Monogram used by Richard Pynson.
It will be essential throughout this chapter, and indeed throughout the whole work, to bear in mind that it was not till quite modern times that a separate class was formed to buy copyrights, to employ printers, and to sell the books wholesale, to which their names were affixed on the title-pages—to be in fact, in the modern acceptation of the word, Publishers. There was no such class among the old booksellers; but they had to do everything for themselves, to construct the types, presses, and other essentials for printing, to bind the sheets when printed, and finally, when the books were manufactured, to sell them to the general public. For long, many of the booksellers had printing offices; they all, of course, kept shops, at which not only printed books but stationery was retailed; bookbinders were not unfrequent among them; and, to very recent times, they were the chief proprietors of newspapers, a branch of the trade that appears, from some modern instances, to be again falling in their direction.
In England the printing press found a sure asylum, but at first the books printed were very few in number and the issue of each book small. The works produced by Caxton consisted almost entirely of translations. “Divers famous clerks and learned men,” says one of the early printers, “translated and made many noble works into our English tongue. Whereby there was much more plenty and abundance of English used than there was in times past.” Wynkyn de Worde followed closely in his master’s footsteps; but soon a new source of employment for the press was discovered, and De Worde turned his attention to the production of Accidences, Lucidaries, Orchards of Words, Promptuaries for Little Children, and the like. With the Reformation came of course a great demand for Bibles, and, between the years 1526 and 1600, so great was the rush for this new supply of hitherto forbidden knowledge that we have no less than three hundred and twenty-six editions, or parts of editions, of the English Bible.
In the “Typographical Antiquities” of Ames and Herbert are recorded the names of three hundred and fifty printers in England and Scotland, who flourished between 1474 and 1600. Though these “printers” were also booksellers, their history belongs more properly to the annals of printing. We will, therefore, confine ourselves to a preliminary account of the Stationers’ Company, and then enter forthwith upon such biographical sketches as our space will allow, of the men who may be regarded, if not uniformly in the modern sense as publishers, at any rate as the representative booksellers of old London.
The “Stationers or Text-writers who wrote and sold all sorts of books then in use” were first formed into a guild in the year 1403, by the authority of the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen, and possessed ordinances made for the good government of their fellowship; and thus constituted they assembled regularly in their first hall in Milk Street under the government of a master and two wardens; but no privilege or charter has ever been discovered, under which, at that period, they acted as a corporate body. The Company had, however, no control over printed books until they received their first charter from Mary and Philip on 4th May 1557. The object of the charter is thus set forth in the preamble: “Know ye that we, considering and manifestly perceiving that several seditious and heretical books, both in verse and prose, are daily published, stamped and printed, by divers scandalous, schismatical, and heretical persons, not only exciting our subjects and liege-men to sedition and disobedience against us, our crown and dignity; but also to the renewal and propagating very great and detestable heresies against the faith and sound Catholic doctrine of Holy Mother the Church; and being willing to provide a proper remedy in this case,” &c. The powers granted to the Company by this charter were, verbally, absolute. Not only were they to search out, seize, and destroy books printed in contravention of the monopoly, or against the faith and sound Catholic doctrine of Holy Mother Church; but they might seize, take away, have, burn, or convert to their own use, whatever they should think was printed contrary to the form of any statute, act, or proclamation, made or to be made. And this charter renewed by Elizabeth in 1588, amplified by Charles II. in 1684, and confirmed by William and Mary in 1690, is still virtually in existence. It is scarcely strange that such enormous powers as these were but little respected; indeed Queen Elizabeth herself was one of the first to invade their privileges, and she granted the following, among other monopolies, away from the Stationers’ Company:—
- To Byrde, the printing of music books.
- To Serres, psalters, primers, and prayer books.
- To Flower, grammars.
- To Tothill, law books.
- To Judge (the Queen’s Printer), Bibles and Testaments.
- To Watkin and Roberts, almanacs and prognostications.
- To Vautrollier, Latin Testaments and other Latin books.
- To Marsh, school-books.
- To Day, A B C’s and catechisms.
(This last had his printing office in Moorgate Street, ornamented with the motto, “Arise, for it is Day!”)
The Stationers’ Company, sorely damaged in trade by the sudden and almost entire loss of their privileges, petitioned the Queen, representing that they were subject to certain levies, that they supplied when called upon a number of armed men, and that they expected to derive some benefit when they underwent these liabilities. As a reply they were severely reprimanded for daring to question the Queen’s prerogative, upon which they petitioned again, but more humbly, that they might at least be placed on an equal footing with the interlopers, and be permitted to print something or other. Her Majesty was shortly pleased to sanction an arrangement by which they were to possess the exclusive right of printing and selling psalters, primers, almanacs, and books tending to the same purpose—the A B C’s, the Little Catechism, Nowell’s English and Latin Catechisms, &c.
Ward, and Wolf a fishmonger, however, disputed the power of the Company, declaring it to be lawful, according to the written law of the land, for any printer to print all books; and when the Master and Wardens of the Company went to search Ward’s house, preparatory to seizing, burning, or conveying away his books, they were ignominiously defeated by his wife. The Lord Treasurer likewise sent commissioners thither, “but they, too, could bring him to nothing.”