The Printers, Stationers and Bookbinders of…

The history of the stationers and the book-trade in England during the period between 1500 and 1535 is very obscure and information is difficult to obtain. That the number of stationers was very considerable we know from incidental references, and though references are fairly numerous it is almost impossible in the present state of our knowledge to combine isolated facts into any connected story. One point is quite clear, and every new discovery only tends to emphasize it, and that is that the book-trade with the Continent and the dealings of foreign stationers in this country were infinitely more extensive and important than is usually supposed. While other countries had a perfectly adequate supply of printers and stationers of their own and imported little from their neighbours and practically nothing from England, here the reverse was the case. In the time of Richard III there were but four printers in England, one in Westminster, one in London, one in Oxford, and one in St Alban's, so that we can quite understand the Act of 1484, which was so strong an encouragement to foreigners to trade here in books, and the resulting influx of aliens. There were hardly any restrictions upon foreign trade and there was a ready market for foreign printed books, so that it is not surprising that the more important foreign publishers dealt largely with this country. They appear to have set up stalls and shops in the neighbourhood of St Paul's, where probably the Company of Stationers would not have power to interfere, and to have placed agents in charge of them. Besides this they sent agents round to the various provincial fairs, which at that time were the greatest business centres in the country, with waggon loads of books for sale.

Our sources of information about these stationers are very scattered and also very inadequate. Chief amongst them are of course the vast masses of documents, only partially explored, preserved in the Public Record Office. The list of denizations and the Returns of Aliens have been printed by the Huguenot Society, and these give a little information, though unfortunately the business of the person is often not stated and there is also the further difficulty of his being entered under his correct surname, a name which in the ordinary course of business he rarely made use of himself. The names too are most carelessly spelt and entered. One man for instance occurs under the following names, Frinnorren, Fremorshem, Formishaa, Bringmarshen, and Vrimors. The lists of denizations are of little use as far as our present period is concerned, for from 1509 to 1534 only 240 persons are entered, though in 1535 the large number of 172 was reached owing to pressure being put upon strangers from the Low Countries. In this total of 412 only seven are mentioned as having business connected with the book-trade; in fact in these lists of denizations the occupation of only about one in twenty-five is mentioned. The only returns of aliens before 1535 are the imperfect ones in connexion with the subsidies granted to Henry VIII in 1523-25, and in these the occupations are but very rarely entered. These returns are therefore useless in giving information about otherwise unknown stationers; we can only attempt to trace persons whose names are already known, and this is rendered the more difficult as people are arranged anyhow, according to the ward they inhabited, and there is as yet no index to the book.