Early Printed Books

by E. Gordon Duff

One of the earliest of the books of this last group is the Latin Grammar by John Anwykyll, with the Vulgaria Terencii. Of the first part, the Grammar, which contained about 128 leaves, only one imperfect copy, now in the Bodleian, is known. Of the other part, the Vulgaria, at least four copies are known, and an inscription on the copy belonging to the Bodleian gives us a clue to the date. On its first leaf is written the following inscription:—‘1483. Frater Johannes Grene emit hunc librum Oxonie de elemosinis amicorum suorum’—Brother John Grene bought this book at Oxford with the gifts of his friends. 1483 is, then, the latest date to which we can ascribe the printing of the book; and this fits it into its place, after the books of 1481 and 1482 printed in the earlier type.

FIRST PAGE OF THE “EXCITATIO.”
(Printed at Oxford, c. 1485.)

After the Anwykyll comes a book by Richard Rolle of Hampole, Explanationes super lectiones beati Job, a quarto of sixty-four leaves, of which all the three known copies are in the University Library, Cambridge. With this may be classed a unique book in the British Museum, a sermon of Augustine, Excitatio ad elemosinam faciendam, a quarto of eight leaves. This book, bound with five other rare tracts, was lot 4912 in the Colbert sale, and brought the large price of 1 livre, 10 sous, about half-a-crown in our money. Another quarto, similar to the last two, follows, a collection of treatises on logical subjects, usually associated with the name of Roger Swyneshede, who was most probably the author of one only out of the nineteen different parts. It is a quarto of 164 leaves, and the only perfect copy known is in the library of New College, Oxford; another copy, slightly imperfect, being in the library of Merton College.

Next in our conjectural arrangement comes the Lyndewode, Super constitutiones provinciales, a large folio of 366 leaves. This is the first edition of the celebrated commentary of William Lyndewode, and of the Provincial Constitutions of England. On the verso of the first leaf is a woodcut, the first occurring in an Oxford book.

Ascribed to the year 1485 are the Doctrinale of Alexander Gallus and the Latin translation of the Epistles of Phalaris, whose colophon has been already noticed.

The Doctrinale of Alexander Gallus is known only from two leaves in the library of St. John’s College, Cambridge. These leaves are used as end papers in the binding of a book; and a volume in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, bound in identically the same manner, has also as end papers two leaves of an Oxford printed book. That these two books must have been bound by the same man, almost at the same time, is shown from the fact that in both we find used vellum leaves from one and the same manuscript along with the refuse Oxford leaves.

The Latin translation of the Epistles of Phalaris, by Franciscus Aretinus, is in many ways the most interesting of this last group of Oxford books, containing as it does a very full colophon. It was printed, so the colophon tells us, in the 297th Olympiad, which those who write on the subject say was the year 1485. It is a quarto of eighty-eight leaves, and a very fine perfect copy is in the library of Wadham College, Oxford; two other copies are known, belonging to Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and the Spencer Library.

The last book issued by the Oxford press was the Liber Festialis, a book of sermons for the holy days, by John Mirk. Several imperfect copies of this book are known, the most complete being in the library of Lambeth Palace. It is a folio of 174 leaves, and contains a series of eleven large cuts and five small ones. This series of large cuts (together with the cut of an author at work on his book, which occurs in the Lyndewode, and which is clearly one of the set), were not cut for the Festial, but appear to have been prepared for some edition of the Golden Legend. It was to have been a large folio book, for when we find the cuts used in the Festial, they have been cut at one end to allow them to fit the smaller sized sheet.

The Festial is dated 1486, but has no printer’s name. After this we know of no other book produced in Oxford during the fifteenth century, and we have no information to account for the cessation of the press. It is possible, however, that Rood left Oxford and returned to Cologne. Panzer (vol. iv. p. 274) mentions two books, Questiones Aristotelis de generatione et corruptione and Tres libri de anima Aristotelis, printed at Cologne by a printer named Theodoricus in 1485 and 1486. In the library at Munich is a copy of the first book, and a facsimile of a page was published lately in Burger’s Monumenta Germaniæ et Italiæ Typographica.