In the Monthly Miscellany, or Memoirs for the Curious (June 1708), p. 177 it is stated that in the Bishop of Ely’s Library (now at Cambridge) are books “of the first printing in England at Oxford in 1469.”
1480.
“Guido de Columnia de historia Trojana, per T. R. (Theodore Rood). Quarto. 1480.” So Herbert’s Ames, p. 1393. The source of the error was discovered by Cotton to be a forgery in a copy of Guido sine anno et loco preserved in the Earl of Pembroke’s Library at Wilton (Typ. Gaz., 1st ser., 2nd ed., p. 209.)
Before 1487.
“Books from the Oxford Press.... 208*. The Chronicles of England. Folio. Lent by the Earl of Jersey.” So in the Catalogue of the Caxton Celebration, 1877, p. 28. Some error. The reference is no doubt to Caxton’s Chronicle of England, printed in 1482.
1489.
When Cotton printed his Typographical Gazetteer, 2nd series, (Oxf. 1866) he believed that an Indulgence of 1489 (altered to 1499), in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, was printed at Oxford. It is “a small broadside on vellum, consisting of 24 lines only, printed very closely and occupying a space of about nine inches by six.” The Indulgence is from Johannes de Gigliis alias de Liliis Apostolicus Subdiaconus, granted by Pope Innocent iii: and is dated 1499, there being no name of place or date of printing. There is no doubt that Cotton was mistaken in attributing this piece to the Oxford press.
1498.
1. Bagford, in his inaccurate way, gives the title of an edition of the Greek text of the Ethics of Aristotle by Aretinus “Oxon. 1498” (Brit. Mus. MS. Harl. 5901, fol. 3). He mentions the 1479 edition of the Latin text separately, but the former date can only be due to some confusion with the latter.