After 1485 we hear no more of Rood, but it was for a time considered possible, if not probable, that he was identical with another printer named Theodoric, who printed some books at Cologne in 1485 and 1486 in a distinctive type remarkably resembling that used by Rood in the Hales and Lathbury. The supposition had much in its favour; the types were undeniably alike, both being of the same class as that used by Ther Hoernen, another Cologne printer. The name Theodoricus again was extremely uncommon. Panzer gives only three in the fifteenth century, the Oxford and Cologne printers, and the well-known Thierry Martens, the printer of the Low Countries. There was no proof, and there was no direct evidence of any kind, but the hypothesis was not quite groundless. For some reason, in a review of Vouillième’s work on Cologne printing, Proctor fell upon this “myth formed without a particle of evidence,” as he called it, though it was only from information in the book reviewed that any new facts about Theodoric were derived. Vouillième discovered documents showing that the Cologne Theodoric was a son of Gertrude Molner, who subsequently married Arnold Ther Hoernen, and after his death in 1483 or 1484, Conrad von Boppard.
The last book from the early Oxford press was an edition of the Liber Festivalis or Festial, consisting of sermons for holy days and certain Sundays of the year, compiled by John Mirk, prior of Lilleshall in Shropshire. Though generally spoken of as a mere reprint of Caxton’s edition, it varies very considerably in the text, and when Caxton issued a new edition he copied from this rather than his own earlier version.
This is the only Oxford book which was illustrated, and the illustrations are very interesting. A series of eleven large oblong woodcuts occur, and all have been mutilated by having some two inches cut off the blocks to allow of their being used on a small folio page. No other editions of the Festial are illustrated, and Bradshaw pointed out that these cuts were really part of a set intended to illustrate an edition of the Golden Legend. In the Lyndewode, issued about 1483, the printer had used one of these cuts in a complete state, so that as early as 1483 he had evidently been considering the issue of a Golden Legend and had begun to make preparations. But Caxton in London was at work on the same book, and, finishing his translation in November 1483, no doubt issued his volume early in 1484. From his prologue we learn that the labour and expense of production were so heavy that he was “halfe desperate to have accomplissed it”; and we can quite understand the Oxford printer hesitating to embark upon a rival edition of a book so expensive to produce, and with which the market had just been supplied. The smaller illustrations belong to a set made for a Book of Hours, but no edition containing them is known to exist.
In this book occurs also the only woodcut initial letter used at the press, a very roughly cut G without any ornament. Though of the very poorest appearance, it was used with considerable frequency; for it is found between fifty and sixty times at the usual commencement of the sermons “Good men and women.”
Four copies of the book are known. Two in the Bodleian, very imperfect, and one in the Rylands Library wanting the first two leaves. The finest is at Lambeth, which wants only the last, blank, leaf.
The printing of the book was finished in 1486, “on the day after Saint Edward the King,” presumably March 19; but there is nothing to show whether this would be the year 1486 or 1487 of our reckoning. The only other provincial press of the fifteenth century, that of St Alban’s, stopped also in 1486, but so far no good reason has been suggested for this simultaneous cessation. That it was due to any political or religious motive, as is sometimes stated, is very improbable; the growing foreign competition seems a more reasonable cause.
From the very earliest times there appear to have been two classes of stationers in Oxford, those who were sworn servants of the University, and those who worked independently. A deed of 1290 shows that the parchment makers, illuminators, and text writers were in the jurisdiction of the Chancellor of the University, and in 1345 the Chancellor was acknowledged to have jurisdiction over four official stationers. A most interesting deed of 1373 sets forth that “There are a great many booksellers in Oxford who are not sworn to the University; the consequence of which is, that books of great value are sold and carried away from Oxford, the owners of them are cheated, and the sworn stationers are deprived of their lawful business. It is therefore enacted that no bookseller, except the sworn stationers or their deputies, shall sell any book, being either his own property or that of another, exceeding half a mark in value, under pain of, for the first offence, imprisonment, for the second, a fine of half a mark, for the third, abjuring his trade within the precincts of the University.” The university stationers in their official capacity had to value manuscripts offered as pledges for money advanced, they seem also to have supplied books to the students at a fixed tariff, and acted as intermediaries between buyer and seller when a student had a book to sell. For these duties they received an occasional fee from the University.
At the time when printing was introduced, we find the same two classes, the University stationers, almost always Englishmen, and the unofficial booksellers and bookbinders, mainly foreigners.
The most important stationer in the fifteenth century was Thomas Hunte, who, we have seen, was for a time a partner with Theodoric Rood the printer. His name first appears in 1473, in which year he sold a Latin Bible, now in the British Museum, and he was then one of the official University stationers. Between 1477 and 1479 he was living in Haberdasher Hall in the parish of St Mary the Virgin. These premises in Cat Street belonged to Oseney Abbey and seem to have been a favourite situation with stationers. In 1479, besides Hunte, a bookbinder, Thomas Uffyngton, who bound for Magdalen College, also resided there. After the appearance of Hunte’s name in the Phalaris of 1485 we find no further mention of him, but his widow was occupying the same premises in 1498.
Another stationer who visited Oxford and was apparently connected with it was Peter Actors, a native of Savoy. On a leaf used in the binding of a French translation of Livy in the Bodleian is a list of books which he and his partner, John of Aix-la-Chapelle, left with Thomas Hunte on sale or return in 1483. His headquarters, however, must have been in London, for in 1485 he was appointed Stationer to the King. It is thus mentioned in the Materials for a history of Henry VII., “Grant for life to Peter Actoris, born in Savoy, of the office of stationer to the King; also licence to import, so often as he likes, from parts beyond the sea, books printed and not printed into the port of the city of London, and other ports and places within the kingdom of England, and to dispose of the same by sale or otherwise, without paying customs, etc., thereon and without rendering any account thereof.” Richard III., in an act of 1484, had given special encouragement to foreigners for bringing books into this country or for settling here as booksellers, binders or printers, and there is every evidence that this facility was freely taken advantage of. From the two or three rather conflicting entries relating to the grant to Peter Actors, it is not quite clear whether his appointment was made originally by Richard III. and confirmed by Henry VII. after his accession, or whether it originated with the latter. At any rate from the act and from this appointment we have definite evidence that both kings looked with favour on the book-trade and encouraged it by all means in their power.