not quite clear. Dr Caius speaks of him as the University printer,
but no direct evidence of this has been forthcoming. Mr Gray has,
however, pointed out to me an entry in one of the Grace books recently
printed, and which he was unaware of when writing his life of Siberch
for the Bibliographical Society. This was one of the graces passed in
congregation during the year from the feast of St Michael the Archangel
[September 29], 1520 to the corresponding date of the following year.
It runs: “Obligatur doctor Manfeld loco et vice magistri Norres pro
summa pecunie quam recepit Johannes bibliopola ab universitate.” This
debt is entered regularly in the proctors’ accounts, printed in
another recently-printed Grace book, from 1520-21 up to 1524-25, and
the sum mentioned is twenty pounds.
We have therefore the clearest evidence that some time between
September 1520 and September 1521 the University had advanced to
Siberch the sum of twenty pounds, and I think we are quite justified in
concluding that this was to assist him in his business as a printer.
The sum of twenty pounds is considerably more than a University
stationer’s fee, and must have been granted for a special purpose. If
the exact date of the grace in the year could be ascertained, it would
probably throw some light on the question. If early enough, it might be
the cost of material to enable him to set up his press.
It is not until October 1521 that he uses the words, “Cum gratia et
privilegio.” Bradshaw, in a bibliographical note on the book in which
they first appear, writes: “In his dedication to Bishop Fisher he [that
is, Siberch] styles himself ‘Io. Siberch Cantabrigiensis typographus,’
and it must have been on this occasion and through Bishop Fisher’s
influence that he obtained leave to place ‘Cum gratia et privilegio’ on
his title-pages.” This privilege was not I think the King’s privilege,
such as London printers had just begun to obtain, but more probably one
granted by the Chancellor similar to that given to Scolar the Oxford
printer by the Oxford Chancellor, and this would further point to
Siberch’s official connexion with the University.
The house where he lived and printed was described by Dr Caius as
situated between the Gate of Humility and the Gate of Virtue, forming
part of some property bought by Caius in 1563 from Trinity College. It
bore the sign of the King’s arms, which accounts for the use by Siberch
in his books of two woodcuts containing the Royal arms. In the same
house Erasmus lived when he was lecturing at Cambridge, and we know
from his letters that he was on intimate terms with Siberch and the
contemporary Cambridge stationers to whom he sends greetings by name at
the conclusion of one of his letters.
Having obtained some type Siberch started to work for himself, and his
first production was a speech of Dr Henry Bullock delivered before
Wolsey when the Cardinal visited the University in the autumn of 1520.
This is a small pamphlet of eight leaves, devoid of all ornament,
and it was published between February 13, the date of the dedication
and the end of the month, in 1521. The type used appears to be new,
but where it was obtained is not settled. It bears a very strong
resemblance to some of Pynson’s, but is not quite identical. At present
we do not know much about the early business of type-cutting, but it
seems clear that, soon after the commencement of the sixteenth century,
different printers went to a common source for their type, and that
type-cutting was not a part of the printer’s business, as it was when
printing was first invented, but a special trade. New types would thus
tend to conform more to a common model. Of this first Cambridge book
four copies are known, but unfortunately there is no copy in Cambridge,
the four copies being in the British Museum, the Bodleian, the Lambeth
Library, and Archbishop Marsh’s Library, Dublin. The Bodleian copy had
belonged to Richard Burton, the author of the _Anatomy of Melancholy_,
the Lambeth one to Archbishop Bancroft, so that at any rate for a few
years, between 1646 and 1662, this latter copy was with the rest of the
Archbishop’s books upon the shelves of the University Library.
About April, in 1521, according to Bradshaw’s calculation, Siberch’s
second book appeared, the sermon of Augustine, _De miseria ac brevitate
vitæ_, a book of twelve leaves. The printer had added a little to his
stock of type, for there is a Greek motto on the title-page which is
also enclosed between two border-pieces.
This type is interesting as the first genuine moveable Greek type used
in England. A year or two earlier W. de Worde had introduced a few
words of Greek into an edition of one of Whitinton’s Grammars, but
the words were roughly cut on wood. Pynson did not begin to use Greek
until 1524 in a work by Linacre, and in the preface he offers a curious
apology for its imperfections, praying the reader to pardon missing
breathings or accents, since he had but recently cast the Greek types
and had not prepared a supply sufficient to finish the work completely.
The amount of Greek printing in all Siberch’s books put together is
very small, hardly enough to call for the cutting of a special fount,
for it must be borne in mind that a Greek fount is infinitely larger
and more complex than a Roman. One specially complicated fount used at
Venice in 1486 contained about 1350 sorts. It seems probable therefore
that we must look to some foreign source for this type, and its
identification might throw some further light on Siberch’s business
career.
The two border side-pieces, each containing three small scenes in
canopied compartments relating to the Last Judgment, evidently
form part of a set for use in a _Book of Hours_. These identical
border-pieces have not been found used elsewhere, but are evidently
copied from, and resemble in every detail, two of a set used in a _Book
of Hours_ printed at Kirchheim. Very little, however, can be deduced
from similarity of design, for printers copied designs which pleased
them from any source, and often with such extraordinary accuracy as to
require very careful scrutiny to distinguish the copy from the original.
This is the rarest of all Siberch’s books, for only one copy is known,
now in the Bodleian. It formerly belonged to John Selden and went with
the rest of his books to Oxford by bequest in 1659.
Of the next book four copies are known. It consists of a translation
of Lucian’s πὲρι διψάδων by Henry Bullock, and a reissue of the
latter’s Oration. On the title-page Siberch uses for the first
time his ornamental border with the Royal arms at the base. A very
curious statement, that this border is the first specimen of English
copperplate engraving, has found its way into a number of books.
Its earliest appearance seems to be in Herbert’s _Typographical
Antiquities_, where a so-called facsimile is given. Now this facsimile
itself is a very roughly-executed metal engraving, and from the text it
is clear that Herbert made his description from this rough engraving
and not from the book itself. The proof of this is clear. The engraver
has added a rough facsimile of the two-lined colophon, immediately
below the border, and Herbert, assuming it to be part of the
title-page, has so described it in his text. The most cursory glance
would show this border to be a woodcut, but the old statement goes on
being repeated.
The fourth book, Baldwin’s _Sermo de altaris sacramento_ was issued in
the summer, probably August, of 1521. In this is found for the first
time the smaller device of the Royal arms. Eight copies of the book are
known, two being in the University Library while another has lately
been discovered in the library of Magdalene College. One of those in
the University Library, which it is suggested may be an early copy sent
to Nicholas West, bishop of Ely, to whom the book is dedicated, shows
some variations from the ordinary copies. It is clear that it is an
early issue, since the border is without a small break noticeable in
other copies, and the first word of the title-page, Reverendissimi, has
been misprinted Reverndissimi, a mistake almost immediately noticed and
corrected. In this book, for the first time, Siberch begins to use one
of his ornamental capitals, a fine six-line S.
Siberch’s fifth book, _Erasmus De conscribendis epistolis_, was issued
in October 1521. This is a more important book in point of size than
any which preceded it, containing eighty leaves, whereas the largest of
the others only ran to twenty. It also shows certain marks of advance.
We find for the first time a frequent use of fine initial letters,
and it is the first book for which the printer obtained a privilege,
unfortunately not printed in full. Four copies of this book are known,
two in the British Museum, and two in Cambridge College Libraries, St
John’s and Corpus. The last copy has the additional interest of being
bound by a contemporary Cambridge stationer, Nicholas Speryng, and
bears his mark and initials on the binding.
The Erasmus was followed by Galen _De Temperamentis_, translated from
the Greek by Linacre. This is the commonest of Siberch’s books, at
least twelve copies being known, but some of these show important
variations. The first intention seems to have been to issue the _De
Temperamentis_ alone, and it was so printed off on sixty-six leaves,
with the signatures A⁴, Q⁶. Later it was determined to add another
small treatise _De inequali intemperie_, so the last two leaves of
the first issue, containing the end of the _De Temperamentis_ were
cancelled, and two new sheets R⁴ and S⁶ added. Finally a preliminary
quire of eight leaves was printed, making the complete book consist
of seventy-four leaves. One copy of the first state is known, first
noticed by Mr Bowes in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, in 1894.
On the verso of the penultimate leaf is a woodcut of the Adoration
of the Shepherds and the colophon, on the verso of the last leaf the
small block of the Royal arms and the date 1521. A transitional copy,
containing the first issue with the end uncancelled, but the additional
sheets added, is in the library of the Royal College of Physicians.
All the remaining copies are of the revised issue. In it the last two
leaves are mainly occupied with a list of the errata which had been
found in the _De Temperamentis_, and on the verso of the last leaf is
the device of the Royal arms. The woodcut of the Shepherds found in
the early copies has not as yet been traced to an earlier source. It
is apparently Low Country work of the fifteenth century; Sir Martin
Conway ascribes it to about the year 1485.
Two copies of the Galen were printed on vellum, both of which are
now in Oxford, one in the library of All Souls College, the other in
the Bodleian. This latter copy possesses a curious pedigree. It was
presented to the Bodleian in 1634 by Thomas Clayton, Regius Professor
of Medicine. In a long Latin note which he has written in the volume
he states that it was given by Linacre to Henry VIII. who in his turn
gave it to Cuthbert Tonstall, and after passing through various hands
it had come into his possession, and he finally has deposited it in
the Bodleian. It is an interesting copy, but whether it ever belonged
to Henry is very doubtful. It is in the original binding, but this is
simply an ordinary stationer’s binding impressed in blind with the two
panels of the Royal arms and Tudor rose used by many of the London
binders of the time. Again one sheet has been incorrectly printed. In
printing the reverse side of a sheet in signature S, the workman has
laid the sheet the wrong way round on the form and consequently the
pages follow one another in the wrong order, a fruitful and common
cause of waste sheets. Finally the ornamental initials in the early
part of the book have not been printed in, and no attempt has been made
to supply them by hand. It does not seem probable that so poor a copy
would have been presented to the King. An early inscription shows that
it belonged to Tonstall, who gave it to Richard Sparchford, archdeacon
of Shropshire, who gave it to the church of Ludlow.
The seventh book is a translation into Latin by Richard Pace of the
sermon preached by John Fisher, bishop of Rochester, in London, to
an audience said to have numbered thirty thousand, on the occasion
of the public burning of Luther’s works. In this book for the first
time Siberch made use of the device with his initials and mark within
a chain work frame showing white on a black background, an uncommon
style of device and one unlike any other used in England at the time.
Of this book only four copies are known, two in the Bodleian, one in
the library of Magdalene College, Cambridge, and one in the Rylands
Library, Manchester.
The last dated of the early Cambridge books is the _Hermathena_ of
Papyrius Geminus, issued on December 8, 1522. No less than three
different states of the title-page are known. The first is quite free
from ornament, in the second an attempt seems to have been made to
supply the want of the old border device, and the upper part of the
title is enclosed in a frame made by two horizontal border-pieces
joined at the sides by a plain fine. In the third state, a third
border-piece has been added at the bottom of the page and the black
lines extended on either side to join all three. The book contains
twenty-six leaves, the last leaf containing on the recto the colophon
and printer’s device, on the verso the small _arma regia_ device. Six
copies are known. With the title in the first state one copy remains,
which formerly belonged to Bradshaw and is now in the University
Library. Of the second state there are three copies, in Archbishop
Marsh’s Library, in Lincoln Cathedral, and in St John’s College,
Cambridge. Of the third state the two copies belong to the British
Museum and the Duke of Devonshire. These last two copies are both
printed on vellum, but the museum copy wants the last leaf containing
the colophon and devices.
[Illustration: TITLE-PAGE OF FISHER’S SERMON, PRINTED AT CAMBRIDGE BY
JOHN SIBERCH IN 1522.]
The publication of another Cambridge book, an edition of the Grammar of
Lily and Erasmus, was proved by the discovery in 1889 of two leaves,
found with some other most interesting fragments in the covers of a
book in Westminster Abbey Library.
The Grammar is the _De octo orationis partium constructione libellus_
written for the use of St Paul’s School. It was composed originally by
William Lily, and Colet, the founder of the school, sent the work to
Erasmus to emend. Erasmus so altered it that Lily would not permit it
to be called his work, and as Erasmus for his part refused to put his
name to Lily’s work, the book was published anonymously. It became very
popular, and many editions were issued abroad for the English market,
so that it is just such a book as a Cambridge printer might be expected
to print rather than to import.
These nine books comprise the whole output of the early Cambridge
press. Though Cambridge obtained a special privilege shortly afterwards
giving the right to print, the right was never exercised, and nothing
was produced in the town until the two Universities restarted their
presses towards the end of the sixteenth century.
The bookbindings that can definitely be assigned to Siberch are
at present few in number. He used one fine roll divided into four
rectangular compartments, containing a pomegranate, a turretted gateway
with portcullis, a Tudor rose, and three fleurs-de-lys, all surmounted
by a royal crown and within canopied archways. Below the fleurs-de-lys
are his initials. This is a purely English design, and the tool was no
doubt made for him after his arrival in Cambridge. Immediately Siberch
gave up work, about 1523-24, the tool passed to Speryng, who mutilated
it, so that we know fairly well the period during which it was used
when undamaged. Its use in conjunction with other tools enables more
of Siberch’s material to be identified. In the University Library
is a copy of the _Epistolæ_ of Paulinus, bishop of Nola, printed at
Paris in 1516, whose binding is impressed with two well-executed panel
stamps separated from each other by this roll. On one is depicted St
Roche tended by an angel for the plague and a dog bringing him food,
on the other St John Baptist, standing on a mound and preaching to
four persons seated below him. These two saints were popular subjects
for binding panels, and a number of varieties, mostly copied one from
another, are known, but this particular pair are especially well
designed and engraved, and were chosen by Dibdin to reproduce in his
_Bibliographical Decameron_.
On a folio in the library of Clare College, Siberch’s signed roll
is found used with another roll or band containing figures of seven
peasants, one piping, the rest dancing with hands joined, a very
favourite design with Netherlandish binders.
The two panel stamps and this second roll are all foreign in
appearance, and were no doubt brought by Siberch from abroad. After
he gave up work they remained in England. I have a work of Erasmus,
printed in 1532, certainly bound in this country, which has the two
panels on the binding, while the roll with dancing figures occurs on a
binding in St Paul’s Cathedral Library, lined with waste leaves of an
Almanac for 1544. It is not improbable that Siberch had other panels,
for we find, soon after he ceased to bind, stamps which were certainly
his used in conjunction with others exactly similar in style. I saw
lately a work of Erasmus, dated 1524, on which this St Roche panel was
used, and with it was a panel with St Michael, and these two occur
together elsewhere. One point, however, must certainly be noticed. The
one panel binding that we can with certainty attribute to Siberch has
three bands on the back, as was usual in the case of English bindings.
Every other binding with his stamps which I have seen has four bands,
and a binder would be most unlikely to change his habits on such a
point.
The letter of Peter Kaetz to Siberch, referred to earlier, is of the
greatest interest. It is written on one side of an oblong piece of
paper, with the address on the other side. Unfortunately parts of
the ends of some of the lines are missing, making parts of certain
sentences vague, especially at the beginning, but generally the meaning
is fairly clear. It has been translated by Mr Hessels as follows:
“Know, Jan Siborch, that I have received your letter as [well as
specimens] of your type, and it is very good; if you can otherwise
... and conduct yourself well then you will get enough to print. So
I remain still in London because my master comes; I expect him from
day to day, therefore I cannot even know when I cross, but so soon as
I cross I shall do the best that is in my power. Item, I have told
Peter Rinck three or four times of the Pater noster, but he tells me
that he cannot find it; and Gibkerken has not yet given Jacob Pastor
the ring, but he carries it every day on his hand and he will not give
it to Jacob Pastor. Item, I send you 25 prognostications and 3 New
Testaments small. The prognostications cost one shilling sterling the
25, and the 3 New Testaments cost 2 shillings and 6 pence sterling, so
there is still due to you, which I remain in your debt. I have no more
New Testaments, otherwise I should have sent you more. I have nothing
else to write except [to ask you to] deliver the accompanying parcel to
Niclas, and greet Baetzken for me with your whole family, and do not
forget yourself. Petrus Kaetz.”
Among the fragments found with it was part of the manuscript copy of
Croke’s book printed in May 1520, a sheet of the Papyrius Geminus
printed in 1522, and two leaves of the Lily’s _Grammar_. The book in
which they were found must have been bound after December 1522, but the
tools on the binding are not those known to have been used by Siberch,
and the book may have been bound after Siberch ceased work by someone
occupying his old workshop or who had obtained his waste material.
From internal evidence the letter would appear to have been written
in 1521 just after Siberch had started printing, the reference to the
excellence of the type, of which proofs had apparently been sent, and
the remark by Kaetz that if Siberch conducted himself well he would get
enough to print, both pointing to this conclusion. One small point may
be noticed here in passing. The tone of the letter is that of an older
to a younger man, or at any rate, of a man to one of his own age. Now
in the colophons of books printed for Kaetz between 1523 and 1525 he is
spoken of as “juvenis” and this may be taken as a slight argument for
believing that in 1521 Siberch was a young man also.
The master to whom Kaetz referred was very possibly Christopher
Endoviensis or Van Ruremond, who, when Kaetz set up in business on
his own account, printed books for him. Van Ruremond we know printed
English prognostications, single folio broadsides such as would be sold
at a penny a piece, which as we know from Dorne’s day-book was the
usual price of a single sheet, so that he may have been the printer
of these supplied to Siberch at twenty-five for a shilling. The New
Testaments were probably of a Latin version since they are called Nova
Testamenta in the letter. Nicholas, to whom a packet was sent, was, we
may suppose, Speryng.
After 1522 Siberch seems to have relinquished his business as a
printer and stationer. We have no reference to him in accounts, and
as his name does not occur in the Subsidy Rolls of 1523-24 it may be
considered as fairly certain that he was not then in Cambridge. That
he had definitely given up work is clearly shown by the dispersal
of his material. The smaller neatly-executed cut of the Royal arms
went to his friend Peter Kaetz, who, taking it with him on his return
to Antwerp, used it in the edition of the Dutch Bible printed for
him there in 1525 by Hans Van Ruremonde. Apparently the same block
appears in an edition of Erasmus and Lily’s Grammar published at
Antwerp by Godfried van der Haeghen in 1527 for sale in St Paul’s
Churchyard. The fine border of the Galen also went to Antwerp and is
found eventually on the title-page of a Dutch Prognostication of 1536
printed by Hendrick Pietersen van Middleburch. From a comparison of a
recently-issued facsimile of the Dutch book with the original Cambridge
book, it is clear the border is identical in both. What has now to be
done is to trace it between 1522 and 1536. Lastly, the fine binding
roll which he possessed passed into the hands of Nicholas Speryng who
attempted to obliterate the initial I upon it and substitute an N. The
latest binding on which it is found in an unmutilated state is on a
book printed at Venice and finished on November 10, 1522, so that the
binding cannot be earlier than 1523. The mutilated tool is found used
with others belonging to Speryng on the binding of a book printed in
1524.
For a considerable time after 1522 we have no information. The debt of
twenty pounds continued to be entered in the proctor’s accounts up to
the year 1524-25, after which it dropped out. In 1538-39 the debt is
re-entered in a most interesting memorandum which may be translated
thus: “Note; that twenty pounds sterling are owing to the university
by ‘Dominus’ John Lair, an alien priest, and Doctors Rydley, Bullock,
Wakefelde, and Maundefelde, and it has their bond signed by all their
hands, and sealed with their seals.” After several entries of a similar
tenor we come to the final one in the Audit book under the year 1553.
“John Syberche owes out of the money advanced to him [xx. li.], as is
evidenced by his bond contained in the common chest, and his guarantors
are Doctors Rydley, Bullocke, and Manfyld, together with Mr Wakfyld.”
It would thus appear that like many another, Siberch was so influenced
by the religious movements of the time, that he forsook his business in
order to serve the Church, and it is therefore in this sphere that we
should seek for further information about him. He seems also to have
made use of his proper name Lair, sometimes corrupted into Law, rather
than the name Siberch he had used as a printer.
Perhaps further search in this new direction may result in fresh
discoveries.