The book here referred to is the celebrated Exposicio sancti Jeronimi in simbolum apostolorum, written by Tyrannius Rufinus of Aquileia; and in the colophon it is clearly stated that the book was printed in 1468. ‘Impressa Oxonie et finita anno domini.M. cccc. lxviij xvij. die decembris.’
Many writers have argued for and against the authenticity of the date; and though some are still found who believe in its correctness, it is generally allowed to be a misprint for 1478. In the first place, the book has printed signatures, which have not been found in any book before 1472. Again, copies of this book have been found bound up in the original binding with books of 1478, In the library of All Souls College, Oxford, is a copy bound up with one of the 1479 books, and though the present binding is modern, they were originally bound together; and we find a set-off from the damp ink of the second volume on the last leaf of the first. A copy in another Oxford library, bound up with the 1479 books, has been marked for or by the binder with consecutive signatures all through the several tracts. Instances of misprinted dates are far from rare. The Mataratius de componendis versibus, printed at Venice by Ratdolt, is dated 1468 instead of 1478, and was on that account sometimes put forward as a proof of early printing there. Spain, too, claimed printing for the same year on account of a misprinted ‘1468’ in a grammar printed at Barcelona. A Vocabularius rerum, printed by John Keller at Augsburg, has the same misprint of 1468. However, the surest test of the date of a book is to place it alongside others from the same press, and compare the workmanship. In this case the book falls naturally into its place at the head of the Oxford list in 1478, taking just the small precedence of the two books of 1479, which the slightly lesser excellence of its workmanship warrants. A break of eleven years between two books which are in every way so closely allied would be almost impossible, and quite unsupported by other instances. Accepting 1478 as the correct date, it is clear that Oxford lost no time in employing the new art, for Caxton had only commenced at Westminster the year before.
The first three books, the Exposicio of 1478 before mentioned, and the Ægidius de originali peccato, and Textus ethicorum Aristotelis per Leonardum Aretinum translatus, both of 1470, form a group of themselves. They are printed in a type either brought from Cologne or directly copied from Cologne work, and strongly resembling that used by Gerard ten Raem de Berka or Guldenschaff. None have a printer’s name, but they are ascribed to Theodore Rood of Cologne, the printer of the other early Oxford books.
The earliest of these three, the Exposicio, is a small quarto of forty-two leaves, with twenty-five lines to the page, and the other two are generally similar in type and form. There are, however, one or two differences to be noted in it. The edges on the right-hand margin are often uneven, the letters Q, H, g are often wrongly used, the text begins on A1 instead of on the second leaf, and it was printed one page at a time. These faults were all rectified in the two later books, which leave little to be desired in the way of execution.
The next dated book appeared in 1481, and it has the advantage of a full colophon giving the name of the printer. It is a Latin commentary on the De Animâ of Aristotle, by Alexander de Hales; a folio of 240 leaves, printed in type which had not been used before,—a curious, narrow, upright Gothic, not unlike in general appearance some of the founts used at Zwoll, or by Ther Hoernen at Cologne. A copy of this book was bought in the year that it was published for the library of Magdalen College, Oxford, where it still remains, for the sum of thirty-three shillings and fourpence. In 1482 was issued a Commentary on the Lamentations of Jeremiah, by John Lattebury, a folio of 292 leaves. This is one of the least rare of the early Oxford books, and three copies of it are known printed upon vellum. The most interesting of these is in the library of All Souls College, Oxford. It is a beautiful copy in the original Oxford binding, and the various quires are signed by the proof-readers. Shortly after the issue of the Lattebury, the press acquired an extremely beautiful woodcut border, and the copies still remaining in stock of the Lattebury and the Alexander de Hales were rendered more attractive by having this border printed round the first page of text, and at the beginning of some of the divisions. In this second issue of the two books, some sheets also appear to have been reprinted.
With these two books may be classed two others, in both cases known only from fragments, an edition of Cicero pro Milone and a Latin Grammar. The Cicero pro Milone is a quarto, and would have contained about thirty leaves. At present only eight leaves are known; four in the Bodleian, and four in Merton College Library. This was the first edition of a classic printed in England. Of the Latin Grammar only two leaves are known, which are in the British Museum.
The third and last group contains eight books, of which only one contains a printer’s name. This is found in the colophon to the Phalaris of 1485, a curious production in verse running as follows:—
‘Hoc Teodericus rood quem collonia misit
Sanguine germanus nobile pressit opus
Atque sibi socius thomas fuit anglicus hunte.