It is not so soone goten, as this worlde lokes.”
Much information respecting the prices of books is found in the churchwardens’ accounts of the various parishes of the kingdom, and extracts from some of these have been printed in the Gentleman’s Magazine and other places. Mr. Thorold Rogers also has given several instances in the various volumes of his great work on “Agriculture and Prices.”
Archbishop Cranmer, in his “Articles to be inquired of ... within the Diocese of Canterbury,” A.D. 1548, asks “whether in every case they have provided one book of the whole Bible of the largest volume in English, and the Paraphrases of Erasmus, also in English, upon the Gospels, and set up the same in some convenient place in the church.” In 1548 we find that the churchwardens of St. Margaret’s, Westminster, paid five shillings for the half part of the Paraphrases of Erasmus, and in 1549 the churchwardens of Wigtoft, Lincolnshire, paid seven shillings for the same book. Archbishop Parker required Jewel’s “Defence of the Apology” to be placed in parish churches, and in 1570 the churchwardens of Leverton, Lincolnshire, paid four shillings for “half Mr. Juylle’s booke, called the ‘Appologie of Ingland,’” and fourpence for the carriage of the same.
From the churchwardens’ accounts of the parish of Stratton, county Cornwall, we learn that in 1565 two shillings were “paid for newe songes for the church,” and twopence “for a nother lyttell boke.” In 1570 twelvepence was “paid to Nicholas Oliver of sent tives for a song of te deum,” fourpence was paid “for mendyng of John Judes bybell which he lonyd to the churche when the other was to bynd,” and six shillings “for a newe communion book and a psalter in the same.” On the other side twelvepence was received “for two peces of old bookes sold.”[30]
The churchwardens of Canterbury parish gave forty-one shillings for a church Bible in 1586, four shillings for a prayer-book in 1598, and three shillings and fourpence for a book of statutes in 1599.
Sir John Evans communicated to the Archæologia[31] some most interesting extracts from the Private Account Book of Sir William More of Loseley, in Surrey, in the time of Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, which contains an inventory of a collection of about one hundred and twenty volumes. This inventory gives us a vivid idea of the contents of a country gentleman’s library in the sixteenth century. There are the best chronicles of the time, as Fabyan, Harding, &c., translations of the classics, and some in their original languages, statutes, new books of justices and other legal works, books of physic, dictionaries, &c., and each of the books is marked with a price. The most expensive books:—Cronica Cronicarum, xxs; Minister’s Cosmografye, xvjs; un byble, xs; a calapyne, xs [Calepino’s Vocabulary of the Latin Tongue]; Fabyan’s Cronicle, vs; Statuts of Henry theight, xijs; all the Statuts of Kyng Edward the VI., ijs; all the Statuts of the Quene, ijs; Chausore, vs. There were four New Testaments, “one in ffrench,” xxd, two “in Italion,” respectively xxjd and ijs vjd, and one “in lattyn,” xijd. The Legenda Aurea was priced iijs iiijd; Tullye’s Officys translated, viijd; ij bokes conteyning Tully’s Philosophy, ijs vjd; Cezar’s Commentary, xvjd; ij bokes of Machevale’s works in Italion, iijs iiijd; Hardyng’s Cronycle, ijs vjd; Utopea, viijd. Of low-priced books we find—A lyttle cronicle, id; Lydgates’ Proverbs, id; Alexander Barkley’s Eclogs, id; Skelton’s Work, iiijd; and Triumph of Petrark, vjd.
Sir Egerton Brydges also quoted from a Household Book an interesting list of about the same date as the above—
| Anno 1564. | ||
| Iteme, for booke of the dysease of horses | iiijd | |
| Iteme, for printing the xxv orders of honest men | xxd | |
| Iteme, pd for a Lytlton in English | xijd | |
| Iteme, for a diologge betwine the cap and the heade | ijd | |
| Iteme, pd for the booke of the ij Englishe lovers | vjd | |
| Iteme, for a French booke called the historye de noster ternes | xvjd | |
| Iteme, pd for iij French bookes, the on called Pawlus Jovius | xxs | [32] |
In the days before copyright acts authors and publishers often tried to safeguard their property by obtaining patents. These were sometimes for a particular book, as, for instance, Richard Field, printer, in February 1592 was granted the sole licence to print “Orlando Furioso translated into English verse by John Harrington.” More often, however, patents were granted to printers allowing them the sole privilege of printing certain classes of books. A licence “to imprint all manner of books concerning the common laws of this realm” was granted to Richard Tottell; one for primers and books of private prayers to William Seres; one to print all manner of songs of musick to Thomas Tallis and William Bird; one for dictionaries generally to H. Binneman; and one for almanacks and prognostications to James Roberts and Richard Watkins.[33] Gradually by purchase or inheritance nearly all the monopolies came into the possession of the Stationers’ Company. Certain printers, however, made a practice of pirating some of the most popular English privileged books. The Company resisted, and memorialised Lord Burghley in October 1582, with a complaint of the opposition met with in making their search in the printing-house of one “who printed all kinds of books at his pleasure.”[34]