The Printers, Stationers and
Bookbinders of London and
Westminster in the Fifteenth
Century
By
E. Gordon Duff, M. A. Oxon,
Sandars Reader in Bibliography in the
University of Cambridge, 1898-1899
Privately Printed
1899
THE SANDARS LECTURES
1898-1899
ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS
THE PRINTERS, STATIONERS AND
BOOKBINDERS OF LONDON AND
WESTMINSTER IN THE FIFTEENTH
CENTURY. A SERIES OF FOUR LEC-
TURES DELIVERED AT CAMBRIDGE
IN THE LENT TERM, MDCCCIC.
E. GORDON DUFF, M.A. OXON.
SANDARS READER IN BIBLIOGRAPHY IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE, 1898-1899
PRIVATELY PRINTED
1899
Stack
&
3
EDESKI EDESTAR.
Ai, Pirino ! t'astis te 'me staras
Akava tern te banges Yov kerdas
Nai kotorendi pagerasas les
Te feteder ta vaver tern keras ?
CONTENTS.
LECTURE I.
PAGE
THE PRINTERS AT WESTMINSTER 1
LECTURE II.
THE PRINTERS AT LONDON 34
LECTURE III.
THE STATIONERS 60
LECTURE IV.
THE BOOKBINDERS 84
LECTURE I.
THE PRINTERS AT WESTMINSTER.
WHILE the history of the invention and introduction of the
art of printing into the various countries of Europe is not
only obscure, but still the subject of endless controversy,
the history of its introduction into England is now prac-
tically settled.
There are no troublesome and incomprehensible docu-
ments as in the case of France. No questionable references
or undatable fragments such as Dutch and German biblio-
graphers have to contend with. The only attempt that has
been made to bring forward an earlier printer than William
Caxton is founded upon the misprinted date in the first
book printed at Oxford.
In 1664, while the Company of Stationers and the King
were quarrelling over the question of which had or should
have the most power in matters pertaining to printing, a
certain Richard Atkyns put forth a tract, now exceedingly
rare, called The Original and Growth of Printing. In this
tract, intended to uphold the king's rights, attention was
drawn for the first time to the Oxford book. " A book
came into my hands" writes Atkyns, " printed at Oxford,
A.D. 1468, which was three years before any of the recited
authors would allow it to be in England." Around this
book Atkyns wove a wonderful romance, in the style of the
earlier legends about Coster and Gutenberg. Rumours of
the new art, he suggests, having reached England, trusted
men were sent over to bribe or kidnap an eligible printer
and bring him over secretly, along with a press, type and
1
2 LECTURE I.
other impedimenta, to England. This was accordingly done,
and a certain Frederick Corsellis was conveyed into Eng-
land, and set up a press in Oxford. One curious point has
escaped all commentators on this story, and that is that a
real person named Corsellis did come over to England from
the Low Countries about that time, and was an ancestor of
several well-known London families in Atkyns' time, such
as the Van Ackers, the Wittewronges and the Middletons.
Atkyns referred for evidence to documents which have
never been found, and his story has met with the disbelief
it deserved, but the Oxford book with the date of 1468 not
only exists, but has still supporters who consider, or say
they consider, the date to be genuine.
Singer in the early part of the century wrote a book
in favour of its authenticity, though, as he afterwards
attempted to suppress his work, we may conclude he had
changed his opinion. Mr Madan of the Bodleian, in his
recent admirable history of Oxford printing, clings hesi-
tatingly to 1468, "but quaere" as he would himself say.
Generally, however, it is agreed that the date is a misprint
for 1478. The book has signatures which are not known to
have been used before 1472, and when the book is placed
alongside the two others, issued from the same press in
1479 and printed in the same type, it falls naturally into its
proper place, taking just the small precedence which its
slightly lesser excellence of workmanship warrants.
Having now disposed of Caxton's only rival, let us turn
to Caxton himself. It would, I think, be out of place here,
to recapitulate however shortly the history of Caxton's early
life, since it has been so fully and excellently done in that
standard book, familiar to you all, Blades's Life of Caxton.
What is more to our purpose is to pass on to the time
when, as an influential and prosperous man, he laid the
foundations of his career as a printer. By 1463 Caxton
had been appointed to the office of governor of the English
THE PRINTERS AT WESTMINSTER. 3
nation in the Low Countries, a post of considerable impor-
tance, and entailing the supervision of trade and traders,
and this office he held until about the year 1469. At this
latter date he was also in the service of the Duchess of
Burgundy, though in what capacity is not stated, but he
certainly employed himself at her request in making trans-
lations of romances. The Recuyell of the Histories of Troye,
a well-known romance of the period, was translated between
the years 1469 and 1471, and presented to the duchess in
September of the latter year. In the prologue of the
printed edition Caxton explains that after the duchess had
received her copy, many other persons desired copies also,
but that finding the labour of writing too wearisome for
him, and not expeditious enough for his friends, he had
" practised and learnt, at his great charge and expense, to
ordain the book in print, to the end that every man might
have them at once ".
Now in 1471, when Caxton finished his translation of
the Recueil, he was living at Cologne, a city remarkable
even at that time for the number of its printers, and the
first town that Caxton had visited where the art was
practised. He had just finished the tedious copying of a
large MS., so that the advantages of printing would be
manifest to him, and we may be tolerably certain that it
was about this time and at this town that he took his first
lessons in the art and mastered the mechanical processes.
Printing by this time had ceased to be a secret art, nor
was there such a demand for books as to make it a very
valuable one. The printed books of Germany had at an
early date found their way to Bruges, and people's eyes
were accustomed to the sight of the printed page, though
the nobles still preferred MSS., as being more ornamental
and costly. There are copies in the Cambridge University
Library and at Lambeth of the Cicero de officiis, printed at
Mainz by Schoiffer in 1466, which were bought in 1467 at
4 LECTURE I.
Bruges by John Russell, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, when
abroad on a diplomatic mission ; and a speech of his, de-
livered at Ghent in 1470, on the occasion of the investiture
of the Duke of Burgundy with the order of the Garter, was
one of Caxton's earliest printed productions.
A very strong piece of evidence to my mind that Caxton
learnt at Cologne is to be found in the prologue to the
English translation of the De proprietatibus rerum, by
Bartholomaeus Anglicus, which was printed by W. de
Worde, Caxton's apprentice and successor, in 1496. This
prologue, written by De Worde himself, contains these
lines :
And also of your charyte call to remembraunce,
The soule of William Caxton, the fyrste prynter of this book,
In Laten tongue at Coleyn, hymself to avaunce,
That every well disposed man, may thereon look.
Now this is a perfectly clear statement that Caxton
printed a Bartholomceus in Latin at Cologne, and we know
an edition of the book manifestly printed at Cologne about
the time Caxton was there. The type in which it is printed
greatly resembles that of some other Cologne printers, and
it seems to be connected with some of Caxton's Bruges
types. At any rate, the story cannot be put aside as without
foundation. It is not, of course, suggested that Caxton
printed the book by himself or owned the materials, but
only that he assisted in its production. He was learning
the art of printing in the office where this book was being
prepared, and his practical knowledge was acquired by
assisting to print it.
Returning to Bruges, he set about turning his knowledge
to account, and in partnership with a writer of manuscripts,
named Colard Mansion, began to make or obtain the neces-
sary materials.
About 1475 their first book was issued, the Recuyell of
the Histories of Troye, the first book printed in the English
THE PRINTERS AT WESTMINSTER. 5
language. It is a small thick folio of 352 leaves, and though
not uncommon in an imperfect condition, is of the very
greatest rarity when perfect. Two other books were printed
before 1477, The Game and Play of the Chess and the Quatre
derrenieres chases, the latter a very rare book, of which only
two copies are known.
In 1477 the Duke of Burgundy was killed, and the
duchess had to resign her position and retire into compara-
tive privacy. Caxton's employment was at an end, and his
services no longer required at the court. It was, probably,
for this reason that his thoughts turned to his native land.
He dissolved his partnership with Colard Mansion, and
taking with him some of the printing material set out for
England.
It must have been early in 1477 that Caxton returned
and set to work. He took up his residence in Westminster
at a house with the heraldic sign of the " Red Pale," which
was situated in the Almonry, a place close to the Abbey
where alms were distributed to the poor, and where
Margaret, Countess of Richmond, the mother of Henry
VII., and a great patroness of learning, built alms-houses.
The exact position of Caxton's house is not known, but it
was probably on some part of the ground now covered by
the Westminster Aquarium.
The first book printed in England was the Dictes or
sayengis of the Philosophers, translated from the French by
Earl Rivers, a friend and patron of Caxton, and edited by
Caxton himself, who added the chapter " concernyng
wymmen," a chapter which, with its prologue, exhibits a
considerable amount of humour.
It is interesting to notice that, as the book is in English,
we alone of European nations started our press with a book
in the vernacular.
The ordinary copies of the Dictes are without colophon,
though the printer and year are in the epilogue, but a copy
6 LECTURE I.
formerly in the Althorp Library and now at Manchester has
an imprint which states that the book was finished on the
18th November, 1477. Although we count the Dictes or
Sayengls as the first book printed in England on account
of its being the first dated book, it is quite possible that
some may have preceded it. Between the time of Caxton's
arrival in 1477 and the end of 1478 about twenty-one books
were printed, and only two have imprints, so that the rest
are merely ranged conjecturally by the evidence of type or
other details. Now in 1510 W. de Worde issued an edition
of King Apolyn of Tyre, translated from the French by one
of his assistants, Robert Copland, who in his preface writes
as follows : " My worshipful master Wynken de Worde,
having a little book of an ancient history of a kyng, some-
tyme reigning in the countree of Thyre called Appolyn, con-
cernynge his malfortunes and peryllous aduentures right
espouuentables, bryefly compyled and pyteous for to here,
the which boke I Robert Coplande have me applyed for to
translate out of the Frensshe language into our maternal
Englysshe tongue at the exhortacion of my forsayd mayster,
accordynge dyrectly to myn auctor, gladly followynge the
trace of my mayster Caxton, begynnynge with small storyes
and pamfletes and so to other ". Now this Robert Copland
was spoken of a little later as the oldest printer in England,
so that he may well have known a good deal about the
beginning of Caxton's career. We find a very similar case
in Scotland. Printing was introduced there mainly for the
purpose of printing the Aberdeen Breviary, but the first
thing the printers did was to issue a series of small poetical
pieces by Dunbar, Chaucer and others, an exactly similar
kind of set to the small Caxton pieces in the Cambridge
University Library.
In connexion with these Caxton pieces I noticed the
other day a strange statement. The writer was speaking of
Henry Bradshaw's knowledge of Caxton, and went on to say
THE PRINTERS AT WESTMINSTER. 7
that " to his bibliographical genius the Cambridge University
Library owes the possession of its many unique Caxtons and
unique Caxton fragments ". The library, however, owes
them mainly to the much-maligned John Bagford, who col-
lected the early English books which came to the university
with Bishop More's library. The monstrous collection of
title-pages in the British Museum, generally associated with
Bagford's name, was made by the venerated founder of
English bibliography, Joseph Ames.
Before the end of 1478 Caxton had printed about twenty-
one books. Of these sixteen were small works all containing
less than fifty leaves ; of the others the most important is
the first edition of the Canterbury Tales, of which there is, I
think, no perfect copy. Blades speaks of a fine perfect copy
in the library of Merton College, Oxford, and remarks also
that Dibdin ignorantly spoke of it as imperfect. In Dibdin's
time, however, it certainly was imperfect, for I have seen
some notes of Lord Spencer's referring to his having sent
some leaves from an imperfect copy to the college to assist
them in perfecting their own.
Among the other books of the period of special interest
is the Propositio jfohannis Russell, which has often been
ascribed to the Bruges press, as the speech of which
it consists was delivered in the Low Countries. Lord
Spencer's copy had a curious history. It is bound up in a
volume of English and Latin MS., and in the Brand sale in
1807 the volume appeared among the MSS., with a note,
" A work on Theology and Religion, with five leaves at the
end, a very great curiosity, very early printed on wooden
blocks or type". It was bought by the Marquis of Bland-
ford for forty-five shillings, and at his sale ten years after
cost Lord Spencer 126.
Another interesting book is the Infancia Salvatoris, of
which the only known copy is at Gottingen, being one of
the two unique Caxtons which are in foreign libraries. It
8 LECTURE I.
was originally in the Harleian Library, which was sold
entire to Osborne the bookseller, and was bought with many
other books for the Gottingen University. It is in its old
red Harleian binding, with Osborne's price, fifteen shillings
marked inside, and the note of the Gottingen librarian: "aus
dem Katalogen Thomas Osborne in London 12 Maii 1749
(No. 4179)erkauft".
In the first group of books comes also the only printed
edition of the Sarum Ordinale or Pica, which was super-
seded by Clement Maydeston's Directorium Sacerdotum.
Unfortunately the book is only known from some fragments
rescued from a binding and now in the British Museum.
To it refers the curious little advertisement put out by
Caxton, the only example of a printer's advertisement in
England in the fifteenth century, though we know of many
foreign specimens: "If it plese ony man spirituel or
temporel to bye ony pyes of two and thre comemoracions
of salisburi use, enpryntid after the forme of this present
lettre whiche ben wel and truly correct late hym come to
westmonester in to the almonesrye at the reed pale and he
shal haue them good chepe ". So far the advertisement ;
below it is the appeal to the public, " Supplico stet cedula ".
It seems curious that this should be in Latin, for one would
naturally suppose that the ones most likely to tear down
the advertisement would be the persons ignorant of that
language.
Two copies of this advertisement are known, one in the
Bodleian, and another, formerly in the Althorp collection,
at Manchester. It has been suggested that both copies
may have been at one time extracted from some old binding
in the Cambridge University Library. The example at
Manchester certainly belonged at one time to Richard
Farmer, who was University librarian, but the Bodleian
example was found by Francis Douce in a binding in his
own collection.
THE PRINTERS AT WESTMINSTER. 9
The group of eight small books in the University Library
which I spoke of as perhaps printed earlier than the Dictes
or Sayengis were originally all bound together in one volume
in old calf, and lettered " Old poetry printed by Caxton ".
This precious volume contained the Stans Puer ad Mensam,
the Parvus Catho, The Chorle and the Bird, The Horse the
Shepe and the Goose, The Temple of Glas, The Temple of
Brass, The Book of Courtesy andAnelida and Arcyte, and of
five of these no other copies are known.
About 1478-9 was issued the Rhetorica Nova of Laur-
entius of Savona, of which two copies are known, one
in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, the
other in the University Library of Upsala. Now although
this book had been known and examined by many for two
hundred years, and is printed in the most widely used of
Caxton's types, yet it was not recognised as a Caxton
until it was examined by Henry Bradshaw in 1861. The
colophon says that the work was compiled in the University
of Cambridge in 1478, and it was in consequence described
by all the early writers as the first book printed at Cam-
bridge. Strype wrote an account of the Corpus copy to
Bagford, who in his turn wrote of it to Tanner, and he in
his turn communicated it to Ames. Ames then inserted it
at the head of his list of books printed at Cambridge, and
the mistake, as is usual in such cases, was copied in turn by
each succeeding writer on printing.
In 1480 considerable changes are to be found in Caxton's
methods of work, owing no doubt to competition, for in this
year a press was started in London by a certain John
Lettou. He appears to have been a practised printer, and
his work is certainly better than Caxton's, his type much
smaller and neater, and the page more regularly printed.
He also introduced into England the use of signatures.
Signatures are the small letters printed at the foot of the
page which were intended to serve as a guide to the book-
10 LECTURE I.
binder in gathering up the sheets in their right order.
From the earliest times they were put in in writing both
in MSS. and the earliest printed books, but about J472
printers began to print them in in type, and the habit soon
became general. Caxton's use of signatures begins in 1480,
and was doubtless copied from the London printer.
At the beginning of 1480 Caxton had printed an in-
dulgence in his large type, the second of his founts, and
immediately afterwards the London printer issued another
edition in his small neat type. Caxton promptly had
another fount cut of small type, and issued with it a third
edition of the indulgence.
It is a matter much to be regretted that Henry Brad-
shaw never issued one of his Memoranda on the subject of
these indulgences, for he had collected much interesting
information, and was the first to point out the variations in
the wording of the different issues as well as the discoverer
of several unknown examples.
The year 1480 also saw the introduction of illustrations,
which were first used in the Mirror of the World. In it
there are two sets of cuts, one depicting various masters,
either alone or with several pupils, the other are merely
diagrams copied from those found in MSS. of the work.
These diagrams are meagre and difficult to understand,
so much so that the printer himself has put several in their
wrong places. The explanatory words inside the diagrams,
which would no doubt have been printed in type had Caxton
had a fount small enough, are written by hand. It is inter-
esting to notice that in all copies of the book the same
handwriting is found, though I am afraid it would be unsafe
to conclude it to be Caxton's. The period from 1480 to
1483 is the least interesting as regards Caxton's books.
Besides the Mirror of the World only two books contain
woodcuts ; the Catho, and the second edition of the Game
and Play of the Chess. The two cuts in the Catho had been
THE PRINTERS AT WESTMINSTER. 11
used before in the Mirror, but the sixteen in the chess-book
are specially cut, though clearly by a different artist from
the one who made those for the Mirror. Mr Linton in his
book on wood-engraving expressed the opinion that many of
these cuts were of soft metal, treated in the same manner
as a wood-block, but whenever we find any of them in use
for a long period, the breaks which occur in them and the
occurrence sometimes even of worm holes show that the cut
must have been of wood.
Among the other books of this period are the first
and second editions of Caxton's Chronicle, and Higden's
Polycronicon. The unique copy of the Latin Psalter in the
British Museum, a Caxton which remained unidentified
until fairly recently, also belongs to about 1480, but perhaps
the most interesting book of all is the first edition in English
of Reynard the Fox. This was translated by Caxton from
the Dutch, the translation being finished in June, 1481, and
the book evidently printed at once. It is curious that this
book which would lend itself so readily to illustration was
not printed with woodcuts, but Caxton after using them
in 1480 made no further move in this direction until 1484,
when another group of illustrated books appeared. It
always looks as though Caxton, and indeed his own words
tend to prove it, was much more interested in the literary
side of his work than in the mechanical, and therefore only
called in the aid of the wood-engraver when he thought it
absolutely necessary. He wished his books to be purchased
on their merits alone, and therefore did not try, like the
later printers, to use illustrations merely to attract the
unwary purchaser. On the other hand, as none of the other
printers in England issued illustrated books, he had no
competition to contend with.
A book which may have been printed about this time,
but if so has entirely disappeared, is a translation of the
Metamorphoses of Ovid. In the Pepysian Library is a MS.
12 LECTURE I.
of books x.-xv., with the following colophon : " Translated
and fynysshed by me William Caxton at Westmestre, the
22 day of Apryll, the yere of our lord 1480 And the 20 yere
of the Regne of kyng Edward the fourth ". It seems very
improbable Caxton would have taken the trouble to make
this translation had he not intended it to be printed, and
he mentions it in one of his prologues amongst a series of
books which he had translated and printed. This MS. was
bought by Pepys at an auction in 1688.
The period from 1483 to 1486 is more interesting. First
in order comes the first edition of Mirk's Liber festivalis
and its supplement the Quattuor sermones. The next is
a small quarto pamphlet known as the Sex quam elegan-
tissimce epistolcz, and consisting of letters that passed
between Sixtus IV. and the Venetian Republic. The only
copy known was found bound up in a volume of seventeenth
century theological tracts in the library at Halberstadt, and
was sold in 1890 to the British Museum for 200. After
these come a series of English writers, Lidgate's Life of Our
Lady ; Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Cressida,
and Hous of Fame; Gower's Confessio amantis, and the
Life of St. Wenefrede. The Canterbury Tales is the second
edition published by Caxton, and has a peculiarly interesting
preface by the printer, in which he tells us that having some
six years before printed the Canterbury Tales, which were
sold to many and divers gentlemen, one of the number had
complained that the text was corrupt. He said, however,
that his father had a very fine MS. of the poem which he
valued highly, but that he thought he might be able to
borrow it. Caxton at once promised that if this could be
done, he would reprint the book. This second edition is
ornamented with a series of cuts of the different characters,
and one of all the pilgrims seated together at supper at an
immense round table. This cut does duty several times later
on as the frontispiece to Lidgate's Assembly of the Gods.
THE PRINTERS AT WESTMINSTER. 13
In the same year as the Canterbury Tales, appeared two
other illustrated books, the Fables of Esop, and the Golden
Legend. The Esop has one large full-page cut of Esop used
as a frontispiece and which is found only in the Queen's
copy at Windsor, and no less than a hundred and eighty-
five smaller cuts, the work of two if not three engravers,
one being evidently the man who made the cuts for the
chess-book.
The Golden Legend is the largest book ever printed by
Caxton. It contains 449 leaves, and is printed on a much
larger-sized paper than he ever used elsewhere, the full sheet
measuring about two feet by sixteen inches. The frontis-
piece is a large woodcut representing the saints in glory,
while in addition there are eighteen large and fifty-two small
cuts, the large series including one of the device of the Earl of
Arundel, to whom the book is dedicated. The three dated
books of 1485 are all especially important. The first is the
first edition of the Morte d? Arthur, surely the most covetable
of all Caxton's books. For many years only one copy was
known in the library of Osterley Park, and many were the
attempts made by the two great Caxton collectors in the
early years of the century, Lord Spencer and his nephew,
the Duke of Devonshire, to obtain the treasure. The Duke
of Devonshire almost succeeded, but was foiled by some
awkward clause in a deed. However, another copy appeared
at a sale in Wales, wanting four leaves, but otherwise in
beautiful condition, and this was bought by Lord Spencer.
The Osterley Park copy was sold in 1885 for 1950, and
went to America, and after several changes of ownership now
belongs, I believe, to Mr. Hoe of New York. The other two
dated books are the Life of thate Noble and Christian Prince,
Charles the Great, and the History of the Knight Paris and
Fair Vienne. Both of these books were translated by
Caxton from the French. Only one copy of each is known,
and both are in the British Museum.
14 LECTURE I.
After 1485 Caxton's energy began to decline, or at any
rate we know of fewer books having been issued during the
period from 1486 to 1489. The Speculum vitce Christi and
the Royal Book belong to 1486, and are illustrated with
woodcuts of a very much superior execution to those which
had been previously in use ; they are not large but are
simply and gracefully designed. Besides the regular series
in the Speculum specially cut for it, a few very small and
rather roughly designed cuts are found, evidently cut for
use in one of the editions of the Sarum Horce, which were
issued at an earlier date, but of which nothing now remains
but a few odd leaves. It is interesting to notice that in
neither edition of the Speculum which he printed did Caxton
use the full series of the cuts which had been engraved for
it ; for several years afterwards one or two cuts occur in
books printed by Caxton's successor, evidently part of the
series, and which he had never used himself. To this time
may be ascribed the newest Caxton discovery, two fragments
printed on vellum of an edition of the Donatus Melior,
revised by Mancinellus, which were discovered some few
years ago by Mr. Proctor in the binding of a book in the
library of New College, Oxford.
In 1487 Caxton was anxious to issue an edition of the
Sarum Missal, and, not considering his own type suitable
for the purpose, commissioned a Paris printer named
William Maynyal to print one for him. Who this Paris
printer was is a matter of mystery, for his name is found in
no other book, but he was perhaps a relative of a certain
George Maynyal who printed at Paris about 1480. The
Missal is a very handsome book, printed in red and black,
and with two fine woodcuts at the Canon. The only known
copy, which belongs to Lord Newton of Lyme Park, appears
to have met at an early date with bad treatment, and wants
some seventeen leaves, mostly at the beginning.
In this book for the first time Caxton used his well-known
THE PRINTERS AT WESTMINSTER. 15
device, consisting of his trade or merchant's mark, with his
initials on either side.
Whether this device was cut in England or abroad has
long been a vexed question, but as it has no resemblance to
any foreign device of the period, and as the execution is poor
and coarse, we may conclude safely that it is of native work.
Caxton, no doubt, wished to call attention to the fact, which
might have escaped notice, that the book was produced for
him and at his cost ; and so when the copies of the book
had been delivered to him at Westminster he had the device
cut, and stamped it on the last leaf of each copy. In this
edition the portion of the marriage service in English has
been omitted by the printer, who has left blank spaces for it
to be filled in with the pen. There was an edition of the
Sarum Legenda issued about the same time, which is known
now only from a few odd leaves rescued from book-bindings.
It agrees in every way typographically with the Missal, it is
in the same type, has the same number of lines to the page,
every detail the same, so I think we have good reason for
supposing that it also was printed by Maynyal for Caxton.
Bradshaw suggested Higman, the Paris printer, as the
printer of these fragments, so that Maynyal may have had
some business connexion with him.
The second edition of the Golden Legend came out
shortly after this, that is about 1488, and is a difficult book
to explain typographically. About 200 leaves are of the
first edition, while the beginning, a small piece of the middle,
and the end are of the second. Now it is curious that no
copy in existence seems to be correctly made up as one edi-
tion or the other, and the most probable explanation seems
to be that part of the stock happening to get damaged, a re-
print was made to complete what was left, and that sheets
were picked indiscriminately. The most nearly perfect
second issue that I have seen is the one at Aberdeen, but
it is imperfect at beginning and end. The copy in the
16 LECTURE I.
Hunterian Museum at Glasgow has a second edition ending,
but I have not yet been able to discover a copy with a second
edition beginning.
In 1489 two editions of an indulgence from Joannes de
Gigliis were issued, printed in a type used nowhere else by
Caxton and not mentioned by Blades. The earliest noticed
of these indulgences was discovered in the following manner.
Cotton, who found it at Dublin, published an account of it
in the second part of his Typographical Gazetteer in 1862,
and he there described it as a product of the early Oxford
press. Bradshaw obtained a photograph of it, and at once
conjectured from the form and appearance of the type that
it was printed by Caxton. He immediately communicated
his discovery to Blades, who, however, refused to accept it
as a product of Caxton 's press without further proof, and it
was never mentioned in any edition of his books on that
printer. The necessary proof was soon afterwards forth-
coming, for Bradshaw found that in a book printed by W.
de Worde in 1494, the sidenotes were in this identical type,
and as De Worde was the inheritor of all Caxton's material,
this fount must have belonged to him.
About the same year were issued two unique books, The
History of Blanchardin and Eglantine, and the Four Sons
of Aymon.
The Blanchardin is unfortunately imperfect, wanting all
the end, and it is impossible to say of how much this con-
sists. The Four Sons of Aymon is also imperfect, wanting
a few leaves at the beginning. Both books were formerly
in the Spencer Library. The Doctrinal of Sapience pub-
lished in 1489 is a translation by Caxton from a French
version, and one particular copy of it in the Queen's library
at Windsor is worthy of special notice. It is printed
throughout upon vellum, a material which Caxton hardly
ever used, the only other complete book so printed being a
copy of the Speculum vitce Christi in the British Museum.
THE PRINTERS AT WESTMINSTER. 17
This particular copy of the Doctrinal has also a special
chapter added " Of the negligences happyng in the masse
and of the remedyes " which is not found in any other copy.
That it was specially printed is evident from its concluding
words, " This chapitre to fore I durst not sette in the boke
by cause it is not conuenyent ne aparteynyng that euery
layman sholde knowe it ".
During the last year or two of his life most of the books
issued by Caxton were of a religious nature. Some would
have us believe that this was owing to illness or a pre-
monition of his own approaching end, some to the fact
that his wife, if the Maud Caxton who was buried in 1490
was his wife, was just dead. Both these ideas seem to me
rather fanciful. He no doubt printed what was most in
demand. One book issued about this time was certainly
not religiousl It is a free paraphrase of some portions of
the JEneid and was translated by Caxton from the French.
It does not pretend to be a translation of the original,
but was abused soundly by Gavin Douglas, who issued a
translation in 1553, for its many inaccuracies. Amongst
the religious books I may mention the Ars Moriendi, a little
quarto of eight leaves, which was discovered by Henry
Bradshaw in a volume of tracts in the Bodleian, and of
which no other copy is known, and the very interesting
Cornmemoratio lamentationis beate Marie, which is in the
University Library at Ghent and which is one of the two
unique Caxtons on the continent. It was I believe picked
up by one of the librarians bound in a volume of tracts and
by him presented to the University Library. This Caxton
picked off a stall in Belgium may be considered as the real
successor to the imaginary one picked off the stall in
Holland by the celebrated Snuffy Davy of the Antiquary.
The Fifteen Oes is another of these religious books. Its
name is taken from the fact that each of the fifteen prayers
of which it is composed begins with O, and it was printed
2
18 LECTURE I.
as a supplement to a Sarum Horce, with later editions of
which it was generally incorporated. It contains a beauti-
ful woodcut of the Crucifixion, and is also the only existing
book printed by Caxton which had borders round the pages.
That a Horce to accompany it was printed is most probable,
for the Crucifixion is only one of a set of cuts which was used,
together with the borders, in an edition printed about 1494.
Though most of the books at this time can only be
arranged conjecturally, it is probable that the last book
printed by Caxton was the Book of Divers Ghostly Matters.
It consists really of three tracts, each separately printed,
the Seven Points of True Love, the Twelve Profits of
Tribulation, and the Rule of St. Benet ; but as they are
always found bound together, they are classed as one book.
There is one cut in the second treatise taken from the
Speculum series, but no other illustrations.
Caxton used during his career eight founts of type, of
which six only are included in Blades's enumeration. The
late French type which appeared about 1490-91, and is found
in a few of the latest books, such as the Ars Moriendi and
the Fifteen Oes, Blades considered not to have been used
until after Caxton 's death ; and the type of the 1489
indulgences was not mentioned at all. Blades's arrange-
ment, too, of the books under their types, though correct in
a certain way, is a very misleading one, for he takes the
types in their order, and then arranges all the books under
the type in which the body of the book is printed. Now
this leads to considerable confusion when different types were
in use together. For instance, Caxton started at Westmin-
ster with types 2 and 3, and both are used in his first book,
but Blades puts the books in type 3 after all those in
type 2, and thus the Sarum Ordinale, perhaps the second
book printed in England, certainly one of the earliest, comes
thirty-sixth on his list. Now, though Blades's arrangement
was not a chronological one, most writers have made the
THE PRINTERS AT WESTMINSTER. 19
mistake of thinking so, and have followed it as such, as
may be seen, for instance, in the list appended to Caxton's
life in the Dictionary of National Biography, which follows
Blades's arrangement, without any reference to his system
or mention of the types.
Caxton printed in England ninety-eight separate books,
and, counting in the three printed by him at Bruges, altogether
a hundred and one, of which ninety-four are mentioned by
Blades. It is true that Blades describes ninety-nine books, but
he includes two certainly printed at Bruges after Caxton had
left and three printed by De Worde after Caxton's death. But
it is not the mere number of the books he printed that makes
Caxton's career so remarkable, but the fact that he edited
almost every book he issued, and translated a large number.
He himself says that he had translated twenty-two, and the
statement was made at a time previous to his making several
others, and when we consider that amongst his translations
is to be included such a large book as the Golden Legend,
we can only wonder that he printed as much as he did.
Of the exact date of his death we have no evidence, but
it evidently must have taken place in 1491 . It is unfortunate,
too, that no copy of his will has been preserved, though it is
quite probable that it may yet be found among the immense
mass of documents belonging to Westminster Abbey, and
which are now in process of examination. The will, besides
the interesting personal details which it might supply, would
most likely give some information about those engaged with
him in business, the assistants who worked his presses, or
the stationers who sold his books.
Of his family we know next to nothing. We know that
he was married and had a daughter named Elizabeth, who
was married to a merchant named Gerard Croppe, from
whom she obtained a deed of separation in 1496. Had
Caxton had a son he would probably have continued the
printing business. As it was his printing materials were
20 LECTURE I.
inherited by his assistant or apprentice, Wynkyn de Worde,
who continued to carry on work in his old master's house at
Westminster. In his letters of denization, taken out so late
as the 20th April, 1496, he is described as a printer, and a
native of the Duchy of Lorraine. His name, De Worde,
which some have fallen into the mistake of deriving from
the town of Woerden in Holland, is clearly taken from the
town of Worth in Alsace ; indeed, the printer sometimes
uses the form Worth in place of Worde. Although he
inherited Caxton's business, which was, no doubt a flourish-
ing one, he seems to have started on his own account with
very little vigour or enterprise. Indeed, so torpid was the
press at that time that foreign printers found it worth their
while to produce and import reprints of Caxton's books for
sale in this country, books to which I shall refer more fully
in a future lecture. We soon see that we have to deal now
with a man who was merely a mechanic, and who was quite
unable to fill the place of Caxton either as an editor or a
translator, one who preferred to issue small popular books
of a kind to attract the general public, rather than the class
of book which had hitherto been published from Caxton's
house.
For the first two years De Worde contented himself
with using Caxton's old types, of which he appears to have
possessed at least five founts, and in that time he printed
five books, the Book of Courtesy, the Treatise of Love, the
Chastising of God's Children, the Life of St. Katherine, and
a third edition of the Golden Legend. Why this book should
have been so often printed is rather a mystery, for, while
Caxton issued two editions and De Worde another two
before 1500, at the end of the century a considerable
number of Caxton's edition still remained for sale at the
price of thirteen shillings and fourpence, not a large sum
for those days and considering the size of the book.
The Book of Courtesy, which is known only from a proof
THE PRINTERS AT WESTMINSTER. 21
of two leaves, in the Douce collection at Oxford, was a re-
print from Caxton's edition, of which the only known copy
is in the Cambridge University Library. In the proof leaves
in the Bodleian, De Worde's device is printed upside-down,
and for this reason, perhaps, the proof was rejected and used
to line a binding, and thus preserved for us. The Treatise
of Love was printed for the translator, whose name, unfor-
tunately does not appear, but the translation is dated 1493,
and the printing is clearly of the same year. The Chastising
of God's Children, a deplorably dull book, is interesting typo-
graphically as being the first book printed at Westminster
with a title-page. Why Caxton never introduced this
improvement it is hard to say, for he must have seen
many books in which they were used, and a book with
one was printed at London before his death.
The imprint of the Golden Legend is curious, for though
it is dated 1493 it contains Caxton's name. De Worde
seems to have reprinted from an earlier edition, merely
altering the date, or perhaps he meant the words " By
me William Caxton" to refer to the translator rather than
the printer.
In 1493, very nearly at the close of the year, De Worde's
first type makes its appearance in an edition of the Liber
Festivalis, the second or companion part of the book, the
Quattuor Sermones coming out early in 1494. The type has
a strong French appearance, though it retains several
characteristics and even a few identical letters of Caxton's
founts. It is curious that up to this time De Worde had
not put his name to any book, though most of them contain
his first device, a copy on a small scale of Caxton's, and
evidently cut in metal.
In 1494 two important books were issued, the Scala
perfeccionis of Walter Hylton, a Carthusian monk, and a
reprint of the Speculum vite Christi, both being in the late
French type of Caxton. The Scala perfeccionis is a rare
LECTURE I.
book when it contains the last part, which is only found in
two or three copies. It has on the title-page a woodcut of
the Virgin and Child under a canopy, and below this the
sentence beginning " Sit dulce nomen domini nostri Jesu
Christi benedictum," but the engraver in cutting the block
has not attempted to cut the words properly, but merely to
give their general appearance, so that the result though
decorative is almost impossible to decipher.
The Speculum of this year has many points of interest,
the chief perhaps being that Caxton's small type No. 7 is
found in it, the only time it is used in a printed book,
though it had been used before in 1489 for printing
indulgences. The text of the book is in Caxton's French
type, but the sidenotes are in this small Caxton type up
to about the middle of the book, whence the notes are
continued in the same type as the text. Up till a year or
two ago only one copy of this book was known in Lord
Leicester's library at Holkam, but lately another copy,
imperfect and in bad condition, turned up amongst some
rubbish in the offices of a solicitor at Birkenhead. Three
editions of the Horae ad usum Sarum, two in quarto and
one in octavo, printed in the same type as the other two
books, may also be ascribed to 1494. The two in quarto
are evidently reprinted from the last edition of Caxton's of
which the little treatise called the Fifteen Oes formed part,
for they have the same borders, and the woodcuts are clearly
of sets which belonged to Caxton. The octavo edition
is quite different, having no borders, and the woodcuts so
far as is known, for the book is only known from a frag-
ment, belong to a set which do not appear to have been
used again.
The most famous of the cuts used at this time is one of
the Crucifixion (the one used by Caxton in the Fifteen Oes),
of which a facsimile is given by Dibdin on page 79,
volume 2, of his Typographical Antiquities. He errone-
THE PRINTERS AT WESTMINSTER. 23
ously remarks about it in another place, "The woodcut of
the Crucifixion was never introduced by Caxton, it is too
spirited and elegant to harmonise with anything that he
ever published ". It was used frequently after this time by
De Worde, and affords us towards the end of the century
one of the most useful date-tests for undated books.
Between May, 1497, and January, 1498, part of the cap of
the soldier who stands on the right of the cross was broken
away, so that any book containing this cut with the cap
entire must be before 1498. In 1499 the cut began to split,
and in 1500 it split right across. Towards the end of 1500
one of the two border lines at top and bottom was cut
away. Of course there are for De Worde's books many
date-tests, and when they can be worked in various ways
and in conjunction, the result may be taken as very fairly
accurate. If it were only possible to get once together all
the scattered undated books for comparison, they could
easily be arranged in their exact order.
In 1495 appeared the Vitas Patrum, "the moste
vertuouse hystorye of the deuoute and right renowned
lyves of holy faders lyvynge in deserte, worthy of remem-
braunce to all wel dysposed persones, whiche hath be
translated out of Frenche into Englisshe by Wylliam
Caxton of Westmynstre, late deed, and fynysshed at the
laste daye of his lyff". The delay in the bringing out of
this work may be due to the large number of illustrations,
for it is profusely illustrated ; the cuts, however, are very
rudely designed and engraved.
In the Pepysian Library at Cambridge is a unique edition
of the Introductorium lingua latince, edited very likely by
Herman, which has the words in the preface, " Nos sumus
in anno salutis Millesimo quadringentesimo nonagesimo
quinto (1495)," which I certainly take to be the year of
printing, especially as another edition of the same book
in the Bodleian, also unique, has the last word of the date,
24 LECTURE I.
quinto, altered to nono, and must have been printed before
July, 1499. The small tracts printed from 1495 to 1497 are
very difficult to date with any precision, but there are a few
of particular interest which may be ascribed to that period,
such books, for instance, as the Information for Pilgrims
to the Holy Land, a work well worth reading for amusement,
which cannot be said of many of these books ; Fitzjames's
Sermo die lune in ebdomada Pasche, the Senno pro episcopo
puerorum, the Mirror of Consolation, and the Three Kings of
Cologne.
1496 is the year usually ascribed to the edition of
Trevisa's translation of the De proprietatibus rerum of
Bartholomaeus Anglicus, and I quoted earlier four lines of
verse saying that Caxton had printed the book in Latin at
Cologne. The three last lines of the same stanza referring
to another matter are also very interesting. Having spoken
of Caxton it continues :
And John Tate the yonger, joye mote he broke
Whiche late hathe in Englond doo make this paper thynne
That now in our englyssh this boke is prynted inne.
The watermark of this paper is an eight-pointed star in a
circle. The supply of this paper does not appear to have
been kept up for long, for I have only found it in two other
English books. The Bartholomaeus contains some very good
woodcuts, finer than others of the period, and the press-work
seems rather more regular than usual, so that perhaps we
may accept the statement of Dibdin that " Of all the books
printed in this country in the fifteenth century, the present
one is the most curious and elaborate, and probably the most
beautiful for its typographical execution ". It is only fair
to say, however, that the copy described by Dibdin was a
very exceptional one. In 1496 also came out a reprint
of the well-known Book of St Allan's, as it is generally
called, a treatise on hunting, hawking, and heraldry, with
the addition in this issue of the delightful chapter on fishing
THE PRINTERS AT WESTMINSTER. 25
with an angle, our earliest printed treatise on the art. There
is a woodcut of the angler at the beginning, and we see him
busily at work with a large tub beside him, just like the
German fisher of to-day, into which he may put his fish
and keep them alive.
This book would naturally appeal especially to the richer
class, and De Worde not only took especial pains with it,
but struck off copies upon vellum, some of which have
come down to our own day. From a typographical point of
view the book is of great interest, for it is printed through-
out in a foreign type which made its appearance in England
on this occasion only. It was used first at Gouda by Gotfried
van Os, but he seems to have discarded it about 1490 when
he removed to Copenhagen. Besides acquiring this fount
De Worde also obtained a number of woodcut capital letters,
which are used in all his earliest books, and one or two
woodcuts, which he used frequently until they were broken
and worn out. It has always been a puzzle to me why, if
De Worde had had this fount of type beside him for several
years, he never used it before, and why, having used it this
once, he never used it again. Not a single letter ever appears
in another book, and yet the type is a very handsome one.
1498 saw the issue of three fine folios: the Morte d'
Arthur of which the only known copy is in the John
Rylands Library at Manchester, the Golden Legend of which
the only known perfect copy is in the same library, and
lastly the Canterbury Tales of Chaucer. The only perfect
copy of this book was sold lately in the Ashburnham sale
for 1000, and is now also in Manchester, though not, I
regret to say, in the John Rylands Library. The first of
these three books, the Morte d' Arthur, is a reprint of
Caxton's edition, but it differs from it in having illustrations.
These are no doubt of native workmanship, and might be
justly described as the worst ever put into an English book,
being coarsely drawn, badly designed, and incompetently
26 LECTURE I.
engraved. The Golden Legend is a mere reprint of the
earlier editions, but is interesting for two points in the
colophon. The first is an example of the carelessness of
the printers. The words in the earlier editions run, " Thus
endeth the legend named in latin legenda aurea, that is to
say in Englysshe the golden legende, for lyke as golde
passeth all other metals, so this legende exceedeth all other
books, wherein be contained all the high and great feasts of
our lord" and so on. In this edition a line has been
omitted, and the words run, " For like as golde passeth all
other metalles, wherein ben contained all the highe and
grete festes of our lord''. Now although the omission
makes nonsense of the whole sentence, it is reprinted
exactly the same in the later editions issued by De Worde
and Julian Notary.
The other point is the date in the colophon, which runs,
" Fynysshed at Westmynster, the viii day of Janeuer, the
yere of oure lorde (a) Thousande . cccc. Ixxxxviii. And in
the xiii year of the reygne of kynge Henry the VII". Now
as the 13th year of Henry VII. ran from August 22,
1497, to August 21, 1498, it is clear that De Worde in
speaking of January 8, 1498, meant 1498 as we would
calculate, and not 1499, and therefore that he began his
year on the 1st of January and not on the 25th of March,
a most important point to be settled in arranging dated
books. Another later proof as to De Worde's dating may
be mentioned. In the tracts which he printed between
January 1 and March 25, 1509, he speaks of himself as
printer to the king's mother, but after Henry VIII.
succeeded in 1509 he styles himself printer to the king's
grandmother, so that he clearly used our method of dating.
About the year 1498, De Worde introduced his second
device, the largest of the three used in the fifteenth
century. It is almost square, with a broad border, and
having Caxton's mark and initials above a flowering plant.
THE PRINTERS AT WESTMINSTER. 27
Between July and December, 1499, a series of small nicks
were cut all round the outside edge, and this gives us a
useful clue to checking the dates of several books.
In 1499, De Worde brought out an edition of Man-
deville's Travels. It was not the first edition published
in England by a year or two, but it was the first with
illustrations, and most realistic illustrations they are. No
doubt it was a very popular book, and the two copies
known, one in the Cambridge University Library, the other
at Stonyhurst, are both imperfect. Fortunately by means
of the two we can obtain an exact collation. This year
seems to have been a very busy one. While the dated
books in the other years of the fifteenth century never rise
above four, in this year there are ten, and a considerable
number of undated books can be assigned to this year as
well. Among them a number of small poetical pieces by
Lidgate, reprints of Caxton's editions. One of these
reprints shows how careless a printer W. de Worde was.
He reprints the Horse, the Shepe, and the Ghoos, from a
copy of Caxton's wanting a leaf, but never noticing any-
thing wrong prints straight ahead, making of course non-
sense of the whole.
All De Worde's quarto tracts were got up in the same
style, the title at the top of the first leaf printed in one of
Caxton's types, below this a woodcut not always very
apposite to the subject of the work. There were two stock
cuts of masters with large birches and their pupils seated
before them, one of these being among the material
obtained from Gotfried van Os. These of course were
suitable for grammars and school books. Caxton's cuts
for the Sarum Horae, the Crucifixion, The tree of Jesse,
the three rioters and three skeletons, the rich man and
Lazarus, and David and Bathsheba, came in very useful
for theological books. The only special cut, that is one
specially cut for the particular book and not belonging to a
28 LECTURE I.
series, that I have found, is that on the title of the Rote or
mirror of consolation, which depicts seven persons kneeling
before an altar, above which two angels hold a monstrance.
At the end of the year 1500, De Worde moved from West-
minster into Fleet Street at the sign of the Sun, the earliest
book from the new address being dated May, 1501. This
from the point of view of the bibliographer was an extremely
well-timed move, for we can at once put all books with the
Westminster imprint as before 1501, and all with the Lon-
don one after 1500, thus dividing clearly the fifteenth and
sixteenth century books. At the time of his moving he
seems to have got rid of a considerable portion of his stock ;
some seems to have been destroyed and some sold, for many
cuts which had belonged to De Worde or to Caxton are
found afterwards in books printed by Julian Notary. De
Worde seems to have been a successful business man, for
when he moved into Fleet Street he occupied two houses
close to St. Bride's Church, one his dwelling-house and the
other a printing office, for which he paid the very high tithe
rent of sixty-six shillings and eightpence.
The number of books printed by Wynkyn de Worde in
the fifteenth century, counting in different editions of the
same book, is 109, and of a considerable number of these
only a single copy is known. It would seem probable that
the printer, when issuing a small book, printed only a small
number of copies, preferring to set up the type for a new
edition rather than burden himself with much unsaleable
stock. And it is curious how these various editions have
been accidentally preserved. Only two copies are known
of a book called the Rote or mirror of consolation, printed
by De Worde in the fifteenth century, one of them is in
the Pepysian library, the other in Durham Cathedral. Yet
these two are of quite different editions, the one at Durham
being certainly about 1496, the other certainly after the
middle of 1499. Of the Three Kings of Cologne we have
THE PRINTERS AT WESTMINSTER. 29
two editions, though only three copies are known. Indeed,
for some time it was thought that each copy represented a
different edition, as the copy in the British Museum, evi-
dently bound up separately out of a volume of tracts, had
had the last page of the tract preceding it bound in in place
of the correct title-page.
Looking at the very large number of small books which
De Worde printed between the end of 1496 and 1500, it
is surprising how many are known from single copies. I
have kept for many years a register of all the copies of
early English books which are to be found anywhere, and
taking the quartos printed by W. de Worde, which number
altogether 68, I find that out of that number 47, that is
more than two-thirds, are known to us now from single
copies or fragments. And I feel certain that we owe the
preservation of the majority of these to a cause we are now
doing our best to destroy. A few worthy people centuries
ago made collections of these tracts and bound them up in
immensely stout volumes, which gave them an air of import-
ance in themselves, and tended to preserve the tracts inside
in a much better manner than if bound separately. I do
not think I am exaggerating when I say that a hundred
and fifty of the rarest that De Worde printed during his
whole life can be traced to have been bound up in about
twelve volumes at the beginning of this century. Some
twenty-two of the rarest of W. de Worde's in the Heber
Library came to him in one volume. Thirteen unique
tracts which sold at the Roxburghe sale for 538, were in
a single volume when the Duke purchased them fourteen
years before for 26. I need only refer you to the University
Library, a large number of whose unique Caxton and De
Worde tracts came in three or four volumes. Then again,
when so many are known only from fragments or single
copies we may imagine what a large number have absolutely
disappeared.
30 LECTURE I.
Some have been lost of late years or have disappeared
since they were described. Three unique W. de Worde books
of the fifteenth century were supposed to have perished
in a fire in Wales early this century, but fortunately they
had been sold by the owner of the library a short time
before the fire. Others seem to have drifted into libraries
whose owners know nothing about them. There is a unique
De Worde printed before 1501, entitled the " Contemplacyon
or meditacyon of the shedynge of the blood of our lorde
jfhesu Cryste at seven tymes". This was seen and described
by Herbert, who very likely saw it when it was sold at the
Fletewode sale in 1774. Since then we have no record
of the book, and though every year more information about
private collections is published I can come upon no trace of it.
Beside the genuine books which have disappeared, by this
I mean books which have been described by a trustworthy
bibliographer, there are others which may reasonably be
supposed to have existed, and one clue to these is afforded
by the woodcuts. W. de Worde for example had certain
series of cuts, specially made for certain books ; but when
he wished to decorate the title-page of a small tract, which
was not itself to be otherwise illustrated, he used an odd cut
out of his sets. Now when we can trace in different tracts
odd cuts, manifestly belonging to a series, we may reason-
ably suppose that the book to which those series actually
belong must have been printed.
To give a couple of instances. In the unique copy of
Legrand's Book of good manners in the University Library
without date, but printed about the middle of 1498, are
two cuts, which really belong to a series made to illustrate
the Seven wise masters of Rome. These cuts are fairly
accurate copies of those used by Gerard Leeu in his edition
of 1490. At a considerable later date De Worde did issue
an edition of the Seven wise masters, illustrated with the
series of which the two mentioned above formed part, and
THE PRINTERS AT WESTMINSTER. 31
showing at that time marks of wear. Now as De Worde
had the series cut by the beginning of 1498, I think it most
probable that an edition of the book was then issued, for it
is unlikely that he would go to the trouble of cutting the
set unless he was preparing to print the book.
Again before the end of the fifteenth century De Worde
had a series to illustrate Reynard the Fox. One cut is
found on the first leaf of an edition of Lidgate's The Horse,
the sheep, and the goose, in the University Library, another
on the title-page of Skelton's Bowge of Court in the
Advocates' Library at Edinburgh. In the collection of the
University Librarian is a fragment of an edition of Reynard,
evidently printed by W. de Worde about 1515, and this
contains a third cut agreeing absolutely in size, in work-
manship, and in style with the other two.
In this case again it seems probable that an edition
illustrated with these cuts appeared before 1500.
The last press at Westminster during the fifteenth
century is that of Julian Notary, which while it started
in London about 1496 and only moved to Westminster in
1498, is more suitably taken in this place on account of its
connexion with Wynkyn de Worde.
The first book issued was an edition of Albertus de modis
significandi, printed in a neat Gothic type, but containing
no information in its colophon beyond that it was printed in
London at St. Thomas the Apostle's, probably close to the
church of that name, and not at a house with that sign.
There is also a printer's mark containing three sets of
initials, I. N. for Julian Notary, I. B. for Jean Barbier, and
I. H. for someone unidentified, but who there are some
reasons for supposing to have been Jean Huvin, a printer
at Rouen, who was associated in the production of books
for the English market.
In 1497 the same printers issued an edition of the
Home ad usutn Sarum, very neatly printed, and with
32 LECTURE I.
delicate borders round the pages. All that remains of the
book is a fragment of four pages, rescued from a book-
binding, but this luckily contains the colophon, telling us
that it was printed at St. Thomas the Apostle's, for W. de
Worde. This book also contains the device with the three
sets of initials.
In 1498 appeared a Sarum Missal, the first edition
printed in England, and though otherwise well got up, the
musical parts have the drawback of being without notes,
only the staves having been printed, though whether this
was done by design or merely because the printers had no
musical type remains unknown. From the colophon of the
Missal we learn that the printers, Julian Notary and Jean
Barbier, had settled at Westminster, and had printed the
book at the command and expense of W. de Worde. On
the last leaf is Caxton's device, and on the title-page that
of the printers. Of this book five copies are known, and
of the four I have examined, the copy in the University
Library is the only perfect one. About the fifth, belonging
to the Duke of Sutherland, I have no information.
I. H. it is clear had left the firm, and though the
printers use the same device as before, the initials I. H.
have been cut out of it.
In 1499 Jean Barbier also disappeared, for in the
edition of the Liber festivalis and Quattuor Sermones which
appeared in that year the printer's mark has again been
altered. All initials have been cut out and the name
Julianus Notarii inserted in type. This form of the name
suggests that he was not a notary as is generally stated,
but the son of one. I have never been able to see a perfect
copy of this book though Herbert describes one which he
said was in the Inner Temple Library, but my inquiries
there met with no success. Hain in. his Repertorium
Bibliographicum mentions a copy which seems not to be
the one noticed by Herbert.
THE PRINTERS AT WESTMINSTER. 33
In April, 1500, Notary printed a most minute edition of
the Horce ad usum Sarum, it is in 64's as regards folding,
and a printed page measures an inch and a quarter by an
inch. Only a fragment of it is known, a quarter sheet
containing sixteen leaves, but that luckily contains the
colophon. It was very likely copied from another edition
of the same size, which was printed at Paris the year before,
but this point cannot be determined, as the only copy of the
latter which existed was burnt with the greater part of the
Offer collection. All we know now of it is the meagre note
in the auctioneer's catalogue, " imperfect, but has end with
imprint " and he has not given the imprint !
The colophon of Notary's Horae tells us that it was
printed in King Street, Westminster. King Street is the
short street at the bottom of Whitehall in a straight line
between Westminster Abbey and the Foreign Office. Lewis,
in his life of Caxton, says that Caxton's printing office was
in King Street, but I do not know of any reason for his
assertion.
The last of Notary's books printed at Westminster is
an edition of Chaucer's Love and complaintes between Mars
and Venus, with some other pieces. This rare little book,
having passed through the collections of Farmer, the Duke
of Roxburghe, Sir Masterman Sykes and Heber, is now at
Britwell. The colophon runs : " This imprynted in west-
moster in King Street. For me Julianus Notarii." In spite
of the word For, I think the book was printed by Julian
Notary himself. It contains two cuts, reversed copies of
two of Caxton's.
At what time Notary left Westminster cannot at present
be settled, but probably almost immediately after W. de
Worde. When his next dated book was issued in 1503
he had moved to London, and with his departure from King
Street to Pynson's old house near Temple Bar printing
ceased altogether in Westminster.
3
LECTURE II.
THE PRINTERS AT LONDON.
THE art of printing was introduced into London in 1480,
three years after Westminster, two years after Oxford, and
probably one year after St. Alban's, by a printer called
Joannes Lettou. The name evidently denotes that he came
orginally from Lithuania, of which the word Lettou is an
old form. One thing is at once apparent when we come to
examine his work, and that is that he was a skilled and
practised printer, producing books entirely unlike Caxton's,
and bearing every appearance of being the work of a foreign
press. Where he learned to print it is impossible to find
out, but whence his type was obtained no one can have the
least doubt : it was certainly brought from Rome.
The type is identical with that used by a printer in Rome
in 1478 and 1479, who really ought to have some connexion
with English printing as his name was John Bulle. In his
Roman books he describes himself as from Bremen. If it
were possible to arrive at any explanation how a man from
Bremen could be described as a Lithuanian, I should at
once assume John Lettou and John Bulle to be identical,
since the one apparently begins where the other leaves off.
However, until some reasonable explanation is forthcoming
it will be best to consider them as different people.
Lettou seems to have been assisted during the first two
years of his career by a certain William Wilcock, but .who
this man may have been I have not been able to discover,
unless he was a certain William Wilcock who is mentioned in
THE PRINTERS AT LONDON. 35
the State Papers as having been presented to the living of
Llandussell in 1487. The two books printed by Lettou
were the Questiones Antonii Andreae super duodecim libros
metaphisice and the Expositiones super Psalterium of Thomas
Wallensis. Both these books are printed in a neat small
Italian gothic, with two columns to the page and forty-nine
or fifty lines in a column. The first of the two books, the
Antonius Andreae, is a small folio of 106 leaves, and almost
all the six known copies are imperfect. The book is very prob-
ably reprinted from the edition printed at Vicenza in 1477,
the only earlier edition than the present, which, like it, is
edited by Thomas Penketh. Penketh was a friar of the
Augustinian house at Warrington, but went later as teacher
of theology to Padua. He returned to Oxford in 1477, where
he also taught theology, and was probably living there when
his book was being printed at London.
The second of these two books is printed in exactly the
same style and form as the first, with the exception of having
fifty lines to the column in place of forty-nine. In the im-
print the book is ascribed to the " Reverendissimus dominus
Valencius," that is Jacobus Perez de Valentia, who was, how-
ever, not the author of this work, though he did write a
commentary on the Psalms. The real author was a certain
Thomas Wallensis or de Walleis. Henry Bradshaw, who
discovered the mistake, gives the following explanation of it :
" This edition is printed from an incomplete copy, and from
the words of the colophon ' Reverendissimi domini Valencii,'
the final s having been misread as an i, the work has been
confounded with the commentary of Jacobus Perez de Val-
encia, which was printed at that place in 1484 and 1493. The
v for w and the absence of the Christian name would also serve
to create the confusion, or at any rate to perpetuate it."
Three editions of the indulgence of John Kendale were
printed by Lettou in 1480. The first two have been pre-
served in a very curious manner. It was a common custom
36 LECTURE II.
of the early binders to paste down the centre of each quire
of paper a thin strip of vellum in order to prevent the thread
which ran down the centre of the quire and stitched it to
the bands of the binding from cutting through the paper.
A copy of a foreign printed Bible, which appears to have
been bound in England, perhaps by Lettou himself, and
which is now in Jesus College Library, has the centre of
each quire throughout the book lined with a strip of vellum,
part of cut up copies of these two indulgences. Indulgences
having their year printed upon them soon went out of date,
and as they were of vellum and printed only on one side were
very much used by bookbinders for lining bindings. These
two indulgences were issued early in the year and have the
date 1480, but no mention is made of the pontifical year of
the pope. The third indulgence, also dated 1480, has besides,
the date of the pontifical year, " the year of our pontificate
the tenth," and as the popes dated like the kings, from the
exact date of their accession or coronation, this copy must
have been printed after August 7, 1480, on which date the
tenth year of Sixtus IV. began.
After the printing of his two books and editions of the
indulgence, Lettou entered into partnership with a printer
called Wilhelmus de Machlinia, a native, as his name shows,
of Mechlin in Belgium. Together they printed five books,
the Tenores Novelli of Lyttelton, the Abridgement of the
Statutes, and the Year-books of the thirty-third, thirty-fifth,
and thirty-sixth years of Henry VI.
For these books the printers used a small very cramped
black letter, abounding in abbreviations, and often difficult
to read. It appears to have been designed after the law-
hand of the period. The edition of the Tenures is the only
one of these books with an imprint, and it contains the
names of both printers, and the statement that the book
was printed in the city of London, "juxta ecclesiam omnium
sanctorum ". There were, however, several churches in
THE PRINTERS AT LONDON. 37
London at this time dedicated to All Saints, and it is not
possible now to settle which particular one was meant.
Complete sets of these five books are in the British Museum
and the University Library, Cambridge.
The complete change in the character of the books pro-
duced after Machlinia had joined Lettou shows that his
strong point was legal printing, and during his continuance in
business he seems to have printed all the law-books issued in
England. But perhaps the most marked peculiarity of this
partnership is the extraordinary deterioration in the books
produced. The work of Lettou was marked by excellence
of typography and the many improvements introduced by
an evidently practised printer. As soon as Machlinia joined
him the work became slovenly. It might almost be sup-
posed that Mr. William Wilcock, who had defrayed the
expense of Lettou's work, had either tried it as a speculation
and found it a poor one, or had only wished the two books
to be specially printed for his own use and had then left the
printer to shift for himself. It is curious, too, that Lettou's
neat type should have entirely disappeared. The real reason
for this probably was that though it was very neat it had
none of the abbreviations necessary in a type used for print-
ing law-books.
While Lettou remained in the firm the work, though
much deteriorated, retained a certain amount of regularity.
All the books had signatures and were regular in size, though
their appearance was not good. After the issue of these five
books Lettou seems to have ceased printing, but the type
was used for one more book, which it will be well to notice
here, The History of the Siege of Rhodes. This was written
in Latin by Gulielmus Caorsin, vice-chancellor of the Knights
of Malta, and was translated into English by John Kay, who
styles himself poet-laureat to Edward IV. It gives an ac-
count of the great victory of the Rhodians against the Turks
and the death of Mahomet.
38 LECTURE II.
It is the only English printed book which we cannot defin-
itely ascribe to any particular printer. By most early writers
it was classed as a production of Caxton, and Dibdin places
it under Caxton in his Typographical Antiquities, though
he there expresses a doubt as to its being his work. " The
typography," he says, " is so rude as to induce me to sup-
pose that the book was not printed by Caxton. The oblique
dash for the comma is very coarse ; and the adoption of
the colon and the period, as well as the comparatively wide
distances between the lines, are circumstances which, as
they are not to be found in Caxton's acknowleged publica-
tions, strongly confirm this supposition." Five years later,
writing in the Bibliotheca Spenceriana, he seems to have
settled more accurately. " I have very little doubt," he writes
there, "of its having been executed by Lettou and Machlinia,
or by the former of these printers, rather than by Caxton.
The letters, however, great and small, especially the larger
ones, and some of the compound smaller ones, bear a strong
resemblance to the smallest types of our first printer ; but
on a comparison with those of the Tenures of Lyttelton and
of the Ancient Abridgement of the Statutes, printed by Lettou
and Machlinia, the resemblance is quite complete." The
type is certainly that used by Lettou and Machlinia, and the
considerable difference in appearance from the other five
books is caused by the text being in English, which makes
more difference than would be imagined, and also that
there are very few of the abbreviations which crowd the
other books. Then again the lines of type are spaced out,
giving the page a much lighter appearance.
Though the dedication is to Edward IV. it does not
necessarily follow that the book was printed before his
death, for the early printers in reprinting a MS. would keep
to the preface as there written. It might, however, have
been printed as early as 1483, and immediately the law
books had been completed. Who the printer was I do not
THE PRINTERS AT LONDON. 39
think can ever be settled. When it was printed Machlinia
had probably started by himself with his new types, and I
do not think it can have been printed by Lettou, as it has
not the signatures to the pages which he invariably used.
We may, I think, date the break up of the partnership of
John Lettou and William de Machlinia about 1482-83, and
from that date onwards Machlinia worked alone. He seems
to have made a fresh start with new type, for he has at least
three founts which had not been used before. The diffi-
culties in the way of making any arrangement or arriving at
any definite conclusions about his books are very great. We
know that he printed at least twenty-two books, and not one
single one is dated. Signatures, directors, headlines, seem
to be present or absent without rule or reason. There is
hardly any method of arranging the books in groups, every
book stands alone in splendid isolation.
The only division possible is according to the type used
in the books, and in this way we can separate them into
two groups. Those of the first group are printed in two
founts of a square gothic type, and as in the colophons of
the two books in this series which possess them the printer
speaks of himself as living near the " Flete-bridge," we call
these books the ones printed in the Fleet-bridge type. The
other group are in a regular English type, similar in general
appearance to some of Caxton's or that used by the printer of
St. Alban's, and in the imprint to one of these books Machlinia
speaks of himself as printing in Holborn, so that we speak
of this series of books as printed in the Holborn type. It
is of course quite possible that the two addresses refer to
the same place, and that Machlinia had but the one office,
but with our present information it seems better to count
the two addresses as different since it gives us a method of
dividing the books.
It is probable that the Fleet-bridge group is the earlier,
so we will take it first. In it there are altogether eight
40 LECTURE II.
books. Three folios, the Tenures of Lyttelton, the Nova
Statuta, and the Promise of Matrimony, four quartos, the
Vulgaria Terentii, the Revelation of St. Nicholas to c Monk
of Evesham, and two books by Albertus Magnus, the Liber
Aggregations seu de secretis naturae, and the Secreta mulie-
rum, and one small book, probably a 16, an edition of the
Horae ad usum Sarum.
The two books of Albertus Magnus are certainly the
most neatly printed, the press work being tidy and regular,
which was not generally the case with this printer's produc-
tions.
The copy of the Secreta mulierum in the University
Library is an interesting one, though, unfortunately, im-
perfect. On the first leaf which is blank there is a certain
amount of writing, and amongst other things the following
sentence: " Annus domini nunc est 1485 in anno Ricardi
tercii 3". This note, supposing it to have been written at
the time to which it refers, and there is no reason to doubt
it, must have been written between June 26 and August 22,
1485, showing that at any rate the book was printed before
that date. The other book of Albertus Magnus, the Liber
aggregations, has a colophon stating that it was printed by
" William de Machlinia in the most wealthy city of London,
near the bridge vulgarly called the Flete-bridge ". The wealth
of London seems to have impressed the alien printer, for
he always applies the word " opulentissima " to that city.
The small Horae we have little information about, for we
know of its existence only from nineteen leaves scattered about
the country. There are eight in Corpus Christi College, Ox-
ford, seven in the British Museum, four in Lincoln Minster,
and two in the University Library, Cambridge. These have
all been extracted from bindings, and in the cases where
we know the particular bindings from which they came
these bindings were the work of the same man, whose
initials were G. W. From the way in which the leaves
THE PRINTERS AT LONDON. 41
were printed, and the way in which they were afterwards
folded, a point too technical and difficult of description to
touch on here, we may pretty safely say that the Horae was a
16 and not an 8. It may be worth while remarking that
the early printers used only the simple folding, which with
each successive folding exactly halves the size of the previous
one. The sheet folded into two leaves produced folio size,
this folded again once made 4to, folded again 8, again
16, again 32, and again 64. The duodecimo or 12, which
depends on more complicated folding, was quite unknown.
The Horae, so far as we can see from what remains, con-
tained no illustrations, but it had an engraved border which
was used round the pages beginning certain portions of the
book. This engraved border we afterwards find in Pynson's
hands, and is the only definite link connecting him with
this press. Bradshaw, in his paper on the " Image of Pity,"
suggests that Ames, who quoted this book in his Typo-
graphical Antiquities, had seen a complete copy, but as
he describes it merely as " a book of devotions on vellum,"
and adds no particulars, I think that he simply described it
from the few leaves in his own possession, which are now in
the British Museum in the great so-called Bagford volumes
of despoiled title-pages.
The Revelation of St. Nicholas to a Monk of Evesham is
one of the most remarkable volumes of the fifteenth century,
very well worth reading, for it is full of early English stories
and allusions. (I may say in passing that Mr. Arber has issued
a cheap reprint of it.) The story tells of a man who was
taken through purgatory and was shown various people
whom he had known or heard of and listened to their
stories. It seems to me very curious that no other editions
of the book were issued in early times, it seems exactly the
kind of book which must have been popular. Typograph-
ically, the book is interesting as showing an excellent
example of wrong imposition, that is that when the one side
42 LECTURE II.
of the sheet had been printed, the other side was put down
upon its form of type the w r rong way round, and conse-
quently the pages come all in their wrong order, page 1 being
printed on the first side of the first leaf, page 14 follows it
on the other side, then page 16, then page 4, and so on.
Now, most printers who had done this stupid thing, and it
was not an uncommon accident, would have destroyed the
sheet and reprinted it. Not so Machlinia. He printed off
some more copies of the wrong sheet and, cutting it up,
pasted the four pages in their proper places. In one of the
two known copies this has had unfortunate results, for some
curious inquirer, noticing the pages pasted together, has
tried to separate them to find out what was underneath,
and they have suffered severely in the process.
The Vulgaria Terentii is the last of the quartos in this
group. It is a book that was often printed, but of the
present edition the copy in the University Library is the only
one remaining, and it, unfortunately, is slightly imperfect.
Of the folios, the Nova Statuta is the most important,
and also by far the commonest, for I have examined over
a dozen copies myself, and I know of a good many more.
The book must have been printed after April, 1483, as the
subject-matter runs up to that date. The Promise of Matri-
mony, another folio in this type, consisting only of four
leaves, relates to the agreement made in 1475 between
Edward IV. and Louis XI. for the marriage of the
Princess Elizabeth of York and Prince Charles, afterwards
Charles VIII., King of France.
I have noticed that in nearly all the copies of the law
books printed by Lettou and Machlinia, or Machlinia alone,
that I have examined, the initial letters, which were filled in
by hand in colour, appear to have been done by the same
person ; the letter roughly in red, and a twirl or two by
way of ornament in pale green or blue. I suppose the
subject of the books was so severely practical that unless
THE PRINTERS AT LONDON. 43
this had been done before the book left the office it would
never have been done at all. However, in English printing
generally, though the spaces were left for fine initials, I can
remember no book with them filled in in any but the plain-
est way, a contrast to the beautiful work so often found in
Italian books.
The last group of books, which number fourteen, are
called the Holborn type books, because in the imprint of
one of the two books that contain them we find the words,
" Enprente per moy william Maclyn en Holborn ". The
general type used for the text of these books is very re-
markably like that used by Veldener at Utrecht and by
John Brito at Bruges, and may, perhaps, have been ob-
tained by Machlinia from abroad, though it is of the same
school of type as several used in England.
The most important book issued in this series is an
edition of the Chronicles of England. It is a very rare
book, but there is an imperfect copy in Cambridge in the
Barham collection in Pembroke College. The space for the
initial letters, as is usually the case with early books, has been
left blank to be filled in by the rubricator, but in one copy
that I have seen, the initials have been filled in in gold, not
gold leaf but gold paint, and this is the only example of its
use that I have found in an early English book. Another
curious point about the book is that though it is a folio, a
folio of 238 leaves, yet in all copies leaves 59 and 66, the
first and last leaves of a quire, are printed on quarto paper.
I thought once that perhaps for some reason these leaves
had been cancelled and reprinted, but it seems more prob-
able that the printer had for the moment run out of his
supply of ordinary-sized paper, and had to use some of a
much larger size cut in half.
Three editions were published by Machlinia of the curious
Treatise on the Pestilence, by Canutus or Kamitus, Bishop of
Aarhaus in Denmark, and of each edition only one copy is
44 LECTURE II.
known, one in the British Museum, one in the University
Library, and one sold lately in the sale of the Ashburnham
Library and now at Manchester. I must warn any one
who uses Dibdin's Typographical Antiquities, that the fac-
simile page of the book which he gives is made up from the
upper part of the first leaf of the Cambridge copy and the
lower part of the same leaf of the Manchester copy, which
he must have seen when it was in the possession of Trip-
hook, the bookseller, so that the resulting facsimile is rather
puzzling. The fact that one of these editions, that in the
British Museum, has a title-page, makes us inclined to put it
to rather a late date, but at any rate it is the earliest title-
page in an English printed book.
Another book in this group, by far the commonest and
best known, is the Speculum Christiani, ascribed to a writer
named John Watton, a curious medley of theological matter
interspersed with pieces of English poetry. The colophon
states that the book was printed for and at the expense of
a merchant named Henry Vrankenbergh. About this mer-
chant I could find out nothing until, curiously enough, on my
last visit to Cambridge a fortnight ago, my attention was
drawn by a friend to a note in the Descriptive Catalogue of
ancient deeds in the Record Office, where is a note of a
" Demise to Henry Frankenbergk and Barnard van Stondo,
merchants of printed books, of an alley in St. Clement's
Lane, called St. Mark's Alley, 10th May, 1482".
This is, I believe, the earliest note relating to foreign
stationers or merchants of printed books in England, but
I hope from the same source we may expect to obtain many
more as soon as the endless series of documents in the Rolls
Office are calendared.
An edition of the Vulgaria Terentii was also printed in
this type. An almost perfect copy was added to the British
Museum Library two years ago, and a considerable portion
of another copy is in the library of Caius College.
THE PRINTERS AT LONDON. 45
Machlinia also printed two of the Nova Festa, the Festum
visitationis beate Marie virginis and the Festum transfigura-
tionis Jesu Christi. The first of these is only known from
two leaves which had been used to line the boards of the
binding of Pynson's Dives and Pauper. Of the second a
beautiful and perfect copy is in the library of the Marquis
of Bath. It is curious to notice that it contains not only
the feast according to the Sarum use, but also according
to the Roman use.
The three last of Machlinia's books to be noticed are the
three which, though undated themselves, contain certain
evidences of date. The first of these contains the statutes
made in the first year of Richard III., and, as this first
year ran from June 26, 1483, to June 25, 1484, the book
cannot be earlier than the second half of the latter year.
The second book is one about which I am very much
inclined to doubt whether it was printed by Machlinia at
all, but rather by Veldener, who used apparently iden-
tical type ; and though I have had for several years under
my charge at Manchester the only copy of the book known
I cannot make up my mind about it. It is an edition of the
Regulae et ordinationes of Innocent VIII., and could not
at any rate have been printed before the very end of 1484-
The type seems newer in appearance than any of Mach-
linia's, though to all appearance identical. Dibdin, with his
usual readiness, helps us by remarking, " It presents us
with the same character or general appearance of type as
that which Caxton and Machlinia occasionally used. It is
not much unlike the St. Alban's type."
The last production is a Bull of Innocent VIII. confirm-
ing the marriage of Henry VII. and Elizabeth of 'York. It
was reissued in 1494 by Alexander VI., and there the date
is given as 27th March, 1486.
Two copies of this Bull are known, one in the library of
the Society of Antiquaries and one at Manchester. Herbert,
46 LECTURE II.
in his Typographical Antiquities, describes a copy differing
from these in having a concluding paragraph, apparently cut
away from both the known copies.
Richard Pynson was by birth a native of Normandy,
as we learn from his letters of denization, but practically
nothing of his personal history is known. It is probable
that he was educated at the University of Paris, for we find
in a list of students in 1464 the name " Ricardus Pynson
Normannus," and this may very well be the printer. It
was, however, in Normandy that he learned to print, prob-
ably from Richard le Talleur, a noted printer of Rouen, as
may be seen by certain small habits connected with printing
which he fell into, and which are very typical of Rouen
work.
Although we have only circumstantial evidence, evidence
depending on a number of almost trifling details, to back
up the statement, it seems now almost certain that Pynson
succeeded Machlinia. My own impression is that he
succeeded immediately on the death or retirement of the
latter, with hardly any interval. A very strong reason for
this impression is that had any long time elapsed between
the cessation of Machlinia's press and the commencement
of Pynson's, England would have been left without a printer
who could set up law French. Caxton and Wynkyn de
Worde were presumably unable to do it, at any rate they
printed no books of the kind except some year-books of
Henry VII., and it must be remembered that in Henry
VII.'s reign for the first time the year-books were written
in English. I do not mean to suggest that Pynson ever
worked with Machlinia, but only that when the latter ceased
to work Pynson came over and started in his place, perhaps
taking over some of his printing material or even starting
work in his old office. The engraved border which Mach-
linia had used in his Sarum Horae, the only piece of orna-
THE PRINTERS AT LONDON. 47
ment he seems to have possessed, we find used afterwards
by Pynson, and it is a very common thing to find Pynson's
earliest bindings lined with waste leaves of Machlinia's
printing. Had Pynson worked with Machlinia we should
have expected the latter's founts of type to have passed
into his hands, as Caxton's were inherited by Wynkyn de
Worde, but they did not. Indeed they totally disappeared,
and what we do find of Machlinia's in Pynson's hands is
merely the refuse that we might expect a printer to find in an
office just vacated by another. Had Pynson not been ready
to take over the place this waste stuff would have been de-
stroyed. The question is then, when did Machlinia cease
or Pynson begin ? I should say that Machlinia ceased
much later than is supposed and Pynson began much
earlier, and that the two events happened between 1488
and 1490. At first when Pynson arrived he was without
material, so he commissioned Le Talleur at Rouen to print
for him the two law books most in demand, Lyttelton's
Tenures and Statham's A bridgement of Cases to the end of
Henry VI.
Probably in 1490 to '91 he began printing on his own
account. His first dated book was issued in November,
1492, but five books, if not more, can be placed earlier;
these are an edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, a Latin
Grammar, a poetical book, and two or more Year-books.
The Chaucer is a particularly fine book, printed in two
sizes of type, a larger for the poetry, and a smaller for the
prose which is printed in two columns. It is also illustrated
with a set of woodcuts illustrating the different pilgrims.
It is interesting to notice that these cuts were altered in
some cases while the book was passing through the press
in order to serve as the portrait of another pilgrim. The
serjeaunt with a little alteration becomes the doctor of
physick, the squire becomes the manciple. There has been
a good deal of controversy as to the date of the printing
48 LECTURE II.
of this book and whether it could have appeared before
Caxton's death in the latter part of the year 1491. Pynson
in his prologue, which is rather confused and difficult to
understand, says, speaking of Chaucer : " Of whom I among
alle other of his bokes, the boke of the tales of Canterburie,
in whiche ben many a noble historic of wisdome policie
mirth and gentilnes. And also of vertue and holynes whiche
boke diligently ovirsen and duely examined by the pollitike
reason and ouirsight of my worshipful master William
Caxton accordinge to the entent and effecte of the seid
Geffrey Chaucer and by a copy of the seid master Caxton
purpos to imprent, by ye grace, ayde, and supporte of almighty
god." I think had Caxton been dead Pynson would have
alluded to it in some way, speaking of him, perhaps, as
"my late worshipful master" or "my worshipful master
late dead". The term worshipful master does not imply
that Pynson had been an apprentice or assistant to Caxton,
but was merely a courteous way of referring to the printer
and editor whose work he was about to reprint. Blades, in
his life of Caxton, speaks of Pynson's having used Caxton's
device, but this mistake has arisen through a made-up book
in the British Museum, a copy of Bonaventure's Speculum
vite Christi, The copy wanted the end, and some former
owner, in order to make the book look more complete, has
added a leaf with Caxton's device printed on it.
The Latin Grammar is known only from three leaves,
one in the Bodleian and two in the British Museum. The
leaf in the Bodleian appears from an inscription upon it to
have been used to line a binding as early as 1494. The
book was printed entirely in the large black type of the
Chaucer, the first of Pynson's types, and which he does not
appear to have used after 1492.
Another book printed about this time was a book of
poetry of a quarto size. All that is at present known of
this book are two little strips making part of a leaf, and
THE PRINTERS AT LONDON. 49
each containing six lines of verse, three on each side. I
found these fragments a year or two ago amongst a bundle
of uncatalogued leaves in the Bodleian, but I have not been
able to determine from what book they come. The story
is apparently of some one who having been in purgatory
is allowed to revisit the world in order to warn others of
what he had seen there. This was a common story, and is
found in many forms, and it is very probable that the frag-
ments belong to some version of a work of this class called
Spiritus Guidonis.
The two other books in this series are two year-books,
for the first and ninth years of Edward IV. All these
early books, with the exception, of course, of the poetry
fragments, contain Pynson's first device, which consists of
his monogram in white upon a black background, not at all
unlike in style that used by Le Talleur at Rouen, with whom
he had been associated. When the device was used in No-
vember, 1492, a small alteration had been made in it, so that
from the state of the device as well as by the type used we
are able to settle which books belong to this earliest group.
In 1492 Pynson's first dated book appeared, an edition
of the Doctrinale of Alexander Grammaticus, editions of
which had already been printed abroad in considerable
numbers. Pynson's was not copied from any of these,
having a different commentary, but who this commentary
is by I have not yet been able to ascertain.
This book was only discovered quite lately, and I came
upon it by a fortunate accident. The owner, or rather guar-
dian, of it happened to have read in some book that the earliest
dated book of Pynson's was issued in 1493. Knowing that
he had an earlier one he wrote to the British Museum about
it, and I heard casually that the book had been sent to them
to examine. I went up to London immediately to see if I
could see the book, but was told it had been returned, nor
could I obtain any information as to where it was to
4
50 LECTURE II.
be found. Luckily, the owner was so far interested as
to write a note to one of the papers mentioning the exist-
ence of the book, and also the place where it was pi eserved
the Grammar School at Appleby. The following Saturday
I set off to Appleby, and had the pleasure of examining it at
my leisure. It is a beautiful copy, quite perfect, in its
original binding, and, as one would have hoped, with end
leaves taken from Machlinia's Chronicle. It has a perfectly
clear Latin imprint which runs : " And thus ends the com-
mentary of the Doctrinale of Alexander, printed by me
Richard Pynson of the parish of St Clement Danes outside
the bar of the new Temple at London the 13th day of the
month of November in the year of the incarnation of our
Lord 1492". From this colophon it is clear that if Pynson
did commence work in Machlinia's old office, which was in
Holborn, he had by this time removed to other premises.
The commentary in the book is printed in a very small neat
type which Pynson had probably had made for him abroad,
as it contained no w. I am sorry to say that the discovery
of this book has thrown out of order the list of Pynson's
types which I gave in the introduction to my Facsimiles of
Early English Printing.
In 1493 appeared Henry Parker's Dialogue of Dives and
Pauper, which was always considered, before the discovery
of the Doctrinale, Pynson's first dated book. It is printed
in a new and handsome type, and this is the only dated
book in which it is used, though there are four undated
quartos in the same type, which may be put down to the
same year. These are the Festum nominis jfesit, one of the
Nova Festa printed as supplements to the Sarum Breviary.
The Life of St. Margaret, Lidgate's Churl and Birde, and
an edition apparently of some statutes or a similar work
known from two leaves in the library at Lambeth. Of the
Festum nominis Jesu one copy is known, bound up in a
volume with several other tracts, among them being Caxton's
THE PRINTERS AT LONDON. 51
Festum transfigurationis Jesu Christi. It was for a while
in the Congregational Library in London but was eventually
sold to the British Museum. Three printed leaves from
the beginning of the poem amongst the fragments in the
Bodleian are all that remain of the Life of St. Margaret. The
Lidgate's Churl and Birde after passing through the sales
of Willett, the Marquis of Blandford, Sir F. Freeling and
B. H. Bright, passed with the Grenville Library into the
British Museum.
Two editions of Mirk's Liber festivalis, each known from
a single copy, one in the Pepysian Library, the other in
the University Library, belong probably to this time. The
various changes in the book are interesting to trace. In
the earliest editions there are no references to, or additional
chapters for, the new feasts which were then coming into
use ; then come editions with the extra feasts printed to-
gether at the end as a kind of supplement to the book,
and finally we get the editions with these extra feasts put
into their proper places in the body of the book. The
edition in the Pepysian Library is without these extra
feasts, while that in the University Library has them as a
supplement of ten leaves at the end. In the next edition,
which was printed about the end of 1493 by W. de Worde,
the feasts have been incorporated into their proper places.
In 1494 Pynson reverts to his earlier types and issued a
translation by Lidgate from Boccaccio called the Falle of
Princes, remarkable for its charming woodcuts. In this
book, for the first time, Pynson used his second device, a
large woodcut, containing his initials on a black shield with
a helmet above on which is perched a small bird. This I
imagine is meant for a finch, a punning allusion to his name,
since Pynson is the Norman name for a finch. Round the
whole is a border of flowering branches, in which are birds
and grotesque beasts. This device supplies us later with a
most useful date test, for the edge split in 1496 and the piece
52 LECTURE II.
broke off entirely towards the end of 1497. ' Probably in
this year (1494) Pynson issued his edition of the Speculum
vitae Christi, of which an almost perfect copy is in King's
Library. It is illustrated with a large number of neat wood-
cuts, which are copied more or less from Caxton's illustrations
to the same book, though they are by no means identical
with them, as has been often stated. As a general rule
Pynson's cuts are of very much better execution and design
than either Caxton's or De Worde's, and though not in all
cases good, as for instance in the Canterbury Tales, yet
they never sink to the very bad drawing and engraving so
often found in the works of the other two printers.
The year 1495, so far as dated books go, was an entire
blank, and 1496 was hardly better, having only the two
grammars, the Liber synonymorum and Liber equivocorum,
both usually attributed to Joannes de Garlandia, but many
undated books of very considerable interest appeared about
this time. Two of these, the Epitaph of Jasper, Duke of
Bedford, and the Foundation of our Ladies' Chapel at Wal-
singham are to be found in the Pepysian Library. Jasper
Tudor, Duke of Bedford, and half-brother of Henry VI.,
died on December 21, 1495, and the book must have been
printed early in 1496. It is supposed to be written by one
Smarte, the keeper of the hawks to the Duke, and begins
as follows :
Rydynge al alone with sorowe sore encombred
In a frosty fornone, faste by Severnes syde
The wordil beholdynge, whereat much I wondred
To se the see and sonne to kepe both tyme and tyde.
The ayre ouer my hede so wonderfully to glyde
And how Saturne by circumference borne is aboute
Whiche thynges to beholde, clerely me notyfyde
One verray god to be, therin to haue no dowte.
The end runs :
Kynges prynces moste souerayne of renoune
Remembre oure maister that gone is by fore
THE PRINTERS AT LONDON. 53
This worlde is casual, nowe up nowe downe
Wherfore do for your silfe, I can say no more
Honor tibi Deus, gloria et laus
Qd' Smerte maister de ses ouzeaus.
This poem has been attributed to Skelton, though I do
not know for what reason. On the title-page is a special
cut, not used elsewhere, of Smarte kneeling, with his hawk
on his wrist, and presenting with his other hand a book to
a person standing. The Foundation of our Ladies' Chapel
at Walsingham is a small tract relating to the priory of the
Augustinian canons of St. Mary, once one of the most im-
portant places of pilgrimage in England, and which was
described by Erasmus. The first leaf, which would have
contained the title, is wanting, but the text begins on the
second :
Of this chapell se here the fundacyon
Bylded the yere of crystes incarnacyon
A thousande complete, sixty and one
The tyme of Sent Edward kyng of this region.
About this time appeared the first English edition of
Mandeviles Travels, the only edition, I think, issued with-
out illustrations, and a little reprint of Caxton's Art and
Craft to Know Well to Die, of which the only known copy,
formerly Radcliffe's, is in the Hunterian Museum at Glasgow.
Another poetical tract is the Life of Petronylla, begin-
ning:
The parfite lyfe to put in remembraunce
Of a virgyn moost gracious and entere
Which in all vertu had souereyn suffysaunce
Called Petronylla petyrs doughter dere.
This little tract consists of four leaves, and though only
two copies are known at present it is probable that more
are in existence, for the book seems to occur in all the sales
of large libraries which have occurred within the last hun-
dred years,
54 LECTURE II.
About 1496 Henry Quentell, a Cologne printer, had
issued the first edition of the Expositio Hymnorum et
Sequentiarum, according to the use of Sarum, but it was
found that several hymns and sequences were omitted,
so Pynson issued two supplements, one of sixteen leaves to
the hymns, another of six to the sequences.
Another rather quaint book issued about this time is a
kind of vocabulary or phrase book in English and French.
" Here is a good book to lerne to speak french, Vecy ung
bon liure a apprendre a parler fraunchoys." The book
contains also specimens of letters in French relating to
trade, in fact it was evidently intended as a manual for
people who had business relations with France.
Two more editions of the Nova Festa, the Festum trans-
figurationis and the Festum nominis jfesu were issued about
this time. The only copies known of these two books are
in a private library in Norfolk, and I have not yet had an
opportunity of examining them.
In 1497, or perhaps slightly earlier, Pynson began to use
his third device, made probably to take the place of the
second which had split, and taking warning from it he
had the new one cut in metal. The device consists of the
shield and monogram supported by a man and a woman, with
the helmet and bird above. The border, which is cut on a
separate piece, contains birds and foliage, with the Virgin
and Child and a saint in the bottom corners. In the lowest
part of the frame a piece in the form of a ribbon has been
cut out for the insertion of type. In consequence of
the weakness of that particular place the small piece of
border below the ribbon began to be pushed inwards, and by
1499 there was a distinct indentation in the border. This got
deeper and deeper year by year, until the piece broke off
entirely in 1513. The first dated book in which it occurs
js an edition of Alcock's Mons perfectionis, but it occurs in
several of the undated books that can be placed about 1496.
THE PRINTERS AT LONDON. 55
Towards the end of 1497 Pynson issued the plays of
Terence, the first classic (with the exception of an Oxford
edition of the Pro Milone, which is known from a few leaves)
that had been printed in England. The six plays were evi-
dently issued separately and not as a volume, for they differ
considerably typographically. There is some difficulty, too f
in determining in what order they were issued.
In 1498 there are seven dated books, one of them being
the sermon of Bishop Alcock called Gallicanttts, and he is so
pleased with jesting on his name that he prefaces the text
of his sermon with a little black picture of a cockerel, which
he also used as a device. Another edition of the Doctrinale
of Alexander the Grammarian was issued this year, but I
have not yet seen the book as the only copy known belongs
to Lord Beauchamp.
In 1499 a very interesting book was printed by Pynson,
this was the Promptorius Puerorum, a Latin- English diction-
ary ascribed to a monk of Lynn. The imprint tells us that
the book was printed for Frederick Egmondt and Peter post
pascha. Frederick Egmondt was an important stationer,
and no doubt Peter post pascha was a stationer also,
though what name in the vernacular can be represented
by post pascha remains an unsolved riddle. Mr. Albert
Way, in his edition of the Promptorium parvulorum, ap-
plies a curious amount of misplaced ingenuity to the ques-
tion of the identity of these two stationers. " We find
about the time in question," he says, speaking of the name
Egmondt, "a distinguished person of that family, possibly
the patron of Pynson, Frederic, son of William IV., Count
of Egmond. In 1472 he received from his uncle, the Duke
of Gueldres, the lordship of Buren ; he was named governor
of Utrecht by the Archduke Maximilian in 1492; two years
later Buren was raised to a count in reward of his services.
There was a Peter, an illegitimate brother of his father, who
might have been living at that time ; what was his surname
56 LECTURE II.
does not appear." Another book printed about this year
was the Elegantiarum viginti praecepta, a book which I am
fond of for a peculiar reason. I found once a leaf of it in the
Signet Library, Edinburgh, and, not knowing that any copy
was in existence, set to work to reconstruct the book from the
leaf. I counted the lines, and, comparing with foreign editions,
conjectured the size and structure of the book, and knowing
how Pynson would make a title-page with a woodcut, and
the woodcut he would probably use, I made up a descrip-
tion of the book, taking the title from an early bibliography.
At last I heard of a perfect copy in a private library which
the owner was kind enough to allow me to examine. When
the book arrived I found I had not only got the collation
right, but by a lucky inspiration had selected the correct
woodcut for the title-page. As it happens I might have
spared myself the trouble, for I found afterwards a fairly
accurate collation of the book in an authority I had not
consulted.
A curious prognostication for 1499 is in the Bodleian.
It is addressed to Henry VII., and was drawn out by a
William Parron, who lived at Piacenza and called himself
doctor of medicine and professor of astrology. Another
prognostication for 1502, by the same author, was printed
by Pynson, and some fragments are in the Library of
Westminster Abbey. He also wrote an astrological work
on Henry, Duke of York, afterwards Henry VIII., in 1502,
of which there are MSS. in the British Museum and Bibl.
Nationale, but it does not seem ever to have been printed.
The Morton Missal which Pynson printed in 1500 is per-
haps the finest book printed in the fifteenth century in. Eng-
land. It was produced at the expense of Cardinal Morton
whose arms appear at the beginning, and Pynson has intro-
duced into the borders and initials a rebus on the name
consisting of the letters Mor surmounting a barrel or tun.
Five copies of this book are known, three being on vellum.
THE PRINTERS AT LONDON. 57
One of the latter copies, slightly imperfect, is in the library
of Trinity College. In the copy at Manchester all the
references to St. Thomas and his service, which had been
scraped out and erased according to the command of Henry
VIII., have been entirely filled in by some pious seventeenth
century owner in gold.
In the imprint, after setting forth that the book was
printed at the command of Cardinal Morton, Pynson adds
the date, January 10, 1500. Now, as Cardinal Morton died
on September 15, 1500, I think we have here a strong piece
of evidence that Pynson, like De Worde, began his year on
January 1. For if he had begun it on March 25, then Jan-
uary 10, 1500, would be after the Cardinal was dead, and
Pynson would surely have spoken of him as lately dead, or
in some way alluded to the loss of his patron.
The Book of Cookery, belonging to the Marquis of Bath,
was also printed this year. It begins : " Here beginneth
a noble boke of festes royalle and cokery, a boke for a
pryncis housholde or any other estates, and the makynge
therof accordynge as ye shall fynde more playnly within
this boke ". Then follows an account of certain great
banquets, the feast at the coronation of Henry V. ; " the
earle of Warwick's feast to the king, the feast of my
lorde chancellor archbishop of York at his stallacion in
York," and so on. After the account of the feasts comes
the more practical Calendar of Cookery.
Two editions of the Informatio Puerorum, a small gram-
matical work founded upon the Donatus, were issued about
this time. In the colophon of one it is stated that the book
was printed for George Chasteleyn and John Bars. I have
found no reference anywhere to John Bars, but George
Chasteleyn was an Oxford bookseller, carrying on business
at the Sign of St. John the evangelist in that city. It was
for him also that in 1506 Pynson printed an edition of the
Principia of Peregrinus de Lugo. About this time there
58 LECTURE II.
was no press in Oxford, so that books for use in the schools
there had to be printed in London.
In a scrap-book in the British Museum are some leaves
of an edition of the romance of Guy of Warwick, which may
be ascribed to Pynson, and they are printed in a curious
mixture of his early types. These leaves were discovered
in 1860 in the binding of a copy of Maydeston's Directorium
Sacerdotum, printed by Pynson in 1501, and an account of
them was sent by their discoverer, who signs himself
E. P. B., to Notes and Queries. Now, of this edition of the
Directorium, only two copies are known, one in the British
Museum and one in Ripon Cathedral, and I should very much
like to know from which copy these leaves were obtained.
During all the period from 1490 to 1500 Pynson was
busy issuing editions of law books, more than a quarter of
his productions being of this class, and it is probable that
a considerable number more printed in the fifteenth century
may yet be discovered. They are not of a nature to attract
much interest, and are generally very badly catalogued, or
catalogued in collections and not separately, and in one great
English library at least they have no more detailed press
mark than Law Room, so it is needless to say I have not
yet examined such books as they may have in that library.
Though he did not print so many books as De Worde
in the fifteenth century, nevertheless Pynson was evidently
a more enterprising and careful printer. He had seven
distinct founts of type, all of which were made for him and
not inherited from other printers, and the works he pro-
duced were of a much more scholarly nature, though this
becomes more apparent in his work during the sixteenth
century. His patrons were often learned and distinguished
men, for whom he produced such splendid work as the
Morton Missal, and he became later the recognised king's
printer. In the fifteenth century he printed altogether
eighty-two books.
THE PRINTERS AT LONDON. 59
Pynson, like De Worde, very considerately moved to a
new address at the end of the century, previous to 1501
he was in St. Clement's parish, outside Temple Bar, which
was the limit, I think, of the parish, but afterwards moved
inside Temple Bar, where he carried on business at the
Sign of the George. The colophon to the Book of Cookery,
printed in 1500, says, "Imprinted without Temple Bar";
the colophon to the Directorium Sacerdotum of 1501 says,
" intra barram novi templi," so that the date is pretty
accurately fixed.
LECTURE III.
THE STATIONERS.
IN speaking of the history of the printed book in the fifteenth
century I have so far dealt only with the printers of London
and Westminster ; to-day I propose to touch on the books
printed abroad for the English market and the stationers
who sold them. In the early days the different businesses
of a publisher, a bookseller and a bookbinder were often
carried on by one man who was called a stationer. He
bought books wholesale, sometimes having whole editions
specially printed for him, he bound them, and then sold
them like an ordinary bookseller. He also probably in
England, as was certainly done on the continent, sent round
vans full of books to the various provincial towns, timing
his arrival as far as possible to coincide with the local fairs.
A considerable number of the books printed abroad for
sale in England have no connexion with any particular
stationer, but were probably brought over by an agent of
the printer and sold in lots to different stationers.
The earliest book printed abroad definitely for sale in
England is the edition of the Sarum Breviary printed at
Cologne about 1475. Of this book nothing is left but a
few leaves, and the imprint, if it possessed one, is not known.
Only one other book is known printed in the same type, an
edition of the Homilies, but it, unfortunately, has no im-
print, so that we have no clue as to who may have been
the printer. I cannot help thinking that perhaps Caxton
may have had something to do with having this book
printed, commissioning it either on his own account or for
THE STATIONERS. 61
some friend in England, for it is unlikely that a printer in
so distant a town would have issued such a book on his
own account, and the probable date of its printing coincides
more or less with Caxton's departure for England.
In 1483 a book was printed at Venice for sale in England,
curiously enough another edition of the Sarum Breviary.
The copy in the Bibliotheque Nationale, the only one
known, is a very beautiful book, printed on vellum and
quite perfect. There is a rather painful history attached
to it. In 1715 this unique book came to the University
Library, Cambridge, as part of the library of Bishop Moore
which was presented to the University by George I. In the
latter half of the eighteenth century it appears to have been
purloined along with a great many other rarities by a cer-
tain Dr. Combe. It then found its way into the collection
of Count Justin MacCarthy, who formed the largest library
of books printed on vellum ever brought together by a
private collector (he had over 600 of such books), and at
his sale early in the present century it was purchased for
the Paris library for fifty-one francs. The printer of the
book, Reginaldus de Novimagio, does not appear to have had
any connexion with England, nor does the imprint men-
tion for whom the book was produced. It is curious that
he should have been chosen as the printer of this Breviary,
for it seems to have been the only liturgical work he issued,
and nothing among his other productions has any connexion
with England. Of course English people passed through
Venice in large quantities as it was the starting point for
pilgrims to the Holy Land, and many ecclesiastics of high
position went on this journey, so that perhaps one of these
travellers, seeing the beautiful work done at Venice, and
knowing that no printer at home was equal to the task
of producing such a book in a fitting manner, commissioned
the printing of the Breviary. It is sad to think that so
beautiful a book has been lost to England through the dis-
62 LECTURE III.
honesty of a reader in the library. We can only regret that
the negotiations between the Duke of Devonshire and the
representatives of Count MacCarthy for the purchase of the
library en bloc fell through, and that the Duke and Lord
Spencer, who both bought considerably at the sale, did not
secure it, for then at any rate it might have been in England,
though not in its proper place.
In the year 1483 some important acts were passed relat-
ing to the trading of foreigners in this country. The ninth
chapter ends : " Provided always that this act or any parcel
thereof, or any other act made, or to be made in this said
parliament, shall not extend, or be in prejudice, disturbance,
damage, or impediment, to any artificer, or merchant
stranger, of what nation or country he be, or shall be of,
for bringing into this realm, or selling by retail, or otherwise,
any books written or printed, or for inhabiting within this
said realm for the same intent, or any scrivener, alluminor,
reader or printer of such books, which he hath, or shall have
to sell by way of merchandise, or for their dwelling within
this said realm, for the exercise of the said occupations ;
this act or any part thereof notwithstanding ".
This act it will be seen, which was not repealed until 1533,
gave absolute liberty to foreign printers and stationers to trade
and reside in England. That it succeeded in its object of
encouraging the immigration of stationers and craftsmen and
the importation of books, is clear from the words of the act
of 1533: "Whereas by the provision of a Statute made in
the firste yere of the reygne of Kynge Richarde the thirde,
it was provided in the same acte that all strangers repayr-
yng into this realme might lawfully bring into the saide
realme printed and written bokes to sell at their libertie
and pleasure. By force of which provision there hath
comen into this realme sithen the makynge of the same, a
marvellous number of printed bookes and dayly doth. And
the cause of the making of the same provision semeth to be,
THE STATIONERS. 63
for that there were but few bookes and fewe printers within
this realme at that time, whiche could well exercise and
occupie the said science and crafte of printynge. Neverthe-
less, sithen the making of the saide provision, many of this
realme being the Kinges naturall subjectes, have given them
so diligently to lerne and exercise the saide craft of print-
ing that at this day there be within this realme a great
number of connyng and experte in the said science or crafte
of printing, as able to exercise the saide crafte in all pointes
as any stranger in any other realme or country."
Though the preamble of this act speaks only of printing,
it was mainly directed against the foreign bookbinders and
stationers. By it it was forbidden to import any foreign
printed books ready bound, and no one was to buy from any
foreigner residing in England any books except "by engrosse,"
that is, wholesale. This you will see completely stopped
the trade of the foreign binder in the English market, and
absolutely did away with the foreign stationer in England.
One effect of the act is apparent in the extraordinary num-
ber of letters of denisation taken out at that date. In 1582
Christopher Barker wrote : " In the time of King Henry
VIII. there were but few printers and those of good credit
and competent wealth, at whiche time and before there was
another sort of men, that were writers, lymners of bookes
and dyverse thinges for the Churche and other uses called
stacioners ; which have and partly to this day do use to buy
their bookes in grosse of the said printers, to bynde them up
and sell them in their shops, whereby they well mayntayned
their families ".
The fifty years then between 1483 and 1533 are the
really interesting years in the history of the English book
trade, when it was free and unprotected, but though we have
a fair amount of information about the latter half of this
time, the earlier half is almost destitute of any kind of
records. The books of the original company of stationers
64 LECTURES III.
in London have all disappeared, and we are dependent
mostly on incidental references in deeds, in wills or other
legal documents.
The year before the act was passed, namely in 1482, we
know of two foreign booksellers who had come to London,
Henry Frankenberg and Bernard van Stondo, who rented
an alley in St. Clement's Lane called St. Mark's Alley. From
their names they would appear to have come from the Low
Countries, but we know nothing about them or their business
beyond the fact that Frankenberg commissioned their fellow-
countryman, William de Machlinia, who was printing in
London, to print for him an edition of the Speculum Chris-
tiani, about which I spoke in my last lecture. Their names
in the deed and Frankenberg's name in a colophon are the
only clues we have to the existence of two probably import-
ant booksellers. So also in the very year of the act we find
foreign dealers in books trading in Oxford with the resident
university stationer.
About 1486 at Louvain, Egidius vander Heerstraten
printed an edition of the Regnlae Grammaticales of Nicolas
Perott, which contains a great number of passages in
English. These are very curious, and seem to have been
translated by one not very conversant with the language.
Here is a passage which refers to the fifteenth century
substitute for compulsory football : " who someuer of my
discipulis goyth awey fryst from the gammyng wt owt my
licence i shal smyte his hande wyt a rode. And yf he do
that samyn thyng twyss i shall also beet hym wyt a leyshe."
In another place, having translated the Latin phrase,
" Quintilianus est eloquens sed nihil ad Ciceronem," " Quin-
tilian is a wel spoken man but nothyng to Tully," he adds
another and more personal example : " Helia Perott is fayr
but nothing to Penelope ".
I am not sure whether we ought to consider this book
as one printed for the purpose of exportation to England,
THE STATIONERS. 65
or whether it was not rather intended for the use of English
students at the foreign universities. This is made more
probable from the fact that in a few cases we have words
translated into Dutch prefaced by "as we say". I have
seen it stated that a similar edition was printed by the same
printer with explanations in French, but I have not been
able to verify the existence of any copy.
About 1486, too, was issued the first edition of the
Sarum Missal, printed, it is supposed, at Basle by Wenssler,
though some doubts have been raised as to whether it was
really printed at Basle on account of the appearance of the
music type. It is a very handsome folio volume of 278
leaves, printed in a large Gothic type in red and black. The
printer has not attempted to print the English portions of
the wedding service, but has left blank spaces where they
occur, so that they might be written in by hand. The first
few editions of the Sarum Missal are all similar in this
respect, but it is curious that Caxton, who had an edition
specially printed for him, should not have supplied the
printer with correct copy for these small portions of the
service.
In the next few years a few grammatical books were
issued, printed as a rule in the Low Countries. In 1486
Gerard Leeu printed the Vulgaria Terentii, a series of
Latin sentences with translations into English, an edition
reprinted from the Oxford one of a year or two earlier.
This book is sometimes found printed as a supplement to
the Grammar by John Anwykyll, and of this Grammar
there are two foreign editions, one printed by Paffroed at
Deventer in 1489, and another rather later by Henry
Quentell at Cologne. The Grammar does not contain an
author's name, but in the prefatory verses written by Petrus
Carmelianus he is referred to as Joannes. There are also
verses written to William Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester
and founder of Magdalen College, Oxford, congratulating
5
66 LECTURE III.
him on having persuaded this Joannes to edit the Grammar.
The book is supposed to have been intended for the use of
the Magdalen College School, in which the two grammarians
John Anwykyll and John Stanbridge were masters, and is
supposed to have been the work of Anwykyll. The two
earliest editions were printed at Oxford, but by 1489 the
Oxford Press had stopped work and the two succeeding
editions were printed abroad.
The two works attributed to Joannes de Garlandia, the
Liber Equivocorum and Liber Synonymorum, were also
printed in the Low Countries, the first at Deventer by Paf-
froed, the second at Antwerp by Thierry Martens in 1493.
The Liber Synonymorum has the commentary of Galfridus
Anglicus. A copy of this book sold in the Ratcliffe sale
in the last century was described as having been printed
at Antwerp in 1492, but this must have been, I suppose,
a misprint for 1493.
Three more books printed in the Low Countries I ought
to mention before turning to France. One is an edition of
Clement Maydeston's Directorium Sacerdotum, printed by
Gerard Leeu in 1488, of which there is a copy in the
University Library.
Another is an edition of the Sarum Horae, also printed
by Leeu, which I am afraid has to be spoken of at present
as a lost book. The only fragment known, an unused half
sheet containing eight leaves, had been used to line the
binding of a copy of the Scriptores rei rusticae printed at
Reggio in 1496, in Brasenose College Library ; Bradshaw
saw the fragment and took down a description of it, but on
its return to Oxford it was mislaid and is not to be found.
The third book is another edition of the Sarum Breviary,
printed at Louvain in 1499 by Thierry Martens. The only
copy known is in the Musee Plantin at Antwerp. Leaving
the Low Countries for a time we will turn to France.
The Missal printed for Caxton in 1487 I have already
THE STATIONERS. 67
described in an earlier lecture, so I can pass on to the edi-
tion which succeeded it, that printed by Martin Morin, the
celebrated printer of Rouen in 1492. This Morin was by far
the most important of the Norman stationers and printers,
and he appears to have excelled in the printing of service
books, for he was employed by printers and publishers from
all parts to print the service books for the special use of
the towns where they resided.
For England he printed altogether six service books in
the fifteenth century. Three Missals, two Breviaries, and
a Liber Festivalis, and of these the Missal of 1492 is the
earliest. The two copies known of this book, both slightly
imperfect, are in the British Museum and the Bodleian. It
contains, like the earlier edition printed for Caxton, two full-
page engravings before the Canon of the Mass, not one only
as is more generally the case.
The two later Missals which he issued, one without
date but about 1495 and another dated 1497, appear to
have been mixed up by all writers. The undated edition
appears the rarest, for the only copy which I have noted is
in the British Museum. Of the dated edition I have notes
of five, one at Windsor in the Queen's library, one in St.
Catherine's College, one at Chatsworth, one in the Aberdeen
University Library, and the fifth at Kinnaird Castle. I owe
my knowledge of the existence of this last copy to almost
the last book in which one would seek for bibliographical
information, the current edition of Who's Who. Both
editions are very handsome books, remarkable for their
fine titles and initial letters.
Of the two Breviaries which Morin printed the earliest
is dated 1496, and the only copy known is in the University
Library at Edinburgh, to which it was bequeathed in 1577
by Clement Litill, who left a number of valuable books to
that library of which he was practically the founder. It is a
magnificent folio volume of 437 leaves, and contains a fairly
68 LECTURE III.
full imprint, which after a deal of very grandiloquent language
tells us that the book was printed at the cost of Jean Richard
" by the industry of that man skilled in printing Mr. Martin
Morin a not unworthy citizen of that great city Rouen ".
Morin's colophons I may note rarely err on the side of
modesty. The Jean Richard mentioned was a stationer of
Rouen, and one who appears to have had considerable deal-
ings with England. I do not think he was a printer as is
often stated, and he describes himself as a dealer in books,
not a printer, using sometimes the word merchant of books
and sometimes the word stationer.
It was for him that Morin printed in 1499 an edition of
Mirk's Liber Festivalis and Quattuor Sermones, a copy of
which is in the Sandars collection in the University Library.
For him also, in 1500, a Sarum Manual was printed by
Petrus Olivier and Joannes de Lorraine, of which there is
a copy in the Bodleian, and during the early years of the
sixteenth century a considerable number of service books
for the English market were printed at his expense.
The names of a number of early stationers who probably
traded between Rouen and England are to be found in the
imprints of the early Sarum Missals, for as the printing of
them entailed a good deal of expense a number of booksellers
would combine to pay for the edition. Rouen seems to have
been, amongst all the towns of France, the most connected
with England as regards the book trade. It was there many
of our printers, as well as the first Scottish printers, learned
their art or obtained their materials, while stationers from
that town crossed over and sold their books in this country.
We know that Ingelbert Haghe, the publisher of the
Hereford Breviary of 1505, came over himself and sold
books at Hereford and in the country round. On the fly-
leaf of a Bible formerly in the library of Gloucester Cathedral
is a Latin inscription which runs : " I gave to the Hereford
bookseller called Ingelbert for this and the six other volumes
THE STATIONERS. 69
of the bible 43 shillings and fourpence, which I bought
at Ludlow the year of our Lord's incarnation 1510, about
the day of the Lichfield fair". Whether the Bible is still
in the Gloucester Cathedral Library I do not know, but the
fly-leaves which once belonged to it are in a bundle of scraps
in the Bodleian.
Another Rouen printer issued in 1495 an edition of the
Liber Festivalis. His name was James Ravynell, and this is
the only book that he is known to have printed. It is an
exact copy of the edition printed by W. de Worde in 1493
and '94, and the type used in it has a very clean and new
appearance. At the end is a device with the initials P. R,
which looks as though it might have been made for another
member of the family, though we know of no other printer
of the name. The fact that he uses the English form of the
Christian name in the imprint, " By me, James Ravynell,"
looks as if he was an Englishman who had migrated to Rouen.
The device consists of the initials P. R. on a shield sus-
pended by a belt from a tree and supported by two muzzled
bears. Below the shield two birds hold up a wreath. Round
the whole runs the text : "Junior fui etenim senui et non
vidi justum derelictum nee semen ejus querens panem ".
The name Ravynell is a curious one, and may be a corrupted
spelling of a commoner name.
Another mysterious book, which from its type may very
well have been printed at Rouen, is an edition of the little
grammar called Parvula. It consists only of four leaves,
and the only copy known is at Manchester. The book ends:
" Here endeth a treatise called parvula, for the instruction
of children. Emprentyd by me Nicole Marcant." In the
exasperating way common to some printers both the date
and place of printing are omitted. As to the date I am
inclined to put it before 1500, but the place is more difficult
to settle. Nicole Marcant is an unknown printer, but may
very well be a member of one of the numerous families of
70 LECTURE III.
Marchand or Mercator, for there were several printers of
that name, though none so far as I know named Nicholas.
If we except the Missal printed for Caxton in 1487 it
was not until 1494 that the Paris printers began to work
for the English market, and the books they produced were
almost all liturgical. The only exceptions are three editions
of grammatical works ascribed to Joannes de Garlandia,
two of the Liber Equivocorum and one of the Liber
Synonymorum, the first two printed by Baligault and the
last by Hopyl.
The first liturgical book was an edition of the Sarum
Breviary, printed in 1494 by Pierre Levet. For a long
time only one copy was known, that in the library at Trinity
College, Dublin, but not long ago the University Library
was fortunate enough to secure a second example, a very
beautiful copy in its old binding.
In one thing the Paris printers excelled all others, and
that was in the production of books of hours. These were
turned out in the last few years of the century by hundreds
of thousands, and though they are now of very common oc-
currence and very often of little interest, they are still much
sought after by certain classes of collectors, especially those
who like what they call pretty books. Of course, when
these books were printed for the use of out of the way
places they have often great liturgical interest, and being
printed no doubt in small quantities are very rare. The
English service books having been relentlessly destroyed at
the Reformation are very rare indeed. Altogether in the
fifteenth century twenty-five editions of the Sarum Hours
were printed, fourteen in England, one at Antwerp, and ten
in Paris, but nine English editions were printed before one
was issued at Paris, so that these latter when once they
got a footing in England easily defied competition. The
changes in the text of these books during the last ten years
of the century are very curious and interesting. The
THE STATIONERS. 71
Horae was not a service book proper, but a manual of
private devotion, and so long as it contained certain fixed
and definite parts additional prayers could be added at will.
Consequently the editions vary greatly, and each publisher
seems to have aimed at inserting new and popular prayers,
and by 1500 the book had increased to almost double the
bulk of its forerunner of ten years earlier.
In speaking of these books there is one point on which
a word of warning may be said. And that is about dating
editions which have no date in the imprint. All such are
usually put down to 1488, which is the first date printed
in the calendar of movable feasts. As this calendar was
made out for a nineteen year cycle running on to 1508 it
was naturally not reprinted for many years, and therefore
is no test in dating the printing of the book. The nine
editions printed at Paris are the work of about five printers,
of whom the most important was Felix Baligault.
The study of these French books of hours is not an
easy one, as there is so much confusion between printers
and publishers. In some cases I am afraid the publishers
used the words " printed by " in a quite unwarrantable
manner, and claimed to have produced books which they
had done nothing more than pay for. Then again quite
half the ones produced for sale in England are without any
imprint, so that we are left to conjecture who was the
printer from the type or cuts used in the books. To further
bewilder us sets of cuts passed from printer to printer, and
are very untrustworthy guides in assigning books. If one
printer issued a Horae with a fine set of cuts they were
promptly copied by his rivals, who in their turn sold their
old sets to less wealthy printers, in fact some sets of cuts
change hands almost every year.
These books are all got up in the same style, the text
surrounded on every page by deep borders containing figures
of saints and martyrs or pictures from the dance of death.
72 LECTURE III.
One unique edition, printed by Jean Poitevin about 1498,
was picked up lately in Ireland and bought by the Trinity
College librarian for a small sum.
A service book of great interest is the first edition of
the Sarum Manual, of which the only known copy is in
the library at Caius. It bears on its first leaf a Latin
inscription stating that it was given to the College of the
Annunciation of the Blessed Mary at Cambridge by Hum-
phrey de la Poole, son of the Duke of Suffolk, for the use
of the college, in September, 1498. The book is a folio of
164 leaves, beautifully printed in red and black by Berthold
Rembolt of Paris. It has no date, but the Greek in the
printer's device reads XEPE0HKI, and must therefore be
after 1496 when it read XEPE0IKH, and as the book was
presented in 1498 we may fairly safely fix the date of print-
ing about the beginning of 1498. Unfortunately, the last
leaf is missing which may have contained an imprint giving
the exact date and stating for whom the book was printed.
The last service book to be noticed is a Sarum Missal
printed by Jean du Pre at Paris in 1500. Unfortunately
all the copies of this book are imperfect.
All these service books though most interesting liturgic-
ally are almost the most uninteresting class of book to the
bibliographer. They were issued by well-known printers,
and are hardly different from the great mass of foreign
service books. From them early in the sixteenth century,
however, we derive a good deal of information about the
stationers, especially as regards the provincial presses ; for
in the case of a town like York hardly anything seems to
have been printed beyond liturgical books.
So far the books we have been speaking of have been
for the most part in Latin, with some sentences here
and there in English, printed, of course, for the English
market, but not of much interest from the point of view of
literature. But we now come to another small group of
THE STATIONERS. 73
English books, printed entirely in English, of very much
greater interest.
In 1492 and 1493, when, just after the death of Caxton,
the English press was almost at a standstill, Gerard Leeu
of Antwerp printed four English books of considerable inter-
est. Three of them were reprints of books already printed
by Caxton, Lefevre's Life of Jason, the History of Paris and
Vienne, and the Chronicles of England. The fourth book
was the Dialogue or Communing between the Wise King
Solomon and Marcolphus. Of this there does not seem to
have been any other English edition, though many Latin
ones were printed in the fifteenth century, and it is possible
though hardly probable that Caxton might have printed an
edition which has entirely disappeared.
Lefevre's History of Jason is a small folio of ninety-eight
leaves, illustrated with a number of half-page cuts clearly
made to illustrate the book in which they first appear.
They were used in several editions of the Jason in different
languages, the earliest in Dutch having been printed by
Bellaert at Haarlem about 1485. There are copies of
the English edition at Trinity College, Dublin, and in the
library at Chatsworth, and a third copy, slightly imperfect,
is in the University Library.
The History of Paris and Vienne, which was printed
exactly three weeks after the History of Jason, is a still
rarer book, only one copy being known, which is in the
library at Trinity College, Dublin. It, like the Jason, is
illustrated with a series of half-page wood engravings, which
Mr. Conway, in his History of the Woodcutters of the Nether-
lands, conjectures to have been originally used in an edition
printed by Bellaert at Haarlem, which has now entirely
disappeared, and then to have passed from his possession
into the hands of Gerard Leeu. It is a small folio of forty
leaves, and the copy at Dublin is bound up with the Jason
and the Chronicles.
74 LECTURE in.
The next book to be noticed, the Dialogue or Communyng
between the Wise King Solomon and Marcolphus, is very
interesting, being the only English edition of this version
of a widespread and popular story. It tells how Solomon,
seated on his throne, is confronted by Marcolphus, a mis-
shapen rustic who answers with a certain coarse wit the
questions put to him by the king. Later on the king visits
Marcolphus, who in his turn comes to reside at court,
but his behaviour there is so insolent that the king can
hardly put up with it. After a series of escapades Mar-
colphus is banished from the court, and finally sentenced
to be hanged. He is allowed as a favour to choose his own
tree, and consequently he wanders with his guards through
the Vale of Josaphath to Jericho, over Jordan, through
Arabia and the wilderness to the Red Sea, but " never
more could Marcolf find a tree that he wold choose to
hang on ". The curious result of this is that he went
home and lived happily ever afterwards.
The book itself has only one illustration, which is used
twice, on the recto and verso of the title-page, representing
Marcolphus and his wife Polycana standing before Solomon,
who is seated upon his throne. This cut found its way over
to England, and was used by several successive printers for
editions of Howleglas.
The only copy known of Solomon and Marcolphus is in
the Bodleian, and was in a volume of tracts bequeathed
with his library by Thomas Tanner, Bishop of St. Asaph.
The volume contained originally five separate pieces. Two
by Wynkyn de Worde, the Three Kings of Coleyne and the
Meditations of St. Bernard, two by Caxton, the Governayle
of Health and the Ars morendi, and the Solomon and Mar-
colphus. I am sorry to say that the two Caxtons have been
cut out of the volume and bound separately.
The last of the four books to be noticed is the edition
of the Chronicles of England. While the Chronicles were
THE STATIONERS. 75
being printed Gerard Leeu died, or perhaps it would be
more correct to say was murdered. One of his workmen
named Henric van Symmen, who was also a type engraver,
struck work and determined to set up in business on his
own account. This led to a quarrel, and blows succeeded
words. The workman, it appears, in the course of the
quarrel struck Leeu a blow on the head, and this proved
so serious that he lay very ill for three days and then died.
The workman was promptly secured and brought up for
trial for the killing of his master, but it was probably con-
sidered that he had received a certain amount of aggrava-
tion, and his punishment took the form of a fine. He was
sentenced to pay into the Duke of Burgundy's exchequer
the sum of forty guelden. Gerard Leeu seems to have been
a good master and a kindly man if we may judge from the
colophon put to the Chronicles: " Enprentyd In the Duchye
of Braband in the towne of Andewarpe In the yere of our
lord M.cccc.xciii. By maister Gerard de Leew a man of grete
wysedom in all maner of kunnyng : whych nowe is come
from lyfe unto the deth, which is grete harme for many a
poure man. On whos sowle god almyghty for hys hygh
grace haue mercy. Amen."
The book contains no illustrations beyond a woodcut of
the arms of England on the title-page.
Leeu seems to have intended to print more English
books, for the type in which all but the Chronicles are
printed was a special fount cut in imitation of English
type, with a curious lower case d for use when that letter
occurred at the end of a word. His death, however, so soon
after the cutting of the type, put an end to all such plans.
The custom, however, of printing English books at Antwerp
revived at the very beginning of the sixteenth century, for
Adrian van Berghen printed an edition of Holt's Lac
P^^erorum, and John of Doesborch issued a whole series
of English popular books, some of them remarkably curious.
76 LECTURE III.
Among the stationers who came to England from abroad
the most important was certainly Frederick Egmont. He
was probably a Frenchman, but his printing was mainly
done in Venice, and he seems to have been the agent of the
Venetian printer Johannes Hertzog de Landoia. From this
Venetian press came a large number of service books for
English use, editions of the Breviary and Missal. The
Sarum Horae on the other hand was never printed at
Venice, but mainly at Paris.
Egmont during his earliest years as a stationer was con-
nected with no press except that of Hertzog, and we do not
know of any books by this printer produced for any other
English stationer, so that as regards liturgical books for
English use known to us now only from fragments, we are
justified, I think, in attributing to Egmont as stationer such
as we can determine from their type to have been printed
by Hertzog.
The first book in which his name occurs is an edition
of the Breviary according to the use of York, of which the
only known copy is in the Bodleian, having been originally in
the great liturgical collection of Richard Gough. It is a
small thick octavo of 462 pages, and was issued in May,
1493. Two if not three editions of the Sarum Breviary in
octavo were printed about this same time, but we know of
their existence only from fragments discovered in bindings.
Fragments of one edition are in a binding in the library of St.
John's College, of another in a binding at Lambeth, while
some leaves of probably a third edition are in the library of
Corpus Christi College, Oxford.
In 1494 Egmont had commissioned Hertzog to print for
him two editions of the Sarum Missal, one in folio, the other
in octavo. The folio edition is of great rarity, but there is a
beautiful though slightly imperfect copy in the Sandars col-
lection in the University Library. The title-page is wanting
and also the leaf containing the engraving of the Crucifixion
THE STATIONERS. 77
which should precede the Canon of the Mass. In the im-
print we are told that the book was finished on the 1st of
September, 1494, by John Hertzog de Landoia for Fred-
ericus de Egmont and Gerardus Barrevelt. This Gerardus
Barrevelt was clearly a partner of Egmont's, as their initials
occur together in the device on the title-page. This device
is remarkable for the delicacy of its execution. It consists
of a circle divided by a perpendicular line produced beyond
the top of the circle, the projection being crossed by two
bars. In the left-hand half of the circle are the initials and
mark of Egmont, in the right those of Barrevelt. The whole
is enclosed in a square frame, and the background contains
sprays of leaves. It so resembles in style and appearance
the mark used by the printer John Hertzog that we may be
pretty certain it was cut under his supervision at Venice.
The octavo Missal of 1494, a much commoner book than
the last, was issued in December, 1494. On the last leaf is
Hertzog's mark and the words, " Fredericus egmont me fieri
fecit ". There is no mention of Barrevelt, and the double
device does not occur in the book, which makes it appear as
though this edition was printed for Egmont alone. Both
these editions of the Missal contain the most exquisitely
designed woodcut initials, the most graceful to be found in
any early book.
In the Bodleian there is a copy of the " Pars estivalis "
of the Sarum Breviary printed at Venice in 1495, which
contains again the device of Egmont and Barrevelt, though
the imprint mentions Egmont's name only. After 1495
we hear .nothing more of Egmont until 1499, when he
seems to have got rid of his former partner Barrevelt and
joined with a man named Peter post pacha, and these two
commissioned Pynson to print them an edition of the Promp-
torium Puerorum. After 1499 Egmont disappeared for a long
time, we know of him working as a bookbinder, and it is
probable that he stayed on for some time in England, but
78 LECTURE III.
when he does reappear it is in Paris where he had some
books printed for him about 1517-1520.
It is very disappointing that we have practically no
information about Frederick Egmont, for it is clear from
the number of books that he had printed for him in Venice
that he must have been a stationer of very considerable
importance. The colophons of his books give, beyond his
mere name, no information whatever about him : we do
not even know in what part of London or under what sign
he lived. The stationers seem always to have settled in St.
Paul's Churchyard, and I cannot help thinking that part of
that district may have been " in the liberties," as it was
called, of some church. Though the act of Richard allowed
foreigners to come over and trade, yet I do not suppose his
act could override the rights of the trade guilds. It cer-
tainly did not in York, for there a stationer must be a
freeman by right or by purchase before he could carry on
certain businesses, that of a stationer amongst the number,
within the city. There were, however, certain liberties
where an alien could live and trade ; and we find at York
that their earliest stationer, Gerard Wanseford, does not
appear in the city register. Having taken up his abode
within the liberty of St. Peter he was privileged to carry
on business there without being a freeman of the city.
In the same way in London, I suppose, the various trades
had their rights and could prevent foreigners from com-
peting, except they resided within the liberties. Of course
there was a Stationers' Company in London in the fifteenth
century, though unfortunately most of the records relating
to it have disappeared, and it would protect its own members.
We see in the early bindings how ostentatiously the binders
who were freemen decorated their bindings with the arms
of London, and there is no doubt that as far as trading in
the city was concerned the foreigner was considerably handi-
capped in comparison with the freeman.
THE STATIONERS. 79
We know from the few early documents remaining that
the London Company of Stationers was a powerful and
important body, and the members of it must certainly have
enjoyed certain privileges.
Nicholas Lecomte was another stationer who appears to
have been settled in England by 1494, in which year, so far
as I know, his first dated book appears. M. Madden, a
French writer on early printing, in the fifth volume of his
Lettres (Tun Bibliographe, speaks of Hopyl having printed
a book for Lecomte in 1493. Several times in writing to
him I asked for some information about this book, its where-
abouts or its name even, but though he sent always volu-
minous replies to my letters, he never would touch on this
particular point. I think, therefore, we may consider that
this 1493 book never existed, and take the 1494 book as
the first. This was an edition of the Liber Synonymorum,
printed by Hopyl, of which there are copies in the Univer-
sity Library, the British Museum, and the Bodleian.
In the imprint Lecomte is described as living in London
by St. Paul's Churchyard at the Sign of St. Nicholas. His
device depicts St. Nicholas restoring to life the three chil-
dren who had been killed and pickled, a favourite subject
of the early bookbinders.
I think it is worth noting here, that so far as I can
discover the sign of a house was not in any way permanent,
but could apparently be changed at will. I noticed this in
reading through a catalogue or precis of some thousands
of deeds relating to property in London at this time and
a little earlier. We find endless notices of houses with
changed signs, "the tenement now called the Rose, formerly
the Lion," the "house called the Bull, formerly called the
Rose," and so on. Naturally, if a house got celebrated for
any reason it would be politic to keep the sign, but there
seems to have been no compulsion to do so.
In 1495 an edition of Mirk's Liber Festival-is and Quattuor
80 LECTURE III.
Sermones was printed by Hopyl for Lecomte. This contains
Lecomte's device at the end of the Liber Festivalis and a
curious device at the end of the Quattuor Sermone?, used
sometimes by Hopyl, but which does not bear on its face
any appearance of having been made for him.
At the time when this book was printed Hopyl had in
his office as press corrector an Edinburgh man called David
Lauxius, the earliest Scotchman we know of employed in
a printing office. He afterwards became a schoolmaster
at Arras, and appears to have been a man of considerable
ability, and a friend of the celebrated Parisian printer and
editor, Badius Ascencius, who addresses to him some of the
prefatory letters in his grammars. What Scotch name is
represented by the Latin Lauxius no one has yet been able
to determine.
The last book printed for Lecomte was printed at Paris
by Jean Jehannot, and is an edition of the Sarum Horae.
It is a book of very great rarity, but there are two copies
in Cambridge, one in Trinity College, and the other in the
Sandars collection in the University Library, the latter con-
taining a small supplement not found in the other copies,
and which was not originally intended to form part of the
book, since the prayers in it are not referred to in the list
of contents. The imprint is curious, it states that the
edition has been revised and corrected in the celebrated
University of Paris, and printed for Nicolas Lecomte of
that University, settled for the time being in England as a
merchant of books. I do not know whether this means
merely that he was educated at the University or whether
he was one of the privileged stationers attached to it, though
in the latter case he would hardly have come to settle in
England. Like Frederick Egmont, Lecomte was also a
bookbinder.
Before the end of the century another stationer was
settled in England whose name we know, John Boudins.
THE STATIONERS. 81
We know of only one book printed for him, an edition of
the Expositio Hymnorum et Sequentiarum of Salisbury
use, which was printed at the beginning of 1502 by
Bocard of Paris. Boudins was probably then an old man,
for his will is dated the llth of October, 1501, and it was
proved on the 30th of March, 1503. He lived in the parish
of St. Clement's, Eastcheap, and was apparently a natural-
ised Fleming, and an immigrant from Antwerp.
A great difficulty in the way of tracing these stationers,
especially those from the Low Countries, is the very sparing
use they made of their proper surnames. In legal docu-
ments such as wills or letters of denizStion the formal name
would be given, whereas in ordinary parlance and in the
imprints of books they would be spoken of by a kind of
nickname taken from the town from which they came, like
William de Machlinia, Wynkyn de Worde, and so on. So
that we should probably find, if we had more information
on the subject, that in many cases two men who are treated
as different may turn out to be only one man under two
names. The number of stationers that must have existed
at this time in England was probably very large, and it is
sad to think that our information on the subject is so meagre.
Of course unless the stationer was wealthy enough or in a
good way of business he would not be able to commission
whole editions of books from a foreign printer, and therefore
he would not have his name in the imprint. Then again
the greater part of a stationer's stock would consist of
foreign books which were not essentially printed for Eng-
land. For information of this class we can only look to
MS. sources, accounts kept by the bookseller, lists of im-
ported books, and so on.
There exists, for instance, a list of books for sale at
Oxford in 1483 by Thomas Hunte, which has been edited
by Mr. Madan in the Oxford Historical Society publications.
At the head of the list is the following sentence in Latin :
6
82 LECTURE III.
" Here follows the inventory of the books which I, Thomas
Hunte, stationer of the University of Oxford, have received
from Master Peter Actor and John of Aix-la-Chapelle to
sell, with the price of each book, and I promise faithfully
to return the books or the money according to the price
written below as it appears in the following list ". The two
men mentioned were no doubt travelling stationers, supply-
ing so much stock to the bookseller on a system of sale or
return.
A document such as the Day-Book of John Dome, the
journal or account-book of an Oxford bookseller in 1520,
which was edited by Mr. Madan for the Oxford Historical
Society, and about which Henry Bradshaw wrote his half-
century of notes, the last piece of work which he finished,
is a find of the utmost importance in our subject, and it
is perhaps not too much to expect that more documents
of this kind may be forthcoming. In the account book we
notice that after the 21st of May up to the 3rd of August
there is an entire blank, and Dome begins his account-book
again "post recessum meum de ultra mare". I think we
should be safe in concluding that these months were spent
abroad on business and in the purchase of books.
Sometimes such information is found amongst the waste
leaves used to make boards for bindings. The University
librarian read a note before the Antiquarian Society here
giving an account of a letter on business matters written
from a foreign printer to John Siberch, the first printer in
Cambridge, which was found amongst other waste matter
used to make the boards of a binding now in Westminster
Abbey Library, and letters of bookbinders have been found
in the same way.
We have not, unfortunately, any book however meagre
on this subject which might serve as a basis on which to
build up information. Isolated facts turn up occasionally
here or there, but there being no regular place for us to
THE STATIONERS. 83
put them they drop out of sight again. And it is only
when we have collected a number of these facts and begin
to find the links that piece them together that we can
arrive at any definite knowledge of the subject.
I do not suppose we may expect to find much new in-
formation from books themselves, though from MS. sources
a good deal may yet be discovered. Within the last year
or two many documents relating to stationers and printers
of the early sixteenth century have been found at the Rolls
Office, and there must be many more still to be found there ;
besides, the documents in the Rolls Office are only a part
of our great collections.
However, as I said before, what we most want is an
account as full as possible of the booksellers and stationers
up to 1535, giving us all the information that has yet been
discovered, to serve as a groundwork for what may be found
in the future.
LECTURE IV.
THE BOOKBINDERS.
FROM the very earliest times the bookbindings produced in
England were remarkable for their beauty and richness.
The finest were of gold, ornamented with gems, but their
value has led to their destruction, and I do not think that there
is any early binding of this class now in existence. Leather
was very soon recognised as a suitable material for book
covers, being easily worked and capable of receiving a con-
siderable amount of ornament. The earliest leather binding
known is on a beautiful little manuscript of St. John's Gospel,
taken from the tomb of St. Cuthbert, and now preserved in
the library of Stonyhurst College. It is of red leather, and
the centre of the side is ornamented with a raised ornament
of Celtic design, while above and below are small panels filled
with interlaced lines, executed apparently with a pointed tool
and coloured yellow. This binding is generally considered
to be of the tenth century, though there are some reasons
for thinking that it may have been executed later, but if this
is so the present binding must have been copied from an
earlier one.
Excellent as the early work had been, that of the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries is unsurpassed. The leather bind-
ings executed at Durham for Bishop Pudsey between 1153
and 1195 are marvellous both for their detail and for their
general effect. It was the custom of binders of this period
to build up a bold and effective pattern covering the whole
side of the book by means of a large number of dies, beauti-
fully engraved with different designs. On the four volumes
THE BOOKBINDERS. 85
of Bishop Pudsey's Bible, now in the Cathedral Library at
Durham, no less than fifty-one different dies are used, and
when we remember that Bishop Pudsey was one of the
great builders of the cathedral, it is not surprising that
the ornamentation on the dies used in these bindings should
resemble the carved work in the cathedral. There are in
the Cathedral Library seven of these early bindings, and,
unfortunately, they have suffered a considerable amount of
mutilation at a not very remote date, for visitors on payment
of a small gratuity to the person who looked after the library
were allowed to cut out with a penknife one of the stamps to
keep as a curiosity. A few more Durham bindings, easily
recognised by the dies, are scattered in different libraries in
London and in France.
At Winchester, too, and London very beautiful work of
the same class was produced, the circular form of decoration
being very much made use of. Perhaps the finest piece of
Winchester work now in existence is the binding of the
Winchester Domesday Book in the library of the Society
of Antiquaries, of which a facsimile was published in the
illustrated catalogue of the exhibition of bookbindings at
the Burlington Fine Arts Club. Some very fine work, too,
probably executed at Winchester, is to be found on some
manuscripts in the library of the Faculty of Medicine at
Montpellier, executed before 1146 for Henry, son of Louis
VII. of France.
The metal dies with which these bindings were stamped
were practically indestructible, but it is curious to notice
that they hardly ever appear to have been used after the
twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. I only know of one
case to the contrary. In Westminster Abbey Library is a
copy of the Epistolae of Ficinus, printed in 1495, which has
its covers ornamented with early Winchester stamps.
In all these early bindings one is especially struck with
the extraordinary taste and balance in the decoration. The
LECTURE IV.
dies themselves are beautiful, and the pattern in which they
are built up is also beautiful, and yet neither are unduly
emphasised. In later bindings the die became smaller
and less finely cut. It was not intended to be decorative in
itself, but only to help to build up patterns, and the bind-
ings in consequence lose much of their interest.
Oxford, I believe, is generally credited with clinging
somewhat strongly to old traditions, and certainly its book-
binders did so in the fifteenth century. From the earliest
times bookbinding had been considerably practised there
and continued without a break, and no doubt that is why
the old styles lingered for so long. The bindings produced
there towards the end of the century form the connecting
link between the old styles and the new. They represent
the last survival of the early English school of work, that
very distinctive English style which depended so much on
the disposal of dies into large circles, or parallelograms one
inside the other, such as we find in the Winchester and
Durham bindings of the twelfth or thirteenth centuries.
That this circular work was not the haphazard freak of a
single binder we can see from the fact that several of the
dies are wider at the top than at the bottom, so that when
placed together side by side they would naturally work
round to a circular form, like the stones forming the arch
of a bridge. These dies are in many cases foreign in design
and may have been introduced by Rood, the first printer,
but the style of binding is essentially English. Some bind-
ings of a rather similar appearance, though never with any
circular ornament, were produced in the Low Countries. On
nearly all Oxford bindings will be found little groups of three
small circles, so small that they might have been done with
the end of a watch-key, and arranged in a triangle. This
ornament I have never seen on any but Oxford work. One
habit connects the Oxford binders with those of the Low
Countries, and that is their habit of always when possible
THE BOOKBINDERS. 87
lining the boards of the binding with leaves of vellum rather
than paper. All the other English binders used paper gener-
ally for this purpose. It is owing to this custom of using
vellum that many copies of Indulgences issued by the early
printers have been preserved, for, as they were only printed
on one side, the binder could paste them down with the
printing side next the boards and the clean side outwards.
An Oxford binding with an inscription stating, that it was
bound in " Catte Strete " in 1467 was formerly in the
British Museum : the manuscript which it covered has
been rebound and the old binding has disappeared.
Caxton, as one would naturally expect, followed the style
of binding which he had become used to during his residence
at Bruges, though it is interesting to notice that one at least
of his dies was directly copied from early London work and
applied in the same manner. His general method of cover-
ing the side of his binding was to make a large centre panel
contained by a framework of dies or lines running about an
inch from the edge of the side and intersecting each other
at the corners as in the frame known as an Oxford frame.
The large panel thus produced on the side was divided
into lozenge-shaped compartments by diagonal lines running
both ways from the frame, and in each of these compart-
ments a die was stamped. The die most commonly found
on his bindings is a square one with some fabulous winged
monster engraved upon it, and this very die we find later
in the hands of a stationer in London named Jacobi. The
broad frame was often made up by repetitions of a triangular
stamp, pointing alternately right and left, and containing the
figure of a dragon. This stamp is interesting, not only be-
cause the use of a triangular stamp was very uncommon,
but because it was an exact copy of one used by a London
binder about the end of the twelfth century. Very few of
Caxton's own books in their original binding have come down
to our time, but there is a copy of the second edition of the
88 LECTURE IV.
Liber Festivalis in the British Museum which was clearly
bound by him, and the Boethius which was found in the
Grammar School at St. Alban's was also in its original
cover. The Royal Book in the Bedfordshire General
Library is in an absolutely similar binding to the Liber
Festivalis in the British Museum, ornamented with the
same die, and with the boards lined with two waste copies
of an Indulgence. Caxton's bindings were invariably of
leather, he never used vellum as many writers have stated.
Blades, who was amongst the number, refers to a vellum-
bound Caxton in the Bodleian, and states that it is the
original binding ; but had he examined the book more care-
fully he would have found that it was made up from two
copies, and that the binding therefore could not well be
original. Indeed the particular binding was put on in the
seventeenth century while the book belonged to Selden.
Selden's bindings had good need to be flexible, for one of
his customs did not tend to improve bindings. He used to
buy his spectacles, like the youth in the Vicar of Wakefield,
by the gross, and whenever he stopped reading a book he
put in the pair he happened to be using to mark the place.
It was quite a common thing, soon after his library came
to the Bodleian, for spectacles to drop out of the books
as they were taken incautiously from the shelves.
Of course the number of bindings which can with cer-
tainty be ascribed to Caxton is necessarily small, we can
in the first place take only those on books printed by him,
and which contain distinct evidence from the fragments
used in the binding that they came from his workshop. By
means of the stamps used on these we can identify others
which have no other materials for identification. Caxton
used sometimes wooden boards in his bindings and some-
times waste leaves of printed matter pasted together. These
pads of old printing frequently yield most valuable prizes.
The copy of Caxton's Boethius, found by Blades in the
THE BOOKBINDERS. 89
library of the St. Alban's Grammar School, had its boards
made of printed matter, which, when carefully taken to
pieces, were found to be made of fifty-six half-sheets of
paper, forming portions of thirteen books printed by Caxton,
three of which were quite unknown.
Caxton's binding stamps passed with his printing
material to his successor, Wynkyn de Worde. I found
in a college library at Oxford a book with these stamps,
evidently bound by De Worde, and the boards were lined
with waste leaves of three books printed by him, one being
unknown, and one by Caxton. De Worde's bindings are the
least easily identified of any in the fifteenth century, for
beyond these few dies of Caxton's there are none that can
definitely be ascribed to him, and even the various bindings
that might be ascribed to him from the fragments found in
them seem to vary so much in style and decoration that it
seems impossible that they could have all come from one
shop. Perhaps he had really no binding establishment of
his own, but got such work as he required done by others.
Wynkyn de Worde, as we learn from his will, employed
several binders. He left bequests to Alard, bookbinder, his
servant, and to Nowel, the bookbinder in Shoe Lane. James
Gaver, who was one of his executors, was one of the large
family of Gavere, binders in the Low Countries, and though,
when he took out letters of denization on his own account
in 1535 he is described as a stationer, no doubt he was also
a bookbinder. The square stamp with a dragon, which had
belonged to Caxton and which must have passed to De
Worde, found its way early in the sixteenth century into
the hands of another stationer, Henry Jacobi.
The bindings which were produced by Lettou and Mach-
linia, so far as we are able to identify them, are very plain.
The sides are divided by diagonal lines into diamond-shaped
compartments, and in each is stamped a small and uninter-
esting die. The Latin Bible in Jesus College Library, which
90 LECTURE IV.
has every quire lined with slips of vellum, portions of two
cut-up copies of Lettou's Indulgence, and presumably bound
by him, has its binding ornamented with diagonal lines
within a frame formed of square dies containing the figure
of a fabulous animal. In the diamond-shaped compartments
formed by the diagonal lines is a small impressed cinquefoil.
Another Lettou binding, on the copy of the Wallensis printed
by him in 1481 in the Bodleian, is ornamented simply with
diagonal lines, but has no small stamps.
There is another English binder of this time whose
name we do not know, who produced some very good work.
Bradshaw, I think, considered that he worked at Norwich.
There are a number of his books in Cambridge libraries,
and he used very often a red-coloured leather, which is
common in Cambridge bindings. His dies are Low Country
in type, and very much resemble those used at Oxford, but
his work can be recognised by one peculiarity. He always
ornamented the ends of the bands, the bands being those
ridges on the back where the leather covers the string or
cord on which the quires are stitched. Where these bands
ended on the sides he printed a kind of ornament of leaves.
He also, like the Oxford binders, almost always lined his
boards with vellum.
Pynson's earliest bindings are as a rule very plain.
Like the other binders of the time he ruled diagonal lines
across the sides of his books, and put a small die in each
division. Sometimes he did not even use a die, but con-
tented himself with plain lines, as, for instance, on the copy
of his first dated book of 1492 at Appleby. His bindings,
like Machlinia's, are very plain, and the dies used are small
and poor.
Another binder, perhaps at St. Alban's, produced bind-
ings not unlike Pynson's, but he is identified by a small
circular die which he used, which has on it the figure of a
bird.
THE BOOKBINDERS. 91
Another binder whose initials were G. W., but whose
name we do not know, produced a large number of bindings
in the fifteenth century. It is from his bindings that all the
fragments of Machlinia's Horae ad usum Sarum have been
recovered, for he seems to have used up a copy for lining
his boards, and luckily several books bound about that time
have been preserved. Bradshaw found a curious case of
the preservation of two volumes bound in the same work-
shop about the same time. In the library of St. John's is
a copy of a book printed at Nuremberg in 1505, which has
in its cover some leaves of early Oxford printing. In the
library at Corpus is an exactly similar binding on a book
printed at Lyons in 1511, which also contains some early
Oxford leaves. Now it is clear that the same man must have
bound these books about the same time, because we find
in both, along with the refuse Oxford leaves, some leaves
from one and the same vellum manuscript.
There is one English binder, who worked before the end
of the fifteenth century, who is distinctly worthy of special
mention on account of the striking originality of his method
of decoration and designs. His name, unfortunately, we do
not know, but as one of his most frequently used dies repre-
sents a balance or pair of scales it has been conjectured
that this may be a rebus on his name, such as many binders
used, and that he was called " Scales ". Two volumes
executed by this binder are known, which were done for a
certain William Langton, and the centre panel is orna-
mented with a rebus on the name Langton, the letters
Lang over a barrel or tun, while the rest of the side is
filled up with little stamps. This Langton may perhaps be
identified with the William Langton who was a prebendary
of Lincoln and afterwards of York at the end of the fifteenth
century. Another even more curious binding by this same
man is in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
He has disposed his dies so as to form a large heraldic
92 LECTURE IV.
shield, covering the whole side of a folio volume, a style of
adornment quite unique so far as I am aware, and as an or-
nament extremely effective, though I am afraid the heraldry
is hardly sufficiently accurate to enable us to determine for
whom the volume was bound.
The bindings that I have spoken of so far were all pro-
duced in a slow and laborious manner, as each die had to
be impressed separately. Towards the end of the fifteenth
century, however, when the printers in England began to
issue books of a small size, a new system of binding was
introduced, by which the labour of the binder was very
considerably lessened, while the amount of decoration
applied was increased.
The invention and use of the panel stamp, that is of a
large stamp which should ornament the side of the book
with one picture, was a great step forward. It was a great
advantage commercially as it saved much time, and in some
ways it was an advance artistically. By its means the whole
side of the book was ornamented at once, instead of by a
series of dies impressed one after the other. And as the
working out of a binding had ceased to be its main point
and the beauty of the die itself was more emphasised, this
invention did away with the building up of a pattern alto-
gether, and depended entirely on the excellence in design
and workmanship of the stamp. Mr. Weale assigns the date
1367 to the earliest panel stamp known to him, produced by
a certain Lambertus de Insula at Louvain, but this is only
because the MS. on which it occurs bears that date. With-
out some further evidence I should be inclined to think this
date rather too early, and would not date any panel stamp
before the fifteenth century.
There is no doubt that the binders of the Low Countries
were the earliest to introduce this style of binding, and they
produced very excellent work, and the earliest panel stamps
we find in use in England are Netherlandish in execution,
THE BOOKBINDERS. 93
either used in this country by foreign workmen, who had
come over and settled, or obtained by native binders from
abroad. The earliest stamps were no doubt for the most part
of metal, and therefore practically indestructible, and we
know that they often passed out of the hands of their proper
owner and were used by other binders, even though the
name of their original owner was engraved upon them. As
an example I may mention a book-cover in the Douce col-
lection in the Bodleian, on which two stamps are impressed
side by side. One has the name John Guilibert, the other
the inscription : " Omnes sancti angeli et archangeli dei,
orate pro nobis. loris de Gavere me ligavit in Gandavo."
A still more marvellous example, and one almost certainly
bound in England, is in the Library of Corpus Christi
College, Oxford. It has on the two covers, besides in-
numerable dies, no less than nine panels, two signed Woter
Vanduffle, three signed Martinus de Predio, and four signed
Jacobus, illuminator. The binding almost looks like a sample
put out to show a specimen of every stamp and die in
the establishment. The Woter Vanduffle stamp seems very
early. I have in my own collection an English heraldic
MS. of about the middle of the fifteenth century or slightly
earlier in its original binding impressed with the two panels
of that binder.
In these earliest panels the inscription nearly always
runs perpendicularly, either in the centre of the panel, cut-
ting it in two, or at the side of the picture. One peculiarly
distinctive feature of the earliest panels is the presence of
four indentations more or less deep and clearly defined at each
corner. These were made most probably by the heads of
the nails by which the metal plate was affixed to a block
before used for stamping. These four marks never seem
to occur in later panels, which, if they have any, have only
two, considerably larger in size, one at the top and one
at the bottom. It has long been a vexed question as to
94 LECTURE IV.
whether these stamps were made of metal or of wood, but
it is probable that both materials were used, and that the
majority of English stamps were wood. As no heat was
applied, and the leather treated when it was damp and soft,
a wooden stamp would be sufficiently strong, and I have
found by experiment that soft leather takes an excellent
impression from a wooden block. I have, however, in my
own collection a binding struck from a broken plate, and
the appearance of the break shows clearly that the stamp
must have been of metal.
The earliest definitely English panel stamp is on a loose
binding in Westminster Abbey Library. It has on it the
arms of Edward IV., with two small supporting angels.
The rest of the binding is covered with small dies, one in
the shape of a heart, the other a.fleur de lys. It is a great
pity that the book which was in this binding has been lost,
as it might have contained some clue to information about
the binding.
Wynkyn de Worde, in spite of his enormous business,
does not seem to have ever used a panel with his name or
device, at least so far not one has been found, but with
other printers and stationers the case is different. Pynson
used two panels. One is a copy of one of his devices, having
his initials on a shield with the helmet and crest above,
while around all is a floral border. The other has in the
centre a large Tudor rose, surrounded by intertwined branches
of vine leaves and grapes. This latter panel was a popular
one, and several variations of it are to be found, all of which
are probably of the fifteenth century.
The only copy at present known of the Pynson panel
with his mark was acquired not long ago by the British
Museum. I had known of the existence of the copy for
some time, as it had belonged to a Manchester bookseller
who had described it to me. He had sold the book, but
had no record of the purchaser, and knew nothing of him
THE BOOKBINDERS. 95
further than that he lived in London. One day while I was
working in the Museum a visitor came in with this identical
book and offered it for sale. The book itself was a copy of
the Abridgement of the Statutes of 1499. Herbert, in his
Typographical Antiquities, describes a copy of the Imitation
of Christ, printed by Pynson, which was in a similar binding,
and perhaps that may still be in existence ; but I am sorry
to say that the collectors of the beginning of the present
century ruthlessly destroyed all old bindings, and would not
have anything on their shelves except bound in morocco or
russia by Roger Payne or Charles Lewis. There is not one
single old leather binding in the whole of the Spencer Library,
though we know that many of the books when bought were
in their original covers.
Frederick Egmont, the stationer about whom I spoke in
my last lecture, had several panels. The first has as its
central ornament the Tudor rose, and round it are vine leaves
and grapes. Round the whole is an arabesque floral border
containing the initials and mark of Egmont. This design
was common at the time, there being several other panels
almost identical, one of which was used by Pynson. An-
other more important panel is an almost exact copy of the
device of Philippe Pigouchet, the Paris printer. A wild man
and woman, standing on either side of a tree covered with
some kind of fruit, bear in one hand flowering boughs while
with the other they assist in supporting a shield suspended
by a belt from the branches above them. Upon the shield
are Egmont's mark and initials. The device of the wild man
and woman was for some reason very popular at this time
and for a short period afterwards. It was used by Bumgart
at Cologne, and at Edinburgh by Walter Chepman and
Thomas Davidson. It was used by Pigouchet and other
Parisian printers, and by Peter Treveris, who printed in
Southwark at the sign of the " Wodows," and the refer-
ences to it in colophons are very numerous. This panel of
96 LECTURE IV.
Egmont's not only bears his mark and initials, but is in-
scribed on the lower margin, " Fredericus Egmondt me
f[ecit]". Three copies only of this binding are known, a
very fine copy at Caius, a poor copy at Corpus, and one in
my own collection. Books which are stamped on the front
with this panel generally have on the back a plainer panel
containing three rows of arabesques of foliage surrounded
by a border, having ribbons in the upper and lower portion
inscribed with the names of the four evangelists. This
panel not infrequently occurs alone, without Egmont's
signed panel, and may have been left by him in England
when he returned to France.
Nicolas Lecomte, the other foreign stationer settled in
England in the fifteenth century, and to whom I alluded in
my last lecture, also used panels with his initials and mark.
He had not a pictorial panel, but a formal one of rather Low
Country type. The centre of the panel is divided into two
parts, each containing four spirals of foliage encircling the
figures of beasts and birds, while around all is a border of
grapes and vine leaves. At the bottom of the border are
the initials N. C., with a mark which almost exactly corre-
sponds with the initials and mark found in his device in the
books printed for him. A very fine specimen of this binding
is in the University Library.
The majority of the early panels are pictorial, and in
some cases are very elaborate and ornamental. The pair
used by a binder whose initials were A. R are especially
fine. On one side is the salutation of Elizabeth with the
Almighty and the Holy Ghost above, in the top corners
are the Tudor emblems, the rose and portcullis. Round the
whole is a diaper border with a shield in each corner, one
the arms of St. George, another of the city of London, a
third with two cross swords, and a fourth with two cross
keys. The panel on the other side has in the centre St.
John standing preaching to some people who sit in the fore-
THE BOOKBINDERS. 97
ground. On the left is St. James, on the right King David,
while the lower part is taken up with a picture of David and
Bathsheba. This binding is very rare, and I know of only
two examples, one in my own collection and one in the
University Library. This binder had several other panels ;
there is one in the University Library with a figure of St.
Roche, and there are two on a book at Aberdeen with the
Baptism of Christ, and the Annunciation.
It is curious that the subjects of these panels should have
been invariably religious, scenes from the Bible or pictures
of saints, and that we never find subjects from popular
stories. The most frequent subject of all was I think the
Annunciation, and then single figures of saints, St. Barbara
being one of the most popular. The binder very often used
a panel with a figure of the saint after whom he was named.
Nicolas Spering, who worked at Cambridge, has a panel with
the picture of St. Nicholas restoring to life the three children
who had been killed and pickled by the innkeeper. Another
binding which is probably English, though it might be
French, has on one side St. Barbara with her palm branch
and three-windowed tower, and on the other the Mass of
St. Gregory. In the border there occurs a delightful little
figure of a mermaid with a comb in one hand and a looking-
glass in the other.
About 1500 a particular pair of panels came into great
vogue amongst the bookbinders. One had upon it the arms
of England, supported by the dragon and greyhound, the
other the Tudor rose supported by angels. Round the rose
runs a ribbon with the motto :
Haec rosa virtutis de celo missa sereno
Eternum florens regia sceptra feret.
In the top corners we generally find shields with the arms
of St. George and of London, while in the base below the
rose or shield occur the initials and marks of the binders.
This general use of the royal arms, together with the use
7
98 LECTURE IV.
of the arms of London, points, I think, to some trade guild
to which these binders belonged. Foreigners, though they
might still use the royal arms, do not use the city arms,
putting something else in the place, sometimes the French
shield, sometimes merely an unmeaning ornament. It is a
very popular but erroneous opinion held by a great many
people that these bindings with the royal arms were produced
for the king, Henry VII. or Henry VIII. as the case may
be. It would be just as reasonable to imagine that all the
shops with the royal arms over the door were private resi-
dences of the queen. Of course, the fiction is kept up in
order to increase the price of the books ; " from the library of
Henry VIII." looks well in catalogues. Even in the sump-
tuous work recently issued on the historic bookbindings
in the Royal Library at Windsor this mistake has been
repeated.
A very large number of these bindings exist, all very
similar, but unfortunately, although in many cases they bear
the binder's initials and mark, we cannot discover his name,
on the other hand again we know the names of many
binders, but we cannot identify their work ; the mere fact
that the initials on a binding agree with the initials of a
binder's name does not of necessity determine that the
particular binding was produced by that binder; a good
deal more proof is necessary.
A certain number of these bindings have been settled as
the work of a certain man in another way. When the binder
was a printer, or a stationer of sufficient importance to have
books printed for him, then we can identify the mark on
his bindings by means of the mark used in the books.
For instance, to take an early example. We have bind-
ings by Julian Notary, the printer, which bear his initials
and mark, and the mark, of course, is the same as the
one he uses in his books, while in them his name is in full.
So again the work of Henry Jacobi, an important London
THE BOOKBINDERS. 99
stationer of the early sixteenth century, was traced by the
mark which he uses in some of his books.
We know the names of a considerable number of early
binders from the registers of the grant of letters of deniza-
tion, but unfortunately we have no link between them and
the bindings. In this country it was not necessary, as it
was in some parts of the Low Countries, to register the
design of a binding, and though many of the Low Country
bindings look the same, you will find on examination that
the detail always varies and each design was protected.
The binder who is best known in connexion with these
stamped bindings is John Reynes, whose work is by far the
most commonly met with, and who is almost the only pro-
ducer of stamped bindings mentioned by any early biblio-
grapher. His best-known panel is called " Redemptoris
mundi arma," and consists of all the emblems of the Passion
arranged in a heraldic manner upon a shield. Reynes was
certainly employed as a binder by Henry VIII., as we know
from early accounts, and so far as I have seen all the copies
of the King's Assertio septem sacramentorum, which remain
in their original binding, were bound by him. It is fortunate
that Reynes put his mark and name in one printed book,
otherwise we should not have been able to identify him as
the binder. He had also two very well-executed panels,
one depicting the fight of St. George and the dragon and
the other the Baptism of Christ.
The period during which these panel stamps were pro-
duced in England was roughly the forty years from 1493 to
1533. The passing of the act against foreign workmen in
the latter year had no doubt a good deal to do with the
falling off of the work, but the invention of a binding tool
called a roll seems to have finally put an end to the use of
the panel. The roll was a tool made in the form of a wheel
which saved a very great deal of time in ornamenting the
sides of a book, and which was used very widely in England
100 LECTURE IV.
during the sixteenth century. At first when the roll was
broad and well cut, as the earliest examples almost always
were, it produced a very satisfactory appearance, but it soon
became narrower and more finely cut, and therefore show-
ing to much less advantage on the side of a large book, and
finally about the end of the century its use was almost
entirely given up.
Almost the earliest and the finest of the roll bindings
were those produced by the Cambridge stationers. Nicholas
Spering beside his panel had several fine rolls which con-
tain his initials and mark.
Naturally the foreign booksellers who sent books over
to England found it to their advantage to put them into
popular bindings, such as would attract purchasers, and
many of these bindings have a distinctly English character.
The exploits of St. George and St. Michael are favourite
subjects, and are often treated in a most decorative manner.
There is one specially fine example dating from about 1500,
and probably Rouen work, which has St. George on one
side and St. Michael on the other. The binder has not
put his initials, but his device, which occurs on one side,
is a head on a crowned shield. It is worth noticing that
the material of which these foreign bindings are made is
often sheepskin rather than calf, which is nearly always used
in English work. One binder, whose initials were A. H. and
who used the Tudor rose, though without the arms of
London, produced very good work, but almost always on
this sheepskin, which was not a suitable leather for giving
a clear impression.
It is very interesting to watch how in the later panel
bindings the lettering gradually deteriorated and became
simply part of the ornament. I have three panels, all
copied one from the other, and in the first the legend
running round the panel is quite clear and correct. In
the second the letters are confused, though the general
THE BOOKBINDERS. 101
appearance of each separate word is preserved and they
can be read. In the last example letters and words are
all run together, and the general result is wholly unread-
able.
So, too, the old style of work with the pictures of saints
or biblical scenes was given up about 1530 for bad renais-
sance patterns of pillars and classical heads, which are so
uninteresting, not to say ugly, that we can hardly regret
the speedy disuse of the panel stamp.
Now it must always be remembered that in England
at any rate very few of these early bindings are signed,
and that therefore to assign particular bindings to par-
ticular men is not often possible, but comparison may
enable us to attribute them to particular districts and
even to particular places. What is wanted is that every
small point about these bindings should be studied carefully
and compared in different examples, because it is mainly
by circumstantial evidence that we can arrive at any know-
ledge about them. We must class our bindings by a system
similar to that lately adopted for identifying criminals.
The presence or absence of one particular point merely
divides a number of bindings into two divisions. This point,
taken in conjunction with a second point, narrows the field
immensely, and we can soon put the bindings into groups
more or less accurately.
Any one who works at all amongst old bindings will soon
begin to note points which are common to certain bindings,
and which most probably mean a certain thing. For in-
stance, any one working at the subject would soon perceive
that as a rule octavo or quarto books in an English binding
have three bands to the back, that is three projecting ridges
on which the leaves are stitched, while foreign bindings
have four or more. Of course this is not an absolute
rule, but it will be found correct in nine cases out of ten.
To take another local instance. A very great number of
102 LECTURE IV.
early Cambridge bindings, and some that may have been
produced at places not far distant, are remarkable for the
curious red colour of the leather used. The binding has the
appearance of having been painted over with red, and then the
red almost all rubbed off again. This is probably caused by
some peculiarity in the process of tanning or dressing. When-
ever I see this curious red colour I promptly put down the
binding as a Cambridge one, and a more careful examina-
tion generally proves it to be correct.
If the boards of the binding have a groove running down
the edge you may be fairly certain that the book inside is
printed in Greek. If a binding has four clasps, one at the
top and bottom as well as two in their usual place, you
may be sure that the binding is Italian. Most of these
old bindings had clasps or ties of ribbon to keep them shut,
but in nearly all cases these have disappeared, and the
reason is this. In the early times books were always put
on the shelves back first and with the fore edge to the front
on which was written the title of the book. Naturally,
when readers wanted to take down a book they pulled at
it by the clasp or ribbon till that came off, just as now-a-
days when books are placed backs outwards the ordinary
reader pulls them out by the top of the back, till that
comes off. In many cases the ribbons were of alternate
colours, a white opposite to a green and a green opposite a
white. Of course as soon as books were put in the shelves
with the backs outwards the use of ribbons was discontinued,
for it was awkward to push into its place a book with two
large bows of ribbon in front. This use of ribbons you will
notice has been lately revived by some faddists who have no
sense of the fitness of things.
These bindings that we have been considering were of
course what we should call trade bindings or publishers'
bindings. Very few people seem to have had books especi-
ally bound for them, and those kind of bindings had generally
THE BOOKBINDERS. 103
gilded ornaments upon them, which are not found on early
stamped work. The custom of impressing coats of arms on
books did not begin until about 1535, when it was started
by some Scottish collectors, the earliest known armorial
stamp having been used by William Stewart, Bishop of
Aberdeen.
The books specially bound for Henry VIII. were orna-
mented in what was called the Venetian manner, that is
with tools obtained perhaps from Venice, but clearly cut
in imitation of those used by Aldus for his bindings ; the
binder of these books was the well-known stationer, Thomas
Berthelet.
While these bindings and their designs afford valuable
bibliographical information, the materials employed in mak-
ing the bindings are also often of great importance. The
boards were often made of refuse printed leaves pasted
together, and were always lined, after the binding was
completed, with leaves of paper or vellum, printed or manu-
script. To show you how important these fragments may be,
I may mention that of the books printed in England or for
England in the fifteenth century no less than fifty-three are
known only from fragments obtained from bindings. The
great find of Caxton fragments made by Blades at St. Alban's
I have mentioned before. Not long ago I took to pieces
the boards of a primer of Edward VI. and obtained the
title and some other leaves of Constable's Epigrams, printed
by Pynson in 1520, and of which but one perfect copy is
known, four leaves of a Whitinton's Grammar printed by
W. de Worde, eight leaves of an early A bridgement of the
Statutes, probably printed by Middleton, a perfect copy of
an unknown edition of the Ordynaunce made in the time of
ye reygne of kygne Henry VI. to be observed in the Kynges
Eschequier by the offycers and clerkes of the same for tak-
yng of fees of ye kynges accomptis in the same courts,
printed by Middleton, and last an unknown broadside ballad
104 LECTURE IV.
relating to the burning of Robert Barnes in 1540, printed for
Richard Bankes by that little-known printer, John Redman,
who put his name only to one or at the most two known
books.
From a binding in Westminster Abbey some years ago
came two leaves of an unknown early Cambridge book, Lily's
De octo orationis partium construction, edited by Erasmus,
and lately at Oxford Mr. Proctor found in a binding in New
College some fragments of a Donatus on vellum, printed by
Caxton, a hitherto unknown book. As Bradshaw said over
twenty years ago : " It cannot be any matter of wonder that
the fragments used for lining the boards of old books should
have an interest for those who make a study of the methods
and habits of our early printers with a view to the solution
of some of many difficulties still remaining unsettled in the
history of printing. I have for many years tried to draw
the attention of librarians and others to the evidence which
may be gleaned from a careful study of these fragments ; and
if done systematically and intelligently it ceases to be mere
antiquarian pottering or aimless waste of time."
Of course the majority of fragments found in bindings
are of no value, and should not be moved ; indeed, fragments
should never be taken out of bindings unless it is absolutely
necessary, for by doing so the binding is almost certain to
suffer some injury.
To study effectively the early English book a certain
knowledge about these early bindings is required, for the
printer, as we have seen, was probably his own binder.
What I said about the stationers applies also to the binders,
their history is an almost unworked subject, new details are
found from time to time, but we have no work on the
subject to which we can add them, and our knowledge at
present consists mostly of isolated facts. Bradshaw, writing
twenty years ago, spoke of the subject as still in its infancy,
THE BOOKBINDERS. 105
and I am afraid that English bibliographers cannot boast of
much progress. This is not, perhaps, to be much wondered
at when we consider how few are willing to work on in the
steady, quiet way which he practised and taught. We can
do ho better than follow in the path that he pointed out, add
fact to fact, and detail to detail, avoiding vain theories and
idle speculations, so that whatever advance we make in our
knowledge of the subject, whether it be much or little, it
may at any rate be accurate, and serve as a secure foundation
for the work of the future.
THE END.
ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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