The octavo Missal of 1494, a much commoner book than the last, was issued in December. On the last leaf is Hertzog’s mark and the words, “Fredericus egmont me fieri fecit.” There is no mention of Barrevelt, and the double device does not occur in the book, which makes it appear as though this edition was printed for Egmont alone. Both these editions of the Missal contain exquisitely designed woodcut initials, the most graceful to be found in any early book.
In the Bodleian there is a copy of the “Pars estivalis” of the Sarum Breviary printed at Venice in 1495, which contains again the device of Egmont and Barrevelt, though the imprint mentions Egmont’s name only. After 1495 we hear nothing more of Egmont until 1499, when he seems to have got rid of his former partner Barrevelt and joined with a man named Peter post pascha, and these two commissioned Pynson to print them an edition of the Promptorium Puerorum. After 1499 Egmont disappeared for a long time; we know of him working as a bookbinder, and it is probable that he stayed on for some time in England, for he is mentioned as a witness in a law-suit in London in 1502. When he does reappear it is in Paris, where he had some books printed for him about 1517-1520.
It is very disappointing that we have practically no information about Frederick Egmont, for it is clear from the number of books that he had printed for him in Venice that he must have been a stationer of very considerable importance. The colophons of his books give, beyond his mere name, no information whatever about him: we do not even know in what part of London or under what sign he lived. The stationers seem always to have settled in St Paul’s Churchyard, and I cannot help thinking that part of that district may have been “in the liberties,” as it was called, of some church. Though the Act of Richard allowed foreigners to come over and trade, yet I do not suppose his Act could override the rights of the trade guilds. It certainly did not in York, for there a stationer must be a freeman by right or by purchase before he could carry on certain businesses, that of a stationer amongst the number, within the city. There were, however, certain liberties where an alien could live and trade; and we find at York that their earliest stationer, Gerard Wanseford, does not appear in the city register. Having taken up his abode within the liberty of St Peter, he was privileged to carry on business there without being a freeman of the city.
In the same way in London, I suppose, the various trades had their rights and could prevent foreigners from competing, except they resided within the liberties. Of course there was a Stationers’ Company in London in the fifteenth century, though unfortunately most of the records relating to it have disappeared, and it would protect its own members. We see in the early bindings how ostentatiously the binders who were freemen decorated their bindings with the arms of London, and there is no doubt that as far as trading in the City was concerned the foreigner was considerably handicapped in comparison with the freeman.
We know from the few early documents remaining that the London Company of Stationers was a powerful and important body, and the members of it must certainly have enjoyed certain privileges.
Nicholas Lecomte was another stationer who appears to have been settled in England by 1494, in which year, so far as I know, his first dated book appears. M. Madden, a French writer on early printing, in the fifth volume of his Lettres d’une Bibliographe, speaks of Hopyl having printed a book for Lecomte in 1493. Several times in writing to him I asked for some information about this book, its whereabouts or its name even, but though he sent always voluminous replies to my letters, he never would touch on this particular point. I think, therefore, we may consider that this 1493 book never existed, and take the 1494 book as the first. This was an edition of the Liber Synonymorum, printed by Hopyl, of which there are copies in the University Library, the British Museum, and the Bodleian.
In the imprint Lecomte is described as living in London by St Paul’s Churchyard at the sign of St Nicholas. His device depicts St Nicholas restoring to life the three children who had been killed and pickled, a favourite subject of the early bookbinders.
I think it is worth noting here, that so far as I can discover the sign of a house was not in any way permanent, but could apparently be changed at will. I noticed this in reading through a catalogue or précis of some thousands of deeds relating to property in London at this time and a little earlier. We find endless notices of houses with changed signs, “the tenement now called the Rose, formerly the Lion,” the “house called the Bull, formerly called the Rose,” and so on. Naturally if a house got celebrated for any reason it would be politic to keep the sign, but there seems to have been no compulsion to do so.
In 1495 an edition of Mirk’s Liber Festivalis and Quattuor Sermones was printed by Hopyl for Lecomte. This contains Lecomte’s device at the end of the Liber Festivalis and a curious device at the end of the Quattuor Sermones, used sometimes by Hopyl, but which does not bear on its face any appearance of having been made for him.
At the time when this book was printed Hopyl had in his office as press corrector an Edinburgh man called David Lauxius, the earliest Scotchman we know of employed in a printing-office. He afterwards became a schoolmaster at Arras, and appears to have been a man of considerable ability, and a friend of the celebrated Parisian printer and editor, Badius Ascensius, who addresses to him some of the prefatory letters in his grammars. What Scotch name is represented by the Latin Lauxius no one has yet been able to determine.