1534, which attacked the supply, Henry VIII himself did it much more
serious damage by destroying the demand. Almost the whole of the trade
done by the French booksellers consisted in the production and supply
of service books; and the great change which was taking place in the
services was gradually tending to do away with their use. After this
time we find no more editions of the old _Breviary_ or the _Missal_
produced at all, except for a short time in Mary’s reign, and these two
books had been mainly produced in France. The _Horae_ or _Primer_ still
continued in use, but its character was so much changed and so much
English introduced into it that it was as well produced in England. By
this time too the taste for the elaborate borders and illustrations
and sumptuous printing which marked the earlier work seems to have
disappeared, so that as a general rule the editions sent over from
abroad were as inartistic and badly printed as our own.
The competition of the Low Countries must also have had something to do
with the decay of French trade, for the Antwerp stationers boasted they
could undersell anyone, and certainly such later service books as were
printed abroad were printed at Antwerp.
Be the explanation what it may, the fact is clear that the date which
saw the passing of the Act of 1534 concerning books, saw the end of
French book production for the English market.
LECTURE VIII.
THE STATIONERS FROM ANTWERP AND THE BOOKBINDERS.
Though in regard to books printed for the English market France is
most important in numerical strength, it ranks far below the Low
Countries in point of interest. The productions of Paris and Rouen
consisted almost entirely of liturgical books and a few dictionaries
and grammars. From Antwerp on the other hand from the time of Gerard
Leeu in the fifteenth century onwards there was an almost unbroken
output of books in the English language. Leeu began with reprints of
some of Caxton’s books, Adrian van Berghen, the printer of _Arnold’s
Chronicle_, followed, then came Jan van Doesborch with his many curious
little English books, and then, most interesting of all, the various
editions of the English _Testament_ and the multitude of controversial
works caused by the religious dissensions in England.
Of Gerard Leeu, “an exceedingly pleasant person” as Erasmus called
him, and his English books, I gave some account in an earlier Lecture;
so I must begin the account of the sixteenth century with Adrian
van Berghen, Adryan of Barrowe as he calls himself in his English
imprints. He apparently began to print about the close of the fifteenth
century, living in a shop with the sign of the Great Golden Mortar in
the Market; in 1507 he had moved to the Corn Market behind the Town
Hall, and at a later date he settled in a house by the Cammerpoort
Bridge with the sign of the Golden Missal. In 1535 like many another
stationer he got into trouble in religious matters and was accused
of keeping and selling Lutheran books, of which a number had been
found in his house. In vain he protested that he knew nothing about
them and that they had been secretly put there by some enemy, for
after a lengthy trial he was found guilty and on January 3, 1536,
was sentenced to leave the state of Antwerp within three days, and
perform a pilgrimage to, of all places in the world, Nicosia in Cyprus.
Nothing further is known of him. But Adrian of Barrowe will ever be had
in grateful remembrance as the printer of _Arnold’s Chronicle_, for
in this he first published to the world the beautiful ballad of the
“Nut-browne Maid.”
A description of _Arnold’s Chronicle_ is a difficult matter to
undertake. It was one of the books which served as weapons to the late
Professor Chandler in his campaign against the subject catalogue of
the Bodleian. It contains a list of the London sheriffs, and a guide
to writing business letters, a list of the London churches, recipes
for making ink, and a variety of other miscellaneous information. And
in the middle, apropos of nothing, “The Nut-browne Maid.” Chronicle is
a misleading title, for the work is really a commonplace book and a
very interesting one. Fortunately this and the later edition printed
about 1520 by Peter Treveris are fairly common books and available
in a considerable number of libraries. There is a copy in the Parker
collection in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge,
interesting to the typographer from an accidental cause. The printer
when inking the forme accidentally pulled out a type which has fallen
sideways upon the top of the rest and impressed on the page an exact
full-length image of itself. From the few early examples of such faults
as are known it has been possible to obtain a good deal of information
as to the sizes and shapes of early types.
Adrian van Berghen printed also an English _Almanack_ for 1529 and
an edition of Holt’s _Lac Puerorum_. This latter is known only from
fragments, and some of these have a curious connexion with Cambridge.
Among a parcel of unidentified fragments in the Bodleian I came across
some pieces of this book which had at one time formed the pad or
boards of a binding. From the well indented marks on the paper it was
easy to identify the panel which had been stamped upon the binding as
the picture of St Nicholas raising the three children, with the name
underneath, Nicolas Spiernick, used by Nicolas Speryng, the Cambridge
stationer. But the interesting point about the fragments was that on
one of them was written the name of N. Speyrinck, thus connecting the
Spiernick of the binding with the name as used at Cambridge, Speryng.
It is perhaps not strictly right to have included Adrian van Berghen,
since he had not so far as we know any personal connexion with England;
but the interest of one at least of the English books which he printed
must serve as an excuse.
The next printer to be considered is Francis Birckman, the first of the
numerous bookselling family of that name, and himself a very important
stationer. He was a native of Cologne, who had his headquarters at
Antwerp while he carried on business in several other towns, and a
great part of his trade was with England. Panzer in his _Annales
Typographici_ does not mention him before the year 1513, but at an
earlier date he was issuing books for the English market and had a
shop in St Paul’s Churchyard. He is first mentioned in 1504, when in
partnership with a certain Gerard Cluen of Amersfoordt in Utrecht
he issued a Sarum _Missal_. Beyond the mention of his name in this
one book we know nothing of Gerard Cluen, but I think we may take
for granted that he was a relation of Birckman’s wife, Gertrude van
Amersfoordt. Of the _Missal_ but two copies are known, one in Trinity
College, Dublin, and the other, recently acquired, in the British
Museum. Between 1504 and 1510 Birckman’s name is not found, but after
that date he issued books continuously until about 1528. The history of
the Birckman family is very confused, but I cannot help thinking that
there were two branches both using the same Christian names. It seems
impossible otherwise to account for the large number of books printed
in various places almost at the same time, unless they were merely
commissioned and Birckman’s name put in the imprint. The Birckmans
were certainly always travelling about; at a little later date I find
one of them within three months at Antwerp, Cologne, London, Oxford,
and Cambridge. It is interesting to notice that he had combined his
business in Oxford with a visit to young Christopher Froschover,
nephew of the printer of the first English Bible of 1535, who was then
an undergraduate there.
All the authorities I have been able to consult are unanimous in
disagreeing on the history of the family of Birckman, but fortunately
at the moment we are only concerned with two, Francis the elder
and younger. The elder, whose place of business was in St Paul’s
Churchyard, must have been an important and rich man and seems to have
spared no expense in ornamenting his books. As an example I may mention
the great Sarum _Antiphoner_ in two folio volumes, of which there
is a copy in the Cambridge University Library. The fine title-pages
were not the stock-in-trade of the printer Hopyl, but were specially
engraved for Birckman, whose mark occurs in them. His Missals also were
profusely illustrated, which was not the general rule with such service
books.
Francis Birckman was dead before the year 1531, as we learn from the
sentence delivered in a lawsuit on April 4, 1531, and registered in
the sentence book of the Alderman’s Court at Antwerp. A certain John
Silverlink had delivered to Birckman a large consignment, over 700
copies, of English New Testaments, for which he was to be paid £28.
17_s._ 3_d._ and had only received £3. 7_s._ 3_d._ The action was
brought by the plaintiff against the guardians of Birckman’s children
to recover the remainder, which was ordered to be paid minus a sum
advanced by Francis Birckman to John van Remonde. His last book
appears to have been dated 1529. In 1530 an edition of the Sarum
_Processional_, printed at Paris by Prevost, was published in London
with the following colophon, “Venundatur Londonii in edibus junioris
Francisci Byrckman apud cimiterium divi Pauli.” This Francis was no
doubt a son of the earlier Francis, for though his device is different
his mark is the same. The device in the _Processional_ is the Hen
with her Chickens, no doubt referring to the sign of the Birckmans at
Cologne and Antwerp of the Fat Hen. This is the only book which I can
trace as having been sold in England by the younger Francis Birckman,
who probably returned abroad. He does not appear to have printed
much, for the business was mainly carried on by Arnold. At a little
later date there were certainly two Arnold Birckmans flourishing, one
who dealt principally in London, and who had a brother there also
in business named John. The other Arnold whose headquarters were at
Cologne was dead before 1541, in which year a work of Rupertus, _De
victoria verbi Dei_ was printed at Louvain for the widow of Arnold
Birckman.
John and Arnold were certainly very important stationers in London.
John Reynes was the only foreigner who surpassed them in wealth, and
when his stock was valued at £100, each of theirs was valued at 100
marks, that is, £66. 13_s._ 4_d._ They appear to have acted as foreign
agents for many of the London booksellers and to have travelled a great
deal from place to place. They did not however always bear the best of
characters, for Johann Ulmer writes to Bullinger, “The Byrckmans are
careless and by no means to be depended upon, therefore beware”; and
in another letter he complains, “The book has not yet reached me, the
Byrckmans are not at all to be trusted.” Erasmus was even more abusive
on the subject.
Jan van Doesborch, a printer of Antwerp who commenced business some
time shortly before 1508, carried on the tradition of printing English
books. Of some thirty-two books which he issued more than half are in
English and many of them of a very curious nature. He appears to have
inherited the business of Roland van den Dorp and his widow, and to
have taken on their premises with the sign of the Iron Balance near
the Cammerpoort. He is entered in the books of the St Lucas Gilde in
1508, the date of his first dated book, as an illuminator, and this
taste is shown in the lavish, if careless, way in which he illustrated
his books. Probably the first book he issued was the _Fifteen Tokens_,
a little tract describing the signs coming before the Judgement and
which he had himself translated from the Dutch. This was followed by
three grammars, one of which, Holt’s _Lac Puerorum_, has but lately
been discovered and is in a private collection. Then come an edition
of _Robin Hood_, known from an imperfect copy in Edinburgh, and a
fragment of _Eurialus and Lucrece_ also at Edinburgh. To the year 1518
may be ascribed the _Life of Virgilius_ and a dated book of that year,
beginning “This mater treateth of a merchauntes wife that afterwarde
went lyke a man and becam a great lorde and was called Frederyke of
Jennen.” Then we have the _History of Mary of Nemmegen_, an edition
of _Tyl Howleglas_, and the story of the _Parson of Kalenborowe_. A
last book worthy of mention is one beginning “Of the newe landes and
of ye people found by the messengers of the kynge of portyngale named
Emanuel.” Though naturally a much spoken of book as being about the
earliest of English books relating to America, really only one leaf of
the book is devoted to that subject.
Who the translator of these various books may have been is uncertain.
Two were definitely stated to have been done by Lawrence Andrewe,
the London printer, and Douce without any apparent reason suggested
that others might be the work of Richard Arnold. I think that perhaps
several were translated by Andrewe. In some verses appended to his
translation of the _Book of Dystyllacyon_ he writes,
After sondry volumes that I dyd deuyse
As tryfels of myrthe, which were laudable
Now mynded agayn, my pene to exercyse
In other maters to the reder more profitable
And thus abydynge pacyently, for a time seasonable
My mynde longe vexing with ymaginacyons
That my work before shold apere more comendable
Now have I performed a boke of dystyllacyons.
The “sundry trifles of mirth” might well be such books as _Frederick of
Jennen_, _The Life of Virgilius_, or _The Parson of Kalenborowe_. The
only two books to which he put his name as translator, _The wonderful
shape and nature that our Saviour Christ Jesu hath created in beasts,
serpents, fowles_, etc., and the _Valuation of gold and silver_, hardly
come under the head of “trifles of mirth.”
No doubt this large production of English books must have entailed
frequent visits to England and a shop or agent there, but the only clue
we have to John of Doesborch’s residence in this country is afforded by
the entry in the lists made for the subsidy of 1523, “De Johanne van
Dwysborow, extraneo, pro xls per annum ijs.,” and he is entered in the
parish of St Martin in the Fields.
I now come to two printers of Antwerp, in many ways the most
interesting of all, but of whom little is known and less has been
written. These are Christopher and Hans van Ruremond or Rémonde, who
were concerned very specially with the printing and dispersal of the
first English New Testaments. Whether or not these two men were related
is not very clear, but from the way they were connected in business it
seems very probable. Christopher, the more important of the two, was
known also as Christopher van Endhoven, which is the name used on his
device and under which he is entered in 1524 in the registers of the St
Lucas Gilde at Antwerp. Many have thought that Christopher van Ruremond
and Christopher van Endhoven were two persons, but as all the books in
the two names have the same type and woodcuts, and as in three cases
at least we find the device of Christopher van Endhoven and the name
of Christopher van Ruremond together, we may take them to be the same.
Besides if they were different persons it would be a very marvellous
coincidence that they should die on the same date, and their widows
simultaneously begin to carry on their businesses.
[Illustration]
Christopher began to print in 1523, issuing a Sarum _Manual_ and
_Processional_; this was followed by four more Sarum service books in
1524 and five in 1525. Until after February 6, 1525, all were printed
for Peter Kaetz, the later ones for Francis Birckman. In 1526 he
entered on a task which was destined to bring him into considerable
trouble, the printing of the _New Testament_ in English. In the
beginning of the year he printed a Sarum _Breviary_, but for the next
year we have nothing else from his press, for a reason to be noted
shortly. In 1527 he printed three _Missals_, one of Sarum use, and in
1528 three Sarum service books and a _New Testament_ in Dutch. For 1529
we have no books, and 1530 is represented by an English _Almanack_ and
two editions of the Sarum _Horae_.
In 1525 Christopher and Hans had printed a _Bible_ in Dutch, Hans
printing the greater part of the Old Testament and Christopher the
remainder and the New Testament. On October 30, 1525, Hans was summoned
before the town council of Antwerp for printing a book tainted
with Lutheran heresies, was ordered to leave the town and district
immediately, and go on pilgrimage to the Holy Blood at Wilsenaken
in Prussia, and was further forbidden to return to the town or
neighbourhood until he could produce a certificate that the pilgrimage
had been carried out. This he apparently objected to do and crossed
over to England.
Christopher, left in Antwerp, soon afterwards started on the very
dangerous undertaking of printing English New Testaments, which were
sent into England and sold there by Hans. In 1528 in the table of
certain persons abjured within the diocese of London we find “John
Raimund a Dutchman, for causing fifteen hundred of Tyndale’s New
Testaments to be printed at Antwerp and for bringing five hundred into
England.” John Raimund is clearly the English form of Jan Roemundt
and is probably identical with the Dutchman who earlier in the year
was in the Fleet for having sold to Robert Necton some 200 or 300
copies of the Testament. At the end of 1526 when these Antwerp printed
Testaments had found their way into England, a strong effort was made
by the English authorities to have them suppressed and the printer
punished. On November 24 John Hackett wrote to Wolsey saying there were
two printers in Antwerp who printed these books but that a proclamation
would soon be issued against them. On the 12th January, 1527, Hackett
again wrote that the Margrave had declared that according to the
Emperor’s last mandment these English books must be condemned to be
burnt, the printer Christopher Endhoven banished, and the third part
of his goods confiscated. The prisoner’s counsel however protested
against this judgement, saying that the Emperor’s subjects ought not
to be judged by the laws of other countries, and his plea seems to
have been successful, for Christopher does not appear to have been
banished, and continued to print at Antwerp. About the end of 1530 he
appears to have crossed over to England in connexion with the sale of
English Testaments, and the last act of the drama is tersely stated by
Foxe under the year 1531. An Antwerp bookseller named Christopher for
selling certain New Testaments in English to John Row, bookbinder, was
thrown into prison at Westminster and there died.
On the death of Christopher, Hans wished to return to Antwerp, but in
order to do so a certificate of his pilgrimage had to be obtained.
In the archives of the city there is an entry dated March 29, 1531,
that letters of the pilgrimage having been presented he was free
to reenter the city and district. He did not stay long abroad but
returned to London, and as an assistant to his fellow-countryman John
Nicholson, the printer of Southwark, has been the source of much
puzzle to commentators on the English New Testament; for I believe
him to be no other than John Hollybush, the so-called reviser of the
edition of 1538. The name John Hollybush has generally been considered
a pseudonym, and most modern authorities consider the person so
designated to have been Miles Coverdale. But Hollybush was a real
person, and in the troubled times of 1535, when inhabitants of the Low
Countries dwelling in England were forced to become denizened, we find
entered amongst others, “John Holibusche alias Holybusche of London,
Stationer otherwise bookbinder, born in Ruremund, under the obedience
of the Emperor.”
Now considering the prominent part that Hans van Ruremond, otherwise
John Raimund, had taken in the production and dispersal of the New
Testament, he is just the man to be identical with a stationer who
revised for the press a new edition. The whole family was identified
with the issue of English Testaments. Christopher printed them at
Antwerp, and after he had died in England for selling them, his
widow continued to print further editions. John had suffered penance
for selling them and was now, in more peaceable times, helping to
print them. Christopher’s son, also named John, became a printer in
Antwerp and printed Dutch Bibles and Testaments. One of the very
last Sarum service books printed, the _Processional_ of 1558, again
links Christopher van Endhoven and Christopher van Ruremond together.
Upon the title-page is the device with mark and initials, C. E. of
Christopher van Endhoven, while the colophon runs “Finit Processionale
ad usum Sarum Antverpie impressum per Melchiorem Endovianum, typis
Christophori Ruremunden. Anno m.c.lviii. mensis xxiii. Junii.”
Another stationer connected with Christopher and Hans van Ruremond was
a young man named Peter Kaetz, who acted for a while as their agent in
London and had a shop in St Paul’s Churchyard. The seven Sarum service
books, two _Manuals_, two _Processionals_, a _Horae_, a _Psalter_, and
a _Hymni cum notis_, which Christopher van Ruremond printed before
February 6, 1525, were all to be sold in London by Kaetz; after this
date his place was taken by Birckman. In the spring of 1525 Kaetz
returned to Antwerp and carried on business at the sign of the House of
Delft in the Cammerstraete, a house formerly occupied by Henri Eckert
van Homberg. Here he issued an edition of the _Bible_ in Dutch printed
by Hans van Ruremond. After this date we hear no more of him. Perhaps
like Hans van Ruremond he was involved in the religious troubles, and,
banished from Antwerp, found refuge in England. He was in communication
with Siberch, the first Cambridge printer, and amongst some fragments
rescued from a binding of Siberch’s in Westminster Abbey library was a
letter addressed to him by Peter Kaetz. In it Kaetz says he is waiting
in London for his master, on whose arrival he intends to cross over. He
also says, “I send you 25 prognostications and three New Testaments,
small size. The prognostications cost one shilling sterling the 25, and
the three New Testaments cost 2_s._ and 6_d._ sterling.” The puzzling
part about the letter is the date to which it should be assigned.
Many things point to its being before 1523 and yet the references to
the New Testament are not easily explained. The price is that at which
the English New Testament printed at Antwerp in 1526 by Christopher
van Ruremond was sold, and Hans van Ruremond had come into England
about this time to sell it. We know also that Christopher van Ruremond
printed prognostications in English. I should have been inclined to
put the letter down to some time in or after 1526, and to suppose that
the master for whom Kaetz waited was Hans van Ruremond. A person named
“Gibkerken” is mentioned in the letter, who may perhaps be a Dutch
stationer, John Gybken, who was first an assistant to John Cockes and
who afterwards rose to considerable eminence and was admitted as a
member of the Stationers’ Company. His son was also admitted a member
of the Company, although he was deaf and dumb.
The history of the printing and dispersal of the early editions of
the English Testament and the various prohibited controversial books
offers a very fascinating subject of study, and it is extraordinary,
considering the amount that has been written on the question, how
little is really known. I suppose the reason is that it has usually
been taken up from the theological rather than the bibliographical
side, and that writers on the subject though well versed in the history
of the Reformation knew nothing of scientific bibliography.