, and the unofficial
booksellers and bookbinders, mainly foreigners.
The most important stationer in the fifteenth century was Thomas
Hunte, who, we have seen, was for a time a partner with Theodoric Rood
the printer. His name first appears in 1473, in which year he sold a
Latin Bible, now in the British Museum, and he was then one of the
official University stationers. Between 1477 and 1479 he was living in
Haberdasher Hall in the parish of St Mary the Virgin. These premises in
Cat Street belonged to Oseney Abbey and seem to have been a favourite
situation with stationers. In 1479, besides Hunte, a bookbinder, Thomas
Uffyngton, who bound for Magdalen College, also resided there. After
the appearance of Hunte’s name in the Phalaris of 1485 we find no
further mention of him, but his widow was occupying the same premises
in 1498.
Another stationer who visited Oxford and was apparently connected with
it was Peter Actors, a native of Savoy. On a leaf used in the binding
of a French translation of Livy in the Bodleian is a list of books
which he and his partner, John of Aix-la-Chapelle, left with Thomas
Hunte on sale or return in 1483. His headquarters, however, must have
been in London, for in 1485 he was appointed Stationer to the King.
It is thus mentioned in the _Materials for a history of Henry VII._,
“Grant for life to Peter Actoris, born in Savoy, of the office of
stationer to the King; also licence to import, so often as he likes,
from parts beyond the sea, books printed and not printed into the
port of the city of London, and other ports and places within the
kingdom of England, and to dispose of the same by sale or otherwise,
without paying customs, etc., thereon and without rendering any
account thereof.” Richard III., in an act of 1484, had given special
encouragement to foreigners for bringing books into this country or
for settling here as booksellers, binders or printers, and there is
every evidence that this facility was freely taken advantage of. From
the two or three rather conflicting entries relating to the grant
to Peter Actors, it is not quite clear whether his appointment was
made originally by Richard III. and confirmed by Henry VII. after his
accession, or whether it originated with the latter. At any rate from
the act and from this appointment we have definite evidence that both
kings looked with favour on the book-trade and encouraged it by all
means in their power.
The son of Peter Actors, Sebastian, certainly lived in Oxford in the
parish of St Mary the Virgin, and was a stationer and bookbinder. In
the University archives is the record of a grant of administration
after his death dated April 23, 1501. In this a claim is made by a John
Hewtee, who had married his sister Margaret, on behalf of her father,
Peter Actors, for the tools used in binding.
Among the binding material belonging to the father we may probably
include three panel stamps of which impressions are known. Two of them
are ornamented with spirals of foliage and flowers enclosing fabulous
animals in the curves, while in the centre are two dragons with
their necks entwined. Round one of these panels runs the inscription,
“Ho mater dei memento Maistre Pierre Auctorre,” while the other has
an inscription in French, but no binder’s name. The third panel has
a conventional acorn design upon it without any inscription. So far
we have not traced these panels to a date early enough for them to
have been used by Sebastian Actors, but about 1520 they are used in
conjunction with other tools found on Oxford work.
Another stationer, George Chastelain, is first mentioned in the imprint
of a grammar printed by Pynson about 1499, “Here endeth the Accidence
made at the instance of George Chastelayn and John Bars.” There is
no indication where he was then at work, but in 1502 he was admitted
as a servant to the liberties of the University. About 1507 Pynson
printed for him an edition of the _Principia_ of Peregrinus de Lugo,
an extremely rare book, of which, however, there is a copy in the
University Library. In this his address is given as the sign of St John
Evangelist in the street of St Mary the Virgin. He was a bookbinder as
well as a stationer, and in the registers of Magdalen College frequent
mention is made of him between 1507 and 1513 as binding books for their
library. He died in 1513, and his will was administered by Mr. Wutton
and Henry Jacobi, a stationer. An inventory of his goods was made by
Howberch, a University stationer, and Richard Pate, and the value
returned at £24.
Some time between 1512 and 1514 a stationer named Henry Jacobi migrated
from London to Oxford. From 1506 to 1508 he had been in partnership
with another bookseller named Joyce Pelgrim, and assisted by a wealthy
London merchant named Bretton they issued several books together.
Between 1509 and 1512 Jacobi published books alone, though he appears
to have still been helped by Bretton.
One book is known printed for Jacobi at Oxford, an edition of the
_Formalitates_ of Antonius Sirectus. An imperfect title-page and a few
leaves were found by Proctor in the binding of a book in New College
Library, and shortly afterwards a copy of the book, wanting a greater
part of the title, was identified in the British Museum. It is a quarto
of twenty-two leaves, and was printed in London by W. de Worde. On the
title-page is the very finely engraved device of Jacobi, probably newly
cut, and found in no other of his books, though it was used again in
a mutilated state by his successor; and below the device an imprint
stating that the book was to be sold in the University of Oxford at the
sign of the Trinity, by Henry Jacobi, a London bookseller. His shop in
London in St Paul’s Churchyard had also the sign of the Trinity. Jacobi
made his will on September 8, 1514, and died shortly after. On November
9 his wife renounced her executorship, and administration was granted
to William Bretton, the rich merchant who had assisted him throughout
his career. On December 11 administration of the effects of Jacobi was
granted at Oxford also to Bretton through his agent, Joyce Pelgrim,
Jacobi’s former partner.
[Illustration: TITLE-PAGE OF THE ANTONIUS SIRECTUS, PRINTED FOR H.
JACOBI.]
The most interesting figure among the early Oxford stationers is
undoubtedly John Dorne or Thorne. In 1507 he was a printer at
Brunswick, and printed an edition of the grammar of Remigius
entitled _Dominus que pars_, the first book to be printed in that town.
In 1509 he printed an edition of the _Regimen Sanitatis_, and with
this second book his career as a printer seems to have ended. Later
he moved as a bookseller to Oxford, and a valuable memorial of his
stay there is preserved in the shape of his day-book or ledger for the
whole year 1520. This curious little manuscript is in the library of
Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and was for long erroneously catalogued
as a catalogue of books in the monastery of St Frideswide. Its great
interest remained unrecognised. Dibdin was shown it on a visit to
Oxford, but as might be expected failed to see its value and took no
further notice of it. Coxe, in his catalogue of manuscripts preserved
in college libraries, gave a correct account of it in 1852, and finally
in 1885 it was admirably edited by Mr Madan and published in the
Collectanea of the Oxford Historical Society. At the end of January
1886 a separate copy was sent to Henry Bradshaw, who immediately set
to work upon it, and on the 4th of February he sent to Mr Madan a thin
bound folio volume of notes, to which he had prefixed a title-page, “A
Half-Century of Notes on the Day-book of John Dorne.” This was the last
piece of work which Bradshaw finished, and within a week of sending it
he was dead.
Dorne’s ledger throws full light on the trade of an unprivileged
stationer in a University town. His supply of books necessary for
the schools was small. These no doubt would be mostly bought from
the licensed University stationer; but all other classes are well
represented. Of liturgical books he sold a very large number, and
naturally the various works of Erasmus were in great demand. The number
of English books sold was relatively small, though there are frequent
entries of single sheets, almanacks, and ballads. Such cheaper and
popular stock would find a ready sale when he set up his stall at the
St Austin’s and St Frideswide’s fairs. Towards the end of May when
business was quiet after St Austin’s fair, he went abroad for a couple
of months, presumably to arrange for the supply of fresh stock, though
his absence did not coincide with the time of the Frankfurt fair. The
ledger begins again on August 5, “post recessum meum de ultra mare.” In
October came St Frideswide’s fair, when he sold books to the amount of
£17, 9s. 6d. as against the £14, 4s. 10d. which he received at the St
Austin’s fair in May. Probably during fair time he would have to close
his ordinary shop, and transfer his business for the time to a stall in
the precincts of the fair itself.