Footnote 13:
“A nativitate Christi ducentesimae nonagesimae quintae Olympiadis
anno. II. VII. Idus Decembres,” = 7 Dec. 1472.
APPENDIX B.
The Early Sixteenth Century Press.
(Supplementary to, and corrective of, pp. 5–7.)
From December 1517 to February “1519” (1519/20?) a printing press is
found in work at Oxford in St. John’s Street near Merton College,
connected in 1518 with the name of Johannes Scolar and in the last book
with the name of Carolus Kyrfoth. Both of these appear to be foreigners,
but nothing certain has yet been discovered about them or the causes of
the establishment and cessation of the press[14]. In 1524 none of these
names occurs among the inhabitants of Oxford paying taxes (Oxf. Hist.
Soc., ©City Documents©, ed. by J. E. T. Rogers, 1891, p. 5): nor are
they otherwise known in Oxford as booksellers or stationers. Although
Scolar uses the arms of the University (their earliest occurrence in
print), yet the Registers of the University almost entirely 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. Three
of the books were however issued “Cum Privilegio.” It is peculiar that
whereas theology claimed a fair proportion of the first press, it is
entirely absent from the second; grammar, logic, arithmetic, natural
science, and the Ethics of Aristotle being alone represented, except
that one broadside consists of a Prognostication, which Dorne’s lists in
1520 show to have been a popular form of literature in Oxford at that
time. All are in small quarto, and similar in the types used, namely an
English and Brevier black-letter, with a Great Primer for titles. Not
only at Oxford but also at Cambridge, York, Tavistock, and Abingdon, in
all of which there was an early 16th cent. press, printing entirely
ceases for nearly the central forty years of that century.