Two copies of this Bull are known, one in the library of the Society of Antiquaries and one in the Rylands Library, Manchester. Both are in poor condition, and show signs of having been used at one time to line the boards of a binding.
Richard Pynson was by birth a native of Normandy, but practically nothing is known of his personal history. It is probable that he was educated at the University of Paris, for we find in a list of students in 1464 the name “Ricardus Pynson Normannus,” and this may very well be the printer. It was, however, in Normandy that he learned to print, probably from Guillaume le Talleur, a noted printer of Rouen, as may be seen by certain small habits connected with printing which he fell into, and which are very typical of Rouen work. Although we have only circumstantial evidence, evidence depending on a number of almost trifling details to back up the statement, it seems now almost certain that Pynson succeeded Machlinia. My own impression is that he succeeded immediately on the death or retirement of the latter, with hardly any interval. A very strong reason for this impression is that had any long time elapsed between the cessation of Machlinia’s press and the commencement of Pynson’s, England would have been left without a printer who could set up law French. Caxton and Wynkyn de Worde were presumably unable to do it, at any rate they printed no books of the kind except some statutes of Henry VII, and it must be remembered that in Henry VII’s reign for the first time the statutes were written in English. I do not mean to suggest that Pynson ever worked with Machlinia, but only that when the latter ceased to work Pynson came over and started in his place, perhaps taking over some of his printing material or even starting work in his old office. The engraved border which Machlinia had used in his Sarum Horae, the only piece of ornament he seems to have possessed, we find used afterwards by Pynson, and it is a very common thing to find Pynson’s earliest bindings lined with waste leaves of Machlinia’s printing. Had Pynson worked with Machlinia we should have expected the latter’s founts of type to have passed into his hands, as Caxton’s were inherited by Wynkyn de Worde, but they did not. Indeed they totally disappeared, and what we do find of Machlinia’s in Pynson’s hands is merely the refuse that we might expect a printer to find in an office just vacated by another. Had Pynson not been ready to take over the place this waste stuff would have been destroyed. The question is, then, when did Machlinia cease or Pynson begin? I should say that Machlinia ceased much later than is supposed and Pynson began much earlier, and that the two events happened between 1488 and 1490. At first when Pynson arrived he was without material, so he commissioned Le Talleur at Rouen to print for him the two law-books most in demand, Littelton’s Tenures and Statham’s Abridgement of Cases to the end of Henry VI.
Probably in 1490-1491 he began printing on his own account. His first dated book was issued in November, 1492, but five books, if not more, can be placed earlier; these are an edition of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, a Latin Grammar, a poetical book, and two or more Year-books. The Chaucer is a particularly fine book, printed in two sizes of type, a larger for the poetry, and a smaller for the prose, which is printed in two columns. It is also illustrated with a set of woodcuts illustrating the different pilgrims. It is interesting to notice that these cuts were altered in some cases while the book was passing through the press in order to serve as the portrait of another pilgrim. The serjeaunt with a little alteration becomes the doctor of physick, the squire becomes the manciple. There has been a good deal of controversy as to the date of the printing of this book and whether it could have appeared before Caxton’s death in the latter part of the year 1491. Pynson in his prologue, which is rather confused and difficult to understand, says, speaking of Chaucer: “Of whom I among alle other of his bokes, the boke of the tales of Canterburie, in whiche ben many a noble historie of wisdome policie mirth and gentilnes. And also of vertue and holynes whiche boke diligently ovirsen and duely examined by the pollitike reason and ouirsight of my worshipful master William Caxton accordinge to the entent and effecte of the seide Geffrey Chaucer and by a copy of the seid master Caxton purpos to imprent, by ye grace, ayde, and supporte of almighty god.” I think had Caxton been dead Pynson would have alluded to it in some way, speaking of him, perhaps, as “my late worshipful master” or “my worshipful master late dead.” The term worshipful master does not imply that Pynson had been an apprentice or assistant to Caxton, but was merely a courteous way of referring to the printer and editor whose work he was about to reprint. Blades in his life of Caxton, speaks of Pynson’s having used Caxton’s device, but this mistake has arisen through a made-up book in the British Museum, a copy of Bonaventure’s Speculum vite Christi. The copy wanted the end, and some former owner, in order to make the book look more complete, has added a leaf with Caxton’s device printed on it.
The Latin Grammar is known only from three leaves, one in the Bodleian and two in the British Museum. The leaf in the Bodleian appears from an inscription upon it to have been used to line a binding as early as 1494. The book was printed entirely in the large black type of the Chaucer, the first of Pynson’s types, and which he does not appear to have used after 1492.
Another book printed about this time was a book of poetry of a quarto size. All that is at present known of this book are two little strips making part of a leaf, and each containing six lines of verse, three on each side. I found these fragments a year or two ago amongst a bundle of uncatalogued leaves in the Bodleian, but was not able at the time to determine from what book they came. The story is apparently of someone who having been in purgatory is allowed to revisit the world in order to warn others of what he had seen there. This was a common story, and the occurrence of part of a line “But y the goste of guido” makes it certain that the fragments belong to some version of a work called Spiritus Guidonis.
The two other books in this series are two year-books, for the first and ninth years of Edward IV. All these early books, with the exception, of course, of the poetry fragments, contain Pynson’s first device, which consists of his monogram in white upon a black background, not at all unlike in style that used by Le Talleur at Rouen, with whom he had been associated. When the device was used in November, 1492, a small alteration had been made in it, so that from the state of the device as well as by the type used we are able to settle which books belong to this earliest group.
In 1492 Pynson’s first dated book appeared, an edition of the Doctrinal of Alexander Grammaticus, editions of which had already been printed abroad in considerable numbers. Pynson’s was not copied from any of these, having a different commentary, but who this commentary is by I have not yet been able to ascertain.
This book was only discovered quite lately, and I came upon it by a fortunate accident. The owner, or rather guardian, of it happened to have read in some book that the earliest dated book of Pynson’s was issued in 1493. Knowing that he had an earlier one he wrote to the British Museum about it, and I heard casually that the book had been sent to them to examine. I went up to London immediately to see if I could see the book, but was told it had been returned, nor could I obtain any information as to where it was to be found. Luckily, the owner was so far interested as to write a note to one of the papers mentioning the existence of the book, and also the place where it was preserved—the Grammar School at Appleby. The following Saturday I set off to Appleby, and had the pleasure of examining it at my leisure. It is a beautiful copy, quite perfect, in its original binding, and, as one would have hoped, with end leaves taken from Machlinia’s Chronicle. It has a perfectly clear Latin imprint which runs: “And thus ends the commentary of the Doctrinale of Alexander, printed by me Richard Pynson of the parish of St Clement Danes outside the bar of the new Temple at London the 13th day of the month of November in the year of the incarnation of our Lord 1492.” From this colophon it is clear that if Pynson did commence work in Machlinia’s old office, which was in Holborn, he had by this time removed to other premises. The commentary in the book is printed in a very small, neat type which Pynson had probably had made for him abroad, as it contained no w. I am sorry that the discovery of this book has thrown out of order the list of Pynson’s types which I gave in the introduction to my Facsimiles of Early English Printing. In 1903 this volume was sold by the school trustees, and is now in the British Museum.
In 1493 appeared Henry Parker’s Dialogue of Dives and Pauper, which was always considered, before the discovery of the Doctrinale, Pynson’s first dated book. It is printed in a new and handsome type, and this is the only dated book in which it is used, though there are four undated quartos in the same type, which may be put down to the same year. These are the Festum nominis Jesu, one of the Nova Festa printed as supplements to the Sarum Breviary, the Life of St Margaret, Lidgate’s Churl and Birde, and an edition apparently of some statutes or a similar work known from two leaves in the library at Lambeth. Of the Festum nominis Jesu one copy is known, bound up in a volume with several other tracts, among them being Caxton’s Festum transfigurationis Jesu Christi. It was for a while in the Congregational Library in London but was eventually sold to the British Museum. Three printed leaves from the beginning of the poem amongst the fragments in the Bodleian are all that remain of the Life of St Margaret. The Lidgate’s Churl and Birde after passing through the sales of Willett, the Marquis of Blandford, Sir F. Freeling and B. H. Bright, passed with the Grenville Library into the British Museum.