book I

have by me, new bound up by Mr Mawburn of York, bookseller, 1667, July 12.” Of the Wynkyn de Worde grammar of 1506, we know of an imperfect copy in the library at Lambeth, but of the two grammars printed by Goes in the Steengate, all traces have disappeared. Hildyard’s description is so clear and exact that there is no reason whatever for doubting his accuracy, and we can only hope that they have not been destroyed, but may be rediscovered some day on some unexplored library shelf.

What became of Goes is not known, but his name is connected with another very mysterious lost book. Amongst the numerous manuscript collections made by John Bagford, with a view to writing a history of printing, is the following entry, copied apparently from a colophon. “Donatus cum Remigio impressus Londiniis juxta Charing Cross per me Hugonem Goes and Henery Watson with the printers device H. G.” Puzzling as this entry is, I think it must be taken as representing something which Bagford had seen, for he was hardly clever enough to invent, if it is a forgery, so tantalisingly ingenious an imprint. He would not have known, unless he carefully studied prefaces and epilogues, that at this time W. de Worde had in his employment an assistant named Henry Watson, nor was his eye correct enough to recognise that the type used by Goes at York was obtained from W. de Worde, even had he seen a copy of the York _Directorium_, which is most improbable. Yet here he combines in one address as partners two men who had both been closely connected with Wynkyn de Worde.

Whatever may be said against Bagford, there is no doubt that he was assiduous, if not always very accurate, in transcribing titles and imprints of scarce books that came in his way, and it is from his memoranda that much information on missing books has been recovered. Whether Goes worked in London before or after his sojourn in York, is impossible to determine until some further information, or the lost _Donatus_ itself, is forthcoming. The earliest printer, at present known, who was established near Charing Cross is Robert Wyer, who was at work as early as 1524. Ames, under H. Goes, gives the vague entry: “He also printed a Latin Grammar at London in quarto, formerly among Lord Oxford’s books,” but this may merely be derived from Bagford’s notes. Lastly Ames quotes a broadside in the possession of Thomas Martyn, “A wooden cut of a man on horseback with a spear in his right hand and a shield, with the arms of France, in his left. Emprynted at Beverlay in the Hye-gate by me Hewe Goes, with his mark or rebus of a great H and a goose.” Martyn died in 1771, and since his time no trace of this broadside has been found.

Ursyn Mylner, the second printer in York, has a much clearer history than his predecessor. He was born in 1481, but we find no mention of him until 1511, unless he is the Ursyn who supplied some books for the King’s library in 1502. In 1511 he was a witness in the lawsuit which we have previously described. About 1513 he printed two _Nova Festa_ of York use. The first is an edition of the _Festum Visitationis Beate Marie Virginis_, and the colophon stated that it was newly printed by Ursyn Mylner dwelling in the churchyard of the minster of St Peter. This book was chronicled by Ames as in the collection of Thomas Rawlinson, and again I must add the sad statement, all traces of it have since been lost. I searched through Rawlinson’s sale catalogue--sixteen volumes--without result, but last year in the Bodleian I came across a note-book among the Rawlinson manuscripts in which he had entered fairly full notices of some of his books, and here I found the colophon as given by Ames. The date of the book can be accurately settled. In 1513 the Convocation of York ordered the Feast of the Visitation to be kept as a Festum Principale; by 1516 Mylner had moved to a new address.

The second of the _Nova Festa_ was a small supplement to the Sanctorale of the _Breviary_ and the only copy known, found in the binding of a book, is in the library of Emmanuel College. The book in which it was found was printed in 1512, and from the fact that these leaves, which are printer’s waste, were used in the binding, this binding may perhaps be attributed to Mylner. The tract consists of four leaves in 8°, with thirty-three and thirty-four lines to the page, and commences with a large initial P printed in colour. The text is in red and black, and many of the lines end with small type-ornaments. It is slightly mutilated, but has most of the colophon, which runs: “Impressum Ebor per me Ursin Mylner commemorantem in simiterio ministerii Sancti Petri.” In the colophons to both these _Nova Festa_ we find _commemorantem_ in place of _commorantem_. It is probably the tract referred to vaguely in the introduction to Wordsworth and Proctor’s edition of the Sarum _Breviary_ as “An English monastic Breviary supplement, with anthems and responds for St Thomas and St Edmund of Canterbury, was printed at York about 1513.” Presumably their information about it was obtained from Henry Bradshaw. In the more recently issued book on the Old English Service Books, York is credited with no printed _Nova Festa_.

After printing these two small tracts Mylner moved to a new workshop. In the lawsuit of 1511 he was spoken of as living in the parish of St Michael le Belfry, and the two tracts were printed “in cimiterio ministerii Sancti Petri,” but both addresses probably refer to the same place, as the church of St Michael’s le Belfry stands alongside the minster on the south side. A small passage adjoining this church, and forming the south entrance to the minster close, was formerly known as Bookbinders Alley.

[Illustration: COLOPHON AND DEVICES FROM WHITINTON’S GRAMMAR, PRINTED AT YORK BY URSYN MYLNER IN 1516. ]

Mylner moved to Blake Street in the parish of St Helen. It seems probable that his earlier shop, within the precincts of the minster, would be in the liberties, and outside the jurisdiction of the municipal authorities, but Blake Street was another matter, and he would not be allowed to carry on his business as a printer without having been admitted to the freedom of the city. In 1515-16, therefore, we find the name Ursyn Mylner, prynter, entered on the roll of freemen. He did not obtain his freedom by patrimony, so that he had probably served his full term of apprenticeship.

In December 1516 he issued a _Grammar_ of Whitinton. It is a small quarto of twenty-four leaves and only one copy is known. It was sold in Thomas Rawlinson’s sale in 1727 for one shilling, being bought by his brother Richard, and at the latter’s sale it was bought by M. C. Tutet; it is now in the British Museum. On the title-page is a woodcut of a schoolmaster with three pupils seated on a bench before him. This woodcut originally belonged to Govaert van Ghemen, who used it at Gouda in an _Opusculum grammaticale_ printed there in 1486. About 1490, when he moved to Copenhagen, he parted with some of his material, and this cut, with a fount of type and some woodcut initials, passed into the hands of Wynkyn de Worde, who used it in several grammars issued about 1500. At the end of the book, below the colophon, is the printer’s device. This consists of a shield hanging from a tree supported by a bear, an allusion to the name Ursyn, and an ass. The shield is divided per pale, and bears on the one half a windmill, on the other a sun. The mill is obviously for Mylner, but what the sun is for is not clear. We see that Mylner had some connexion with Wynkyn de Worde, whose sign was the sun; and it is perhaps just possible that this might refer to some trade partnership between the two men. Below the device is an oblong cut containing a ribbon in which the name Ursin Mylner is printed in full. In the centre is his trade-mark.

In this same year we find him mentioned as a bookbinder, entered in the accounts of the minster as paid for binding books for the choir.

After 1516 we find no further mention of Mylner. He was then only about thirty-five years old and may possibly have moved elsewhere; but no trace of him is found. From this time onwards to 1533 almost the whole York book-trade was in the hands of John Gachet, a stationer from France. Gachet’s name is first found in 1509, when, in partnership with another stationer, Jacques Ferrebouc, he commissioned Wynkyn de Worde to print for him an edition of the York _Manual_. This _Manual_ is a very curious book. The colophon states clearly that it was printed in London by Wynkyn de Worde dwelling in the street called Fleet Street at the sign of the Sun, or in St Paul’s Churchyard under the image of Our Lady of Pity, for John Gachet and James Ferrebouc, partners. In spite of this assertion it is plain that the book was printed abroad. The paper, the type of the text and music staves, the illustrations, all are obviously foreign, and the particular device of De Worde on the title-page is only found in books printed for him in Paris. The colophon unfortunately does not state where Gachet and Ferrebouc were living, but the latter was certainly just before and after 1509 in Paris. Perhaps Gachet may have been the travelling member of the firm and have journeyed as far as York on his business tours. By 1514 he was certainly settled there, for in that year he was admitted a brother of the Corpus Christi Guild. In 1516 and 1517 he published a series of service books, a _Missal_, a _Processional_, a _Manual_, a _Hymnal_, and a _Book of Hours_.

The _Missal_ is a fine folio of 200 leaves, and there is a perfect copy with two leaves printed on vellum, which formerly belonged to Bishop Moore, in the University Library. Another copy, slightly imperfect, was given to Pembroke College Library by the Master, Bishop Launcelot Andrews, in 1589. Besides these, five other copies are known. The initial M of the word Missale on the title-page is a very large and elaborate letter, having a scroll up the centre limb on which is engraved the printer’s name M. P. Holivier. Similar ornamental letters containing their names were used by other Rouen printers, such as Morin.

The _Processional_ is without date, and the colophon states that it was printed at Rouen by Olivier for John Gachet, alias de France. A copy of this edition is at Ripon, and there are perhaps others; but both Dr Henderson, in his list of York service books, and Davies have mixed up this edition with the later dated edition of 1530.

Of the _Manual_, also undated, only one copy is known, in the library bequeathed to Dublin by Narcissus Marsh, the Archbishop. It has no name of printer, but only the statement on the title that it was printed for Gachet. The _Hymnal_ is known from two copies, one in the British Museum, and another in the library of St John’s College, Cambridge. It fortunately has a full imprint and colophon stating that it was printed for Gachet by Olivier and finished on the 5th of February 1517. By an oversight in the printing of the Museum copy, four pages have been left quite blank.

After issuing this series of service books Gachet left York and moved to Hereford, where he published a book in May, but of his movements during the next few years we know nothing. Soon after his leaving York, two Rouen booksellers issued a _Missal_ and _Book of Hours_, but in the interval between 1517 and 1526 no York books were issued. In this latter year Gachet once more appeared at York and published a _Breviary_, printed for him at Paris by François Regnault, the first York book printed at a Paris press, most of the previous service books having been printed at Rouen.

Between 1530 and 1533 Gachet issued another series of service books, two _Missals_, a _Processional_, and a _Breviary_. A _Missal_ and a _Processional_ were issued in 1530, and, though neither contains a printer’s name, they were certainly printed at Rouen. On the title-page of the _Missal_ is the large M with the name Holivier engraved upon it, but by 1530 Olivier had ceased to print, and the book may be ascribed to his successor, Nicholas le Roux. Three copies are known of this _Missal_, two in Oxford and one in Marsh’s Library, Dublin. One of the Oxford copies was, sometime in the seventeenth century, bound in two volumes, with most disastrous results, for now one volume is in the Bodleian, the other in the library of Queen’s College. The _Processional_ is an octavo of ninety-six leaves. Both Dr Henderson and Davies have in their descriptions confused this edition with the earlier undated one issued about 1516. The present has the date 1530 upon the title-page, but contains no name of printer or place; the colophon merely states that it was printed for Gachet. The copy in the Bodleian is a very fine one and contains the signature J. Brooke, probably Sir John Brooke, the Yorkshire Royalist. It is in its original binding apparently executed in York, as the boards are lined with unused sheets of the York _Breviary_ printed for Gachet in 1526. The British Museum copy has four quires, that signed F and the last three, printed in a different type, though the text agrees page for page with the ordinary copies. In them the colophon ends, “Impressum expensis honesti viri Johannis Gachet, in eadem civitate commorantis,” but in the Museum impression the final words, “in eadem civitate commorantis,” have been omitted. No edition is known from which these four quires in the Museum copy could have been taken. It may be that the original stock of these sheets was damaged in some way and reprints made to supply their place, an occurrence of which several examples are known, otherwise they are the only remains of an edition now lost.

The last book with a York stationer’s name in the colophon was a _Breviary_ printed in August 1533 by Regnault at Paris for Gachet. In the same year Regnault printed a _Missal_. This has not Gachet’s name in the colophon, but was to be sold at Paris in the Rue St Jacques at the sign of the Elephant, Regnault’s own address. Regnault had been the most important printer of English service books, and we know from a letter written by him to Cromwell in 1536, that he had a place of business in London from which he supplied the booksellers. By that time, however, his trade in such books had almost altogether disappeared.

Perhaps on account of the restrictions placed upon alien stationers by the act of 1534, we find among others taking out letters of denization in 1535 “John Gachet, alias Frenchman, of the city of York bookbinder, from the dominion of the King of France,” but we find no further mention of him as dealing in books, nor do we know anything of his later career. We meet, however, with other members of the family. In 1543 John Gachet, Frenchman, of the parish of St Michael le Belfry, occurs in a list of soldiers sent from York to Newcastle. If this was a son of our stationer, he died shortly afterwards, as in 1551 administration of the effects of John Gachet, son of John Gachet of York, stationer, dying at Rawcliffe, was granted to George Gachet, his brother. A William Gachet, stationer, was admitted to the freedom of the city in 1549-50, and the will of another William Gachet of York is dated 1551.

The books which had been printed specially for York booksellers had consisted entirely of service books, and about 1534 most of these ceased to be printed, being suppressed or falling into disuse. Thus though we afterwards find a continuous succession of stationers at York, no books are known specially printed for them. The enterprising stationers had all been foreigners, and foreigners were not viewed with favour in York or elsewhere at that period. They seem to have absorbed most of the trade to the detriment of the natives, so that we find in 1554 the Company of Bookbinders and Stationers of York passing a bye-law that no stranger or foreigner should sell any book or books within the city, except freemen of the same city. Earlier acts had prohibited the taking of foreign apprentices, so that the acts and this bye-law combined absolutely prohibited any foreigner engaging in the book trade in the city. The later stationers were all natives; and if they had energy they did not show it in the form of commissioning books. When the service books began to be reissued in Mary’s reign, no York stationer’s name is connected with them. Of those that were issued all were printed in London and sold by London booksellers. Then came the Stationers’ Charter of 1557 and with it the extinction of the provincial trade.

From the Fabric rolls of York Minster, from the registers of freemen, and from various other sources, we obtain the names of a number of bookbinders who worked at York during the latter half of the fifteenth and the first half of the sixteenth centuries. A Thomas Messingham bound books for the Minster in red leather, probably the bright red deer skin often found at that period. Frederick Freez is called bookbinder, and about 1494 Peter Moreaux, another bookbinder, was made a freeman. John Welles, John Meltynbe and John Gowthwaite took up their freedom as bookbinders before 1557, and others, Thomas Newell and Edward Huby, who were not freemen, are mentioned in accounts as binders. Unfortunately we cannot point to any definite bindings as produced by these men, but it is not improbable that a full and careful examination of the old bindings preserved in the Minster Library might produce some good results, at any rate this source of information still remains to be worked. A late writer on bookbinding, with more daring than discretion, ascribes one or two marks found on bindings to York binders. He writes as follows: “G. W., whose trade-mark occurs on the covers of many books bound in England, exercised his craft between 1489 and 1510. Either he or his son was probably associated later on with another stationer, I. G.; an elegantly designed stamp bearing both cyphers adorns many bindings executed between 1512 and 1535. These may perhaps be the trade-marks of Gerard Freez or Wandsforth, brother of Frederick, bookseller and binder of York, 1507-10, and of John Gachet, stationer and bookseller of Hereford and York, who was still carrying on business in 1535.” This is all futile suggestion. Gerard Wandsforth, who died in 1510, left no children, and John Gachet did not come to York until after Wandsforth was dead. Moreover the mark assigned by this authority to G. Wandsforth and read as G. W. is by all rules of traders’ marks W. G. If anything is discovered about York bookbinding, it will not be by this class of idle speculation. All that can be said is that we know of numerous York bookbinders, so that very many bindings were produced there, and no doubt numbers still remain awaiting identification.

In Gachet’s career as a stationer, a long period, the nine years between 1517 and 1526, remains unaccounted for. He had published a series of York service books in 1516 and 1517, the last, a _Hymnal_, being dated February 5, 1517. For some reason he became dissatisfied with York, and moved to seek business elsewhere, and in May 1517 he appears to have been living in Hereford, where he issued an edition of the _Ortus Vocabulorum_ with his name in the colophon.

Though printing was not actually practised in Hereford, three books at least are known which were printed for sale there. In 1502 the very beautiful Hereford _Missal_ was printed at Rouen by Pierre Olivier and Jean Mauditier for a Rouen stationer, Jean Richard. We know accidentally that about the time this _Missal_ was printed Richard was in England, for he was party to a lawsuit at Oxford, and he may have journeyed to Hereford to dispose of this book. But though intended for sale in the diocese, the imprint contains no mention of any local stationer. In 1505 a Hereford _Breviary_ was issued by a stationer named Ingelbert Haghe, who was under the patronage, as he expressly tells us in the preface, of that “illustrissima virago” Margaret, countess of Richmond and Derby, a generous patroness of printers. Haghe was himself originally a Rouen stationer, but had come over and settled in England. On some loose leaves in the Bodleian originally forming the lining of the binding of a bible is an inscription stating that the book was bought from Ingelbert the Hereford bookseller in 1510 about the day of the Lichfield fair. The Hereford _Breviary_ is a very rare book. The Bodleian has the Pars Estivalis which came from the Colbert sale. A copy was in Richard Smith’s sale in 1682, when it was sold for three shillings and eightpence. This may be the copy given at the end of the seventeenth century to Worcester Cathedral Library by Dr George Benson, prebendary of Worcester and dean of Hereford. The third copy known is in private hands. It would seem that Ingelbert and his patroness Margaret quarrelled over the production of this book, for in the plea-rolls of 1505, the year in which it was issued, he is cited as defendant in a suit brought by Margaret, Countess of Richmond, the King’s mother, to recover the sum of one hundred shillings. He is there called stationer and bookseller of London, so that he may have had a shop in both places. Unfortunately we have only the mere mention of the case without any reference to its purpose, but the coincidence of the date and the known connexion of the Lady Margaret with the issue of the _Breviary_ make it probable that it formed the subject of the dispute.

The only other Hereford book known is an edition of the _Ortus Vocabulorum_, of which the only known copy, once in the magnificent collection of Richard Vaughan of Hengwrt, is now in the Rylands Library, Manchester. The colophon states that it was printed in 1517 at Rouen by Eustace Hardy at the costs of Jean Caillard, a stationer in business at Rouen, and John Gachet living at Hereford. The copy is quite perfect and in good condition, and has the further interest of being in its original stamped binding. After this single venture we hear no more of Gachet at Hereford, or of anything being published there.

LECTURE III.

OXFORD SECOND PRESS AND CAMBRIDGE.

After an interval of about thirty years the Oxford press restarted on a brief career, this time apparently with the official sanction of the University. The first book issued was a commentary by W. Burley _Super libros posteriorum Aristotelis_. It is a small tract of ten leaves, and was finished on December 4, 1517. The printer, John Scolar, lived in St John’s Street, near Merton College. Nothing is known of him before he appears at Oxford as a printer, and nothing of his career in the University. Mr Madan remarks, “Although Scolar uses the arms of the University (their earliest occurrence in print), yet the registers of the University almost ignore the fact that for the second time the greatest literary invention since speech and writing were known was silently at work in its midst.” The expression “almost ignore” is rather disingenuous. Whether the registers did or did not ignore John Scolar we shall never know, since the volume covering the years from 1515 to 1526 is lost.

The text and notes of this volume are printed in two sizes of black-letter type, apparently identical with that used by Wynkyn de Worde. Some of the initials and the woodcut at the end are certainly his, and it would appear as though Scolar had obtained from him the type which had been used for printing the work of Sirectus, published a year or two earlier at Oxford by Jacobi.

The next book, finished on May 15, 1518, is Dedicus’ _Questiones super libros Ethicorum Aristotelis_. A very interesting fact about it is the statement on the last leaf that the printer had a privilege for it for seven years granted by the Chancellor. No one was to print it in the University or sell copies printed elsewhere under pain of confiscation of the books and a fine of five pounds sterling. The notice ends with the expressive Latin adage, “Cornicum oculos configere noli.”

This is the first privilege which I have found in an English printed book, the next, six months later, having been granted by the King for Cuthbert Tonstall’s _Oratio in laudem matrimonii Mariæ et Francisci_. This privilege prevented anyone either reprinting it in England or selling foreign printed copies for the space of two years. This may seem a short time, but the subject was only of passing interest. The rise, growth, and scope of these privileges, which are the foundations of copyright, form a subject which has hitherto received little or no attention even from writers on copyright, though I think it would go far to prove that the perpetual copyright, which later on was claimed by the stationers, was never legally recognised, but that the power granted them by the charter enabled them to impose and uphold arbitrary restrictions which were not legally binding.

On the title-page of this and the preceding work is John Scolar’s device, the shield of the University surmounted by a cap and supported by two angels. On the shield are the arms, the book with seven seals between the three crowns, but the motto on the book in place of the present “Dominus illuminatio mea” is “Veritas liberabit, bonitas regnavit.” Another woodcut containing the Royal arms and supporters is used in these books, which had been used previously by W. de Worde.

In June 1518 three books were printed: _Questiones de luce et lumine_, a tract of eight leaves, Burley’s _Principia_, also of eight leaves, and a Grammar of Whitinton. A new Oxford book from Scolar’s press was discovered recently in a volume of tracts in the British Museum. It is an edition of the _Opus insolubilium_, a text-book for the schools. It consisted originally of four leaves, but the last is unfortunately missing. On the first leaf is the woodcut of the University arms in fresh condition. This tract may perhaps be the first production of Scolar’s press.

The _Questiones de luce et lumine_ has on the title-page a small rough woodcut depicting the visit of the Magi, belonging to a series made to illustrate a _Book of Hours_; and on the title of Burley’s _Principia_ is a small neat woodcut, rather Italian in style, of a master seated before a desk with a pupil standing before him. At the end is a woodcut of the arms of England supported by the greyhound and dragon. Below are two portcullises, and above two angels hold ribbons bearing the motto

“Hec rosa virtutis de celo missa sereno Eternum florens regia sceptra feret.”

This woodcut was part of the material obtained by the Oxford printer from W. de Worde, and which after the cessation of the press was returned to him. We find him using it in some of his later books, by which time it had become slightly damaged by wormholes.

We hear no more of Scolar in Oxford after 1518, when he probably left the city; but his place was taken by Charles Kyrfoth, who issued in February 1519 a _Compotus manualis ad usum Oxoniensium_, a little treatise of arithmetic illustrated by wood engravings of the open hand with values attached to each part. It is a small tract of eight leaves, and we learn from Dorne’s accounts that its price was one penny. In the colophon Kyrfoth gives his address, as did Scolar, as St John’s Street, and as he used the same device of the University Arms, we may conclude he had taken on Scolar’s business. On the title-page is a large and curious woodcut divided horizontally into three portions. In the upper is a row of seven books. In the centre a master in an embroidered robe and crowned with laurel is seated at a desk, while on either side of him are scholars taking notes. In the lower part are five men in gowns holding books. In the text are four diagrams of hands. The only copy known of this book is in the University Library. Beyond the occurrence of his name in this colophon we know nothing further of Kyrfoth. He probably left Oxford soon after the issue of this book, for his name is not found in the list of inhabitants in the Subsidy Rolls of 1524.

Scolar, as we said above, left Oxford in 1518, but we meet with him again ten years later; for in 1528 he printed a _Breviary_ for the use of the Benedictine Monastery at Abingdon, which will be noticed hereafter.

Between 1527 and 1557 nothing was printed at or for Oxford. The books printed for John Dorne, described in an earlier lecture, were the last enterprise of an Oxford publisher. Nor apparently was there any wish to continue printing, for while Cambridge was careful during the changes brought about by various acts to preserve her liberties, and when the act of 1534 against foreign stationers was passed to obtain a special exemption enabling the University to employ foreign stationers or printers, Oxford was content to let matters take their course. The roll of stationers continued unbroken, and here and there an interesting man, such as Garbrand Harkes, stands out, but there is little of interest to chronicle before the revival of the press at the end of the sixteenth century.

While Oxford was credited by many early bibliographers with a book printed in 1468, which was not really printed until 1478, so many of the same authorities credited Cambridge with a book printed in 1478 which was not printed at Cambridge at all. The mistakes and confusions about this book, only finally cleared up by Bradshaw in 1861, form a curious comedy of errors.

Among the documents used by Strype when writing his life of Archbishop Parker was a catalogue of the books bequeathed to Corpus Christi College by the archbishop, in which was an entry: “Rhetorica nova, impressa Cantab, fo. 1478.” This entry was communicated by Strype to Bagford, then collecting materials for a history of printing, and Bagford in his turn wrote about it to Tanner. Tanner’s brother passed on the information to Ames, who inserted it at the head of his account of Cambridge printing, and from him it was copied by other writers, including Herbert.

In the meanwhile Conyers Middleton in his _Dissertation concerning the origin of Printing in England_, had turned the error into a new groove. Describing the edition printed at St Alban’s in octavo in 1480, he remarks: “The same book is mentioned by Mr Strype among those given by Archbishop Parker to Corpus Christi College in Cambridge; but the words, ‘Compilata in Universitate Cantabrigiæ,’ have drawn this learned antiquary into the mistake of imagining that it was printed also in that year at our University, and of doing us the honour of remarking upon it; so ancient was printing in Cambridge!”

If the University Librarian, as Middleton then was, in place of being facetious, had stepped down the street and examined the book for himself, much subsequent confusion would have been avoided. He must have had a poor opinion of Strype if he supposed that that learned antiquary would describe as a folio printed at Cambridge in 1478 an octavo with a printed colophon, “impressa apud Villam Sancti Albani. 1480.”

But Middleton’s plausible suggestion seems to have gained ground, and the Corpus volume was passed over as a copy of the St Alban’s book until 1861, when Bradshaw, at work on the manuscripts in the library accidentally met with it, and saw at once that it was not the St Alban’s book, but an unknown Caxton edition. It has no colophon, so that the concluding words “Compilata in Universitate Cantabrigiæ,” and the date 1478, might well deceive a casual observer into thinking it was printed at Cambridge in that year.

Printing was introduced into Cambridge at the beginning of the year 1521 by John Lair of Siberch or Siegburg, a town a few miles south-west of Cologne. Like most of the foreign printers settled in England, he made but little use of his proper surname, but used the place name instead and called himself John Siberch.

Nothing is known as to the date of his settling in Cambridge, but it was probably in 1519 or early in 1520, for in May of the latter year an edition of Richard Croke’s _Introductiones in rudimenta Græca_ was printed for him by Eucharius Cervicornus at Cologne.

Croke was at this time Professor of Greek at Cambridge, but he was compelled to have his work printed abroad, since no English printer of the time possessed a fount of Greek type. Had he acted on his own initiative, he would probably have employed a printer of Paris where he had studied, or Leipzig where he had recently been a professor, both of which towns had excellent Greek presses. But if Siberch, a man presumably with practical knowledge, was already settled in Cambridge, what could be more natural than for the professor to hand over the arrangements of the printing to him, while he in his turn would no doubt entrust the work to a printer of the town from which he himself came, and not improbably to the master with whom he had himself worked. This, of course, is conjecture, but some curious evidence of Siberch’s having been in Cambridge when Croke’s book was published, came to light accidentally in 1889. In that year a volume was found in the library of Westminster Abbey printed at Paris in 1519, which had evidently been bound in Siberch’s workshop. In the binding were several manuscript and printed fragments. The printed fragments consisted of leaves of the Papyrius Geminus printed by Siberch in 1522 and two leaves of a hitherto unknown edition of Lily’s Grammar; amongst the manuscript fragments was a letter to Siberch, to be referred to later, and a piece of the manuscript of Croke’s _Rudimenta Græca_, bearing upon it the rough pencil mark indicating the commencement of a new sheet and a fresh page, both agreeing with the printed book. The copy then had been returned from abroad, not to the author Croke, but to the man who had commissioned the book, Siberch. Had Siberch been abroad when the book was printed, he would either have corrected the proofs with the copy at Cologne, and in that case would hardly have troubled to bring over the then useless copy with him to England, or else proofs with the copy would have been sent to Croke, in which case we should not have expected to find it as waste in Siberch’s shop.

What Siberch’s exact position was in relation to the University is not quite clear. Dr Caius speaks of him as the University printer, but no direct evidence of this has been forthcoming. Mr Gray has, however, pointed out to me an entry in one of the Grace books recently printed, and which he was unaware of when writing his life of Siberch for the Bibliographical Society. This was one of the graces passed in congregation during the year from the feast of St Michael the Archangel [September 29], 1520 to the corresponding date of the following year. It runs: “Obligatur doctor Manfeld loco et vice magistri Norres pro summa pecunie quam recepit Johannes bibliopola ab universitate.” This debt is entered regularly in the proctors’ accounts, printed in another recently-printed Grace book, from 1520-21 up to 1524-25, and the sum mentioned is twenty pounds.

We have therefore the clearest evidence that some time between September 1520 and September 1521 the University had advanced to Siberch the sum of twenty pounds, and I think we are quite justified in concluding that this was to assist him in his business as a printer. The sum of twenty pounds is considerably more than a University stationer’s fee, and must have been granted for a special purpose. If the exact date of the grace in the year could be ascertained, it would probably throw some light on the question. If early enough, it might be the cost of material to enable him to set up his press.

It is not until October 1521 that he uses the words, “Cum gratia et privilegio.” Bradshaw, in a bibliographical note on the book in which they first appear, writes: “In his dedication to Bishop Fisher he [that is, Siberch] styles himself ‘Io. Siberch Cantabrigiensis typographus,’ and it must have been on this occasion and through Bishop Fisher’s influence that he obtained leave to place ‘Cum gratia et privilegio’ on his title-pages.” This privilege was not I think the King’s privilege, such as London printers had just begun to obtain, but more probably one granted by the Chancellor similar to that given to Scolar the Oxford printer by the Oxford Chancellor, and this would further point to Siberch’s official connexion with the University.

The house where he lived and printed was described by Dr Caius as situated between the Gate of Humility and the Gate of Virtue, forming part of some property bought by Caius in 1563 from Trinity College. It bore the sign of the King’s arms, which accounts for the use by Siberch in his books of two woodcuts containing the Royal arms. In the same house Erasmus lived when he was lecturing at Cambridge, and we know from his letters that he was on intimate terms with Siberch and the contemporary Cambridge stationers to whom he sends greetings by name at the conclusion of one of his letters.

Having obtained some type Siberch started to work for himself, and his first production was a speech of Dr Henry Bullock delivered before Wolsey when the Cardinal visited the University in the autumn of 1520. This is a small pamphlet of eight leaves, devoid of all ornament, and it was published between February 13, the date of the dedication and the end of the month, in 1521. The type used appears to be new, but where it was obtained is not settled. It bears a very strong resemblance to some of Pynson’s, but is not quite identical. At present we do not know much about the early business of type-cutting, but it seems clear that, soon after the commencement of the sixteenth century, different printers went to a common source for their type, and that type-cutting was not a part of the printer’s business, as it was when printing was first invented, but a special trade. New types would thus tend to conform more to a common model. Of this first Cambridge