with two leaves printed on vellum, which formerly belonged to Bishop
Moore, in the University Library. Another copy, slightly imperfect,
was given to Pembroke College Library by the Master, Bishop Launcelot
Andrews, in 1589. Besides these, five other copies are known. The
initial M of the word Missale on the title-page is a very large and
elaborate letter, having a scroll up the centre limb on which is
engraved the printer’s name M. P. Holivier. Similar ornamental letters
containing their names were used by other Rouen printers, such as Morin.
The _Processional_ is without date, and the colophon states that it was
printed at Rouen by Olivier for John Gachet, alias de France. A copy
of this edition is at Ripon, and there are perhaps others; but both Dr
Henderson, in his list of York service books, and Davies have mixed up
this edition with the later dated edition of 1530.
Of the _Manual_, also undated, only one copy is known, in the library
bequeathed to Dublin by Narcissus Marsh, the Archbishop. It has no name
of printer, but only the statement on the title that it was printed
for Gachet. The _Hymnal_ is known from two copies, one in the British
Museum, and another in the library of St John’s College, Cambridge.
It fortunately has a full imprint and colophon stating that it was
printed for Gachet by Olivier and finished on the 5th of February 1517.
By an oversight in the printing of the Museum copy, four pages have
been left quite blank.
After issuing this series of service books Gachet left York and moved
to Hereford, where he published a book in May, but of his movements
during the next few years we know nothing. Soon after his leaving
York, two Rouen booksellers issued a _Missal_ and _Book of Hours_,
but in the interval between 1517 and 1526 no York books were issued.
In this latter year Gachet once more appeared at York and published a
_Breviary_, printed for him at Paris by François Regnault, the first
York book printed at a Paris press, most of the previous service books
having been printed at Rouen.
Between 1530 and 1533 Gachet issued another series of service books,
two _Missals_, a _Processional_, and a _Breviary_. A _Missal_ and a
_Processional_ were issued in 1530, and, though neither contains a
printer’s name, they were certainly printed at Rouen. On the title-page
of the _Missal_ is the large M with the name Holivier engraved upon
it, but by 1530 Olivier had ceased to print, and the book may be
ascribed to his successor, Nicholas le Roux. Three copies are known
of this _Missal_, two in Oxford and one in Marsh’s Library, Dublin.
One of the Oxford copies was, sometime in the seventeenth century,
bound in two volumes, with most disastrous results, for now one volume
is in the Bodleian, the other in the library of Queen’s College. The
_Processional_ is an octavo of ninety-six leaves. Both Dr Henderson
and Davies have in their descriptions confused this edition with the
earlier undated one issued about 1516. The present has the date 1530
upon the title-page, but contains no name of printer or place; the
colophon merely states that it was printed for Gachet. The copy in
the Bodleian is a very fine one and contains the signature J. Brooke,
probably Sir John Brooke, the Yorkshire Royalist. It is in its original
binding apparently executed in York, as the boards are lined with
unused sheets of the York _Breviary_ printed for Gachet in 1526. The
British Museum copy has four quires, that signed F and the last three,
printed in a different type, though the text agrees page for page with
the ordinary copies. In them the colophon ends, “Impressum expensis
honesti viri Johannis Gachet, in eadem civitate commorantis,” but in
the Museum impression the final words, “in eadem civitate commorantis,”
have been omitted. No edition is known from which these four quires
in the Museum copy could have been taken. It may be that the original
stock of these sheets was damaged in some way and reprints made to
supply their place, an occurrence of which several examples are known,
otherwise they are the only remains of an edition now lost.
The last book with a York stationer’s name in the colophon was a
_Breviary_ printed in August 1533 by Regnault at Paris for Gachet. In
the same year Regnault printed a _Missal_. This has not Gachet’s name
in the colophon, but was to be sold at Paris in the Rue St Jacques
at the sign of the Elephant, Regnault’s own address. Regnault had
been the most important printer of English service books, and we know
from a letter written by him to Cromwell in 1536, that he had a
place of business in London from which he supplied the booksellers.
By that time, however, his trade in such books had almost altogether
disappeared.
Perhaps on account of the restrictions placed upon alien stationers by
the act of 1534, we find among others taking out letters of denization
in 1535 “John Gachet, alias Frenchman, of the city of York bookbinder,
from the dominion of the King of France,” but we find no further
mention of him as dealing in books, nor do we know anything of his
later career. We meet, however, with other members of the family. In
1543 John Gachet, Frenchman, of the parish of St Michael le Belfry,
occurs in a list of soldiers sent from York to Newcastle. If this
was a son of our stationer, he died shortly afterwards, as in 1551
administration of the effects of John Gachet, son of John Gachet of
York, stationer, dying at Rawcliffe, was granted to George Gachet, his
brother. A William Gachet, stationer, was admitted to the freedom of
the city in 1549-50, and the will of another William Gachet of York is
dated 1551.
The books which had been printed specially for York booksellers had
consisted entirely of service books, and about 1534 most of these
ceased to be printed, being suppressed or falling into disuse. Thus
though we afterwards find a continuous succession of stationers at
York, no books are known specially printed for them. The enterprising
stationers had all been foreigners, and foreigners were not viewed with
favour in York or elsewhere at that period. They seem to have absorbed
most of the trade to the detriment of the natives, so that we find
in 1554 the Company of Bookbinders and Stationers of York passing a
bye-law that no stranger or foreigner should sell any book or books
within the city, except freemen of the same city. Earlier acts had
prohibited the taking of foreign apprentices, so that the acts and
this bye-law combined absolutely prohibited any foreigner engaging in
the book trade in the city. The later stationers were all natives; and
if they had energy they did not show it in the form of commissioning
books. When the service books began to be reissued in Mary’s reign,
no York stationer’s name is connected with them. Of those that were
issued all were printed in London and sold by London booksellers. Then
came the Stationers’ Charter of 1557 and with it the extinction of the
provincial trade.
From the Fabric rolls of York Minster, from the registers of freemen,
and from various other sources, we obtain the names of a number of
bookbinders who worked at York during the latter half of the fifteenth
and the first half of the sixteenth centuries. A Thomas Messingham
bound books for the Minster in red leather, probably the bright red
deer skin often found at that period. Frederick Freez is called
bookbinder, and about 1494 Peter Moreaux, another bookbinder, was made
a freeman. John Welles, John Meltynbe and John Gowthwaite took up
their freedom as bookbinders before 1557, and others, Thomas Newell
and Edward Huby, who were not freemen, are mentioned in accounts as
binders. Unfortunately we cannot point to any definite bindings as
produced by these men, but it is not improbable that a full and careful
examination of the old bindings preserved in the Minster Library might
produce some good results, at any rate this source of information still
remains to be worked. A late writer on bookbinding, with more daring
than discretion, ascribes one or two marks found on bindings to York
binders. He writes as follows: “G. W., whose trade-mark occurs on the
covers of many books bound in England, exercised his craft between 1489
and 1510. Either he or his son was probably associated later on with
another stationer, I. G.; an elegantly designed stamp bearing both
cyphers adorns many bindings executed between 1512 and 1535. These
may perhaps be the trade-marks of Gerard Freez or Wandsforth, brother
of Frederick, bookseller and binder of York, 1507-10, and of John
Gachet, stationer and bookseller of Hereford and York, who was still
carrying on business in 1535.” This is all futile suggestion. Gerard
Wandsforth, who died in 1510, left no children, and John Gachet did
not come to York until after Wandsforth was dead. Moreover the mark
assigned by this authority to G. Wandsforth and read as G. W. is by
all rules of traders’ marks W. G. If anything is discovered about York
bookbinding, it will not be by this class of idle speculation. All that
can be said is that we know of numerous York bookbinders, so that very
many bindings were produced there, and no doubt numbers still remain
awaiting identification.
In Gachet’s career as a stationer, a long period, the nine years
between 1517 and 1526, remains unaccounted for. He had published a
series of York service books in 1516 and 1517, the last, a _Hymnal_,
being dated February 5, 1517. For some reason he became dissatisfied
with York, and moved to seek business elsewhere, and in May 1517 he
appears to have been living in Hereford, where he issued an edition of
the _Ortus Vocabulorum_ with his name in the colophon.
Though printing was not actually practised in Hereford, three books at
least are known which were printed for sale there. In 1502 the very
beautiful Hereford _Missal_ was printed at Rouen by Pierre Olivier
and Jean Mauditier for a Rouen stationer, Jean Richard. We know
accidentally that about the time this _Missal_ was printed Richard was
in England, for he was party to a lawsuit at Oxford, and he may have
journeyed to Hereford to dispose of this book. But though intended
for sale in the diocese, the imprint contains no mention of any local
stationer. In 1505 a Hereford _Breviary_ was issued by a stationer
named Ingelbert Haghe, who was under the patronage, as he expressly
tells us in the preface, of that “illustrissima virago” Margaret,
countess of Richmond and Derby, a generous patroness of printers. Haghe
was himself originally a Rouen stationer, but had come over and settled
in England. On some loose leaves in the Bodleian originally forming the
lining of the binding of a bible is an inscription stating that the
book was bought from Ingelbert the Hereford bookseller in 1510 about
the day of the Lichfield fair. The Hereford _Breviary_ is a very rare
book. The Bodleian has the Pars Estivalis which came from the Colbert
sale. A copy was in Richard Smith’s sale in 1682, when it was sold
for three shillings and eightpence. This may be the copy given at the
end of the seventeenth century to Worcester Cathedral Library by Dr
George Benson, prebendary of Worcester and dean of Hereford. The third
copy known is in private hands. It would seem that Ingelbert and his
patroness Margaret quarrelled over the production of this book, for in
the plea-rolls of 1505, the year in which it was issued, he is cited
as defendant in a suit brought by Margaret, Countess of Richmond, the
King’s mother, to recover the sum of one hundred shillings. He is there
called stationer and bookseller of London, so that he may have had a
shop in both places. Unfortunately we have only the mere mention of the
case without any reference to its purpose, but the coincidence of the
date and the known connexion of the Lady Margaret with the issue of the
_Breviary_ make it probable that it formed the subject of the dispute.
The only other Hereford book known is an edition of the _Ortus
Vocabulorum_, of which the only known copy, once in the magnificent
collection of Richard Vaughan of Hengwrt, is now in the Rylands
Library, Manchester. The colophon states that it was printed in 1517
at Rouen by Eustace Hardy at the costs of Jean Caillard, a stationer
in business at Rouen, and John Gachet living at Hereford. The copy is
quite perfect and in good condition, and has the further interest of
being in its original stamped binding. After this single venture we
hear no more of Gachet at Hereford, or of anything being published
there.
LECTURE III.
OXFORD SECOND PRESS AND CAMBRIDGE.
After an interval of about thirty years the Oxford press restarted on
a brief career, this time apparently with the official sanction of the
University. The first book issued was a commentary by W. Burley _Super
libros posteriorum Aristotelis_. It is a small tract of ten leaves, and
was finished on December 4, 1517. The printer, John Scolar, lived in
St John’s Street, near Merton College. Nothing is known of him before
he appears at Oxford as a printer, and nothing of his career in the
University. Mr Madan remarks, “Although Scolar uses the arms of the
University (their earliest occurrence in print), yet the registers of
the University almost ignore the fact that for the second time the
greatest literary invention since speech and writing were known was
silently at work in its midst.” The expression “almost ignore” is
rather disingenuous. Whether the registers did or did not ignore John
Scolar we shall never know, since the volume covering the years from
1515 to 1526 is lost.
The text and notes of this volume are printed in two sizes of
black-letter type, apparently identical with that used by Wynkyn de
Worde. Some of the initials and the woodcut at the end are certainly
his, and it would appear as though Scolar had obtained from him the
type which had been used for printing the work of Sirectus, published a
year or two earlier at Oxford by Jacobi.
The next book, finished on May 15, 1518, is Dedicus’ _Questiones super
libros Ethicorum Aristotelis_. A very interesting fact about it is the
statement on the last leaf that the printer had a privilege for it for
seven years granted by the Chancellor. No one was to print it in the
University or sell copies printed elsewhere under pain of confiscation
of the books and a fine of five pounds sterling. The notice ends with
the expressive Latin adage, “Cornicum oculos configere noli.”
This is the first privilege which I have found in an English printed
book, the next, six months later, having been granted by the King for
Cuthbert Tonstall’s _Oratio in laudem matrimonii Mariæ et Francisci_.
This privilege prevented anyone either reprinting it in England or
selling foreign printed copies for the space of two years. This may
seem a short time, but the subject was only of passing interest. The
rise, growth, and scope of these privileges, which are the foundations
of copyright, form a subject which has hitherto received little or no
attention even from writers on copyright, though I think it would go
far to prove that the perpetual copyright, which later on was claimed
by the stationers, was never legally recognised, but that the power
granted them by the charter enabled them to impose and uphold arbitrary
restrictions which were not legally binding.
On the title-page of this and the preceding work is John Scolar’s
device, the shield of the University surmounted by a cap and supported
by two angels. On the shield are the arms, the book with seven seals
between the three crowns, but the motto on the book in place of the
present “Dominus illuminatio mea” is “Veritas liberabit, bonitas
regnavit.” Another woodcut containing the Royal arms and supporters is
used in these books, which had been used previously by W. de Worde.
In June 1518 three books were printed: _Questiones de luce et lumine_,
a tract of eight leaves, Burley’s _Principia_, also of eight leaves,
and a Grammar of Whitinton. A new Oxford book from Scolar’s press was
discovered recently in a volume of tracts in the British Museum. It is
an edition of the _Opus insolubilium_, a text-book for the schools.
It consisted originally of four leaves, but the last is unfortunately
missing. On the first leaf is the woodcut of the University arms in
fresh condition. This tract may perhaps be the first production of
Scolar’s press.
The _Questiones de luce et lumine_ has on the title-page a small rough
woodcut depicting the visit of the Magi, belonging to a series made to
illustrate a _Book of Hours_; and on the title of Burley’s _Principia_
is a small neat woodcut, rather Italian in style, of a master seated
before a desk with a pupil standing before him. At the end is a woodcut
of the arms of England supported by the greyhound and dragon. Below are
two portcullises, and above two angels hold ribbons bearing the motto
“Hec rosa virtutis de celo missa sereno
Eternum florens regia sceptra feret.”
This woodcut was part of the material obtained by the Oxford printer
from W. de Worde, and which after the cessation of the press was
returned to him. We find him using it in some of his later books, by
which time it had become slightly damaged by wormholes.
We hear no more of Scolar in Oxford after 1518, when he probably left
the city; but his place was taken by Charles Kyrfoth, who issued in
February 1519 a _Compotus manualis ad usum Oxoniensium_, a little
treatise of arithmetic illustrated by wood engravings of the open hand
with values attached to each part. It is a small tract of eight leaves,
and we learn from Dorne’s accounts that its price was one penny. In the
colophon Kyrfoth gives his address, as did Scolar, as St John’s Street,
and as he used the same device of the University Arms, we may conclude
he had taken on Scolar’s business. On the title-page is a large and
curious woodcut divided horizontally into three portions. In the upper
is a row of seven books. In the centre a master in an embroidered robe
and crowned with laurel is seated at a desk, while on either side of
him are scholars taking notes. In the lower part are five men in gowns
holding books. In the text are four diagrams of hands. The only copy
known of this book is in the University Library. Beyond the occurrence
of his name in this colophon we know nothing further of Kyrfoth. He
probably left Oxford soon after the issue of this book, for his name is
not found in the list of inhabitants in the Subsidy Rolls of 1524.
Scolar, as we said above, left Oxford in 1518, but we meet with him
again ten years later; for in 1528 he printed a _Breviary_ for the
use of the Benedictine Monastery at Abingdon, which will be noticed
hereafter.
Between 1527 and 1557 nothing was printed at or for Oxford. The books
printed for John Dorne, described in an earlier lecture, were the last
enterprise of an Oxford publisher. Nor apparently was there any wish to
continue printing, for while Cambridge was careful during the changes
brought about by various acts to preserve her liberties, and when the
act of 1534 against foreign stationers was passed to obtain a special
exemption enabling the University to employ foreign stationers or
printers, Oxford was content to let matters take their course. The roll
of stationers continued unbroken, and here and there an interesting
man, such as Garbrand Harkes, stands out, but there is little of
interest to chronicle before the revival of the press at the end of the
sixteenth century.
While Oxford was credited by many early bibliographers with a book
printed in 1468, which was not really printed until 1478, so many of
the same authorities credited Cambridge with a book printed in 1478
which was not printed at Cambridge at all. The mistakes and confusions
about this book, only finally cleared up by Bradshaw in 1861, form a
curious comedy of errors.
Among the documents used by Strype when writing his life of Archbishop
Parker was a catalogue of the books bequeathed to Corpus Christi
College by the archbishop, in which was an entry: “Rhetorica nova,
impressa Cantab, fo. 1478.” This entry was communicated by Strype to
Bagford, then collecting materials for a history of printing, and
Bagford in his turn wrote about it to Tanner. Tanner’s brother passed
on the information to Ames, who inserted it at the head of his account
of Cambridge printing, and from him it was copied by other writers,
including Herbert.
In the meanwhile Conyers Middleton in his _Dissertation concerning the
origin of Printing in England_, had turned the error into a new groove.
Describing the edition printed at St Alban’s in octavo in 1480, he
remarks: “The same book is mentioned by Mr Strype among those given
by Archbishop Parker to Corpus Christi College in Cambridge; but the
words, ‘Compilata in Universitate Cantabrigiæ,’ have drawn this learned
antiquary into the mistake of imagining that it was printed also in
that year at our University, and of doing us the honour of remarking
upon it; so ancient was printing in Cambridge!”
If the University Librarian, as Middleton then was, in place of being
facetious, had stepped down the street and examined the book for
himself, much subsequent confusion would have been avoided. He must
have had a poor opinion of Strype if he supposed that that learned
antiquary would describe as a folio printed at Cambridge in 1478 an
octavo with a printed colophon, “impressa apud Villam Sancti Albani.
1480.”
But Middleton’s plausible suggestion seems to have gained ground, and
the Corpus volume was passed over as a copy of the St Alban’s book
until 1861, when Bradshaw, at work on the manuscripts in the library
accidentally met with it, and saw at once that it was not the St
Alban’s book, but an unknown Caxton edition. It has no colophon, so
that the concluding words “Compilata in Universitate Cantabrigiæ,” and
the date 1478, might well deceive a casual observer into thinking it
was printed at Cambridge in that year.
Printing was introduced into Cambridge at the beginning of the year
1521 by John Lair of Siberch or Siegburg, a town a few miles south-west
of Cologne. Like most of the foreign printers settled in England, he
made but little use of his proper surname, but used the place name
instead and called himself John Siberch.
Nothing is known as to the date of his settling in Cambridge, but it
was probably in 1519 or early in 1520, for in May of the latter year
an edition of Richard Croke’s _Introductiones in rudimenta Græca_ was
printed for him by Eucharius Cervicornus at Cologne.
Croke was at this time Professor of Greek at Cambridge, but he was
compelled to have his work printed abroad, since no English printer
of the time possessed a fount of Greek type. Had he acted on his own
initiative, he would probably have employed a printer of Paris where
he had studied, or Leipzig where he had recently been a professor,
both of which towns had excellent Greek presses. But if Siberch, a man
presumably with practical knowledge, was already settled in Cambridge,
what could be more natural than for the professor to hand over the
arrangements of the printing to him, while he in his turn would no
doubt entrust the work to a printer of the town from which he himself
came, and not improbably to the master with whom he had himself worked.
This, of course, is conjecture, but some curious evidence of Siberch’s
having been in Cambridge when Croke’s book was published, came to light
accidentally in 1889. In that year a volume was found in the library of
Westminster Abbey printed at Paris in 1519, which had evidently been
bound in Siberch’s workshop. In the binding were several manuscript
and printed fragments. The printed fragments consisted of leaves of
the Papyrius Geminus printed by Siberch in 1522 and two leaves of a
hitherto unknown edition of Lily’s Grammar; amongst the manuscript
fragments was a letter to Siberch, to be referred to later, and a
piece of the manuscript of Croke’s _Rudimenta Græca_, bearing upon it
the rough pencil mark indicating the commencement of a new sheet and
a fresh page, both agreeing with the printed book. The copy then had
been returned from abroad, not to the author Croke, but to the man who
had commissioned the book, Siberch. Had Siberch been abroad when the
book was printed, he would either have corrected the proofs with the
copy at Cologne, and in that case would hardly have troubled to bring
over the then useless copy with him to England, or else proofs with the
copy would have been sent to Croke, in which case we should not have
expected to find it as waste in Siberch’s shop.