Chapter III: Preface (2)

The earliest binding which we can definitely point to as executed there is on a volume of sermons written in 1460. The decoration consists of stamps arranged as parallelograms one inside the other and covering the main part of the side. One of the stamps used on this binding, depicting a strange bird, is the identical stamp found on a twelfth-century binding in the British Museum. On the back are found small roundels arranged in sets of three, an ornament very common on all early Oxford bindings, and a single stamp on which the three roundels are engraved seems peculiar to Oxford work. Three manuscripts in Magdalen College, Oxford, written and bound between 1462 and 1470, are of similar early style, and might from their appearance and dies be considered two centuries older. The advent of Rood in Oxford agrees in point of time with the introduction of a class of binding very distinctive in style. The centre of the side contains a panel composed of horizontal rows of stamps and enclosed by a frame formed with an oblong stamp of foliage twined round a staff. On spaces outside the frame are stamped roses and roundels in sets of three. The stamps employed on these bindings show a distinct foreign influence, and many of them are almost identical with those used by foreign binders notably of the Low Countries. Some bindings, certainly produced in Oxford about this time, have not only foreign dies upon them but have them disposed in quite a foreign style, and are probably the work of foreign binders settled in the town. The number of different dies used on Oxford bindings, between 1480 and 1500, is very large. Gibson, in his work on the subject, gives drawings of nearly a hundred; and though some of these are of the simplest character and in no way distinctive, many of them are both clever in design and extremely well engraved.

One or two Oxford bindings of the time show a curious return to another early English style in which the ornament was disposed in circles or part of circles. The finest example is on the Lathbury in the University Library. The centre of each side is ornamented with a circle formed by the repetition of a die depicting two birds drinking from a cup. This die was evidently cut for use in this special way, for the top is wider than the bottom, like the stones of the arch of a bridge, so that when stamped side by side they would work round into a circular form. Another binding of the same style is in the library of St John’s College, Cambridge, and both bear the most extraordinary resemblance, allowing for the different shape and style of the dies, to the covers of the Winchester Domesday book written in 1148 and bound about the same time.

Early bindings fall into three classes, those ornamented with small dies, in vogue until about the end of the fifteenth century, panel stamped bindings used in the early part of the sixteenth, and, finally, the bindings decorated by a roll tool which begin about 1520. We cannot suppose that the Oxford stationers did not use panel stamps, but so far none can be identified as peculiar to Oxford. The panels of Peter Actoris have been already spoken of, but it is not certain they were ever used in Oxford. Henry Jacobi, who came to Oxford from London about 1512 and died in 1514, had certainly various panels which he had used in London, but he may not have transferred them to Oxford. Of stationers or binders who lived and worked in Oxford alone no single panel has yet been identified. Unfortunately, not a single book printed for or at Oxford in the early sixteenth century is known in an original binding.

In good specimens of roll-tooled bindings again Oxford is singularly deficient, in curious contrast to Cambridge, which rivals if not surpasses London in this class of work. There are no fine broad rolls, and only one bearing initials. This is a roll engraved with a waving spray of foliage containing in the curves the initials R. H. M. I. What these initials stand for is unknown, and the roll is only claimed as an Oxford one from its use on the covers of a Brasenose College register. For the rest of the century Oxford binding is entirely uninteresting.

LECTURE II.

SAINT ALBAN’S, YORK, AND HEREFORD.

The only other provincial town besides Oxford which possessed a printing press in the fifteenth century was St Alban’s, where an unnamed printer started to work about the year 1479. As to who the printer was we have no clue beyond the simple statement made by Wynkyn de Worde in the colophon of his edition of the _Chronicles of England_, “Here endyth this present cronycle of Englonde wyth the frute of tymes, compiled in a booke and also enprynted by one somtyme scole master of saynt Albons, on whoos soule God have mercy.” The printer is therefore generally known as the schoolmaster-printer. Sir Henry Chauncy, when he wrote his history of Hertfordshire, was not to be deterred by this vagueness from giving this printer a name, and he appears in that work, and others based on it, as John Insomuch. The proof is clear. The printer printed only two books in English. One begins: “In so muche that it is necessari to all creaturis of cristen religyon;” the other, “In so much that gentill men and honest persones.” What further proof could be wanted that the printer’s surname was Insomuch? As to the printer’s Christian name having been John, the arguments would appear to have been less weighty, at any rate no authority has condescended to mention them.

Whoever the printer may have been, he was probably not a foreigner, at any rate no foreign design can be traced in his type, which is perhaps modelled on Caxton’s, though differing considerably. Though as a schoolmaster he might be supposed to have been connected with the Abbey, there is no reference to it in his colophons, which always mention clearly the town of St Alban’s. The saltire on a shield, which occurs in his mark, was alike the arms of the Abbey and of the town.

The first book issued from this press was a small work of Augustinus Datus, usually called _Super eleganciis Tullianis_, of which the only known copy is in the Cambridge University Library. It is a small quarto of eighteen leaves and is printed in a peculiarly delicate gothic letter. It has no date, only the simple colophon, “Impressum fuit opus hoc apud Sanctum Albanum.” The type is very graceful and clear; it looks almost like the production of an Italian workman copying from a Caxton model, though, as I have said, we have no reason for supposing the printer to have been a foreigner. For some reason he seems not to have been satisfied with it, and so far as we know no other book was ever printed in it and beyond being used for signatures in two later books, no further use was made of it. This first book also stands apart from the rest in being without printed signatures, which would at once place it without any further proof at the head of the list of St Alban’s books.

In 1480 the printer issued his first dated book, the _Rhetorica Nova_ of Laurentius de Saona, and in this the influence of another press can be clearly traced. The printer had discarded his first fount and obtained a new one with a strong superficial resemblance to Caxton’s Type No. 2*, the very type which Caxton had used to print his edition of the same book. There is one curious point about this book which is rarely met with, it is partly a quarto and partly an octavo; that is, it is partly made up from large sheets of paper folded three times, and partly from small sheets folded twice. A somewhat similar example may be found in the _Chronicles_ printed by Machlinia, which is a folio, with a few pages quarto. This is the most common of the Latin books issued by the St Alban’s printer, for at least five copies are known, one of which is in the University Library.

The other book which the printer issued in 1480 is printed in another new type, quite the ugliest and most confusing of English fifteenth-century types, and full of bewildering contractions. It is an edition of the _Liber modorum significandi_ of Albertus, and the only known copy, which had belonged to Tutet and Wodhull, is now in the Bibliothèque Nationale. Three more books were printed in this type, Joannes Canonicus on the _Physica_ of Aristotle, Antonius Andreæ on the _Logica_, and the _Exempla Sacræ Scripturæ_. The first of these is a folio printed in double columns, and two copies are known, one in the Bodleian, and the other in the library of York Minster, while a number of odd leaves are in the library of Clare College, and a few at Peterhouse.

Of the _Antonius Andreæ_ three copies are known, one in Norwich Cathedral, another wanting two leaves in Jesus College, Cambridge, and the last wanting eight leaves in Wadham College, Oxford. The Cambridge and Norwich copies are both in their original bindings. The signatures in this book are curious, for the printer, having come to the end of his first alphabet, continued with contractions and then signed two more sheets one “est” and the other “amen.” Bradshaw, comparing the Cambridge and Norwich volumes side by side, found some variations pointing to the reprinting of certain sheets. The _Exempla Sacræ Scripturæ_ is known from two copies, one in the British Museum, and one said to be in the Inner Temple Library, though its existence is doubtful. For a long time the Museum copy was lost sight of. When Blades began to work on the St Alban’s printer with a view to writing a preface to the facsimile of the _Book of St Alban’s_, he was anxious to see a copy of this book. Herbert had quoted copies as in His Majesty’s library and the Inner Temple, but neither were forthcoming. The authorities in London thought it probable that the book was in the Bibliothèque Nationale. In those days there were no special catalogues of the British Museum Incunabula, or Early English Books, though as a matter of fact this book has not been included in the latter, and his researches were at a standstill. Finally, quite by accident, Bradshaw found it in the general catalogue, under the heading, “Bible, Latin, Parts of, Incipiunt.”

The book is a quarto of eighty-eight leaves, the Museum copy wanting five. It has a plain colophon stating that it was printed in the town of St Alban’s in 1481.

After the issue of these six books within a period of about two years, the printer seems to have ceased work for a time. When he recommenced in about three years, both the character of his work and of the books he issued had changed. He gave up the printing of Latin and discarded the very confused type he had been using previously.

The _Chronicles of England_, one of the two English books issued by the St Alban’s printer, is undated, but is ascribed to the year 1485. It agrees generally with the _Chronicles_ printed by Caxton, but has histories of popes and ecclesiastical matters interpolated. The prologue states that it was compiled at St Alban’s in 1483, and W. de Worde tells us that it was compiled and printed by the schoolmaster.

The book is a folio of 290 leaves, and, though at least twelve copies are known, only one, that in the library of the Marquis of Bath at Longleat, is perfect. One copy is known printed upon vellum. It belonged at an early date to the old family library of the Richardsons of Brierly Hall in Yorkshire, and passed by inheritance to Miss Currer of Eshton Hall in the same county, herself a collector of some note in the early part of the nineteenth century. It wanted a leaf and a half, and four leaves, though original, were printed on paper. On the advice, I believe, of Dibdin, these four genuine leaves were replaced by facsimiles on vellum, and the two missing leaves also similarly supplied. At the Currer sale in 1862 the volume was sold for £365, and passed later into a private collection.

For the first time at this press we find red printing used for the initials and paragraph marks; there are also a few diagrams and one small rough woodcut depicting a jumble of towers, spires, and turrets, and equally suitable for the two cities which it professes to represent, London and Rome. At the end is the printer’s device, Italian in style, a double cross rising from a circle. In the circle is a shield bearing a saltire cross, the arms alike of the town and abbey of St Alban’s.

The last book from this press was the famous _Book of St Alban’s_, “the book of hawking and hunting and also of coat armours.” It is a small folio of ninety leaves. As might be supposed from its popular nature copies are now excessively scarce, and out of some dozen which are known, not one is absolutely perfect. This book marks another advance in printing, for it contains the earliest known examples of colour printing in England, the shields of arms being printed in red, blue, and yellow inks. About the authorship of this book there has been much controversy. The middle portion, on hunting, which is in verse, ends with the words, “Explicit Dam Julyans Barnes in her book of hunting.” The authoress has been variously identified with ladies of very varying degrees, from the high born if somewhat mythical Juliana Berners, prioress of the nunnery of Sopwell, down to the lowly dame who wrote it to instruct the infants who attended St Julian’s school at St Alban’s, that is St Julian’s bairns!

Of the book of blasyng of arms it is distinctly stated that it was translated and compiled at St Alban’s, and it seems to have been derived to a great extent from a treatise on the subject written by Nicholas Upton in 1441, and dedicated to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. Whatever may have been the share taken by Juliana Berners in the two books of hawking and hunting they were certainly not original work, but appear to have been derived in great part from a fourteenth-century treatise, the Venerie de Twety. Hawking, hunting, and a knowledge of heraldry were considered necessary accomplishments, so that the three treatises were collected and published in one volume for the education of “gentlemen and honest persons.” Two types are used in these English books, the text type, first used in the _Laurentius de Saona_ of 1480 and then superseded, which is a fairly close imitation of Caxton’s type 2*, and a larger church type for headings, used only in the _Book of St Alban’s_. This last is identical with Caxton’s type 3, and it is clear that the printer had obtained from Caxton the small amount necessary for its occasional use. Far too much importance has been attached to this appearance of Caxton’s type at St Alban’s, and a good deal of nonsense written about the transference of type to St Alban’s in 1486 and its recurrence in London at a later date. As Caxton possessed the punches and matrices and type-moulds, there was nothing simpler than for him to supply sufficient type to his fellow-worker at St Alban’s to enable him to vary his page by setting up his chapter headings in a larger type contrasting with the text.

A little over thirty years ago a most preposterous attempt was made in a series of letters published in the _Athenæum_ to prove that the schoolmaster printer of St Alban’s was the real printer of many of the books attributed to Caxton at Westminster. A number of quite irrelevant assertions were made and vague arguments brought forward of which the following is apparently the strongest. Because Caxton’s edition of the _Description of Britain_, printed in 1480, has not the place of printing mentioned in the colophon, while some of the later editions speak of the _Chronicles_ and _Description of Britain_ as printed by the schoolmaster of St Alban’s, therefore Caxton’s edition was printed at St Alban’s. This is surely a quite unwarranted argument from the fact that W. de Worde preferred to reprint the St Alban’s edition rather than Caxton’s. The writer sums up as follows. “Putting all these facts together they form very strong circumstantial evidence that Caxton had two presses at work at one and the same time, at Westminster and St Alban’s; that what he could not print at Westminster, for lack of time and space, he had printed for him by this schoolmaster at St Alban’s, and that all the books of Caxton’s which bear no date or place come from St Alban’s.” The writer also asserts that all Caxton’s early books were printed by him at St Alban’s before he moved his press to Westminster. One other strange assertion about the St Alban’s press remains to be noticed. It is both the newest and the most absurd. Under the article, St Alban’s, in the latest edition of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, the history of the early press is summed up in these few lines. “On a printing press, one of the earliest in the kingdom, set up in the Abbey, the first English translation of the Bible was printed.”

As at Oxford, the St Alban’s press ceased its work in 1486 for no reason that we can explain, but most probably owing to competition. The Oxford and St Alban’s printers must both have seen that in Latin books they could not hope to compete with their foreign rivals, either in excellence of workmanship or in cheapness, and each made a final effort by the production of books in English where foreign rivalry would not be felt.

Just as at Oxford, too, a second press was at work for a few years in the sixteenth century, which will be noticed later; but a period of nearly fifty years elapsed between the stopping of the first, and the beginning of the second.

York, both as the leading city in the North of England and from its ecclesiastical importance, was from very early times an important centre of book production. The text writers and illuminators of manuscripts had formed themselves into a guild as early as the time of Edward III., while the bookbinders became a separate company in 1476. Like most of the leading provincial towns, York was very jealous of its privileges and made stringent regulations as regards its trade and business. In 1488 the various crafts connected with books passed a bye-law enacting that no person, secular or religious, not franchised or allowed by the craft, should bring in or set out any work. Poor priests were allowed to augment their salaries by the practice of text writing and illumination, and any priest might write and illuminate books provided they were for his own use, or to be given away in charity.

York books may be divided into three groups. 1. Those actually printed in York. 2. Those printed elsewhere but containing a York stationer’s name. 3. Those printed elsewhere, without a stationer’s name, but obviously intended for sale in the city.

The earliest book connected with York belongs to the last group. It is a _Breviary_ for York use, and was printed at Venice by a well-known printer of such books, Johann Hamman or Hertzog of Landau in 1493, at the costs of Frederick Egmont, an English bookseller. The book is a beautifully printed octavo of 478 leaves, printed in double columns in red and black. One copy only is known, now in the Bodleian. It belonged at one time to Ralph Thoresby, the Yorkshire antiquary, then to Marmaduke Fothergill, whose widow presented his library to the Dean and Chapter of York in 1731. This volume, however, did not reach the Minster library, but passed into the collection of Edward Jacob, the antiquary, who died in 1788. At his sale it was bought by Richard Gough. Gough in his will bequeathed his topographical collections to the Bodleian, and English service books being connected with the uses of Salisbury, York, and Hereford were fortunately classed as topography. By this means the liturgical collections of the Bodleian were increased with thirty-nine _Missals_, twenty-one _Breviaries_, twenty-five _Horæ_ and twenty-one _Manuals_ and _Processionals_ besides _Psalters_, _Hymnals_, _Graduals_, and other books.

This _Breviary_ is the only book printed for York in the fifteenth century, yet though text writing seems to have flourished well up to 1500, the importation of printed books soon showed the advantage of printing over writing, and the stationers began to commission service books.

The first York stationer was Frederick Freez, who was admitted a freeman of the city of York in 1497 as a bookbinder and stationer. He may also have been a printer, for in the records of a lawsuit held at York in 1510 he is styled “buke-prynter,” and fellow-townsmen would hardly have called him this without reason. Nothing printed by him is known, though Herbert suggests that a proclamation on vellum of the time of Henry VII. issued at York, mentioned by Bagford, might have been printed by him. In 1500 he and his wife, Joanna, were admitted members of the Corpus Christi Guild. In March 1506 the Corporation passed an order “that Frederick Freez, a Dutchman and an alien enfranchised, should dwell and inhabit upon the common ground at the Rose, otherwise the Bull in Conyngestrete, for ten years, at three pounds yearly rent.” Freez is spoken of as a Dutchman, and his proper name was no doubt Vries or De Vries. For some reason, perhaps through marriage, the name, Freez, was changed to Wandsforth, a not uncommon Yorkshire name, and, though Frederick does not seem to have used it himself, his brother, Gerard, certainly assumed it, and in his will calls both himself and his brother Wandsforth, making no reference to his original name, Freez.

Frederick is but a shadowy person. His name is found in no colophon, and the only definite connexion with book-selling of which we have evidence, is the inevitable lawsuit, for Pynson brought an action against him in 1505. He was certainly still alive in 1515, when he is mentioned as living in the parish of St Helen on the Walls. He is known to have had two sons, Valentine and Edward. The first took up his freedom by patrimony in 1539, but he appears soon after to have fallen a victim, with his wife, to religious persecution. Fuller writes of them, “They were both of them born in the city and both gave their lives therein at one stake for the testimony of Jesus Christ, probably by order from Edward Lee, the cruel Archbishop.” Though Fuller, relying on Foxe, assigns this event to the impossible date of 1531, the account may be taken as founded on fact.

The other son, Edward, who, according to Foxe, had been apprenticed at York to be a painter and was afterwards a novice monk, was convicted of heresy at Colchester through painting texts upon the walls of the inn which he was decorating. He was imprisoned in London, his wife and child were cruelly killed, and he himself so barbarously treated that he never afterwards recovered his wits.

The first York stationer, whose name is found in a printed colophon, is Gerard Freez, or Wandsforth, as he more often called himself, the brother of Frederick Freez. The first book printed for him was an edition of the _Expositio Hymnorum et Sequentiarum_, produced by Pierre Violette at Rouen in 1507. A perfect copy of both parts is in the John Rylands Library, which was formerly in the wonderful collection formed by Richard Vaughan at Hengwrt; an imperfect copy is in the Bodleian, and copy of the _Expositio Sequentiarum_ is in the Bibliotheca Columbiniana at Seville. Though this book is an edition of the ordinary Exposition of the Hymns and Sequences according to Salisbury use, yet the words “ad usum Sarum” have been omitted from the title, perhaps as being considered prejudicial to its sale in York. On the title-page is a woodcut of a scholar seated at his desk, and its occurrence here in a book with Violette’s name was the means of identifying the printer of the first book printed for sale in Scotland, a grammatical treatise by Joannes de Garlandia, which has the same woodcut on the title-page. The year previous to printing this York _Expositio_, Violette had printed a Sarum _Expositio Sequentiarum_, and presumably an _Expositio Hymnorum_ now lost, for Andrew Myllar at Edinburgh.

About this time editions were also issued of the _Missal_, _Breviary_, and _Directory_ of York use. Of the _Missal_, apparently only two copies, both imperfect, are known. When perfect it consisted of 232 leaves, with two columns of forty-three lines. The colophon states that it was printed “impensis honesti viri Petri Violette,” but Violette was himself the printer, and his name occurs engraved in the large initial M on the title-page. The book has no date, but may be assigned to about 1507, and the copy sold in the Cholmley sale in 1902 contained the autograph of Dr Martin Colyns, an official of the court of York who died in 1509. The other copy known is the fine copy in the Bodleian, which wants only leaf 117, the leaf preceding the Canon of the Mass, which would have contained a woodcut of the Crucifixion. The _Breviary_ is known from a single copy formerly in the collection of Mr Blew, and now in the University Library. It is a small octavo volume containing both parts, the Pars Hiemalis and the Pars Æstivalis, and, if perfect, should have filled about 600 leaves. It is, however, very imperfect, wanting both beginning and end, title-page and colophon, so that any information which either might have contained is now lost.

Of the last book, the _Directorium_, no copy is known, but we know of its existence from documentary evidence to be referred to later.

On one of his journeys, presumably to sell books, Gerard Wandsforth was taken ill at King’s Lynn in Norfolk. There on October 3, 1510, immediately before his death, he executed his will. He described himself as a stationer of York, and desired to be buried within the church of St Margaret before the chapel of the Holy Trinity at Lynn. He adds the clause, “Also I require for the love of Jhesu Christ for to be a brother of the Trinity guild kept there, and to pay therfor as the custom of the guild requireth.” To his brother, Frederick, and his brother’s son, Valentine (there is no mention of Edward), he leaves legacies. Then follows, “To Richard Watterson of London xl. s., to the which Richard, Mr Wynkyn de Word, can inform you. Item I giff to the said Mr Wynkyn xl. s., which I howght him.” The executors were his brother Frederick, Ralph Pulleyn, a goldsmith of York, and Mr Maynard Weywik of London. The will was proved at York on October 24. As there is no mention of wife or children, we may presume he was unmarried. The bequests to Richard Waterson and Wynkyn de Worde are interesting. We do not know at present of any Richard Waterson, a stationer in London, but a Henry Watson, and the names are easily confused, was at the time an apprentice to W. de Worde, and we have a reference to another book not now known, printed at London by Hugo Goes, who printed later at York, and Henry Watson. The coincidence of names, though it may not mean anything, is certainly curious. From his owing money to De Worde we may presume he obtained stock from him, and we find all the York printers and stationers had dealings of one sort or another with De Worde. Ralph Pulleyn, the goldsmith, seems to have acted towards Wandsforth as Fust did to the first printer Gutenberg, advancing money to assist him in trade. The third executor, Mr Mayner Weywik, is passed over without notice by Davies in the account of the will in the _History of the York Press_, but his connexion is fairly easily explained. In the lists of persons admitted to the freedom of York in 1529-30 is a stationer, Johannes Warwyke, son of Edward Warwyke, merchant. Thus the Warwyke family were connected with York and also with the business of a stationer. Mr Mayner Warwyke, who was like Ralph Pulleyn, a partner with Wandsforth, appears to have renounced his executorship and sold his share in the business to Pulleyn. Probably as he lived in London he did not see his way, after Wandsforth’s death, to continuing in the business at York.

Shortly after the proving of the will in October 1510, probably at the beginning of 1511, a suit was brought by Frederick Wandsforth against his co-executor, Ralph Pulleyn, and the evidence brought forward throws a considerable amount of light on the early York book trade. The following abstract of the proceedings is given by Davies.

“It appears that the testator, Gerard Wandsforth, his friend Ralph Pulleyn, and another friend Mr Manard (Mr Mayner Weywick), had made a considerable purchase of books as co-partners in equal third shares. The books, which, it is stated, were bought in France, consisted of 252 missals, 399 portifers (breviaries), and 570 Picas all printed upon paper. The whole were consigned to the care of Wandsforth, who deposited them in a room or chamber of his house, near the church of St John del Pyke at York, of which chamber Ralph Pulleyn had a key. As soon as the death of Wandsforth became known at York, Pulleyn hastened to the house of the deceased and took possession of all the books deposited there, not only those which had been bought in partnership, but others which were the sole property of Wandsforth, and caused them to be carried to his own house in Petergate. He alleged he was justified in taking this course by having advanced money to Wandsforth to enable him to defray the cost of printing some books and purchasing others. It was natural that Frederick, the testator’s brother, should feel much aggrieved by Pulleyn’s grasping conduct, and upon their encountering each other in the street of Petergate, near Pulleyn’s residence, high words passed between them which ended in an affray. When Frederick charged the goldsmith with detaining from him the property he was entitled to as his brother’s executor, and thus preventing him from paying his brother’s debts and legacies, and fulfilling the trusts of his will in other respects, Pulleyn said to him, ‘You shall have your brother’s goods delivered to you that ever I had of his.’ But when they went together to Pulleyn’s house only part of the books were offered to be given up, and these Frederick refused to accept, insisting upon having the whole. It was then that, to enforce his rights, he resorted to legal proceedings against Pulleyn. Whilst the suit was pending, the contending parties were induced, by the good offices of friends, to agree to refer all matters in dispute to the arbitration of Sir John Symson, priest, one of the vicars choral of the cathedral, and Mr John Scauseby, a gentlemen residing in Goodramgate, and a formal deed of reference was executed. The books which had been purchased by the testator, jointly with Pulleyn and Manard, they divided into three equal parts and had them valued by John More, a moneylender, who lived in Walmgate, whose estimate amounted to the sum of £86, 19s. 8d. Those belonging solely to the testator, of which Pulleyn had taken possession, consisted of about 300 volumes, some bound and some not bound, which were estimated to be worth about £20. These were chiefly books used in the services of the church, as Primaria, Doctrinalia, Hymni et Sequentiæ; with some Alphabeta, and others, both in Latin and English, the titles of which unfortunately are not stated. The award of the arbitrators was in favour of Frederick Wandsworth, the complainant in the suit. It was pronounced in the presence of Ursin Milnour, and three other persons, who are described as laics of the respective dioceses of Rouen, Durham, and York.”

The original documents of this suit are still preserved in the registry of the Dean and Chapter of York, and it is much to be desired that a full reprint of them might be issued, as it is clear that they contain many points of interest passed over by Davies in his abstract, as well as names which might afford valuable evidence.

The books belonging to Wandsforth which are mentioned by name are, we have seen, _Primaria_, _Doctrinalia_, _Alphabeta_, and _Hymni et Sequentiæ_.

The only trace of an early York _Horæ_ or _Primer_ now known is an unfolded imperfect quarter-sheet containing six out of eight leaves of signature P among the Bagford fragments in the British Museum. The book was of very small size, a 32º with fourteen lines to a full page printed in black and red. The type is apparently Pynson’s, and it is the only known book printed by him connected with York. But another proof of his connexion with York has lately come to light, for there has been found in the Plea Rolls for 1505 a notice of a lawsuit brought by Pynson against Frederick Frees, bookseller of York, for £5, 10s. 6d., perhaps relating to this very book. The _Doctrinalia_ and _Alphabeta_ were presumably school books, while the _Hymni et Sequentiæ_ belonged to the edition already described. The foreign printed books belonging jointly to the partners consisted of _Missals_, _Breviaries_, and _Picas_. The _Missal_ and _Breviary_, printed at Rouen by Violette, have already been described, but no copy of a foreign printed York _Pica_ (or _Directorium_) is known. An edition, shortly to be described, was printed in York in February 1509-10, which is described in the colophon as revised and amended, and perhaps it was reprinted from the lost foreign edition. Its competition might account for the large number (570) remaining of the earlier edition in the hands of Wandsforth’s executors.

The books actually printed in York are six in number, and are the work of two printers, Hugo Goes and Ursyn Mylner. Goes has been conjectured from his name to have been related to Matthias van der Goes, a printer of Antwerp, but for this no proof is forthcoming. In 1509-10 he printed an edition of the York _Directorium_, of which two copies are known, one in York Minster wanting about fifteen leaves, the other in the library of Sidney Sussex College wanting only the last leaf, which would either have been blank or have contained a printer’s device.

Davies in his _History of the York Press_ has been singularly unfortunate in his account of this book. He quotes the very inaccurate transcript of the colophon printed by Ames, and then adds: “Neither the copy in the library of Sidney Sussex College nor that belonging to the Dean and Chapter of York now contains the leaf upon which this colophon was printed. It is to the valuable work of Ames that we are indebted for the only record of it that has been preserved.” Davies or his informant was probably misled by its occurring three pages before the end of the book. It gives full information, stating that the book was printed at York by Hugo Goes in the street called Steengate on the 18th of February 1509. The work begins with a preface by Thomas Hannibal, doctor of laws and canon of York, who, later, brought the golden rose from the Pope to Henry VIII., praising the edition as revised and corrected by Thomas Hothyrsall, vicar choral of the Minster. Then follows another preface in which it is stated that “the pica with its table which was composed by Robert Avissede, priest and formerly chaplain of the church of St Gregory in the great city of York, will last as long as the world endures.” It has still 118 years to run.

The book is printed with a fount of type which had belonged to Wynkyn de Worde, and which he had discarded shortly after 1500.

Besides the _Directorium_ Goes is credited with two other books, editions of the _Donatus Minor cum Remigio_ and _Accidence_. In 1664 Christopher Hildyard, a barrister in York, issued a little book on the antiquities of the city, and his own copy with manuscript additions is now in the British Museum. One of his notes relates to these books, of which he gives a fairly full description with the titles and imprints. They were bound up with a grammar printed by W. de Worde in 1506. He ends his note thus: “The book I have by me, new bound up by Mr Mawburn of York, bookseller, 1667, July 12.” Of the Wynkyn de Worde grammar of 1506, we know of an imperfect copy in the library at Lambeth, but of the two grammars printed by Goes in the Steengate, all traces have disappeared. Hildyard’s description is so clear and exact that there is no reason whatever for doubting his accuracy, and we can only hope that they have not been destroyed, but may be rediscovered some day on some unexplored library shelf.

What became of Goes is not known, but his name is connected with another very mysterious lost book. Amongst the numerous manuscript collections made by John Bagford, with a view to writing a history of printing, is the following entry, copied apparently from a colophon. “Donatus cum Remigio impressus Londiniis juxta Charing Cross per me Hugonem Goes and Henery Watson with the printers device H. G.” Puzzling as this entry is, I think it must be taken as representing something which Bagford had seen, for he was hardly clever enough to invent, if it is a forgery, so tantalisingly ingenious an imprint. He would not have known, unless he carefully studied prefaces and epilogues, that at this time W. de Worde had in his employment an assistant named Henry Watson, nor was his eye correct enough to recognise that the type used by Goes at York was obtained from W. de Worde, even had he seen a copy of the York _Directorium_, which is most improbable. Yet here he combines in one address as partners two men who had both been closely connected with Wynkyn de Worde.

Whatever may be said against Bagford, there is no doubt that he was assiduous, if not always very accurate, in transcribing titles and imprints of scarce books that came in his way, and it is from his memoranda that much information on missing books has been recovered. Whether Goes worked in London before or after his sojourn in York, is impossible to determine until some further information, or the lost _Donatus_ itself, is forthcoming. The earliest printer, at present known, who was established near Charing Cross is Robert Wyer, who was at work as early as 1524. Ames, under H. Goes, gives the vague entry: “He also printed a Latin Grammar at London in quarto, formerly among Lord Oxford’s books,” but this may merely be derived from Bagford’s notes. Lastly Ames quotes a broadside in the possession of Thomas Martyn, “A wooden cut of a man on horseback with a spear in his right hand and a shield, with the arms of France, in his left. Emprynted at Beverlay in the Hye-gate by me Hewe Goes, with his mark or rebus of a great H and a goose.” Martyn died in 1771, and since his time no trace of this broadside has been found.

Ursyn Mylner, the second printer in York, has a much clearer history than his predecessor. He was born in 1481, but we find no mention of him until 1511, unless he is the Ursyn who supplied some books for the King’s library in 1502. In 1511 he was a witness in the lawsuit which we have previously described. About 1513 he printed two _Nova Festa_ of York use. The first is an edition of the _Festum Visitationis Beate Marie Virginis_, and the colophon stated that it was newly printed by Ursyn Mylner dwelling in the churchyard of the minster of St Peter. This book was chronicled by Ames as in the collection of Thomas Rawlinson, and again I must add the sad statement, all traces of it have since been lost. I searched through Rawlinson’s sale catalogue--sixteen volumes--without result, but last year in the Bodleian I came across a note-book among the Rawlinson manuscripts in which he had entered fairly full notices of some of his books, and here I found the colophon as given by Ames. The date of the book can be accurately settled. In 1513 the Convocation of York ordered the Feast of the Visitation to be kept as a Festum Principale; by 1516 Mylner had moved to a new address.

The second of the _Nova Festa_ was a small supplement to the Sanctorale of the _Breviary_ and the only copy known, found in the binding of a book, is in the library of Emmanuel College. The book in which it was found was printed in 1512, and from the fact that these leaves, which are printer’s waste, were used in the binding, this binding may perhaps be attributed to Mylner. The tract consists of four leaves in 8°, with thirty-three and thirty-four lines to the page, and commences with a large initial P printed in colour. The text is in red and black, and many of the lines end with small type-ornaments. It is slightly mutilated, but has most of the colophon, which runs: “Impressum Ebor per me Ursin Mylner commemorantem in simiterio ministerii Sancti Petri.” In the colophons to both these _Nova Festa_ we find _commemorantem_ in place of _commorantem_. It is probably the tract referred to vaguely in the introduction to Wordsworth and Proctor’s edition of the Sarum _Breviary_ as “An English monastic Breviary supplement, with anthems and responds for St Thomas and St Edmund of Canterbury, was printed at York about 1513.” Presumably their information about it was obtained from Henry Bradshaw. In the more recently issued book on the Old English Service Books, York is credited with no printed _Nova Festa_.

After printing these two small tracts Mylner moved to a new workshop. In the lawsuit of 1511 he was spoken of as living in the parish of St Michael le Belfry, and the two tracts were printed “in cimiterio ministerii Sancti Petri,” but both addresses probably refer to the same place, as the church of St Michael’s le Belfry stands alongside the minster on the south side. A small passage adjoining this church, and forming the south entrance to the minster close, was formerly known as Bookbinders Alley.

Mylner moved to Blake Street in the parish of St Helen. It seems probable that his earlier shop, within the precincts of the minster, would be in the liberties, and outside the jurisdiction of the municipal authorities, but Blake Street was another matter, and he would not be allowed to carry on his business as a printer without having been admitted to the freedom of the city. In 1515-16, therefore, we find the name Ursyn Mylner, prynter, entered on the roll of freemen. He did not obtain his freedom by patrimony, so that he had probably served his full term of apprenticeship.

In December 1516 he issued a _Grammar_ of Whitinton. It is a small quarto of twenty-four leaves and only one copy is known. It was sold in Thomas Rawlinson’s sale in 1727 for one shilling, being bought by his brother Richard, and at the latter’s sale it was bought by M. C. Tutet; it is now in the British Museum. On the title-page is a woodcut of a schoolmaster with three pupils seated on a bench before him. This woodcut originally belonged to Govaert van Ghemen, who used it at Gouda in an _Opusculum grammaticale_ printed there in 1486. About 1490, when he moved to Copenhagen, he parted with some of his material, and this cut, with a fount of type and some woodcut initials, passed into the hands of Wynkyn de Worde, who used it in several grammars issued about 1500. At the end of the book, below the colophon, is the printer’s device. This consists of a shield hanging from a tree supported by a bear, an allusion to the name Ursyn, and an ass. The shield is divided per pale, and bears on the one half a windmill, on the other a sun. The mill is obviously for Mylner, but what the sun is for is not clear. We see that Mylner had some connexion with Wynkyn de Worde, whose sign was the sun; and it is perhaps just possible that this might refer to some trade partnership between the two men. Below the device is an oblong cut containing a ribbon in which the name Ursin Mylner is printed in full. In the centre is his trade-mark.

In this same year we find him mentioned as a bookbinder, entered in the accounts of the minster as paid for binding books for the choir.

After 1516 we find no further mention of Mylner. He was then only about thirty-five years old and may possibly have moved elsewhere; but no trace of him is found. From this time onwards to 1533 almost the whole York book-trade was in the hands of John Gachet, a stationer from France. Gachet’s name is first found in 1509, when, in partnership with another stationer, Jacques Ferrebouc, he commissioned Wynkyn de Worde to print for him an edition of the York _Manual_. This _Manual_ is a very curious book. The colophon states clearly that it was printed in London by Wynkyn de Worde dwelling in the street called Fleet Street at the sign of the Sun, or in St Paul’s Churchyard under the image of Our Lady of Pity, for John Gachet and James Ferrebouc, partners. In spite of this assertion it is plain that the book was printed abroad. The paper, the type of the text and music staves, the illustrations, all are obviously foreign, and the particular device of De Worde on the title-page is only found in books printed for him in Paris. The colophon unfortunately does not state where Gachet and Ferrebouc were living, but the latter was certainly just before and after 1509 in Paris. Perhaps Gachet may have been the travelling member of the firm and have journeyed as far as York on his business tours. By 1514 he was certainly settled there, for in that year he was admitted a brother of the Corpus Christi Guild. In 1516 and 1517 he published a series of service books, a _Missal_, a _Processional_, a _Manual_, a _Hymnal_, and a _Book of Hours_.

The _Missal_ is a fine folio of 200 leaves, and there is a perfect copy with two leaves printed on vellum, which formerly belonged to Bishop Moore, in the University Library. Another copy, slightly imperfect, was given to Pembroke College Library by the Master, Bishop Launcelot Andrews, in 1589. Besides these, five other copies are known. The initial M of the word Missale on the title-page is a very large and elaborate letter, having a scroll up the centre limb on which is engraved the printer’s name M. P. Holivier. Similar ornamental letters containing their names were used by other Rouen printers, such as Morin.

The _Processional_ is without date, and the colophon states that it was printed at Rouen by Olivier for John Gachet, alias de France. A copy of this edition is at Ripon, and there are perhaps others; but both Dr Henderson, in his list of York service books, and Davies have mixed up this edition with the later dated edition of 1530.

Of the _Manual_, also undated, only one copy is known, in the library bequeathed to Dublin by Narcissus Marsh, the Archbishop. It has no name of printer, but only the statement on the title that it was printed for Gachet. The _Hymnal_ is known from two copies, one in the British Museum, and another in the library of St John’s College, Cambridge. It fortunately has a full imprint and colophon stating that it was printed for Gachet by Olivier and finished on the 5th of February 1517. By an oversight in the printing of the Museum copy, four pages have been left quite blank.

After issuing this series of service books Gachet left York and moved to Hereford, where he published a book in May, but of his movements during the next few years we know nothing. Soon after his leaving York, two Rouen booksellers issued a _Missal_ and _Book of Hours_, but in the interval between 1517 and 1526 no York books were issued. In this latter year Gachet once more appeared at York and published a _Breviary_, printed for him at Paris by François Regnault, the first York book printed at a Paris press, most of the previous service books having been printed at Rouen.

Between 1530 and 1533 Gachet issued another series of service books, two _Missals_, a _Processional_, and a _Breviary_. A _Missal_ and a _Processional_ were issued in 1530, and, though neither contains a printer’s name, they were certainly printed at Rouen. On the title-page of the _Missal_ is the large M with the name Holivier engraved upon it, but by 1530 Olivier had ceased to print, and the book may be ascribed to his successor, Nicholas le Roux. Three copies are known of this _Missal_, two in Oxford and one in Marsh’s Library, Dublin. One of the Oxford copies was, sometime in the seventeenth century, bound in two volumes, with most disastrous results, for now one volume is in the Bodleian, the other in the library of Queen’s College. The _Processional_ is an octavo of ninety-six leaves. Both Dr Henderson and Davies have in their descriptions confused this edition with the earlier undated one issued about 1516. The present has the date 1530 upon the title-page, but contains no name of printer or place; the colophon merely states that it was printed for Gachet. The copy in the Bodleian is a very fine one and contains the signature J. Brooke, probably Sir John Brooke, the Yorkshire Royalist. It is in its original binding apparently executed in York, as the boards are lined with unused sheets of the York _Breviary_ printed for Gachet in 1526. The British Museum copy has four quires, that signed F and the last three, printed in a different type, though the text agrees page for page with the ordinary copies. In them the colophon ends, “Impressum expensis honesti viri Johannis Gachet, in eadem civitate commorantis,” but in the Museum impression the final words, “in eadem civitate commorantis,” have been omitted. No edition is known from which these four quires in the Museum copy could have been taken. It may be that the original stock of these sheets was damaged in some way and reprints made to supply their place, an occurrence of which several examples are known, otherwise they are the only remains of an edition now lost.

The last book with a York stationer’s name in the colophon was a _Breviary_ printed in August 1533 by Regnault at Paris for Gachet. In the same year Regnault printed a _Missal_. This has not Gachet’s name in the colophon, but was to be sold at Paris in the Rue St Jacques at the sign of the Elephant, Regnault’s own address. Regnault had been the most important printer of English service books, and we know from a letter written by him to Cromwell in 1536, that he had a place of business in London from which he supplied the booksellers. By that time, however, his trade in such books had almost altogether disappeared.

Perhaps on account of the restrictions placed upon alien stationers by the act of 1534, we find among others taking out letters of denization in 1535 “John Gachet, alias Frenchman, of the city of York bookbinder, from the dominion of the King of France,” but we find no further mention of him as dealing in books, nor do we know anything of his later career. We meet, however, with other members of the family. In 1543 John Gachet, Frenchman, of the parish of St Michael le Belfry, occurs in a list of soldiers sent from York to Newcastle. If this was a son of our stationer, he died shortly afterwards, as in 1551 administration of the effects of John Gachet, son of John Gachet of York, stationer, dying at Rawcliffe, was granted to George Gachet, his brother. A William Gachet, stationer, was admitted to the freedom of the city in 1549-50, and the will of another William Gachet of York is dated 1551.