 | A series of talks on the history of the written word 37. Britain 1550-1800. (Contents list) |
The Geneva Bible was produced abroad by William Whittingham and other scholars during Mary's reign, published in London 1560 at expense of Exeter merchant John Bodley (father of Thomas) who received monopoloy for seven years. First English Bible in roman type and to be divided into verses.
John Cawood and Richard Jugge were associated as royal printers for 14 years. Cawood printed over 110 items. Jugg printed more than 450 items, together they printed more than 200 items. Some 50 per cent were proclamations, many now vanished also many Bibles and prayer books so their output and variety were not as large as John Day's. However they were good printers.
John Cawood was a Yorkshireman and was born in 1514. He was apprenticed to John Reynes. In 1554 he was appointed Royal Printer in place of Richard Grafton, who had printed the proclamation of the accession of Jane Gray. He was paid £6/13/4d per annum to print statutes and proclamations. His first proclamation on the 28th of July 1553 was against seditious rumours. He seems to have been a catholic although he printed protestant books under Edward VI and Elizabeth - he was appointed warden of the guild of Jesus founded by Queen Mary.
In 1553 he seems to have acquired the material of Stephen Mierdman, a Dutch printer who fled to England in 1546 accused of printing heretical tracts and who printed much reforming literature in London under his own or fictitious names. He was forced to leave England and 1553, finally settling in Emden. Mierdman's initial letters appear in four books published by Cawood in 1553.
In 1555 "A supplication to the Queen's Majesty" appeared under his imprint. However this was certainly not by him as it contains a vicious satire on the clergy and on the Queen herself.
In 1555 the homilies of Edmund Waller, Bishop of London, use a set of initials by Arnold Nicolai who also worked for Plantin. Some had previously been used in proclamations by Berthelet.
1570. Brant, Sebastian. Stultifera navis. - Second edition. - London: John Cawood, 1570. STC 3456. Shelf: WSL s821/BRA. Translated from the Latin Stultifera navis by Sebastian Brandt with commentaries by Alexander Barclay, priest of Ottery St. Mary in Devon, was acquired by Devon Library services in 1999 with the assistance of a substantial grant by the Kent Kingdon Trust. The series of 116 woodcuts was first used in the edition of 1509 (London: Richard Pynson. STC 3545) and they were reused in this, the second edition of Barclay's translation, published in 1570. They derive from those in the original edition of Brandt's work, printed in Basle by Johann Bergmann in 1494, many of which have been attributed to Dürer. In his translation Barclay introduces a number of comments based on his experiences in Devon, making this the first printed work of Devon literature. A two volume type facsimile was published in Edinburgh by William Patterson in 1874. The first edition states: “This present boke named the Shyp of folys of the worlde was translated i[n] the College of saynt mary Otery in the counte of Deuonshyre: out of Laten, Frenche, and Doche into Englysshe tonge by Alexander Barclay preste: and at that tyme chaplen in the sayde College.”
Alexander Barclay (c1476-1552) was probably born in Scotland. His early life was spent in Croydon and he may have visited France and Italy. He was appointed chaplain of the College of Ottery St. Mary and in about 1511 moved to Ely where he became a monk in the Benedictine monastery, later becoming a Franciscan at Canterbury. After the dissolution of the monasteries he acquired in 1546 the living of Great Baddow, Essex and Wookey, Somerset,obtaining the living of Allhallows Lombard Street, in the city of London in 1552, shortly before his death in Croydon.
Barclay's work is of interest in showing the nature of translation in the period of the Renaissance. Barclay gives Locher's Latin text as well as his own rendering of it. There are frequent interpolations and he often adds separate comments of his own. Some passages also show that he had consulted the French translation of Riviere. Thus not evidence of the influence of German literature on England. In many cases Barclay's text improves the Latin source which itself refines the German original. Differences between the first and second edition show modifications of English spelling during 16th century.
Those in Barclay's edition printed by Pynson are not as detailed as the German originals but more accomplished than those in Watson's translation, printed by De Worde. They were also used for the second edition of Barclay's translation, which appeared in 1570.
Of unprofitable bookes (fo. 1r)When the Stationers' Company was incorporated Cawood was the warden and he became master in 1561, 1562 and 1566. He was a great benefactor to the Company. He died in 1572.
Lo in likewise of bookes I have store
But fewe I reade, and fewer understande,
I folowe not their doctrine nor their lore,
It is ynough to beare a booke in hande:
It were to muche to be in such a bande,
For to be bounde to loke within the booke,
I am content on the fayre covering to looke.
Richard Jugge was educated at Eton and King's College Cambridge. On 4 October 1541 he became free of the Stationers' Company. His shop was at the Bible by the North door of St Paul's. He sold reforming tracts and was very zealous.
In 1551 he was granted a licence to print the New Testament "to avoid errors in translation resulting from foreign printers". His name was now associated with Bibles printed in large black letter enlivened with handsome pictorial initials.
In 1552 appeared the earliest illustrated quarto version of Tindale's New Testament. The price was not more than "20 & 2 pens for every book in papers & and unbounde". It was handsomely printed with 86 competent woodcuts, probably Flemish. However Mary's reign put a stop to Bible printing in English.
The proclamation of the accession of Elizabeth was printed by Jugge and from 1559 he was linked with Cawood as Queen's Printer but as the senior of the two.
The proclamation of the accession of Elizabeth was printed by Jugge and from 1559 he was linked with Cawood as Queen's Printer but as the senior of the two.
The 1559 Act of Uniformity legalised the Book of Common Prayer. To 1572 Cawood and Jugge printed 16 editions, some of them with a wealth of Jugge's fine initials, as many as 398 in an edition of 1564.
In 1568 Jugg was entrusted with the Bishop's Bible, a revision by Archbishop Matthew Parker of the great Bible sponsored by Thomas Cromwell and now in competition with the Calvinist Geneva Bible. Parker obtained the monopoly of this Bible for Jugge and never allowed the Geneva version to appear in England in his lifetime. The first edition was a handsome folio with 143 engravings, woodcuts and maps. The engravings were copies of the Lutheran Bible was published in Frankfurt in 1560 by a group including Sigmund Feyerabend. The woodcuts do not appear in later editions. There was also an unsigned portrait of Elizabeth on the title page. The second folio edition which appeared in 1572, and is known as the Leda Bible from the use of one of the many pictorial initials at the start of the Epistle to the Hebrews. He was censured for this. Although it was a poor translation it replaced the Great Bible and retained its position until the Authorized Version of 1611. In 1571 it was ordered that every bishop should have a copy prominently displayed in his house in the hall or dining room that it might be useful to servants. Though he specialized in Bibles and prayer books, he printed in 1545 the celebrated medical work by Thomas Raynalde The byrth of mankynde, otherwyse named the womans book, the first work on the subject of an obstetrics is to appear in England.
After the death of Cawood in 1572 Jugge was unable to cope with the demand for Bibles and in 1575 after bitter discussion he was forced to relinquish his privileges in most formats to members of the Stationers' Company. His protector Archbishop Parker had died that year. Jugge himself died two years later in 1577.
Richard Tottell (died 1594) was a London printer and influential member of the legal community. He was the son of William Tothill (1500-1557), a wealthy citizen of Exeter, bailiff in 1528, sheriff in 1529, and in 1552. About 1540, Tottel was indentured to William Middleton, a printer of law books in London, and turned over on his death to William Powell who freed him after the term of his indentures ended. Tottel took over the printing house of Henry Smithe at the Sign of the Hand and Star after Smithe’s death in 1550. He ran his business from a shop located at Temple Bar on Fleet Street in London. He was granted a patent for all authorized books dealing with common law in April 1553 for seven years, renewed in 1556 for another seven years and, in 1559, granted to him for life. On receiving its royal charter in 1557, the Stationers' Company of London named him as the 67th member of their charter out of 94. He became warden, upper warden, and master from 1578 to 1584, but due to Tottel's failing health was excluded from their ranks but remained free to attend their meetings whenever he was in London. Tottel’s published works mainly include law documents as he was the sole authorised publisher. Rastell, William. A collection of all the statutes, from the beginning of Magna Charta unto this present year of our Lord God 1568. - London : In aedibus Ricardi Totelli, 1568. STC 9309. - Provenance: Exeter Muniment Room. Lacks titlepage. - Copies: d1568/RAS. Another copy, Provenance: W. A. Gay. Lacks titlepage. Identified by British Museum Library 1938. Shelf: o1568/RAS.
However, he did publish a variety of other books ranging from literary works to books on animal husbandry: A hundreth good points of husbandry (1557). The book that gained him a lasting place in history is his publication and editing of Songes and sonettes, also known as Tottel's miscellany, first edition (1557), second edition (31 July 1557), third edition (1558), fourth edition (1565), fifth edition (1567), and sixth edition (1574). He died in early July 1593 after suffering almost a decade of infirmity brought on by old age. As the sole owner of the printing patent for law books in the Kingdom of Queen Elizabeth a huge legal battle ensued upon his decease. Eventually the patent was dissolved and the rights to printing such volumes were free to any publisher. He obtained many of Grafton's best woodcut borders, probably through marrying his sister. He retired from London some years before died in Wales in 1593.
John Day was one of the best and most enterprising of 16th century printers. He was born in 1522 in Dunwich, a town now vanished into the sea. He was apprenticed to Thomas Raynalde. In 1546 he became a partner of William Seres who was also just beginning his career, at first at Snow Hill, with a small shop in Cheapside. They issued several theological texts in two indifferent black letter and one poor Roman capital founts. The workmanship was poor, the lettering uneven, and they often lacked pagination. It is thought that the works were printed for him, some possibly by Stephen Mierdman and the Folio Bible of 1549 was probably produced by a Flemish printer.
Around 1549 to 1551 the partnership was dissolved and Day moved to Aldersgate.
During the reign of Mary he was imprisoned in the Tower "for printing of naughty books". He possibly spent time abroad during Mary's reign. In 1556 he was admitted to the livery of the Stationers' Company and his name appears on the charter in 1557. He became an important printer on the accession of Elizabeth.
In 1559 appeared the Cosmographical glass by William Cunningham, one of the finest pieces of English printing to that date, according to Updike. The text is in a handsome italic, probably cut by François Guyot. The book contains diagrams, maps, a plan of Norwich (the author's home), a portrait of the author and has set of large initials, some probably cut by John Croissant who also worked for Thielman Kerver and possibly Plantin.
During the reign of Mary he was imprisoned in the Tower "for printing of naughty books". He possibly spent time abroad during Mary's reign. In 1556 he was admitted to the livery of the Stationers' Company and his name appears on the charter in 1557. He became an important printer on the accession of Elizabeth.
In 1559 appeared the Cosmographical glass by William Cunningham, one of the finest pieces of English printing to that date, according to Updike. The text is in a handsome italic, probably cut by François Guyot. The book contains diagrams, maps, a plan of Norwich (the author's home), a portrait of the author and has set of large initials, some probably cut by John Croissant who also worked for Thielman Kerver and possibly Plantin.
In 1563 he printed John Foxe's Acts and monuments of these latter and perilous dayss better known as Foxe's book of martyrs. This is an example of printing on an ambitious scale. He had taken a number of skilled refugees into his employment and John Foxe lived with him at Aldersgate in 1564 and worked at his house one day in the for some time longer. He had been corrector for Oporinus and in 1559 had produced a Latin book of martyrs at his press, where Day first met him. The work appeared as a 2008 page folio in double columns in a small black letter fount supplemented by various sizes of roman and italic. There were more than 50 crude but vigorous woodcuts. It was reprinted in 1517 and the outlay clearly paid off. Day's epitaph reads: "Day spent in print his wealth / But God with gain restored his wealth again / and gave to him as he gave to the poor". This last is a reference to the fact that a proclamation ordered that parish churches all had to provide a copy of the book.
In this period he also printed sermons by Calvin, Latimer and Bullinger, also in 1569 A book of Christian prayers often called the Queen Elizabeth prayer book.This was modelled on the book of hours. He obtained the patronage of Archbishop Parker and cut several founts of type for him. He was the first English printer who was definitely his own letter founder, and 1566 he cut the first Anglo Saxon font. This was first used in 1567 for A testament of antiquitie, a homily by Abbot Aelfric edited by Archbishop Parker. About the same time the type was lent to Jugge, another favourite of Parker, for A defence of priests' marriage. Parker's aim in going back to early sources was to prove that "religion presently professed ... is no reformation of things lately begun, which were not before, but rather a reduction of the church to the pristine state". The types were re-used by Day several times from 1567 to 1574. Though some feel that Day's roman letters are Flemish in origin and that the Anglo-Saxon runic types were cut by a journeyman working for Day, the accuracy and regularity of the font are a credit to the cutter.
In 1572 appared another work by Parker: De antiquitate ecclesiae Britanniae, set in Granjon italic, printed in the Archbishop's private press in Lambeth Palace and so thought to be the first English private press book. It was produced in an edition of fifty copies.
In 1572 appared another work by Parker: De antiquitate ecclesiae Britanniae, set in Granjon italic, printed in the Archbishop's private press in Lambeth Palace and so thought to be the first English private press book. It was produced in an edition of fifty copies.
In 1578 Day used a fount of Greek types for a work by Alexander Nowell, the Dean of St Paul's, Christianae pietatis prima institutio, a handsome type copied from the Grecs du Roi.
In 1570 appeared the first English translation of Euclid, a folio in roman and italic types. It includes a folding table displaying a wide range of types.
In 1570 appeared the first English translation of Euclid, a folio in roman and italic types. It includes a folding table displaying a wide range of types.
Roger Ascham's work The schoolmaster appeared in 1570. Ascham was tutor to Queen Elizabeth and the work was intended to teach children to understand, speak and write the Latin tongue. A quarto volume, it was printed in a textura type with English quotations in roman and Latin quotations in italic.
Day had five founts of music type, mainly used for printing metrical psalters but also in 1571 Thomas Whythorne's Songs for three, four and five voices.
Day had five founts of music type, mainly used for printing metrical psalters but also in 1571 Thomas Whythorne's Songs for three, four and five voices.
Day held lucrative privileges: for the psalms in metre, ABC, and catechism, and these were the cause of discontent among poorer Stationers. In 1580 he was master of the Stationers Company.
He had several printer's devices. One was used on Thomas Becons works which appeared in three volumes between 1560 and 1564. In this he used the initials of the Cosmographical glass and the title-pages to each volume bore in the bottom panel of an elaborate border the device of a sleeprr awakened and the motto "Awake for it is day". A second device apears in Reformatio legum ecclesiasticarum (1571). It shows two hands holding a slab on which was a crucible containing a heart surrounded by flames. The third device is a portrait of himself aged 40 (1562) and is surrounded by the motto "Life is death and death is life". This was still in use in 1570 when it appeared in his publication of Euclid's Geometry.
Day had premises over Aldersgate. He died in 1584 in Essex after an active life; he was twice married and 13 children by each wife yet he was still able to awake his apprentices each day by shouting out his motto! He was the best printer of his time, the first English founder to cut italic and roman types to the same size so that they could be used together.
Reyner Wolfe was the most able printer after Day and his works approach Day's at their finest. He was an alien, possibly associated with Johann Wolf in Frankfurt and used identical types early on. He arrived in England about 1513 and obtained letters of denization in 1533. In the 1530s he had a booksellers shop in saint Paul's Churchyard at the sign of the Brazen Serpent, which became one of his devices. In 1542 he began to print, including works by the antiquary Leland, who died in Wolfe's house. His device was of children knocking apples from a tree With the motto "Caritas".
In 1543 he began to print in Greek. The homilies of Saint Chrysostom with fine initials of Italian influence. Wolfe was the first in England to build up an extensive stock of Greek type, and in 1547 was granted a patent for life as "King's typographer and bookseller in Latin Greek and Hebrew", also including grammars.
In 1549 he had built a house in saint Paul's charnel yards - reportedly 1000 cartloads of bones had to be removed. He was admitted to the Stationers' Company in 1536 and was master in 1560, 1564, 1567 and 1572. A learned man, he was a friend of Cromwell and Cranmer. He was little heard of in Mary's reign, but Elizabeth renewed his patents and befriended him, like Day with Archbishop Parker. He died in 1573, having gathered materials for a universal history which was unpublished but was the basis of Holinshed's Chronicles. The papers were bequeathed to Holinshed by his widow on her death.
Henry Bynneman was active from 1566 to 1583 and was also a friend of Archbishop Parker. He was a good printer of good literature although many of his editions are now missing. He obtained a privilege for dictionaries and chronicles which was not lucrative as it needed considerable outlay, but it enabled him to print Holinshed's Chronicles in 1577. Shakespeare used the enlarged edition printed by Henry Denham in 1587. His inventory shows that he owned three presses and a large stock of type, and was the first in England to use civilité type, in 1576.
Henry Denham practised from 1560 onwards. He had a stock of good type in all sizes and fine initial letters. He had a fondness for woodcut borders with a very delicate lacework frame. In 1567 he printed the Bible in Welsh under patent for Humphrey Tory. His linguistic interests also stretched to orthography in 1580 with William Bullokar's book for the amendment of typography, and into lexicography with John Baret's An Alvearie, or Triple Dictionarie in English, Latin, and French in 1573.Greek was added in the 1580 edition.
Thomas Vautrollier a was a Huguenot from Troyes and a brother of the Stationers' Company. He was an agent for the Antwerp printer Plantin in 1567 and 1568. In 1569 A Booke Containing Divers Sortes of Hands, the work of a French Huguenot immigrant writing master, Jean de Beauchesne, the first English writing book. Although an alien, he was able to procure valuable privileges. He made much money from French school books. He had fine types cut by the French including Garamond and Granjon. For some time he also printed in Edinburgh.
Thomas East was one of the best known Elizabethan music publishers. He was free of the Stationers'Company in 1565. Popular works included The Voiage and trauayle of syr Iohn Maundeuile, Knight in 1568 with striking woodcut illustrations of mythical men, women and beasts encountered on the journey, and also several editions of John Lyly' sEuphues and his England. Until 1587 he published a wide range of literature.
In 1588 he began to specialise in music. William Byrd gave him the music patent granted to himself and Thomas Tallis in 1575 - Tallis had died in 1585. Music type imported from Nuremburg, but not used since 1575 when Tallis's Cantiones sacrae had been printed, was transferred to East's premises.
In 1588 he printed Byrd's Psalmes, sonets, & songs of sadnes and pietie, and it in 1589 Byrd's Songs of sundrie natures. He published most of the masterpieces of the English madrigalists including John Dowland and Thomas Morley. He had died by 1609. In that year his copies were transferred to Thomas Snodham, who adopted the alias of East as a trademark.
Christopher Barker was an outstanding figure in the late Elizabethan era. He was a shrewd businessman, acquiring the Bible patents. Born in 1529 he was a member of the Drapers' Company. He had powerful friends at court including Walsingham, the Secretary of State. In 1579 was the first mention of Barker as a publisher; he entered on the Stationers' Company register "Certain prayers of my Lady Tyrwhitt". Early publications were printed for him by Henry Middleton and it was published in 1579 with the title Morning and Euening prayer, with diuers Psalmes Himnes and Meditations. Made by the Lady Elizabeth Tirwit. B.L.. The title page bears a punning device, a man stripping bark off a tree with the motto "A barker if you will, in name but not in skill". It was a book of the meditations of Elizabeth Tyrwhitt, a lady in waiting of Katherine Parr,and governess,of,Princess Elizabeth. In 1576 he was at the sign of the Tiger's Head in saint Paul's Churchyard a sign that was adopted as his device, the crest of walsingham to whom many of his early books were dedicated.
In 1576 he printed an edition of the Geneva Bible, having obtained a privilege which had been unused by John Bodley since it was granted in 1561. In 1575 Jugge had lost the monopoly for most types of Bible and leading stationers banded against the newcomer Barker by printing the folio edition of the Bishops' Bible. Barker brought out four editions of the Geneva Bible in 1576 and 1577. It was excellently printed in roman instead of the usual black better. Walsingham's crest was at the end of the 1576 edition. The Geneva Bible was more popular than the Bishops' Bible. Between 1576 (after the death of Archbishop Parker in 1575) and 1600 more than fifty editions were published by Barker or his assigns.
In August 1577 he signed the Stationers' Company petition against privileges but in September 1577 he obtained a patent as royal printer for statutes, bills, acts of parliament, proclamations, injunctions, Bibles, New Testaments, service books and all other volumes ordered to be printed by the Queen for Parliament. In 1582 as Upper Warden of the Stationers'Company he drew up for Lord Burghley a detailed report on existing privileges. At that time there was a strong feeling against privileges, especially the growing practice of granting for life instead of for a limited period, and the disappearance of all popular lines. In 1577 some stationers had drawn up a petition as a "complaint that the privileges lately granted by Her Majesty hath and will be the overthrow of the stationers within the city.
John Wolfe led in pirating works: "he would print all their books if he lacked work [...] it was lawful for all men to print lawful books, what commandments soever Her Majesty gave to the contrary". He was bought off in 1583 by being translated from the Fishmongers' to the Stationers' Company and given a share in Day's patents.
Barker aimed to show that nobody made money from Monopolies. He complained that rival printers had a share in his own monopoly of service books, being able to print the popular parts, for example the psalms, the litany, and the primer had been given to Seres and said that Tottel's benefit from law books was waning. Bynneman from his patent for dictionaries and Chronicles was "in more danger of being undone than likely to gain". Though it would seem Barker was not in favour of privileges this was not the case. He knew which side his bread was buttered,and he would even give some of the less popular lines if it were beneficial to the common wealth, but he believed the interests of journeymen were better served by privileges.
His business continued to thrive though from 1588 it was mainly conducted through deputies. He lived in Bacon House Noble Street, Aldersgate the quarter of the nobility. He also had a country house at Datchet to which he retired in 1588 and died in 1599. He had exercised his patent well; between 1575 and 1599 he roduced someseventy editions ofthe scriptures, accurate and well-produced. He was succeeded as royal printer by his son Robert Barker.
English printing in the 17th century showed a great decline, especially in the first half of the century. It reached a very low level compared with the Netherlands and France. No example of English printing before 1702 can be found in Morison's Five centuries of fine printing. Whereas earlier printers had type used types specifically cast for them, later printers used hired or purchased matrices and cast for themselves; they were inexpert and their art suffered. There were also restrictions placed on printing of books because of religious and political strife, monopolies deprived the trade of competition, and hatred of the foreigner deprived the trade of external stimulus.
The English Stock in 1603 was formed by James I recalling patents forprimers, psalters,almanacs and prognostications, which concentrated monopolies into the hands of the Stationers' Company, or of those who could afford shares in the £9,000 capital. Popular lines did well and paid high dividends and the Company purchased other profitable copies coming on the market. By 1620 the following items were in the English Stock: 58 law books, 32 schoolbooks, five ABC's and primers, psalms, almanacs, calendars, 13 prayer books and eight General Works. There was also the Bible stock, sharing printing with the King's printer.
The King's printers were a triumvirate at the start of the century. John bill obtained a share in the patents by purchase, John Norton held the privilege for Latin Greek and Hebrew and Robert Barker son of Christopher had a share in the English stock beside owning the profitable monopoly of the King's printer.
Barker's most important undertaking was the Authorized Version of the Bible in 1611. This had the text in the large black letter with the chapter Headings and marginal references in Roman and alternative readings in italic. There were three folio issues and a quarto edition in roman type in 1612. He received help from John and Bonham Norton and John Bill. Barker was not a fine businessmen; in 1617 he assigned his patent to Bonham Norton to raise money. Despite his attempts to regain it, Norton and Bill were King's printers on the accession of Charles I. Robert Barker III, King's Printer with John Bill, travelled around the country during the Civil War, arriving in Exeter from Bristol in 1645. At the Restoration Christopher Barker III and John Bill II became King's printers and remained so until 1675.
Besides the English Stock and the King's printers much of outside printing was in the hands of a few. Printing was almost uniformly slovenly. The psalms in metre went through many editions on wretched paper covered sparsely with ink. The works of Donne, Herrick, and Marvel all came out in poor editions,as did the works of Shakespeare. These had appeared separately in quarto editions from 1593 with various printers but not under the control of Shakespeare. Some were probably obtained legitimately from the company of players, others possibly taken in shorthand - Heywood complains of this practice in his prologue to the play Queen Elizabeth published surreptitiously in 1605. Other copies may have been sold by impoverished actors.
The first folio edition of Shakespeare's plays was gathered in 1623, containing 26 plays. The printers mentioned in the title page were Isaac Jaggard and Edward Blount (the latter a bookseller who joined the venture later). Others also involved were mentioned at the end: J. Smithweeke and W. Apsley. Isaac's father William Jaggard had entered the book in the Stationers' register but had lost his sight, so Isaac took over control. He had been admitted the Stationers' Company at the relatively early age of 18.
With the accession of Charles I further restrictions and persecution culminated in the 1637 Star Chamber decree, which kept the number of printers down to twenty, only those who had been Master or Upper Warden of the Stationers' Company were allowed three presses. All books had to be licensed and registered and bear the names of the printers. In 1643 the Star Chamber was abolished, and the Company was powerless to stop much of the illegal printing without licence or regulation.
In 1643 the Company was reinvested with the powers of search. Milton objected and published anonymously The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce: Restor'd to the Good of Both Sexes, From the Bondage of Canon Law without licence or entry and, when the Stationers' Company took up the matter in Parliament, he wrote Areopagitica, or a speech for the liberty of unlicensed printing. This came out in 1644,again with no imprint. He saw behind the enactments "the fraud of some or all patentees and monopolisers in the trade of bookselling".
The 1649 Act imposed additional fines to people trafficking in seditious books but the Civil War had produced a flood of often poorly printed vituperative tracts and the number of printers rose from 20 to 60 to cope with the demand. They were printed on shoddy paper with battered woodblocks and a slipshod style but are invaluable to the historian. Many tracts of this period were collected by the bookseller George Thomason.From 3 November 1640 to 23 April 1661 he collected all he could, 22,255 items in all, the date of receipt and price paid meticulously noted. The collection is one of the treasures of the British library.
In 1649 Dugard printed the first edition of Eikon basilike, the image of kingship, Charles I's defence of kingly divinity. The manuscript was received on 23 December 1648, and every attempt was made to publish it before his execution. Is possible that if the work had been published earlier it may have saved the King's life. Fifty editions were published in 1649, as was Milton's reply Eikonoklastes, image breaker.
Printers had to tread warily. In 1634 Michael Sparke, already in conflict with the Church over the publication of unlicensed books, had to pay a fine of £500 and stand in the pillory for publishing William Prynne's Histriomastix: The Player's Scourge, or Actor's Tragedy. A passage in it was construed as casting aspersions on the Queen. The book was publicly burned by the common hangman and Sparke got off lightly; the author lost both his ears in the pillory. In 1649 Dugard was again in trouble for printing the work ofthe French scholar Salmasius Defensio Regia pro Carolo I. He was imprisoned at Newgate and his plant confiscated. But peace was made with Parliament and he was allowed to print it provided he worked for the party in power and published among other things the scathing reply entitled Pro populo Anglicano defensio (A Defense of the People of England) by John Milton.
Printing in the Commonwealth was less in volume than during the Civil War but included Walton's Compleat angler and Hobbes Leviathan.
The Restoration brought the Licensing Act of 1662, largely re-enacting the 1637 Decree. It also introduced Sir Roger L'Estrange, "surveyor of imprimery and printing presses". He took over the power of search fromthe Stationers' Company. In 1663 he published Considerations and proposals in order to the regulation of the press. He saw the danger in unlicensed printing and denounced the Stationers' Company as being deliberately ineffectual in regulating the press for its own interests. He realised that the publishers now had the upper hand: "they would subject to the printers to be absolutely their slaves". Printers at this date petitioned in vain for separate incorporation. The Act was enforced severely; In 1663 the printer John Twyn was condemned to be hung drawn and quartered for printing the scandalous book aimed at overthrowing the government and his head was placedon a Ludgate spike. Three other printers were condemned to stand in the pillory. However L'Estrange soon lost favour and his position.
The plague of 1665 carried off eighty masters and men of the trade and the Great Fire in 1666 destroyed the premises of all printers around saint Paul's. Joseph Kyrton toldPepys that £150,000 worth of books were destroyed also the stocks at the hall of the Stationers' Company.
Music publishing.
John Playford (1623?-1693?), a bookseller of the Inner Temple, was the leading figure in music publishing in the later 17th century. His most famous work the English dancing master first appeared in 1651, with 18 editions by 1728. It is a valuable record of 17th century popular tunes. Playford was a close friend of Samuel Pepys who bought the Musical companion from him in 1667. Works were printed for him at first by Thomas Harper and later by William Goodbid. He usually used moveable types but sometimes copperplate engraving for example for Music's handmaid in 1678. He was succeeded by his son Henry Playford (1657?-1710?) who employed his cousin John Playford II to print his works.
Chap books appeared in greater numbers in the mid 17th century. They preserved the woodcut where better books use engravings. Their origins were in the obscure presses that had issued tracts in the Civil War and Commonwealth needing to find other work after the Restoration. They turned to popular stories, legends, jests or sensational items. Popular lines such as the history of Dick Whittington were hawked around by chapmen. They often bore the imprint "Printed for the Company of Flying Stationers". There was a large sale in markets and fairs, especially in the north of England. Newcastle upon Tyne was a large centre. One of the biggest printers there, John white, had an immense stock of old woodcuts inherited from his father who had been a printer in York, some undoubtedly battered remnants of cuts of contemporaries of Pynson in the early 16th century. He set up his press in Newcastle in 1708. Chapbooks were printed at first on a single sheet of poor paper, folded to make a stitched book of eight pages. Later they were extended to 24 pages, known in the trade as 24s.
Good printing in the 17th century included one of the four great polyglot Bibles of the 16th and 17th centuries:
Thomas Roycroft was master of the Stationers' Company in 1675 and was entitled to call himself "Royal Printer in Oriental Languages" for his pains in printing Brian Walton's Biblia sacra polyglotta published in six volumes from 1653 to 1657 - four years was remarkably quick for such an undertaking. It was the second book in England to be published by subscription, the first having been an 11 language dictionary in 1617. It shows 17th century printing at its best. The arrangement of the different versions was better than in previous editions. Exotic founts: Hebrew, Latin, Greek, Aramaic, Syriac, Samaritan,Ethiopic, Persian, were probably supplied by the four typefounders allowed under the Star Chamber decree. Ifso, it represents a landmark in English letterfounding, the first time a work of importance had printed in this country other than in Latin and Greek characters. Though reckoned the most accurate of the four polyglot Bibles, the task of printing had been transferred from James Flesher to Thomas Roycroft after the prospectus of 1652 had been unfavourably received.
Richard Hodgkinson printed Sir William Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicanum from 1655, also a fine example of printing.
Oxford saved English printing from utter disgrace and paved the way for the 18th century.
From 1520 to 1585 there was no printing in Oxford. It was re-established by the Earl of Leicester, who was Chancellor of the University from 1564 to 1588. In 1585 Joseph Barnes, an Oxford bookseller, was lent £100 by a committee of Convocation. In the next year the Star Chamber decree allowed one printer in Oxford. To 1617 Barnes was the sole printer to the University. He mostly printed sermons and theological treatises, over 300 in all. He used Greek type from 1586 and Hebrew from 1596.
In 1632 Archbishop Laud, Chancellor from 1630 to 1641 obtained letters patent for printing - Cambridge had had these from 1534. These are allowed three printers each with two presses and two apprentices. In 1636 the charter was confirmed and extended to cover "all manner of books", but when they printed almanacs the Stationers' Company objected. Eventually it was agreed at the University would waive his rights to Bibles almanacs and grammars on payment of £200 per annum. These restrictions were only lifted in 1672. Works printed include Robert Burton's Anatomy of melancholy in 1621, and Bacon's Advancement of learning in 1630.
In 1634 the Laudian statutes include in the section on printing: "these mechanick printers, being mostly on the lookout for the acquisition of money by the output of their energy, do give far too little care to fine printing, therefore be it enacted by the present statue there be appointed as scholar printer [...] a man of sound instruction in Greek and Latin and well versed in linguistic studies: whose duty shall be to superintend the compositors and other workers [...] and generally to take scrupulous care to secure the finish and elegance of every work [...]".
From 1642 to 1646 Charles I used Oxford had as his headquarters and the University printers Leonard Lichfield and Henry Hall issued royalist tracts, proclamations and other official items. They were not allowed to print after Oxford fell to Cromwell.
In 1647 the parliamentary General Sir Thomas Fairfax introduced two ill-equipped printers, John Harris and Henry Hills.
In 1660 Dr John Fell (a man who could be difficult to get on with and was commemorated by the poem "I do not love thee, Dr Fell, ...) was made Dean of Christ Church as recompense for bearing arms of the King in the garrison of Oxford. He remained Dean until his death in 1686. He was also King's Chaplain, Bishop of Oxford from 1675 to 1686 and Vice-chancellor of the University from 1666 onwards. He was one of the delegates of the press and by his munificence helped set up the learned press on Laud's foundations.
In 1667 he gave the University a type foundry complete with moulds, punches and matrices. Founts of roman, italic, Saxon and gothic of Dutch origin were acquired. He secured the services of Peter Walpergen from 1676 after another punchcutter had proved unsatisfactory. He also encouraged the setting up of the paper mill at Wolvercote where paper production finished as recently as 1997. The buildings were demolished in 2004 and the site is now a housing estate.
From 1669 the press was housed in the new Sheldonian Theatre, primarily intended the university ceremonies. Christopher wren was the architect. In 1671 Fell became head of the partnership of four which undertook management of the University press from 1672 to 1690, spending a great deal of his fortune on improving it.
In 1672 he reclaimed the Bible privilege from the stationers and the first Bible was printed in the theatre in 1674 and 1675. In 1677 Francis Junius, a scholarly benefactor, gave a fine collection of Runic, Gothic, Saxon, Icelandic, Danish, Swedich, roman and italic types. In 1688,after Fell's death the heavy press began to damage the building. The press was divided into two sections, the Bible Press moving to Saint Aldate's and the learned press moving into Tom Pun's house a few doors away. In 1693 the press published a specimen of the several sorts of letter given to the university by Dr. John Fell. It is a worthy tribute to his munificence; the range of types of Oxford University Press was unequalled at that time anywhere else in England.
This page last updated 16 October 2020
