LECTURE I.
THE PRINTERS AT WESTMINSTER.
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.
In 1664, while the Company of Stationers and the King were quarrelling over the question which had or should have the most power in matters pertaining to printing, a certain Richard Atkyns put forth a tract, now exceedingly rare, called The Original and Growth of Printing. In this tract, intended to uphold the King’s rights, attention was drawn for the first time to the Oxford book. “A book came into my hands,” writes Atkyns, “printed at Oxford, A.D. 1468, which was three years before any of the recited authors would allow it to be in England.” Around this book Atkyns wove a wonderful romance, in the style of the earlier legends about Coster and Gutenberg. Rumours of the new art, he suggests, having reached England, trusted men were sent over to bribe or kidnap an eligible printer and bring him over secretly, along with a press, type, and other impedimenta, to England. This was accordingly done, and a certain Frederick Corsellis was conveyed into England, and set up a press in Oxford. One curious point has escaped all commentators on this story, and that is that a real person named Corsellis did come over to England from the Low Countries about that time, and was an ancestor of several well-known London families in Atkyns’s time, such as the Van Ackers, the Wittewronges and the Middletons.
Atkyns referred for evidence to documents which have never been found, and his story has met with the disbelief it deserved, but the Oxford book with the date of 1468 not only exists, but still has supporters who consider, or say they consider, the date to be genuine.
Singer in the early part of the century wrote a book in favour of its authenticity, though, as he afterwards attempted to suppress his work, we may conclude he had changed his opinion. Mr Madan of the Bodleian, in his recent admirable history of Oxford printing, clings hesitatingly to 1468, “but quaere” as he would himself say. Generally, however it is agreed that the date is a misprint for 1478. The book has printed signatures, which are not known to have been used before 1472, and when the book is placed alongside the two others issued from the same press in 1479 and printed in the same type, it falls naturally into its proper place, taking just the small precedence which its slightly lesser excellence of workmanship warrants.
Having now disposed of Caxton’s only rival, let us turn to Caxton himself. It would, I think, be out of place here to recapitulate however shortly the history of Caxton’s early life, since it has been so fully and excellently done in that standard book Blades’s Life of Caxton. What is more to our purpose is to pass on to the time when, as an influential and prosperous man, he laid the foundations of his career as a printer. By 1463 Caxton had been appointed to the office of governor of the English nation in the Low Countries, a post of considerable importance, and entailing the supervision of trade and traders, and this office he held until about the year 1469. At this latter date he was also in the service of the Duchess of Burgundy, though in what capacity is not stated; but he certainly employed himself at her request in making translations of romances. The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, a well-known romance of the period, was translated between the years 1469 and 1471, and presented to the duchess in September of the latter year. In the prologue of the printed edition Caxton explains that after the duchess had received her copy, many other persons desired copies also, but that finding the labour of writing too wearisome for him, and not expeditious enough for his friends, he had “practised and learnt, at his great charge and expense, to ordain the book in print, to the end that every man might have them at once.”
Now in 1471, when Caxton finished his translation of the Recueil, he was living at Cologne, a city remarkable even at that time for the number of its printers, and the first town that Caxton had visited where the art was practised. He had just finished the tedious copying of a large manuscript, so that the advantages of printing would be manifest to him; and we may be tolerably certain that it was about this time and at this town that he took his first lessons in the art and mastered the mechanical processes.
Printing by this time had ceased to be a secret art, nor was there such a demand for books as to make it a very valuable one. The printed books of Germany had at an early date found their way to Bruges, and people’s eyes were accustomed to the sight of the printed page, though the nobles still preferred manuscripts, as being more ornamental and costly. There are copies in the Cambridge University Library and at Lambeth of the Cicero de officiis, printed at Mainz by Schoiffer in 1466, which were bought in 1467 at Bruges by John Russell, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, when abroad on a diplomatic mission; and a speech of his, delivered at Ghent in 1470, on the occasion of the investiture of the Duke of Burgundy with the order of the Garter, was one of Caxton’s earliest printed productions.
A very strong piece of evidence to my mind that Caxton learnt at Cologne is to be found in the epilogue to the English translation of the De proprietatibus rerum, by Bartholomæus Anglicus, which was printed by W. de Worde, Caxton’s apprentice and successor, in 1496. This epilogue, written by De Worde himself, contains these lines:—
And also of your charyte call to remembraunce,
The soule of William Caxton, first prynter of this boke,
In Laten tonge at Coleyn, hymself to avaunce,
That every well disposyd man, may theron loke.
Now this is a perfectly clear statement that Caxton printed a Bartholomæus in Latin at Cologne, and we know an edition of the book manifestly printed at Cologne about the time Caxton was there. The type in which it is printed greatly resembles that of some other Cologne printers, and it seems to be connected with some of Caxton’s Bruges types. At any rate, the story cannot be put aside as without foundation. It is not, of course, suggested that Caxton printed the book by himself or owned the materials, but only that he assisted in its production. He was learning the art of printing in the office where this book was being prepared, and his practical knowledge was acquired by assisting to print it.
Returning to Bruges, he set about turning his knowledge to account, and in partnership with a writer of manuscripts, named Colard Mansion, began to make or obtain the necessary materials.
Between the years 1471, when Caxton had learned the art at Cologne, and 1474, when he set about obtaining material, printing-presses had started work at Utrecht, Alost, and Louvain. Caxton would most naturally turn for assistance to a town in his own neighbourhood, and there is very little doubt that this town was Louvain, and that the printer who assisted him was John Veldener.
About 1475 their first book was issued, the Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, the first book printed in the English language. It is a small thick folio of 352 leaves, and though not uncommon in an imperfect condition, is of the very greatest rarity when perfect. Two other books were printed by 1476, The Game and Playe of the Chesse and the Quatre derrenières choses, the latter a very rare book, of which only two copies are known.
In 1476 Caxton obtained a new fount of type, and leaving the first fount with Colard Mansion, who continued to use it for a short time, prepared to set out with his new material for England.
It must have been early in 1476 that Caxton returned and set to work. He took up his residence in Westminster at a house with the heraldic sign of the “Red Pale,” which was situated in the Almonry, a place close to the Abbey where alms were distributed to the poor, and where Margaret, Countess of Richmond, the mother of Henry VII., and a great patroness of learning, built alms-houses. The exact position of Caxton’s house is not known, but it was probably on some part of the ground lately covered by the Westminster Aquarium.
The first dated book printed in England was the Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres, translated from the French by Earl Rivers, a friend and patron of Caxton, and edited by Caxton himself, who added the chapter “concernyng wymmen,” a chapter which, with its prologue, exhibits a considerable amount of humour.
It is interesting to notice that, as the book is in English, we alone of European nations started our press with a book in the vernacular.
The ordinary copies of the Dictes are without colophon, though the printer and year are in the epilogue, but a copy formerly in the Althorp Library and now at Manchester has an imprint which states that the book was finished on the 18th November, 1477. Although we count the Dictes or Sayengis as the first book printed in England on account of its being the first dated book, it is quite possible that some may have preceded it. Between the time of Caxton’s arrival in 1476 and the end of 1478 about twenty-one books were printed, and only two have imprints, so that the rest are merely ranged conjecturally by the evidence of type or other details. Now in 1510 W. de Worde issued an edition of King Apolyn of Tyre, translated from the French by one of his assistants, Robert Copland, who in his preface writes as follows: “My worshipful master Wynken de Worde, having a little book of an ancient history of a kyng, sometyme reigning in the countree of Thyre called Appolyn, concernynge his malfortunes and peryllous aduentures right espouuentables, bryefly compyled and pyteous for to here, the which boke I Robert Coplande have me applyed for to translate out of the Frensshe language into our maternal Englysshe tongue at the exhortacion of my forsayd mayster, accordynge dyrectly to myn auctor, gladly followynge the trace of my mayster Caxton, begynnynge with small storyes and pamfletes and so to other.” Now this Robert Copland was spoken of a little later as the oldest printer in England, so that he may well have known a good deal about the beginning of Caxton’s career. We find a very similar case in Scotland. Printing was introduced there mainly for the purpose of printing the Aberdeen Breviary, but the first thing the printers did was to issue a series of small poetical pieces by Dunbar, Chaucer, and others, an exactly similar kind of set to the small Caxton pieces in the Cambridge University Library.
In connexion with these Caxton pieces I noticed the other day a strange statement. The writer was speaking of Henry Bradshaw’s knowledge of Caxton, and went on to say that “to his bibliographical genius the Cambridge University Library owes the possession of its many unique Caxtons and unique Caxton fragments.” The library, however, owes them mainly to the much-maligned John Bagford, who collected the early English books which came to the University with Bishop Moore’s library. The monstrous collection of title-pages in the British Museum, generally associated with Bagford’s name, was made by the venerated founder of English bibliography, Joseph Ames.
Before the end of 1478 Caxton had printed about twenty-one books. Of these sixteen were small works, all containing less than fifty leaves; of the others the most important is the first edition of the Canterbury Tales, of which there is, I think, no perfect copy. Blades speaks of a fine perfect copy in the library of Merton College, Oxford, and remarks also that Dibdin ignorantly spoke of it as imperfect. In Dibdin’s time, however, it certainly was imperfect, for I have seen some notes of Lord Spencer’s referring to his having sent some leaves from an imperfect copy to the college to assist them in perfecting their own, a courtesy which they repaid by presenting to the library at Althorp their duplicate and only other known copy of Wednesday’s Fast printed by W. de Worde in 1532.
Among the other books of the period of special interest is the Propositio Johannis Russell, which has often been ascribed to the Bruges press, as the speech of which it consists was delivered in the Low Countries. Lord Spencer’s copy had a curious history. It is bound up in a volume of English and Latin MSS., and in the Brand sale in 1807 the volume appeared among the MSS., with a note, “A work on Theology and Religion with five leaves at the end, a very great curiosity, very early printed on wooden blocks, or type.” It was bought by the Marquis of Blandford for forty-five shillings, and at his sale ten years after cost Lord Spencer £126.
Another interesting book is the Infancia Salvatoris, of which the only known copy is at Göttingen, being one of the two unique Caxtons which are in foreign libraries. It was originally in the Harleian Library, which was sold entire to Osborne the bookseller, and was bought with many other books for the Göttingen University. It is in its old red Harleian binding, with Osborne’s price, fifteen shillings marked inside, and the note of the Göttingen librarian: “aus dem Katalogen Thomas Osborne in London 12 Maii 1749 (No. 4179) erkauft.”
In the first group of books comes also the only printed edition of the Sarum Ordinale or Pica, which was superseded by Clement Maydeston’s Directorium Sacerdotum. Unfortunately the book is only known from some fragments rescued from a binding and now in the British Museum. To it refers the curious little advertisement put out by Caxton, the only example of a printer’s advertisement in England in the fifteenth century, though we know of many foreign specimens: “If it plese ony man spirituel or temporel to bye ony pyes of two and thre comemoracions of salisburi use, enpryntid after the forme of this present lettre whiche ben wel and truly correct, late hym come to westmonester in to the almonesrye at the reed pale and he shal haue them good chepe.” So far the advertisement; below it is the appeal to the public, “Supplico stet cedula.” It seems curious that this should be in Latin, for one would naturally suppose that the ones most likely to tear down the advertisement would be the persons ignorant of that language.
Two copies of this advertisement are known, one in the Bodleian, and another, formerly in the Althorp collection, at Manchester. It has been suggested that both copies may have been at one time extracted from some old binding in the Cambridge University Library. The example at Manchester certainly belonged at one time to Richard Farmer, who was University Librarian, but the Bodleian example was found by Francis Douce in a binding in his own collection.
The group of eight small books in the University Library which I spoke of as perhaps printed earlier than the Dictes or Sayengis were originally all bound together in one volume in old calf, and lettered “Old poetry printed by Caxton.” This precious volume contained the Stans Puer ad Mensam, the Parvus Catho, The Chorle and the Bird, The Horse the Shepe and the Goose, The Temple of Glas, The Temple of Brass, The Book of Courtesy, and Anelida and Arcyte, and of five of these no other copies are known.
About 1478-9 was issued the Rhetorica Nova of Laurentius of Savona, of which two copies are known, one in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, the other in the University Library of Upsala. Now although this book had been known and examined by many for two hundred years, and is printed in the most widely used of Caxton’s types, yet it was not recognised as a Caxton until it was examined by Henry Bradshaw in 1861. The colophon says that the work was compiled in the University of Cambridge in 1478, and it was in consequence described by all the early writers as the first book printed at Cambridge. Strype wrote an account of the Corpus copy to Bagford, who in his turn wrote of it to Tanner, and he in his turn communicated it to Ames. Ames then inserted it at the head of his list of books printed at Cambridge, and the mistake, as is usual in such cases, was copied in turn by each succeeding writer on printing.
In 1480 considerable changes are to be found in Caxton’s methods of work, owing no doubt to competition, for in this year a press was started in London by a certain John Lettou. He appears to have been a practised printer, and his work is certainly better than Caxton’s, his type much smaller and neater, and the page more regularly printed. He also introduced into England the use of signatures. Signatures are the small letters printed at the foot of the page which were intended to serve as a guide to the bookbinder in gathering up the sheets. From the earliest times they were added in writing both to manuscripts and the earliest printed books, but about 1472 printers began to print them in type, and the habit soon became general. Caxton’s use of signatures begins in 1480 and was doubtless copied from the London printer.
At the beginning of 1480 Caxton had printed an indulgence in his large type, the second of his founts, and immediately afterwards the London printer issued another edition in his small neat type. Caxton promptly had another fount cut of small type, and issued with it a third edition of the indulgence.
It is a matter much to be regretted that Henry Bradshaw never issued one of his Memoranda on the subject of these indulgences, for he had collected much interesting information, and was the first to point out the variations in the wording of the different issues as well as the discoverer of several unknown examples.
The year 1481 saw the introduction of illustrations, which were first used in the Mirror of the World. In it there are two sets of cuts, one depicting various masters, either alone or with several pupils, the other are merely diagrams copied from those found in manuscripts of the work. These diagrams are meagre and difficult to understand, so much so that the printer himself has put several in their wrong places. The explanatory words inside the diagrams, which would no doubt have been printed in type had Caxton had a fount small enough, are written by hand. It is interesting to notice that in all copies of the book the same handwriting is found, though I am afraid it would be unsafe to conclude it to be Caxton’s. The period from 1480 to 1483 is the least interesting as regards Caxton’s books. Besides the Mirror of the World only two books contain woodcuts; the Catho, and the second edition of the Game and Playe of the Chesse. The two cuts in the Catho had been used before in the Mirror, but the sixteen in the chess-book are specially cut, though clearly by a different artist from the one who made those for the Mirror. Mr Linton in his book on wood-engraving expressed the opinion that many of these cuts were of soft metal, treated in the same manner as a wood-block, but whenever we find any of them in use for a long period, the breaks which occur in them and the occurrence sometimes even of worm-holes show that the cut must have been of wood.
Among the other books of this period are the first and second editions of Caxton’s Chronicle and Higden’s Polycronicon. The unique copy of the Latin Psalter in the British Museum, a Caxton which remained unidentified until fairly recently, also belongs to about 1480, but perhaps the most interesting book of all is the first edition in English of Reynard the Fox. This was translated by Caxton from the Dutch, the translation being finished in June, 1481, and the book evidently printed at once. It is curious that this book, which would lend itself so readily to illustration, was not printed with woodcuts, but Caxton after using them in 1481 made no further move in this direction until 1484, when another group of illustrated books appeared. It always looks as though Caxton, and indeed his own words tend to prove it, was much more interested in the literary side of his work than in the mechanical, and therefore only called in the aid of the wood-engraver when he thought it absolutely necessary. He wished his books to be purchased on their merits alone, and therefore did not try, like the later printers, to use illustrations merely to attract the unwary purchaser. On the other hand, as none of the other printers in England issued illustrated books, he had no competition to contend with.
A book which may have been printed about this time, but if so has entirely disappeared, is a translation of the Metamorphoses of Ovid. In the Pepysian Library is a MS. of books x.-xv., with the following colophon: “Translated and fynysshed by me William Caxton at Westmestre, the 22 day of Apryll, the yere of our lord 1480 And the 20 yere of the Regne of Kyng Edward the fourth.” It seems very improbable Caxton would have taken the trouble to make this translation had he not intended it to be printed, and he mentions it in one of his prologues amongst a series of books which he had translated and printed. This MS. was bought by Pepys at an auction in 1688.
Another interesting point to be noticed about it is that it contains the autograph of Lord Lumley who inherited the library formed by the Earls of Arundel. Now William Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel, was one of Caxton’s patrons, and the manuscript may have been presented to him by Caxton himself.
The period from 1483 to 1486 is more interesting. First in order comes the first edition of Mirk’s Liber Festivalis and its supplement the Quattuor Sermones. The next is a small quarto pamphlet known as the Sex quam elegantissimæ epistolæ, and consisting of letters that passed between Sixtus IV. and the Venetian Republic. The only copy known was found bound up in a volume of seventeenth century theological tracts in the library at Halberstadt, and was sold in 1890 to the British Museum for £200. After these come a series of English writers, Lidgate’s Life of our Lady; Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Cressida, and Hous of Fame; Gower’s Confessio amantis, and the Life of St Wenefrede. The Canterbury Tales is the second edition published by Caxton, and has a peculiarly interesting preface by the printer, in which he tells us that having some six years before printed the Canterbury Tales, which were sold to many and divers gentlemen, one of the number had complained that the text was corrupt. He said, however, that his father had a very fine MS. of the poem which he valued highly, but that he thought he might be able to borrow it. Caxton at once promised that if this could be done, he would reprint the book. This second edition is ornamented with a series of cuts of the different characters, and one of all the pilgrims seated together at supper at an immense round table. This cut does duty several times later on as the frontispiece of Lidgate’s Assembly of the Gods.
In the same year as the Canterbury Tales appeared two other illustrated books, the Fables of Esop, and the Golden Legend. The Esop has one large full-page cut of Esop used as a frontispiece and which is found only in the copy at Windsor Castle, and no less than a hundred and eighty-five smaller cuts, the work of two if not three engravers, one being evidently the man who made the cuts for the chess-book.
The Golden Legend is the largest book ever printed by Caxton. It contains 449 leaves, and is printed on a much larger-sized paper than he ever used elsewhere, the full sheet measuring about two feet by sixteen inches. The frontispiece is a large woodcut representing the saints in glory, while in addition there are eighteen large and fifty-two small cuts, the large series including one of the device of the Earl of Arundel, to whom the book is dedicated. The three dated books of 1485 are all especially important. The first is the first edition of the Morte d’Arthur, surely the most covetable of all Caxton’s books. For many years only one copy was known in the library of Osterley Park, and many were the attempts made by the two great Caxton collectors in the early years of last century, Lord Spencer and his nephew, the Duke of Devonshire, to obtain the treasure. The Duke of Devonshire almost succeeded, but was foiled by some awkward clause in a deed. However, another copy appeared at a sale in Wales, wanting eleven leaves, but otherwise in beautiful condition, and this was bought by Lord Spencer. The Osterley Park copy was sold in 1885 for £1950, and went to America, and after several changes of ownership is now in the fine library of Mr Hoe of New York. The other two dated books are the Life of that Noble and Christian Prince, Charles the Great, and the History of the Knight Paris and Fair Vienne. Both of these books were translated by Caxton from the French. Only one copy of each is known, and both are in the British Museum.
After 1485 Caxton’s energy began to decline, or at any rate we know of fewer books having been issued during the period from 1486 to 1489. The Speculum vitæ Christi and the Royal Book belong to 1486, and are illustrated with woodcuts of a very much superior execution to those which had been previously in use; they are not large, but are simply and gracefully designed. Besides the regular series in the Speculum specially cut for it, a few very small and rather roughly designed cuts are found, evidently cut for use in one of the editions of the Sarum Horae, which were issued at an earlier date, but of which nothing now remains but a few odd leaves. It is interesting to notice that in neither edition of the Speculum which he printed did Caxton use the full series of the cuts which had been engraved for it; for, several years afterwards, one or two cuts occur in books printed by Caxton’s successor, evidently part of the series, and which he had never used himself. To this time may be ascribed the newest Caxton discovery, two fragments printed on vellum of an edition of the Donatus Melior, revised by Mancinellus, which were discovered some few years ago by Proctor in the binding of a book in the library of New College, Oxford.
In 1487 Caxton was anxious to issue an edition of the Sarum Missal, and, not considering his own type suitable for the purpose, commissioned a Paris printer named William Maynyal to print one for him. Who this Paris printer was is a matter of mystery. In 1489 and 1490 he printed two service books for the use of the Church of Chartres, but is not otherwise known. A George Maynyal, probably a relation, printed at Paris about 1480, and M. Claudin conjectures on somewhat vague grounds, that both were English. The Missal is a very handsome book, printed in red and black, with two fine woodcuts at the Canon. The only known copy, which belongs to Lord Newton of Lyme Park, appears to have met at an early date with bad treatment, and wants some seventeen leaves, mostly at the beginning.
In this book for the first time Caxton uses his well-known device, consisting of his trade or merchant’s mark, with his initials on either side.
Whether this device was cut in England or abroad has long been a vexed question, but as it has no resemblance to any foreign device of the period, and as the execution is poor and coarse, we may conclude safely that it is of native work. Caxton, no doubt, wished to call attention to the fact, which might have escaped notice, that the book was produced for him and at his cost; and so when the copies of the book had been delivered to him at Westminster he had the device cut, and stamped it on the last leaf of each copy. In this edition the portion of the marriage service in English has been omitted by the printer, who has left blank spaces for it to be filled in with the pen. There was an edition of the Sarum Legenda issued about the same time, which is known now only from a few odd leaves rescued from book-bindings. It agrees in every way typographically with the Missal, it is in the same type, has the same number of lines to the page, every detail the same, so I think we have good reason for supposing that it also was printed by Maynyal for Caxton. Bradshaw suggested Higman, the Paris printer, as the printer of these fragments, so that Maynyal may have had some business connexion with him.
The second edition of the Golden Legend came out shortly after this, that is about 1488, and is a difficult book to explain typographically. About 200 leaves are of the first edition, while the beginning, a small piece of the middle, and the end are of the second. Now it is curious that no copy in existence seems to be correctly made up with the full number of second edition leaves, and the most probable explanation seems to be that part of the stock happening to get damaged, a reprint was made to complete what was left, and that sheets were picked indiscriminately. The most nearly perfect second issue that I have seen is the one at Aberdeen, but it is imperfect at beginning and end. The copy in the Hunterian Museum at Glasgow has a second edition ending, and also part of the first quire of the second issue.
In 1489 two editions of an indulgence from Joannes de Gigliis were issued, printed in a type used nowhere else by Caxton and not mentioned by Blades. The earliest noticed of these indulgences was discovered in the following manner. Cotton, who found it at Dublin, published an account of it in the second series of his Typographical Gazetteer in 1862, and he there described it as a product of the early Oxford press. Bradshaw obtained a photograph of it, and at once conjectured from the form and appearance of the type that it was printed by Caxton. He immediately communicated his discovery to Blades, who, however, refused to accept it as a product of Caxton’s press without further proof, and it was never mentioned in any edition of his books on that printer. The necessary proof was soon afterwards forthcoming, for Bradshaw found that in a book printed by W. de Worde in 1494, the sidenotes were in this identical type, and as De Worde was the inheritor of all Caxton’s material, this fount must have belonged to him.
About the same year were issued two unique books, The History of Blanchardin and Eglantine, and the Four Sons of Aymon.
The Blanchardin is unfortunately imperfect, wanting all the end, and it is impossible to say of how much this consisted. The Four Sons of Aymon is also imperfect, wanting a few leaves at the beginning. Both books were formerly in the Spencer Library. The Doctrinal of Sapience published in 1489 is a translation by Caxton from a French version, and one particular copy of it in the Royal library at Windsor is worthy of special notice. It is printed throughout upon vellum, a material which Caxton hardly ever used, the only other complete book so printed being a copy of the Speculum Vitæ Christi in the British Museum. This particular copy of the Doctrinal has also a special chapter added “Of the negligences happyng in the masse and of the remedyes” which is not found in any other copy. That it was specially printed is evident from its concluding words, “This chapitre to fore I durst not sette in the boke by cause it is not conuenyent ne aparteynyng that euery layman sholde knowe it.”
During the last year or two of his life most of the books issued by Caxton were of a religious nature. Some would have us believe that this was owing to illness or a premonition of his own approaching end, some to the fact that his wife, if the Maud Caxton who was buried in 1490 was his wife, was just dead. Both these ideas seem to me rather fanciful. He no doubt printed what was most in demand. One book issued about this time was certainly not religious. It is a free paraphrase of some portions of the Æneid and was translated by Caxton from the French. It does not pretend to be a translation of the original, but was abused soundly by Gavin Douglas, who issued a translation in 1553, for its many inaccuracies. Amongst the religious books I may mention the Ars Moriendi, a little quarto of eight leaves, which was discovered by Henry Bradshaw in a volume of tracts in the Bodleian, and of which no other copy is known, and the very interesting Commemoratio lamentationis beate Marie, which is in the University Library at Ghent and which is one of the two unique Caxtons on the Continent. It was, I believe, picked up by one of the librarians bound in a volume of tracts and by him presented to the University Library. This Caxton bought for a trifle in Belgium may be considered as the real successor to the imaginary one picked off the stall in Holland by the celebrated Snuffy Davy of the Antiquary.
The Fifteen Oes is another of these religious books. Its name is taken from the fact that each of the fifteen prayers of which it is composed begins with O, and it was printed as a supplement to a Sarum Horæ, with later editions of which it was generally incorporated. It contains a beautiful woodcut of the Crucifixion, and is also the only existing book printed by Caxton which had borders round the pages. That a Horae to accompany it was printed is most probable, for the Crucifixion is only one of a set of cuts which was used, together with the borders, in an edition printed about 1494.
Though most of the books at this time can only be arranged conjecturally it is probable that the last book printed by Caxton was the Book of Divers Ghostly Matters. It consists really of three tracts, each separately printed, the Seven Points of True Love, the Twelve Profits of Tribulation, and the Rule of St Benet; but as they are always found bound together, they are classed as one book. There is one cut in the second treatise taken from the Speculum series, but no other illustrations.
Caxton used during his career eight founts of type, of which six only are included in Blades’s enumeration. The late French type which appeared about 1490-91, and is found in a few of the latest books, such as the Ars Moriendi and the Fifteen Oes, Blades considered not to have been used until after Caxton’s death; and the type of the 1489 indulgences was not mentioned at all. Blades’s arrangement, too, of the books under their types, though correct in a certain way, is a very misleading one, for he takes the types in their order, and then arranges all the books under the type in which the body of the book is printed. Now this leads to considerable confusion when different types were in use together. For instance, Caxton started at Westminster with types 2 and 3, and both are used in his first book, but Blades puts the books in type 3 after all those in type 2, and thus the Sarum Ordinale, perhaps the second book printed in England, certainly one of the earliest, comes thirty-sixth on his list. Now, though Blades’s arrangement was not a chronological one, most writers have made the mistake of thinking so, and have followed it as such, as may be seen, for instance, in the list appended to Caxton’s life in the Dictionary of National Biography, which follows Blades’s arrangement without any reference to his system or mention of the types.
Caxton printed in England ninety-six separate books, and, counting in the three printed by him at Bruges, and the Sarum Missal, altogether one hundred, of which ninety-four are mentioned by Blades. It is true that Blades describes ninety-nine books, but he includes two certainly printed at Bruges after Caxton had left, and three printed by De Worde after Caxton’s death. But it is not the mere number of the books he printed that makes Caxton’s career so remarkable, but the fact that he edited almost every book he issued, and translated a large number. He himself says that he had translated twenty-two, and the statement was made at a time previous to his making several others, and when we consider that amongst his translations is to be included such a large book as the Golden Legend, we can only wonder that he printed as much as he did.
Of the exact date of his death we have no evidence, but it evidently must have taken place in 1491. It is unfortunate, too, that no copy of his will has been preserved; for the collection of documents in Westminster Abbey, where it might, with most probability, have been expected to be found, has been searched in vain. The will, besides the interesting personal details which it might supply, would most likely give some information about those engaged with him in business, the assistants who worked his presses, or the stationers who sold his books.
Of his family we know next to nothing. We know that he was married and had a daughter named Elizabeth, who was married to a merchant named Gerard Croppe, from whom she obtained a deed of separation in 1496. Had Caxton had a son he would probably have continued the printing business. As it was the printing materials were inherited by his assistant or apprentice Wynkyn de Worde, who continued to carry on work in his old master’s house at Westminster. In his letters of denization, taken out so late as the 20th April, 1496, he is described as a printer, and a native of the Duchy of Lorraine. His name, De Worde, which some have fallen into the mistake of deriving from the town of Woerden in Holland, is clearly taken from the town of Wörth in Alsace; indeed, the printer sometimes uses the form Worth in place of Worde. Although he inherited Caxton’s business, which was no doubt a flourishing one, he seems to have started on his own account with very little vigour or enterprise. Indeed, so torpid was the press at that time that foreign printers found it worth their while to produce and import reprints of Caxton’s books for sale in this country, books to which I shall refer more fully in a future lecture. We soon see that we have to deal now with a man who was merely a mechanic, and who was quite unable to fill the place of Caxton either as an editor or a translator, one who preferred to issue small popular books of a kind to attract the general public, rather than the class of book which had hitherto been published from Caxton’s house.
For the first two years De Worde contented himself with using Caxton’s old types, of which he appears to have possessed at least five founts, and in that time he printed five books, the Book of Courtesy, the Treatise of Love, the Chastising of God’s Children, the Life of St Katherine, and a third edition of the Golden Legend. Why this book should have been so often printed is rather a mystery, for, while Caxton issued two editions and De Worde another two before 1500, at the end of the century a considerable number of Caxton’s edition still remained for sale at the price of thirteen shillings and fourpence, not a large sum for those days and considering the size of the book.
The Book of Courtesy, which is known only from two leaves in the Douce collection at Oxford, was a reprint from Caxton’s edition, of which the only known copy is in the Cambridge University Library. In the waste leaves in the Bodleian, De Worde’s device is printed upside-down, and for this reason perhaps the sheet was rejected and used to line a binding, and thus preserved for us. The Treatise of Love was printed for the translator, whose name unfortunately does not appear, but the translation is dated 1493, and the printing is clearly of the same year. The Chastising of God’s Children, a deplorably dull book, is interesting typographically as being the first book printed at Westminster with a title-page. Why Caxton never introduced this improvement it is hard to say, for he must have seen many books in which they were used, and a book with one was printed at London before his death.
The imprint of the Golden Legend is curious, for though it is dated 1493 it contains Caxton’s name. De Worde seems to have reprinted from an earlier edition, merely altering the date, or perhaps he meant the words “By me William Caxton” to refer to the translator rather than the printer.
In 1493, very nearly at the close of the year, De Worde’s first type makes its appearance in an edition of the Liber Festivalis, the second or companion part of the book, the Quattuor Sermones, coming out early in 1494. The type has a strong French appearance, though it retains several characteristics and even a few identical letters of Caxton’s founts. It is curious that up to this time De Worde had not put his name to any book, though most of them contain his first device, a copy on a small scale of Caxton’s, and evidently cut in metal.
In 1494 two important books were issued, the Scala perfeccionis of Walter Hylton, a Carthusian monk, and a reprint of the Speculum Vitæ Christi, both being in the late French type of Caxton. The Scala perfeccionis is a rare book when it contains the last part, which is only found in two or three copies. It has on the title-page a woodcut of the Virgin and Child under a canopy, and below this the sentence beginning “Sit dulce nomen domini nostri Jesu Christi benedictum,” but the engraver in cutting the block has not attempted to cut the words properly, but merely to give their general appearance, so that the result though decorative is almost impossible to decipher.
The Speculum of this year has many points of interest, the chief perhaps being that Caxton’s small type No. 7 is found in it, the only time it is used in a printed book, though it had been used before in 1489 for printing indulgences. The text of the book is in Caxton’s French type, but the sidenotes are in this small Caxton type up to about the middle of the book, whence the notes are continued in the same type as the text. Up till a year or two ago only one copy of this book was known, in Lord Leicester’s library at Holkham, but lately another copy, imperfect and in bad condition, turned up amongst some rubbish in the offices of a solicitor at Birkenhead, and is now in the Rylands Library at Manchester. Three editions of the Horae ad usum Sarum, two in quarto and one in octavo, printed in the same type as the other two books, may also be ascribed to 1494. The two in quarto are evidently reprinted from the last edition of Caxton’s of which the little treatise called the Fifteen Oes formed part, for they have the same borders, and the woodcuts are clearly of sets which belonged to Caxton. The octavo edition is quite different, having no borders, and the woodcuts so far as is known, for the book is only known from a fragment, belong to a set which do not appear to have been used again.
The most famous of the cuts used at this time is one of the Crucifixion formerly used by Caxton in the Fifteen Oes, of which a facsimile is given by Dibdin in the second volume of his Typographical Antiquities, page 79. He erroneously remarks about it in another place, “The woodcut of the Crucifixion was never introduced by Caxton, it is too spirited and elegant to harmonise with anything that he ever published.” It was used frequently after this time by De Worde, and affords us towards the end of the century one of the most useful date-tests for undated books. Between May, 1497, and January, 1498, part of the cap of the soldier who stands on the right of the cross was broken away, so that any book containing this cut with the cap entire must be before 1498. In 1499 the cut began to split, and in 1500 it split right across. Towards the end of 1500 one of the two border lines at top and bottom was cut away. Of course there are for De Worde’s books many date-tests, and when they can be worked in various ways and in conjunction, the result may be taken as very fairly accurate. If it were only possible to get once together all the scattered undated books for comparison, they could easily be arranged in their exact order.
In 1495 appeared the Vitas Patrum, “the moste vertuouse hystorye of the deuoute and right renowned lyves of holy faders lyvynge in deserte, worthy of remembraunce to all wel dysposed persones, whiche hath be translated out of Frenche into Englisshe by Wylliam Caxton of Westmynstre, late deed, and fynysshed at the laste daye of his lyff.” The delay in the bringing out of this work may be due to the large number of illustrations, for it is profusely illustrated; the cuts, however, are very rudely designed and engraved.
In the Pepysian Library at Cambridge is a unique edition of the Introductorium linguæ latinæ, edited very likely by Horman, which has the words in the preface, “Nos sumus in anno salutis Millesimo quadringentesimo nonagesimo quinto (1495),” which I certainly take to be the year of printing, especially as another edition of the same book in the Bodleian, also unique, has the last word of the date, quinto, altered to nono, and must have been printed before July, 1499. The small tracts printed from 1495 to 1497 are very difficult to date with any precision, but there are a few of particular interest which may be ascribed to that period, such books, for instance, as the Information for Pilgrims to the Holy Land, a work well worth reading for amusement, which cannot be said of many of these books; Fitzjames’s Sermo die lune in ebdomada Pasche, the Sermo pro episcopo puerorum, the Mirror of Consolation, and the Three Kings of Cologne.
1496 is the year usually ascribed to the edition of Trevisa’s translation of the De proprietatibus rerum of Bartholomæus Anglicus, and I quoted earlier four lines of verse saying that Caxton had printed the book in Latin at Cologne. The three last lines of the same stanza referring to another matter are also very interesting. Having spoken of Caxton it continues:—
And John Tate the yonger joye mote he broke
Whiche late hathe in Englond doo make this paper thynne
That now in our englyssh this boke is prynted inne.
The watermark of this paper is an eight-pointed star in a circle. The supply of this paper does not appear to have been kept up for long, for I have only found it in two other English books. The Bartholomæus contains some very good woodcuts, finer than others of the period, and the press-work seems rather more regular than usual, so that perhaps we may accept the statement of Dibdin that “Of all the books printed in this country in the fifteenth century, the present one is the most curious and elaborate, and probably the most beautiful for its typographical execution.” It is only fair to say, however, that the copy described by Dibdin was a very exceptional one. In 1496 also came out a reprint of the well-known Book of St Alban’s, as it is generally called, a treatise on hunting, hawking, and heraldry, with the addition in this issue of the delightful chapter on fishing with an angle, our earliest printed treatise on the art. There is a woodcut of the angler at the beginning, and we see him busily at work with a large tub beside him, just like the German fisher of to-day, into which he may put his fish and keep them alive.
This book would naturally appeal especially to the richer class, and De Worde not only took especial pains with it, but struck off copies upon vellum, some of which have come down to our own day. From a typographical point of view the book is of great interest, for it is printed throughout in a foreign type which made its appearance in England on this occasion only. It was used at Gouda by Govaert van Os, but he seems to have discarded it about 1490 when he removed to Copenhagen. Besides acquiring this fount De Worde also obtained a number of woodcut capital letters, which are used in all his earliest books, and one or two woodcuts, which he used frequently until they were broken and worn out. It has always been a puzzle to me why, if De Worde had had this fount of type beside him for several years, he never used it before, and why, having used it this once, he never used it again. Not a single letter ever appears in another book, and yet the type is a handsome one.
1498 saw the issue of three fine folios: the Morte d’Arthur, of which the only known copy is in the John Rylands Library at Manchester, the Golden Legend, of which the only known perfect copy is in the same library, and lastly the Canterbury Tales of Chaucer. The only perfect copy of this book was sold lately in the Ashburnham sale for £1000, and is now in a private library in America. The first of these three books, the Morte d’Arthur, is a reprint of Caxton’s edition, but it differs from it in having illustrations. These are no doubt of native workmanship, and might be justly described as the worst ever put into an English book, being coarsely drawn, badly designed, and incompetently engraved. The Golden Legend is a mere reprint of the earlier editions, but is interesting for two points in the colophon. The first is an example of the carelessness of the printers. The words in the earlier editions run, “Thus endeth the legend named in latin legenda aurea, that is to say in Englysshe the golden legende, for lyke as golde passeth all other metals, so this legende exceedeth all other books, wherein be contained all the high and great feasts of our lord” and so on. In this edition a line has been omitted, and the words run, “For like as golde passeth all other metalles, wherein ben contained all the highe and grete festes of our lord.” Now although the omission makes nonsense of the whole sentence, it is reprinted exactly the same in the later editions issued by De Worde and Julian Notary.
The other point is the date in the colophon, which runs, “Fynysshed at Westmynster, the viii day of Janeuer, the yere of oure lorde Thousande . cccc. lxxxxviii. And in the xiii year of the reygne of kynge Henry the VII.” Now as the 13th year of Henry VII ran from August 22, 1497, to August 21, 1498, it is clear that De Worde in speaking of January 8, 1498, meant 1498 as we would calculate, and not 1499, and therefore that he began his year on the first of January and not on the 25th of March, a most important point to be settled in arranging dated books. Another later proof as to De Worde’s dating may be mentioned. In the tracts which he printed between January 1 and March 25, 1509, he speaks of himself as printer to the king’s mother, but after Henry VIII succeeded in 1509 he styles himself printer to the king’s grandmother, so that he clearly used our method of dating.
About the year 1498, De Worde introduced his second device, the largest of the three used in the fifteenth century. It is almost square, with a broad border, and having Caxton’s mark and initials above a flowering plant. Between July and December, 1499, a series of small nicks was cut all round the outside edge, and this gives us a useful clue to checking the dates of several books.
In 1499, De Worde brought out an edition of Mandeville’s Travels. It was not the first edition published in England by a year or two, but it was the first with illustrations, and most realistic illustrations they are. No doubt it was a very popular book, and the two copies known, one in the Cambridge University Library, the other at Stonyhurst, are both imperfect. Fortunately by means of the two we can obtain an exact collation. This year seems to have been a very busy one. While the dated books in the other years of the fifteenth century never rise above four, in this year there are ten, and a considerable number of undated books can be assigned to this year as well. Among them are a number of small poetical pieces by Lidgate, reprints of Caxton’s editions. One of these reprints shows how careless a printer W. de Worde was. He reprints the Horse, the Shepe, and the Ghoos, from a copy of Caxton’s wanting a leaf, but never noticing anything wrong prints straight ahead, making of course nonsense of the whole.
All De Worde’s quarto tracts were got up in the same style, the title at the top of the first leaf printed in one of Caxton’s types, below this a woodcut not always very apposite to the subject of the work. There were two stock cuts of masters with large birches and their pupils seated before them, one of these being among the material obtained from Govaert van Os. These of course were suitable for grammars and school-books. Caxton’s cuts for the Sarum Horae, the Crucifixion, The tree of Jesse, the three rioters and three skeletons, the rich man and Lazarus, and David and Bathsheba, came in very useful for theological books. The only special cut, that is, one specially cut for the particular book and not belonging to a series, that I have found, is that on the title of the Rote or mirror of consolation, which depicts seven persons kneeling before an altar, above which two angels hold a monstrance.
At the end of the year 1500, De Worde moved from Westminster into Fleet Street at the sign of the Sun, the earliest book from the new address being dated May, 1501. This from the point of view of the bibliographer was an extremely well-timed move, for we can at once put all books with the Westminster imprint as before 1501, and all with the London one after 1500, thus dividing clearly the fifteenth and sixteenth century books. At the time of his moving he seems to have got rid of a considerable portion of his stock; some seems to have been destroyed and some sold, for many cuts which had belonged to De Worde or to Caxton are found afterwards in books printed by Julian Notary. De Worde seems to have been a successful business man, for when he moved into Fleet Street he occupied two houses close to St Bride’s Church, one his dwelling-house and the other a printing-office, for which he paid the very high tithe rent of sixty-six shillings and eightpence.
The number of books printed by Wynkyn de Worde in the fifteenth century, counting in different editions of the same book, is 110, and of a considerable number of these only a single copy is known. It would seem probable that the printer, when issuing a small book, printed only a small number of copies, preferring to set up the type for a new edition rather than burden himself with much unsaleable stock. And it is curious how these various editions have been accidentally preserved. Only two copies are known of a book called the Rote or mirror of consolation, printed by De Worde in the fifteenth century, one of them is in the Pepysian library, the other in Durham Cathedral. Yet these two are of quite different editions, the one at Durham being certainly about 1496, the other certainly after the middle of 1499. Of the Three Kings of Cologne we have two editions, though only three copies are known. Indeed, for some time it was thought that each copy represented a different edition, as the copy in the British Museum, evidently bound up separately out of a volume of tracts, had had the last page of the tract preceding it bound in in place of the correct title-page.
Looking at the very large number of small books which De Worde printed between the end of 1496 and 1500, it is surprising how many are known from single copies. I have kept for many years a register of all the copies of early English books which are to be found anywhere, and taking the quartos printed by W. de Worde, which number altogether 70, I find that out of that number 47, that is more than two-thirds, are known to us now from single copies or fragments. And I feel certain that we owe the preservation of the majority of these to a cause we are now doing our best to destroy. A few worthy people centuries ago made collections of these tracts and bound them up in immensely stout volumes, which gave them an air of importance in themselves, and tended to preserve the tracts inside in a much better manner than if bound separately. I do not think I am exaggerating when I say that a hundred and fifty of the rarest that De Worde printed during his whole life would have been found a hundred years or so ago bound up in about twelve volumes. Some twenty-two of the rarest of W. de Worde’s in the Heber Library came to him in one volume. Thirteen unique tracts which sold at the Roxburghe sale for £538, were in a single volume when the Duke purchased them fourteen years before for £26. I need only refer you to the University Library, a large number of whose unique Caxton and De Worde tracts came in three or four volumes. Then again, when so many are known only from fragments or single copies we may imagine what a large number have absolutely disappeared.
Some have been lost of late years or have disappeared since they were described. Three unique W. de Worde books of the fifteenth century were supposed to have perished in a fire in Wales in 1807 but fortunately they had been sold by the owner of the library a short time before the fire. Others seem to have drifted into libraries whose owners know nothing about them. There is a unique De Worde printed before 1501, entitled the “Contemplacyon or meditacyon of the shedynge of the blood of our lorde Jhesu Cryste at seven tymes.” This was seen and described by Herbert, who very likely saw it when it was sold at the Fletewode sale in 1774. Since then we have no record of the book, and though every year more information about private collections is published I can come upon no trace of it.
Beside the genuine books which have disappeared, by this I mean books which have been described by a trustworthy bibliographer, there are others which may reasonably be supposed to have existed, and one clue to these is afforded by the woodcuts. W. de Worde for example had certain series of cuts, specially made for certain books; but when he wished to decorate the title-page of a small tract, which was not itself to be otherwise illustrated, he used an odd cut out of his sets. Now when we can trace in different tracts odd cuts, manifestly belonging to a series, we may reasonably suppose that the book for which the series was engraved must have been printed.
To give a couple of instances. In the unique copy of Legrand’s Book of good manners in the University Library without date, but printed about the middle of 1498, are two cuts, which really belong to a series made to illustrate the Seven wise masters of Rome. These cuts are fairly accurate copies of those used by Gerard Leeu in his edition of 1490. At a considerably later date De Worde did issue an edition of the Seven wise masters, illustrated with the series of which the two mentioned above formed part, and showing at that time marks of wear. Now as De Worde had the series cut by the beginning of 1498, I think it most probable that an edition of the book was then issued, for it is unlikely that he would go to the trouble of cutting the set unless he was preparing to print the book.
There begynneth a lytell boke
called good manners.
Again, before the end of the fifteenth century De Worde had a series to illustrate Reynard the Fox. One cut is found on the first leaf of an edition of Lidgate’s The Horse, the sheep, and the goose, in the University Library, another on the title-page of Skelton’s Bowge of Court in the Advocates’ Library at Edinburgh. In the collection of the University Librarian is a fragment of an edition of Reynard, evidently printed by W. de Worde about 1515, and this contains a third cut agreeing absolutely in size, in workmanship, and in style with the other two.
In this case again it seems probable that an edition illustrated with these cuts appeared before 1500.
The last press at Westminster during the fifteenth century is that of Julian Notary, which while it started in London about 1496 and only moved to Westminster in 1498, is more suitably taken in this place on account of its connexion with Wynkyn de Worde.
The first book issued was an edition of Albertus de modis significandi, printed in a neat Gothic type, but containing no information in its colophon beyond that it was printed in London at St Thomas the Apostle’s, probably close to the church of that name, and not at a house with that sign. There is also a printer’s mark containing three sets of initials, I. N. for Julian Notary, I. B. for Jean Barbier, and I. H. for someone unidentified, but who there are some reasons for supposing to have been Jean Huvin, a printer at Rouen, who was associated in the production of books for the English market.
In 1497 the same printers issued an edition of the Horae ad usum Sarum, very neatly printed, and with delicate borders round the pages. All that remains of the book is a fragment of four leaves, rescued from a book-binding, but this luckily contains the colophon, telling us that it was printed at St Thomas the Apostle’s, for W. de Worde. This book also contains the device with the three sets of initials.
In 1498 appeared a Sarum Missal, the first edition printed in England, and though otherwise well got up, the musical parts have the drawback of being without notes, only the staves having been printed, though whether this was done by design or merely because the printers had no musical type remains unknown. From the colophon of the Missal we learn that the printers, Julian Notary and Jean Barbier, had settled at Westminster, and had printed the book at the command and expense of W. de Worde. On the last leaf is Caxton’s device, and on the title-page that of the printers. Of this book five copies are known, and of the four I have examined, the copy in the University Library is the only perfect one. About the fifth, belonging to the Duke of Sutherland, I have no information.
I. H. it is clear had left the firm, and though the printers use the same device as before, the initials I. H. have been cut out of it.
In 1499 Jean Barbier also disappeared, for in the edition of the Liber Festivalis and Quattuor Sermones which appeared in that year the printer’s mark has again been altered. All initials have been cut out and the name Julianus Notarii inserted in type. This form of the name suggests that he was not a notary as is generally stated, but the son of one. I have never been able to see a perfect copy of this book though Herbert describes one which he said was in the Inner Temple Library, but my inquiries there met with no success. Hain in his Repertorium Bibliographicum mentions a copy which seems not to be the one noticed by Herbert.
In April, 1500, Notary printed a most minute edition of the Horae ad usum Sarum, it is in 64s as regards folding, and a printed page measures an inch and a quarter by an inch. Only a fragment of it is known, a quarter sheet containing sixteen leaves, but that luckily contains the colophon. It was very likely copied from another edition of the same size, which was printed at Paris the year before, but this point cannot be determined, as the only copy of the latter which existed was burnt with the greater part of the Offor collection. All we know now of it is the meagre note in the auctioneer’s catalogue, “imperfect, but has end with imprint”—and he has not given the imprint!
The colophon of Notary’s Horae tells us that it was printed in King Street, Westminster. King Street is the short street at the bottom of Whitehall in a straight line between Westminster Abbey and the Foreign Office, though in Notary’s time it appears to have extended from Westminster to Charing Cross. Lewis, in his life of Caxton, says that Caxton’s printing-office was in King Street, but I do not know of any reason for his assertion.
The last of Notary’s books printed at Westminster is an edition of Chaucer’s Love and complaintes between Mars and Venus, with some other pieces. This rare little book, having passed through the collections of Farmer, the Duke of Roxburghe, Sir Mark Masterman Sykes and Heber, is now at Britwell. The colophon runs: “Thys inpryntyde in westmoster in kyng strete. For me Julianus Notarii.” In spite of the word For, I think the book was printed by Julian Notary himself. It contains two cuts, reversed copies of two of Caxton’s.
At what time Notary left Westminster cannot at present be settled, but probably almost immediately after W. de Worde. When his next dated book was issued in 1503 he had moved to London, and with his departure from King Street to Pynson’s old house near Temple Bar printing ceased altogether in Westminster.