Part 13 (1/2)

[52] See _The Library_, second series, Vol. VIII, pp. 298 _sqq._

[53] In _The Library_, second series, Vol. IX, pp. 257-81.

[54] ”The Printers, Stationers, and Bookbinders of Westminster and London, 1476-1535” (last paragraph).

CHAPTER XIII

ENGLISH BOOKS PRINTED ELSEWHERE THAN AT LONDON

[Ill.u.s.tration: XXVIII. COLOGNE, PRINTER UNCERTAIN, 1525

TYNDALE'S NEW TESTAMENT, FIRST PAGE OF TEXT]

During the fifteenth century presses were set up in more than fifty places in Germany, in more than seventy in Italy, in nearly forty in France, in more than twenty in the Netherlands, in twenty-four in Spain, in only three (counting London and Westminster as one) in England. In London and Westminster over 330 books are known to have been printed; in Oxford and St. Albans only twenty-five. The reason for this paucity of provincial printing in England must be found by the social historian.

The beginning of the sixteenth century brought no change in the facts.

For thirty years from March, 1487, there was no printing-press at Oxford. In December, 1517, a Latin commentary on the Posterior a.n.a.lytics of Aristotle appeared with the imprint ”Academia Oxonie,” and in four subsequent books, printed in 1518, the printer of this gave his name as Johannes Scolar. A fragment of a sixth book has lately been found at the British Museum. In 1519 Scolar's place was taken by Carolus Kyrforth, who printed a _Compotus_, or small arithmetic book. A prognostication by Jaspar Laet may have been printed apparently either by Scolar or Kyrforth. After the appearance of these eight books there was no more printing at Oxford until a press was started there in 1585 by Joseph Barnes, under the auspices of the University. The last book of the Schoolmaster-printer appeared at St. Albans in 1486, and after this there was no more printing there until 1534. In that year, at the request of Abbot Catton, a printer named John Hertfort, or Herford, printed there _The glorious lyfe and pa.s.sion of seint Albon_. Robert Catton was succeeded as abbot by Richard Stevenage, and in the years 1536-8 three religious books were printed for him by Hertfort, who also printed an Arithmetic and two other books on his own account, making seven books in all. Then, in October, 1539, John Hertfort fell under suspicion of having printed a ”little book of detestable heresies,”[55]

and the Abbot had to send him to London. The abbey itself was suppressed by the King the same year, and Hertfort, deprived of his patron, had no inducement to return. He is next heard of as printing in London in 1544.

At York a _Directorium_ was printed by Hugo Goes, and there is a seventeenth century reference to a _Donatus minor_ and _Accidence_ from his press. Three small books are also known to have been printed by Ursyn Mylner in 1514 and 1516. Previous to this, in or about 1507, an _Expositio hymnorum et sequentiarum_ for use at York had been printed at Rouen by Pierre Violette for a stationer named Gerard Freez (also known as Gerard Wandsforth), who died in 1510. This Gerard Freez had a brother Frederick, who is described not only as a bookbinder and stationer, but as a printer, and may therefore have printed books which have perished without leaving any trace behind them. But the only extant York books of the sixteenth century are the _Directorium_ of 1507, two small service-books of 1513, and a little grammatical work in 1516. After this there was no more printing in York until 1642.

At Cambridge a stationer named John Laer, of Siberch, i.e. Siegburg, near Cologne, settled, in or about 1520, and acted as publisher to an edition of Croke's _Introductiones in Rudimenta Graeca_, printed at Cologne by Eucharius Cervicornus. After this, in 1521 and 1522, Siberch himself printed nine small books at Cambridge, the first of them being a Latin speech by Henry Bullock addressed to Cardinal Wolsey. Among the other books was a Dialogue of Lucian's ([Greek: peri dipsadon]), for which Siberch had to use some Greek type, and a work on letter-writing (_De conscribendis epistolis_) by Erasmus, with whom he seems to have been on friendly terms. After 1522 no more books were printed at Cambridge until 1583.

At Tavistock in 1525 a monk named Thomas Richard printed a translation of Boethius's _De Consolatione Philosophiae_ for ”the ryght worschypful esquyer Mayster Robert Langdon.” Nine years later, in 1534, the same press printed the _Statutes_ concerning the Devons.h.i.+re Stannaries or Tin Mines. These are the only two early books known to have been printed at Tavistock.

At Abingdon in 1528, John Scolar, presumably the same man who had previously worked a few miles off at Oxford, printed a Portiforium or Breviary for the use of the monastery. No other early book is known to have been printed there.

From 1539, when John Hertfort was summoned from St. Albans, to the end of the reign of Henry VIII, we know of no provincial printing in England. But on the accession of Edward VI the extreme Protestants who had fled from England to the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland, came flocking back, and some of them seem to have stopped at Ipswich. Two, or perhaps three printers, all in the Protestant interest, worked there in the first few months of the new reign. The first of these, Anthony Scoloker, printed seven books at Ipswich in 1547 and 1548, and then went on to London. The second, John Overton, brought over with him from Wesel the text of Bishop Bale's Latin bibliography of the Ill.u.s.trious Writers of Britain, printed there by Theodoricus Platea.n.u.s, otherwise Dirick van der Straten, and may or may not have printed at Ipswich two additional sheets, which he dated there 31 July, 1548.[56] The third printer, John Oswen, printed at Ipswich eleven tracts, mostly controversial, in or about 1548, and then removed to Worcester.

On his arrival at Worcester late in 1548, or early in 1549, John Oswen obtained a special privilege from Edward VI for printing service-books for use in the Princ.i.p.ality of Wales, and produced there three editions of the first Prayer Book of Edward VI and a New Testament. Besides these, from 1549 to 1553 he printed eighteen other books, mostly of controversial theology, calling himself in his imprints ”Printer appoynted by the Kinges Maiestie for the Princ.i.p.alitie of Wales and the Marches of the same.” On the accession of Mary, it being no longer safe to print Protestant theology, Oswen's press ceased working.

At Canterbury in 1549 John Mych.e.l.l, or Mitch.e.l.l, who had moved there after producing a few books in London, printed an English psalter, ”poynted as it shall be songe in churches.” During Edward's reign Mych.e.l.l printed at Canterbury altogether some twenty books and tracts, mostly more or less controversial treatises on the Protestant side. On the accession of Mary he ceased publis.h.i.+ng till 1556, when his press was employed by Cardinal Pole to print his Articles of Visitation.

The next year, by the charter granted to the Stationers' Company, printing outside London was forbidden, the prohibition being subsequently relaxed in favour of the two Universities, although it was nearly thirty years before they availed themselves of their right. In the previous eighty years only about a hundred books[57] had been produced at the provincial presses, and in the year in which the charter was granted it can hardly be said that any press outside London was in existence. The new regulation stood in the way of development, but it was a development for which there seems to have been little demand. We may see some slight confirmation of this view in the fact that during Elizabeth's reign there was very little secret printing, though there had probably been a good deal under Mary. The three Elizabethan secret presses which have been chronicled were:

(1) A Puritan press which printed various tracts on Church government, written by Thomas Cartwright. These were printed secretly in 1572 and 1573, first at Wandsworth, afterwards at Hempstead, near Saffron Walden, in Ess.e.x. The press was seized in August, 1573, and the type handed to Henry Bynneman, who, the next year, used it to reprint Cartwright's attack, interpolating Whitgift's replies in larger type.

(2) A Jesuit press which printed for Edmund Campion and Robert Parsons in 1580 and 1581, first at Greenstreet House in East Ham, afterwards at Stonor Park, near Henley. The press was managed by Stephen Brinckley, who was ultimately captured and imprisoned for nearly two years.

(3) The Puritan travelling press, from which issued the famous Martin Marprelate tracts in 1588 and 1589. Some of these were printed in East Molesey, in Surrey; others in the house of Sir Richard Knightley at Fawsley, near Daventry, others in that of Roger Wigston of Wolston Priory, between Coventry and Rugby. The chief printer of them was Robert Waldegrave, who eventually fled first to La Roch.e.l.le, where he may have printed one of the tracts, and then to Edinburgh, where he became a printer of some importance.

While there was thus very little secret printing in England, exiled Protestants, Catholics, and Nonconformists all in turn made frequent recourse to foreign presses, and apparently succeeded in circulating their books in England. Religious repression, however, though the chief, was not the only cause of English books being printed abroad. From a very early time the superior skill of foreign printers had procured them many commissions to print service-books for the English market, alike on account of their greater accuracy, their experience in printing in red and black, and the more attractive ill.u.s.trations which they had at their disposal. Not long after 1470 a Sarum Breviary was printed abroad, possibly at Cologne. Caxton employed George Maynyal, of Paris, to print a Missal (and probably a _Legenda_) for him in 1487, and Johann Hamman or Herzog printed a Sarum Missal in 1494 as far away as Venice. When the Paris printers and publishers had won the admiration of all Europe by their pretty editions of the Hours of the Blessed Virgin, they competed with each other for the English market. Early in the sixteenth century Wolfgang Hopyl printed some magnificent Sarum Missals and also an Antiphoner and _Legenda_, besides some very fine editions of Lyndewood's Const.i.tutions. Breviaries, Missals, and Primers were also poured out for English use by Francois Regnault, and in lesser numbers by nearly a dozen other Paris firms, and Martin Morin and other printers plied the same trade at Rouen, while Christoffel van Remunde, of Endhoven, was busy at Antwerp. The predominance of the foreign editions of these books over those printed in England may be estimated from the fact that of 105 Sarum service-books printed before 1540 in the possession of the British Museum, one was printed at Basel, one at Venice, eleven at Rouen, twelve at Antwerp, as many as fifty-six at Paris, and only twenty-four in England.[58]

In addition to service-books, a good many of the smaller Latin grammatical works were printed for the English market in France and the Low Countries, their destination being occasionally stated, but more often inferred from the appearance in them of English explanations of Latin words or phrases. A few attempts were also made to issue popular English works in compet.i.tion with those produced at home. The most formidable of these rivalries was that of Gerard Leeu at Antwerp, who, after printing three entertaining books (_The History of Jason_, _Knight Paris and the Fair Vienne_, and the _Dialogue of Salomon and Marcolphus_), embarked on a more important work, _The Chronicles of England_, and might have seriously injured the home trade had he not met his death in a quarrel with a workman while the _Chronicles_ were still on the press.[59]

Soon after 1500 another Antwerp printer, Adriaen von Berghen, in addition to Holt's _Lac Puerorum_, published the commonplace book of a London merchant which pa.s.ses under the name of _Arnold's Chronicle_, and is famous as containing the earliest text of the _Nutbrown Maid_. A little later still, Jan van Doesborch was at work at the same place, and between 1505 and 1530 produced at least eighteen popular English books, including _Tyll Howleglas_, _Virgilius the Magician_, _Robin Hood_, and an account of recent discoveries ent.i.tled, ”Of the new landes and of the people found by the messengers of the kynge of portyngale named Emanuel.”

Doesborch's books are poorly printed and ill.u.s.trated, but his texts are not noticeably worse than those in contemporary editions published in England. The reverse is the case with two English books produced (1503) by the famous Paris publisher, Antoine Verard, _The traitte of G.o.d lyuyng and good deying_ and _The Kalendayr of Shyppars_. These have the ill.u.s.trations which book-lovers prize so highly in the _Kalendrier des Bergers_ and _Art de bien viure et de bien mourir_, but the translations seem to have been made by a Scot, only less ill equipped in Scottish than in French. In a third translation, from Pierre Gringore's _Chasteau de Labeur_, Verard was more fortunate, for the _Castell of Labour_ was rendered into (for that unpoetical period) very pa.s.sable verse by Alexander Barclay. Verard, however, had no cause to congratulate himself, for both Pynson and De Worde reprinted Barclay's translation with copies of the woodcuts, and the other two books in new translations, so that in future he left the secular English market alone.

It may be supposed that the Act of 1534, restricting the importation of foreign books into England, finally put an end to compet.i.tion of the kind which Leeu, Verard, and Doesborch had attempted. But isolated English books have continued to appear abroad down to our own day, and form a miscellaneous, but curious and interesting appendix in the great volume of the English book trade. From 1525 onwards, however, until nearly the end of the seventeenth century, compared with the ma.s.ses of theological books alternately by Protestant and Roman Catholic English exiles, printed in the Low Countries, Germany, Switzerland, and France, the output of secular work sinks into insignificance. The stream begins with Tyndale's New Testament, of which a few sheets were printed at Cologne (see Plate XXVIII), two editions at Worms, and half a dozen or more at Antwerp before it was suffered to appear in England.

The first English Bible is believed to have been printed (1535) by Christopher Froschauer at Zurich, the second (1537) at Antwerp, the third (1539) was begun at Paris and completed in England. Besides their New Testaments, Tyndale and George Joy published a good many controversial works at Antwerp. In the next generation the city became one of the strongholds of the Romanist exiles after the accession of Elizabeth, and Hans de Laet, John Fouler, Willem Sylvius, and Gillis van Diest the younger were frequently called on in 1564-6 to provide paper and print for Stapleton, Harding, William Rastell, and the other antagonists of Bishop Jewel.