CAXTON'S PRINTING-OFFICE.
(Vol. ii., p. 99.)
Mr. Rimbault is wrong in giving to Abbot Milling the honour of being the patron of Caxton, which is due to Abbot Esteney. Mr. C. Knight in his Life of Caxton, which appropriately formed the first work of his series of Weekly Volumes, has the following remarks upon the passage from Stow, quoted by Mr. Rimbault:
"The careful historians of London here committed one error; John Islip did not become abbot of Westminster till 1500. John Esteney was made abbot in 1474, and remained such until his death in 1498. His predecessor was Thomas Milling. In Dugdale's Monasticon we find, speaking of Esteney, 'It was in this abbot's time, and not in that of Milling, or in that of Abbot Islip, that Caxton exercised the art of printing at Westminster.'"—p. 140.
I have no work at hand to which I can refer for the date of Milling's death, but if 1492 be correct, perhaps he may have been promoted to a bishoprick.
With reference to Mr. Rimbault's remark, that Caxton first mentions the place of his printing in 1477, so that he must have printed some time without informing us where, I may be allowed to observe that it seems highly probable he printed, and indeed learned the art, at Cologne. At the end of the third book of his translation of the Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, Caxton says:
"Thus end I this book which I have translated after mine author, as nigh as God hath given me cunning, to whom be given the laud and praises ... I have practised and learned, at my great charge and dispense, to ordain this said book in print, after the manner and form as you may here see."
And on the title-page he informs us:
"Whyche sayd translacion and werke was begonne in Brugis in 1468, and ended in the holy cyte of Colen, 19 Sept. 1471."
This may refer to the translation only; but as Caxton was both translator and printer, it does not seem unreasonable to regard it as indicating when his entire labour upon the work was brought to a close. I might support the view that Caxton printed at Cologne by other arguments which would make the matter tolerably certain (see Life of Caxton, p. 125., &c.); but as the excellent little work to which I am indebted for these particulars is so well known, and so easily accessible, I should not be justified in occupying more of your space, and I will therefore conclude with noting that the parochial library at Shipdham, in Norfolk, is said to contain books printed by Caxton and other early printers. Perhaps some one of your correspondents would record, for the general benefit, of what they consist.
Arun.
Dr. Rimbault has evidently not seen a short article on Caxton's printing at Westminster, which I inserted in the Gentleman's Magazine for April, 1846, nor the reference made to it in the magazine for June last, p. 630., or he would have admitted that his objections to Dr. Dibdin's conjectures on this point had been already stated; moreover, I think he would have seen that the difficulty had been actually cleared up. In truth, the popular misapprehension on this subject has not been occasioned by any obscurity in the colophons of the great printer, or in the survey of Stow, but merely by the erroneous constricted sense into which the word abbey has passed in this country. Caxton himself tells us he printed his books in "th' abbay of Westminstre," but he does not say in the church of the abbey. Stow distinctly says it was in the almonry of the abbey; and the handbill Dr. Rimbault refers to confirms that fact. The almonry was not merely "within the precincts of the abbey," it was actually a part of the abbey. Dr. Rimbault aims at the conclusion that "the old chapel of St. Anne was doubtless the place where the first printing-office was erected in England." But why so? Did not the chapel continue a chapel until the Reformation, if not later? And Caxton would no more set up his press in a chapel than in the abbey-church itself. Stow says it was erected in the almonry. The almonry was one of the courts of the abbey, (situated directly west of the abbey-church, and not east, as Dr. Dibdin surmised); it contained a chapel dedicated to St. Anne, and latterly an almshouse erected by the Lady Margaret. The latter probably replaced other offices or lodgings of greater antiquity, connected with the duties of the almoner, or the reception and relief of the poor; and there need be no doubt that it was one of these buildings that the Abbot of Westminster placed at the disposal of our proto-typographer. There was nothing very extraordinary in his so doing if we view the circumstance in its true light; for the scriptoria of the monasteries had ever been the principal manufactories of books. A single press was now to do the work of many pens. The experiment was successful; "after which time," as Stow goes on to say, "the like was practised in the Abbeys of St. Augustine, at Canterbury, St. Alban's, and other monasteries." The monks became printers instead of scribes; but they would not ordinarily convert their churches or chapels into printing-houses. The workmen, it is true, term the meetings held for consultation on their common interests or pleasures, their chapels; and whether this may have arisen from any particular instance in which a chapel was converted into a printing-house, I cannot say. In order to ascertain the origin of this term these Queries may be proposed:—Is it peculiar to printers and to this country? Or is it used also in other trades and on the Continent?
John Gough Nichols.