THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY FOUNDRY.

RINTING was practised at Oxford within a year of the introduction of the art into England. Setting aside the legend of Corsellis and the “1468” Exposicio Simboli, we find that a printer, presumably Theodoric Rood, from Cologne, was settled here in 1478, and issued three works anonymously from his press during that and the following year. Between 1480 and 1483, Rood printed eight works bearing his own name, and in 1485 and 1486, in partnership with an Englishman named Thomas Hunte, he produced six more.

Whether the first Oxford printer made his own type or procured it from abroad, we have no information, but the distinctly Cologne character of the two earliest founts favours the supposition that, like Caxton, he brought at any rate his first types with him from the Continent. The vague reference which Rood and Hunte make to their labours at the end of the Phalaridis Epistolæ in 1485,[230] does not throw much light on the question, although the boast of an independent discovery of the art of printing there recorded may possibly mean that towards the close of their career they had arrived at a knowledge of the mystery of making their own types.

Without attempting a detailed examination of the seventeen works of the {138} first Oxford printers, we observe that during the eight years in which they practised their art, they made use of seven different kinds of type, which arrange themselves chronologically as follows[231] :

KNOWN DATE.TITLE.TYPE.GROUP.
“1468”†

Exposicio Symboli

aGroup I, “1468”-1479. (No printer’s name.)
1479

Aristotelis Ethica

a
1479

Ægidius de peccato originali

a
...

Cicero pro Milone

bGroup II, 1481–82. (Theodoric Rood.)
...

Latin Grammar in English

b
1481

Alexander de Ales. Expositio de Animâ. Two Editions

b,c
1482

Lattebury. Morales. Two editions

b,c
...

Hampole. Explanationes

d,eGroup III, 1483–86. (Rood and Hunte.)
...

Swyneshed. Insolubilia

d,e
...

Anwykyll. Compendium. 1st edition

d[e?]f
...

Anwykyll. Compendium. 2nd edition

d,f
...

Lyndewode. Constitutiones

c,d,e,f
1485

Phalaridis Epistolæ

c,f
1486

Liber Festivalis

f,g
...

Textus Alexandri

d,f,g

† Misprint for 1478.

It will be noticed from the above list that type [a] was used solely by the first anon­y­mous Oxford printer, and dis­ap­peared en­tirely as soon as Rood began to print in his own name. The letter is a Black of similar char­acter, as Mr. Bradshaw points out, to that used by Zell and Gul­den­schaft at Cologne, and was probably brought thence to this country. The body cor­res­ponds closely to the pre­sent “English.” One pe­cul­iar­ity about type [a] is that in the mis-dated Ex­po­si­cio Sim­boli the cap­i­tal