THE SPREAD OF THE ART IN GREAT BRITAIN.

The introduction of printing into Scotland did not take place till 1508, in which year a printer named Andrew Myllar set up his press in the Southgait at Edinburgh. At this time the countries of Scotland and France were in close business communications, and many Scotsmen sought employment on the Continent. In 1496 a certain David Lauxius, a native of Edinburgh, was in the employment of Hopyl, the Paris printer, as a press corrector, an employment often undertaken by men of learning. Lauxius afterwards became a schoolmaster at Arras, and is several times spoken of by Badius Ascensius in the prefatory letters which he prefixed to his grammars. Such books as were needed were sent over to Scotland from France, and the probable cause of the introduction of printing into the former country was the desire of William Elphinstone, Bishop of Aberdeen, to have his adaptation of the Sarum Breviary for the use of Aberdeen produced under his own personal supervision. Two men were readily found to undertake the work; one, Walter Chepman, a wealthy merchant, who supplied the necessary capital; the other, Andrew Myllar, a bookseller, who had several times employed foreign presses to print books for him, and had himself been abroad on business expeditions.

The books which had been printed for Myllar were, Multorum vocabulorum equivocorum interpretatio magistri Johannis de Garlandia, in 1505, and Expositio sequentiarum secundum usum Sarum, in 1506; both being without a printer’s name, but most probably from the press of P. Violette of Rouen.[37]

As was to be expected, Myllar obtained his type from France, and probably from Rouen, but it bears no resemblance to that used in the books printed for him. Among the Rouen types it is most like that used by Le Talleur, but the resemblance is not very close. The capital letters seem identical with those used by De Marnef, at Paris, in his Nef des folz, and are also very like those of the Lyons printer, Claude Daygne.

Supplied with these types, Myllar returned to Edinburgh, and in the spring of 1508 issued a series of nine poetical pamphlets, the only known copies being now preserved in the Advocates’ Library, Edinburgh. These were all issued within a few days of each other, and neither the type nor the woodcuts show any indication of wear or blemishes which might enable some order to be assigned to them. These books, like Pynson’s early-quartos, are signed by the sheet, an indication that the printer learnt his art at Rouen.

In 1510 the Breviary was issued, and, were it not for the colophon, would pass as the production of a Norman press, It is in two volumes; the Pars Hiemalis, containing 400 leaves, the Pars Estivalis, 378. Only four copies are known, all imperfect. With the production of this book the Edinburgh press stopped for some while.

There is no doubt much yet to be learnt about the history of the first Scottish press, especially in its relations to those of Normandy, and there seems no reason why in time it should not become quite clear. Not only are the original books in existence, but also the acts relating to them. One other book must be noticed as having been printed in Scotland before 1530. This is the De compassione Beate Virginis Marie, a ‘novum festum’ issued for incorporation into the Breviary, and printed at Edinburgh, by John Story, about 1520. Of this little tract but one copy remains, which is bound up in the copy of the Aberdeen Breviary belonging to Lord Strathmore at Glamis. It consists of a single sheet of eight leaves, and, according to Dr. Dickson, is not printed in the same type as the Breviary.

From this time onward till Davidson began to print, it seems as though Scotland had no practised typographer. Hector Boece, John Vaus, and others, were obliged to send their books to be printed at a foreign press; Vaus indeed went over to Paris to superintend the printing of his Grammar by Badius, who was at that time the printer most favoured by Scottish authors.

No book was actually printed at York till 1509, but for many years before that date there had been stationers in the city who imported foreign books for sale. Frederick Frees, who was enrolled as a free-man in 1497, is spoken of as a book printer, but no specimen of his work exists. His brother Gerard, who assumed the surname of Wanseford, imported in 1507 an edition of the Sarum Hymns and Sequences, printed for him at Rouen by P. Violette. Of this book only two copies are known. Shortly after Gerard Wanseford’s death, an action was brought against his executor, Ralph Pulleyn, by Frederick Frees, the brother, about the stock of books which had been left, and which consisted mostly of service-books, bound and unbound, with some alphabeta and others in Latin and English.

In 1509 a certain Hugo Goes printed an edition of the Directorium Sacerdotum, the first dated book printed at York. Two copies are known, one in the Chapter Library at York, and the other in the library of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. Davies[38] incorrectly states that both copies are imperfect, and want the leaf upon which the colophon was printed; but it is certainly in the Cambridge copy, for this wants only the last leaf, which would either be blank or with a printer’s mark. The book is for the most part printed in the type which W. de Worde used at Westminster just before 1500. Goes printed also editions of the Donatus and Accidence, but no copies are now known, though in 1667 copies were in possession of a Mr. Hildyard, a York historian. Bagford, among his notes on printing [Harl. MS. 5974, 95], mentions a Donatus cum Remigio, ‘impressus Londiniis juxta Charing Cross per me Hugonem Goes and Henery Watson’—with the printer’s device H. G. This book also is unknown, but may perhaps be the Grammar mentioned by Ames as being among Lord Oxford’s books. If the copy of the colophon is correct, it shows that Goes was at some time printing in London. He is said to have also printed at Beverley.

In 1516, ‘Ursyn Milner, prynter,’ was admitted to the freedom of the city. He was born in 1481, and by 1511 was living in York, when he gave evidence in the suit between Ralph Pulleyn and Frederick Frees. He printed only two books, a Festum visitationis Beate Marie Virginis, and a Grammar of Whittington’s.

The Festum was issued doubtless between 1513 and 1515, for in 1513 the Convocation of York ordered the feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary to be kept as a ‘Festum principale.’ It is quoted by Ames, p. 468, and has the following colophon: ‘Feliciter finiunt (?) festum visitationis beate Marie virginis secundum usum ebor. Noviter impressum per Ursyn Milner commorantem in cimiterio Minsterii Sancti Petri.’ It is in 8vo, and a copy formerly belonged to Thomas Rawlinson.

The second book, the Grammar, is a quarto of twenty-four leaves, made up in quires of eight and four leaves alternately, a peculiar system of quiring much affected by Wynkyn de Worde. Below the title is a cut of a schoolmaster with three pupils, which was used by Wynkyn de Worde in 1499, and which he in turn had obtained from Govaert van Ghemen about 1490. (The cut was first used in the Opusculum Grammaticale, Gouda, 13th November 1486.) Below the colophon, which tells us that the book was printed in ‘blake-strete’ on the 20th December 1516, is the printer’s device, consisting of a shield hanging on a tree supported by a bear and an ass, the bear being an allusion to his name Ursyn. On the shield are a sun and a windmill, the latter referring to his surname Milner. Below this device is an oblong cut containing his name in full on a ribbon, his trade-mark being in the centre.

The connexion between the early York stationers and Wynkyn de Worde is very striking, and has yet to be explained. Gerard Wanseford in his will, dated 1510, leaves forty shillings to Wynkyn de Worde, which he (the testator) owed him. The next stationer and printer, Hugo Goes, was in possession of some of De Worde’s type; and Milner, the last of the early York printers, used one of his cuts, and copies his peculiar habit of quiring. Perhaps the type and cuts were originally bought by Wanseford and obtained successively by the others; at any rate, both the type and cut were out of W. de Worde’s hands at an early date.

The most important of the York stationers remains still to be noticed, though he was unfortunately only a stationer and not a printer. John Gachet appears at York in 1517, and in the same year is mentioned as a stationer at Hereford. He was in business in the former town at least as late as 1533, when the last book printed at his expense was issued.

Printing was introduced into Cambridge in 1521, when John Lair de Siberch, perhaps at the instigation of Richard Croke, who from 1522 was professor of Greek and public orator, set up his press at the sign of the Arma Regia. In 1521 he printed six books, and of these the Oratio Henrici Bulloci is the first. The five other books follow in the following order: Augustini Sermo, Luciani pe?? ???????, Balduini sermo de altaris sacramento, Erasmus de conscribendis epistolis, and Galeni de Temperamentis. In the next year Siberch printed only two books, Joannis Roffensis episcopi contio, and Papyrii Gemini Eleatis Hermathena. It is needless to describe these books more fully here, for an extremely good and full bibliography of them was compiled by Bradshaw, and published as an introduction to one of the Cambridge facsimiles in 1886.[39]

Since the publication of this bibliography, the existence of another book from the first Cambridge press has been discovered. In 1889, among some other fragments forming the covers of a book in Westminster Abbey Library, were found part of the first sheet of the Cambridge Papyrius Geminus, and two leaves of a grammar in the same type, in quarto, with twenty-six lines to the page besides headlines. These turned out to be part of the small grammar, De octo orationis partium constructione, written for use in Paul’s School. It was written by Lily and amended by Erasmus, and finally issued anonymously. After the printing of these nine books Siberch is lost sight of; but that he was still alive in 1525 we know from a letter of Erasmus, who, writing on Christmas Day to Dr. Robert Aldrich of King’s College, sends greetings, among others, to ‘Gerardum, Nicolaum et Joannem Siburgum bibliopolas.’ Amongst the fragments taken from the binding spoken of above, was a letter to Siberch from the well-known Antwerp and London bookseller, Peter Kaetz, relating to the purchase of books, but it has unfortunately no date, though certainly earlier than 1524.

Two books were printed at Tavistock in the first half of the sixteenth century; and as the monks possessed a printing press of their own, it is quite probable that other books were issued which have now entirely perished. The first book is an English metrical translation of the De Consolatione PhilosophiÆ of Boethius made by Thomas Waltwnem. It has the following colophon: ‘Emprented in the exempt monastery of Tavestock in Denshyre. By me Dan Thomas Rychard, monke of the sayd monastery. To the instant desyre of the ryght worshypful esquyer Mayster Robert Langdon, anno d. MDXXV.’ Several copies of this book are known.

Of the other book but one copy is known, now in the library of Exeter College, Oxford. It is a small quarto of twenty-six leaves, with thirty or thirty-one lines to the page, The tithe runs, ‘Here foloyth the confirmation of the Charter perteynynge to all the tynners wythyn the countey of Devonshyre, wyth there statutes also made at Crockeryntorre by the hole assent and consent of al the sayd tynners yn the yere of the reygne of our souerayne Lord Kynge Henry ye VIII. the-secund yere.’ The book ends on the reverse of signature d 3, ‘Here endyth the statutes of the stannary. Imprented yn Tavystoke ye xx day of August the yere of the reygne off our soveryne Lord Kynge Henry ye VIII. the xxvi yere.’

At Abingdon a book was printed in 1528 by John Scolar, who had beer printing at Oxford about ten years previously. It is the Breviary for the use of Abingdon, and the only known copy is in the library of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. The colophon runs: ‘Istud portiforium fuit impressum per Joannem Scholarem in monasterio beate marie virginis Abendonensi. Anno incarnationis dominice Millesimo quingentesimo vicesimo octavo. Et Thome Rowlonde abbatis septimo decimo.’

Two other towns must be mentioned, which, though not possessing resident printers, had stationers who published books printed for them. In 1505 the Hereford Breviary was issued under the superintendence of Inghelbert Haghe, and under the patronage of the ‘Illustrissime viraginis,’ Margaret, Countess of Richmond and Derby. It has the following colophon: ‘Impressum est hoc breviarium secundum eiusdem diocesis usum in clarissimo rathomagensi emporio: impensis et cura Inghelberti Haghe dicte comitis bibliopole ac dedititii. Anno salutis christi Millesimo quingentesimo quinto. II. non. augusti.’ Of this book only three copies are known. One, textually perfect, and containing both parts, is in Worcester Cathedral Library. The Bodleian has a Pars Estivalis, slightly imperfect, and another copy is in private hands. We can trace this bookseller to a later date, for his name occurs in a note written on a fragment in the Bodleian, which formed at one time the lining of a binding, ‘Dedi bibliopole herfordensi Ingleberto nuncupato pro isto et sex reliquis libris biblie xliii^s iiij^d quos emi ludlowie anno domini incarnationis millesimo quingentesimo decimo circiter die nundinarum lichefeldensium.’

The other town is Exeter, where, about 1510, a stationer named Martin Coeffin was living. Two books were printed for him, both of which were without date. One of these was the Vocabula magistri Stanbrigi, primum jam edita, sua saltem editione, printed, so Ames tells us, by Lawrence Hostingue and Jamet Loys at Rouen. He adds further, that the ‘piece’ had five leaves, which we may take to be impossible; it must have had six leaves, of which the last was blank, or had a printer’s device upon it. The second book was a Catho cum commento, printed at Rouen by Richard Goupil, ‘juxta conventum sancti Augustini ad intersignum regulÆ aurÆ commorantis.’ On the subject of this book Ames is no more explicit; he tells us it was printed at the expense of Martin Coeffin at Exeter, beyond that he has nothing to say. The two pieces are quoted by him in his General History of Printing between the Years 1510 and 1517, and the date which he thus assigns is probably fairly correct, for FrÈre quotes Goupil under the year 1510, and Hostingue under 1505-10.