The Printers, Stationers and Bookbinders of Westminster and London from 1476 to 1535

The Printers, Stationers and Bookbinders of West

E. Gordon Duff surveys the introduction and early development of printing, bookselling, and bookbinding in Westminster and London. He dismisses the supposed Oxford printing of 1468 as the result of a misprinted date, leaving William Caxton as England’s first printer. Caxton, after service in the Low Countries and work for the Duchess of Burgundy, learned printing at Cologne, worked with Colard Mansion, and issued the Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, the first book printed in English. He then established his Westminster press in 1476 at the Red Pale in the Almonry. Caxton’s press produced translations, religious works, romances, chronicles, poems, service books, and instructional pieces. Duff discusses the Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres, Canterbury Tales, Golden Legend, Morte d’Arthur, Reynard the Fox, the Sarum Ordinale, and many small tracts. He stresses Caxton’s activity as editor and translator as well as printer, and follows changes in his types, signatures, illustrations, advertisements, paper, devices, and surviving copies. Caxton’s output increased in scale and variety, though he appears more concerned with the literary worth of books than with ornament for its own sake. After his death in 1491, his materials and Westminster business passed to Wynkyn de Worde. De Worde first reused Caxton’s types and reissued familiar works, but developed a large trade in devotional books, grammars, poems, romances, schoolbooks, and popular tracts. Duff traces his changing devices, especially their cracks and replacements, as a means of dating books. De Worde moved from Westminster to the sign of the Sun in Fleet Street, printed for the Countess of Richmond and Derby, and employed translators, assistants, apprentices, servants, and binders. His books include King Apolyn of Tyre, the Demaundes Joyous, the Ship of Fools, Christmas Carolles, Whittinton’s grammatical works, and many reprints. His will reveals a network including Robert Copland, Henry Pepwell, John Butler, James Gaver, Alard, Nowell, and others. He died early in 1535. Duff reconstructs the careers of other London and Westminster printers through type, devices, colophons, fragments, ownership notes, bindings, and legal records. John Lettou, a skilled printer whose type came from Rome, began London printing in 1480 with scholarly books and indulgences. With William de Machlinia he printed law-books, including the Tenures of Lyttelton, the Abridgement of the Statutes, and Year-books. Machlinia later worked near Flete-bridge and in Holborn, producing statutes, chronicles, grammars, service books, the Treatise of the Pestilence, the Speculum Christiani, and other works whose dating is difficult because they are generally undated. Richard Pynson, probably trained in Normandy, is presented as a careful and scholarly printer who succeeded to the market for law-books. His productions include Chaucer, Latin grammars, Year-books, Terence, the Promptorius Puerorum, the Doctrinale, the Speculum vitae Christi, and the Missal printed at the expense of Cardinal Morton. His type, woodcuts, damaged devices, and successive addresses provide chronological evidence. Julian Notary moved from Westminster to London, where he printed and sold books under the sign of the Three Kings. His work includes the Golden Legend, Chronicles of England, Nicodemus Gospel, Scala Perfectionis, and the Shepherdes Calendar. Robert Copland, Henry Pepwell, John Skot, John Butler, John Toy, Richard Bankes, Lawrence Andrewe, and Thomas Godfray form a later group associated in varying degrees with De Worde’s popular trade. Their careers show that imprints cannot always be taken literally: books naming one printer may have been printed by another, while type and ornaments can give more reliable evidence. Their books include popular stories, religious works, school texts, law tracts, translations, ballads, and Chaucer. Duff also examines foreign printers and stationers supplying England. Cologne, Venice, the Low Countries, Rouen, and Paris produced Sarum Breviaries, Missals, Horae, Manuals, grammars, and English books for English buyers. Foreign stationers including Frederick Egmont, Nicholas Lecomte, Henry Frankenberg, Bernard van Stondo, Jean Richard, and John Boudins commissioned books, imported stock, bound volumes, and traded in London, Oxford, and provincial towns. The Act of 1484 protected foreign printers, binders, and sellers, encouraging their trade; the Act of 1534 restricted imported bound books and foreign retail dealing. Bookbinding receives equal importance. Duff praises early English leather bindings, especially those associated with Durham, Winchester, London, and Oxford. Caxton followed the binding style he had become used to during his residence at Bruges, while De Worde, Pynson, Notary, Egmont, Lecomte, Reynes, and unnamed binders used dies, panels, rolls, initials, marks, saints, royal arms, and Biblical scenes. Bindings preserve crucial evidence because their boards and linings contain fragments of lost books, indulgences, broadsides, and otherwise unknown editions. Duff argues that the history of printing must rest on exact comparison of types, cuts, paper, devices, fragments, documents, booksellers’ records, and bindings.

By E. Gordon Duff · First published 1476 · Genre: Bibliography, Book History, Printing History · 8 chapters · 75,481 words

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While the history of the invention and introduction of the art of printing into the various countries of Europe is not only obscure, but still the subject of endless controversy, the history of its introduction into England is now practically settled.

There are no troublesome and incomprehensible documents as in the case of France. No questionable references or undatable fragments such as Dutch and German bibliographers have to contend with. The only attempt that has been made to bring forward an earlier printer than William Caxton is founded upon the misprinted date in the first book printed at Oxford.

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early English printing · William Caxton · Wynkyn de Worde · London book trade · Westminster printing · incunabula · history of the book · printing press technology · typography · bookbinding · bibliography · bibliographical detective work

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