PRINTING IN ENGLAND (1476-1580)[46]
Something has already been written about the earliest English books on
the scale to which they are entitled in a rapid survey of European
incunabula. We may now consider them more in detail as befits a book
written in English.
[Illustration: XXVII. WESTMINSTER, CAXTON, C. 1490
THE FIFTEEN OES.]
William Caxton, a Kentishman, born about 1420, had been brought up as a
mercer in the city of London, and the relations between the English
wooltraders and the clothmakers of Flanders being very intimate, he had,
as he tells us himself, passed thirty years of his life (in round
numbers the years from twenty years of age to fifty) "for the most part
in Brabant, Flanders, Holland, and Zealand." During the last few years
of this time he had held the important position of Governor of the
English merchants at Bruges, but about 1469 he surrendered this in order
to become secretary to Edward IV's sister, Margaret, wife of Charles the
Bold, Duke of Burgundy. Some years before this, Raoul Lefevre, chaplain
to the Duke's predecessor, had compiled an epitome of the histories of
Troy, _Le Recueil des histoires de Troye_, and in March, 1469, Caxton
amused himself by beginning to translate this into English. Dissatisfied
with the result he laid it on one side, but was bidden by his patroness,
the Duchess, to continue his work. This he finished on 19 September,
1471, while staying at Cologne. According to a distinct statement by
Wynkyn de Worde, whom (at least as early as 1480) he employed as his
foreman, Caxton printed at Cologne "himself to avaunce" the first Latin
edition of the _De Proprietatibus Rerum_, a kind of encyclopaedia "on
the properties of things," by an English friar of the thirteenth century
named Bartholomew. Now the first edition of this work is undoubtedly one
printed at Cologne about 1471 or 1472 at an anonymous press which
Bradshaw called that of the printer of the 1473 edition of the _Dialogi
decem Auctorum_, and Mr. Proctor, less happily, that of the printer of
the _Flores Sancti Augustini_, an undated book in the same type. The _De
Proprietatibus Rerum_ is certainly slightly earlier than either of
these, and there are some typographical differences which suggest that
between the completion of the one book and the beginning of the other
two the press may have changed masters. The _De Proprietatibus_ is by
far the largest book of the whole group, and being by, or credited to,
an English author, it is highly probable that the well-to-do ex-Governor
of the English merchants became temporarily a member of the firm for its
production and shared in the venture. This is the natural meaning of
Wynkyn de Worde's statement that Caxton was the "first prynter of this
boke," and is quite as likely to be true as the supposition that he took
part in printing it as a kind of amateur journeyman to advance himself
in the art. It may be noted, moreover, that the books of this anonymous
press belong to the less advanced school of printing at Cologne, a
school technically several years behind that of Ulrich Zell, and this
takes the force out of the objection raised by William Blades, that if
Caxton had learnt printing at Cologne, he must have printed better when
he made his start.
Caxton does not seem to have followed up this beginning at all quickly,
and it was not till printing had been brought much nearer to Bruges by
the starting of presses at Alost in 1473 and at Louvain in 1474 that he
was stirred to action. The first printer at Louvain was Jan Veldener,
who worked there from 1474 to 1477, and Mr. Gordon Duff conjectures that
Caxton may have received some help from him. There is no doubt, however,
that his partner at Bruges was Colard Mansion, a skilled calligrapher,
who continued printing there till 1484, when he fled from the town,
leaving his rent unpaid. Caxton's own account in the _Recuyell of the
Histories of Troye_ of how he came to start is that
for as moche as in the wrytyng of the same my penne is worn, myn hande
wery and not stedfast, myn eyen dimmed with ouer-moche lokyng on the
whit paper ... and also because I haue promysid to dyuerce gentilmen
and to my frendes to adresse to hem as hastily as I myght this sayd
book. Therfore I haue practysed & lerned at my grete charge and
dispence to ordeyne this saide book in prynte after the maner & forme
as ye may here see.
There is nothing here to encourage the idea which Mr. Proctor seems to
have entertained that Colard Mansion had already begun work on his own
account, and that Caxton obtained his help for his English books. It
seems more likely that it was Caxton who made the start, and that the
first two books printed at Bruges were both in English, the first being
the _Recuyell_, and the second _The Game and Pleye of the Chesse_, a
translation of a moral treatise in which the functions of the chessmen
were used as texts for sermonizing, written in Latin by Jacobus de
Cessolis. After this a new type was cut and another didactic book, _Les
Quatre Derennieres Choses_, a treatise of the Four Last Things (Death,
Judgment, Hell, and Heaven) printed in it in French. These three books
probably appeared in 1475 and the early months of 1476. By this time
Charles the Bold was picking a quarrel with the Swiss, and his
disastrous defeat at Morat on 21 June, 1476, must have powerfully
quickened the desire with which we may reasonably credit Caxton, of
being the first printer in his native land. He made arrangements to rent
a shop in the Sanctuary at Westminster from the following Michaelmas and
departed for England, taking with him the newer of the two types and
leaving the older one to Colard Mansion, who printed with it the
original French of Lefevre's _Recueil des histoires de Troye_, and the
same author's _Les Fais et prouesses du noble et vaillant cheualier
Jason_, and then abandoned it, having already cut a larger type for his
own use.
The first dated book produced by Caxton in England was _The Dictes or
Sayengis of the Philosophers_, a translation by Earl Rivers (the brother
of Edward IV's queen) from a French version of an anonymous Latin book
of the fourteenth century. Caxton was entrusted by the Earl with the
oversight of the translation, and contributed to it an amusing Epilogue,
in which he gives some unfavourable remarks about women attributed to
Socrates, with his own comments. The Epilogue is dated 1477, and in one
copy more minutely, 18 November. Though this is the first dated English
book, it cannot be said that it was the first book printed in England,
as it was probably preceded both by Caxton's English version of
Lefevre's _Jason_, and also by some of the thin quartos in the same
type.
Among the earlier books printed by Caxton after he set up his press at
Westminster was Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_, of which later on he
printed a second edition which he imagined to be from a better text, and
ornamented with clumsy pictures of the pilgrims. He printed also in
separate volumes most of Chaucer's other works, including his
translation of Boethius, _De Consolatione Philosophiae;_ also Gower's
_Confessio Amantis_, some of the shorter poems of Lydgate, Malory's
_Morte d'Arthur_, and several translations of French romances (_Charles
the Great_, _Paris and Vienne_, the _Four Sons of Aymon_, etc.),
translations of _Aesop_ and of _Reynard the Fox_, Higden's
_Polychronicon_, and the _Chronicles of England_, the _Golden Legend_
(the name given to the great collection of Lives of the Saints by
Jacobus de Voragine), several editions of the Hours of the Blessed
Virgin, a Latin Psalter, a decorative edition of the Prayers called the
_Fifteen Oes_ with a border to every page (see Plate XXVII), numerous
moral treatises and books of devotion, and several Indulgences. In all
just one hundred books and documents issued from his press, printed in
eight different types (including that left behind at Bruges). More than
twenty of these books he had translated himself, and to others he
contributed interesting prologues or epilogues. While many printers on
the Continent easily surpassed him in typographical skill, few published
more books which can still be read with pleasure, and his prefaces and
epilogues show a real love of good literature (especially of Chaucer)
and abundant good sense, kindliness, and humour. Caxton died in 1491
while engaged on translating into English the Latin Lives of the
Fathers, and the account-books of the churchwardens of S. Margaret's,
Westminster, show that he was buried in its churchyard, four torches
being supplied at a cost of two shillings and sixpence, and another
sixpence being charged for the bell.
During Caxton's lifetime only one other Englishman set up a press, an
anonymous schoolmaster at St. Albans, who began work in 1480 (possibly
in 1479) and printed till 1486, producing first six scholastic books and
then two English ones. He appears to have borrowed some type from
Caxton, so that it was presumably with the latter's goodwill that he
reprinted his version of the _Chronicles of England_, adding thereto an
appendix entitled _Fructus Temporum_, or Fruits of Time. It is from
Wynkyn de Worde's reprint of this edition in 1497 that we obtain our
only knowledge of the printer, for we are there told that it was
"compiled in a booke and also enprynted by one sometyme scolemayster of
saynt Albons, on whose soule God haue mercy." His other popular book was
that famous trio of treatises _Of Haukyng and Huntyng and also of
Cootarmuris_, commonly known as the _Book of St. Albans_. The second
treatise, which is in metre, ends with the words "Explicit Dam Julyan
Barnes in her boke of huntyng," and this is the only basis for the
popular attribution of all three treatises to a hypothetical Juliana
Bernes or Berners, who is supposed to have been the daughter of Sir
James Berners (executed in 1388), and Prioress of the Nunnery of
Sopwell, a dependency of St. Albans, of which the list of prioresses
has conveniently perished.[47]
Between 1478 and 1486 or '87, some seventeen books were printed at
Oxford by Theodoric Rood of Cologne, who towards the end of his career
was in partnership with an English bookseller named Thomas Hunte. The
earliest of his books,[48] all of which are in Latin, was an Exposition
on the Apostles' Creed wrongly attributed to S. Jerome. By the
accidental omission of an X this is dated MCCCCLXVIII, i.e. 1468, but
such misprints are common in early books, and no one now maintains that
it was printed until ten years later. Among the other books printed at
Oxford we may note an edition of Cicero's _Pro Milone_, the spurious
Letters of Phalaris, and a very large folio, Lyndewode's _Provincial
Constitutions_ of the English Church. That the Oxford press came to an
end so soon and that none was started at Cambridge during the fifteenth
century may be attributed to a statute of Richard III's permitting the
free importation of books into England. Although this measure was amply
justified by the interests of learning, it made it practically
impossible for any scholastic press to maintain itself in the limited
English market against the competition of the fine editions which could
be imported from Italy.
Caxton's press was at Westminster, which in the fifteenth century was
much more sharply distinguished for business purposes from the city of
London than it is now. The first press set up within the city itself
was that of John Lettou, whose surname shows him to have been a native
of Lithuania, which in Caxton's time, as in Chaucer's, was known in
England as Lettowe. Mr. Gordon Duff thinks that John Lettou must have
learnt to print at Rome and brought his punches with him to England, as
the type with which he started to print here is indistinguishable from
one used by a small printer at Rome, who bore the curiously English name
John Bulle, though he came from Bremen. Lettou printed an Indulgence in
1480, and also a commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, a curiously
learned work for a city press, but which he was commissioned to print by
a certain William Wilcocks, for whom the next year he printed also a
commentary on the Psalms.
After 1482 Lettou was joined by William of Mechlin, or Malines, in
Belgium, usually known by the Latin name of his birthplace, Machlinia.
Lettou and Machlinia printed five law books together, and then Lettou
disappears and Machlinia in 1483 started working by himself, at first at
a house near the bridge over the Fleet, where he printed eight books,
and then in Holborn, where he printed fourteen. When working by himself
he printed in addition to law books some works of a more popular
character, a Book of Hours, the _Revelation to a Monk of Evesham_,[49]
_Speculum Christiani_ (a devotional work interspersed with English
verse), the _Chronicles of England_, and several editions of "A little
treatise against the Pestilence" by a certain Bishop Canutus of Aarhus.
One of these editions was the first English book which has a titlepage.
It is printed in two lines, and reads:--
"A passing gode lityll boke necessarye &
behouefull agenst the Pestilens."
The exact date at which Machlinia died, or gave up work, is not known.
He was printing in 1486, but his books after that are undated. We may
take 1490 or a little earlier as the year of his disappearance, and it
is practically certain that his stock of books was taken over by Richard
Pynson from Normandy, who probably began printing in 1491 or 1492 (his
first dated book was finished in November of the latter year), and while
he was getting his workshop ready commissioned Guillaume Le Talleur of
Rouen to print two law books for him for sale in England.
Up to the death of Caxton the only native English printer besides
himself was the unidentified schoolmaster-printer at St. Albans, Thomas
Hunte, who joined Theodoricus Rood at Oxford, being only a stationer.
After his death, for over twenty years there was no native Englishman at
work as a master printer[50] at all. Two of the three presses at work
were in the hands of Wynkyn de Worde of Lorraine and Richard Pynson of
Normandy, and the third was worked for some time with two French
partners by Julyan Notary, who was probably a Frenchman himself, since
in 1498 he spells his name as Notaire.
By far the most prolific of these three firms was that of Wynkyn de
Worde, who was born, as his name implies, at Worth, now in Alsace, but
formerly part of the Duchy of Lorraine. He probably came to England with
Caxton in 1476, since we hear of him as early as 1480 in a legal
document about a house. After Caxton's death De Worde made a cautious
start, only issuing five books in the first two years and not putting
his own name in an imprint until 1494. By the end of the century,
however, he had printed 110 books of which copies or fragments survive,
and by the time of his death in 1534 the number had risen to 800, an
extraordinarily high total, more especially when it is remembered that
the small quarto editions of romances and popular works of devotion, of
which he printed a great many, were peculiarly likely to be thumbed to
pieces, so that his actual output was probably much greater. As far as
his choice of books was concerned he showed himself a mere tradesman,
seldom printing an expensive book unless Caxton's experience had shown
it to be saleable. For two apparent exceptions to this lack of
enterprise there were special reasons. The first, a translation of the
_Lives of the Fathers_, he was almost bound in honour to take up, since
Caxton had completed it on his death-bed. The second book, a really fine
edition (issued about 1495) of Trevisa's version of the _De
Proprietatibus Rerum_, was also, as we have seen, connected with Caxton,
who, De Worde tells us, had acted as "the fyrst prynter of this boke In
latin tongue at Coleyn himself to avaunce." De Worde's edition is itself
notable as being the first book printed on English paper, the
manufacturer being John Tate of Hertford.
In 1500 De Worde moved from Caxton's house at Westminster to the sign of
the Sun in Fleet Street, perhaps for the greater protection offered by
the city against attacks by anti-alien mobs. In 1508 he was appointed
printer to the Countess of Richmond and Derby, mother of Henry VII, a
very old lady, who died the following year. De Worde himself must have
been a very old man at his death towards the end of 1534 or early in
January, 1535, as he had by that time been at work in England for
between fifty and sixty years. Towards the end of his life he seems to
have had some of his books printed for him by John Skot, and Robert
Copland was also employed in his business.
The output of Richard Pynson was only about half that of Wynkyn de
Worde, and his taxable property amounted to only L60 against over _L_200
at which De Worde was assessed. Nevertheless the fact that for the last
twenty-two years of his life (1508-30) he was the King's Printer helped
to procure him a few important books, and also kept his workmanship at a
considerably higher standard. As already mentioned, he probably came to
England about 1490 and took over Machlinia's stock, employing Guillaume
Le Talleur of Rouen to print two law books for him while his own type
was being made. He probably began work with a fine edition of Chaucer's
_Canterbury Tales_, but his first dated book is an ugly little edition
of the _Doctrinale_ of Alexander Gallus, issued in November, 1492. A
copy of this was unearthed a few years ago in the library of Appleby
Grammar School, and to secure the first dated book printed by Pynson the
British Museum had to pay over L300 for it. In 1494 Pynson brought out
Lydgate's poem on the _Falles of Princes_, translated from the Latin of
Boccaccio, illustrating it with woodcuts borrowed from Jean Du Pre's
French edition of the same book.[51] In 1495 he printed a _Terence_. Up
to the close of the fifteenth century he had printed about eighty-eight
books known to Mr. Gordon Duff, against the 110 printed by Wynkyn de
Worde. In 1500 he moved from the parish of S. Clement Dane's, outside
Temple Bar, to the sign of S. George, at the corner of Chancery Lane and
Fleet Street, the change bringing him inside the city walls. Among the
best of the books printed by him after this are Alexander Barclay's
_Ship of Fools_ (1509), a translation of Sebastian Brant's
_Narrenschiff_; Fabyan's _Chronicle_ (1516), Barclay's translation of
Sallust (about 1520), Henry VIII's _Assertio Septem Sacramentorum_
(1521), and Lord Berners' translation of Froissart's _Chronicles_
(1522-5). He also printed some fine service-books, notably a Sarum
Missal, called after Cardinal Morton who favoured it the Morton Missal
(1500). Mr. Duff conjectures that in the Latin books he printed from
1518 onwards Pynson was aided by Thomas Berthelet.[52]
Julian Notary's business was on a far smaller scale than those of Wynkyn
de Worde and Pynson, for less than fifty books are known to have been
printed by him. He began work in London about 1496 in partnership with
Jean Barbier and another printer or bookseller whose initials were I.
H., probably Jean Huvin of Rouen. In 1498 I. H. had left the firm and
Notary and Barbier were at Westminster. In 1500, like De Worde and
Pynson, he changed houses, moving to just outside Temple Bar, possibly
to Pynson's old house, giving his new premises the sign of the Three
Kings. At a later date he had also a bookstall in S. Paul's Churchyard,
and ultimately moved his printing office into the city. Notary's books
were of much the same kind as De Worde's--the Golden Legend, the
Chronicles of England, the Shepherds' Calendar, Sermons, Lives of the
Saints, etc. He has the distinction of having printed the smallest
English incunable of which any trace has come down to us, an edition of
the Hours of the Blessed Virgin, finished in April, 1500, measuring only
an inch by an inch and a half. He seems to have ceased printing about
1520, but was alive in 1523.
Summing up the work of these printers who were active before 1500, we
may note that Caxton printed 100 books and editions that have come down
to us; De Worde 110 before 1500, about 800 altogether; Pynson 88 before
1500, nearly 400 altogether; Notary about 8 before 1500, and 48
altogether; Lettou and Machlinia about 30, Oxford 17, St. Albans 8. Thus
the total number of English incunabula at present known is about 360,
but Pynson and Wynkyn de Worde were both large printers in the sixteenth
century.
As we have seen, Pynson became King's Printer in 1508. He had been
preceded in that office by William Faques, who like himself was a
Norman, and was the first to hold the title. He was worthy of the
distinction, for though he only printed eight books and documents that
have come down to us, his work was very good. His dated books belong to
the year 1504, when he printed a proclamation against clipped money,
with a fine initial H and some neat woodcuts of coins; also a beautiful
little Latin Psalter. His business was in the heart of the city, in
Abchurch Lane. After his death it passed to Richard Faques, who made his
name more English by spelling it first Fakes, then Fawkes. Richard
worked in S. Paul's Churchyard, and among his publications were the
_Salus corporis salus anime_ of Gulielmus de Saliceto, a Sarum Horae,
Skelton's _Goodly Ballad of the Scottish King_ (1509), and _Garland of
Laurell_ (1523), and lastly, _The Myrroure of Our Lady_ (1530).
With Robert Copland we come to the first native English printer after
Caxton and the schoolmaster of St. Albans. Copland is rather an
interesting person, who made translations and wrote prefaces and
addresses to the reader in verse, besides printing books. His name
occurs in the imprints of only twelve books, spread over twenty-two
years, 1514-35, the explanation being that he was probably working for
De Worde during this time, and only occasionally indulged in a private
venture. After a long interval he printed two books for Andrew Borde in
1547-8, and appears to have died while the second was in progress. He
was succeeded by William Copland, probably his son, who printed numerous
romances and other entertaining books, and died in 1568 or 1569.
At intervals during the years 1516-28, John Rastell, an Oxford graduate,
barrister of Lincoln's Inn and brother-in-law of Sir Thomas More, issued
nine dated law books. In 1526 he printed two jest books, in 1529 he
became involved in religious controversy on the Protestant side, and
died in poverty and prison in 1536. Altogether some forty books are
attributed to him, including some plays, which may perhaps rather have
been printed by his son William. William Rastell was also a lawyer, and
not sharing his father's Protestantism, became a Judge of the Queen's
Bench under Mary, on whose death he fled to Louvain. As a printer he
worked only from 1530 to 1534, printing over thirty books, including
several works by his uncle, Sir Thomas More, and five plays by John
Heywood.
Between 1518 and 1524 Henry Pepwell printed a few popular books at the
sign of the Trinity in S. Paul's Churchyard; for the rest of his life he
appears to have been only a stationer. John Skot, who printed at four
different addresses in the city of London between 1521 and 1537, worked
partly for De Worde, partly on his own account, printing upwards of
thirty books for himself, a few of them legal, the rest popular English
books.
Two printers began to issue books in 1523. Robert Bankes, who turned out
a few popular books in his first six years, was then silent for a time,
and reappears in the religious controversies of 1539-42, and Robert
Redman, who seems to have followed in Pynson's footsteps both in S.
Clement's Without Temple Bar and at the sign of the George. In his
office of Royal Printer Pynson was succeeded by Thomas Berthelet, or
Bartlet, who had probably worked with him for upwards of ten years
before starting on his own account in Fleet Street at the sign of
Lucrece in 1528. We know of altogether about 400 pieces of printing from
his press, but a large proportion of these consists of editions of the
Statutes and Proclamations. For the Proclamations some of Berthelet's
bills survive, and we learn that he charged a penny a piece for them,
and imported his paper from Genoa. With his official printing must be
reckoned his editions of the _Necessary Doctrine of a Christian Man_,
issued with the royal sanction on 29 May, 1543. In order to produce
sufficient copies of this he printed it simultaneously eight times over,
all eight editions bearing the same date. Of the books which he printed
on his own account the place of honour must be given to his handsome
edition of Gower's _Confessio Amantis_ in an excellent black-letter type
in 1532, and the various works of Sir John Eliot, all of which came from
his press.
On the accession of Edward VI Berthelet ceased to be Royal Printer, the
post being given to Grafton. Berthelet died in September, 1555, leaving
considerable property. He was buried as an Esquire with pennon and coat
armour and four dozen scutcheons, and all the craft of printers,
stationers, and booksellers followed him to his grave.
Richard Grafton, who succeeded Berthelet as Royal Printer, had a very
chequered career. He was originally a member of the Grocers' Company,
and, in conjunction with Edward Whitchurch and Anthony Marler of the
Haberdashers' Company, superintended the printing of the English Bible
of 1537, probably at Antwerp, and that of 1539 by Francois Regnault at
Paris. When Bible-printing was permitted in England Grafton and
Whitchurch shared between them the printing of the six editions of the
Great Bible during 1540 and 1541. But when Cromwell, Earl of Essex, the
chief promoter of Bible-printing, was beheaded, Grafton was himself
imprisoned. In 1544, on the other hand, he and Whitchurch obtained an
exclusive patent for printing Primers, and before Henry VIII's death
Grafton was appointed printer to the Prince of Wales. Thus when Edward
became king Grafton displaced Berthelet as Royal Printer, and henceforth
had time for little save official work. Five editions of the Homilies
and seven of Injunctions, all dated 31 July, 1547, were issued from his
presses; in 1548 he published Halle's _Union of Lancaster and York_ and
several editions of the Order of Communion and Statutes; in 1549 came
two Bibles and five editions of the first Prayer Book of Edward VI; in
1550 a reprint of Halle and an edition of Marbeck's Book of Common
Prayer noted; in 1551 Wilson's _Rule of Reason_; in 1552 six editions of
the second Prayer Book of Edward VI, and more Statutes.
Proclamation-work, of course, went on steadily throughout the reign, and
on Edward's death Grafton printed the enormously long document by which
the adherents of Lady Jane Grey tried to justify her claim to the Crown.
He did his work very handsomely, but on the triumph of Mary, though he
impartially printed a proclamation for her nine days after "Queen
Jane's," he naturally lost his post and might easily have lost his head
also. For the rest of his life he was mainly occupied in writing his
chronicle. But he printed a Book of Common Prayer in 1559, and
(according to Herbert) a Bible in 1566. He died in 1573.
While Grafton was the King's printer for English books, the post of
Royal Printer in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew had been conferred in 1547 on
Reginald or Reyner Wolfe. Wolfe, who had come to England from
Gelderland, was at first a bookseller, and was employed by various
distinguished persons as a letter-carrier between England and Germany.
When he set up as a printer in 1542, with type which he seems to have
obtained from a relative at Frankfort, he was employed by the great
antiquary, John Leland, and by John Cheke, Professor of Greek at
Cambridge, for whom he printed in 1543 two Homilies of S. Chrysostom in
Greek and Latin, this being the first Greek work printed in England.
During Edward VI's reign he does not seem to have been given much to do
in Latin, Greek, or Hebrew, but printed Cranmer's _Defence of the
Sacrament_ and _Answer unto a Crafty Cavillation_. After keeping quiet
during Mary's reign he enjoyed the patronage of Elizabeth and Archbishop
Parker, and lived, like Grafton, till 1573.
Though he never worked on a large scale, Wolfe certainly raised the
standard of printing in England. In John Day it is pleasant to come to a
native Englishman who did equally good work, and that in a larger way of
business. Day was a Suffolk man, born in 1522 at Dunwich, a town over
which the sea now rolls. He began printing in partnership with William
Seres as early as 1546, but, save some fairly good editions of the
Bible, produced nothing of importance during this period. His first fine
book, published in 1559, is _The Cosmographicall Glasse_, a work on
surveying, by William Cunningham. This has a woodcut allegorical border
to the titlepage, a fine portrait of Cunningham, a map of Norwich, and
some good heraldic and pictorial capitals. Its text is printed
throughout in large italics. The book thus broke away entirely from the
old black-letter traditions of English printing, and could compare
favourably with the best foreign work. Day printed other folios in this
style, and in some of them instead of a device placed a large and
striking portrait of himself. In 1563 he printed the first edition of
_Acts and Monumentes of these latter and perillous days touching matters
of the Church_, better known as _Foxe's Book of Martyrs_. This is a book
of over two thousand pages, and is plentifully illustrated with woodcuts
of varying degrees of merit. Day by this time had attracted the
patronage of Archbishop Parker, and in 1566 printed for him a book
called _A Testimony of Antiquitie, showing the auncient fayth of the
Church of England touching the sacrament of the body and bloude of the
Lord here publikely preached and also receaved in the Saxons tyme, above
600 yeares agoe_. For this sermon, attributed to Archbishop Aelfric,
some Anglo-Saxon type, the first used in England, was specially cut.
Later on Day printed at Lambeth Palace Parker's _De Antiquitate
Britannicae Ecclesiae_. He also printed Ascham's _Scholemaster_ and
other important works. He appears, moreover, to have possessed a
bookbinding business, or at least to have had binders in his employment
who invented a very striking and dignified style of binding. Altogether,
Day is a man of whom English bookmen may well be proud. He died in 1584.
Richard Tottell was another printer of some importance. The son of an
Exeter man, he began printing about 1553, and early in his career
received a patent which gave him a monopoly of the publication of law
books. These, to do him justice, he printed very well, and he also
published a number of works of literary interest. Chief among these, and
always associated with his name, is the famous _Songs and Sonnets_ of
Wyatt and Surrey and other Tudor poets, edited by Nicholas Grimald, but
often quoted, for no very good reason, as _Tottell's Miscellany_. To his
credit must also be placed editions of Lydgate's _Falles of Princes_,
Hawes's _Pastime of Pleasure_, Tusser's _Five Hundreth Points of Good
Husbandry_, the works of Sir Thomas More in 1458 folio pages, Gerard
Legh's _Accedens of Armoury_, numerous editions of Guevara's _Diall of
Princes_, as translated by Sir Thomas North, and a version of Cicero's
_De Officiis_, by Nicholas Grimald. In 1573 Tottell petitioned
unsuccessfully for a monopoly of paper-making in England for thirty
years, in order to encourage him to start a paper-mill. He lived till
1593.
Henry Denham (1564-89), Henry Bynneman (1566-83), and Thomas Vautrollier
(1566-88), and the latter's successor, Richard Field, were the best
printers of the rest of the century. Denham was an old apprentice of
Tottell's, who gave him some important books to print for him. Herbert
remarks of him: "He was an exceeding neat printer, and the first who
used the semicolon with propriety." Among his more notable books were
Grafton's _Chronicle_ (for Tottell and Toy, 1569), editions of the
Olynthiac orations of Demosthenes in English (1570) and Latin (1571),
_An Alvearie or quadruple dictionarie containing foure sundrie tongues,
namelie, English, Latine, Greeke, and French_, with a pleasing titlepage
showing the royal arms and a beehive (1580), Thomas Bentley's _The
Monument of Matrons: containing seuen seuerall Lamps of Virginitie_, a
work in praise of piety and Queen Elizabeth (1582), Hunnis's _Seuen Sobs
of a Sorrowfull Soule for Sinne_, a metrical version of the penitential
psalms (1585), and the second edition of Holinshed's _Chronicles_
(1587).
Henry Bynneman, though not so high in Archbishop Parker's favour as John
Day, was yet recommended by him to Burghley in 1569, and deserved his
patronage by much good work. He printed an English version of Epictetus,
Dr. Caius's _De Antiquitate Cantabrigiensis Academiae_ (1568), a handsome
book with the text in italics, according to the fashion of the day, Van
der Noodt's _Theatre of Voluptuous Worldlings_ (1569), a Latin text of
Virgil believed to be the first printed in England (1570), the
_Historia Brevis_ of Thomas Walsingham (1574), a handsome folio, several
books by Gascoigne and Turberville, the first edition of Holinshed's
_Chronicles_ (1577, published by John Harrison), and a few books in
Greek.
Thomas Vautrollier, a French refugee, set up a press at Blackfriars, at
which he printed several editions of the Prayer Book in Latin (_Liber
Precum Publicarum in Ecclesia Anglicana_), and of the New Testament in
Beza's Latin version, for which latter he was granted a ten years'
privilege in 1574. In 1579 he printed two very notable works, Fenton's
translation of the History of Guicciardini and Sir Thomas North's
_Plutarch_, the latter being one of the handsomest of Elizabethan books.
In 1580 and again in 1584 he went to Edinburgh, printing several books
there in 1584 and 1585. His second visit is said to have been due to
trouble which came upon him for printing the _Spaccio della Bestia
Triomphante_ of Giordano Bruno. His press at Blackfriars continued to
work during his absence. His daughter Jakin married Richard Field, who
succeeded to his house and business in 1588, and continued his excellent
traditions.
A company of stationers had existed in London since 1403, and in 1557
this was reconstituted and granted a Royal Charter. The object of the
Crown was to secure greater control over printing, so that no
inconvenient criticisms on matters of Church or State might be allowed
to appear. The object of the leading printers and booksellers, who
formed the court of the company, was to diminish competition, both
illegitimate and legitimate. Both objects were to a very considerable
degree attained. The quarter of a century which followed the grant of a
charter witnessed a great improvement in the English standard of book
production. Up to this time it seems probable that few English printers,
who had not the royal patronage, had found their craft profitable.
Caxton no doubt did very well for himself--as he richly deserved. He
enjoyed the favour of successive kings, and received good support from
other quarters. We may guess, moreover, that both as translator and
publisher he kept his finger on the pulse of well-to-do book-buyers to
an extent to which there is no parallel for the next two centuries. No
one else in England possessed this skill, and certainly no one else
enjoyed Caxton's success. The Act of Richard III permitting unrestricted
importation of books quickly killed the presses at Oxford and St.
Albans, which could not compete with the publications of the learned
printers of Italy, France, and Switzerland. Until more than half-way
through the reign of Elizabeth the united output of books from Oxford
and Cambridge amounted to less than a couple of score. For more than
twenty years after Caxton's death there was no undoubted Englishman as a
master printer. Mr. Gordon Duff has lately published[53] the assessments
of some of the chief stationers and printers from the Lay Subsidy Rolls
of 1523-4. By far the highest of them is the L307 at which was assessed
John Taverner, a stationer who is only otherwise known as having bound
some books for the Royal Chapel, and who was wise enough not to meddle
with printing. Wynkyn de Worde, most commercial of printers, was
assessed at L201 11s. 1d.; a practically unknown stationer named Neale
at L100; Pynson, who was Royal Printer and did really good work, at L60;
three other stationers, one of whom printed (Henry Pepwell), at L40
apiece; Julyan Notary at L36 6s. 8d.; other printers at L10 (Robert
Redman), L6 13s. 4d. (John Rastell), and L4 (Robert Wyer). It is
tolerably clear that there was absolutely no inducement to an English
stationer to take up printing. In 1534 Henry VIII repealed the Act of
1484, on the plea that native printing was now so good that there was
less need to import books from abroad, the King's real reason, no doubt,
being to make it easier to check the importation of heretical works. Mr.
Duff has written of the King's action:
"The fifty years of freedom from 1484 to 1534 not only brought us the
finest specimens of printing we possess, but compelled the native
workman in self-protection to learn, and when competition was done
away with his ambition rapidly died also. Once our English printing
was protected, it sank to a level of badness which has lasted, with
the exception of a few brilliant experiments, almost down to our own
day."[54]
As a rule, whatever Mr. Duff writes about English printing is
incontrovertible, but this particular pronouncement seems curiously
unfounded. Whether we consider what they printed or how they printed it,
the work of the English presses from 1535-57 is better, not worse, than
the work of the corresponding period, 1512-34. There is nothing in the
earlier period to compare with the Great Bibles, and the books of
Berthelet and Reyner Wolfe are fairly equal to those of Pynson. If we
take 1557 as a fresh point of departure, the books issued from then to
about 1580 present a still more remarkable advance. While the work of
the rest of Europe deteriorated, that of England, in the hands of such
men as Day, Denham, and Bynneman, improved, and alike for their
typography, their illustrations and decorations and their scholarship,
they surpass those of any previous period since the days of Caxton, and
deserve far more attention from collectors than they have yet received.
FOOTNOTES:
[46] For English provincial printing after 1500 see Chapter XIII.
[47] A fourth treatise, that on Fishing with an Angle, is often
included in the attribution with even less reason. This was first
printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1496, with the following curious
explanation of its being tacked on to the _Book of St. Albans_: "And
for by cause this present treatyse sholde not come to the hondys of
eche ydle persone whyche wolde desire it yf it were enprynted allone
by it self & put in a lytyll paunflet, therfore I haue compyled it in
a greter volume of dyuerse bokys concernynge to gentyll & noble men,
to the entent that the forsayd ydle persones whyche sholde haue but
lytyll mesure in the sayd dysporte of fyshynge sholde not by this
meane utterly destroye it."
[48] Two points may be noted about Rood: (i) he does not put his name
in his earliest books, and as there is a change of type in his signed
work, it is possible, though unlikely, that the books in type 1 are
from another press; (ii) he is not to be identified, as was once
proposed, with a certain Theodoricus of Cologne, lately proved by Dr.
Voullieme to be Theodoricus Molner, a stepson of ther Hoernen.
[49] The place-name here is an early misreading for "Eynsham."
[50] This statement should perhaps be modified to admit of the
possibility that Julian Notary was English rather than French, as is
generally assumed.
[51] This and the _Dives and Pauper_ of 1493 (which, until the
discovery of the _Doctrinale_, was reckoned Pynson's first dated
book) and several other of his earliest editions were published
partly at the expense of a merchant named John Rushe, who took six
hundred copies of the _Dives_ and the _Boccaccio_ at 4s. apiece. See
_Two Lawsuits of Richard Pynson_, by H. R. Plomer, in _The Library_,
second series, Vol. X.
[52] See _The Library_, second series, Vol. VIII, pp. 298 _sqq._
[53] In _The Library_, second series, Vol. IX, pp. 257-81.
[54] "The Printers, Stationers, and Bookbinders of Westminster and
London, 1476-1535" (last paragraph).