book two

leaves only are known, preserved in a binding in St John’s College, Cambridge. These were first noticed by Henry Bradshaw, who found also some leaves of the Oxford Anwykyll in a similar binding in Corpus. When the two books, Hollen’s _Præceptorium_ printed by Koburger at Nuremberg in 1505, from St John’s, and the _Fortalitium fidei_ printed at Lyons in 1511, from Corpus, were compared, it was clear that they must have been bound by the same binder almost at the same time, for, besides the fragments of Oxford books found in both, the binder had used in each fragments of one and the same vellum manuscript. From the occurrence of these fragments Mr Gibson has claimed the binding as Oxford work, but as the fragments were binder’s, not printer’s waste, that is they were from books that had been in circulation, no very strong argument can be deduced from them. I have in my own collection a book bound at Cambridge by Garrat Godfrey, with his signed roll, of which the boards are entirely made of fragments of the Oxford Lyndewode.

After 1485 we hear no more of Rood, but it was for a time considered possible, if not probable, that he was identical with another printer named Theodoric, who printed some books at Cologne in 1485 and 1486 in a distinctive type remarkably resembling that used by Rood in the Hales and Lathbury. The supposition had much in its favour; the types were undeniably alike, both being of the same class as that used by Ther Hoernen, another Cologne printer. The name Theodoricus again was extremely uncommon. Panzer gives only three in the fifteenth century, the Oxford and Cologne printers, and the well-known Thierry Martens, the printer of the Low Countries. There was no proof, and there was no direct evidence of any kind, but the hypothesis was not quite groundless. For some reason, in a review of Vouillième’s work on Cologne printing, Proctor fell upon this “myth formed without a particle of evidence,” as he called it, though it was only from information in the book reviewed that any new facts about Theodoric were derived. Vouillième discovered documents showing that the Cologne Theodoric was a son of Gertrude Molner, who subsequently married Arnold Ther Hoernen, and after his death in 1483 or 1484, Conrad von Boppard.

The last book from the early Oxford press was an edition of the _Liber Festivalis_ or _Festial_, consisting of sermons for holy days and certain Sundays of the year, compiled by John Mirk, prior of Lilleshall in Shropshire. Though generally spoken of as a mere reprint of Caxton’s edition, it varies very considerably in the text, and when Caxton issued a new edition he copied from this rather than his own earlier version.

This is the only Oxford book which was illustrated, and the illustrations are very interesting. A series of eleven large oblong woodcuts occur, and all have been mutilated by having some two inches cut off the blocks to allow of their being used on a small folio page. No other editions of the _Festial_ are illustrated, and Bradshaw pointed out that these cuts were really part of a set intended to illustrate an edition of the _Golden Legend_. In the Lyndewode, issued about 1483, the printer had used one of these cuts in a complete state, so that as early as 1483 he had evidently been considering the issue of a _Golden Legend_ and had begun to make preparations. But Caxton in London was at work on the same book, and, finishing his translation in November 1483, no doubt issued his volume early in 1484. From his prologue we learn that the labour and expense of production were so heavy that he was “halfe desperate to have accomplissed it”; and we can quite understand the Oxford printer hesitating to embark upon a rival edition of a book so expensive to produce, and with which the market had just been supplied. The smaller illustrations belong to a set made for a _Book of Hours_, but no edition containing them is known to exist.

In this book occurs also the only woodcut initial letter used at the press, a very roughly cut G without any ornament. Though of the very poorest appearance, it was used with considerable frequency; for it is found between fifty and sixty times at the usual commencement of the sermons “Good men and women.”

Four copies of the book are known. Two in the Bodleian, very imperfect, and one in the Rylands Library wanting the first two leaves. The finest is at Lambeth, which wants only the last, blank, leaf.

The printing of the book was finished in 1486, “on the day after Saint Edward the King,” presumably March 19; but there is nothing to show whether this would be the year 1486 or 1487 of our reckoning. The only other provincial press of the fifteenth century, that of St Alban’s, stopped also in 1486, but so far no good reason has been suggested for this simultaneous cessation. That it was due to any political or religious motive, as is sometimes stated, is very improbable; the growing foreign competition seems a more reasonable cause.

From the very earliest times there appear to have been two classes of stationers in Oxford, those who were sworn servants of the University, and those who worked independently. A deed of 1290 shows that the parchment makers, illuminators, and text writers were in the jurisdiction of the Chancellor of the University, and in 1345 the Chancellor was acknowledged to have jurisdiction over four official stationers. A most interesting deed of 1373 sets forth that “There are a great many booksellers in Oxford who are not sworn to the University; the consequence of which is, that books of great value are sold and carried away from Oxford, the owners of them are cheated, and the sworn stationers are deprived of their lawful business. It is therefore enacted that no bookseller, except the sworn stationers or their deputies, shall sell any book, being either his own property or that of another, exceeding half a mark in value, under pain of, for the first offence, imprisonment, for the second, a fine of half a mark, for the third, abjuring his trade within the precincts of the University.” The university stationers in their official capacity had to value manuscripts offered as pledges for money advanced, they seem also to have supplied books to the students at a fixed tariff, and acted as intermediaries between buyer and seller when a student had a book to sell. For these duties they received an occasional fee from the University.

At the time when printing was introduced, we find the same two classes, the University stationers, almost always Englishmen, and the unofficial booksellers and bookbinders, mainly foreigners.

The most important stationer in the fifteenth century was Thomas Hunte, who, we have seen, was for a time a partner with Theodoric Rood the printer. His name first appears in 1473, in which year he sold a Latin Bible, now in the British Museum, and he was then one of the official University stationers. Between 1477 and 1479 he was living in Haberdasher Hall in the parish of St Mary the Virgin. These premises in Cat Street belonged to Oseney Abbey and seem to have been a favourite situation with stationers. In 1479, besides Hunte, a bookbinder, Thomas Uffyngton, who bound for Magdalen College, also resided there. After the appearance of Hunte’s name in the Phalaris of 1485 we find no further mention of him, but his widow was occupying the same premises in 1498.

Another stationer who visited Oxford and was apparently connected with it was Peter Actors, a native of Savoy. On a leaf used in the binding of a French translation of Livy in the Bodleian is a list of books which he and his partner, John of Aix-la-Chapelle, left with Thomas Hunte on sale or return in 1483. His headquarters, however, must have been in London, for in 1485 he was appointed Stationer to the King. It is thus mentioned in the _Materials for a history of Henry VII._, “Grant for life to Peter Actoris, born in Savoy, of the office of stationer to the King; also licence to import, so often as he likes, from parts beyond the sea, books printed and not printed into the port of the city of London, and other ports and places within the kingdom of England, and to dispose of the same by sale or otherwise, without paying customs, etc., thereon and without rendering any account thereof.” Richard III., in an act of 1484, had given special encouragement to foreigners for bringing books into this country or for settling here as booksellers, binders or printers, and there is every evidence that this facility was freely taken advantage of. From the two or three rather conflicting entries relating to the grant to Peter Actors, it is not quite clear whether his appointment was made originally by Richard III. and confirmed by Henry VII. after his accession, or whether it originated with the latter. At any rate from the act and from this appointment we have definite evidence that both kings looked with favour on the book-trade and encouraged it by all means in their power.

The son of Peter Actors, Sebastian, certainly lived in Oxford in the parish of St Mary the Virgin, and was a stationer and bookbinder. In the University archives is the record of a grant of administration after his death dated April 23, 1501. In this a claim is made by a John Hewtee, who had married his sister Margaret, on behalf of her father, Peter Actors, for the tools used in binding.

Among the binding material belonging to the father we may probably include three panel stamps of which impressions are known. Two of them are ornamented with spirals of foliage and flowers enclosing fabulous animals in the curves, while in the centre are two dragons with their necks entwined. Round one of these panels runs the inscription, “Ho mater dei memento Maistre Pierre Auctorre,” while the other has an inscription in French, but no binder’s name. The third panel has a conventional acorn design upon it without any inscription. So far we have not traced these panels to a date early enough for them to have been used by Sebastian Actors, but about 1520 they are used in conjunction with other tools found on Oxford work.

Another stationer, George Chastelain, is first mentioned in the imprint of a grammar printed by Pynson about 1499, “Here endeth the Accidence made at the instance of George Chastelayn and John Bars.” There is no indication where he was then at work, but in 1502 he was admitted as a servant to the liberties of the University. About 1507 Pynson printed for him an edition of the _Principia_ of Peregrinus de Lugo, an extremely rare book, of which, however, there is a copy in the University Library. In this his address is given as the sign of St John Evangelist in the street of St Mary the Virgin. He was a bookbinder as well as a stationer, and in the registers of Magdalen College frequent mention is made of him between 1507 and 1513 as binding books for their library. He died in 1513, and his will was administered by Mr. Wutton and Henry Jacobi, a stationer. An inventory of his goods was made by Howberch, a University stationer, and Richard Pate, and the value returned at £24.

Some time between 1512 and 1514 a stationer named Henry Jacobi migrated from London to Oxford. From 1506 to 1508 he had been in partnership with another bookseller named Joyce Pelgrim, and assisted by a wealthy London merchant named Bretton they issued several books together. Between 1509 and 1512 Jacobi published books alone, though he appears to have still been helped by Bretton.

One book is known printed for Jacobi at Oxford, an edition of the _Formalitates_ of Antonius Sirectus. An imperfect title-page and a few leaves were found by Proctor in the binding of a book in New College Library, and shortly afterwards a copy of the book, wanting a greater part of the title, was identified in the British Museum. It is a quarto of twenty-two leaves, and was printed in London by W. de Worde. On the title-page is the very finely engraved device of Jacobi, probably newly cut, and found in no other of his books, though it was used again in a mutilated state by his successor; and below the device an imprint stating that the book was to be sold in the University of Oxford at the sign of the Trinity, by Henry Jacobi, a London bookseller. His shop in London in St Paul’s Churchyard had also the sign of the Trinity. Jacobi made his will on September 8, 1514, and died shortly after. On November 9 his wife renounced her executorship, and administration was granted to William Bretton, the rich merchant who had assisted him throughout his career. On December 11 administration of the effects of Jacobi was granted at Oxford also to Bretton through his agent, Joyce Pelgrim, Jacobi’s former partner.

[Illustration: TITLE-PAGE OF THE ANTONIUS SIRECTUS, PRINTED FOR H. JACOBI.]

The most interesting figure among the early Oxford stationers is undoubtedly John Dorne or Thorne. In 1507 he was a printer at Brunswick, and printed an edition of the grammar of Remigius entitled _Dominus que pars_, the first book to be printed in that town. In 1509 he printed an edition of the _Regimen Sanitatis_, and with this second book his career as a printer seems to have ended. Later he moved as a bookseller to Oxford, and a valuable memorial of his stay there is preserved in the shape of his day-book or ledger for the whole year 1520. This curious little manuscript is in the library of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and was for long erroneously catalogued as a catalogue of books in the monastery of St Frideswide. Its great interest remained unrecognised. Dibdin was shown it on a visit to Oxford, but as might be expected failed to see its value and took no further notice of it. Coxe, in his catalogue of manuscripts preserved in college libraries, gave a correct account of it in 1852, and finally in 1885 it was admirably edited by Mr Madan and published in the Collectanea of the Oxford Historical Society. At the end of January 1886 a separate copy was sent to Henry Bradshaw, who immediately set to work upon it, and on the 4th of February he sent to Mr Madan a thin bound folio volume of notes, to which he had prefixed a title-page, “A Half-Century of Notes on the Day-book of John Dorne.” This was the last piece of work which Bradshaw finished, and within a week of sending it he was dead.

Dorne’s ledger throws full light on the trade of an unprivileged stationer in a University town. His supply of books necessary for the schools was small. These no doubt would be mostly bought from the licensed University stationer; but all other classes are well represented. Of liturgical books he sold a very large number, and naturally the various works of Erasmus were in great demand. The number of English books sold was relatively small, though there are frequent entries of single sheets, almanacks, and ballads. Such cheaper and popular stock would find a ready sale when he set up his stall at the St Austin’s and St Frideswide’s fairs. Towards the end of May when business was quiet after St Austin’s fair, he went abroad for a couple of months, presumably to arrange for the supply of fresh stock, though his absence did not coincide with the time of the Frankfurt fair. The ledger begins again on August 5, “post recessum meum de ultra mare.” In October came St Frideswide’s fair, when he sold books to the amount of £17, 9s. 6d. as against the £14, 4s. 10d. which he received at the St Austin’s fair in May. Probably during fair time he would have to close his ordinary shop, and transfer his business for the time to a stall in the precincts of the fair itself.

Besides being a bookseller, Dorne was also a publisher on a small scale. An edition of the _Opus Insolubilium_, a book used in the schools at Oxford, and printed by Peter Treveris at Southwark for I. T., has been known for some time from a copy in the library of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. The I. T. was considered to stand for John Thorne, the English form of Dorne. This has been confirmed by a recent discovery. From the sale in 1906 of the library of the Duke of Sutherland at Trentham Hall, a most interesting volume was secured for the University Library. It contained three tracts connected with Oxford. The first was the _Libellus Sophistarum_ printed at London by Wynkyn de Worde, of which there were several editions. The second was another copy of the _Opus Insolubilium_ mentioned above; but the third was an entirely unknown book, an edition of the _Tractatus secundarum intentionum logicalium_. This has a clear imprint starting that the book was to be sold by John Thorne in the year 1527. At the end of the last two pieces is the device of the printer, Peter Treveris. We find frequent entries of these two books in Dorne’s ledger of 1520, so that evidently, finding the sale so good, he determined to have editions printed for himself. It is only from this recent discovery that we are able to attach the date of 1527 to these books printed at Oxford, but this fits in most curiously with an assertion made by the Oxford antiquary, Anthony a Wood. Herbert, in his account of Treveris, wrote: “Mr Wood thought he had printed a Latin grammar of Whitinton’s at Oxford in 1527 as also books about and before that time, but we have not met with any such.” Wood does not speak of any other books except the edition of Whitinton’s grammar, and from his giving the exact date we must either conclude that he was referring to a genuine book which he had seen, or else had seen a copy of this book printed for Dorne and had confused it with some other tract. Wood is also responsible for the assertion that Wynkyn de Worde printed for a while in Oxford, and asserts that a lane called Grope Lane had its name altered to Wynkyn Lane as a memorial of his work there. For this statement there seems no foundation, but it is quite probable that W. de Worde had more considerable dealings with the Oxford stationers than we know at present. He printed a book for Jacobi, to which I have already referred, and when the press was restarted at Oxford in 1517 he supplied some of the material. So much new information has come to light recently about the Oxford book-trade, that we may fairly hope for more, and perhaps discover further dealings there of De Worde.

From the twelfth century onward Oxford appears to have been a great centre of book-binding, not only as the seat of a University, but from the number and importance of the religious houses in its immediate neighbourhood. From various records and registers we get the names of individual binders in an unbroken series. While we can point to exquisite bindings produced at London, Durham, and Winchester as early as the twelfth century, and while doubtless similar fine bindings were produced in Oxford, yet strangely enough and very unfortunately we cannot point to any definite specimen of a decorated Oxford binding earlier than the second half of the fifteenth century. From about 1460 to the end of the century, on the other hand, examples are plentiful, and the bindings of this period have a very distinctive style of their own. The old styles of binding seem to have lingered on in Oxford and even some of the old tools.

The earliest binding which we can definitely point to as executed there is on a volume of sermons written in 1460. The decoration consists of stamps arranged as parallelograms one inside the other and covering the main part of the side. One of the stamps used on this binding, depicting a strange bird, is the identical stamp found on a twelfth-century binding in the British Museum. On the back are found small roundels arranged in sets of three, an ornament very common on all early Oxford bindings, and a single stamp on which the three roundels are engraved seems peculiar to Oxford work. Three manuscripts in Magdalen College, Oxford, written and bound between 1462 and 1470, are of similar early style, and might from their appearance and dies be considered two centuries older. The advent of Rood in Oxford agrees in point of time with the introduction of a class of binding very distinctive in style. The centre of the side contains a panel composed of horizontal rows of stamps and enclosed by a frame formed with an oblong stamp of foliage twined round a staff. On spaces outside the frame are stamped roses and roundels in sets of three. The stamps employed on these bindings show a distinct foreign influence, and many of them are almost identical with those used by foreign binders notably of the Low Countries. Some bindings, certainly produced in Oxford about this time, have not only foreign dies upon them but have them disposed in quite a foreign style, and are probably the work of foreign binders settled in the town. The number of different dies used on Oxford bindings, between 1480 and 1500, is very large. Gibson, in his work on the subject, gives drawings of nearly a hundred; and though some of these are of the simplest character and in no way distinctive, many of them are both clever in design and extremely well engraved.

One or two Oxford bindings of the time show a curious return to another early English style in which the ornament was disposed in circles or part of circles. The finest example is on the Lathbury in the University Library. The centre of each side is ornamented with a circle formed by the repetition of a die depicting two birds drinking from a cup. This die was evidently cut for use in this special way, for the top is wider than the bottom, like the stones of the arch of a bridge, so that when stamped side by side they would work round into a circular form. Another binding of the same style is in the library of St John’s College, Cambridge, and both bear the most extraordinary resemblance, allowing for the different shape and style of the dies, to the covers of the Winchester Domesday book written in 1148 and bound about the same time.

Early bindings fall into three classes, those ornamented with small dies, in vogue until about the end of the fifteenth century, panel stamped bindings used in the early part of the sixteenth, and, finally, the bindings decorated by a roll tool which begin about 1520. We cannot suppose that the Oxford stationers did not use panel stamps, but so far none can be identified as peculiar to Oxford. The panels of Peter Actoris have been already spoken of, but it is not certain they were ever used in Oxford. Henry Jacobi, who came to Oxford from London about 1512 and died in 1514, had certainly various panels which he had used in London, but he may not have transferred them to Oxford. Of stationers or binders who lived and worked in Oxford alone no single panel has yet been identified. Unfortunately, not a single book printed for or at Oxford in the early sixteenth century is known in an original binding.

In good specimens of roll-tooled bindings again Oxford is singularly deficient, in curious contrast to Cambridge, which rivals if not surpasses London in this class of work. There are no fine broad rolls, and only one bearing initials. This is a roll engraved with a waving spray of foliage containing in the curves the initials R. H. M. I. What these initials stand for is unknown, and the roll is only claimed as an Oxford one from its use on the covers of a Brasenose College register. For the rest of the century Oxford binding is entirely uninteresting.

LECTURE II.

SAINT ALBAN’S, YORK, AND HEREFORD.

The only other provincial town besides Oxford which possessed a printing press in the fifteenth century was St Alban’s, where an unnamed printer started to work about the year 1479. As to who the printer was we have no clue beyond the simple statement made by Wynkyn de Worde in the colophon of his edition of the _Chronicles of England_, “Here endyth this present cronycle of Englonde wyth the frute of tymes, compiled in a booke and also enprynted by one somtyme scole master of saynt Albons, on whoos soule God have mercy.” The printer is therefore generally known as the schoolmaster-printer. Sir Henry Chauncy, when he wrote his history of Hertfordshire, was not to be deterred by this vagueness from giving this printer a name, and he appears in that work, and others based on it, as John Insomuch. The proof is clear. The printer printed only two books in English. One begins: “In so muche that it is necessari to all creaturis of cristen religyon;” the other, “In so much that gentill men and honest persones.” What further proof could be wanted that the printer’s surname was Insomuch? As to the printer’s Christian name having been John, the arguments would appear to have been less weighty, at any rate no authority has condescended to mention them.

Whoever the printer may have been, he was probably not a foreigner, at any rate no foreign design can be traced in his type, which is perhaps modelled on Caxton’s, though differing considerably. Though as a schoolmaster he might be supposed to have been connected with the Abbey, there is no reference to it in his colophons, which always mention clearly the town of St Alban’s. The saltire on a shield, which occurs in his mark, was alike the arms of the Abbey and of the town.

The first book issued from this press was a small work of Augustinus Datus, usually called _Super eleganciis Tullianis_, of which the only known copy is in the Cambridge University Library. It is a small quarto of eighteen leaves and is printed in a peculiarly delicate gothic letter. It has no date, only the simple colophon, “Impressum fuit opus hoc apud Sanctum Albanum.” The type is very graceful and clear; it looks almost like the production of an Italian workman copying from a Caxton model, though, as I have said, we have no reason for supposing the printer to have been a foreigner. For some reason he seems not to have been satisfied with it, and so far as we know no other book was ever printed in it and beyond being used for signatures in two later books, no further use was made of it. This first book also stands apart from the rest in being without printed signatures, which would at once place it without any further proof at the head of the list of St Alban’s books.

In 1480 the printer issued his first dated book, the _Rhetorica Nova_ of Laurentius de Saona, and in this the influence of another press can be clearly traced. The printer had discarded his first fount and obtained a new one with a strong superficial resemblance to Caxton’s Type No. 2*, the very type which Caxton had used to print his edition of the same book. There is one curious point about this book which is rarely met with, it is partly a quarto and partly an octavo; that is, it is partly made up from large sheets of paper folded three times, and partly from small sheets folded twice. A somewhat similar example may be found in the _Chronicles_ printed by Machlinia, which is a folio, with a few pages quarto. This is the most common of the Latin books issued by the St Alban’s printer, for at least five copies are known, one of which is in the University Library.

The other book which the printer issued in 1480 is printed in another new type, quite the ugliest and most confusing of English fifteenth-century types, and full of bewildering contractions. It is an edition of the _Liber modorum significandi_ of Albertus, and the only known copy, which had belonged to Tutet and Wodhull, is now in the Bibliothèque Nationale. Three more books were printed in this type, Joannes Canonicus on the _Physica_ of Aristotle, Antonius Andreæ on the _Logica_, and the _Exempla Sacræ Scripturæ_. The first of these is a folio printed in double columns, and two copies are known, one in the Bodleian, and the other in the library of York Minster, while a number of odd leaves are in the library of Clare College, and a few at Peterhouse.

Of the _Antonius Andreæ_ three copies are known, one in Norwich Cathedral, another wanting two leaves in Jesus College, Cambridge, and the last wanting eight leaves in Wadham College, Oxford. The Cambridge and Norwich copies are both in their original bindings. The signatures in this book are curious, for the printer, having come to the end of his first alphabet, continued with contractions and then signed two more sheets one “est” and the other “amen.” Bradshaw, comparing the Cambridge and Norwich volumes side by side, found some variations pointing to the reprinting of certain sheets. The _Exempla Sacræ Scripturæ_ is known from two copies, one in the British Museum, and one said to be in the Inner Temple Library, though its existence is doubtful. For a long time the Museum copy was lost sight of. When Blades began to work on the St Alban’s printer with a view to writing a preface to the facsimile of the _Book of St Alban’s_, he was anxious to see a copy of this book. Herbert had quoted copies as in His Majesty’s library and the Inner Temple, but neither were forthcoming. The authorities in London thought it probable that the book was in the Bibliothèque Nationale. In those days there were no special catalogues of the British Museum Incunabula, or Early English Books, though as a matter of fact this book has not been included in the latter, and his researches were at a standstill. Finally, quite by accident, Bradshaw found it in the general catalogue, under the heading, “Bible, Latin, Parts of, Incipiunt.”

The book is a quarto of eighty-eight leaves, the Museum copy wanting five. It has a plain colophon stating that it was printed in the town of St Alban’s in 1481.

After the issue of these six books within a period of about two years, the printer seems to have ceased work for a time. When he recommenced in about three years, both the character of his work and of the books he issued had changed. He gave up the printing of Latin and discarded the very confused type he had been using previously.

The _Chronicles of England_, one of the two English books issued by the St Alban’s printer, is undated, but is ascribed to the year 1485. It agrees generally with the _Chronicles_ printed by Caxton, but has histories of popes and ecclesiastical matters interpolated. The prologue states that it was compiled at St Alban’s in 1483, and W. de Worde tells us that it was compiled and printed by the schoolmaster.

The book is a folio of 290 leaves, and, though at least twelve copies are known, only one, that in the library of the Marquis of Bath at Longleat, is perfect. One copy is known printed upon vellum. It belonged at an early date to the old family library of the Richardsons of Brierly Hall in Yorkshire, and passed by inheritance to Miss Currer of Eshton Hall in the same county, herself a collector of some note in the early part of the nineteenth century. It wanted a leaf and a half, and four leaves, though original, were printed on paper. On the advice, I believe, of Dibdin, these four genuine leaves were replaced by facsimiles on vellum, and the two missing leaves also similarly supplied. At the Currer sale in 1862 the volume was sold for £365, and passed later into a private collection.

For the first time at this press we find red printing used for the initials and paragraph marks; there are also a few diagrams and one small rough woodcut depicting a jumble of towers, spires, and turrets, and equally suitable for the two cities which it professes to represent, London and Rome. At the end is the printer’s device, Italian in style, a double cross rising from a circle. In the circle is a shield bearing a saltire cross, the arms alike of the town and abbey of St Alban’s.

The last book from this press was the famous _Book of St Alban’s_, “the book of hawking and hunting and also of coat armours.” It is a small folio of ninety leaves. As might be supposed from its popular nature copies are now excessively scarce, and out of some dozen which are known, not one is absolutely perfect. This book marks another advance in printing, for it contains the earliest known examples of colour printing in England, the shields of arms being printed in red, blue, and yellow inks. About the authorship of this book there has been much controversy. The middle portion, on hunting, which is in verse, ends with the words, “Explicit Dam Julyans Barnes in her book of hunting.” The authoress has been variously identified with ladies of very varying degrees, from the high born if somewhat mythical Juliana Berners, prioress of the nunnery of Sopwell, down to the lowly dame who wrote it to instruct the infants who attended St Julian’s school at St Alban’s, that is St Julian’s bairns!

Of the book of blasyng of arms it is distinctly stated that it was translated and compiled at St Alban’s, and it seems to have been derived to a great extent from a treatise on the subject written by Nicholas Upton in 1441, and dedicated to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. Whatever may have been the share taken by Juliana Berners in the two books of hawking and hunting they were certainly not original work, but appear to have been derived in great part from a fourteenth-century treatise, the Venerie de Twety. Hawking, hunting, and a knowledge of heraldry were considered necessary accomplishments, so that the three treatises were collected and published in one volume for the education of “gentlemen and honest persons.” Two types are used in these English books, the text type, first used in the _Laurentius de Saona_ of 1480 and then superseded, which is a fairly close imitation of Caxton’s type 2*, and a larger church type for headings, used only in the _Book of St Alban’s_. This last is identical with Caxton’s type 3, and it is clear that the printer had obtained from Caxton the small amount necessary for its occasional use. Far too much importance has been attached to this appearance of Caxton’s type at St Alban’s, and a good deal of nonsense written about the transference of type to St Alban’s in 1486 and its recurrence in London at a later date. As Caxton possessed the punches and matrices and type-moulds, there was nothing simpler than for him to supply sufficient type to his fellow-worker at St Alban’s to enable him to vary his page by setting up his chapter headings in a larger type contrasting with the text.

A little over thirty years ago a most preposterous attempt was made in a series of letters published in the _Athenæum_ to prove that the schoolmaster printer of St Alban’s was the real printer of many of the books attributed to Caxton at Westminster. A number of quite irrelevant assertions were made and vague arguments brought forward of which the following is apparently the strongest. Because Caxton’s edition of the _Description of Britain_, printed in 1480, has not the place of printing mentioned in the colophon, while some of the later editions speak of the _Chronicles_ and _Description of Britain_ as printed by the schoolmaster of St Alban’s, therefore Caxton’s edition was printed at St Alban’s. This is surely a quite unwarranted argument from the fact that W. de Worde preferred to reprint the St Alban’s edition rather than Caxton’s. The writer sums up as follows. “Putting all these facts together they form very strong circumstantial evidence that Caxton had two presses at work at one and the same time, at Westminster and St Alban’s; that what he could not print at Westminster, for lack of time and space, he had printed for him by this schoolmaster at St Alban’s, and that all the books of Caxton’s which bear no date or place come from St Alban’s.” The writer also asserts that all Caxton’s early books were printed by him at St Alban’s before he moved his press to Westminster. One other strange assertion about the St Alban’s press remains to be noticed. It is both the newest and the most absurd. Under the article, St Alban’s, in the latest edition of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, the history of the early press is summed up in these few lines. “On a printing press, one of the earliest in the kingdom, set up in the Abbey, the first English translation of the Bible was printed.”

As at Oxford, the St Alban’s press ceased its work in 1486 for no reason that we can explain, but most probably owing to competition. The Oxford and St Alban’s printers must both have seen that in Latin books they could not hope to compete with their foreign rivals, either in excellence of workmanship or in cheapness, and each made a final effort by the production of books in English where foreign rivalry would not be felt.

Just as at Oxford, too, a second press was at work for a few years in the sixteenth century, which will be noticed later; but a period of nearly fifty years elapsed between the stopping of the first, and the beginning of the second.

York, both as the leading city in the North of England and from its ecclesiastical importance, was from very early times an important centre of book production. The text writers and illuminators of manuscripts had formed themselves into a guild as early as the time of Edward III., while the bookbinders became a separate company in 1476. Like most of the leading provincial towns, York was very jealous of its privileges and made stringent regulations as regards its trade and business. In 1488 the various crafts connected with books passed a bye-law enacting that no person, secular or religious, not franchised or allowed by the craft, should bring in or set out any work. Poor priests were allowed to augment their salaries by the practice of text writing and illumination, and any priest might write and illuminate books provided they were for his own use, or to be given away in charity.

York books may be divided into three groups. 1. Those actually printed in York. 2. Those printed elsewhere but containing a York stationer’s name. 3. Those printed elsewhere, without a stationer’s name, but obviously intended for sale in the city.

The earliest book connected with York belongs to the last group. It is a _Breviary_ for York use, and was printed at Venice by a well-known printer of such books, Johann Hamman or Hertzog of Landau in 1493, at the costs of Frederick Egmont, an English bookseller. The book is a beautifully printed octavo of 478 leaves, printed in double columns in red and black. One copy only is known, now in the Bodleian. It belonged at one time to Ralph Thoresby, the Yorkshire antiquary, then to Marmaduke Fothergill, whose widow presented his library to the Dean and Chapter of York in 1731. This volume, however, did not reach the Minster library, but passed into the collection of Edward Jacob, the antiquary, who died in 1788. At his sale it was bought by Richard Gough. Gough in his will bequeathed his topographical collections to the Bodleian, and English service books being connected with the uses of Salisbury, York, and Hereford were fortunately classed as topography. By this means the liturgical collections of the Bodleian were increased with thirty-nine _Missals_, twenty-one _Breviaries_, twenty-five _Horæ_ and twenty-one _Manuals_ and _Processionals_ besides _Psalters_, _Hymnals_, _Graduals_, and other books.

This _Breviary_ is the only book printed for York in the fifteenth century, yet though text writing seems to have flourished well up to 1500, the importation of printed books soon showed the advantage of printing over writing, and the stationers began to commission service books.

The first York stationer was Frederick Freez, who was admitted a freeman of the city of York in 1497 as a bookbinder and stationer. He may also have been a printer, for in the records of a lawsuit held at York in 1510 he is styled “buke-prynter,” and fellow-townsmen would hardly have called him this without reason. Nothing printed by him is known, though Herbert suggests that a proclamation on vellum of the time of Henry VII. issued at York, mentioned by Bagford, might have been printed by him. In 1500 he and his wife, Joanna, were admitted members of the Corpus Christi Guild. In March 1506 the Corporation passed an order “that Frederick Freez, a Dutchman and an alien enfranchised, should dwell and inhabit upon the common ground at the Rose, otherwise the Bull in Conyngestrete, for ten years, at three pounds yearly rent.” Freez is spoken of as a Dutchman, and his proper name was no doubt Vries or De Vries. For some reason, perhaps through marriage, the name, Freez, was changed to Wandsforth, a not uncommon Yorkshire name, and, though Frederick does not seem to have used it himself, his brother, Gerard, certainly assumed it, and in his will calls both himself and his brother Wandsforth, making no reference to his original name, Freez.

Frederick is but a shadowy person. His name is found in no colophon, and the only definite connexion with book-selling of which we have evidence, is the inevitable lawsuit, for Pynson brought an action against him in 1505. He was certainly still alive in 1515, when he is mentioned as living in the parish of St Helen on the Walls. He is known to have had two sons, Valentine and Edward. The first took up his freedom by patrimony in 1539, but he appears soon after to have fallen a victim, with his wife, to religious persecution. Fuller writes of them, “They were both of them born in the city and both gave their lives therein at one stake for the testimony of Jesus Christ, probably by order from Edward Lee, the cruel Archbishop.” Though Fuller, relying on Foxe, assigns this event to the impossible date of 1531, the account may be taken as founded on fact.

The other son, Edward, who, according to Foxe, had been apprenticed at York to be a painter and was afterwards a novice monk, was convicted of heresy at Colchester through painting texts upon the walls of the inn which he was decorating. He was imprisoned in London, his wife and child were cruelly killed, and he himself so barbarously treated that he never afterwards recovered his wits.

The first York stationer, whose name is found in a printed colophon, is Gerard Freez, or Wandsforth, as he more often called himself, the brother of Frederick Freez. The first book printed for him was an edition of the _Expositio Hymnorum et Sequentiarum_, produced by Pierre Violette at Rouen in 1507. A perfect copy of both parts is in the John Rylands Library, which was formerly in the wonderful collection formed by Richard Vaughan at Hengwrt; an imperfect copy is in the Bodleian, and copy of the _Expositio Sequentiarum_ is in the Bibliotheca Columbiniana at Seville. Though this book is an edition of the ordinary Exposition of the Hymns and Sequences according to Salisbury use, yet the words “ad usum Sarum” have been omitted from the title, perhaps as being considered prejudicial to its sale in York. On the title-page is a woodcut of a scholar seated at his desk, and its occurrence here in a book with Violette’s name was the means of identifying the printer of the first book printed for sale in Scotland, a grammatical treatise by Joannes de Garlandia, which has the same woodcut on the title-page. The year previous to printing this York _Expositio_, Violette had printed a Sarum _Expositio Sequentiarum_, and presumably an _Expositio Hymnorum_ now lost, for Andrew Myllar at Edinburgh.

About this time editions were also issued of the _Missal_, _Breviary_, and _Directory_ of York use. Of the _Missal_, apparently only two copies, both imperfect, are known. When perfect it consisted of 232 leaves, with two columns of forty-three lines. The colophon states that it was printed “impensis honesti viri Petri Violette,” but Violette was himself the printer, and his name occurs engraved in the large initial M on the title-page. The book has no date, but may be assigned to about 1507, and the copy sold in the Cholmley sale in 1902 contained the autograph of Dr Martin Colyns, an official of the court of York who died in 1509. The other copy known is the fine copy in the Bodleian, which wants only leaf 117, the leaf preceding the Canon of the Mass, which would have contained a woodcut of the Crucifixion. The _Breviary_ is known from a single copy formerly in the collection of Mr Blew, and now in the University Library. It is a small octavo volume containing both parts, the Pars Hiemalis and the Pars Æstivalis, and, if perfect, should have filled about 600 leaves. It is, however, very imperfect, wanting both beginning and end, title-page and colophon, so that any information which either might have contained is now lost.

Of the last book, the _Directorium_, no copy is known, but we know of its existence from documentary evidence to be referred to later.

On one of his journeys, presumably to sell books, Gerard Wandsforth was taken ill at King’s Lynn in Norfolk. There on October 3, 1510, immediately before his death, he executed his will. He described himself as a stationer of York, and desired to be buried within the church of St Margaret before the chapel of the Holy Trinity at Lynn. He adds the clause, “Also I require for the love of Jhesu Christ for to be a brother of the Trinity guild kept there, and to pay therfor as the custom of the guild requireth.” To his brother, Frederick, and his brother’s son, Valentine (there is no mention of Edward), he leaves legacies. Then follows, “To Richard Watterson of London xl. s., to the which Richard, Mr Wynkyn de Word, can inform you. Item I giff to the said Mr Wynkyn xl. s., which I howght him.” The executors were his brother Frederick, Ralph Pulleyn, a goldsmith of York, and Mr Maynard Weywik of London. The will was proved at York on October 24. As there is no mention of wife or children, we may presume he was unmarried. The bequests to Richard Waterson and Wynkyn de Worde are interesting. We do not know at present of any Richard Waterson, a stationer in London, but a Henry Watson, and the names are easily confused, was at the time an apprentice to W. de Worde, and we have a reference to another book not now known, printed at London by Hugo Goes, who printed later at York, and Henry Watson. The coincidence of names, though it may not mean anything, is certainly curious. From his owing money to De Worde we may presume he obtained stock from him, and we find all the York printers and stationers had dealings of one sort or another with De Worde. Ralph Pulleyn, the goldsmith, seems to have acted towards Wandsforth as Fust did to the first printer Gutenberg, advancing money to assist him in trade. The third executor, Mr Mayner Weywik, is passed over without notice by Davies in the account of the will in the _History of the York Press_, but his connexion is fairly easily explained. In the lists of persons admitted to the freedom of York in 1529-30 is a stationer, Johannes Warwyke, son of Edward Warwyke, merchant. Thus the Warwyke family were connected with York and also with the business of a stationer. Mr Mayner Warwyke, who was like Ralph Pulleyn, a partner with Wandsforth, appears to have renounced his executorship and sold his share in the business to Pulleyn. Probably as he lived in London he did not see his way, after Wandsforth’s death, to continuing in the business at York.

Shortly after the proving of the will in October 1510, probably at the beginning of 1511, a suit was brought by Frederick Wandsforth against his co-executor, Ralph Pulleyn, and the evidence brought forward throws a considerable amount of light on the early York book trade. The following abstract of the proceedings is given by Davies.

“It appears that the testator, Gerard Wandsforth, his friend Ralph Pulleyn, and another friend Mr Manard (Mr Mayner Weywick), had made a considerable purchase of books as co-partners in equal third shares. The books, which, it is stated, were bought in France, consisted of 252 missals, 399 portifers (breviaries), and 570 Picas all printed upon paper. The whole were consigned to the care of Wandsforth, who deposited them in a room or chamber of his house, near the church of St John del Pyke at York, of which chamber Ralph Pulleyn had a key. As soon as the death of Wandsforth became known at York, Pulleyn hastened to the house of the deceased and took possession of all the books deposited there, not only those which had been bought in partnership, but others which were the sole property of Wandsforth, and caused them to be carried to his own house in Petergate. He alleged he was justified in taking this course by having advanced money to Wandsforth to enable him to defray the cost of printing some books and purchasing others. It was natural that Frederick, the testator’s brother, should feel much aggrieved by Pulleyn’s grasping conduct, and upon their encountering each other in the street of Petergate, near Pulleyn’s residence, high words passed between them which ended in an affray. When Frederick charged the goldsmith with detaining from him the property he was entitled to as his brother’s executor, and thus preventing him from paying his brother’s debts and legacies, and fulfilling the trusts of his will in other respects, Pulleyn said to him, ‘You shall have your brother’s goods delivered to you that ever I had of his.’ But when they went together to Pulleyn’s house only part of the books were offered to be given up, and these Frederick refused to accept, insisting upon having the whole. It was then that, to enforce his rights, he resorted to legal proceedings against Pulleyn. Whilst the suit was pending, the contending parties were induced, by the good offices of friends, to agree to refer all matters in dispute to the arbitration of Sir John Symson, priest, one of the vicars choral of the cathedral, and Mr John Scauseby, a gentlemen residing in Goodramgate, and a formal deed of reference was executed. The books which had been purchased by the testator, jointly with Pulleyn and Manard, they divided into three equal parts and had them valued by John More, a moneylender, who lived in Walmgate, whose estimate amounted to the sum of £86, 19s. 8d. Those belonging solely to the testator, of which Pulleyn had taken possession, consisted of about 300 volumes, some bound and some not bound, which were estimated to be worth about £20. These were chiefly books used in the services of the church, as Primaria, Doctrinalia, Hymni et Sequentiæ; with some Alphabeta, and others, both in Latin and English, the titles of which unfortunately are not stated. The award of the arbitrators was in favour of Frederick Wandsworth, the complainant in the suit. It was pronounced in the presence of Ursin Milnour, and three other persons, who are described as laics of the respective dioceses of Rouen, Durham, and York.”

The original documents of this suit are still preserved in the registry of the Dean and Chapter of York, and it is much to be desired that a full reprint of them might be issued, as it is clear that they contain many points of interest passed over by Davies in his abstract, as well as names which might afford valuable evidence.

The books belonging to Wandsforth which are mentioned by name are, we have seen, _Primaria_, _Doctrinalia_, _Alphabeta_, and _Hymni et Sequentiæ_.

The only trace of an early York _Horæ_ or _Primer_ now known is an unfolded imperfect quarter-sheet containing six out of eight leaves of signature P among the Bagford fragments in the British Museum. The book was of very small size, a 32º with fourteen lines to a full page printed in black and red. The type is apparently Pynson’s, and it is the only known book printed by him connected with York. But another proof of his connexion with York has lately come to light, for there has been found in the Plea Rolls for 1505 a notice of a lawsuit brought by Pynson against Frederick Frees, bookseller of York, for £5, 10s. 6d., perhaps relating to this very book. The _Doctrinalia_ and _Alphabeta_ were presumably school books, while the _Hymni et Sequentiæ_ belonged to the edition already described. The foreign printed books belonging jointly to the partners consisted of _Missals_, _Breviaries_, and _Picas_. The _Missal_ and _Breviary_, printed at Rouen by Violette, have already been described, but no copy of a foreign printed York _Pica_ (or _Directorium_) is known. An edition, shortly to be described, was printed in York in February 1509-10, which is described in the colophon as revised and amended, and perhaps it was reprinted from the lost foreign edition. Its competition might account for the large number (570) remaining of the earlier edition in the hands of Wandsforth’s executors.

The books actually printed in York are six in number, and are the work of two printers, Hugo Goes and Ursyn Mylner. Goes has been conjectured from his name to have been related to Matthias van der Goes, a printer of Antwerp, but for this no proof is forthcoming. In 1509-10 he printed an edition of the York _Directorium_, of which two copies are known, one in York Minster wanting about fifteen leaves, the other in the library of Sidney Sussex College wanting only the last leaf, which would either have been blank or have contained a printer’s device.

Davies in his _History of the York Press_ has been singularly unfortunate in his account of this book. He quotes the very inaccurate transcript of the colophon printed by Ames, and then adds: “Neither the copy in the library of Sidney Sussex College nor that belonging to the Dean and Chapter of York now contains the leaf upon which this colophon was printed. It is to the valuable work of Ames that we are indebted for the only record of it that has been preserved.” Davies or his informant was probably misled by its occurring three pages before the end of the book. It gives full information, stating that the book was printed at York by Hugo Goes in the street called Steengate on the 18th of February 1509. The work begins with a preface by Thomas Hannibal, doctor of laws and canon of York, who, later, brought the golden rose from the Pope to Henry VIII., praising the edition as revised and corrected by Thomas Hothyrsall, vicar choral of the Minster. Then follows another preface in which it is stated that “the pica with its table which was composed by Robert Avissede, priest and formerly chaplain of the church of St Gregory in the great city of York, will last as long as the world endures.” It has still 118 years to run.

The book is printed with a fount of type which had belonged to Wynkyn de Worde, and which he had discarded shortly after 1500.

Besides the _Directorium_ Goes is credited with two other books, editions of the _Donatus Minor cum Remigio_ and _Accidence_. In 1664 Christopher Hildyard, a barrister in York, issued a little book on the antiquities of the city, and his own copy with manuscript additions is now in the British Museum. One of his notes relates to these books, of which he gives a fairly full description with the titles and imprints. They were bound up with a grammar printed by W. de Worde in 1506. He ends his note thus: “The