LECTURE III.
OXFORD SECOND PRESS AND CAMBRIDGE.
After an interval of about thirty years the Oxford press restarted on a brief career, this time apparently with the official sanction of the University. The first book issued was a commentary by W. Burley Super libros posteriorum Aristotelis. It is a small tract of ten leaves, and was finished on December 4, 1517. The printer, John Scolar, lived in St John’s Street, near Merton College. Nothing is known of him before he appears at Oxford as a printer, and nothing of his career in the University. Mr Madan remarks, “Although Scolar uses the arms of the University (their earliest occurrence in print), yet the registers of the University almost ignore the fact that for the second time the greatest literary invention since speech and writing were known was silently at work in its midst.” The expression “almost ignore” is rather disingenuous. Whether the registers did or did not ignore John Scolar we shall never know, since the volume covering the years from 1515 to 1526 is lost.
The text and notes of this volume are printed in two sizes of black-letter type, apparently identical with that used by Wynkyn de Worde. Some of the initials and the woodcut at the end are certainly his, and it would appear as though Scolar had obtained from him the type which had been used for printing the work of Sirectus, published a year or two earlier at Oxford by Jacobi.
The next book, finished on May 15, 1518, is Dedicus’ Questiones super libros Ethicorum Aristotelis. A very interesting fact about it is the statement on the last leaf that the printer had a privilege for it for seven years granted by the Chancellor. No one was to print it in the University or sell copies printed elsewhere under pain of confiscation of the books and a fine of five pounds sterling. The notice ends with the expressive Latin adage, “Cornicum oculos configere noli.”
This is the first privilege which I have found in an English printed book, the next, six months later, having been granted by the King for Cuthbert Tonstall’s Oratio in laudem matrimonii Mariæ et Francisci. This privilege prevented anyone either reprinting it in England or selling foreign printed copies for the space of two years. This may seem a short time, but the subject was only of passing interest. The rise, growth, and scope of these privileges, which are the foundations of copyright, form a subject which has hitherto received little or no attention even from writers on copyright, though I think it would go far to prove that the perpetual copyright, which later on was claimed by the stationers, was never legally recognised, but that the power granted them by the charter enabled them to impose and uphold arbitrary restrictions which were not legally binding.
On the title-page of this and the preceding work is John Scolar’s device, the shield of the University surmounted by a cap and supported by two angels. On the shield are the arms, the book with seven seals between the three crowns, but the motto on the book in place of the present “Dominus illuminatio mea” is “Veritas liberabit, bonitas regnavit.” Another woodcut containing the Royal arms and supporters is used in these books, which had been used previously by W. de Worde.
In June 1518 three books were printed: Questiones de luce et lumine, a tract of eight leaves, Burley’s Principia, also of eight leaves, and a Grammar of Whitinton. A new Oxford book from Scolar’s press was discovered recently in a volume of tracts in the British Museum. It is an edition of the Opus insolubilium, a text-book for the schools. It consisted originally of four leaves, but the last is unfortunately missing. On the first leaf is the woodcut of the University arms in fresh condition. This tract may perhaps be the first production of Scolar’s press.
The Questiones de luce et lumine has on the title-page a small rough woodcut depicting the visit of the Magi, belonging to a series made to illustrate a Book of Hours; and on the title of Burley’s Principia is a small neat woodcut, rather Italian in style, of a master seated before a desk with a pupil standing before him. At the end is a woodcut of the arms of England supported by the greyhound and dragon. Below are two portcullises, and above two angels hold ribbons bearing the motto
“Hec rosa virtutis de celo missa sereno
Eternum florens regia sceptra feret.”
This woodcut was part of the material obtained by the Oxford printer from W. de Worde, and which after the cessation of the press was returned to him. We find him using it in some of his later books, by which time it had become slightly damaged by wormholes.
We hear no more of Scolar in Oxford after 1518, when he probably left the city; but his place was taken by Charles Kyrfoth, who issued in February 1519 a Compotus manualis ad usum Oxoniensium, a little treatise of arithmetic illustrated by wood engravings of the open hand with values attached to each part. It is a small tract of eight leaves, and we learn from Dorne’s accounts that its price was one penny. In the colophon Kyrfoth gives his address, as did Scolar, as St John’s Street, and as he used the same device of the University Arms, we may conclude he had taken on Scolar’s business. On the title-page is a large and curious woodcut divided horizontally into three portions. In the upper is a row of seven books. In the centre a master in an embroidered robe and crowned with laurel is seated at a desk, while on either side of him are scholars taking notes. In the lower part are five men in gowns holding books. In the text are four diagrams of hands. The only copy known of this book is in the University Library. Beyond the occurrence of his name in this colophon we know nothing further of Kyrfoth. He probably left Oxford soon after the issue of this book, for his name is not found in the list of inhabitants in the Subsidy Rolls of 1524.
Scolar, as we said above, left Oxford in 1518, but we meet with him again ten years later; for in 1528 he printed a Breviary for the use of the Benedictine Monastery at Abingdon, which will be noticed hereafter.
Between 1527 and 1557 nothing was printed at or for Oxford. The books printed for John Dorne, described in an earlier lecture, were the last enterprise of an Oxford publisher. Nor apparently was there any wish to continue printing, for while Cambridge was careful during the changes brought about by various acts to preserve her liberties, and when the act of 1534 against foreign stationers was passed to obtain a special exemption enabling the University to employ foreign stationers or printers, Oxford was content to let matters take their course. The roll of stationers continued unbroken, and here and there an interesting man, such as Garbrand Harkes, stands out, but there is little of interest to chronicle before the revival of the press at the end of the sixteenth century.
While Oxford was credited by many early bibliographers with a book printed in 1468, which was not really printed until 1478, so many of the same authorities credited Cambridge with a book printed in 1478 which was not printed at Cambridge at all. The mistakes and confusions about this book, only finally cleared up by Bradshaw in 1861, form a curious comedy of errors.
Among the documents used by Strype when writing his life of Archbishop Parker was a catalogue of the books bequeathed to Corpus Christi College by the archbishop, in which was an entry: “Rhetorica nova, impressa Cantab, fo. 1478.” This entry was communicated by Strype to Bagford, then collecting materials for a history of printing, and Bagford in his turn wrote about it to Tanner. Tanner’s brother passed on the information to Ames, who inserted it at the head of his account of Cambridge printing, and from him it was copied by other writers, including Herbert.
In the meanwhile Conyers Middleton in his Dissertation concerning the origin of Printing in England, had turned the error into a new groove. Describing the edition printed at St Alban’s in octavo in 1480, he remarks: “The same book is mentioned by Mr Strype among those given by Archbishop Parker to Corpus Christi College in Cambridge; but the words, ‘Compilata in Universitate Cantabrigiæ,’ have drawn this learned antiquary into the mistake of imagining that it was printed also in that year at our University, and of doing us the honour of remarking upon it; so ancient was printing in Cambridge!”
If the University Librarian, as Middleton then was, in place of being facetious, had stepped down the street and examined the book for himself, much subsequent confusion would have been avoided. He must have had a poor opinion of Strype if he supposed that that learned antiquary would describe as a folio printed at Cambridge in 1478 an octavo with a printed colophon, “impressa apud Villam Sancti Albani. 1480.”
But Middleton’s plausible suggestion seems to have gained ground, and the Corpus volume was passed over as a copy of the St Alban’s book until 1861, when Bradshaw, at work on the manuscripts in the library accidentally met with it, and saw at once that it was not the St Alban’s book, but an unknown Caxton edition. It has no colophon, so that the concluding words “Compilata in Universitate Cantabrigiæ,” and the date 1478, might well deceive a casual observer into thinking it was printed at Cambridge in that year.
Printing was introduced into Cambridge at the beginning of the year 1521 by John Lair of Siberch or Siegburg, a town a few miles south-west of Cologne. Like most of the foreign printers settled in England, he made but little use of his proper surname, but used the place name instead and called himself John Siberch.
Nothing is known as to the date of his settling in Cambridge, but it was probably in 1519 or early in 1520, for in May of the latter year an edition of Richard Croke’s Introductiones in rudimenta Græca was printed for him by Eucharius Cervicornus at Cologne.
Croke was at this time Professor of Greek at Cambridge, but he was compelled to have his work printed abroad, since no English printer of the time possessed a fount of Greek type. Had he acted on his own initiative, he would probably have employed a printer of Paris where he had studied, or Leipzig where he had recently been a professor, both of which towns had excellent Greek presses. But if Siberch, a man presumably with practical knowledge, was already settled in Cambridge, what could be more natural than for the professor to hand over the arrangements of the printing to him, while he in his turn would no doubt entrust the work to a printer of the town from which he himself came, and not improbably to the master with whom he had himself worked. This, of course, is conjecture, but some curious evidence of Siberch’s having been in Cambridge when Croke’s book was published, came to light accidentally in 1889. In that year a volume was found in the library of Westminster Abbey printed at Paris in 1519, which had evidently been bound in Siberch’s workshop. In the binding were several manuscript and printed fragments. The printed fragments consisted of leaves of the Papyrius Geminus printed by Siberch in 1522 and two leaves of a hitherto unknown edition of Lily’s Grammar; amongst the manuscript fragments was a letter to Siberch, to be referred to later, and a piece of the manuscript of Croke’s Rudimenta Græca, bearing upon it the rough pencil mark indicating the commencement of a new sheet and a fresh page, both agreeing with the printed book. The copy then had been returned from abroad, not to the author Croke, but to the man who had commissioned the book, Siberch. Had Siberch been abroad when the book was printed, he would either have corrected the proofs with the copy at Cologne, and in that case would hardly have troubled to bring over the then useless copy with him to England, or else proofs with the copy would have been sent to Croke, in which case we should not have expected to find it as waste in Siberch’s shop.
What Siberch’s exact position was in relation to the University is not quite clear. Dr Caius speaks of him as the University printer, but no direct evidence of this has been forthcoming. Mr Gray has, however, pointed out to me an entry in one of the Grace books recently printed, and which he was unaware of when writing his life of Siberch for the Bibliographical Society. This was one of the graces passed in congregation during the year from the feast of St Michael the Archangel [September 29], 1520 to the corresponding date of the following year. It runs: “Obligatur doctor Manfeld loco et vice magistri Norres pro summa pecunie quam recepit Johannes bibliopola ab universitate.” This debt is entered regularly in the proctors’ accounts, printed in another recently-printed Grace book, from 1520-21 up to 1524-25, and the sum mentioned is twenty pounds.
We have therefore the clearest evidence that some time between September 1520 and September 1521 the University had advanced to Siberch the sum of twenty pounds, and I think we are quite justified in concluding that this was to assist him in his business as a printer. The sum of twenty pounds is considerably more than a University stationer’s fee, and must have been granted for a special purpose. If the exact date of the grace in the year could be ascertained, it would probably throw some light on the question. If early enough, it might be the cost of material to enable him to set up his press.
It is not until October 1521 that he uses the words, “Cum gratia et privilegio.” Bradshaw, in a bibliographical note on the book in which they first appear, writes: “In his dedication to Bishop Fisher he [that is, Siberch] styles himself ‘Io. Siberch Cantabrigiensis typographus,’ and it must have been on this occasion and through Bishop Fisher’s influence that he obtained leave to place ‘Cum gratia et privilegio’ on his title-pages.” This privilege was not I think the King’s privilege, such as London printers had just begun to obtain, but more probably one granted by the Chancellor similar to that given to Scolar the Oxford printer by the Oxford Chancellor, and this would further point to Siberch’s official connexion with the University.
The house where he lived and printed was described by Dr Caius as situated between the Gate of Humility and the Gate of Virtue, forming part of some property bought by Caius in 1563 from Trinity College. It bore the sign of the King’s arms, which accounts for the use by Siberch in his books of two woodcuts containing the Royal arms. In the same house Erasmus lived when he was lecturing at Cambridge, and we know from his letters that he was on intimate terms with Siberch and the contemporary Cambridge stationers to whom he sends greetings by name at the conclusion of one of his letters.
Having obtained some type Siberch started to work for himself, and his first production was a speech of Dr Henry Bullock delivered before Wolsey when the Cardinal visited the University in the autumn of 1520. This is a small pamphlet of eight leaves, devoid of all ornament, and it was published between February 13, the date of the dedication and the end of the month, in 1521. The type used appears to be new, but where it was obtained is not settled. It bears a very strong resemblance to some of Pynson’s, but is not quite identical. At present we do not know much about the early business of type-cutting, but it seems clear that, soon after the commencement of the sixteenth century, different printers went to a common source for their type, and that type-cutting was not a part of the printer’s business, as it was when printing was first invented, but a special trade. New types would thus tend to conform more to a common model. Of this first Cambridge book four copies are known, but unfortunately there is no copy in Cambridge, the four copies being in the British Museum, the Bodleian, the Lambeth Library, and Archbishop Marsh’s Library, Dublin. The Bodleian copy had belonged to Richard Burton, the author of the Anatomy of Melancholy, the Lambeth one to Archbishop Bancroft, so that at any rate for a few years, between 1646 and 1662, this latter copy was with the rest of the Archbishop’s books upon the shelves of the University Library.
About April, in 1521, according to Bradshaw’s calculation, Siberch’s second book appeared, the sermon of Augustine, De miseria ac brevitate vitæ, a book of twelve leaves. The printer had added a little to his stock of type, for there is a Greek motto on the title-page which is also enclosed between two border-pieces.
This type is interesting as the first genuine moveable Greek type used in England. A year or two earlier W. de Worde had introduced a few words of Greek into an edition of one of Whitinton’s Grammars, but the words were roughly cut on wood. Pynson did not begin to use Greek until 1524 in a work by Linacre, and in the preface he offers a curious apology for its imperfections, praying the reader to pardon missing breathings or accents, since he had but recently cast the Greek types and had not prepared a supply sufficient to finish the work completely.
The amount of Greek printing in all Siberch’s books put together is very small, hardly enough to call for the cutting of a special fount, for it must be borne in mind that a Greek fount is infinitely larger and more complex than a Roman. One specially complicated fount used at Venice in 1486 contained about 1350 sorts. It seems probable therefore that we must look to some foreign source for this type, and its identification might throw some further light on Siberch’s business career.
The two border side-pieces, each containing three small scenes in canopied compartments relating to the Last Judgment, evidently form part of a set for use in a Book of Hours. These identical border-pieces have not been found used elsewhere, but are evidently copied from, and resemble in every detail, two of a set used in a Book of Hours printed at Kirchheim. Very little, however, can be deduced from similarity of design, for printers copied designs which pleased them from any source, and often with such extraordinary accuracy as to require very careful scrutiny to distinguish the copy from the original.
This is the rarest of all Siberch’s books, for only one copy is known, now in the Bodleian. It formerly belonged to John Selden and went with the rest of his books to Oxford by bequest in 1659.
Of the next book four copies are known. It consists of a translation of Lucian’s πὲρι διψάδων by Henry Bullock, and a reissue of the latter’s Oration. On the title-page Siberch uses for the first time his ornamental border with the Royal arms at the base. A very curious statement, that this border is the first specimen of English copperplate engraving, has found its way into a number of books. Its earliest appearance seems to be in Herbert’s Typographical Antiquities, where a so-called facsimile is given. Now this facsimile itself is a very roughly-executed metal engraving, and from the text it is clear that Herbert made his description from this rough engraving and not from the book itself. The proof of this is clear. The engraver has added a rough facsimile of the two-lined colophon, immediately below the border, and Herbert, assuming it to be part of the title-page, has so described it in his text. The most cursory glance would show this border to be a woodcut, but the old statement goes on being repeated.
The fourth book, Baldwin’s Sermo de altaris sacramento was issued in the summer, probably August, of 1521. In this is found for the first time the smaller device of the Royal arms. Eight copies of the book are known, two being in the University Library while another has lately been discovered in the library of Magdalene College. One of those in the University Library, which it is suggested may be an early copy sent to Nicholas West, bishop of Ely, to whom the book is dedicated, shows some variations from the ordinary copies. It is clear that it is an early issue, since the border is without a small break noticeable in other copies, and the first word of the title-page, Reverendissimi, has been misprinted Reverndissimi, a mistake almost immediately noticed and corrected. In this book, for the first time, Siberch begins to use one of his ornamental capitals, a fine six-line S.
Siberch’s fifth book, Erasmus De conscribendis epistolis, was issued in October 1521. This is a more important book in point of size than any which preceded it, containing eighty leaves, whereas the largest of the others only ran to twenty. It also shows certain marks of advance. We find for the first time a frequent use of fine initial letters, and it is the first book for which the printer obtained a privilege, unfortunately not printed in full. Four copies of this book are known, two in the British Museum, and two in Cambridge College Libraries, St John’s and Corpus. The last copy has the additional interest of being bound by a contemporary Cambridge stationer, Nicholas Speryng, and bears his mark and initials on the binding.
The Erasmus was followed by Galen De Temperamentis, translated from the Greek by Linacre. This is the commonest of Siberch’s books, at least twelve copies being known, but some of these show important variations. The first intention seems to have been to issue the De Temperamentis alone, and it was so printed off on sixty-six leaves, with the signatures A⁴, Q⁶. Later it was determined to add another small treatise De inequali intemperie, so the last two leaves of the first issue, containing the end of the De Temperamentis were cancelled, and two new sheets R⁴ and S⁶ added. Finally a preliminary quire of eight leaves was printed, making the complete book consist of seventy-four leaves. One copy of the first state is known, first noticed by Mr Bowes in the library of Trinity College, Dublin, in 1894. On the verso of the penultimate leaf is a woodcut of the Adoration of the Shepherds and the colophon, on the verso of the last leaf the small block of the Royal arms and the date 1521. A transitional copy, containing the first issue with the end uncancelled, but the additional sheets added, is in the library of the Royal College of Physicians. All the remaining copies are of the revised issue. In it the last two leaves are mainly occupied with a list of the errata which had been found in the De Temperamentis, and on the verso of the last leaf is the device of the Royal arms. The woodcut of the Shepherds found in the early copies has not as yet been traced to an earlier source. It is apparently Low Country work of the fifteenth century; Sir Martin Conway ascribes it to about the year 1485.
Two copies of the Galen were printed on vellum, both of which are now in Oxford, one in the library of All Souls College, the other in the Bodleian. This latter copy possesses a curious pedigree. It was presented to the Bodleian in 1634 by Thomas Clayton, Regius Professor of Medicine. In a long Latin note which he has written in the volume he states that it was given by Linacre to Henry VIII. who in his turn gave it to Cuthbert Tonstall, and after passing through various hands it had come into his possession, and he finally has deposited it in the Bodleian. It is an interesting copy, but whether it ever belonged to Henry is very doubtful. It is in the original binding, but this is simply an ordinary stationer’s binding impressed in blind with the two panels of the Royal arms and Tudor rose used by many of the London binders of the time. Again one sheet has been incorrectly printed. In printing the reverse side of a sheet in signature S, the workman has laid the sheet the wrong way round on the form and consequently the pages follow one another in the wrong order, a fruitful and common cause of waste sheets. Finally the ornamental initials in the early part of the book have not been printed in, and no attempt has been made to supply them by hand. It does not seem probable that so poor a copy would have been presented to the King. An early inscription shows that it belonged to Tonstall, who gave it to Richard Sparchford, archdeacon of Shropshire, who gave it to the church of Ludlow.
The seventh book is a translation into Latin by Richard Pace of the sermon preached by John Fisher, bishop of Rochester, in London, to an audience said to have numbered thirty thousand, on the occasion of the public burning of Luther’s works. In this book for the first time Siberch made use of the device with his initials and mark within a chain work frame showing white on a black background, an uncommon style of device and one unlike any other used in England at the time. Of this book only four copies are known, two in the Bodleian, one in the library of Magdalene College, Cambridge, and one in the Rylands Library, Manchester.
The last dated of the early Cambridge books is the Hermathena of Papyrius Geminus, issued on December 8, 1522. No less than three different states of the title-page are known. The first is quite free from ornament, in the second an attempt seems to have been made to supply the want of the old border device, and the upper part of the title is enclosed in a frame made by two horizontal border-pieces joined at the sides by a plain fine. In the third state, a third border-piece has been added at the bottom of the page and the black lines extended on either side to join all three. The book contains twenty-six leaves, the last leaf containing on the recto the colophon and printer’s device, on the verso the small arma regia device. Six copies are known. With the title in the first state one copy remains, which formerly belonged to Bradshaw and is now in the University Library. Of the second state there are three copies, in Archbishop Marsh’s Library, in Lincoln Cathedral, and in St John’s College, Cambridge. Of the third state the two copies belong to the British Museum and the Duke of Devonshire. These last two copies are both printed on vellum, but the museum copy wants the last leaf containing the colophon and devices.
Title-page of Fisher’s Sermon, printed at Cambridge
by John Siberch in 1522.
The publication of another Cambridge book, an edition of the Grammar of Lily and Erasmus, was proved by the discovery in 1889 of two leaves, found with some other most interesting fragments in the covers of a book in Westminster Abbey Library.
The Grammar is the De octo orationis partium constructione libellus written for the use of St Paul’s School. It was composed originally by William Lily, and Colet, the founder of the school, sent the work to Erasmus to emend. Erasmus so altered it that Lily would not permit it to be called his work, and as Erasmus for his part refused to put his name to Lily’s work, the book was published anonymously. It became very popular, and many editions were issued abroad for the English market, so that it is just such a book as a Cambridge printer might be expected to print rather than to import.
These nine books comprise the whole output of the early Cambridge press. Though Cambridge obtained a special privilege shortly afterwards giving the right to print, the right was never exercised, and nothing was produced in the town until the two Universities restarted their presses towards the end of the sixteenth century.
The bookbindings that can definitely be assigned to Siberch are at present few in number. He used one fine roll divided into four rectangular compartments, containing a pomegranate, a turretted gateway with portcullis, a Tudor rose, and three fleurs-de-lys, all surmounted by a royal crown and within canopied archways. Below the fleurs-de-lys are his initials. This is a purely English design, and the tool was no doubt made for him after his arrival in Cambridge. Immediately Siberch gave up work, about 1523-24, the tool passed to Speryng, who mutilated it, so that we know fairly well the period during which it was used when undamaged. Its use in conjunction with other tools enables more of Siberch’s material to be identified. In the University Library is a copy of the Epistolæ of Paulinus, bishop of Nola, printed at Paris in 1516, whose binding is impressed with two well-executed panel stamps separated from each other by this roll. On one is depicted St Roche tended by an angel for the plague and a dog bringing him food, on the other St John Baptist, standing on a mound and preaching to four persons seated below him. These two saints were popular subjects for binding panels, and a number of varieties, mostly copied one from another, are known, but this particular pair are especially well designed and engraved, and were chosen by Dibdin to reproduce in his Bibliographical Decameron.
On a folio in the library of Clare College, Siberch’s signed roll is found used with another roll or band containing figures of seven peasants, one piping, the rest dancing with hands joined, a very favourite design with Netherlandish binders.
The two panel stamps and this second roll are all foreign in appearance, and were no doubt brought by Siberch from abroad. After he gave up work they remained in England. I have a work of Erasmus, printed in 1532, certainly bound in this country, which has the two panels on the binding, while the roll with dancing figures occurs on a binding in St Paul’s Cathedral Library, lined with waste leaves of an Almanac for 1544. It is not improbable that Siberch had other panels, for we find, soon after he ceased to bind, stamps which were certainly his used in conjunction with others exactly similar in style. I saw lately a work of Erasmus, dated 1524, on which this St Roche panel was used, and with it was a panel with St Michael, and these two occur together elsewhere. One point, however, must certainly be noticed. The one panel binding that we can with certainty attribute to Siberch has three bands on the back, as was usual in the case of English bindings. Every other binding with his stamps which I have seen has four bands, and a binder would be most unlikely to change his habits on such a point.
The letter of Peter Kaetz to Siberch, referred to earlier, is of the greatest interest. It is written on one side of an oblong piece of paper, with the address on the other side. Unfortunately parts of the ends of some of the lines are missing, making parts of certain sentences vague, especially at the beginning, but generally the meaning is fairly clear. It has been translated by Mr Hessels as follows: “Know, Jan Siborch, that I have received your letter as [well as specimens] of your type, and it is very good; if you can otherwise ... and conduct yourself well then you will get enough to print. So I remain still in London because my master comes; I expect him from day to day, therefore I cannot even know when I cross, but so soon as I cross I shall do the best that is in my power. Item, I have told Peter Rinck three or four times of the Pater noster, but he tells me that he cannot find it; and Gibkerken has not yet given Jacob Pastor the ring, but he carries it every day on his hand and he will not give it to Jacob Pastor. Item, I send you 25 prognostications and 3 New Testaments small. The prognostications cost one shilling sterling the 25, and the 3 New Testaments cost 2 shillings and 6 pence sterling, so there is still due to you, which I remain in your debt. I have no more New Testaments, otherwise I should have sent you more. I have nothing else to write except [to ask you to] deliver the accompanying parcel to Niclas, and greet Baetzken for me with your whole family, and do not forget yourself. Petrus Kaetz.”
Among the fragments found with it was part of the manuscript copy of Croke’s book printed in May 1520, a sheet of the Papyrius Geminus printed in 1522, and two leaves of the Lily’s Grammar. The book in which they were found must have been bound after December 1522, but the tools on the binding are not those known to have been used by Siberch, and the book may have been bound after Siberch ceased work by someone occupying his old workshop or who had obtained his waste material. From internal evidence the letter would appear to have been written in 1521 just after Siberch had started printing, the reference to the excellence of the type, of which proofs had apparently been sent, and the remark by Kaetz that if Siberch conducted himself well he would get enough to print, both pointing to this conclusion. One small point may be noticed here in passing. The tone of the letter is that of an older to a younger man, or at any rate, of a man to one of his own age. Now in the colophons of books printed for Kaetz between 1523 and 1525 he is spoken of as “juvenis” and this may be taken as a slight argument for believing that in 1521 Siberch was a young man also.
The master to whom Kaetz referred was very possibly Christopher Endoviensis or Van Ruremond, who, when Kaetz set up in business on his own account, printed books for him. Van Ruremond we know printed English prognostications, single folio broadsides such as would be sold at a penny a piece, which as we know from Dorne’s day-book was the usual price of a single sheet, so that he may have been the printer of these supplied to Siberch at twenty-five for a shilling. The New Testaments were probably of a Latin version since they are called Nova Testamenta in the letter. Nicholas, to whom a packet was sent, was, we may suppose, Speryng.
After 1522 Siberch seems to have relinquished his business as a printer and stationer. We have no reference to him in accounts, and as his name does not occur in the Subsidy Rolls of 1523-24 it may be considered as fairly certain that he was not then in Cambridge. That he had definitely given up work is clearly shown by the dispersal of his material. The smaller neatly-executed cut of the Royal arms went to his friend Peter Kaetz, who, taking it with him on his return to Antwerp, used it in the edition of the Dutch Bible printed for him there in 1525 by Hans Van Ruremonde. Apparently the same block appears in an edition of Erasmus and Lily’s Grammar published at Antwerp by Godfried van der Haeghen in 1527 for sale in St Paul’s Churchyard. The fine border of the Galen also went to Antwerp and is found eventually on the title-page of a Dutch Prognostication of 1536 printed by Hendrick Pietersen van Middleburch. From a comparison of a recently-issued facsimile of the Dutch book with the original Cambridge book, it is clear the border is identical in both. What has now to be done is to trace it between 1522 and 1536. Lastly, the fine binding roll which he possessed passed into the hands of Nicholas Speryng who attempted to obliterate the initial I upon it and substitute an N. The latest binding on which it is found in an unmutilated state is on a book printed at Venice and finished on November 10, 1522, so that the binding cannot be earlier than 1523. The mutilated tool is found used with others belonging to Speryng on the binding of a book printed in 1524.
For a considerable time after 1522 we have no information. The debt of twenty pounds continued to be entered in the proctor’s accounts up to the year 1524-25, after which it dropped out. In 1538-39 the debt is re-entered in a most interesting memorandum which may be translated thus: “Note; that twenty pounds sterling are owing to the university by ‘Dominus’ John Lair, an alien priest, and Doctors Rydley, Bullock, Wakefelde, and Maundefelde, and it has their bond signed by all their hands, and sealed with their seals.” After several entries of a similar tenor we come to the final one in the Audit book under the year 1553. “John Syberche owes out of the money advanced to him [xx. li.], as is evidenced by his bond contained in the common chest, and his guarantors are Doctors Rydley, Bullocke, and Manfyld, together with Mr Wakfyld.” It would thus appear that like many another, Siberch was so influenced by the religious movements of the time, that he forsook his business in order to serve the Church, and it is therefore in this sphere that we should seek for further information about him. He seems also to have made use of his proper name Lair, sometimes corrupted into Law, rather than the name Siberch he had used as a printer.
Perhaps further search in this new direction may result in fresh discoveries.
The stationers of Cambridge, like the stationers of Oxford, were of two classes, those officially appointed by the University and those who traded independently. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries there are frequent references to the rights of the University over the stationers. They had certain official duties, such as the valuation of books and the supply of the necessary school books at fixed rates, and the stationers chosen by the University received a small fee or salary for such work. After the middle of the fifteenth century the stationers can be traced in an unbroken series, but though we know their names and find entries of their business in accounts, there, at present, our information ceases. Five names are given in Mr Gray’s account of the early Cambridge stationers for the second half of the fifteenth century, Gerard Wake, John Ward, Fydyon, perhaps Fitzjohn, William Squire, and Walter Hatley. Of these, two, Wake and Hatley, were bookbinders, and perhaps some of their work may yet be identified, and if one single volume could be ascribed to either with certainty and the stamps they used definitely ascertained, then much of their work could be traced. William Squire is only known from receiving a settled fee of thirteen shillings and fourpence between the years 1482-6. He may perhaps, since we find the names Squire and Lesquier often used indiscriminately, be identical with the stationer William Lesquier whose goods were administered at Oxford in February 1501-2. Peter Breynans, another bookbinder, is mentioned in 1502, and a Lawrence Topfeller in 1506.
In May 1503 the award of Margaret, Countess of Richmond, and three other arbitrators was agreed to and signed. This covenant between the town and University contained special references to stationers, and enacted that only those stationers and binders who had always practised their trade should be considered under the jurisdiction of the University, a certain number, then in business, being exempted.
Our knowledge of early Cambridge bookbinding is curiously different from what we know of Oxford. There our knowledge of fifteenth-century work is full, and of early sixteenth almost a blank. For Cambridge there is a splendid series of early sixteenth-century work, while fifteenth-century specimens are almost unknown or at any rate unidentified. Mr G. J. Gray’s excellent monograph, lately published by the Bibliographical Society, has fully put on record what is known about Cambridge binding, and has the advantage of being well illustrated. The earliest examples facsimiled in his work are ornamented by means of the roll-tool, but there is a series of bindings ornamented with dies in the earlier manner produced probably about 1500, which may with considerable probability be ascribed to a Cambridge binder. These bindings are very distinctive in appearance and may easily be distinguished from others of the same period. One peculiarity enables us to identify this binder’s work even when on the shelves. He always ruled two perpendicular lines down the back. The leather used is nearly always the red-tinted variety which seems peculiar to Cambridge. The scheme of decoration of the sides consisted of a large centre panel divided by diagonal lines into a kind of diamond-shaped lattice work, and in each division thus formed a die was stamped. These dies, mostly square or diamond-shaped, contained conventional flowers or strange animals and birds. The best two, which are very finely engraved, have two cocks fighting and a pelican feeding her young. This binder also made frequent use of a small tool of a spray of foliage, plain and not enclosed in a frame, and this he used to build up borders and to finish the ends of the bands, a noticeable peculiarity. The boards were usually lined with vellum.
When Dr James prepared his catalogue of manuscripts in the library of Pembroke College, the librarian, Mr Minns, added an appendix containing an account of the early printed books and a plate of facsimiles of stamps used on some of the bindings. Those numbered 21 to 32 belonged to this binder and occur on four bindings. Three of these are on printed books ranging between 1478 and 1490. The fourth specimen is more important as affording a definite clue to a Cambridge origin, for it is on the second volume of the college register. A search for and examination of such bindings as remain in Cambridge might result in the discovery of some inscription or other evidence which might enable us to identify the binder.
The earliest of the important sixteenth-century binders and stationers is Garret Godfrey, and his name is first found affixed to a deed in 1503 which itself relates to the position of stationers and bookbinders in the University. He was a native of the Low Countries, and from the occurrence of the name Graten on some waste sheets extracted from some of his bindings, is supposed to have come from Graten in Limburg. He seems to have occupied a good position in Cambridge, and was chosen as one of the churchwardens of St Mary the Great in 1516, and continued to fill offices in connexion with the church for several years. He died in 1539 and was buried in St Mary’s, while his will, dated September 12, was proved on October 11.
Godfrey was well supplied with binding tools, and we find him in possession of at least five rolls. The most important contains figures of a griffin, a wyvern, and a lion, separated from each other by branches of foliage. Below the lion are the binder’s initials, the second having a sign like an arrow-head springing from the top, representing presumably his merchant’s mark. The workmanship of this roll very much resembles that of some of the fine London rolls of the time, those for example of John Reynes or Thomas Symonds, and it is quite probable that they may all have been engraved by the same man.
Godfrey’s second roll is divided into five divisions. The first four contain a turretted gateway with portcullis, a fleur-de-lys, a pomegranate, and a Tudor rose, each under a canopy and surmounted by a Royal crown. The fifth contains the binder’s initials G. G. and between them a shield charged with three horse-shoes. This introduction of a private heraldic shield into a bookbinder’s ornament, is, so far as my experience goes, quite without parallel and certainly requires explanation. Occurring as it does, between the binder’s initials, it must obviously have some connexion with him, and the initials are certainly those of Garret Godfrey. The late Sir Augustus Franks suggested that the initials stood for Guido Gimpus. The name is not mentioned by Burke in his Armorial, but Papworth allows a coat “sable, three horse-shoes argent,” to a family, Vytan-Gimpus, on the authority of Glover’s Ordinary. A third roll containing the Royal emblem in compartments, in the same order as in the previous one, also contains his initials, but with no arms. This is a much narrower roll than the second, and poorer in design. The fourth and fifth rolls have no mark or initials, one is of diaper work, the other of interlaced strap work. In addition Godfrey used a few small dies.
Nicholas Speryng, the second stationer, came originally from the Low Countries, and is found settled in Cambridge, perhaps as early as 1506, certainly by 1513. It seems likely that he had worked as a binder before coming to Cambridge, and that he brought some of his binding tools with him. An examination of his bindings shows that he often worked in a more old-fashioned style and with older tools than Godfrey. The ornamental frames on the sides of his bindings are in many cases built up by a repetition of single stamps, a troublesome system superseded by the invention of the roll. As he possessed the stamps he would naturally use them, but he would not have had them engraved had the use of the roll been then known to him. The two panel stamps which he used are also probably of foreign make. These contain representations of the Annunciation on the one side, and St Nicholas restoring the three murdered children on the other. The Annunciation was a very favourite subject with bookbinders, especially those of the Low Countries, while the St Nicholas had reference to the binder’s Christian name. It is curious to notice that the surname has been wrongly engraved, and reads Spiernick in place of Spierinck. Some years ago some fragments of an edition of Holt’s Grammar, the Lac Puerorum, printed in English at Antwerp by Adrian van Berghen, were found in the Bodleian, which, from the indentations still remaining on them, had clearly formed the boards of one of these bindings, and on one of the fragments the name Speyrinck was written. The piece of paper had doubtless formed the wrapper of a parcel addressed to him.
Speryng’s rolls were all engraved after he came to England. The finest, apparently engraved by the same hand as Godfrey’s, contains figures of a dragon, a lion, and a wyvern amidst sprays of foliage. Between the wyvern and dragon, in a wreath, are his mark and initials. A smaller roll is divided into five compartments, the first four containing a fleur-de-lys, a turretted gateway, a pomegranate, and a Tudor rose, each surmounted by a Royal crown and under a canopy, while the fifth contains his mark and initials. It is an almost exact copy of one of Godfrey’s rolls, with the badges arranged in a different order. There are two varieties of this roll. In the earlier the binder’s initial S is a rather badly engraved letter of a curious script form, but at a later date it has been re-engraved in the more usual form. Weale, describing the earlier state in one place, reads the initials N. G., and in another ascribes the roll to Segar Nicholson, a later Cambridge stationer.
Speryng had also a roll of diaper work resembling, though clearly differing from, Godfrey’s, and another roll with a graceful pattern of twining foliage and flowers. He also, like Godfrey, had several dies.
There is a binding in Westminster Abbey Library on a copy of a Codex Justiniani printed at Paris in 1515 which both Godfrey and Speryng appear to have had a hand in with remarkable results. First the volume was bound by Godfrey, who ornamented the side with a framework made with his fine broad roll, with two parallel impressions of the same roll inside the panel. The volume somehow came later into Speryng’s hands. He filled up the vacant spaces with his own diaper roll, and then stamped his ornamental roll with his initials over Godfrey’s, mixing the ornaments in hopeless confusion. We find the body of Speryng’s wyvern with the head of one of Godfrey’s animals, and so on.
One roll used by Speryng had belonged to Siberch, and I found it many years ago on a binding in Westminster Abbey Library. Commenting on this binding Mr Gray writes: “We have evidence of Siberch’s grand roll being used by Spierinck on the binding of a Faber, Paris, 1526; the J is obliterated by the N being stamped over it, but not completely, for Siberch’s initial can be plainly seen underneath, and this roll was used with one of Spierinck’s own.” This explanation is hardly clear. Speryng did not use Siberch’s roll on the binding and then attempt to stamp an N over the J. What he did do was to try and cut on the brass tool itself an N which should replace the J, but the work was clumsily done and portions of the J still show.
The binding of the Faber just mentioned is stamped with Siberch’s mutilated roll and one of Speryng’s diaper rolls, and this was the only known example of the use of the mutilated roll. Not long ago, however, I found in the library of Queen’s College, Oxford, a copy of the Decretals of Panormitanus printed at Lyons in 1524 in four large folio volumes in a magnificent Cambridge binding. On it is used the mutilated roll of Siberch, Speryng’s largest signed roll, and his smaller floral roll. Speryng died about the end of 1545 and was buried in St Mary’s Church. His will, dated August 20, 1545, was proved on January 27 following.
In 1523 an act was passed to prevent the taking of alien apprentices, and a further act of 1529 prohibited aliens, not householders, from exercising any handicraft, but in both acts the two Universities of Oxford and Cambridge were exempted. In the latter year Wolsey was petitioned by the University to be allowed to have three foreign licensed booksellers, and when in 1534 the act was passed restricting the dealings of foreign stationers, special permission was granted to Cambridge to elect three stationers or printers who might be aliens or natives. No similar privilege was either asked for by or granted to Oxford.
The University immediately appointed the three stationers, Nicholas Speryng, Garret Godfrey, and Segar Nicholson, who appear to have been themselves instrumental in procuring the grant. Strangely enough the date of this grant providing for increased activity apparently exactly coincides with a remarkable cessation of work. No book is known bound by Speryng printed later than 1533, though he did not die until the end of 1545, while the latest dated book bound by Godfrey, who died in 1539, is 1535. After this date we find no more fine bindings. The beautiful broad rolls and panel stamps went out of fashion and were superseded by narrow rolls of formal renaissance ornament. As at Oxford the succession of stationers and binders continued unbroken; but their work is of little interest.