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BOOKS ABOUT BOOKS
EDITED BY A. W. POLLARD
POPULAR RE-ISSUE
BOOKS IN MANUSCRIPT. By FALCONER
MADAN, Bodley's Librarian, Oxford.
THE BINDING OF BOOKS, By H. P.
HORNE.
A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLISH
PRINTING. By H. R. PLOMER.
EARLY ILLUSTRATED BOOKS. By A,
W. POLLARD.
Other volumes in preparation.
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By Henry R. PLomer
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London
Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co., Ltd.
Broadway House, 68-74 Carter Lane, E.G.
MCMXXVII.'
First Edition , 1900
Stcond (Popular] Edition, 1915
Second Impression, 1927
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ond Printed in Great Britain by Sbenezer Baylis $ Son Ltd
Tfce Trinity Press, Worcester.
Zcitor's Preface
WHEN Mr. Plomer consented at my request to
write a short history of English printing which
should stop neither at the end of the fifteenth
century, nor at the end of the sixteenth century,
nor at 1640, but should come down, as best it
could, to our own day, we were not without appre-
hensions that the task might prove one of some
difficulty. How difficult it would be we had
certainly no idea, or the book would never have
been begun, and now that it is finished I would
bespeak the reader's sympathies, on Mr. Plomer's
behalf, that its inevitable shortcomings may be
the more generously forgiven. If we look at what
has already been written on the subject the diffi-
culties will be more easily appreciated. In England,
as in other countries, the period in the history of
the press which is best known to us is, by the
perversity of antiquaries, that which is furthest
removed from our own time. Of all that can be
vi Ecitor's Preface
learnt about Caxton the late Mr, William Blades
set down in his monumental work nine-tenths,
and the zeal of Henry Bradshaw and of Mr. Gordon
Duff has added nearly all that was lacking in this
storehouse. Mr. Gordon Duff has extended his
labours to the other English printers of the
fifteenth century, giving in his Early English
Printing (Kegan Paul, 1896) a conspectus, with
facsimiles of their types, and in his first
series of Sandars Lectures presenting a detailed
account of their work, based on the personal
examination of every book or fragment from their
workshops which his unwearied diligence has been
able to discover. Originality for this period being
out of the question, Mr. Plomer's task was to
select, under a constant sense of obligation, from
the mass of details which have been brought
together for this short period, and to preserve
due proportion in their treatment.
For the work of the printers of the next half-
century we have Mr. Duffs later Sandars Lectures
and Mr, Plomer might fairly c i aim that he ^
. by the numerous documents which he has
at the Record Office and at Somerset
Editor's Preface vfi
House, has made some contributions to it of con-
siderable value and interest. It is to his credit,
if I may say so, that so little is written here of
these discoveries. In a larger book the story of
the brawl in which Pynson's head came so nigh
to being broken, or of John Rastell's suit against
the theatrical costumier who impounded the dresses
used in his private theatre, would form pleasant
digressions, but in a sketch of a large subject
there is no room for digressions, and these personal
incidents have been sternly ignored by their dis-
coverer. Even his first love, Robert Wyer, has
been allotted not more than six lines above the
space which is due to him, and generally Mr. Plomer
has compressed the story told in the Typographical
Antiquities of Ames, Herbert, and Dibdin with
much impartiality.
When we pass beyond the year 1556, which
witnessed the incorporation of the Stationers'
Company, Mr, Arber's Transcripts from the Com-
pany's Registers become the chief source of infor-
mation, and Mr. Plomer 's pages bear ample record
of the use he has made of them, and the numerous
documents printed by Mr. Arber in his prefaces.
viii Editor's Preface
After 1603, the date at which Mr. Arber discontinues,
to the sorrow of all bibliographers, his epitome of
the annual output of the press, information is far
less abundant. After 1640 it becomes a matter of
shreds and patches, with no other continuous aid
than Mr. Talbot Reid's admirable work, A History
of the Old English Letter Foundries, written from a
different standpoint, to serve as a guide. His own
researches at the Record Office have enabled Mr.
Plomer to enlarge considerably our knowledge of
the printers at work during the second half of the
seventeenth century, but when the State made up
its mind to leave the printers alone, even this
source of information lapses, and the pioneer has
to gather what he may from the imprints in books
which come under his hand, from notices of a few
individual printers, and stray anecdotes and memo-
randa. Through this almost pathless forest Mr.
Plomer has threaded his way, and though the
road he has made may be broken and imperfect,
the fact that a road exists, which they can widen
and mend, will be of incalculable advantage to all
students of printing.
the indebtedness already stated to the
Editor's Preface ix
works of Blades, Mr. Gordon Duff, Mr. Arber, and
Mr. Reid, acknowledgments are also due for the
help derived from Mr. Allnutt's papers on English
Provincial Printing (Bibliogm
CHAPTER XI
NINETEENTH CENTURY . . . .
INDEX 269
A Snort I-Iistorv of 3
* o
Printing, 1^.76-1900
CHAPTER I
CAXTON AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES
THE art of printing had been known on the Con-
tinent for over twenty years, when William Caxton,
a citizen and mercer of London, introduced it into
England,
Caxton tells us himself that he was born in the
Weald of Kent. In 1438 he was apprenticed to
a well-to-do London mercer, Robert Large, who
carried on business in the Old Jewry, but in 1441
his master died, leaving him a sum of twenty marks,
and shortly afterwards he left England for the
Low Countries, In the prologue to the Recuyell
of the Historyes of Troye he tells us that, at the time
he began the translation, he had been living on the
Continent for thirty years, in Brabant, Flanders,
Holland, and Zealand, but the city of Bruges, one
of the largest centres of trade in Europe at that
time, was his headquarters, Caxton prospered
in his business, and rose to be * Governor to the
English Nation at Bruges,' a position of import-
2 English Printing
ance, and one that brought him into contact with
men of high rank.
In 1468 Caxton began to translate Raoul Le
F^vre's Recueil des Histoires de Troyes, but after
writing a few quires was dissatisfied with his work
and gave it up.
Shortly after this he entered the service of
Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, sister of Eel-
ward IV of England, either as secretary or steward.
The Duchess used to talk with him on literary
matters, and he told her of his attempt to translate
the Recueil. She asked him to show her what he
had written, pointed out how he might amend his
'rude English,' and encouraged him to continue
his work. Caxton took up the task again, and in
spite of many interruptions, including journeys
to both Ghent and Cologne, he completed it, in
the latter city, on the igth September 1471. All
this he tells us in the prologue, and at the end of the
second book he says :
* And for as moche as I suppose the said two
bokes ben not had to fore this tyme in oure English
langage, therefore I had the better will to accom-
pKsshe this said werke, whiche werke was begonne
in Brugis, and contynued in Gaunt, and finyshed in
Coleyn, . . . the yere of onr lord a thousand four
honderd Ixxi.' He then refers to John Lydgate's
translation of the third book, and continues :
'But yet for as moche as I am bounde to con-
template my fayd ladyes good grace and also that
Caxton and his Contemporaries 3
his werke is in ryme, and as ferre as I knowe hit
is not had in prose in our tonge , . . and also be-
cause that I have now god leyzcr beying in Coleyn^
and have none other thing to doo at this tyme, I
have,' &c.
Then at the end of the third book he says that
having become weary of writing and yet having
promised copies to divers gentlemen and friends:
6 Therfor I have practysed and lerned at my grete
charge and dispense to ordeyne this said book
in prynte after the maner and forme as ye may
here see,' &c.
X
The book when printed bore neither place of
imprint, date of printing, nor name of printer.
The late William Blades, in his Life of Caxton
(vol. i. chap. v. pp. 45-61), maintained that this
book, and all the others printed with the same type,
were printed at Bruges by Colard Mansion, and
that it was at Bruges, and in conjunction with
Mansion, that Caxton learned the art of printing.
His principal reasons for coming to this conclusion
were : (i) That Caxton's stay in Cologne was only
for six months, long enough for him to have finished
the translation of the book, but too short a time
in which to have printed it ; (2) That the type in
which it was printed was Colard Mansion's;
(3) That the typographical features of the books
printed in this type (No. i) point to their all
having come from the same printing office,
On the other hand, Caxtcjn conveys the im-
4 English Printing
pression that lie learned to print, whilst making
the translation, in order to fulfil his promise of
multiplying copies. That it was in Cologne rather
than elsewhere is confirmed by the oft-quoted
stanza added by Wynkyn de Worde as a colophon
to the English edition of Bartholomaeus' De pro-
prietatibus rerum.
*And also of your charyte call to remembraunce
The sotile of William Caxton, the first prynter of this boke,
In laten tonge at Coleyn, hymself to avaunce
That every well-disposyd man may theron loke.'
If any one should have known the truth about the
matter, it was surely Caxton's foreman, who
almost certainly came to England with him.
Mr. E. Gordon Duff, the highest authority on
all matters connected with early English printing,
referring to this verse, says : ' This is a perfectly
clear statement that Caxton printed a Bartholomaeus
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.'
In the face of these statements, we seem bound
to believe that Caxton did study printing at Cologne,
but Ms methods of working, and his late adoption
of spacing and signatures, prove that he only learnt
the most elementary part of the work there.
In any case it must have been with the help of
Caxton and his Contemporaries 5
Colard Mansion that he set up and printed the
Recuyell, probably in 1472 or 1473. In addition
to this book several others, printed in the same
type, and having other typographical features in
common with it, were printed in the next few years.
These were :
The Game and Playe of the Chess Moralised, trans-
lated by Caxtoh, a small folio of 74 leaves.
Le Recueil des Histoires de Troyes, a folio of 120
leaves.
Les Fais et Prowesses dit noble et vaillant chevalier
Jason, a folio of 134 leaves, printed, it is believed,
by Mansion, after Caxton's removal to England.
And,
Meditacions sur les sept Psaulmes Penitenciaulx,
a folio of 34 leaves, also ascribed to Mansion's press,
about the year 1478.
Before Michaelmas 1476 Caxton must have left
Bruges and come to England, leaving type No. i
in the hands of Mansion, and bringing with him
that picturesque secretary type known as type 2.
This, as Mr. Blades has undoubtedly proved, had
already been used by Caxton and Mansion in print-
ing Les quatre derrenieres choses t notable from the
method of working the red ink, a method found in
no other book of Colard Mansion's.
On his arrival in England, Caxton settled in
Westminster, within the precincts of the Abbey,
at the sign of the Red Pale, which he rented from
Michaelmas 1476, and thence, on i8th November
6 English Printing
1477, he issued The Dictes and Sayinges of the Philo-
sophers, the first dated book printed in England.
This was a folio of 76 leaves, without title-page,
foliation, catchwords, or signatures, as were also
the books printed in conjunction with Mansion.
Type 2, in which it was printed, was of the same
class as the Gros Batarde type of Colard Mansion,
and was in all probability cut by Mansion himself.
The letters are bold and angular, the lowercase c w '
being given prominence by large loops over the
top. The *hV and 'IV are also looped letters,
the final e mV and 'nV are finished with an
angular stroke, and the only letter at all akin to
those in type No. i is the final ' d,' which has the
peculiar pump-handle finial seen in that fount.
The Dictes and Sayinges is printed in long lines,
twenty-nine to a page, with spaces left at the be*
ginning of the chapters for the insertion of capitals.
The Rylands copy is dated i8th November 1477 ;
other copies have no colophon, only an Epilogue,
which begins :
'Here endeth the book named the dictcs or
sayengis [ of the philosophers, enprynted, by me
william | Caxton at Westmestre the yere of our lord
M- | CCCC-LXXVIjV
During the next twelve months the principal out-
put of Caxton's press was an edition of Chaucer's
Canterbury Tales, a folio of 372 leaves, completed
before the end of 1478. He also printed in the
same type a Samm Ordinale, known only by a
Caxton and his Contemporaries 7
fragment in the British Museum, and several small
quarto tracts without date, including a Latin school-
book called Stans Puer ad Mensam ; two translations
from Dionysius Cato, entitled respectively Parvus
Catho and Magnus Catho; Chaucer's poem Anelida
and Ar cite, and several of Lydgate's the fable of The
Chorl and the Bird, The Horse, the Shepe and the
Goose, The Temple of Glas, and the Book of Courtesy.
It is quite possible that some of these preceded The
Dictes and Sayinges.
During the first three years of Caxton's residence
at Westminster he printed at least thirty books.
In 1479 h e r ^cast type 2 (cited in its new form by
Blades as type 2*), and this he continued to use
until 1481. But about the same time he cast two
other founts, Nos. 3 and 4. The first of these was
a large black letter of Missal character, used chiefly
for printing service books, but appearing in the
books printed with type 2* for headings. With
it he printed Cordyale, or the Four Last Things,
a folio of 78 leaves, the work being a translation
by Earl Rivers of Les Quatre Derrenieres Choses
A dvenir, first printed in type 2 in the office of Colard
Mansion. A. second edition of The Dictes and Say-
inges was also printed in this type, while to the year
1478 or 1479 must be ascribed the Rhetorica Nova
of Friar Laurence of Savona, a folio of 124 leaves,
long supposed to have been printed at Cambridge.
After 1479 Caxton began to space out his lines
and to use signatures, customs that had been in
8 English Printing
vogue on the Continent for some years before he
left. In 1480 he brought the new type 4 into use.
Although without any loop to the lowercase * d,'
this was modelled on type 2, but was much smaller,
the body being most akin to modern ' English.'
If not so striking as the earlier fount, it was a much
neater letter and more adapted to the printing of
Indulgences, and it was probably the arrival of
John Lettou in London, and the neat look of his
work, that induced Caxton to cut this fount. With
this type No. 4 he printed Kendale's Indulgences
and the first edition of The Chronicles of England,
dated the loth June 1480, a folio of 152 leaves.
In the same year he printed with type 3 three service
books. Of one of these, the Home, only a few leaves
are known. These were found by William Blades
in the covers of a copy of Boethius, printed also by
Caxton, which he discovered in a deplorable state
from damp, in a cupboard of the St. Albans Grammar
School. This was an uncut copy, in the original
binding, and the covers yielded as many as fifty-
six half sheets of printed matter, fragments of
other books printed by Caxton, These proved the
existence of three hitherto unknown examples of
his press, the Horae above noted, the Ordinale, and
the Indulgence of Pope Sixtus IV, the remaining
fragments yielding leaves from the History of Jason,
printed in type 2 ; the first edition of the Chronicles,
the Description of Britain ; the second edition of
the Dicks and Sayinges, the De Curia Sapientiae,
Caxton and Iiis Contemporaries 9
Cicero's De Senectute, and the Nativity of Our
Lady, printed in the recast of type 4, known as
type 4*.
The first illustrated book issued by Caxton was
The Mirror of the World, printed in 1481. In this
two sets of cuts were used, one representing masters
and their pupils, and the other diagrams. Two
of the cuts with figures were used in another book
of about this date, the third edition of Parvus and
Magnus Chato.
To this period also belongs The History of Rey-
nard the Fox and the second edition of The Game
and Play of Chess, printed with type 2*, and
distinguished from the earlier edition by the eight
woodcuts specially cut for it, but by a different
hand to that which executed the cuts in the Mirror.
Some of these were used twice over.
In type 4, Caxton printed (finishing it on the
20th November 1481) The History of Godfrey of
Bologne ; or, the Conquest of Jerusalem, a folio of
144 leaves. In 1482 appeared the second ' edition
of the Chronicles, and the compilation of Roger of
Chester and Ralph Higden, called Polychronicon.
This history John of Trevisa had translated into
English prose, bringing it down to 1387. Caxton
now added a further continuation to 1460, the only
original work ever undertaken by him. Another
English author whom Caxton printed at this time
was John Gower, whose Confessio A mantis ip small
folio (222 leaves in double columns) he finished
io 3ng-isli Printing
on the 2nd September 1483. In this we see the
first use of type 4*, the two founts being found in
one instance on the same page. The first edition
of the Golden Legend also belongs to 1483, being
finished at Westminster on the 20th November.
This was the largest book that Caxton printed,
containing 449 leaves in double columns, illustrated
with eighteen large and fifty-two small woodcuts.
The text was in type 4*, the headlines, &c,, in
type 3. For this work Caxton received from the
Earl of Arundel, to whom the book was dedicated,
a promise of a buck in summer and a doe in winter.
Several copies of the book still exist, its large size
serving as a safeguard against complete destruction,
but none are perfect, most of them being made up
from copies of the second edition. The insertions
may be recognised by the type of the headlines,
those in the second edition being in type 5. Other
books printed in type 4* were Chaucer's Book of
Fame, Chaucer's Troylus, the Lyf of Our Ladye,
the Life of Saint Winifred, and the History of King
Arthur, this last, finished on July 31, 1485, being,
almost as large a book as the Golden Legend.
. In 1487 Caxton brought into use type 5, a smaller
form of the black letter fount known as No, 3,
with which he sometimes used a set of Lombardic
capitals. With this he printed, between 1487 and
1489, several important books, among them the
Royal Book, a folio of 162 leaves, illustrated with
six small woodcuts, the Book of Good Warners,
CO
Caxton and his Contemporaries
the first edition of the Directorium Sacerdotum,
and the Speculum Vitae Christi. During 1487 also
Caxton had printed for him at Paris, by William
Maynyal, an edition of the Sarum Missal. This
was the first book in which he used his well-known
device. The second edition of the Golden Legend
is believed to have been published in 1488, and to
about the same time belongs the proof of an In-
dulgence which Henry Bradshaw discovered in
the University Library, Cambridge, and which
seems to have been struck off on the nearest piece
of blank paper, which happened to be the last page
of a copy of the Colloquium peccatoris et Crucifixi
/. C., printed at Antwerp. This was not the only
remarkable find which that master of the art of
bibliography made in connection with Caxton.
On a waste sheet of a copy of the Fifteen Oes, he
noticed what appeared to be a set off of another
book, and on closer inspection this turned out to
be a page of a Book of Hours, of which no copy
has ever been found. It appeared to have been
printed in type 5, was surrounded by borders, and
was no doubt the edition which Wynkyn de Worde
reprinted in 1494.
In 1489 Caxton began to use another type
known as No. 6, cast from the matrices of No. 2
and 2*, but a shade smaller, and easily distinguish-
able by the different lowercase c w.* With this
he printed, on the I4th July 1489, the Faytts of
Armes and Chivalry, and between that date and
12 Englisli Printing
his death three romances, the Foure Sons of Ay man,
Blanchardin, and Eneydos ; the second editions
of Reynard the Fox, the Book of Courtesy, the Mirror
of the World, and the Directorium Sacerdotum ; and
the third edition of the Dictes and Sayinges. To
the same period belong the editions of the A rt and
Craft to Know Well to Die, the Ar$ Moriendi, and
the Vitas Patrum.
But in addition to type 6, which Blades believed
to be the last he used, there is evidence of Caxton's
having possessed two other founts during the latter
part of his life. With one of them, type No, 7
(see E. G. Duff, Early English Printing), somewhat
resembling types Nos. 3 and 5, he printed two
editions of the Indulgence of Johannes de Gigliis
in 1489, and it was also used for the sidonotes
to the Speculum Vitae Christi, printed in 1494 by
Wynkyn de Worde, and for some recently discovered
Indulgences from the same press. Type No. 8
was also a black letter of the same character,
smaller than No. 3, and distinguished from any
other of Caxton's founts by the short, rounded,
and tailless letter ' y ' and the set of capitals with
dots. He used it in the Liber Festivalis, the Ar$
Moriendi, and the Fifteen Oes, the only book he
printed with borders, and it was afterwards used
by Wynkyn de Worde,
Caxton died in the year 1491, after a long, busy,
and useful life. At an age when most men begin
to think of rest and quiet, he set to work to learn
Caxton anc ais Contemporaries 13
the art of printing books. Nor was he content
with this, but he devoted all his spare time to editing
and translating for his press, and according to
Wynkyn de Worde it was ' at the laste daye of
his lyff ' that he finished the version of the Lives
of the Fathers which De Worde issued in 1495.
His work as an editor and translator shows him
to have been fairly acquainted with the French
and Dutch languages, and to have possessed a quiet
sense of humour that adds to the charm of what
he termed his ' rude ' English.
Of his private life we know little, but the 6 Mawde
Caxston' who figures in the churchwarden's ac-
counts of St. Margaret's is generally believed to
have been his wife. He had a daughter Elizabeth
married to a merchant named Gerard Croppe, from
whom she was separated in 1496. His will has not
been found, the documents at Westminster Abbey,
from which Dr. E. J. L. Scott has gleaned a few
records relating to him, having been searched in
vain. We know, however, from the parish accounts
of St. Margaret's, Westminster, that he left to that
church fifteen copies of a Legend (probably not the
Golden Legend, but a service book printed for him
by Maynyal), twelve of which were sold at prices
varying between 6s. 8d. and 5$. 4^.
Caxton used only one device, a simple square
block with his initials W. C. cut upon it, and certain
hieroglyphics said to stand for the figures 74, with
a border at the top -and bottom. It was probably
English Printing
of English workmanship, as those found in the
books of foreign printers were much more finely
cut. This block, which Caxton did not begin to
use until 1487, afterwards passed to his successor,
who made it the basis of several elaborate varia-
tions.
Upon the death of Caxton in 1491, his business
came into the hands of his chief workman, Wynkyn
de Worde. From the letters of naturalisation
which this printer took out in 1496, we learn that
he was a native of the Duchy of Lorraine. It was
suggested by Herbert that he was one of Caxton's
original workmen, and came with him to England,
and this has recently been confirmed by the dis-
covery of a document among the records at West-
minster, proving that his wife rented a house from
the Abbey as early as 1480. In any case there is
little doubt that Wynkyn de Worde had been in
intimate association with Caxton during the greater
part of his career as a printer, and when Caxton
died he seems to have taken over the whole business
just as it stood, continuing to live at the Red Pale
until 1500, and to use the types which Caxton had
been using in his latest books. This fact led Blades
to ascribe several books to Caxton which were prob-
ably not printed until after his death. These were
The Chastising of God's Children, notable typo-
graphically as being the first book printed at West-
minster with a title-page ; The Book , of Courtesy*,
and the Treatise of Love, printed with type No. 6 ;'
Caxton and his Contemporaries 15
but, in addition to these, two other books, probably
in the press at the time of Caxton's death, were
issued from the Westminster office without a
printer's name, but printed in a type resembling
type 4*. These were an edition of the Golden
Legend and the Life of St. Catherine of Sienna.
Wynkyn de Worde' s name is found for the first time
in the Liber Festivalis printed in 1493. In the
following year was issued Walter Hylton's Scala
Perfections, and a reprint of Bonaventura's
Speculum Vit& Christi, the sidenotes to which were
printed in Caxton's type No. 7, which De Worde
used also in Indulgences. Besides this, there was
the Sarum Home, no doubt a reprint of Caxton's
edition now lost. He used for these books Caxton's
type No. 8, with the tailless e y ' and the dotted
capitals. Speaking of this type in his Early
Printed Books, Mr. E. G. Duff points out its close
resemblance to that used by the Paris printers
P. Levet and Jean Higinan in 1490, and argues
that it was either obtained from them or from the
type-cutter who cut their founts. 1
To the year 1495 belongs the Vitas Patrum, the
book of which Caxton had finished the translation
on the day of his death ; and beside this, there were
reprints of the Polychronicon and the Directorium
Sacerdotum. The reprint of the Boke of St. Albans,
which was issued in 1496, is noticeable as being
printed in the type which De Worde obtained from
i E. G. Duff, Earty Printed Books, pp. 84 and 139.
1 6 Englisj. Printing
Godfried van Os, the Gouda printer. This broad
square-set letter is not found in any other book of
De Worde's, though he continued to use a set of
initial letters which he obtained from the same
printer for many years.
Among other books printed in 1496 were Dives
and Pauper, a folio, and several quartos such as
the Alley of the Holy Ghost, the Meditations of
St. Bernard, and the Liber Festivalis. In 1497 we find
the Chronicles of England, and in 1498 an edition
of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, a second edition of
the Morte d* Arthur, and another of the Golden
Legend, in fact nearly all De Worde's dated books
up to 1500 were reprints of works issued by Caxton,
But amongst the undated books we notice many
new works, such as Lidgate's Assembly of Gods
and Sege of Thebes, Skelton's Bowghe of Court, The
Three Kings of Cologne, and several school books.
In 1499 De Worde printed the Liber Equivocorum
of Joannes de Garlandia, using for it a very small
black letter making nine and a half lines to the
inch, probably obtained from Paris, This type
was generally kept for scholastic books, and in
addition to the book above noted, Wynkyn de
Worde printed with it, in the same year or the year
Mowing, an Ortus Vocabulorum. From the time
when he succeeded to Caxton's business down to
the year 1500, in which he left Westminster and
settled in Fleet Street, De Worde printed at least
a hundred books, the bulk of them undated,
Caxton anc his Contemporaries 17
Several printers from the Low Countries came
to England soon after Caxton. The year after he
settled at Westminster, a book was printed at Ox-
ford without printer's name, and with a misprint
in the date, which has caused much discussion.
This was the Exposicio sancti Jeroninii in simbolum
apostolorum, and the colophon ran, * Impressa
Oxonie et finita anno domini M.cccc.lxviij., xvij.
die decembris,' a wholly improbable date now in-
terpreted as a misprint for 1478. The dropping
of an * x ' from the date of a colophon is not an
uncommon printer's error, and the Exposicio has
been found bound with two other Oxford books,
the De peccato originali of Aegidius de Columna,
and a Latin translation of the Ethics of Aristotle,
both dated 1479, an d both showing the same typo-
graphical features as the Exposicio. Moreover,
the type in which they are printed was used at
Cologne, in 1477 and 1478, by a printer named
Gerard ten Raem, one of whose books printed with it,
the Modus Confitendi* was finished on soth October,
or only eight weeks before the appearance of
the Exposicio at Oxford. This Modus Confitendi
has in common with the Exposicio a curious misuse
of a capital H for a capital P. There is thus no
room for doubt that the printer of the first three
Oxford books obtained his type from Cologne, and
was therefore presumably the Theodoric Rood of that
city whose name first appears in the commentary
on the De Anima of Aristotle, printed at Oxford
1 8 Englisji Printing
in 1481. This was followed in 1482 by an ex-
position on the Lamentations of Jeremiah, by John
Lattebury, and some copies of these two books arc
distinguished by a woodcut border printed round
the first page of the text, the first occurrence of a
border in an English book.
About 1483 Rood took as a partner Thomas
Hunt, a stationer of Oxford, and together they
issued John Anwykyll's Latin Grammar, together
with the Vulgaria Terencii, Richard Rollc of
Hampole's Explanations super lectiones bcati Job,
a sermon of Augustine's, of which the only known
copy is in the British Museum, a collection of
treatises upon logic, one of which is by Roger
Swyneshede, the first edition of Lyndewodo's Pro-
vincial Constitutions (a large folio of 366 leaves
with a woodcut, the earliest example found in any
Oxford book), and the Epistles of Phalaris, with a
lengthy colophon in Latin verse. The last book
to appear from the press was the Liber FcsHvalis by
John Mirk, a folio of 174 leaves, containing eleven
large woodcuts and five smaller ones, apparently
meant for an edition of the Golden Legend, as they
were cut down to fit the Festival. After the appear-
ance of this book, printing at Oxford suddenly
ceased. Altogether the Oxford press lasted for eight
years, and sixteen books or fragments of books
remain to testify to its activity. In these, seven
founts of type were used, the first two having all
the characteristics of the Cologne printers, while
Caxton and his Contemporaries iq
s
the third has a more English look and included
a lowercase ' w. 5
Eight books are known, which are believed to
have been printed at a press in the town of St.
Albans in Hertfordshire in the fifteenth century.
The printer is unknown, but was referred to by
Wynkyn de Worde as 'somtyme scole master
of saynt Albons. 5 His first production was a
work by Augustinus Datus called Super eleganciis
Tullianis. It was printed in a very small and
clear Gothic type, apparently modelled on one
of Caxton's. The work bore no date, and its
short colophon simply records that it was printed
*apud Sanctum Albanum.' The absence of sig-
natures proves it to have preceded the other
productions of this press, and the date assigned to
it is the year 1479. The first dated book from
this press was the Rhetorica Nova of Laurentius de
Saona, printed in 1480. In this another fount
of type was used, the first only occurring again
in signatures. This second type has also a great
resemblance to Caxton's type 2*. In the same
year the printer also produced the Liber modorum
Signiftcandi, in a third type which has been
rightly termed 'the ugliest and most confusing
of English fifteenth-century types and full of be-
wildering contractions/
The most notable books from this press were
the Chronicles of England, in which red ink was
used in printing the initials and paragraph marks,
20 Eng'-isli Printing
and at the end it has the printer's device, a double
cross rising from a circle in which is a shield bearing
the arms of the town and abbey of St. Albans.
The last book from this press is known as the
Book of St. Albans, in which heraldry, hawking, and
fishing are successively dealt with.
Thi= book and the Chronicles were printed in
two types, one that already used in the Rhetorica
Nova, with a larger fount for headings which is
admitted to have been Caxton's type 3. At the
end is the simple imprint * Sanctus Albanus,' but
at the end of the treatise of * blasyng of armys '
it is stated to have been compiled at St. Albans
in the year 1486.
Within recent years Dr. E. J. L, Scott has found
mention amongst the archives at Westminster of
a manor called Saint Albans, in which there lived
a schoolmaster called Otto Fuller, but there is no
evidence at present of this schoolmaster having
ever had any communication with Caxton, and
failing this we must continue to ascribe these books
to 'an unknown printer at St. Albans in Hertford-
shire.
Three years after Caxton had settled at West-
minster, viz. in 1480, an Indulgence was issued by
John Kendale, asking for aid against the Turks.
Caxton printed some copies of this, and others are
found in a small neat type, and are ascribed to the
press of John Lettou, who had recently started
printing in London, Lettou is an old form of
Caxton and his Contemporaries 21
Lithuania, but whether John Lettou came from
Lithuania is not known.
In this same year, 1480, Lettou printed the
Quaestiones Antonii Andreae super duodecim libros
metaphysicae Aristotelis, a small folio of 106 leaves
in double columns, of which only one perfect copy
is known, that in the Library of Sion College. The
type is small and remarkable from its numerous
abbreviations. Mr, E. G. Duff, in his Early English
Printing, writes : c There are very strong reasons
for believing that he [Lettou] is the same person
as the Johannes Bremer, alias Bulle, who is men-
tioned by Hain as having printed two books at
Rome in 1478 and 1479. The type which this
printer used is identical (with the exception of one
of the capital letters) with that used in the books
printed by John Lettou in London,' Another book
that came from this press in the year 1480 was the
Expositiones super Psalterium, printed in the same
type.
A few years later Lettou was joined by William
de Machlinia, They were chiefly associated in
printing law-books, but whether they had any
patent from the king cannot be discovered. Only
one of the five books they are known to have
printed, the Tenores Novelli, has any colophon, and
none of them has any date. These books were
printed in a type modelled on the law hand of
the period and abounding in abbreviations. The
address they gave was 'juxta ecclesiam omnium
3
22 English Printing
sanctorum, 5 but as there were several churches so
dedicated, the locality cannot be fixed.
The type in which these books were printed is
also found in The History of the Siege of Rhodes,
dedicated to Edward IV, the only early English
printed book the printer of which is unknown,
there being difficulties in ascribing it either to
Lettou or Machlinia.
About 1482-3 Machlinia is found working alone,
but out of the twenty-two books or editions that
have been traced to his press, only four contain his
name, and none have a date. All we can say is
,that he printed from two addresses, * in Holbora '
and c By Flete-brigge.' Mr. Duff inclines to the
opinion that c Flete-brigge ' is the earlier, but it
seems almost hopeless to attempt to place those
books in any chronological order from their typo-
graphical peculiarities.
In the Flete-brigge type are two books by Albertus
Magnus, the Liber aggregations and the De Sccyetis
Mulierum. The type is of a black letter character,
not unlike that in which the Nova Statuta were
printed, and is distinguishable by the peculiar shape
of the capital M. In the same type we find the
Revelation of St. Nicholas to a Monk of Evesham, a
reprint of the Tenores Novelli, and some fragments
of a Saram Home found in old bindings ; a wood-
cut border was used in some parts of it. Besides
these Machlinia printed an edition of the Vulgaria
Terentii.
Caxton and his Contemporaries 23
Fourteen books are found in the Holborn types,
the most important being the Chronicles of England,
of which only one perfect copy is known.
The Speculum Christiani is interesting as con-
taining specimens of early poetry, and The Treatise
on the Pestilence, of Kanutus or Canutus, bishop of
Aarhus, ran to three editions, one of which contains
a title-page, and was therefore presumably printed
late in Machlinia's career, i.e. about 1490.
In addition to these, there were three law-books,
the Statutes of Richard III, and several theological
and scholastic works. One of the founts of type
used by Machlinia is of peculiar interest, by reason
of its close resemblance to Caxton's type No. 2*,
and its still greater similarity to the type used by
Jean Brito of Bruges.
Machlinia's business seems to have been taken
over by Richard Pynson. There is no direct
evidence of this, but Pynson is found using wood-
cut borders and blocks used by Machlinia, while
waste from Machlinia books has been found in
bindings by Pynson.
Richard Pynson, who was a native of Normandy,
may have learnt to print in the office of Le Talleur,
a printer of Rouen with whom he had business
relations. His methods were those of Rouen
rather than of any English master, and he was the
finest printer this country had yet seen, and no
one, until the appearance of John Day, approached
Mm in excellence of work.
24 English Printing
A good deal of new information has come to
light within recent years concerning Richard
Pynson. His career was marked by many changes
of fortune. He was the object of jealousy and
suspicion on the part of native workmen, and he
was involved in many lawsuits.
His first dated book was the Doctnnale of Alex-
ander Callus, a quarto, finished on the I3th November
1492, the only known copy of which is now in the
British Museum; but several books had been
printed by Pynson before this, notably a fine
edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in folio, in
which two founts of type are seen, a bold unevenly
cast fount of black letter, somewhat resembling
that used by Machlinia at Flete Bridge, and a
fount of small sloping Gothic. The work was
illustrated with woodcuts representing the various
pilgrims.
In 1493 Pynson printed for a certain 'John
Russhe, Esquire,' The Dialogue of Dives and Pauper
with a new type, distinguishable by the sharp
angular finish to the letter * h.' Pynson's rela-
tions with John Russhe formed the subject of a
lawsuit, and we learn from the documents put in
in the course of the case that 600 copies of this
book were printed, half of which were sold to
Russhe, printed and bound, at four shillings each.
En addition to this book, several quartos, without
iate, were printed in the same type.
An edition of Mirk's Liber Festivalis was another
Caxton and :iis Contemporaries 25
book which John Russhe commissioned Pynson to
print for him, and in 1494 he printed, with the earlier
types of the Chaucer, Lidgate's translation from
Boccaccio The Falle of Princes, also at the bidding
of John Russhe, each edition consisting of 600
copies. Mention is also made of certain Mass-
books, c Jornalles,' and Prymers, no copies of which
with Pynson' s name of so early a date have ever
yet been found, and these were probably printed
abroad. 1
Two other printers were at work before the
close of the fifteenth century. Julian Notary,
whose nationality is not clear, and Jean Barbier,
who in spite of the French rendering of his name
is believed to have been an Englishman, as on the
Plea Rolls he is described as * Johannes B arbour,
nuper de Coventre, bere brewer, alias dictus Jehanne
Bcrbier, nuper de Coventre, prenter.' With them
was associated a third partner, whose initials J. H.
are believed to be those of J. Huvin, a printer of
Rouen. They established themselves in London
at the sign of St. Thomas the Apostle, and their first
book was the Questioner Alberti de modis signifi-
candi y which they followed up in 1497 with an
octavo edition of the Horae ad usum Sarum. In
1498 Barbier and Notary removed to King Street,
Westminster, where they printed in folio for
Wynkyn de Worde a Missale ad usum Sarum,
1 For a full account of Pynson's dealings with John Russhe, see
77/iff Library (New Series), April 1909.
26 English Printing
the first edition printed in England. Soon after-
wards Notary was printing by himself, the initials
of both his partners being removed from his device.
Two quartos, the Liber Festivalis and Quattuor
Sermones, are all that can be traced to his press
in 1499, and a miniature Horae, less than two inches
in height, being the sole record of his work in 1500.
Notary was also a bookbinder, and some of his
stamped bindings are still met with.
CHAPTER II
FROM 1501 TO THE DEATH OF WYNKYN DE
WORDE
IN the year 1500 Wynkyn de Worde moved from
Westminster to the * Sunne ' in Fleet Street. The
change brought him nearer the heart of the book-
selling trade, which was then, and for many years
after, seated in St. Paul's Churchyard and Fleet
Street. He appears to have discarded much of
his printing material at this time, but carried with
him the black letter type with which he had printed
the Liber Festivalis in 1496, and continued to use it
until 1508 or 1509, when he seems to have sold it
to a printer in York, Hugo Goes. He brought
with him also the scholastic type in use in 1499.
Besides these, we find two other founts of black
letter. The larger of the two seems to have been
introduced about 1503, to print a Sarum Home.
The smaller fount came into use a few years later.
It was somewhat larger in body, less angular, and
much more English in character than that which
the printer had brought with him from West-
minster, and the bulk of his books to the day of
his death were printed with these types. They
were doubtless recast from time to time, but a
2 8 English Printing
close examination fails to detect any difference in
size or form during the whole period.
De Worde first began to use Roman type in 1520
for his scholastic hooks, but he made no general
use of it, remaining faithful to English black letter
to the end of his days. The only exceptions arc
the educational books, which he invariably printed,
*
as in fact did all the other printers of the period,
in a miniature fount of Gothic of a kind very popular
on the Continent in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries. De Worde's, however, was an excep-
tionally small fount. In 1513 he procured another
fount of this type, in which he printed the Flowers
of Ovid, quarto, and in this the letters are of English
character, as may be seen particularly in the lower-
case c h. J This fount, which was slightly larger,
he does not seem to have used very frequently.
As Julian Notary printed the Sermones Discipuli
in 1510, in the same type, it may have been lent by
one printer to the other. In or about 1533 Do
Worde introduced the italic letter into some of his
scholastic books, and in Colet's Grammar, which
was amongst the last books he printed, we find it
in combination with English black letter, the small
4 grammar type, 9 and Roman.
In these various types, between the beginning
of the century and his death in 1534, Wynkyjnt de
Worde printed upwards of five hundred books
which have come down to us, complete or in frag-
ments. Thanks to the indefatigable energy of Mr.
Wynkyn ce Worce 29
Gordon Duff, we possess now a very full record of
his books, enabling us not only to estimate his merit
as a printer, but to see at a glance how consistently
as a publisher he maintained the entirely popular
character which Caxton had given to his press.
As regards large folios, he confined himself almost
entirely to those in which his master had led the
way, such as the Golden Legend, of which he issued
several editions, the Speculum Vitae Christi> the
Marte d* Arthur, Canterbury Tales, Polyohronicon,
and Chronicles of England. The Vitas Patrum of
1495 he could hardly help printing, as Caxton had
laboured on its translation in the last year of his
life, and it may have been respect for Caxton also
which led to the publication of his finest book, the
really splendid edition of Bartholomacus* De Pro-
prietatibus Rerum, issued towards the close of the
fifteenth century, from the colophon of which I have
already quoted the lines referring to Caxton's having
worked at a Latin edition of it at Cologne. The
Book of St. Albans was another reprint to which
the probable connection of the Westminster and
St. Albans presses gave a Caxton flavour ; and when
we have enumerated these and the Dives and Pauper,
produced apparently out of rivalry with Pynson
in 1496, and a few devotional books such as the
Orcharde of Syon and the Flour of the Command-
ments of God, to which this form was given, very
few Wynkyn de Worde folios remain unmentioned.
But to one book in folio, Wynkyn de Worde
30 Eng.isJi Printing
printed some five-and-twenty in quarto, eschewing
as a rule smaller forms, though now and again we
find a Horae, or a Manipulus Curatorum, or a Book
of Good Manners for Children in eights or twelves. 1
Students of our older literature owe him gratitude
for having preserved in their later forms many old
romances, and also a few plays, and ho published
every class of took, including many educational
works, for which a ready sale was assured. The
majority of these books were illustrated, if only with
a cut on the title-page of a schoolmaster with a
tech-rod, or a knight on horseback who did duty
for many heroes in succession. When the illus-
trations were more profuse, they were too often pro-
duced from worn blocks, purchased from French
publishers, or rudely copied from French originals,
and used again and again without a thought as to
their relevance to the text. A similar carelessness
is often found in his composition and presswork.
There was no originality about Wynkyn de
Worde's devices, of which he used no fewer than
sixteen different varieties. The most familiar, as
it was the earliest of these, was Caxton's, and next
to this must^be placed what is usually described as
the Sagittarius device. There were two forms of
tins, a square and an oblong. It consisted of three
divisions, the upper part containing the sun, two
1 It is rather remarkable that of the eiaht K^I - j ,
octavo. Readers of the works of E^ctt^ ^ * ""
hive shown a preference for this form whirl' '. Llly Secm to
for the *orks of these friendly autb- **"* " USed "* *qtfr
Wyniyn ce Worce 31
planets, and eleven stars on the left and nine to the
right ; the centre, the Caxton mark and initials ; and
the lower part, a ribbon with his name, with a dog
on one side and an archer on the other. There are
no less than six variations of this block. Its first
appearance is in a copy of the Manipulus Cura-
torum printed in 1502, where it appears showing
thirty-six stars instead of twenty in the apper panel,
and having the initial C in the centre panel printed
the wrong way about. This is the only known
example of its use. In 1504 a new block was cut,
and appears first in the Grammar of Sulpicius.
This was replaced in 1519 and again in 1528, this
fourth block being distinguished by having only ten
small stars to the left of the sun and ten to the right.
In another variation, not often used, the moon takes
the place of one of the planets, and there are six-
teen stars ; and lastly there is a slightly smaller form
of the 1504 block, probably made abroad, as its use
is confined to books printed in Paris for Wynkyn
de Worde.
Wynkyn de Worde died in 1534, his will being
proved on the igth January 1535. His executors
were John Byddell, who succeeded to his business,
and James Gaver, while three other London sta-
tioners, Henry Pepwell, John Gough, and Robert
Copland, were made overseers of it, and received
legacies.
Julian Notary remained at Westminster two
years after the departure of Wynkyn de Worde,
32 English Printing
when he too flitted eastwards, settling at the sign
of the Three Kings without Temple Bar, probably
to be nearer his patron. He combined with his
trade of printer that of bookbinder, and probably
bound as well as printed many books for Wynkyn
de Worde. His printing lay principally in the
direction of service books for the church, but he
printed both the Golden Legend and the Chronicles of
England in folio, one or two lives of saints, and a few
small tracts of lighter vein, such as "How John
Splynter made his testament,' and c How a scrjcaunt
wolde lerne to be a frere,' both in quarto without
date.
In the Golden Legend of 1504 and the Chronicles
of England of 1515, the black letter type used was
identical in character with that of Wynkyn dc
Worde.
No book has been found printed by Notary be-
tween the years 1510 and 1515. In the former year
he appears to have had a house in St, Paul's Church-
yard, as well as the Three Kings without Temple
Bar. In 1515 he speaks only of the sign of St. Mark
in St. Paul's Churchyard, and three years later this
is altered to the sign of the Three Kings, It is just
conceivable that this last was a misprint, or that the
St. Mark was a temporary office used only while the
Three Kings was under repair.
In 1507 Notary exchanged the simple merchant's
mark that had hitherto served him as a device for
one of a more elaborate character. This took the
Wynkyn ce Worde 33
form of a helmet over a shield with his mark upon it,
with decorative border, and below all his name.
From this a still larger block was made in the same
year, and this was strongly French in character.
It showed the smaller block affixed to a tree
with bird and flowers all round it, and two fabulous
creatures on either side of the base. The initials
c J. N.' are seen at the top. This he sometimes used
as a frontispiece, substituting for the centre piece a
block of a different character.
Richard Pynson also changed his address shortly
after Wynkyn de Worde, moving from outside
Temple Bar to the George in Fleet Street, next to
St. Dunstan's Church. He also appears about this
time to have entirely given up the use of his striking
Gothic type in favour of a much less effective English
black letter. With regard to this latter, there seems
reason to believe, from the great similarity both in
size and form of the fount in use by De Worde,
Notary, and Pynson at this time, that it was ob-
tained by all the printers from one common foundry.
Nor is it only the letters which lead to this conclu-
sion, but the common use of the same ornaments.
The only difference between the black letter in use
by Pynson in the first years of the sixteenth century
and that of his contemporaries, is the occurrence of
a lower-case * w * of a different fount.
The first dated book issued by Pynson from his
new address was the Directorium Sacerdotum,
printed in 1501, ' intra barram novi templL*
34 English Printing
In 1509 Pynson is believed to have introduced
Roman type into England, using it with his
scholastic type to print the Sermo Fratris Hiero-
nymi de Ferraria. In the same year he also issued
a very fine edition of Alexander Barclay's trans-
lation of Brandt's Shyp of Folys of the Worlds In
this, the Latin original and the English translation
are set side by side. The book was printed in folio
in two founts, one of Roman and one of black letter.
It was profusely illustrated with woodcuts copied
from those in the German edition.
Pynson became the royal printer in the place of
W. Faques, who died in May 1508. At first he
received a salary of 40$, per annum (see Letters and
Papers of Henry VIII, vol. i. p, 364), but this was
afterwards increased to 4 per annum (ibid. t vol. ii.
p. 875), As royal printer he printed numbers of
Proclamations, numerous Year-books, and all the
Statutes, and received large sums of money. In
1513 he printed The Sege and Dystrucyon of Troye t
of which several copies (some of them on vellum)
are still in existence, Other books of which he
printed copies on vellum are the Sarum Missal of
1520, and Assertio Septem Sawamentorum of 1521.
Besides his official work, Pynson found time to
print good books in all classes of literature. The
works of Chaucer and Skelton and Lydgate, the
history of Froissart and the Chronicle of St Albans ;
books such as Aesop's Fables and Reynard the Pox,
romances such as Sir Bevis of Hampton are scattered
Wynkyn ce Worce 35
freely amongst works of a more solid character.
On the whole he seems to deserve a higher place
than De Worde. It is rare, indeed, to find a
carelessly printed book of Pynson's, whilst such
books as the Boccacio of 1494, the Missal printed
in 1500 at the expense of Cardinal Morton, and
known as the Morton Missal, and the Intrationum
excellentissimus of 1510 were certainly the finest
specimens of typographical art which had been
produced in this country.
Pynson's earliest device consisted of his initials
cut on wood. In 1496 he used two new forms.
One shows his initials upon a shield surmounted
by a helmet with a bird above it. Beneath is his
name upon a ribbon, and the whole is enclosed in a
border of animals, birds, and flowers, The other
was a metal block of the same device, with two
naked figures as supporters. The border, which
was separate and in one piece, had crowned figures
in it and a ribbon. The bottom portion of this
border began to give way about 1500, was very
much out of shape in 1503, and finally broke
entirely in 1513. This border was sometimes
placed the wrong way up, as in the British Museum
copy of Mandeville's Ways to Jerusalem (G. 6713).
It was succeeded by a woodcut block of a much
larger form, which may be seen in the Mirroure of
Good Manners (s.a., fol). It has no border, the
initials print black on a white ground, while the
figures have a much better pose.
36 English Printing
Pynson died in the year 1530, while passing
through the press UEclaircissement dc la Langue
Francoyse, which was finished by John Hawkins,
of whom nothing else is definitely known. His will,
proved on the i8th February, 1529-30, mentions
his son Richard Pynson, " late deceased," and
nominates his daughter Margaret his executrix.
Whilst these three printers had been at work,
many other stationers, booksellers, and printers
had settled in London. They seem to have
favoured St. Paul's Churchyard and Fleet Street ;
but they were also scattered over various parts of
the city and outlying districts, even as far west
as the village of Charing.
In the year 1504, a printer named William Faques
settled in Abchurch Lane. He was a Norman by
birth, and Ames suggested that he learnt his art
with John Le Bourgeois at Rouen, but this is un-
confirmed. He styled himself the king's printer.
Of his books only some eight are in existence, three
with the date 1504, and the remainder undated.
His workmanship was excellent. The Psalterium
which he printed in octavo was in a large, well-cut
English black letter, and each page was surrounded
by a chain border. The Statutes of Henry VII
are also in the same type with the same ornament,
but the Omelia of Origen, one of the undated books,
is in the small foreign letter so much in vogue with
the printers of this time. His device has the
double merit of beauty and originality. It con-
Wyn^yn de Worce - 37
sisted of two triangles intersected with his initials
in the centre and the word * Guillam } beneath. His
subsequent career is totally unknown, but he appears
to have died in 1508, and was succeeded as king's
printer by Pynson. His type, ornaments, &c., passed
into the hands of Richard Fawkes or Faques, who
printed at the sign of the Maiden's Head, in St.
Paul's Churchyard, in the year 1509, Gulielmus de
Saliccto's Salus corporis Salus anime, in folio, with
the same type and chain ornament found in the
Psaltcrium of William Faques. In 1523 he printed
Skelton's Goodly Garland in quarto, in three founts
of black letter, and a fount of Roman, and a great
primer for titles. Amongst his undated works is
a copy of the Liber Festivalis, believed to have been
printed in 1510, and an Home ad asum Samm
printed for him in Paris by J. Bignon. During the
interval he had moved from the Maiden's Head in
St. Paul's Churchyard to another house in the
same locality, with the sign of the A. B. C., and he
also had a second printing office in Durham Rentes,
without Temple Bar, that is in some house adjacent
to Durham House in the Strand. The earliest
extant printed ballad was issued by Richard Faques,
*
the Ballad of the Scottish King, of which the only
known copy is in the British Museum, and amongst
his undated books is one which he printed for
Robert Wyer, the Charing Cross printer, under
the title of De Cursione Lunae. It was printed with
the Gothic type, and the blocks were supplied by
8 English Printing
Wyer. Richard Faques' device was a copy of
that of the Paris bookseller Thielmann Kerver,
with an arrow substituted for the tree, and the
design on the shield altered. The custom of adapt-
ing foreign devices was very common, and is one
of the many evidences of dearth of originality on
the part of the early English printers.
The latest date found in the books of this printer
is 1530.
Another, prominent figure in the early years
of the sixteenth century was that of Robert Cop-
land. He was a man of considerable ability, a
good French scholar, and a writer of mediocre
verse. He was also, in the truest sense of the
word, a book lover, and used his influence to pro-
duce books that were likely to be useful, or such
as were worth reading. In the prologue to the
Kalendar of Shepherdes, which Wynkyn de Worde
printed in 1508, Copland described himself as
servant to that printer. This has been taken to
mean that he was one of De Worde's apprentices.
But in 1514, if not earlier, he had started in business
for himself as a stationer and printer, at the sign
of the Rose Garland in Fleet Street. Very few
of the books that he printed now exist, and this,
taken in conjunction with the fact that he trans-
lated and wrote prologues for so many books
printed by De Worde, has caused conjectures as
to their relationship.
In the British Museum copy of the Dyeynge
Wynkyn de Worce 39
Creature, printed by De Worde in 1514, it is notice-
able that on the last leaf is the mark or device of
Robert Copland, not that of the printer, while in
the copy now in the University Library, Cambridge,
De Worde's device is on the last leaf.
This would indicate that, though the work actu-
ally passed through De Worde's press, both printers
were associated in the venture, and that those copies
which Copland took and paid for were distinguished
by his device. Again, in several books with De
Worde's colophons Copland speaks of himself as
the ' printer, 5 or c the buke printer,' and a possible
inference is that these were reprints of books which
Copland had previously printed, though the words
may also mean that Copland superintended their
printing for Wynkyn de Worde. We have a still
stronger case in the Castell of Pleasure, printed in
1518 by Henry Pepwell at the sign of the Trinity.
The prologue to this takes the form of a dialogue
in verse between Copland and the author, of which
the following lines are the most important :
c Emprynt this boke, Copland, at my request
And put it forth to every maner state.'
To which Copland replies :
* At your instaunce I shall it gladly impresse,
But the utterance, I thynke, will be but small.
Bokes be not set by : there tymes is past, I gesse ;
The dyse and cardes, in drynkynge wyne and ale,
Tables, cayles, and balles, they be now sette a sale.
Men lete theyr chyldren use all such harlotry,
That byenge of bokes they utterly deny.'
40 English Printing
This surely points to Robert Copland having
printed an edition of the book on his own responsi-
bility and not for a master. Amongst other books
that he was in some way interested in may be
noticed a curious one by Alexander Barclay, Of
the Introductory to write French, fol, 1521, of which
there is a copy in the Bodleian ; The Mirrour of
the Church, 4to, 521, a devotional work, printed
by Wynkyn de Worde, with a variety of curious
woodcuts ; the Rutter of the Sea, the first English
book on navigation, translated from Le Grand
Routier of Pierre Garcie ; Chaucer's Assemble of
Foules and the Questionary of Cyrurgyens, printed
by Robert Wyer in 1541.
Copland was also the author, and without doubt
the printer, of two humorous poems that are amongst
the earliest known specimens of this kind of writing.
The one called The Hye Way to the Spyttcll hous
took the form of a dialogue between Copland and
the porter of St. Bartholomew's, and turns upon
the various kinds of beggars and impostors, with
a running commentary upon the vices and follies
that bring men to poverty. Jytt of Brentford, the
second of these compositions, is a somewhat dif-
ferent production. It recounts the legacies left
by a certain lady, but the humour, though to the
taste of the times, was excessively broad.
In 1542 Dr. Andrew Borde spoke of his Intro-
diction of Knowledge as printing at 'old Robert
Copland's, the eldest printer in England.' Whether
Wynkyn de Worce 41
he meant the oldest in point of age or in his craft
is not clear ; but it may well be that, seeing that
De Worde, Pynson, and the two Faques were dead,
this printing house was the oldest then in London.
John Rastell also began to print about the year
1514. He is believed to have been educated at
Oxford, and was trained for the law. In addition
to his legal business, he translated and compiled
many law-books, the most notable being the Great
Abridgement of the Statutes. This book he pub-
lished himself, and it is certainly one of the finest
examples of sixteenth century printing to be found.
The work was divided into three parts, each of
which consisted of more than two hundred large
folio pages. The type was the small secretary
in use at Rouen, and it is just possible the book
was printed there and not in England.
John Rastell's first printing office in London
was on the south side of St. Paul's Churchyard.
William Bonham, the stationer with whom Rastell
was afterwards associated, had some premises there,
and as late as the seventeenth century there was
a house in Sermon Lane, known as the Mermaid,
and it may be that in one or other of these Rastell
printed the undated edition of Linacre's Grammar,
which bears the address c ye sowth side of paulys.'
But in 1520 he moved to * the Memiayd at Powlys
gate next to chepe syde.' There he printed The
Pastyme of the People, and Sir Thomas More's Sup-
plicacyon of Souls, besides several interludes and
4,2 English Printing
two remarkable jest-books, The Twelve mery gestys
of one called Edith and A Hundred Mery Talys.
The last named became one of the most popular
books of the time, but only one perfect copy of it
is now known, and that, alas ! is not in this country.
Rastell was brother-in-law of Sir Thomas More,
and until 1530 a zealous Roman Catholic. In that
year he wrote and printed a defence of the Roman
Catholic doctrine of Purgatory, under the title of
the New Boke of Purgatory. This was answered
by John Frith, the Reformer, who is credited with
having achieved John Rastell's conversion. He
was arrested for his opinions, and was in prison
just before his death in 1536. During the last
sixteen years of his life he does not appear to have
paid much attention to his printing business, A
document now in the Record Office shows that
he was in the habit of locking up his printing office
in Cheapside, and going down into the country
for months at a time. But a part of the premises
he sublet, and these were occupied for various
periods by several stationers William Bonham,
Thomas Kele, John Heron, and John Gough being
particularly named. Like all his predecessors,
Rastell dropped the use of the secretary type in
favour of black letter, and his books, as specimens
of printing, greatly deteriorated. Dibdin, in his
reprint of The Pastyme of the People, was very
severe upon the careless manner in which it was
printed. Probably Rastell left it to his journey-
Wynkyn de Worce 43
men or apprentices. Among those whom he em-
ployed we find the names of William Mayhewes,
of whom nothing is known; Leonard Andrewe,
who may have been a relative of Laurence Andrewe,
another English printer ; and one Guerin, a Norman.
John Rastell left two sons, William and John.
The former became a printer during his father's
lifetime and succeeded him in business, but his
work lies outside the scope of the present chapter.
The same remark applies to William Bonham*
In 1518 Henry Pepwell settled at the sign of
the Trinity in St. Paul's Churchyard, and used
the device previously belonging to Jacobi and
Pelgrim, two stationers who imported books printed
by Wolfgang HopyL His books fall into two
classes those printed between 1518-1523, and
those between 1531-1539. The first were printed
entirely in a black-letter fount that appears to have
belonged to Pynson. The second series were printed
entirely in Roman letter. A copy of his earliest
book, the Castle of Pleasure, 4to, 1518, is in the
British Museum, as well as the Dietary of Ghostly
Hethe, 4to, 1521 ; Exornatorium Curatorum, 4to,
n.d, ; Du Castel's Citye of Lafiy&s, 4to, 1521. His
edition of Christiani hominis Institutum, 4to, 1520,
is only known from a fragment in the Bodleian.
Several books have been ascribed wrongly to this
printer (Duff, Bibliographica, vol. i pp, 93, 175,
499)-
John Gough began his career as a bookseller in
44 English Printing
Fleet Street in 1526. In 1528 he was suspected
of dealing in prohibited books (see Letters and
Papers of Henry VIII, vol. iv. pt. ii. art. 4004),
but managed to clear himself. In 1532 he moved
to the * Mermaid ' in Cheapside, and in the same
year Wynkyn de Worde printed two books for
him concerning the coronation of Anne Boleyn.
In 1536, whilst still at the Mermaid, he issued a
very creditable Salisbury Primer. He calls him-
self the printer of this, but it is doubtful if this
means anything more than that he found the
money, and, perhaps, the material with which it
was printed. Wynkyn de Worde appointed John
Gough one of the overseers of his will. Of his
subsequent career more will be said at a later
period.
Another of the printers who worked for Wynkyn
de Worde during the latter part of his life was
John Skot. In 1521, when we first meet with him,
he was living in St. Sepulchre's parish, without
Newgate. In that year he printed the Body of
Politic and the Justyces of Peas, and in 1522 The
Myrrour of Gold ; amongst his undated books are,
Jacob and his xii sons, Carta Feodi simplicis, and
the Book of Maid Emlyn, all these being in quarto.
His next dated book appeared in 1528, with the
colophon in 'Paule's Churchyard,' and here he
appears to have remained for some years. He
is next found in Fauster Lane, St. Leonard's parish,
where he printed, amongst other books, the ballad
Wynkyn de Worde 45
of The Nut Browne Maid. He also appears to
have been at George Alley Gate, St. Botolph's
parish, where he printed, but without date, Stan-
bridge's Accidence. His devices were three in
number, and several of his border pieces were ob-
tained from Wynkyn de Worde.
Richard Bankes began business at the long shop
in the Poultry, next to St. Mildred's Church, and six
doors from the Stockes or Stocks Market, which at
that time stood on the present site of the Mansion
House. In 1523 he printed a very curious tract with
the following title :
e Here begynneth a lytell newe treatyse or mater
intytuled and called The ix. Drunkardes, which
tratythe of dyuerse and goodly storyes ryght ple-
saunte and frutefull for all parsones to pastyme
with/
It was printed in octavo, black letter, and the
only known copy is in the Douce collection at the
Bodleian. Another equally rare piece of Bankes'
printing was the old English romance of Sir Egla-
mottr, known only by a fragment of four leaves in
the possession of Mr. Jenkinson of the University
Library, Cambridge. This was also somewhat
roughly printed in black letter. In 1525 he printed
a medical tract called the Seynge of Uryns, in quarto,
and three years later was associated with Robert
Copland in the production of the Rutter of the Sea.
He also issued from this address A Herball, and
another popular medical work called the Treasure of
46 English Printing
Pore Men. In 1539 Bankes moved to the White Hart
in Fleet Street, where his principal work consisted
in printing the writings of Richard Taverner, the
Reformer. In 1540 he was arrested for printing
certain ballads about the late Thomas Cromwell
which bore his imprint ; but he declared he had not
printed them, but that they came from the presses of
Robert Redman and Richard Grafton, the latter of
whom confessed his share in the transaction, Mr.
Duff in commenting on this incident says, e This
account shows that the colophons of the early
printers, especially in the case of small fugitive
pieces, are not to be implicitly trusted, and empha-
sizes the necessity of a careful study of type.'
Sandars Lectures, 1899, 1904, p, 155.
Peter Treveris, or Peter of Treves, was working
at the sign of the Wodows, in Southwark, between
the years 1521 and 1533. He used as his device the
'wild men,' first seen in the device of the Paris
printer, P. Pigouchet. The fact of his printing the
Opusculum Insolubilium, to be sold at Oxford * apud
J. T.,' that is probably for John Thome the book-
seller, points to his being at work about the year
1520, In 1521 he is believed to have issued an
edition of Arnold's Chronicles, translated by Lau-
rence Andrewe. Two other books of his printing
were the Handy Worke of Surgery, in folio, 1525, a
book notable for the many anatomical diagrams
with which it was illustrated, and as a companion to
that work, The Great HerlalL Treveris also shared
Wynkyn ce Worce 47
with Wynkyn de -Worde most of the printing of
Richard Whittington's scholastic works, all in
quarto, and mostly without date.
Laurence Andrewe, who lived for some years at
Calais, and translated several books for John van
Doesborch, the Antwerp printer, set up a press in
Fleet Street about 1527, in which year he printed
two editions of The destillacyon of Waters. A
second edition of the Handy Worke of Surgery,
above noticed, a tract called The Debate and Strife
betwene Somer and Winter, to be sold by Robert
Wyer at Charing Cross, and a reprint of Caxton's
edition of the Mirroure of the Worlde, in folio, form
the bulk of his work. His printing calls for no
special notice, but Mr. Proctor, in his monograph
on Doesborch, surmises that he learnt his art in an
English printing house rather than abroad, and the
presence of a Leonarde Andrewe in the service of
John Rastell may mean that the two men were re-
lated and were both pupils of the same master.
Turning now westwards, we find c in the Bishop
of Norwiche's Rentes in the felde besyde Charynge
Cross/ that is near the present Villiers Street, a
printer named Robert Wyer, the sign of whose
house was a device of St. John the Evangelist.
There are several early references to the house as
that of a bookseller, but without any name men-
tioned. The dialogue of Solomon and Marcolphus
was printed by Richard Pynson, without date, to be
sold at the sign of St. John the Evangelist beside
48 English Printing
Charing Cross ; as were also the Debate between
Somer and Winter, printed by Laurence Andrewe,
and the De Cursione Lune, from the press of Richard
Faques. As Wyer's name occurs in the Subsidy
Roll of the year 1523 in the parish of St. Martin's in
the Field, these books were evidently printed for
him. His first dated book was the Golden Pystle,
printed in 1531. It was printed in a small secretary
of Parisian character. His great primer, for which
he has been especially noted by some bibliographers,
was very probably that used by Richard Faques,
He had also a number of woodcut face initials simi-
lar to those used by Wynkyn de Worde, and many
of the small blocks found in his books were copies of
those belonging to Antoine Verard, the famous Paris
publisher,
Robert Wyer was essentially a popular printer.
Many of his publications, mostly undated, were tracts
of a few leaves, abridgments of larger works, chiefly
on theology and medicine. Like his contemporaries
he abandoned the secretary type in favour of black
letter, but neither so readily nor so entirely as they
did. His first black letter, in use before 1536, was
a very weU cut and beautiful letter ; with it he
printed the Epistle of Erasmus, in octavo, and the
Book of Good Works, of which the only copy known *
is in the library of St. John's College, Oxford. His
two most important books are William Marshall's
Defence of Peace, folio, 1535, in secretary type, and
the Questionary of Cymrgyens, printed for Henry
Wynkyn de Worde 49
Dabbe and R. Bankes. In 1536 the house in which
he was working passed into the possession of the
Duke of Suffolk, consequently all books which have
in the colophon fi in the Duke of Suffolkes Rentes, 5
or * Beside the Duke of Suffolkes Place,' were printed
after that year. As Wyer continued to print until
1555, this circumstance does not help us much ; it
may, however, be taken as some further guide that
all his later work was done in black letter.
Robert Wyer appears to have done a great deal
of work for his contemporaries, notably Richard
Bankes, Richard Kele, and John Gough.
Most of his books have rude woodcuts ; the most
profusely illustrated was his translation of Christine
de Pisan's Hundred Histories of Troy. This book
had been printed in Paris by Pigouchet, and the
illustrations in Wyer's edition are poor copies of
those in the French edition. Robert Wyer's device
represented the Evangelist on the Island of Patmos,
with an eagle on his right hand holding an inkhorn.
With this he used a separate block with his name
and mark. He had also a smaller block of the Evan-
gelist from which the eagle was omitted. This is
generally found on the title-page or in the front part
of his books.
CHAPTER III
THOMAS BERTHELET TO JOHN DAY
ON the death of Pynson, in 1530, the office of royal
printer was conferred upon Thomas Berthelet, who
was in business at the sign of the Lucretia Romana
in Fleet Street. During the later years of Pynson' s
life lie was assisted by a certain Thomas Bercula or
Berclaeus, who is believed to have been identical
with Berthelet. Among the writings of Robert
Copland, the printer-author, was a humorous tract
entitled The Seven sorowes that women have when theyr
husbandes be dead (British Museum, C. 20. c. 42 (5)),
which has at the end this curious passage :
1 Go lytle quayr, god gyve the wel to sayle
To that good sheppe, ycleped Bertelet.
>
And from all nacyons, if that it be thy lot
Lest thou be hurt, medle not with a Scot 1
This is 3 without doubt, an allusion to the two
London printers, Thomas Berthelet and John Skot.
Berthelet, or, as he was sometimes called, Bart-
lett, was a native of Wales, holding land in the
county of Hereford. Berthelet was one of the few
English printers of that period whose work is worth
looking at. His types and presswork were good, and
so
Thomas Berthelet to ~ohn Day 51
he abstained from spoiling his books with bad wood-
cuts.
Berthelet was also a bookbinder and bookseller,
and executed some fine bindings for Henry VIII and
his successors. He was apparently the first English
binder to use gold tooling.
Of his official work very little need be said. It
consisted of printing all Acts of Parliament, procla-
mations, injunctions, and other official documents.
In the second volume of the Transcript (pp. 50-60),
Professor Arber has printed three of Berthelet's
yearly accounts, in which are set out the titles, the
number of copies of each that were struck off, and
the nature and cost of their bindings.
In the year 1530 the divorce of Queen Katherine
and the King's marriage to Anne Boleyn filled the
public mind, and in connection with this event Ber-
thelet printed, both in Latin and English, a small
octavo, with the title :
The determinations of the moste famous and mooste
excellent Vniversities of Italy and France that it is so
unlefull for a man to marie his brothers wyfe that the
Pope hath no power to dispense therewith,
Berthelet, in 1531, printed Sir Thomas Elyot's
Boke named the Governour, an octavo, in a large
Gothic type, very bold and clear; printed in double
columns. This type, however, is seen to much
better advantage in the folio edition of Gower's
Confessio Amantis, which came from this press in
1532. The title of this work was enclosed within a
52 English Printing
panel which gives it the appearance of a book
cover.
In 1533 Berthelet appears to have purchased a
new fount of this type, with which he printed Eras-
mus's De Immensa Dei Misericordia. This new
letter was even more beautiful than the other, the
lowercase 'h' finishing in a bold outward curve
absent in the earlier fount. These founts of Gothic
closely resemble some in use in Italy at this time.
To the year 1534 belongs St. Cyprian's Sermon on
the mortality of man, translated by Sir Thomas
Elyot, as well as a second edition of The Boke named
the Governour.
Berthelet also brought into use during this year
a woodcut border of an architectural character,
with the date 1534 cut upon it. It was used only
in octavo books, and he continued to use it for
some years without erasing the date.
We meet with the large Gothic type again in
I535> in an edition of the De Proprietatibus Rerwn
of Bartholomaeus Anglicus, which Berthelet printed
in that year. Another notable undertaking was
the book compiled by the bishops, and issued under
the King's authority, with the title :
The Institution of a Christian Man conteyninge
the Exposition or Interpretation of the commune
Crede, of the Seven sacraments, of the X command-
ments, and of the Pater Nosier, and the Ave Maria,
JustyficaHon & Purgatory.
Latimer, then Bishop of Worcester, had sug-
Thomas Berthelet to 7ohn Day 53
gested to Cromwell that the printing should be
given to Thomas Gibson, but in spite of this the
work was entrusted to Berthelet. It was issued
both in quarto and octavo form, the quarto
printed in a fine fount of English black letter,
modelled on those of De Worde. The opening lines
of the title were, however, printed in Roman of
four founts, and the whole page was enclosed within
a woodcut border of children.
The octavo editions of this notable book were
printed in a smaller fount of black letter, and the
title-page was enclosed within the 1534 border.
Several editions were issued in 1537, and the book was
afterwards revised and reprinted under a new title.
At the same time Berthelet was passing through
the press Sir Thomas Elyot's Dictionary, a work
of no small labour, if one may judge from the
number of founts used in printing it. It was
finished and issued in 1538.
Berthelet, who, as befitted a royal printer, plainly
took some pains to keep himself clear of all con-
troversies, did not stir in the matter of Bible
translation until the 1538 edition by Grafton and
Whitchurch was already in the market.
In 1539, however, he published but did not print
Taverner's edition of the Bible, and in the follow-
ing year an edition of Cranmer's Bible. That of
1539 came from the press of John Byddell, and
that of 1540 was printed for him by Robert Redman
and Thomas Petit.
54 English Printing
Among the Patent Rolls for the year 1543 (P. R.
36 Hen. 8; m. 12) is a grant to Berthelet of certain
crown lands in London and other parts of the
country, in payment of a debt of 220. His office
as royal printer ceased upon the accession of
Edward VI, and though many books are found
with the imprint, 'in aedibus Thomas Berthelet/
down to the time of his death in 1555, he probably
took very little active part in business affairs after
that time. He was succeeded by his nephew
Thomas Powell.
Meanwhile Pynson's premises were taken by
Robert Redman, who, from about the year 1523,
had been living just outside Temple Bar. No new
facts have come to light about Redman, and the
reasons why he moved into Pynson's house and
continued to use his devices are as puzzling as ever.
He began as a printer of law-books, and printed
little else. In conjunction with Petit he printed
an edition of the Bible for Berthelet, and among
his other theological books was A treatise concern-
ynge the division betwene the Spirytualtie and Tern-
poraltie, as to which there is a note in the Letters
and Papers of Henry VIII (voL vi. p. 215), from
which it appears that, in 1533, Redman entered
into a bond of 500 marks not to sell this book or
any other licensed by the King. Redman was also
the printer of Leonard Coxe's Arte and Crafte of
Rhehoryke s one of the earliest treatises on this
subject published in English.
Thomas Berthelet to ~ohn Day 55
Redman's work fell very much below that of
his predecessor. Much of his type had been in use
in Pynson's office for some years, and was badly
worn. He had, however, a good fount of Roman,
seen in the De Judiciis et Praecognitionibus of
Edward Edguardus. The title of this book is en-
closed in a border, having at the top a dove, and
at the bottom the initials J. N.
Redman's will was proved on the 4th November
1540. His widow, Elizabeth, married again, but
in the interval several books were printed with her
name. His son-in-law, Henry Smith, lived in St.
Clement's parish without Temple Bar, and printed
law-books in the years 1545 and 1546.
Redman's successor at the ' George ' was William
Middleton, who continued the printing of law-books,
and brought out a folio edition of Froissart's Chro-
nicles, with Pynson's colophon and the date 1525,
which has led some to assume that this edition
was printed by Pynson.
Upon Middleton's death in 1547, his widow
married William Powell, who thereupon succeeded
to the business.
Among those for whom Wynkyn de Worde
worked shortly before his death was John Byddell;
a stationer living at the sign of c Our Lady of Pity,'
next Fleet Bridge, who for some reason spoke of
himself under the name of Salisbury. He used as
his device a figure of Virtue, copied from one of
those in use by Jacques Sacon, printer at Lyons
56 English Printing
between 1498 and 1522 (see Silvestrc, Nos, 548 and
912). The same device, only in a larger form and
with the lion of St. Mark on the shields, was in
use also at Venice.
Byddell had probably been established as a
stationer some years before the appearance of Eras-
mus's Enchiridion Militis Christiani from the press
of De Worde in 1533, with his name in the colophon.
Another book printed for him by De Worde, in the
same year, was a quarto edition of the Life of Hylde-
brand. Both these works De Worde reprinted in
1534, in addition to printing for him John Roberts'
A Mustre of scismatyke Bysshoppes. Byddell was
appointed one of the executors to De Worde's will,
and very shortly after his death, i.e. in 1535,
moved to De Worde's premises, the e Sun,' in Fleet
Street.
Most of ByddelTs books were of a theological
character. He printed a quarto Horae ad usum
Sarum in 1535, a small Primer in English in 1536,
and a folio edition of Taverner's Bible in 1539 for
Thomas Berthelet.
Among the miscellaneous books that came
through his press, one or two are especially inter-
esting. In 1538 we find him printing in quarto
Lindsay's Complaynte and Testament of a Popinjay,
a work that had first appeared in Scotland eight
years before, and created considerable stir. A
quarto edition of William Turner's Libellus de Re
Herbaria bears the same date; while among the
Tliomas Bertlielet to ^ohn Day 57
books of the year 1540 are editions, in octavo, of
Cicero's De Officiis and De Senectute.
The latest date found in any book of ByddelTs
printing is 1544, after which Edward Whitchurch is
lound at the ' Sun ' in Fleet Street, whither he
moved after dissolving partnership with Richard
Grafton.
The early history of these two men has a special
interest, because of the part they played in printing
and publishing the English Bible. 1
From the affidavit of Emmanuel Demetrius [i.e.
Van Meteren], discovered in 1884 a * the Dutch
Church in Austin Friars, 2 it seems clear that in 1535
Edward Whitchurch was working with Jacob van
Meteren at Antwerp in printing Coverdale's trans-
lation of the Bible.
Richard Grafton was the son of Nicholas Grafton
of Shrewsbury. The first record we have of him is
his apprenticeship to John Blage, a grocer of London,
in 1526. Admitted a freeman of the Company in
1534, he employed himself in furthering the project
of an English translation of the whole Bible. On
the I3th August 1537, Grafton sent to Archbishop
Cranmer a copy of the Bible printed abroad. The
text was a modification of Coverdale's translation
1 The chief authority on the subject is J. A. Kingdon's Incidents in
the Lives of Thomas Poyntz and Richard Grafton^ privately printed in
1895. See also Records of the English Bible, edited by A. W. Pollard,
1911.
a The Registers of the Dutch Church, Austin Friars > edited by
W. J. C. Moens (Introduction, pp. xiii.-xiv.).
58 English Printing
ostensibly by Thomas Mathew, but in reality by
John Rogers the editor. In 1538, Coverdale, Graf-
ton, and Whitchurch were together in Paris, busy
upon a third edition of the Bible. In June of that
year they sent two specimens of the text to Crom-
well, with a letter stating that they followed the
Hebrew text with Chaldee or Greek interpretations.
The printing was done at the press of Francis Reg-
nault, but before many sheets had been struck off
the University of Paris seized the press and 2000
copies of the printed sheets, while the promoters
had to make a hasty escape to this country. The
presses and types were afterwards bought by Crom-
well, and the work was subsequently finished and
published in 1539, the edition being known as the
Great Bible* The work had a woodcut title-page,
ascribed to Holbein, and the price was fixed at ten
shillings per copy unbound, and twelve shillings
bound.
Before leaving Paris, Graf ton and Whitchurch had
issued an edition of Coverdale's translation of the
New Testament, giving as their reason that James
Nicholson of Southwark had printed a very im-
perfect version of it.
In 1540 Grafton and Whitchurch printed in * the
house late the graye freers 5 The Prymer both in Eng~
lysshe and Latin, to be sold at the sign of the Bible
in St. Paul's Churchyard, and also a' second edition
of the great Bible, with a prologue by Cranmer.
Half of this edition bore the name of Grafton and
TLiomas Berthelet to John Day 59
half that of Whitchurch, and in all probability the
subsequent editions were published in the same
way. Two very good initial letters were used in the
New Testament, and seem to have been cut especi-
ally for Whitchurch. On the 28th January 1543-44
Grafton and Whitchurch received an exclusive
patent for printing church service books (Rymer,
Foedera, xiv. 766), and a few years later they are
found with an exclusive right for printing primers in
Latin and English. Upon the accession of Edward
VI, Grafton became the royal printer, but upon the
king's death he printed the proclamation of Lady
Jane Grey, and was for that reason deprived of his
office by Queen Mary. The remainder of his life he
spent in the compilation of English Chronicles in
keen rivalry with John Stow.
Richard Grafton died in 1573, He was twice
married. By his first wife, Anne, daughter of
Crome of Salisbury, he had four sons and one
daughter, Joan, who married Richard Tottell, the
law printer. By his second wife, Alice, he left one
son, Nicholas.
Grafton used as his device a tun with a grafted
fruit-tree growing through it.
Among the noted booksellers and printers in
St. Paul's Churchyard at this time must be men-
tioned William Bonham. From a series of docu-
ments discovered at the Record Office relating to
John Rastell and his house called the ! Mermaid'
in Cheapside, it appears that in the year 1520
60 Englisji Printing
Bonham was working in London as a bookseller,
and on two different occasions was a sub-tenant
of RastelTs at the ' Mermaid. 1 Yet not a single dated
book with his name is found before 1542, at which
time he was living at the sign of the Red Lion in
St Paul's Churchyard, and issued a folio edition
of Fabyan's Chronicles, besides having a share with
his neighbour, Robert Toye, in a folio edition of
Chaucer. Even at this time William Bonham held
some sort of office in the Guild or Society of Sta-
tioners, for from a curious letter written by Abbot
Stevenage to Cromwell in 1539, about a certain
book printed in St. Albans Abbey, he says he has
sent the printer to London with Harry Pepwell,
Toy, and 'Bonere' (Letters afad Papers, H. 8,
vol. xiv, p. 2, No. 315), so that it would look as if
they were commissioned to hunt down popish
heretical and seditious books. By the marriage of
his daughter, Joan, to William Norton, the book-
seller, who in turn named his son Bonham Norton,
the history of the descendants of William Bonham
can be followed up for quite a century later.
At the Long Shop in the Poultry we can see the
press at work almost without a break from the
early years of the sixteenth century till the close
of the first quarter of the seventeenth, Upon the
removal of Richard Bankes into Fleet Street its
next occupant was Richard Kele, who in 1542 issued
a Primer in Englysh from this house. He was the
son of Thomas Kele, stationer of Canterbury, who,
Thomas Berthelet to ~ohn Day 61
in 1526, had occupied John Rastell's house, the
'Mermaid/ as stated by Bonham in his evidence.
During 1543, in company with Byddell, Grafton,
Middleton, Mayler, Petit, and Lant, Richard Kele
was imprisoned in the Poultry Compter for printing
unlawful books (Acts of Privy Council, New Series,
vol. i, pp. 107, 117, 125). Most of the books that
hear his name came from the presses of William
Seres, Robert Wyer, and William Copland, Per-
haps the most interesting of his publications next
to the edition of Chaucer, which he shared with
Toye and Bonham, are the series of poems by John
Skelton, called Why come ye not to Courte? Colin
Clout, and The Boke of Phyllip Sparowe. They
were issued in octavo form, and were evidently very
hastily turned out from the press, type, woodcuts,
and workmanship being of the worst description.
Another occupant of the Long Shop for a short
time was John Mychell, who is without doubt
identical with the Canterbury printer of that name.
A fragment of an undated quarto edition of the
Life of St. Margaret, fortunately bearing the colo-
phon, and fragments of another book called The
Life of St. Gregory's Mother, prove that Mychell
was working in London either just before Kele took
the shop or for about a year after he left it.
Looking back over the work done at this time,
it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the
art of printing in England had much deteriorated
since the days of Pynson, whilst the best of it, even
62 English Printing
that of Berthelet, could not be compared with that
of the continental presses of the same period.
There was an entire absence of originality among
the English printers. Types, woodcuts, initial
letters, ornaments, and devices were obtained by
the printers from abroad, and had seen some service
before their arrival in this country. But just at
this time a printer came to the front in this country,
who for a few years placed the art on a higher foot-
ing than any of his predecessors*
CHAPTER IV
JOHN DAY
JOHN DAY, one of the best and most enterprising of
English printers, was born in the year 1522 at Dun-
wich, in Suffolk, a once flourishing town, now buried
beneath the sea.
From certain entries in the archives of the city ol
London, it appears that before 1540 he was in the
service of a printer named Thomas Raynald or
Reynold, who was then living in Finsbury.
In John Day's first books there was no sign of the
skill he afterwards manifested. These were pub-
lished in conjunction with William Seres, of whom
nothing else is known. The partners began work in
the year 1546 at the sign of the * Resurrection ' on
Snow Hill, a little above Holborn Conduit; that is,
somewhere in th6 neighbourhood of the present via-
duct. They had also another shop in Cheapside.
Their first book, so far as we know, was Sir David
Lindsay's poem, c The Tragical death of David
Beaton, Bishop of St. Andrews in Scotland; Wher-
unto is joyned the martyrdom of maister G. Wyseharte
. . . for whose sake the aforesayd bishoppe was not
long after slayne ' (1546. 8vo).
In the following year (1547) Day and Seres
$3
64 English Printing
printed several other books of a religious character,
nearly all of them in octavo, including Cope's Godly
Meditation upon the psalms, and Tyndale's Parable
of the Wicked Mammon.
Their work in 1548 included a second edition of
the Consultation of Hermann, the bishop of Cologne ;
Robert's Crowley's Confutation of Myles Hoggarde ;
a sermon of Latimer's ; a metrical dialogue aimed at
the priesthood and entitled John Bon and Mast
Person ; and, as a relief to so much theological litera-
ture, the Herbal of William Turner.
The types used in printing these books were not a
whit better than anybody else's. There was the
usual fount of large black letter, not by any means
new, another much smaller letter of the same cBar-
acter, and a very poor fount of Roman capitals.
The workmanship was no better than the types.
There was no pagination in these books, and no
devices, and the setting of the letterpress was very
uneven.
In 1548 Seres joined partnership with another
printer, Anthony Scoloker, who had recently come
from Ipswich and moved to a house in St. Paul's
Churchyard, called Peter College ; but his name still
continued to appear with Day's down to the year
1551, when the partnership was dissolved, Day
moving to Aldersgate, but retaining his shop in
Cheapside.
The most important undertaking of the partner-
ship was a folio edition of the Bible in 1549. This
~ohn Day 65
was printed in the smaller of the two founts of black
letter in double columns, with some good initials
and a great many woodcuts that had evidently been
used before, as they extend beyond the letterpress.
Another edition printed by Day alone appeared in
1551, in which a good initial E> showing Edward VI
on his throne, is found. Early in the year 1550,
Day, who had hitherto belonged to the Bowstring-
makers 9 Company, was allowed to become a freeman
of the Company of Stationers.
Soon after the accession of Queen Mary, Day was
arrested and sent to the Tower c for pryntyng of
noythy bokes,' and his press was silent for several
years. Meanwhile the ancient brotherhood of Sta-
tioners was incorporated by Royal Charter as the
'Worshipful Company of Stationers.' The exist-
ence of the brotherhood has been traced to as early
as 1404, and it is frequently mentioned in the
wills of printers and booksellers in the first half of
the sixteenth century. By the Charter of 4th May
1557 it received the Royal authority to make its
own laws for the regulation of the trade, although,
as Mr, Arber has pointed out, the charter * rather
confirmed existing customs than erected fresh
powers.' There is abundant evidence that the
Queen's main reason for granting the charter was the
wish to keep the printing trade under closer control.
The newly incorporated company included nearly
all the men connected with the book trade, not only
printers, but booksellers, bookbinders, and type-
66 English Printing
founders. There were some who, for some unex-
plained reason, were not enrolled. The omission
of others is easily accounted for. Grafton and
Whitchurch were both in disgrace, Grafton for
having printed Lady Jane's proclamation, and
Whitchurch for his opinions, while Hugh Singleton's
name was probably absent for the same reason.
In the registers of the company were recorded
the names of the wardens and masters, the names
of all apprentices, with the masters to whom they
were bound, and the names of those who took up
their freedom. The titles of all books were sup-
posed to be entered by the printer or publisher, a
small fee being paid in each case, As a matter of
fact many books were not so entered. Entries of
gifts to the corporation, and of fines levied on the
members, also form part of the annual record.
Literary men of the eighteenth century were the
first to discover and make use of the wealth of
information contained in the Registers of the
Stationers' Company; but it fell to the lot of
Mr. Arber to give English scholars a full transcript of
the earlier registers. In order to make it complete,
he supplemented the work with numerous valuable
papers in the Record Office and other archives, and
a bibliographical list down to the year 1603,
The first master of the company was Thomas
Dockwray, Proctor of the Court of Arches; and
the wardens were John Cawood, the Queen's printer,
and Henry Cooke.
~ohn Day 67
Day's name occurs in the charter, and his press
was evidently at work again in that year, for there
is a Sarum Missal of that date with his imprint,
besides several other books, including Thomas
Tusser's Hundred Points of Good Husserye (i.e.
Housewifery) ; William Bullein's Government oj
Health, and sundry proclamations. But it was not
until 1559 that his books began to show that ex-
cellence of workmanship that laid the foundation
of his fame. In that year he issued in folio The
Cosmographicall Glasse of William Cunningham, a
physician of Norwich. As a specimen of the printer's
art it was far in advance of any of Day's previous
work, and, moreover, was in advance of anything
seen in England before that time. The text was
printed in a large, flowing italic letter of great
beauty, further enhanced by several well-executed
woodcut initials. Amongst these was a letter c D,'
containing the arms of the Earl of Leicester, to
whom the work was dedicated. There were also
scattered through the book several diagrams and
maps, a fine portrait of the author, and a plan of
the city of Norwich. Some of these illustrations
and initials were signed J, B., others J. D. The
title-page was also engraved with allegorical figures
of the arts and sciences.
Students and lovers of good books may well pay
a tribute to the memory of that scholarly church-
man, Archbishop Parker, who rescued so many of
the books that were scattered at the dissolution
68 English Printing
of the monasteries, and enriched Cambridge Uni-
versity and some of its colleges by his gifts of books
and manuscripts. But Matthew Parker did not
stop short at book-collecting. He believed that
good books should be well printed, and on his ac-
cession to power under Elizabeth, he encouraged
John Day and others, both with his authority and
his purse, to cut new founts of type and to print
books in a worthy form.
In 1560 Day began to print the collected works
of Thomas Becon, the reformer. The whole impres-
sion occupied three folio volumes, and was not com-
pleted until 1564. The founts chiefly used in this
were black letter of two sizes, supplemented with
italic and Roman. The initials used in the Cosmo-
graphicall Glasse appeared again in this, and the
title-page to each part was enclosed in an elaborate
architectural border, having in the bottom panel
Day's small device, a block showing a sleeper
awakened, and the words, * Arise, for it is Day/ At
the end was a fine portrait of the printer.
Another important undertaking of the year 1560
was a folio edition of the Commentaries of Joannes
Philippson, otherwise called Sleidanus. This Day
printed for Nicholas England, the fount of large
italic being used in conjunction with black letter.
Sermons of Calvin, Bullinger, and Latimer are
all that we have to illustrate his work during the
next two years. But in 1563 appeared a handsome
folio, the editio princeps of Actes and Monumentes
~ohn Day 69
of these latter and perillous Dayes, touching matters
of the Church, better known as Foxe's Book of
Martyrs.
During Mary's reign Foxe had found a home on
the Continent. In 1554, while at Strasburg, he had
published, through the press of Wendelin Richel,
a Latin treatise on the persecutions of the reformers,
under the title of Commentarii rerum in Ecdesia
gestarum maximarumque persecutionum a Vuiclem
temporibus descriptio. From Strasburg he removed
to Basle, and from the press of Oporinus, in 1559,
appeared the Latin edition of the Book of Martyrs.
He did not return to England until October of that
year, when he settled in Aldgate, and made weekly
visits to the printing-house of John Day, who was
then busy on the English edition.
Foxe's Actes and Monumentes is a work of 2008
folio pages, printed in double columns, the type used
being a small English black letter, the same which
had been used in Becon's Works, supplemented with
various sizes of italic and Roman. It was illus-
trated throughout with woodcuts representing the
tortures and deaths of the martyrs. A very hand-
some initial letter E, showing Queen Elizabeth aud
her courtiers, is also found in it. A Royal procla-
mation ordered that a copy of it should be set up in
every parish church. From this time Foxe appears
to have worked as translator and editor for John
Day, and was for a while living in the printer's
house.
yo English Printing
Archbishop Parker meanwhile had induced Day
to cast a fount of Saxon types in metal. The first
book in which these were used was Aelfric's * Saxon
Homily, 5 i.e. the Sermon of the Paschal Lamb, ap-
pointed by the Saxon bishop to be read at Easter
before the Sacrament, an Epistle of Aelfric to Wulf-
sine, the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and the X Com-
mandments, all of which were included in the
general title of A Testimonye of Antiquity, c shewing
the auncient fayth in the Church of England touch-
ing the Sacrament of the body and bloude of the
Lord here publykely preached and also receaved in
the Saxons tyme, above 600 yeares agoe.'
Speaking of Day's Saxon fount, the late Mr.
Talbot Reed, in his Old English Letter Foundries
(p. 96), says :
* The Saxon fount ... is an English in body, very clear and
bold. Of the capitals eight only, including two diphthongs, are
distinctively Saxon, the remaining eighteen letters being ordi-
nary Roman ; while in the lowercase there are twelve Saxon
letters, as against fifteen of the Roman. The accuracy and
regularity with which this fount was cut and cast is highly
creditable to Day's excellence as a founder/
Although this book (an octavo) bore no date, the
names of the subscribing bishops fix it at 1566 or
1567. In the latter year appeared the Archbishop's
metrical version of the Psalter, which he had com-
piled during his enforced exile under Mary. In
connection with this it may be well to point out
that Day printed many editions of the Psalter with
musical notes. In 1568 Day used the Saxon types
~ohn Day 71
again to print William Lambard's Archaionomia,
a book of Saxon laws. Amongst his other produc-
tions of that year must be mentioned the folio
edition of Peter Martyr's Commentary on the Epistle
to the Romans ; Gildas the historian's De excidio et
conquestu Britanniae, 1568, 8vo; and a French
version of Vandernoot's Theatre for Worldlings , * le
Theatre auquel sont exposes et monstres les incon-
veniens et miseres qui suivent les mondains et
vicieux, ensemble les plaisirs et contentements dont
les fideles jouissent."* There is a copy of this very
rare book in the Grenville collection. The Theatre
for Worldlings was translated into English the
following year, and contained verses from the pen of
Edmund Spenser, then a boy of sixteen. Another
literary work of some importance which issued from
Day's press was the authorised version, published in
1570, of a play which had been acted nine years
before by the gentlemen of the Inner Temple before
Her Majesty. It had shortly afterwards been pub-
lished by William Griffith of Fleet Street as :
The tragedy of Gorboduc, whereof Three Actes
were wrytten by Thomas Norton and the two last by
Thomas Sackvyle. Set forth as the same was
shewed before the Queenes most excellent Maiestie
in her highnes Court of Whitehall, the xviii day of
January Anno Domini 1561, By the gentlemen of
Thynner Temple in London.' Day's edition was
entitled :
'The Tragidie of Ferrex and Porrex, set forth
72 English Printing
without addition or alteration, but altogether as the
same was showed on stage before the Queens Mai-
estie about nine yeares past, viz. the xviii day of
Januarie 1561, by the gentlemen of the Inner
Temple.' Another important work of that year was
Roger Ascham's Scholemaster, in quarto.
In 1571 Day issued the Reformatio Legum Eccle-
siasticarum, a quarto of some 300 pages. In this we
find a new device representing two hands holding a
slab upon which is a crucible with a heart in it, sur-
rounded by flames, the word ' Christus * being on
the slab. From the wrists hangs a chain, and in the
centre of this is suspended a globe, and beneath that
again is a representation of the sun. Round the
chain is a ribbon with the words c Horum CharitasS
This device was placed on the title-page, which was
surrounded by a neat border of printer's ornaments.
The Booke of certaine Canons, 4to, was another
publication of this year for the due ordering of the
Church. This, like most public documents, was in
a large black letter. There were also c Articles of
the London Synod of 1562.' As a specimen of the
rel gious sermons or discourses of the time we have
a very good example in another of Day's publica-
tions in 1571, a reprint of The Poore Mans Librariv,
a discourse by George Alley, Bishop of Exeter, upon
the First Epistle of St. Peter, which made up a very
respectable folio, printed in Day's best manner, and
with a great number of founts.
Day's prosperity roused the envy of his fellow-
~o:in Day 73
stationers, and they tried their best to hinder the
sale of his books and cause him annoyance. This
opposition took a violent form in 1572, when Day,
whose premises at Aldersgate had become too small
to carry on his growing business, his stock being
valued at that time between 2000 and 3000,
obtained the leave of the Dean and Chapter of
St. Paul's to set up a little shop in St. Paul's Church-
yard for the sale of his books. The booksellers
appealed to the Lord Mayor, who was prevailed upon
to stop Day's proceedings, and it required all the
power and influence of Archbishop Parker, backed
by an order of the Privy Council, to enable the
printer to carry out his project. 1
The Archbishop meanwhile had been busy fur-
nishing replies to Nicholas Sanders' book De Visi-
bili Monarchia, and amongst those whom he selected
for the work was Dr. Clerke of Cambridge, who
accordingly wrote a Latin treatise entitled Fidelis
Servi subdito infideli Responsio. From a letter
written by the Archbishop to Lord Burleigh at this
time, we learn that John Day had cast a special
fount of Italian letter for this book at a cost of
forty marks. 2
By Italian letter is here meant Roman, and not
italic as Mr. Reed supposes, for the Responsio was
printed in a new fount of that type, clear, even, and
free from abbreviations.
1 See Strype's Life of Parker, p. 541. Arber's Transcript, vol. ii.
* Strype's Life of Parker \ pp. 382, 541.
74 English Printing
In the same year (1572) Day printed at the Arch-
bishop's private press at Lambeth his great work
De Antiquitate Britannicae Ecclesiae in folio, in a
new fount of italic, with preface in Roman, and the
titles and sub-titles in the larger italic of the Cosmo-
graphicatt Glasse. It was a special feature of Day's
letter-founding that he cut the Roman and italic
letters to the same size. Before his time there was
no uniformity; the separate founts mixed badly,
and spoilt the appearance of many books that
would otherwise have been well printed.
The De Antiquitate is believed to have been the
first book printed at a private press in England.
The issue was limited to fifty copies, and the ma-
jority of them .were in the Archbishop's possession
at the time of his death.
But while he encouraged printing in one direction,
Matthew Parker rigorously persecuted it in another.
Just at this time there was much division among
Protestants on matters of doctrine and ceremonial,
and Thomas Cartwright published, in 1572, a book
entitled A Second Admonition to the Parliament, in
which he defended those who had been imprisoned
for airing their opinions in the first Admonition.
This book, like many others of the time, was printed
secretly, and strenuous search was made by the
wardens of the Stationers' Company, Day being
one, to discover the hidden press. The search was
successful, but unpleasant consequences followed
for John Day. One of the printers of the pro-
ohn Day 75
hibited book turned out to be an apprentice of his
own named Asplyn. He was released after exami-
nation, and again taken into service by his late
master. But the following year the Archbishop
reported to the Council that this man Asplyn had
tried to kill both Day and his wife.
Day's work in 1573 included a folio edition of
the whole works of William Tyndale, John Frith,
and Doctor Barnes, in two volumes. This was
printed in two columns, with type of the same size
and character as that used in the ' Works ' of Becon,
some of the initial letters closely resembling those
found in books printed by Reginald Wolfe. In the
same year Day issued a life of Bishop Jewell, for
which he cut in wood a number of Hebrew words.
In 1574 we reach the summit* of excellence in
Day's work. It was in that year that he printed;
for Archbishop Parker, Asser's Life of Alfred, the
Great (Aelfredi Regis Res Gestae) in folio. In this
the Saxon type cast for the ; Saxon Homily ' in 1567
was again used in conjunction with the magnificent
founts of double pica Roman and italic. With it
is usually bound Walsingham's Ypodigme Neustria
and Historia Brevis, the first printed by Day, and
the second by Bynneman, who unquestionably used
the same types, so that it may be inferred that the
fount was at the disposal of the Archbishop, at
whose expense all three books were issued.
Another series of publications that came from
the press of John Day in 1574 were the writings
76 English Printing
of John Caius on the history and antiquities of the
two Universities. They are generally found bound
together in the following order :
1. De Antiquitate Cantabrigiensis Academiae.
2. Assertio Antiquitatis Oxoniensis Academiae.
3. Historia Cantabrigiensis Academiae,
4. Johannis Caii Angli, De Pronunciatione Graecae
et Latinae linguae cum scriptione noua
libellus,
The 'Antiquities' and 'History' of Cambridge
were both books of considerable size, the first having
268 pages, without counting prefatory matter and
indexes. The other two were little better than
tracts, the one having only 27 and the other 23
pages. Some editions of the De Antiquitate are
found with a map of Cambridge, while the c History '
contained plates showing the arms of the various
colleges. All four were printed in quarto. The
type used for the text was in each case an italic of
English size, with a small Roman for indexes. The
title-page was enclosed in a border of printers'
ornaments, and the printer's device of the heart was
on the last leaf of two out of the four.
Matthew Parker died in 1575, and the art of
printing, as well as every other art and science, lost
a generous patron. But Day's work was not yet
done, though he printed few large books after this
date. A very curious folio, written by John Dee,
the famous astronomer, entitled General and Rare
"ohn Day 77
Memorials concerning Navigation,, came from his
press in 1577. This work had an elaborate alle-
gorical title-page, by no means a bad specimen of
wood-engraving. It was a history in itself, the
central object being a ship with the Queen seated
in the after part.
In 1578 Day printed a book in Greek and Latin
for the use of scholars, Christianae pietatis prima
institutio y the Greek type being a great improve-
ment on any that had previously appeared. Indeed,
it has been considered equal to those in use by the
Estiennes of Paris.
The year 1580 saw Day Master of the Stationers'
Company. Two years later he was engaged in a
series of lawsuits about his A B C and litell Cate-
chism, a book for which he had obtained a patent
in the days of Edward VI.
As we have already noted, the aim of the Govern-
ment in granting a charter to the Stationers' Com-
pany was not primarily the promotion of good
printing or literature. Printers were looked upon
by the authorities as dangerous persons whom it
was necessary to watch closely. On the sgth June
1566, Elizabeth signed a decree passed by the Star
Chamber, requiring every printer to enter into sub-
stantial recognisances for his good behaviour. No
books were to be printed or imported without the
sanction of a Special Commission of Ecclesiastical
authorities, under a penalty of three months* im-
prisonment and the forfeiture of all right to carry
78 English Printing
on business as a master printer or bookseller in
future, while the officers of the company were in-
structed to carry out strict search for all prohibited
books.
On the other hand, while thus retaining a tight
rein on the printing trade, the Queen granted
special patents for the sole printing of certain classes
of books to individual master printers, and threatened
pains and penalties upon any other member of the
craft who should dare to print them. In this way
all the best-paying work in the trade became the
property of some dozen or so of printers. Master
Tottell was allowed the sole printing of Law Books,
Master Jugge the sole printing of Bibles, James
Roberts and Richard Watkins the sole printing of
Almanacs; Thomas Vautrollier, a stranger, was
allowed toprint all Latin books except the Grammars,
which were given to Thomas Marsh, and John Day
had received the right of printing ' and selling the
ABC and Litell Catechism, a book largely bought
for schools, and which Christopher Barker declared
was once c the onelye reliefe of the porest sort of that
Company/ On every side the best-paying work
was seized and monopolised. Nor did the evil cease
there. These patents were invariably granted for
life with reversion to the successor, and they were
bought and sold freely. - There was very little light
literature, and what there was had very few readers.
Hence the poorer members of the company daily
found it harder to live. . Their appeals for redress of
~cun Day 79
grievances, whether addressed to the State or to the
company, which pretended to look after their wel-
fare, were alike in vain, and at length they rose in
open revolt. Half a dozen of them, headed hy two
printers named Roger Ward and John Wolf, boldly
printed the books owned by the patentees. Roger
Ward seized upon this A B C of Day's, and at a
secret press, with type supplied to him by a work-
man of Thomas Purfoot, printed many thousand
copies of the work with Day's mark. Hence the
proceedings in ijie Star Chamber. They did very
little good. Ward defied imprisonment ; and the
agitators would undoubtedly have gained more than
they did had it not been for the desertion of John
Wolf, who, after declaring that he would work a re-
formation in the printing trade similar to that which
Luther had worked in religion, quietly allowed him-
self to be bought over, and died in eminent respect-
ability as Printer to the City of London, leaving
Ward and others to cany on the war. This they
did with such effect that, forced to find a remedy,
the patentees of the company at length agreed to
relax their grasp of some of the books that they had
laid their hands upon. Day is said to have relin-
quished no fewer than fifty-three, and this number
is in itself a commentary on the magnitude of the
monopolies.
John Day died at Walden in Essex, on the 2y:d
July 1584, at the age of sixty-two, and was buried
at Bradley Parva, where there is a fair tomb and a
8o English Printing
lengthy poetical epitaph to his virtues and abilities.
He was twice married, and is said to have had
twenty-six children, of whom one son, Richard, was
for a short time printer, and another, John, took
Orders, and became rector of Little Thurlow in
Suffolk.
John Day had three devices. His earliest, and
perhaps his best, was a large block of a skeleton
lying on an elaborately chased bier, with a tree at
the back, and two figures, an old man and a young,
standing beside it. This may have^ been typical of
the Resurrection, the sign of the house in which he
began business. Then we find the device of the
heart in his later books, and finally there is the
block of the sleeper awakened, but this almost
always formed part of the title-page.
APPENDIX
LIST OF PRINTERS AND STATIONERS ENROLLED
IN THE CHARTER
Alday, John, Brodehead, Gregory.
Broke, Robert.
Baldwyn, Richard. Browne, Edward.
Baldwyn, William. Burtoft, John.
Blythe, Robert. Bylton, Thomas.
Bonharn, John.
Bonham, William. Case, John.
Bourman, Nicholas. Cater, Edward.
Boyden, Thomas. Cawood, John.
ohn Day 81
Clarke, John. Ireland, Roger.
Cleston, Nicholas.
Cooke, Henry. Jaques, John.
Cooke, W
