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.
LECTURE IV.
TAVISTOCK, ABINGDON, ST ALBAN’S SECOND PRESS,
IPSWICH, WORCESTER, CANTERBURY, EXETER,
“WINCHESTER,” AND “GREENWICH.”
The next place after Cambridge is Tavistock, where a book was printed in 1525. It was an edition of the De consolatione philosophiæ of Boethius, translated into verse and divided into eight-line stanzas. In most manuscripts of the poem the author is given as Johannes Capellanus, but at the end of this edition are some verses whose first and last letters give the names of the patroness, Elizabeth Berkeley, and the translator, Johannes Waltwnem or Walton, said to have been a canon of Oseney. The colophon runs: “Enprented in the exempt monastery of Tavestok in Denshyre. By me, Dan Thomas Rychard, monke of the sayd monastery. To the instant desyre of the ryght worshypful esquyer Mayster Robert Langdon, anno d. MDXXV.” It was no doubt produced at the expense of Robert Langdon of Keverell, a rough woodcut of whose arms occurs at the end of the book. He was a wealthy Cornish gentleman, who married an heiress and died in 1548.
The book is printed in a neat and clear black-letter. On the title-page is a woodcut of the Almighty seated in a diamond-shaped panel, the outside angles being filled with symbols of the four evangelists. Copies of this book are not so rare as is generally supposed. There are two in the Bodleian, and one in Exeter College, Oxford. One is in the Rylands Library, another in St Andrews University, while Lord Bute, Mr Christie Miller, and the Duke of Bedford all have examples.
The only other Tavistock book known is the Charter and Statutes of the Stannary, printed nine years later. The colophon runs: “Here endyth the statutes of the stannary, Imprented yn Tavystoke ye xx. day of August, the yere of the reygne off our soveryne Lord Kynge Henry ye viii. the xxvi. yere.” The book is in quarto, and contains twenty-six leaves of thirty or thirty-one lines. On the title-page is a woodcut of the King’s arms supported by angels, which occurs several times elsewhere in the book. The colophon is on the penultimate leaf, and on the recto of the last leaf is a woodcut of the crucifixion of St Andrew, on the verso the same woodcut of the Almighty as is used in the Boethius. Of this book only one copy is known, in the library of Exeter College, Oxford. It is a most beautifully preserved example, entirely uncut, and was bequeathed to the college with a number of other rare books by the Rev. Joseph Sandford.