LIST OF PLATES

[1.]Title-page of the Antonius Sirectus, printed
for H. Jacobi		to face p. 26
From the unique copy in the Library of New College, Oxford.
[2.]Colophon and Devices from Whitinton’s Grammar,
Printed at York by Ursyn Mylner in
1516		to face p. 57
From the unique copy in the British Museum.
[3.]Title-page of Fisher’s Sermon, printed at Cambridge
by John Siberch in 1522		to face p. 82
From the copy in the Library of Magdalene College, Cambridge.
[4.]Title-page of the Exhortation to the Sick,
Printed at Ipswich by John Oswen in 1548		to face p. 110
From the copy in the Sandars Collection, University
Library, Cambridge.

LECTURE I.

OXFORD.

In the two series of lectures that I had the pleasure of delivering in Cambridge as Sandars Reader in 1899 and 1904, I dealt with the printers, stationers, and bookbinders of Westminster and London from 1476 to 1535, the period from the introduction of printing into England by William Caxton to the death of his successor, Wynkyn de Worde. In the present series I propose to turn to the provincial towns and trace the history of the printers, stationers, and bookbinders who worked in them from 1478, when printing was introduced into Oxford, up to 1557.

I have extended the period to 1557, because in that year a charter was granted to the re-formed Company of Stationers, and in this charter was one very important clause, “Moreover we will, grant, ordain, and constitute for ourselves, and the successors of our foresaid queen, that no person within this our kingdom of England, or dominions thereof, either by himself, or by his journeymen, servants, or by any other person, shall practise or exercise the art or mystery of printing, or stamping any book, or any thing to be sold, or to be bargained for within this our kingdom of England, or the dominions thereof, unless the same person is, or shall be, one of the society of the foresaid mystery, or art of a stationer of the city aforesaid, at the time of his foresaid printing or stamping, or has for that purpose obtained our licence, or the licence of the heirs and successors of our foresaid queen.”

The effect of this enactment was virtually to put an end to all provincial printing, and with the exception of a few Dutch books, printed under a special privilege at Norwich between 1566 and 1579, and a doubtful York book of 1579, no printing was done outside London until 1584-5, when the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford once more started their presses.

Within the period I have chosen, printing was exercised in ten towns, and the presses fall roughly into three groups. The first contains Oxford, St Alban’s, and York, the second Oxford’s revived press, Cambridge, Tavistock, Abingdon, and the second St Alban’s press, and the last group Ipswich, Worcester, and Canterbury. Besides these there are one or two towns which, while not having presses of their own, had books specially printed for sale in them, as for example Hereford and Exeter, where the resident stationer commissioned books from foreign printers. And lastly, there must be noticed the places which have been claimed as possessing a press on account of false or misleading imprints, such as Winchester and Greenwich.

The first book issued from the Oxford press, the Expositio in symbolum apostolorum, a treatise by Tyrannius Rufinus on the Apostles’ Creed, was finished on the 17th of December 1478. By an error of the printer an x was omitted from the figures forming the date in the colophon, and thus the year was printed as m.cccc.lxviii. [1468] in place of m.cccc.lxxviii. [1478], and round this false date a wonderful legendary story was woven some two hundred and fifty years ago.

In 1664 a certain Richard Atkyns published a tract, entitled The Original and growth of Printing, written to prove that printing was a prerogative of the Crown. To strengthen his case he quoted this Oxford book, produced, as he claimed, much earlier than anything by Caxton, and also told a wonderful story of the introduction of printing into England, said to have been derived from a manuscript in the archives at Lambeth Palace.