From a binding in Westminster Abbey some years ago came two leaves of an unknown early Cambridge book, Lily’s De octo orationis partium constructione, edited by Erasmus, and lately at Oxford Mr Proctor found in a binding in New College some fragments of a Donatus Melior on vellum, printed by Caxton, a hitherto unknown book. As Bradshaw said over twenty years ago: “It cannot be any matter of wonder that the fragments used for lining the boards of old books should have an interest for those who make a study of the methods and habits of our early printers with a view to the solution of some of many difficulties still remaining unsettled in the history of printing. I have for many years tried to draw the attention of librarians and others to the evidence which may be gleaned from a careful study of these fragments; and if done systematically and intelligently it ceases to be mere antiquarian pottering or aimless waste of time.”
Of course the majority of fragments found in bindings are of no value, and should not be moved; indeed, fragments should never be taken out of bindings unless it is absolutely necessary, for by doing so the binding is almost certain to suffer some injury.
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To study effectively the early English book a certain knowledge about these early bindings is required, for the printer, as we have seen, was probably his own binder. What I said about the stationers applies also to the binders, their history is an almost unworked subject, new details are found from time to time, but we have no work on the subject to which we can add them, and our knowledge at present consists mostly of isolated facts. Bradshaw, writing twenty years ago, spoke of the subject as still in its infancy, and I am afraid that English bibliographers cannot boast of much progress. This is not, perhaps, to be much wondered at when we consider how few are willing to work on in the steady, quiet way which he practised and taught. We can do no better than follow in the path that he pointed out, add fact to fact, and detail to detail, avoiding vain theories and idle speculations, so that whatever advance we make in our knowledge of the subject, whether it be much or little, it may at any rate be accurate, and serve as a secure foundation for the work of the future.
PART II.
1501-1535.
LECTURE V.
WYNKYN DE WORDE AND THE POPULAR PRINTERS.
In the four lectures which I had the privilege of giving as Sandars Reader in the Lent term of 1899 I dealt with the printers, stationers, and bookbinders of London and Westminster in the fifteenth century. In the present series I propose to continue their history up to the year 1535.
The date which has been fixed upon is not a purely arbitrary one, but has been chosen for two reasons. In the first place, it is the year in which Wynkyn de Worde, by far the most important and prolific of all the early English printers, died, and secondly, it just includes and allows us to examine the remarkable change brought about in the English book trade by the passing of the Act relating to printers in the twenty-fifth year of Henry VIII, which came into force on Christmas-Day, 1534.