In 1499 De Worde printed the Liber Equivocorum of Joannes de Garlandia, using for it a very small Black Letter making nine and a half lines to the inch, probably obtained from Paris. This type was generally kept for scholastic books, and in addition to the book above noted, Wynkyn de Worde printed with it, in the same year or the year following, an Ortus Vocabulorum. From the time when he succeeded to Caxton's business down to the year 1500, in which he left Westminster and settled in Fleet Street, De Worde printed at least a hundred books, the bulk of them undated.
As will be seen, several printers from the Low Countries seem to have come to England soon after Caxton. The year after he settled at Westminster, a book was printed at Oxford without printer's name, and with a misprint of the date, that has set bibliographers by the ears ever since. This book was the Exposicio sancti Jeromini us simbolum apostolorum, and the colophon ran, 'Impressa Oxonie et finita anno domini M.cccc.lxviij., xvij. die decembris.' The facts that two other books that are dated 1479 (the Aegidius de originali peccato and Sextus ethicorum Aristotelis) have many points in common with the Exposicio, that the Exposicio has been found bound with other books of 1478, and that the dropping of an x from the date in a colophon is not an uncommon misprint, have led to the conclusion that the Exposicio was printed in 1478 and not 1468. The printer of these first Oxford books is believed to have been Theodoric Rood of Cologne, whose name appeared in the colophon to the De Anima of Aristotle, printed at Oxford in 1481. This was followed in 1482 by a Commentary on the Lamentation of Jeremiah, by John Lattebury, and later editions of these two books are distinguished by a handsome woodcut border printed round the first page of the text.
About 1483 Rood took as a partner Thomas Hunt, a stationer of Oxford, and together they issued John Anwykyll's Latin Grammar, together with the Vulgaria Terencii, Richard Rolle of Hampole's Explanationes super lectiones beati Job, a sermon of Augustine's, of which the only known copy is in the British Museum, a collection of treatises upon logic, one of which is by Roger Swyneshede, the first edition of Lyndewode's Provincial Constitutions (a large folio of 366 leaves with a woodcut, the earliest example found in any Oxford book), and the Epistles of Phalaris, with a lengthy colophon in Latin verse. The last book to appear from the press was the Liber Festivalis by John Mirk, a folio of 174 leaves, containing eleven large woodcuts and five smaller ones, apparently meant for an edition of the Golden Legend, as they were cut down to fit the Festial. After the appearance of this book, printing at Oxford suddenly ceased, and it has been surmised that Theodoric Rood returned to Cologne. Altogether the Oxford press lasted for eight years, and fifteen books remain to testify to its activity. In these, three founts of type were used, the first two having all the characteristics of the Cologne printers, while the third shows the influence of Rood's residence in England. A full account of these will be found in Mr. Falconer Madan's admirable work The Early Oxford Press.
The St. Albans Press started in 1479. Only eight books are known with this imprint, not all of them perfect, none give the name of the printer, and only one has a device. Most of them are scholastic books, printed for the use of the Grammar School. These included the Augustini Dati elegancie, a quarto, dated 1480, the Rhetorica Nova, which Caxton was printing at Westminster at the same time, and Antonius Andreæ super Logica Aristotelis. But in addition to these, two other notable works came from this press, the Chronicles of England and the Book of St. Albans.
Out of the four types which are found in these books, two at least were Caxton's type No. 2 and type No. 3. There was plainly some connection between the two offices, and as it was a frequent custom for monasteries to subsidize printers to print their service books, it seems possible that Caxton may have had some hand in establishing this press, and that it was for St. Albans Abbey that he cast type No. 3, which (putting aside its subordinate employment for headlines) we find used exclusively for service books.
Three years after Caxton had settled at Westminster, viz. in 1480, an Indulgence was issued by John Kendale, asking for aid against the Turks. Caxton printed some copies of this, and others are found in a small neat type, and are ascribed to the press of John Lettou. Lettou is an old form of Lithuania, but whether John Lettou came from Lithuania is not known.
In this same year 1480, Lettou published the Quæstiones Antonii Andreæ super duodecim libros metaphysicæ Aristotelis, a small folio of 106 leaves, printed in double columns, of which only one perfect copy is known, that in the Library of Sion College. The type is small, and remarkable from its numerous abbreviations. Mr. E. G. Duff in his Early Printed Books, p. 161, speaks of its great resemblance to those of Matthias Moravus, a Naples printer, and suggests a common origin for their types. In his Early English Printing, on the other hand, he writes: 'There are very strong reasons for believing that he [Lettou] is the same person as the Johannes Bremer, alias Bulle, who is mentioned by Hain as having printed two books at Rome in 1478 and 1479. The type which this printer used is identical (with the exception of one of the capital letters) with that used in the books printed by John Lettou in London.'
A few years later Lettou was joined by William de Machlinia. They were chiefly associated in printing law-books, but whether they had any patent from the king cannot be discovered. Only one of the five books they are known to have printed, the Tenores Novelli, has any colophon, and none of them has any date. The address they gave was 'juxta ecclesiam omnium sanctorum,' but as there were several churches so dedicated, the locality cannot be fixed.
We next find Machlinia working alone, but out of the twenty-two books or editions that have been traced to his press, only four contain his name, and none have a date. All we can say is that he printed from two addresses, 'in Holborn,' and 'By Flete-brigge.' Mr. Duff inclines to the opinion that the 'Flete-brigge' is the earlier, but it seems almost hopeless to attempt to place these books in any chronological order from their typographical peculiarities.
In the Fleet-Bridge type are two books by Albertus Magnus, the Liber aggregationis and the De Secretis Mulierum. The type is of a black letter character, not unlike that in which the Nova Statuta were printed, and is distinguishable by the peculiar shape of the capital M. In the same type we find the Revelation of St. Nicholas to a Monk of Evesham, a reprint of the Tenores Novelli, and some fragments of a Sarum Horæ found in old bindings; a woodcut border was used in some parts of it. Besides these Machlinia printed an edition of the Vulgaria Terentii.