In the account roll of John Estenay, sacrist of Westminster from September 29, 1476, to September 29, 1477, we find, under the heading "Firme terrarum infra Sanctuarium," the entry "De alia shopa ibidem dimissa Willelmo Caxton, per annum Xs." Another account-book, still preserved at Westminster, shows that in 1483 Caxton paid for two shops or houses, and in 1484 besides these for a loft over the gateway of the Almonry, described in 1486 as the room over the road (Camera supra viam), and in 1488 as the room over the road at the entrance to the Almonry (Camera supra viam eundo ad Elemosinariam). This latter was perhaps rented as a place to store the unsold portion of his stock.
The neighbourhood of the Abbey seems to have been a place much favoured by merchants of the Staple and dealers in wool, and this may have had something to do with Caxton's choice. He always continued to be a member of the Mercers' Company, and many of his fellow-members must have formed his acquaintance, or learned to esteem him, while he held his honourable and responsible post of Governor of the English nation in the Low Countries. Like himself, many were members of the Fraternity of our Blessed Lady Assumption and benefactors to the church of St. Margaret. The abbots of Westminster themselves were in the wool trade, and according to Stow had six wool-houses in the Staple granted them by King Henry VI. Some such special causes, or perhaps certain privileges obtained from Margaret, Henry VII.'s mother, who was one of the printer's patrons, must have made Caxton fix his choice on Westminster rather than on London, the great centre for all merchants, and which might have been supposed more suitable for a printer.
The first book with a date issued in England was the Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres, which was finished on the 18th of November, 1477. That Caxton should have allowed more than a year to elapse before issuing any work from his press seems improbable, especially considering the untiring energy with which he worked. On this point a curious piece of evidence is to be found in the prologue to the edition of King Apolyn of Tyre, printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1510. Robert Copland, an assistant of De Worde and the translator of the book, says: "My worshipful master Wynken de Worde, having a little book of an ancient history of a kyng, sometyme reigning in the countree of Thyre called Appolyn, concernynge his malfortunes and peryllous adventures right espouventables, bryefly compyled and pyteous for to here, the which boke I Robert Coplande have me applyed for to translate out of the Frensshe language into our maternal Englysshe tongue at the exhortacion of my forsayd mayster, accordynge dyrectly to myn auctor, gladly followynge the trace of my mayster Caxton, begynnynge with small storyes and pamfletes and so to other."
Now, taking all the books printed by Caxton before the end of the year 1478, in number twenty-one, and considering that the first dated book was not issued until almost the end of 1477, and that Caxton had then presumably been in England for over a year, there does seem some reasonable ground for believing the statement of Copland, especially as there are amongst these early books a number which exactly answer to the description of "small storyes and pamfletes."
An exactly analogous case occurs in regard to the introduction of printing into Scotland. The first printer, Andrew Myllar, while preparing for the publication of the Aberdeen Breviary, which was issued at Edinburgh in 1509-10, published in 1508 a series of small pamphlets, consisting of stories and poems by Dunbar, Chaucer, and others. As might naturally be expected, such small books were especially liable to destruction, both on account of their size and the popularity of their subjects. It is not surprising to find that the majority have been preserved to us in single copies only. All the ten Edinburgh books are unique, and almost all the early Caxton quartos, so that it is impossible under these conditions to estimate what the output of Caxton's first year's working may have been. In writing of these earliest books, it will be perhaps best to take the folios first, and then the numerous small works, since, as they all agree so exactly as regards printing, they cannot be arranged in any definite order.
The first of the folios issued was most probably the History of Jason, translated by Caxton himself from the French version of Raoul Le Fevre immediately after he had finished those of the Recueil and the Game of Chess. The translation was undertaken under the patronage of Edward IV., with a view to the presentation of the book when finished to the ill-fated Prince of Wales, afterwards Edward V., "to thentent he may begynne to lerne rede Englissh." The book has every appearance of having been one of the very earliest issues of the Westminster press, and at the end of 1476 or beginning of 1477 the young prince would have been about four years old, a very suitable age to begin his education.
The book contains 150 leaves, of which the first and last are blank, and a full page has 29 lines. Like all early Caxtons, it has no signatures, which were not introduced until 1480; no headlines, which were rarely used; no numbers to the pages, which occur still more rarely; and no catch-words, which were never used at all.
As in all other early printed books, spaces were left for the insertion of illuminated initials at the beginnings of the chapters. Now, while in contemporary French, Italian, and Low Country books such spaces were often filled with the most gracefully designed and beautifully illuminated initials, rich in scrollwork and foliage, and ornamented with coats of arms or miniatures, there is not, so far as I know, any early English book in existence containing any attempt at such decoration. As a rule, the spaces were left blank as they came from the printer. In some cases, where the paragraph marks have been filled in by the rubricator, he has roughly daubed in the initial with his brush, making no attempt at ornament, or even neatness in the letter itself.