No More Learning

He is also
known as the publisher of Francis Meres's Palladis Tamia, which
appeared in 1598, and joint publisher of Robert Allot's England's
Parnassus in 1600.
Among the plays associated with the press of James Roberts,
the almanac patentee, are the two issues of the Merchant of
Venice dated 1600, and one of A Midsummer Night's Dream also
dated 1600, and the Hamlet of 1604 and 16051. He succeeded
John Charlwood as printer of 'the players' bills,' or theatre
programmes, an office which passed to William Jaggard in 1615.
Among other stationers connected with the plays are John Smeth-
wick, who was one of the four at whose charges the first folio
was printed; Thomas Pavier, who published as Shakespeare's the
plays Sir John Oldcastle (1600) and the Yorkshire Tragedy (1608);
and Nathaniel Butter, who published the two issues of Lear in
1608, and also Chapman's Homer, but who is even more interesting
as a pioneer of newspaper publishers. He is said to have issued
a Courant, or Weekly Newes from Foreign Parts, as early as
October 1621; but his first entry of A Currant of Newes in the
registers is dated 7 June 1622, and this publication must very
shortly afterwards have assumed a regular periodical issue, for
'Number 24' is entered on 26 March 1623, and it seems thereafter
to have made a habitual weckly appearance.
The first two of Shakespeare's poems which passed through the
press, the Venus and Adonis of 1593 and the Lucrece of 1594,
were printed by Richard Field, who was a native of Stratford-on-
Avon and may, therefore, it is allowable to suppose, have been
personally acquainted with the author.
In 1609, a manuscript of Shakespeare's Sonnets having fallen
into the hands of Thomas Thorpe, a stationer who played the part
of a literary agent by the picking up of this kind of floating 'copy,'
he commissioned George Eld to print them for him, and, having
apparently no shop of his own, he employed two other stationers,
William Aspley and John Wright to sell the book for him. One of
1 The genuineness of the imprints of some of these has recently been questioned.
See The Library, 1908-9, and A. W. Pollard, Shakespeare Folios and Quartos, 1909.
a


## p. 395 (#417) ############################################

Edward Blount
395
Thorpe's earliest successes in this line was the publication in 1600
of Marlowe's translation of the first book of Lucan, and his
subsequent achievements include Healey's translation of Saint
Augustine’s Citie of God (1610), three plays by Chapman and
works by Ben Jonson and others.
In 1599, the unauthorised anthology entitled The Passionate
Pilgrime, by W. Shakespeare was issued by William Jaggard,
whose name is also well known'as one of the publishers of the
first collected edition of the plays, issued with the cooperation
of Shakespeare's friends in 1623. This monumental volume, which,
though a large undertaking, is by no means a remarkable piece of
printing, came from the press of Jaggard's son Isaac, and was
printed at the charge of four stationers, William Jaggard, Edward
Blount, John Smethwick and William Aspley. The chief share
in the enterprise appears to have been taken by Edward Blount,
who was something more than a mere trader in books and must
have possessed a nice and discriminating literary judgment,
fostered, doubtless, during his ten years' apprenticeship with
William Ponsonby. To the 1598 edition of Marlowe's Hero and
Leander, he wrote a preface, defending the dead poet against his
detractors. To him we are indebted for Florio's Italian dictionary
A Worlde of Wordes, which appeared in 1598, and for the same
writer's translation of Montaigne's Essays, first published in
1603. From 1609, he was, for a time, in partnership with William
Barret, and together they issued, in 1612, Shelton's translation
of the first part of Don Quixote, notable as being the first
translation of Cervantes's great novel into any language. In
1622, he brought out James Mabbe's rendering of Aleman's
The Rogue, or the life of Guzman de Alfarache; and to Earle's
Microcosmographie, which he published anonymously in 1628, he
wrote a preface.
Booksellers seem to have got the upper hand of printers as
well as of authors; and Christopher Barker, in his report of
1582, complains that booksellers were able to drive such good
bargains that printers were mostly but small gainers and oft-times
losers. George Wither cannot be cited as an impartial witness,
since his embittered controversy with the stationers, about the
privilege which he obtained in 1623 ordering his Hymns and
Songs of the Church to be appended to every copy of the Psalms
in metre, no doubt surcharged his ink with gall. He himself says
that he goes not about to lay a general imputation upon all
stationers, but there is no reason to question the general truth of,


## p. 396 (#418) ############################################

396
The Book-Trade, 1557–1625
the statement which he makes in his Schollers Purgatory, when
he says that
the Bookeseller hath not onely made the Printer, the Binder, and the Clasp-
maker a slave to him: but hath brought Authors, yea the whole Common-
wealth, and all the liberall Sciences into bondage.
:
:
And in his description of 'A meere Stationer' in the same work,
after castigating the printer and the bookbinder, he says of the
publishing bookseller that
He makes no scruple to put out the right Authors Name, and insert another
in the second edition of a Booke; And when the impression of some pamphlet
lyes upon his hands, to imprint new Titles for yt, (and so take mens moneyes
twice or thrice, for the same matter under diverse names) is no injury in his
opinion. If he get any written Coppy into his powre, likely to be vendible;
whether the Author be willing or no, he will publish it; And it shallbe con-
trived and named alsoe, according to his owne pleasure: which is the reason,
so many good Bookes come forth imperfect, and with foolish titles-
with much more in the same vein.
But the publisher of that day was not necessarily a mere profit
seeker, and many of the larger works published in the period
between the incorporation of the company and the establishment
of the Commonwealth must have involved substantial risk, and are
evidence of public spirit and some taste for letters in those who
undertook their production.
Among the earlier men, Richard Grafton holds a distinguished
place. In conjunction with Edward Whitchurch, he was concerned
in the publication of the English Bibles of 1537 and 1539, printed
at Antwerp and Paris respectively, and afterwards began printing
on his own account, his press being largely occupied with the
production of service books, for the printing of which he and
Whitchurch obtained an exclusive patent in 1544. In 1547, he
was appointed printer to king Edward VI, and several of the
issues of the Book of Common Prayer bear his imprint. On the
death of the king, miscalculating the drift of political events, he
printed the proclamation of lady Jane Grey and was deprived
of his office by queen Mary. Besides issuing John Hardyng's
Chronicle in 1543, and editions of Edward Hall's Union of
Lancaster and York in 1548 and 1550, Grafton himself compiled an
Abridgement of the Chronicles of England, which was published
by his son-in-law Richard Tottel in 1562, and A Chronicle at
Large, issued also by Tottel in 1569. Tottel's serious business
in life was the printing of law books, for which he received a
patent in 1552; but he is, perhaps, better known as the publisher


## p. 397 (#419) ############################################

John Day
397
of Tottel's Miscellany, first issued in 1557, and of which there were
at least seven other editions before the end of the century. He
was also a partner with John Cawood and John Walley in the
publication of the folio edition of Sir Thomas More's Works,
which bears the same date as the first edition of the Miscellany.
William Copland, probably a son of 'old Robert Copland'
printer and translator, was the printer of Gawin Douglas's transla-
tion of the Aeneid, which appeared in 1553, and of an undated
edition of the same writer's Palice of Honour. Among other
books which came from his press are editions of Caxton's Recuyell
of the Histories of Troy, The Four Sons of Aymon, Malory's
King Arthur, edited by the printer, and A boke of the properties
of Herbes, the compilation of which is also attributed to him.
Among all the stationers and printers of this period the most
prominent name is that of John Day, whose career, beginning
in 1546, extended into four reigns. His important patent for
printing the Psalms in metre and the ABC and Catechism has
already been referred to; but, in addition to this advantage, he
was fortunate in securing the support of those in authority and
especially of archbishop Parker, in whom he found a generous
patron. With Parker’s encouragement, he did much to set a high
standard of printing, and he had several new founts of type cut.
About 1567, he published the first book (Aelfric's Paschal Homily)
printed in Anglo-Saxon characters; and this Saxon type was also
used in the archbishop's edition of Asser's Aelfredi regis res gestae
of 1574, which is one of the finest specimens of Day's typographical
art. The purely literary interest of Day's press is by no means
commensurate with the important place which it holds in the
history of English printing. Most of the books which bear his
mprint are theological and ecclesiastical works of a strictly
orthodox character, but among them there stands out the first
English edition of Foxe's Actes and Monuments (1563). He also
issued many of the works of Thomas Becon and, in 1570, the first
authorised edition of Gorboduc and Ascham's Scholemaster.
William Seres, who printed with Day in the years 1546 to 1550,
produced some noteworthy translations, including Thomas Hoby's
English version of Castiglione's I Cortegiano, and Arthur Golding's
Caesar and Ovid. In 1569, he published An orthographie by
John Hart, Chester herald, which contains examples of phonetic
spelling.
From a literary point of view, one of the most notable of the
publishers was William Ponsonby, from whose house there issued


## p. 398 (#420) ############################################

398
The Book-Trade, 1557–1625
>
between 1577 and 1603, the year of his death, a number of
important books, among them being Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia
in 1590, and his works (Arcadia, etc. ), 1598, Bedingfield's translation
of Machiavelli's Florentine Historie, 1595, and Greene's Mamillia
(1582—93). But it is as the publisher of Spenser's works that he is
best known to fame. Beginning with The Faerie Queene (books 1-3)
in 1590, he issued all Spenser's works, with the exception of the
Shepheards Calender, which was published by Hugh Singleton in
1579. Simon Waterson, who, on Ponsonby's death, acquired some
of his copyrights, published many of Samuel Daniel's works, and
for some years acted as London bookseller for the university
printers of Oxford and Cambridge. The most influential man in the
trade, in the latter part of the sixteenth century, was Christopher
Barker, the queen's printer, who has already been mentioned.
His presses were largely occupied with the printing of Bibles and
official work, and, on his death in 1599, he was succeeded in the
office of royal printer by his son Robert, whose name is associated
with the issue of the royal version (the Authorised Version) of
the Bible in 1611. Among the other five hundred or more
stationers who printed or published books during this period
may be mentioned Thomas Marshe, who, between 1554 and 1587,
issued many other books besides the school books for which he
held a patent of monopoly; Henry Fetherstone, the publisher of
Purchas his Pilgrimes ; Ralph Newbery and George Bishop, two
of the partners in the issue of Holinshed's Chronicles and Hakluyt's
Voyages; and Nicholas Bourne, a prolific publisher of undis-
tinguished books, who had an interest in the Swedish Intelligencer
and other budgets of foreign news.
In London, the localities most favoured by the booksellers of
the Elizabethan period were St Paul's churchyard, Fleet street
and, towards the end of the century, Paternoster row; but St
Paul's was quite clearly the focus of the trade. The business
premises around the cathedral church were of two classes, the
houses which bordered the churchyard, and the less substantial
booths (or lock-up shops) and stalls which clustered round the walls
and at the doors of the building itself. Those stationers who
dwelt at any distance from St Paul's evidently felt the need of
getting into closer touch with this business centre, for some of
them are found also occupying stalls at the doors. One of these
was Henry Bynneman, a printer and stationer who lived at the
Mermaid in Knight Rider street and had also a shop at the north-
west door of Paul's. His publications include some of the Latin


## p. 399 (#421) ############################################

St Paul's Churchyard 399
works of Gabriel Harvey, and he printed for Richard Smith the
first acknowledged edition (1575) of Gascoigne's Posies, as well as
the previous issue which appeared about 1573 under the title of
A Hundreth sundrie Flowres; the 1577 edition of Holinshed's
Chronicles, and Stanyhurst's translation of the first four books of
the Aeneid, also came from his press, the latter in 1583, the year of
his death. When John Day found that his printing house in Alders-
gate was not well situated for the sale of his books, he, too, in
1572, secured a site in the churchyard as offering a better oppor-
tunity for the disposal of his large stock, and the description of the
little structure which he put up gives us a good idea of the
appearance of one of these churchyard shops.
He got framed a neat handsome shop. It was but little and low, and flat-
roofed, and leaded like a terrace, railed and posted, fit for men to stand upon
in any triumph or show.
And it cost him, we are told, forty or fifty pounds.
London Bridge did not attain its fame as a resort of booksellers
until the second half of the seventeenth century; but, as early as
1557, William Pickering, a bookseller, whose publications consisted
chiefly of ballads and other trivial things, had a shop there. In
the next year, he was 'dwellyng at Saynt Magnus Corner,' which,
if not actually on the bridge, was at least hard by, and at this
address the business continued for upwards of a century. As
might be expected from its situation at the port of London, many
nautical books were published here, and the seaman making his
preparations for a voyage would step into the well known shop
and purchase The Art of Navigation, or perhaps, if he were
thither bound, a Card or rutter of the sea lyenge betwene Holland
and Ffryseland, and, were he so minded, he might fortify himself
with The seamans sacred safetye or a praier booke for seamen.
English printing during the period under review cannot be said
to be conspicuous for typographical excellence. The general condi-
tions of the trade probably militated against any high standard being
attained or even aimed at. Most of the prominent printers were
those who possessed valuable monopolies, and, thus safeguarded
from competition, there was little inducement to them to incur the
expense of having new founts cut, or to bestow the pains required
to ensure good workmanship. The less fortunate printers possessed
neither the means, nor, perhaps, save in a few cases, the capacity,
for turning out good work, and many of their productions are
slovenly and illiterate to a degree surpassed only in the succeeding


## p. 400 (#422) ############################################

400
The Book-Trade, 1557—1625
era, when the endeavour to make men bring forth good works
completely obscured their ability to produce good work.
In the first part of this period, when some of the earlier tradi-
tions were retained, the artistic feeling shown in the arrangement
of the page and the setting of the type gives to many of the books,
in spite of the frequently worn condition of the type and cuts,
a repose and dignity, which disappeared under the incursion
of roman type, and which even recent efforts have not succeeded in
recovering. Even down to 1580, or, perhaps, later, there is often
a certain delicacy of perception and tasteful handling which gives
the book an organic character and conveys a feeling of craftsman-
ship-qualities which are quite lacking in the later books in which
effect is too often sought by the use of adventitious ornament or
the display of an incongruous variety of types. It is a little
difficult to draw a line between the good and the indifferent
printers, but among the better craftsmen may be named Thomas
Berthelet, printer to king Henry VIII, also noted as a bookbinder;
Richard Grafton; Reyner Wolfe; John Day, whose pre-eminence
has already been referred to; Richard Jugge, the printer of the
Bishops' Bible; Henry Denham, who produced some tasteful work
between 1564 and 1589; Thomas Vautrollier, the Huguenot printer,
and his successor Richard Field; Thomas East, the printer of music
books; William Stansby, who produced a very large number of
books in workmanlike fashion; John Norton, who worked the
Eton press; the two Barkers; and Felix Kingston.
The illustrations to be found in English books of the period
are greatly inferior to contemporary continental work. The wood-
cuts, when not the worn-out blocks which had seen service since
the days of Pynson and Wynkyn de Worde, were generally un-
skilful copies of foreign work, or, occasionally, still less successful
original designs. Woodcut illustrations of a pictorial character
are used in the Bishops' Bible (1568), Foxe's Book of Martyrs,
Holinshed's Chronicles and a few other books. The edition of
Barclay's Ship of Fools, printed by Cawood in 1570, was also
illustrated by a series of woodcuts, but these were only a resuscita-
tion of those which had appeared in Pynson's edition of 1509.
Woodcuts are also to be found in many books on practical subjects,
but the use of them for pictorial illustration of imaginative works
was not common. To John Day is due some improvement in the
art, and portraits of himself and of William Cunningham, the author
of The Cosmographical Glasse (1559), are among his more notable
examples.


## p. 401 (#423) ############################################

Engravings and Decoration
401
The use of copperplate engravings, first introduced into this
country in 1540 but not much employed until some years later,
doubtless contributed to the disuse of woodcuts, and most of the
more ambitious books relied on the new art for their adornment.
The first edition of the Bishops' Bible, printed by Jugge in 1568, con-
tains, besides woodcut illustrations, engraved portraits of the earl
of Leicester and lord Burghley printed in the text, and an elaborate
emblematic title-page which includes a portrait of the queen. Sir
John Harington's Orlando Furioso, issued by Field in 1591, is
illustrated with forty-six full-page engravings; Sir William Segar's
Honor Military and Civill (1602) has eight engraved portraits;
and Sandys’s Relation of a Journey, which appeared in 1615,
contains many engravings illustrative of scenes and costumes.
This art was also used for topographical illustrations in such works
as Camden’s Britannia (1607), Drayton's Poly-Olbion (1613) and
captain John Smith's General History of Virginia (1624).
For the decoration of their books, as apart from illustration,
the earlier printers relied chiefly on ornamental initial letters. A
border round the title-page was soon discovered to be an effective
adornment to a book, and in a few instances every page of the book
is thus treated. The designs of these borders took various forms,
such as scroll work, arabesques, or architectural framework, and
some contain the device of the printer. Occasionally, borders were
emblematic of the subject of the book, and these were afterwards
used quite indifferently for other works without relation to the
subject. One of the best of these specially designed borders is
that which is seen in the 1593 and 1598 editions of Sidney's Arcadia.
Another form of border, both graceful and effective, which has
been aptly called a lace border, is built up of small ornaments of
homogeneous character. When copper engraving had come into
use, a frequent form of embellishment was an engraved title-page
of emblematic or symbolic design, such as those in Drayton's
Poly-Olbion of 1613, and Bacon's Instauratio magna of 1620.
>
In the early days of printing in England, when the native press
produced but a very small proportion of the books in demand, the
foreign printer and stationer were so freely tolerated, if not actively
encouraged, that a large part of the trade fell into the hands of
strangers. But, by the beginning of the sixteenth century, the
pinch of competition began to be severely felt by the native crafts-
men, and, in the succeeding years, repeated efforts were made to
eliminate the alien element and reduce the importation of foreign-
26
E. L. IV.
CH. XVIII.


## p. 402 (#424) ############################################

402
The Book-Trade, 1557–1625
printed books. By an act passed in 1523, aliens were forbidden to
take any but English-born apprentices, and, in 1529, another act
prohibited any foreigner, not already established, from setting up
a house or shop for the exercise of any handicraft within the realm.
These enactments aimed at squeezing out the foreigner from the
home trade; and a further act in 1534, directed against competi-
tion from abroad, prohibited the importation for sale of books
ready bound, and also provided that no undenizened alien should
sell foreign-printed books within the kingdom except by wholesale.
This act protected the native bookbinder and the retail bookseller,
and, at the same time, helped to limit facilities for the dissemina-
tion of seditious literature.
These efforts ultimately rescued the home trade from the
domination of the foreigner; but, since the demand for books
could not be limited to those produced in the country-scholars,
especially, being dependent on continental presses for certain
classes of literature—there was necessarily a large and continuous
business in the legitimate importation of foreign books of various
kinds. In the first half of the sixteenth century, service books
represented no inconsiderable part of the books so brought into
the country, and François Regnault, who had shops both in Paris
and London, was one of the leading men in this particular traffic.
Other prominent foreigners engaged in importation were the
Birckmans, who had places of business in Cologne, Antwerp and
other towns, and whose connection with London extended over the
greater part of the sixteenth century. The books of Plantin, the
great printer-publisher of Antwerp, must also have found their way
here in large numbers, for, in 1567, he was negotiating for the
establishment of a branch in London, but the project fell through.
Of the many English books printed abroad from the middle of
the sixteenth century, by far the larger number were concerned
with the acrimonious politico-religious controversies of the day,
and were produced on foreign soil either because their authors
had sought safety there, or, possibly, because there was less chance
of the work being interrupted. Among the chief places of their
origin were Antwerp, Rouen, Louvain, Leyden and Dort; Amster-
dam, whence proceeded the 'Family of Love' books; Middel-
burg, chiefly from the press of Richard Schilders; Geneva and
Zurich, the protestant strongholds; and Douay and St Omer, the
Roman Catholic fortresses. Much interest centres round the early
editions of the English Bible, several of which were printed on the
continent, the first of them (Coverdale's version) at Zurich in 1535,


## p. 403 (#425) ############################################

Book-Fairs
403
and some editions of the Genevan version which bear an English
imprint were actually printed at Amsterdam or Dort. The first
(Latin) issue of Foxe's Book of Martyrs was printed at Basel in
1559; and the edition of William Turner's New herball printed by
Arnold Birckman at Cologne, in 1568, may be cited as an example
of a different class of English book for which we are indebted to
the foreign press.
The great international book exchange at this period was the
half-yearly fair held at Frankfort. To this mart came represen-
tatives of the book-trade from all parts of the continent—Froben
of Basel, Estienne of Geneva, Plantin of Antwerp and other
leading printers from the great centres, bringing supplies of
their recent books and, perhaps, specimen sheets of important fresh
undertakings; there, also, would be gathered booksellers from far
and near, some having in view the selling of copies of their own
ventures, but most of them eager to lay in a stock of the newest
literature most likely to suit the tastes of their patrons. At this
period, too, when catalogues were rare, and no journals existed
as a medium of regular literary information, a visit to the fair
afforded opportunity to writers, scholars, and keen book lovers
to see and become acquainted with the new literature.
The important place which this fair held, even in the English
book trade, is indicated by the agreement concluded between the
Stationers' company and the university of Cambridge in 1591, that
the Cambridge printers should, 'for the space of one month after
the return of every Frankfort mart,' have the choice of printing
any foreign books coming thence. Not many of the books
.
printed in England were likely to find a sale on the continent,
but several English booksellers either attended the mart or were
represented there. Early in the seventeenth century, Henry
Fetherstone, the stationer at the Rose in Paul's Churchyard,
harvested still further afield, and his results are to be seen in
the catalogue of books bought in Italy which he issued in 1628.
Perhaps the most notable of the regular English visitors to
the fair at this time was John Bill, the leading London stationer,
who numbered among his distinguished clients king James and
Sir Thomas Bodley. His business there and at other continental
centres must have been fairly extensive, for, in 1617, he thought
it worth while to begin the issue of a London edition of the
half-yearly Frankfort Mess- Katalog, which he continued for
about eleven years, and to which, from 1622 to 1626, was added
a supplement of Books printed in English. This supplement was
26-2


## p. 404 (#426) ############################################

404
The Book-Trade, i
1557—1625
not the first attempt at a catalogue of English books. The credit
for that enterprise is due to Andrew Maunsell, who, induced,
one must believe, by a love of books, deserted the calling of a
draper to become a bookseller and the earliest English biblio-
grapher. He had already published a number of books before
he brought out, in 1595, the first part of his Catalogue of English
Printed Bookes, which comprised works on divinity. In the same
year, he printed the second part of the catalogue, which deals
with the writers on arithmetic, music, navigation, war, and
physic, and contains some 320 titles. The completion of the last
part was prevented by failing health, followed by his death in
1596. This third and last part was, said Maunsell, to be of
Humanity, wherin I shall have occasion to shew, what wee have
in our owne tongue, of Gramer, Logick, Rethoricke, Lawe, Historie,
Poetrie, Policie, &c. which will for the most part concerne matters
of Delight and Pleasure. ' Maunsell's attempt to record the output
of the English press found no successor till the appearance of
John Bill's supplement in 1622; but from this time onwards several
other lists were published which fairly well bridge the period
to the beginning of the quarterly Term Catalogues in 1668.
The books which a stationer kept in stock for sale at his shop
might be either in sheets, or stitched, or ready bound. A large
number of books were sold in sheets, that is, merely folded, and
the binding was a separate transaction carried out according to
the taste and purse of the purchaser, either by the stationer who
sold the book, or by any binder whom the purchaser might choose
to employ. Pamphlets and books of an ephemeral nature were
generally stitched, that is, stabbed through with a bodkin or awl
and stitched with thread or a thin strip of leather, maybe with
a paper wrapper to keep the outside leaves clean, or, sometimes,
without any covering. By a regulation of the year 1586, it was
ordered that no books so stitched should exceed forty sheets if in
folio, twelve sheets in octavo, or six sheets in decimo sexto; any
books consisting of more sheets than these were to be sewn in
the regular manner upon a sewing press. The books kept in stock
ready bound would be those for which there was a steady demand.
These would be bound either in leather, sheep and calf being
commonly used; or in vellum, finished off with two silk ties to
keep the book closed; or they might be bound in paper boards.
In the first half of the sixteenth century, these commercial
leather bindings were frequently ornamented with panel stamps.
>


## p. 405 (#427) ############################################

a
a
Bookbindings
405
often of beautiful design, in which the royal arms and the Tudor
rose frequently figured. The later panel stamps are much inferior
in design and interest; and, in course of time, this form of decora-
tion was to a large extent superseded by the roll, a tool which
applied the ornament in the form of a ribbon on which the design
was repeated. This method lent itself very readily to the decora-
tion of either a folio or smaller cover ; but the mechanical nature
of the use of this tool soon extended to the ornamentation itself,
which rapidly deteriorated both in the size of the roll and in the
character of the design, and this was followed by the practical
extinction of stamped work.
When books were bound in more luxurious fashion, they were
usually executed for wealthy collectors or royal personages, and
often represent the personal taste and predilection of the owner.
The use of gold tooling on bindings, which originated in Italy
towards the end of the fifteenth century, was introduced into
England in the reign of Henry VIII, probably by Thomas Ber-
thelet, printer and stationer to the king. In the bills for books
bound for, and supplied to, the king by Berthelet, in the years
1541—3, are several instances of this new style of binding; some
are described as “gorgiously gilted on the leather,' or 'bounde
after the Venecian fascion,' while others are covered with purple
velvet and written abowte with golde. ' The English gilt leather
bindings of this time, and throughout the sixteenth century, are
almost entirely imitations of foreign styles, in which French
influence predominates. Not only were a large number of the
binders actually foreigners, but even the English craftsmen did
little more than copy foreign designs.
One of the favourite styles of design in the latter half of the
century was an imitation of the Lyonese manner, in which the
sides were decorated with heavy gold centre and corner pieces,
enclosed within a plain or gilt border, the ground being either
left plain or, more generally, powdered with small ornaments.
This style continued in vogue into the reign of James I. Arch-
bishop Parker, whose catholic tastes included bookbinding,
employed a bookbinder in his own house, and the special copy
of his De antiquitate Britannicae ecclesiae, which he presented
to lord treasurer Burghley, and which was 'bound by my Man,
was done in this manner. On the other hand, the copy of this
book which he presented to the queen was in an elaborate and
beautirul embroidered binding, possibly in deference to the taste of
Elizabeth, whose preverence appears to have been for embroidered
7


## p. 406 (#428) ############################################

406
The Book-Trade, 1557–1625
bindings and for books bound in velvet, especially red, with
clasps of gold or silver. This taste was shared by her successor,
for whom, in 1609, Robert Barker, at that time printer and binder
to the king, bound books in 'crymson, purple, and greene velvet,'
and 'in taffity, with gold lace. ' James I, who was a lover of
sumptuous bindings, also had many books finely bound in leather,
and these usually bore the royal arms stamped in gold on the
side, the ground being powdered with fleurs-de-lis or other small
emblems. Another style which obtained in the sixteenth century
was a plain binding of leather or velvet, decorated with corners
and clasps of pierced silver work. The elaborate embroidered
bindings in which coloured silks, gold and silver thread, and oc-
casionally pearls were employed was an essentially English art.
Among the notable collectors who dressed their books in
distinctive coverings were Thomas Wotton, who adopted the style
and adapted the motto of Grolier, and Robert Dudley, earl of
Leicester, whose most characteristic style was a plain binding
having his well known badge, the bear and ragged staff, with his
initials stamped on the side. But there were book lovers as well
as book collectors, and one's heart warms much more towards
the scholarly library of archbishop Parker, or the plain brown
folios of Ben Jonson with their familiar inscription Sum Ben:
Jonsonij, and his motto 'Tanquam explorator.
In the early seventeenth century, there worked at Eton a
good binder, who commonly had ‘his hands full of worke, and
his head full of drinck'; at Oxford, Pinart and Milles bound
for Sir Thomas Bodley; and, from Cambridge, where good work
was being carried on, Nicholas Ferrar obtained the craftswoman
'that bound rarely,' and the result of her instruction is seen in the
bindings of that distinctive character which is associated with the
settlement at Little Gidding and the name of Mary Collet.
Notwithstanding the keen competition in the book trade and
the great number of works which were issued from the press,
books were by no means cheap. They were, it is true, no longer
a luxury for the rich alone, and it is quite probable that the
prices at which they were sold brought them fairly within the
reach of most of those who were able to use them. The prices
of those days multiplied by eight will, approximately, represent
present day values, and it should be noted that the cost mentioned
is often that of the book in sheets, the binding being an additional
expense.


## p. 407 (#429) ############################################

Prices
407
The prices of books published under official auspices were
sometimes limited by a special regulation; thus, the first
cdition of the Book of Common Prayer (1549), as appears by
the king's order printed at the end of the book, is not to be
sold above the price of 28. 2d. a piece, and bound in paste or
boards not above 38. 8d. Such a regulation was rendered the
more necessary by the fact that the right to print such books
was usually granted as a monopoly to some individual printer,
and they were not therefore subject to the healthy influence of
competition. A curious tract entitled Scintilla, or a Light broken
into darke Warehouses, published anonymously in 1641, throws
some interesting light on the doings of the monopolists and the
way in which they had raised the prices of the books which they
had gotten into their grasp. Church Bibles, which formerly cost
thirty shillings, are now, it is said, raised to two pounds, and large
folio Bibles in roman print, which used to sell at 128. 6d. , now
cost twenty shillings. The prices of other editions, before being
raised, were: the Cambridge quarto Bible, with Psalms, 78. , the
London quarto Bible, with notes and concordance, also 78. , and
Bibles in octavo, 38. 4d. Testaments in octavo cost 10d. , and in
duodecimo, 7d. ; the Book of Common Prayer, 38. in folio, and
18. 6d. in quarto. The Grammar of Oxford and Cambridge cost
5d. , and Camden's Greek Grammar, 8d. ; there was also an edition
of the latter printed in France which was sold at 41d.
In 1598, the Stationers' company, with a view to prevent the
excessive prices of books, made a general order that no new copies
without pictures should be sold at more than a penny for two
sheets if in pica, roman and italic, or in english with roman and
italic; and at a penny for one sheet and a half if in brevier or long
primer letter. A quarto volume of 360 pages in small type might
thus cost, in sheets, two shillings and sixpence, equal to about
one pound at the present day. At this rate, the first folio
Shakespeare, which contains nearly one thousand pages, should
have cost about fourteen shillings; an oft quoted statement that
the actual selling price was one pound appears to be based on
the insufficient evidence of a manuscript note in a copy not now
traceable. For a copy of Shakespeare's Sonnets, Alleyn the actor
paid fivepence in June 1609. Quarto plays and similar productions
were mostly issued at sixpence, and ephemeral pamphlets were
sold at twopence, threepence, or fourpence.
In 1576, the hall Bible at King's college, Cambridge, to be
read during meals, cost sixteen shillings; and, in 1585, New


## p. 408 (#430) ############################################

408
-
The Book-Trade, 1557–1625
college, Oxford, paid ten shillings for a copy of Estienne's edition
of Diodorus Siculus. Corpus Christi college, Oxford, a frequent
purchaser of books, in 1604 gave three shillings and sixpence for
the De idololatria ecclesiae Romanae of John Rainolds. The
college also bought Bacon's History of Henry VII for seven
shillings on its appearance in 1622, and paid £3. 88. 6d. for Purchas
his Pilgrimes, which appeared in four volumes in 1625. In 1621,
Dodoens's Niewe herball and Selden's Titles of Honour cost six
shillings and five shillings respectively.
It is probable that, in all
these instances, the price included the binding of the book.
The methods employed by the bookseller and publisher for ad-
vertising his books are mainly a matter of surmise. Book buyers who
lived in the metropolis would, no doubt, frequent the stationers'
shops and there see and dip into new books; and the title-page of
the latest pamphlet, stuck up on the door post of the shop or any
other prominent place, would catch the eye of those eager to see
and read some new thing. Ballads may have been hawked in the
streets and at busy corners, but books were certainly not allowed
to be thus vended, for the Stationers' registers record the seizure of
certain books which were 'goynge hawkynge aboute the stretes
which ys contrary to the orders of the Cytie of London. ' Cata-
logues were not yet in fashion; occasionally, other works by the
same author are mentioned in the preface of a book, but it is not
till well into the seventeenth century that one now and again
meets with a paragraph telling the 'courteous reader' to expect
shortly from the press some new work by the same writer; and it
was still nearer the end of the century before the publisher hit
upon the expedient of impressing a spare leaf at the end of a book
into the service of announcing other books issued by him.
The provinces were supplied by stationers in the larger towns
and by the great periodical fairs, while popular literature was carried
into the remoter country districts in the pack of the travelling
merchant or chapman. Stationers carried on business in most of
the important towns, and sometimes published books, printed, of
course, in London; or joined with a London stationer in a similar
venture, the portion of the impression taken by the provincial
bookseller generally bearing his name in the imprint. At York,
there existed a company of stationers and bookbinders, who had a
new code of laws confirmed by the corporation in 1554. In the
east, Norwich, and, in the west, Chester and Exeter, were prominent
centres of the trade; at Shrewsbury, Roger Ward, the pirate


## p. 409 (#431) ############################################

Cambridge
409
printer of London, kept a shop, and thither he despatched a large
number of his illegally printed A BC and Catechism in 1582; and
John Norton had a shop in charge of his servant Edmond Wats, as
far away as Edinburgh. Among the principal provincial fairs were
those of Oxford, Bristol, Salisbury, Nottingham, Ely, Coventry,
and, chief of all, the renowned Sturbridge fair near Cambridge.
These marts played an important part in the internal trade of the
country, and were largely depended upon for the laying in of supplies
for the year. Stationers, both from London and the provinces,
attended them, and a large trade in books was one of the features
of the multifarious business transacted there; indeed, so far as the
provinces were concerned, new books were practically published at
these fairs, and the issue of books was frequently timed with a view
to the dates on which they were held.
In the first half of the sixteenth century, printing had been
carried on in the provinces at Oxford, St Albans, York, Cambridge,
Tavistock, Abingdon, Ipswich, Worcester and Canterbury. The
productions of these presses were mainly works of a theological,
liturgical, or grammatical character, and contributed little or
nothing to English literature, if we except a few books such as the
translation of Boethius's Boke of Comfort, printed at Tavistock
monastery in 1525, Lydgate's Lyfe and Passion of Seint Albon,
attributed to John Herford's press at St Albans in 1534, and the
undated edition of the same author's Churle and the Bird which
John Mychell may have printed at his Canterbury press.
By 1557, the year in which the Stationers' company was incor-
porated, all these presses had already ceased; and, until the revival
of the Cambridge press in 1583, the only printing carried on in
England, outside London, was that by Anthony de Solempne, who,
from 1568 to 1580, was printing Dutch books in Norwich for the
use of the refugees there, for which he seems to have obtained the
queen's authority. Although the monopoly conferred upon the
company did not contribute to the extinction of the provincial
presses, the opposition to the re-establishment of the Cambridge
press clearly indicates that any attempted revival would have been
promptly strangled.
The right to elect 'three stationers or printers or sellers of
books' had been granted to the university of Cambridge by
Henry VIII in 1534, but, though printers were regularly appointed
under this grant, no actual printing was done in Cambridge from
the cessation of John Siberch's press in 1522 until the appointment
in 1582 of Thomas Thomas as university printer. The Stationers'


## p. 410 (#432) ############################################

410
The Book-Trade, 1557–1625
a
company, having got wind of this intention to establish a university
press, scented dangerous competition and infringement of their
privileges, and the presse and furniture’ intended for Mr Thomas's
establishment, having been discovered by their searchers, were
seized and detained. In this action, the company was supported
by the bishop of London (John Aylmer), who, though professing
great concern for the interests of printing, was, no doubt, alarmed
at the power which this new press might place in the hands of the
puritan party in Cambridge. The university appealed to their
chancellor, lord Burghley, for the restoration of the press, and
succeeded in vindicating their claim to the privileges of the patent;
but a jealous struggle with the London company continued for
many years, with varying successes and reprisals on both sides, the
university, on the whole, steadily gaining ground and, in the end,
completely establishing its right to print.
Besides his work as university printer, Thomas, who was a
fellow of King's college, is known as the author of a Latin
dictionary, of which eight editions had been issued from the Cam-
bridge press by 1610. Thomas was succeeded on his death in
1588 by John Legate, who, in 1609, removed to London, and
was followed in the office by Cantrell Legge. Among the pro-
ductions of this press, books in divinity and scholastic subjects
naturally preponderate, and there is very little of literary interest.
Certain things such as The Returne from Parnassus (1606),
Tomkis's Albumazar (1615), and Ruggle’s Ignoramus (entered
18 April 1615), which, being university plays, one might very
well expect to find with a Cambridge imprint, were, nevertheless,
printed and published in London.
The revival of printing at Oxford, two years later, met with no
such stormy reception, though the university possessed no printing
patent similar to that of Cambridge. Its immunity from inter-
.
ference may have owed something to the protection of the earl of
Leicester, chancellor of the university, under whose auspices the
press was established. Anyhow, Joseph Barnes, the printer
appointed by the university, at once carried the attack into the
London camp, and, in the very year (1585) in which he began work,
reprinted one of their most vendible copies. John Wight, the
bookseller to whom the book (Parsons's Christian Exercise) had
been entered in the Stationers' register, on hearing of the piracy,
sent his son to Oxford, who there bought the impression and paid
Barnes ready money for it, Barnes making faithful promise that he
would never reprint the book. But, notwithstanding this promiso
>


## p. 411 (#433) ############################################

411
>
Oxford
and Wight's 'curteous dealinge' with him, Barnes, being thus
furnished with money, forthwith prints two other impressions of
the work; and, when the London printers in retaliation reprint
Thomas Bilson's Christian subjection and unchristian rebellion,
which Barnes had just published, they are stopped by the privy
council, their printing tools seized, and one of their number thrown
into prison. The Oxford press was officially recognised in 1586, by
a Star chamber ordinance allowing one press and one apprentice.
In 1586, Barnes brought out Chrysostom's Homilies printed in
Greek type, and, in 1595, his first Welsh book Perl mewn adfyd, a
translation from Otto Wermueller. Before his resignation in 1617,
Barnes had issued from his press a rendering into English verse of
ix poems of Theocritus (1588), Richard of Bury's Philobiblon
(1599) 'the first English edition of the first book on the love of
books,' two editions of John Davies's Microcosmos, captain John
Smith's Map and description of Virginia (1612), and works by
Nicholas Breton, Thomas Churchyard and Richard Hooker. Barnes
was succeeded by John Lichfield, who printed till 1635; the issue
of the first four editions (1621-32) of Burton's Anatomy of
Melancholy lends distinction to his press. Archbishop Laud, when
he became chancellor of the university in 1630, bestowed much
care in forwarding the interests of printing at Oxford, and one of
his earliest actions in this direction was to procure from king
Charles I a charter which conferred upon the university privileges
equal to those possessed by Cambridge.
In 1610–13, an edition of Chrysostom's works in Greek, in
eight volumes folio, was printed at Sir Henry Savile's press at
Eton college by John Norton, the king's printer in Latin, Greek,
and Hebrew. Five other books are known to have issued from the
Eton press before its cessation in 1615. The celebrated Greek
type, the ‘silver letter' as it was called, was afterwards presented
by Sir Henry Savile to the university of Oxford.
The rigorous enforcement of the policy of regulating printing
in the interests of church and state naturally drove the opponents
of the establishment, the papists on the one side and the puritans
on the other, to resort to secret printing, and several illicit presses
were at work during the latter part of the sixteenth century. At
the secret press of Thomas Cartwright, the puritan opponent of
Whitgift, was printed in 1572 An Admonition to the Parliament;
and several other allied tracts followed before the press was run
down and seized at Hempstead. In 1580—1, a Jesuit press, with
which Robert Parsons and Edmund Campion were connected, was


## p. 412 (#434) ############################################

412
The Book-Trade, 1557–1625
at work first at Greenstreet House, East Ham, and afterwards, at
Stonor Park. But the chief of these secret and fugitive sources of
contraband literature was that known as the Marprelate press, of
which an account has been given in a previous volume of the
present work?
The art of printing was introduced into Scotland in 1508, and
the work of the Scottish press at once assumed that strongly
national character and detached attitude towards the outside
world which continued to be its distinguishing feature until the
eighteenth century brought with it the Union and other elements
of a broadening influence. Its chief productions were official
documents, such as statutes and proclamations, for the service of
the state, native Latin works for the scholar, school books for
youth, vernacular literature for the people, and theology for all.
As in the case of the first English press, Chepman and Myllar
of Edinburgh made their first essay with a series of small tracts of
a popular nature, and of these there have survived nine pieces, each
extant in a single copy. There has also been recorded a fragment
of an edition of Blind Harry's Wallace, printed in the same type.
The Aberdeen Breviary, the real work for which the press had
been imported, was printed by Chepman alone in 1509—10, and
with it the work of this press came to an end.
John Davidson, who was printing in Edinburgh in 1541, issucd
shortly before that date a folio edition of Bellenden's translation
of 'Boece's History of Scotland, which is one of the monuments of
early Scottish printing. From a fragment of a single leaf, dis-
covered by the late David Laing, it seems probable that an edition
of Gawin Douglas's Palice of Honour was also printed by David-
son. John Scot, who printed at St Andrews and afterwards at Edin-
burgh between 1552 and 1571, issued works by Sir David Lyndsay,
Quintin Kennedy and Ninian Winzet. The earliest Scottish printer
whose extant issues reach any considerable number is Robert
Lekpreuik, who began printing in 1561; he is to be especially
remembered for the numerous ballads by Robert Sempill and other
reformation politicians, which in his broadsides have survived to the
present day. The first Bible printed in Scotland, which, after some
vicissitudes, made its appearance in 1579, was the work of Bassan-
dyne and Arbuthnet, the latter of whom also published in 1582 the
first and faulty edition of Buchanan's Rerum Scoticarum Historia.
The earliest known edition of the collected works of Sir David
Lyndsay is that printed in Edinburgh in 1568, to which the
1 Sce vol. II, chap. XVII.


## p. 413 (#435) ############################################

The Scottish Press
413
publisher, Henry Charteris, who probably began his long career
with the issue of this book, prefixed an introduction. Charteris,
who, in 1580, acquired John Ross's printing business, is the most
notable figure among the Scottish booksellers of the sixteenth
century. In addition to works by Barbour, Blind Harry, Henryson
and others, he issued, before his death in 1599, at least six editions
of the works of Sir David Lyndsay. The position occupied in
Edinburgh by Henry Charteris in the sixteenth century was, for
the first twenty years of the following century, held by Andro
Hart, the bookseller, who took up printing in 1610 with the acqui-
sition of the plant which had been used by Charteris. The first
book known to have been issued from his press is a folio Bible
(1610), which gained considerable reputation for its correctness;
and among the large number of interesting books which he printed
are first editions of works by Drummond of Hawthornden, Napier of
Merchiston and Sir William Alexander, earl of Stirling, also several
reprints of the older writers. John Wreittoun, who printed in Edin-
burgh from 1624 to 1638, issued in 1627 an edition of Venus and
Adonis, the only work by Shakespeare known to have been printed
in Scotland before the eighteenth century.
The strongly national character of the productions of the
Scottish press has already been indicated; but it must not be
forgotten that these by no means represent the whole literary
output of the country. The close intellectual and commercial
intercourse between Scotland and the continent, together with the
restricted facilities at home, naturally resulted in many of the
works of the more scholarly writers, who wrote almost entirely in
Latin and appealed to a European audience, being published
abroad, and scholars not unfrequently made the journey overseas
for the purpose of seeing their work through the press.
There was in Scotland no trade combination corresponding to
the London Stationers' company; indeed, the limited number of
persons engaged in the trade rendered such an organisation un-
necessary. Measures, however, were adopted from time to time by
the state for preventing the printing or importation of undesirable
books, and a more or less watchful eye was kept on the trade; but,
on the whole, there was considerable liberty, and it was not until
the latter half of the seventeenth century that the cramping effects
of monopoly were experienced. When Edinburgh booksellers felt
themselves aggrieved by incursions of alien traders, they found
means of protecting themselves by appeal to their town council,
and Thomas Vautrollier, John Norton, and others were on various
occasions proceeded against in this manner.


## p. 414 (#436) ############################################

414
The Book-Trade, 1557—1625
>
The inventories of property recorded with the wills in Scottish
registers of testaments afford some extremely interesting glimpses
of the stock-in-trade of the printer and bookseller of this period,
and those of the printers indicate that the impressions of many of
the popular works were surprisingly large. The list of the books
in the inventory of Robert Gourlaw, bookbinder and bookseller of
Edinburgh, who died in 1585, occupies no less than six pages as
printed in the Bannatyne Miscellany, and, if it may be taken to
represent the current demand, points to a wide and cultivated
standard of reading. Most noticeable are school books, chiefly
Latin, and small books of devotion, such as psalms and books of
prayers. The classics are well represented in the Iliad and the
Odyssey, Ovid's Metamorphoscs, the Ethics of Aristotle, Virgil,
Terence, Apuleius and Silius Italicus. Erasmus is much in
evidence, probably in school editions. Theology, especially of a
contemplative character, is the chief element; two copies of Brad-
ford's Meditations are followed impartially by three copies of ‘ane
lytill Fortoun buik. The immense popularity of Sir David Lyndsay
is easily perceived, and lighter literature is well represented in
ballads and other vernacular pieces. Piers Plowman and Sir
John Mandeville appear, but contemporary English literature is
practically absent, and there are no plays. There are also two
copies of Gargantua and a Hebrew grammar.
The beginning of printing in Ireland is represented by the Book
of Common Prayer which was printed in Dublin in 1551 by
Humphrey Powell, who had migrated from London a year or so
previously. The other extant productions of this press are two or
three broadsides, and a theological tract which he issued in 1566.
In 1571, a broadside poem on Doomsday, and John Kearney's
ABC and Catechism (Aibidil Gaoidheilge, agus Caiticiosma) were
printed in the first fount of Irish characters. John Franckton, who
began printing in Dublin apparently in 1600, printed also, in Irish
characters, archbishop Daniel's Irish versions of the New Testa-
ment (1602) and Book of Common Prayer (1608). In 1618, Franck-
ton's press was acquired by the Stationers' company of London,
who continued it until about 1640, when it was taken over by
William Bladen; but the only productions of any literary interest
before the publication of Sir James Ware's History of Ireland
in 1633, are editions of Sidney's Arcadia in 1621 and Sir Thomas
Overbury's Wife in 1626.


## p. 415 (#437) ############################################

CHAPTER XIX
THE FOUNDATION OF LIBRARIES
IN previous volumes of the present work, some account has
been given of early monastic libraries, of collections of books
made by such men as Richard of Bury, of the contents of a
typical collegiate library as illustrating the reading of the
medieval student and of the effect upon libraries of the dissolu-
tion of the monasteries. The work accomplished by Sir Thomas
Bodley within the period covered by the present volume provides
an occasion for a brief retrospect of the foundation of libraries
generally, and for the presentation of certain details regarding
monastic, cathedral and collegiate libraries, supplementary to the
references which have been already made.
A recent publication? enables us to realise the conditions
under which such collections were preserved and accumulated,
from the days when the papyrus rolls began to multiply on the
shelves in the archives of Assur down to those of dean Boys of
Canterbury, who, to the day of his death, in 1625, still adhered
to the practice of placing the volumes of his library on the shelf
with their fore-edge outwards.
Beginning our retrospect, however, with the time when the
roll,'book' or volume,' began to take shape as a series of leaves
fastened together by the art of the binder, we find the movable
press, with shelves and doors, and supported on legs, appearing
as the most ancient form of the bookcase. As the press became
larger and heavier, the legs were discarded, and in those cathedrals
or convent churches in which there was a triple apse, one of these
would be used for keeping the service books, while the armarium
(or chest) would be sometimes represented by a recess in the wall
closed by a door. The apse also, not unfrequently, served as the
.
depository for the library of the choir school, and of this, together
with the service books, the precentor would sometimes be the
custodian ; but, in larger cathedrals, the duty would be assigned
to a second functionary, known as the armarius.
· The Care of Books, by J. W. Clark, 2nd ed. Cambridge, 1902.


## p. 416 (#438) ############################################

416
The Foundation of Libraries
'An examination of the statutes affecting the library in the
codes imposed upon the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge shows
that their provisions were borrowed directly from the monastic
customs. ' But it is not less certain that the monastic rules
themselves were partly derived from practice anterior to western
monasticism itself. In Vitruvius (who wrote probably in the time
of the emperor Augustus) it is laid down as a canon that 'bed-
rooms and libraries should face the East, their use requiring the
morning light; while in libraries, books will be preserved from
rotting? ' But where the presses were movable, it was the practice
to place them at right angles to the windows; and it was not
until the accommodation thus afforded became insufficient, that
shelves, resting against the wall, began to make their appearance,
and, in many cases, ultimately superseded the movable press. In
either case, the volumes on the shelves were generally placed
with their edges outwards, and with their titles, or certain dis-
tinctive marks, inscribed on the same, the covers being compressed
together, sometimes with massive clasps, sometimes with strings,
and each volume secured in its place by a hanging chain which.
fastened on a rod passing along the transom of the bookcase.
This rod was itself made fast by a vertical metal plate attached
to the end of the case, and opened or closed by a lock. Under-
neath the lock, there would be a framed list of the contents of
the shelves.
In monasteries, and especially in those of the Benedictine
order, libraries gradually assumed a more important character,
and the practice of lending volumes began to come into vogue.
A limited number would be distributed among the members of
the house for temporary personal use, while the larger and more
valuable portion would be kept in safe custody in a separate
chamber. Then it became not unusual for one house to lend a
volume to another community, and, in this manner, volumes have
occasionally been found among collections belonging to various
houses, which, by the character of the ornamentation, or by the
binding, could be shown to have originally belonged to another
house, although it by no means follows that they had been purloined.
The library of the monastery at Durham, a Benedictine house,
1 J. W. Clark, The Care of Books (2nd ed. ), p. 126.
2 De Architectura, lib. vi. c. 7; ed. Valentin Rose. Willis and Clark (Architectural
History of the University of Cambridge, III, pp. 414—6) have given the orientation of
the college libraries of both Oxford and Cambridge.
3 See J. W. Clark's Medieval and Renaissance Libraries, pp. 43, 45 and 48.


## p. 417 (#439) ############################################

>
Monastic Libraries
417
appears, from a catalogue drawn up in the twelfth century, to
have possessed 366 volumes ; that at Croyland, if any credit
attaches to the fifteenth century writer who wrote under the
name of Ingulphus, possessed, at the time of its destruction by
re (1091), 300 volumes and some 400 tracts; that of the neigh-
bouring monastery of St Peter at Peterborough (where the
original library had been destroyed by the Danes in 870) received,
through the good offices of abbot Benedict, secretary of Thomas
Becket, some eighty different works especially transcribed for its
enrichment. At Glastonbury, the collection, at first of but small
importance, contained, in 1247, 500 works in 340 volumes.
The fact that abbot Benedict's gift to Peterborough consisted
entirely of transcriptions, reminds us that another stage had been
reached in the history of monastic libraries; and it is at about the
same time that we find one Henry, a monk of the Benedictine
abbey at Hyde, near Winchester, becoming known for his industry
as a copyist—his transcripts including Terence, Boethius, Suetonius,
Claudian and other classical authors. It is, indeed, to such labours,
far more than to the growth of new literature, that we must
attribute the great increase in the numbers of volumes, in the cata-
logues of monastic and cathedral libraries alike, which becomes
observable throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; the
transcriber's toil, from time to time, receiving an abnormal stimulus
from some fire which may have resulted in the entire destruction
of a library in a single night. At Canterbury, the catalogues of
its two monasteries, that of Christ Church, compiled about the
year 1300, and that of St Augustine’s, nearly two centuries later,
afford valuable evidence: the former contains nearly 3000 titles
(or about 1850 volumes), and, while abounding in patristic and
scholastic literature, is characterised as also ‘respectable in science
and rich in history? '; the latter numbers over 1800 volumes,
including a large collection of French, and more especially
Romance, writers. Here the numerous duplicates are another
noteworthy feature, attributable, doubtless, to the desire of en-
abling several members of the community to study the same
author concurrently, and also attesting the increasing activity of
the copyists. The St Augustine's catalogue, however, is obviously
incomplete, and the same may be surmised to be the case with
1
1 Edwards, 1, 62; see, also, for an analysis of the contents of both libraries, the
introduction to M. R. James, The Ancient Libraries of Canterbury and Dover,
Cambridge, 1903.
See Sir F. Madden, in Notes and Queries (2nd ser. ), 1, pp. 485—6.
E. L. IV. CH. XIX.
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418
The Foundation of Libraries
the catalogue at Peterborough, which, in 1380, contained no more
than 300 volumes. The society at Worcester, although 280 volumes
still remain, is conjectured to have lost more than double that
number, and no contemporary catalogue exists. The Benedictines
at Dover possessed in 1389 some 449 volumes; and their house at
Bury St Edmunds, at the close of the same century, as many as
2000. At Durham, to which, after the Danish invasions of the
ninth century, the devastated monasteries of Wearmouth and
Jarrow had become affiliated as 'cells,' the reserved' library, by
which we are to understand, probably, the collection kept under
especial surveillance in the spendimentum (or bursary), contained,
in 1416, 500 volumes.
A brief account may here be given of a library remarkable
alike for its character and its history. The foundation known as
Syon monastery', some twelve miles from London, at Isleworth,
was one of the Brigittine order, the only one of its kind in England,
its rule being 'planned to suit the needs of religious men and
women serving God together in one church and dwelling in adjoining
houses. ' There were, however, separate libraries for the two sexes,
and the catalogue which has come down to us (now in the library
of Corpus Christi college, Cambridge) appears, by internal evidence,
to be that of the library for men. The value attached to its main-
tenance and increase is indicated by the fact that there was a rule
enjoining that masses should be said for the souls of all donors,
even of a single book, and the librarian himself was charged with
the duty of offering up such intercession or seeing that it was made.
The extent to which the practice of lending books had, by this
time, obtained among monasteries partially accounts for the
numerous losses which the collection had sustained prior to the
dissolution? The binding appears to have been executed without
regard to contents-a Horace, for example, being bound up with
a life of Thomas of Canterbury, and a Rabanus Maurus with a
Latin translation of Homer. No less than 1421 titles were duly
entered in the catalogue, and, of the entire collection, only six
volumes have as yet been traced.
But all such collections, whether those of the monastery,
the friary, or the cathedral, were exposed to special dangers.
Neither Sion college (see post, p. 433), now on the Thames Embankment (formerly
in London Wall), nor the Sion nunnery now existing at Chudleigh, in Devonshire, is in
any way connected with the ancient institution at Isleworth.
* Catalogue of the Library of Syon Monastery, Isleworth. Ed. M. Bateson,
Cambridge, 1898, preface, p. I.
• Ibid. pp. xvii, xviii.


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Monastic Libraries
419
At monasteries, the traveller was wont to receive shelter and
hospitality, and, if wealthy, would seek to make some return, his
gratitude not unfrequently finding expression in the gift of an
addition to the library. On the other hand, the opportunity thus
afforded to the outer world of gaining access to the interior itself
rendered the library liable to losses which not even the vigilance
of the guardian of the spendimentum could always prevent. At
friaries, whose members were in closer touch with the laity, owing
to the fact that their houses were generally within the precincts of
some city or large town, and sometimes in a main thoroughfare,
the risk, probably, was still greater. Thomas Gascoigne describes
the house of the Franciscans, as it existed in Oxford in the middle
of the fifteenth century, in the following terms:
They had two libraries in the same house; the one called the convent
library, the other the library of the schools; whereof the former was open
only to graduates; the latter to the scholars they called seculars, who lived
among those friars for the sake of learning 1,
Gottlieb, in commenting on this passage, points out that such a
division of libraries was, probably, a regular custom, and that it
affords an obvious explanation of the fact that not a few of their
catalogues, many of them very old, contain nothing but classical
authors and manuals of instruction? . That, among the mendicant
orders, Franciscans and Carmelites were especially distinguished
by their zeal for learning and energy as book hunters, is well known;
and, as early as 1381, we find them sharing with the university of
Cambridge the dislike of the townsmens. According to Mabillon, a
like arrangement with respect to their libraries existed among the
larger monasteries, especially those of the Cluniac order, on the
continent, one library being that of the choir of the monastery
church, the other that for the exclusive use of the monks—the
libri scientifici et ascetici ; and, in like manner, in the English
cathedrals, the respective duties of the armarius and the praecentor
(also cantor) point to the same distinction, although, at minor
foundations, the duties of each were often discharged by the same
individual. But, at all alike, there would generally be among the
service books one or more beautiful antiphonals, richly illuminated
and adorned with massively embossed covers; and an additional
temptation was thus presented to the despoiler, when the disso-
lution came, besides that of the gold and silver chalices, censers,
Dagdale, Monasticon, vi, p. 1527.
2 Mittelalterliche Bibliotheken, p. 305.
• Cooper, Annals of Cambridge, I, pp. 120–1.
1
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## p. 420 (#442) ############################################

420 The Foundation of Libraries
crosses, ewers and candlesticks which adorned the altar and
the chapels. Such entries, again, as occur in the sales of the
plunder which took place in 1548, of 'fourteen great books in the
quire, 148. ', 'four prycksong mass books of paper,' certainly bear
out the view, that the love of choral song (noted by Erasmus as an
interesting feature in the social life of the English), had been to a
great extent fostered by those monastic or cathedral choirs of
youths and boys, whom he described as “singing, to the accom-
paniment of the organ and with harmonious modulations of voice,
their matin song in honour of the Virgin. '
Generally speaking, however, accounts contemporary with the
reformation are wanting, and we must rely on much earlier
evidence, derived from inventories, for such information as the
following, which relates to the chapel of the collegiate church of
Windsor, where,
in addition to the service books there were (temp. Richard II) 34 books on
different subjects (diversarum scientiarum) chained in the church; among
them a Bible and a concordance, and two books of French romance, one of
which was the Liber de Rosel.
This, however, was an exceptionally wealthy foundation.
The work of destruction that went on at the dissolution of the
monasteries has been dealt with in a previous chapter of this work.
Well might Thomas Fuller, as he bemoaned the havoc, more than
a century later, exclaim
What beautiful Bibles, rare Fathers, subtile Schoolmen, useful Historians,-
ancient, middle, modern; what painful Comments/were here amongst them!
What monuments of mathematics all massacred together-seeing every book
with a cross was condemned for Popish,- with circles, for conjuring? Yea,
I may say that then holy Divinity was profaned, Physics hurt, and a trespass,
yea a riot, committed on Law itself. And, more particularly, the History of
former times then and there received a dangerous wound, where of it halts
at this day, and, without hope of a perfect cure, must go a cripple to the
grave 3.
Cathedral libraries suffered far more serious losses during the
civil war than at the reformation. They were less carefully guarded
than those of the monasteries, there being no regulation requiring
their annual inspection; partly owing to the fact that the collec-
tions were mostly small : it is rarely that, prior to the fifteenth
century, we find evidences of their being catalogued; and, even
1 Victoria County History of Berkshire, 11, p. 109.
? In allusion, perhaps, to the use of symbols, which mathematicians were beginning
to resort to in their works.