LONDON.

John Lettou, William de Machlinia, Richard Pynson.

In 1480, printing was introduced into London by John Lettou, perhaps a native of Lithuania, of which Lettou is an old form. The first product of the press was an edition of John Kendale’s Indulgence asking for aid against the Turks, another edition having just been issued by Caxton in his large No. 2* type. As we have said, Lettou’s small neat type was very much better suited for printing indulgences, and its appearance very probably caused Caxton to make his small type No. 4, which he used in future for such work. Besides two other editions of the indulgence, Lettou printed only one book in this year, the QuÆstiones Antonii AndreÆ super duodecim libros metaphysice Aristotelis. It is a small folio of 106 leaves, of very great rarity, only one perfect copy being known, in the library of Sion College, London. In 1481 another folio book was printed, Thomas Wallensis super Psalterium, and probably in the same year a work on ecclesiastical procedure, known only from two leaves which were found in the binding of one of the Parker books in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

From the workmanship of these books we can clearly see that Lettou was a practised printer, though we know nothing as to where he learnt his art. His type, which bears no resemblance to any other used in England, is very similar to that of Matthias Moravus, the Naples printer; so similar, indeed, as to make it certain that there must have been some connexion between the two printers, or some common origin for their types. Lettou was assisted by a certain William Wilcock, at whose expense the two large books were printed.

About 1482, Lettou was joined by another printer, William de Machlinia, a native no doubt of Malines in Belgium. These two printers employed a new fount of type of the same school as the other English types, and one suitable for the printing of the law-books, which were their sole productions. In partnership they printed but five books, the Tenores Novelli, the Abridgment of the Statutes, and the Year-Books of the 33rd, 35th, and 36th years of Henry VII. The first of these books is the only one which has a colophon. It gives the names of the two printers, and states that the book was printed in the city of London, ‘juxta ecclesiam omnium sanctorum;’ a rather vague address, since, according to Arnold’s Chronicle, there were several London churches thus dedicated.

After these books had been issued, about 1483-84, John Lettou disappears, and Machlinia carried on his business alone. By himself he printed at least twenty-two books or editions. Out of all this number only four contain his name, and not one a date. He printed at two addresses, ‘By Flete-brigge,’ and in Holborn. If these two addresses refer to two different places, and we have no reason for supposing the contrary, there is no doubt that ‘By Flete-brigge’ is the earlier.

How late he continued to carry on business it is not possible to find out, as none of his books are dated. The Bull of Innocent VIII., relating to the marriage of Henry VII., which he printed, cannot have been issued till after 2nd March 1486; and the occurrence of a title-page in one of his books points to a still later date, for we know of no other book having a title-page printed in England before 1491-92.

Machlinia’s use of signatures and initial directors seems to have been entirely arbitrary, and it is impossible to arrange the books in any certain order from their typographical peculiarities.

In the ‘Flete-brigge’ type there are nine books. Two works of Albertus Magnus, the Liber aggregationis and the De secretis mulierum;[34] a HorÆ ad usum Sarum, known only from fragments rescued from old bindings; the Revelation of St. Nicholas to a monk of Evesham, of which the two known copies show curious instances of wrong imposition. There are, besides, three law-books and a school-book, the Vulgaria Terencii. Of the HorÆ ad usum Sarum twenty leaves are known, all printed on vellum. In size it might be called a 16mo, and was made up in gatherings of eight leaves, each gathering containing two sheets of vellum. These gatherings were folded in a peculiar way. As an ordinary rule, when we find a quire of eight leaves formed of two sheets, leaves 1, 2, 7, 8 were printed on one sheet, leaves 3, 4, 5, 6 on the other. But Machlinia adopted a different plan, and printed leaves 1, 4, 5, 8 on the one sheet, leaves 2, 3, 6, 7 on the other. It is impossible to say whether there were any cuts in the volume; there are none in the remaining fragments, but at the beginning of certain portions a woodcut border was used, which surrounded the whole page. This border was afterwards used by Pynson. A curious thing to be noticed about the type in which these books are printed, is its very strong resemblance to some of the founts of type used about the same period in Spain.

In the Holborn type there are a larger number of books, at least fourteen being known. Of these the best known and most common is the Speculum Christiani, supposed, from the occurrence of the name in a manuscript copy, to have been compiled by one Watton. It is interesting as containing specimens of early poetry. Another book was popular enough to run through three editions; this was the Treatise on the Pestilence, written by Kamitus or Canutus, bishop of Aarhuus. It is impossible to say when it was printed, or whether some panic connected with the plague caused a run upon it. One of the editions must have been almost the last book which Machlinia issued, for it contains the title-page already referred to. The most important book in this set in point of size is the Chronicles of England, of which only one perfect copy is known. In the copy in the British Museum occurs a curious thing. The book is a folio, but two of the leaves are printed as quarto. In this type are three law-books, Year-Books for years 34 and 37 of Henry VI., and the Statutes of Richard III. There are also two school-books, the Vulgaria Terentii and an interesting Donatus in folio, whose existence is known only from duplicate copies of one leaf. The remaining books are theological, and comprise two separate Nova Festa, or services for new feasts; one for the Visitation of the Virgin, the other for the Transfiguration of our Lord. These services were almost at once incorporated in the general volume of the Breviary, so that in a separate form they are very uncommon. The last book to be mentioned is the RegulÆ et ordinationes of Innocent VIII., which must have been printed some time after 23rd September 1484, when that pope was elected. Of a later date still is a Bull of the same pope relating to Henry VII.’s title and marriage. It must have been printed after 7th November 1485 (the date of Parliament), and after 2nd March 1485-86 (the date of the Bull).

Another book should be mentioned here, which, though it cannot with certainty be ascribed to any known English printer, resembles most of all the work of Machlinia. It is an English translation by Kay of the Latin description of the Siege of Rhodes, written by Caorsin; a small folio of twenty-four leaves. Many of the letters seem the same as Machlinia’s, but with variations and modifications.

The number of founts of type used in this office throughout its existence was eleven, and of these two are very peculiar. One of the larger sets of type seems to have been obtained from Caxton, but it was hardly used at all. Another set of capital letters, which must have been obtained from abroad, occur in some of the latest books. They bear no resemblance to anything used by any other printer, and look rather as though they belonged to a fount of Roman type.

Though 1486 is the latest date which we can fix to any of Machlinia’s productions, it is probable that he continued to print up till about the year 1490.

Soon after the cessation of Machlinia’s press, his business seems to have been taken on by Richard Pynson, whose first dated book appeared in 1493. Though it is impossible to prove conclusively that Pynson succeeded Machlinia in business, many small points seem to show that this was the case. We find leaves of Machlinia’s books in bindings undoubtedly produced by Pynson, and he was also in possession of a border used by Machlinia in his edition of the Sarum HorÆ. It is often said that Pynson was an apprentice of Caxton’s; but we have no evidence of this beyond the words in the prologue to the Chaucer, where Caxton is called ‘my worshipful master’—a title applied sometimes to Caxton by printers living fifty years after.[35]

In his patent of naturalisation of 30th July 1513, Pynson is described as a native of Normandy; and we know that he had business relations with Le Talleur of Rouen, who printed some law-books for him. These books, three in number, may be ascribed to about 1490, or to some time after Machlinia had ceased printing, and before Pynson had begun. It was probably very soon after 1490 that Pynson set up his printing establishment at the Temple Bar; for though his first dated book, the Dives and Pauper, is dated the 5th July 1493, there are one or two other books that can with certainty be placed before it.

A fragment of a grammar, consisting of the last leaf only, among the Hearne fragments in the Bodleian, is all that remains of one of his earliest books. It is printed entirely in his first large coarse type, which bears so much resemblance to some of Machlinia’s; and was used as waste to line the boards of a book before Passion Week, 1494.

The Chaucer, in which two types are used, one for the prose and another for the verse, is also earlier than the Dives and Pauper. It is illustrated with a number of badly executed woodcuts, cut specially for the book, of the various pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales. Some of these cuts were altered while the book was passing through the press, and serve again for different characters. The Sergeaunt with a little alteration reappears as the Doctor of Physick, and the Squire is turned into the Manciple.

In 1493 the Dives and Pauper appeared. It is printed in a new type, copied evidently from a French model, and strongly resembling some used in Verard’s books. This type superseded the larger type of the Chaucer, which we do not find in use again. To 1493 a number of small books can be assigned, all printed in the type of the Dives and Pauper, and having twenty-five lines to the page. Amongst them we may mention the Festum Nominis Jesu; an edition of Lydgate’s Churl and Bird; a Life of St. Margaret, which is known only from fragments, and a legal work of which there is one leaf in Lambeth Palace Library.

The method of using signatures, which Pynson adopted in these early books, affords another small piece of evidence to prove that he learnt to print at Rouen, and not in England. In the quartos, the first leaf of the quire is signed A 1, the second has no signature, while the third is signed A 2. This way of signing (by the sheet instead of by the leaf), not a very ordinary one, was commonly in use at Rouen; while Caxton and De Worde signed in the more usual manner, with consecutive signatures to each leaf for the first half of the quire.

For some unknown reason, Pynson was dissatisfied with the Dives and Pauper type, for after 1493 it never seems to have been used again. From this time onwards, till about 1500, the majority of his books were printed in the small type of the Chaucer, or in some newer types of a more severe and less French appearance. In his earliest books Pynson used a device consisting of his initials cut in wood, so as to print white upon a black background. It resembles in many ways that of his old associate Le Talleur, and may therefore have been cut in Rouen. In 1496 we find him using two new devices, one a large woodcut containing his mark, and a helmet surmounted by a small bird,[36] which began to break about 1497, and was soon disused. The other, which is a metal cut, is in two pieces, a border of men and flowers, and an interior piece with the mark on a shield and supporters. The border of this device is a most useful guide in determining the dates of the books in which it occurs. In the lower part is a ribbon pierced for the insertion of type. The two ends of the piece below the ribbon were too thin to be strong, so that the piece gets gradually bent in, the ribbon becoming narrower and narrower. According to the bend of this piece the exact year can be ascertained, from 1499, when it began to get displaced, to 1513, when it broke off altogether.

Among the books which appeared in 1494, the Fall of Princis, translated by Lydgate from Boccaccio, is the most remarkable. It is printed throughout in the smaller type of the Chaucer, and at the head of each part is a woodcut of particularly good execution. The copy of this book in the British Museum, unfortunately imperfect, was rescued from the counter of a small shop where it was being used to make little bags or ‘twists’ to hold pennyworths of sweets. Each leaf has been divided into four pieces. A Grammar of Sulpitius and a Book of Good Manners were also printed with a date in this year. In 1495 no dated books were issued, but the Petronylla and The Art and Craft to know well to Dye must have been issued about this time. In 1496, Pynson printed a small supplement to the first edition of the Hymns and Sequences printed at Cologne by Quentell, and in the following year he issued a complete edition of the book, and an edition of the HorÆ ad usum Sarum. In the same year (1497) he printed six of Terence’s plays, each signed separately so that they could be issued apart. About this year were issued two interesting folios, Reynard the Fox, and a Speculum vite Christi, with illustrations. In 1500 was issued the Book of Cookery, of which the only known copy is in the library at Longleat, and the splendid Sarum Missal, printed at the expense of Cardinal Morton, and generally known as the Morton Missal. Of updated books printed about this time we may notice especially, editions of Guy of Warwick, Maundeville’s Travels, Informatio Puerorum, a few small school-books, and a number of year-books and other legal works.

About 1502-3, Pynson changed his residence from outside Temple Bar to the George in Fleet Street, where he continued to the end of his life. His career as a printer is curiously different from Wynkyn de Worde’s. The latter was the popular printer, publishing numbers of slight books of a kind likely to appeal to the public. Pynson, on the other hand, was in a more official position as King’s printer, and seems to have been generally chosen as the publisher of learned books. Wynkyn de Worde printed ten slight books for every one of a more solid character; with Pynson the average was about equal.

From 1510 onwards we find frequent entries relating to Pynson in all the accounts of payments made by Henry VIII., and these show that he was clearly the royal printer, and in receipt of an annuity. In September 1509, he issued the Sermo fratris Hieronymi de Ferraria, which contains the first Roman type used in England. In 1513 appeared the Sege and Dystruccyon of Troye, of which there are several copies known, printed upon vellum.

Pynson’s will is dated 18th November 1529, and was proved on 18th February 1530. He was succeeded in business by Robert Redman, who had been for a few years previously his rather unscrupulous rival.

The last few years of the fifteenth century saw a great change in the development of English printing. Up to the time of Caxton’s death in 1491, there seems to have been little foreign competition, but immediately after this date the state of things altered entirely. Both France and Italy produced books for the English market, and sent over stationers to dispose of them: Gerard Leeu at Antwerp printed a number of English books, mostly of a popular character, while Hertzog in Venice; and a number of printers in Paris, printed service-books of Sarum use.

By 1493 two stationers were settled in England; one, Frederick Egmondt, as an agent for Hertzog, the other, Nicholas Lecompte, who sold books printed in Paris. Though we only know of these two as stationers through their names appearing in the colophons of books with which they were connected, there must have been many others of whom we have no trace. After the Act of 1483, which so strongly encouraged foreign importations, a very large number of books for the English market were printed abroad. This was at first occasioned by the small variety in the number of types and the scarcity of ornamental letters and woodcuts. In 1487, Caxton commissioned George Maynyal, a Paris printer, to print an edition of the Sarum Missal, and this is the first foreign printed book for sale in England whose history we know. About ten years previously, a Sarum Breviary had been printed at Cologne, and in 1483 another edition at Venice. The first edition of the Sarum Missal was printed about 1486 by Wenssler at Basle. In the fifteenth century, at least fifty books are known to have been printed abroad for sale in England. Most of these were service-books, but there were a few of other classes. Gerard Leeu reprinted three of Caxton’s books, The Chronicles, The History of Jason, and the History of Paris and the fair Vienne, and added a fourth popular book to these, which had not previously appeared in English, the Dialogues of Salomon and Marcolphus. In addition to these, he printed editions of the Sarum Directorium Sacerdotum and HorÆ.

Another class of books produced abroad were school-books, and the earliest of these for English use is an edition of the grammatical tracts of Perottus, printed at Louvain in 1486 by Egidius van der Heerstraten. In the same year Leeu printed the Vulgaria, and very shortly afterwards editions of the Grammars by Anwykyll and the Garlandia were issued from Deventer, Antwerp, Cologne, and Paris.

The greater portion, however, of this foreign importation consisted of service-books, at least forty editions being sent over from abroad before 1501. From Venice were sent Breviaries and Missals, printed for the most part by Johannes de Landoia dictus Hertog. As we have said, the first edition of the Sarum Breviary was printed at Cologne by an unknown printer, and the first edition of the Sarum Missal at Basle by Wenssler about 1486. From Paris and Rouen came the greater number of HorÆ, and such books as the Legenda, Manuale, and Liber Festivalis.

It is impossible to enter here with any fulness into the history of the earliest stationers and the books printed abroad for sale in England. It is rather foreign to our present subject, but would well repay careful study.