Richard Bankes, who began to print in 1523, was the first of a series of printers who lived at “The long shop in the Poultry beside St Mildred’s church door at the stocks,” and the first book he issued was a collection of stories which he called “goodly and right pleasant,” though they hardly merit that description, entitled The IX Drunkardes.
This very curious little book, of which the only copy known is in the Bodleian, sets forth the evils of drink as exemplified by various Scriptural characters. It is a translation from the Dutch and is illustrated with a number of foreign woodcuts and borders.
From 1523 to 1526 Bankes printed five dated books and then ceased to work for thirteen years, though he had one book printed for him by Robert Copland in 1528. When he next appears as a printer in 1539 he was living next the White Hart in Fleet Street and was apparently subsidised to print the works of Richard Taverner, an ardent reformer, a religious writer, and M.P. for Liverpool.
In 1540 immediately after Cromwell’s death a series of ballads attacking and defending him were written by Thomas Smyth, clerk of the Queen’s Council, and William Gray, a servant of Cromwell’s. These came before the notice of the Privy Council and the two authors together with Richard Bankes the printer were summoned to appear at eight o’clock in the morning on Sunday, 3rd January 1541. The notice of this trial brings up a new point of great interest to bibliographers. Copies of these ballads are still extant in the library of the Society of Antiquaries, several with Bankes’s full imprint, and in the indictment he is spoken of as “noted to be the printer.” When the case came on however Bankes absolutely denied that he had printed them and laid the blame on Robert Redman lately deceased, and Richard Grafton, who confessed he had printed some of them. On January 4 Smyth, Gray and Grafton were committed to the Fleet. This account shows that the colophons of the early printers, especially in the case of small fugitive pieces, are not to be implicitly trusted, and emphasizes the necessity of a careful study of type. Such a study also often shows that some of the smaller printers were probably not printers at all, but had their books printed for them.
Bankes last appears in 1545, when he issued with Richard Lant the Booke of Cookery, of which there is a copy in the Hunterian Museum at Glasgow.
Lawrence Andrewe, who printed in Fleet Street near Fleet Bridge at the sign of the Golden Cross, was a native of Calais and seems to have had some connexion with John of Doesborch, the Antwerp printer, for whom he translated several Dutch books into English, among them the Valuation of gold and silver, and a book called The wonderful shape and nature that our Saviour Christ Jesu hath created in beasts, serpents, fowls, etc. He only issued two books with a date, two editions of Jerome of Brunswick’s Boke of Distillacyon; and not only were they printed in the same year, but they were finished on two consecutive days, the 17th and 18th of April. These two editions vary throughout, and the reason for the double issue seems inexplicable. His undated books comprise editions of Aesop’s Fables, and the Mirror of the World, in folio, the latter being ornamented with a profusion of miscellaneous woodcuts obtained from various sources; and the Directory of the conscience and the Debate and stryfe betwene Somer and Wynter in quarto. The Debate was to be sold “at the signe of seynt John Evangelyst in saynt Martyns parysshe besyde Charynge crosse” presumably by Robert Wyer and may therefore be dated about 1530. In 1529 Andrewe was apparently associated with Peter Treveris in the production of the Grete Herball, for some copies contain his device. This device consisted of his mark on a large shield within a frame of pillars and festoons of very florid work. In some of the initials in his books his mark will be found, showing that they were specially engraved for him. About 1534 a certain printer named Leonard Andrewe, who may have been a relation, was an assistant to John Rastell.
Though about all these early printers we have but meagre information, the career of Thomas Godfray is particularly obscure. His name is found in over thirty books; only two contain an address, in each different, and only one a date. The dated book is the Chaucer of 1532 printed at London by Thomas Godfray, itself a curious puzzle. It was edited by William Thynne and had a preface by Sir Brian Tuke, and a copy discovered by Henry Bradshaw in the library of Clare College, Cambridge, has the inscription “This preface I sir Bryan Tuke knight wrot at the request of Mr Clarke of the Kechyn then being, tarying for the tyde at Grenewich.” Now Leland, the antiquary, distinctly states that this edition was issued by Thomas Berthelet, and as he was a contemporary of Godfray and Berthelet his words cannot be lightly passed over. The title-page border used by Godfray in the Chaucer and the Gift of Constantine [1534] was used by Berthelet as early as 1535; and he used in the same year another border frame which Godfray employed in the Introductorie for to lerne French by Giles Dewes and which was cracked during the printing of that book. Though we have no direct evidence of the fact it would seem as though Godfray’s press was subsidized by Berthelet, to a great extent, perhaps, owing to the latter’s occupation with official work. Another point to be noticed is that Godfray never mentions any sign, and this is nearly always found to be the case with printers who worked for others and not for themselves. Two of Godfray’s books can be dated from outside evidence. The Gift of Constantine was issued early in 1534, for on April 1 Marshall, at whose expense it was published, wrote to Cromwell, “I send you two books now finished of the Gift of Constantine. I think there was none ever better set forth for defacing of the pope of Rome.” He also writes, “On the book of Constantine I have laid out all the money I can make, and for lack of it cannot fetch the books from the printers.” The second book is Christopher Saint-Germain’s Answer to a Letter which cannot be earlier than 1535, a date found in the book itself. Godfray worked at one time in the Old Bailey and at another, probably later, at Temple Bar, where he would be close to Berthelet. He made no use of any device.
LECTURE VI.
RICHARD PYNSON AND THE LEARNED PRINTERS.
Having treated in my last lecture of Wynkyn de Worde and his followers who represent the popular printers of the time, I come to-day to Richard Pynson and his school, who represent the more learned press. We have Haukins and Redman, Pynson’s successors; William Faques who preceded and Thomas Berthelet who succeeded him as printer to the King; and the two Rastells, John and William, brother-in-law and nephew to Sir Thomas More, distinguished in the law.