About 1486, too, was issued the first edition of the Sarum Missal, printed, it is supposed, at Basle by Wenssler, though some doubts have been raised as to whether it was really printed at Basle on account of the appearance of the music type. It is a very handsome folio volume of 278 leaves, printed in a large Gothic type in red and black. The printer has not attempted to print the English portions of the wedding service, but has left blank spaces where they occur, so that they might be written in by hand. The first few editions of the Sarum Missal are all similar in this respect, but it is curious that Caxton, who had an edition specially printed for him, should not have supplied the printer with correct copies for these small portions of the service.
In the next few years a few grammatical books were issued, printed as a rule in the Low Countries. In 1486 Gerard Leeu printed the Vulgaria Terentii, a series of Latin sentences with translations into English, an edition reprinted from the Oxford one of a year or two earlier. This book is sometimes found printed as a supplement to the Grammar by John Anwykyll, and of this Grammar there are two foreign editions, one printed by Paffroed at Deventer in 1489, and another rather later by Henry Quentell at Cologne. The Grammar does not contain an author’s name, but in the prefatory verses written by Petrus Carmelianus he is referred to as Joannes. There are also verses written to William Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester, and founder of Magdalen College, Oxford, congratulating him on having persuaded this Joannes to edit the Grammar. The book is supposed to have been intended for the use of the Magdalen College School, in which the two grammarians John Anwykyll and John Stanbridge were masters, and is supposed to have been the work of Anwykyll. The two earliest editions were printed at Oxford, but by 1486 the Oxford Press had stopped work and the two succeeding editions were printed abroad.
The Liber Equivocorum and Liber Synonymorum, the former wrongly attributed to Joannes de Garlandia were also printed in the Low Countries, the first at Deventer by Paffroed, the second at Antwerp by Thierry Martens in 1493. The Liber Synonymorum has the commentary of Galfridus Anglicus. A copy of this book sold in the Ratcliffe sale in the last century was described as having been printed at Antwerp in 1492, but this must have been, I suppose, a misprint for 1493.
Three more books printed in the Low Countries I ought to mention before turning to France. One is an edition of Clement Maydeston’s Directorium Sacerdotum, printed by Gerard Leeu in 1488, of which there is a copy in the Cambridge University Library.
Another is an edition of the Sarum Horae, also printed by Leeu, which I am afraid has to be spoken of at present as a lost book. The only fragment known, an unused half sheet containing eight leaves, had been used to line the binding of a copy of the Scriptores rei rusticae printed at Reggio in 1496, in Brasenose College library; Bradshaw saw the fragment and took down a description of it, but on its return to Oxford it was mislaid and is not to be found.
The third book is another edition of the Sarum Breviary, printed at Louvain in 1499 by Thierry Martens. The only copy known is in the Musée Plantin at Antwerp. Leaving the Low Countries for a time we will turn to France.
The Missal printed for Caxton in 1487 I have already described in an earlier lecture, so I can pass on to the edition which succeeded it, that printed by Martin Morin, the celebrated printer of Rouen in 1492. This Morin was by far the most important of the Norman stationers and printers, and he appears to have excelled in the printing of service books, for he was employed by printers and publishers from all parts to print the service books for the special uses of the towns where they resided.
For England he printed altogether six service books in the fifteenth century. Three Missals, two Breviaries, and a Liber Festivalis, and of these the Missal of 1492 is the earliest. The two copies known of this book, both slightly imperfect, are in the British Museum and the Bodleian. It contains, like the earlier edition printed for Caxton, two full-page engravings before the Canon of the Mass, not one only, as is more generally the case.
The two later Missals which he issued, one without date but about 1495 and another dated 1497, appear to have been mixed up by all writers. The undated edition appears the rarest, for the only copy which I have noted is in the British Museum. Of the dated edition I have notes of five; one at Windsor in the Royal library, one in St Catharine’s College, one at Chatsworth, one in the Aberdeen University Library, and the fifth at Kinnaird Castle. I owe my knowledge of the existence of this last copy to almost the last book in which one would seek for bibliographical information, that handy work of reference Who’s Who. Both editions are very handsome books, remarkable for their fine titles and initial letters.
Of the two Breviaries which Morin printed the earliest is dated 1496, and the only copy known is in the University Library at Edinburgh, to which it was bequeathed in 1577 by Clement Litill, who left a number of valuable books to that library, of which he was practically the founder. It is a magnificent folio volume of 437 leaves, and contains a fairly full imprint, which after a deal of very grandiloquent language tells us that the book was printed at the cost of Jean Richard, “by the industry of that man skilled in printing, Mr Martin Morin, a not unworthy citizen of that great city Rouen.” Morin’s colophons I may note rarely err on the side of modesty. The Jean Richard mentioned was a stationer of Rouen, and one who appears to have had considerable dealings with England. I do not think he was a printer, as is often stated, and he describes himself as a dealer in books, not a printer, using sometimes the word merchant of books and sometimes the word stationer.