Though Jacobi died in 1514 and Pelgrim is not mentioned after this date, the business at the sign of the Trinity still continued. This we know from a unique but unfortunately imperfect book in the Bodleian. It is called “Donate and accidence for children enprynted at Parys. Anno Domini 1515.” The imprint on the title states that it was to be sold at Paris at the sign of the Striped Ass by Philippus de Couvelance and in St Paul’s Churchyard at the sign of St Katherine or the Trinity. The last leaf which might have contained a colophon is wanting. This Philip de Couvelance was apparently the son of Jean de Cowlance, whose device was the striped ass (asinus riguatus) and who was the same person as Joannes Confluentinus or Jean de Coblentz, whose name occurs frequently in the prefaces of early books.
Birckman perhaps may have had something to do with the sign of the Trinity, for he seems to have been in partnership with Jacobi in 1512 and used the device of the Trinity on some of the service books of English use which he issued. However by 1518 the shop was in the occupation of Henry Pepwell, who has been noticed before.
The sign of the “striped ass” commemorates the exhibition of a zebra, the first seen in France, which was shown at the Saint-Germain fair towards the close of the fifteenth century.
John Reynes, in many ways the best known of these early stationers, was a native of Wageningen in Gueldres and took out letters of denization on June 7, 1510. Though described in the Subsidy rolls of 1523 as a stationer, he appears to have undertaken other kinds of business, for in 1524 we find him supplying cloth and cotton at the funeral of Sir Thomas Lovell. In 1527 he began his business as publisher by issuing a magnificent edition of Higden’s Polycronicon, printed for him at Southwark by Peter Treveris, which is remarkable for the excellence of the illustrations. Very fortunately too his mark is engraved at the foot of the title-page and thus gives us the only clue by which we can identify his large series of stamped bindings. In this same year, Reynes in partnership with W. de Worde and Ludovicus Suethon, which name is I believe a misspelling for Sutton, commissioned a magnificent edition of the Sarum Gradual, which was printed for them at Paris by Nicolas Prevost, and of which the fine copy, formerly Gough’s, is in the Bodleian. In 1530 another service book was printed for him abroad, an edition of the Psalterium cum Hymnis for the use of Sarum and York. Ten years later he issued an Introductorie for to lerne to rede Frenche written by Giles Duwes, sometime librarian to Henry VIII, and Tutor of the French language to the Princess Mary. The latest book which Reynes issued was a Sarum Processional which was printed for him at Antwerp by the widow of Christopher van Ruremond.
Reynes was certainly in his time the most important stationer of foreign birth settled in England, and his goods valued in 1523 at £40. 3s. 4d. had risen in 1541 and 1544 to £100. The only other foreigner of like importance was Arnold Birckman, who, however, was not settled in this country, but only paid it passing visits and carried on business by an agent.
Reynes’s chief fame now, however, rests on his bindings, which are the most frequently found and best known amongst all the early English series. The commonest are those ornamented with a broad roll containing his mark and figures of a hound, a falcon, and a bee, with sprays of foliage and flowers. He had also several series of panels. One pair is particularly good. The first represents the baptism of Christ, who stands in the stream while St John, kneeling, pours the water on His head. The other is a spirited picture of St George and the dragon fighting within an enclosure, round which run various animals and huntsmen. Below are the initials I. R. joined by a knot which must stand for John Reynes, as I have found these two panels used in conjunction with his roll on a binding in the library of St John’s College, Oxford.
A more ambitious panel contains what is called the “Arma Redemptoris Mundi,” the emblems of the Passion displayed heraldically upon a shield with two unicorns as supporters, and two small shields with Reynes’s mark and initials. The companion panel is divided into two parts, one containing the shield with the arms of England and France supported by the dragon and greyhound, the other the Tudor rose with the scrolls bearing the usual verses and supported by angels. These contain, besides Reynes’s initials and mark, a shield with the arms of the City of London, so that when these were cut he was probably a freeman.
The last pair, which are late in style and were probably only made for him near the end of his career, contain busts of warriors in medallions between renaissance pillars, connected by ornamental arches, and the whole enclosed within an ornamental border. In the centre between the medallions is the binder’s mark.
Reynes died at the beginning of 1544 and his will, made April 8th, 1542, was proved on February 26th. It is a long document and contains many points of interest. His two apprentices, Thomas Holwarde and Edward Sutton, are to receive on coming out of their apprenticeship one hundred shillingsworth of books to be valued according to the way that Arnold and John Birckman sell them to the booksellers. Edward Wright and Robert Holder, his assistants, are left ten pounds in books on condition that they work for Lucy Reynes, the widow, for two years and assist her to realise the stock. Money is left to the poor and for a breakfast to the stationers who come to the funeral, and the residue to the widow Lucy Reynes. It is clear from the fact that Reynes had English apprentices, and from the way he speaks of the stationers, that he had been made a freeman and member of the Company in spite of his foreign birth.
Lucy Reynes did not long survive her husband, for her will, dated April 28, 1548, was proved October 25, 1549. She, like her husband, requested to be buried in the Pardon Churchyard near St Paul’s.