All the authorities I have been able to consult are unanimous in disagreeing on the history of the family of Birckman, but fortunately at the moment we are only concerned with two, Francis the elder and younger. The elder, whose place of business was in St Paul’s Churchyard, must have been an important and rich man and seems to have spared no expense in ornamenting his books. As an example I may mention the great Sarum Antiphoner in two folio volumes, of which there is a copy in the Cambridge University Library. The fine title-pages were not the stock-in-trade of the printer Hopyl, but were specially engraved for Birckman, whose mark occurs in them. His Missals also were profusely illustrated, which was not the general rule with such service books.
Francis Birckman was dead before the year 1531, as we learn from the sentence delivered in a lawsuit on April 4, 1531, and registered in the sentence book of the Alderman’s Court at Antwerp. A certain John Silverlink had delivered to Birckman a large consignment, over 700 copies, of English New Testaments, for which he was to be paid £28. 17s. 3d. and had only received £3. 7s. 3d. The action was brought by the plaintiff against the guardians of Birckman’s children to recover the remainder, which was ordered to be paid minus a sum advanced by Francis Birckman to John van Remonde. His last book appears to have been dated 1529. In 1530 an edition of the Sarum Processional, printed at Paris by Prevost, was published in London with the following colophon, “Venundatur Londonii in edibus junioris Francisci Byrckman apud cimiterium divi Pauli.” This Francis was no doubt a son of the earlier Francis, for though his device is different his mark is the same. The device in the Processional is the Hen with her Chickens, no doubt referring to the sign of the Birckmans at Cologne and Antwerp of the Fat Hen. This is the only book which I can trace as having been sold in England by the younger Francis Birckman, who probably returned abroad. He does not appear to have printed much, for the business was mainly carried on by Arnold. At a little later date there were certainly two Arnold Birckmans flourishing, one who dealt principally in London, and who had a brother there also in business named John. The other Arnold whose headquarters were at Cologne was dead before 1541, in which year a work of Rupertus, De victoria verbi Dei was printed at Louvain for the widow of Arnold Birckman.
John and Arnold were certainly very important stationers in London. John Reynes was the only foreigner who surpassed them in wealth, and when his stock was valued at £100, each of theirs was valued at 100 marks, that is, £66. 13s. 4d. They appear to have acted as foreign agents for many of the London booksellers and to have travelled a great deal from place to place. They did not however always bear the best of characters, for Johann Ulmer writes to Bullinger, “The Byrckmans are careless and by no means to be depended upon, therefore beware”; and in another letter he complains, “The book has not yet reached me, the Byrckmans are not at all to be trusted.” Erasmus was even more abusive on the subject.
Jan van Doesborch, a printer of Antwerp who commenced business some time shortly before 1508, carried on the tradition of printing English books. Of some thirty-two books which he issued more than half are in English and many of them of a very curious nature. He appears to have inherited the business of Roland van den Dorp and his widow, and to have taken on their premises with the sign of the Iron Balance near the Cammerpoort. He is entered in the books of the St Lucas Gilde in 1508, the date of his first dated book, as an illuminator, and this taste is shown in the lavish, if careless, way in which he illustrated his books. Probably the first book he issued was the Fifteen Tokens, a little tract describing the signs coming before the Judgement and which he had himself translated from the Dutch. This was followed by three grammars, one of which, Holt’s Lac Puerorum, has but lately been discovered and is in a private collection. Then come an edition of Robin Hood, known from an imperfect copy in Edinburgh, and a fragment of Eurialus and Lucrece also at Edinburgh. To the year 1518 may be ascribed the Life of Virgilius and a dated book of that year, beginning “This mater treateth of a merchauntes wife that afterwarde went lyke a man and becam a great lorde and was called Frederyke of Jennen.” Then we have the History of Mary of Nemmegen, an edition of Tyl Howleglas, and the story of the Parson of Kalenborowe. A last book worthy of mention is one beginning “Of the newe landes and of ye people found by the messengers of the kynge of portyngale named Emanuel.” Though naturally a much spoken of book as being about the earliest of English books relating to America, really only one leaf of the book is devoted to that subject.
Who the translator of these various books may have been is uncertain. Two were definitely stated to have been done by Lawrence Andrewe, the London printer, and Douce without any apparent reason suggested that others might be the work of Richard Arnold. I think that perhaps several were translated by Andrewe. In some verses appended to his translation of the Book of Dystyllacyon he writes,
After sondry volumes that I dyd deuyse
As tryfels of myrthe, which were laudable
Now mynded agayn, my pene to exercyse
In other maters to the reder more profitable
And thus abydynge pacyently, for a time seasonable