It was for him that Morin printed in 1499 an edition of Mirk’s Liber Festivalis and Quattuor Sermones, a copy of which is in the Sandars collection in the University Library. For him also, in 1500, a Sarum Manual was printed by Petrus Olivier and Joannes de Lorraine, of which there is a copy in the Bodleian, and during the early years of the sixteenth century a considerable number of service books for the English market were printed at his expense.
The names of a number of early stationers who probably traded between Rouen and England are to be found in the imprints of the early Sarum Missals, for as the printing of them entailed a good deal of expense a number of booksellers would combine to pay for the edition. Rouen seems to have been, amongst all the towns of France, the most connected with England as regards the book trade. It was there many of our printers, as well as the first Scottish printers, learned their art or obtained their materials, while stationers from that town crossed over and sold their books in this country.
We know that Ingelbert Haghe, the publisher of the Hereford Breviary of 1505, came over himself and sold books at Hereford and in the country round. On the fly-leaf of a Bible formerly in the library of Gloucester Cathedral is a Latin inscription which runs: “I gave to the Hereford bookseller called Ingelbert for this and the six other volumes of the Bible 43 shillings and fourpence, which I bought at Ludlow the year of our Lord’s incarnation 1510, about the day of the Lichfield fair.” Whether the Bible is still in the Gloucester Cathedral library I do not know, but the fly-leaves which once belonged to it are in a bundle of scraps in the Bodleian.
Another Rouen printer issued in 1495 an edition of the Liber Festivalis. His name was James Ravynell, and this is the only book that he is known to have printed. It is an exact copy of the edition printed by W. de Worde in 1493 and ’94, and the type used in it has a very clean and new appearance. At the end is a device with the initials P. R., which looks as though it might have been made for another member of the family, though we know of no other printer of the name. The fact that he uses the English form of the Christian name in the imprint, “By me, James Ravynell,” looks as if he was an Englishman who had migrated to Rouen.
The device consists of the initials P. R. on a shield suspended by a belt from a tree and supported by two muzzled bears. Below the shield two birds hold up a wreath. Round the whole runs the text: “Junior fui etenim senui et non vidi justum derelictum nec semen ejus querens panem.” The name Ravynell is a curious one, and may be a corrupted spelling of a commoner name, though it is still borne by some families of Huguenot descent.
Another mysterious book, which from its type may very well have been printed at Rouen, is an edition of the little grammar called Parvula. It consists only of four leaves, and the only copy known is at Manchester. The book ends: “Here endeth a treatise called parvula, for the instruction of children. Emprentyd by me Nicole Marcant.” In the exasperating way common to some printers both the date and place of printing are omitted. As to the date I am inclined to put it before 1500, but the place is more difficult to settle. Nicole Marcant is an unknown printer, but may very well be a member of one of the numerous families of Marchand or Mercator, for there were several printers of that name, though none so far as I know named Nicholas.
If we except the Missal printed for Caxton in 1487 it was not until 1494 that the Paris printers began to work for the English market, and the books they produced were almost all liturgical. The only exceptions are three editions of grammatical works, two of the Liber Equivocorum wrongly ascribed to Joannes de Garlandia, and one of the Liber Synonymorum, the first two printed by Baligault and the last by Hopyl.
The first liturgical book was an edition of the Sarum Breviary, printed in 1494 by Pierre Levet. For a long time only one copy was known, that in the library at Trinity College, Dublin, but not long ago the University Library was fortunate enough to secure a second example, a very beautiful copy in its old binding.
In one thing the Paris printers excelled all others, and that was in the production of books of Hours. These were turned out in the last few years of the century by hundreds of thousands, and though they are now of very common occurrence and very often of little interest, they are still much sought after by certain classes of collectors, especially those who like what they call pretty books. Of course, when these books were printed for the use of out of the way places they have often great liturgical interest, and being printed no doubt in small quantities are very rare. The English service books having been relentlessly destroyed at the Reformation are very rare indeed. Altogether in the fifteenth century twenty-seven editions of the Sarum Horae were printed, fifteen in England, one at Antwerp, one at Venice, and ten in Paris. Nine English editions were printed before one was issued at Paris, but these latter when once they got a footing in England easily defied competition. The changes in the text of these books during the last ten years of the century are very curious and interesting. The Horae was not a service book proper, but a manual of private devotion, and so long as it contained certain fixed and definite parts additional prayers could be added at will. Consequently the editions vary greatly, and each publisher seems to have aimed at inserting new and popular prayers, and by 1500 the book had increased to almost double the bulk of its forerunner of ten years earlier.
In speaking of these books there is one point on which a word of warning may be said. And that is about dating editions which have no date in the imprint. All such are usually put down to 1488, which is the first date printed in the calendar of moveable feasts. As this calendar was made out for a nineteen year cycle running on to 1508 it was naturally not reprinted for many years, and therefore is no test for dating the printing of the book. The ten editions printed at Paris are the work of about five printers, of whom the most important was Felix Baligault.