A History of the Cambridge University Press, 1521-1921 — John Shaqi
A History of the Cambridge University Press, 1521-1921Roberts, S. C. (Sydney Castle)
History
A History of the Cambridge University Press, 1521-1921
Roberts, S. C. (Sydney Castle)
Cambridge University Press -- Bibliography; Cambridge University Press -- History
Another stationer and bookbinder of the period is Nicholas
Spierinck (Speryng), whose name first appears in _Grace Book B_
under the date 1505-6. Little is known of him as a stationer. He
was a Dutchman by birth and, like Garrett Godfrey, was a friend of
Erasmus and a churchwarden of Great St Mary's. His will, of which
he appointed Thomas Wendy, the royal physician, as supervisor,
shows him to have been a man of property, since he bequeathed to
Nycholas Spyrynke, his "sonnes sonne," the "howse of the Crosse
Keyes"--a brewery in Magdalene Street[12]; of his work as a binder
nearly fifty examples remain.
The third of the Cambridge stationers of this period whom we must
consider is Segar Nicholson. He also came from Holland, and, as Mr
G. J. Gray remarks, affords an early example of a member of the
university engaging in business, being a pensioner of Gonville Hall
from 1520 to 1523. His career has more varied features than those
of his fellow-stationers.
In 1529 he was charged with holding Protestant views and further
with the unlawful possession of Luther's books and other heretical
works. Now Luther's books had been publicly burnt in Cambridge
eight years before and the ceremony had, as we have seen, been the
occasion of a notable sermon by Bishop Fisher. About this time,
however, there had grown up a small society of members of the
university who were sympathetic towards Lutheran doctrine. They met
in secret in the White Horse inn, which stood where are now the
back buildings of the Bull Hotel--a place chosen so that members
might enter unobserved by the back door and nicknamed 'Germany' by
the orthodox[13]. Among the heretics who frequented these meetings
was Segar Nicholson.
Foxe, in his _Acts and Monuments_, gives a sad account of the
treatment of Nicholson: "The handling of this man," he says, "was
too too cruel." After his release from prison, Nicholson remained
a stationer till the age of 60, when he was ordained deacon by the
Bishop of London.
In the meantime the university had taken steps to ensure the
suppression of heretical books. In 1529 a petition was presented to
Cardinal Wolsey, begging:
that for the suppression of error, there should be three
booksellers allowed in Cambridge by the King, who should be sworn
not to bring in or sell any book which had not first been approved
of by the censor of books in the University, that such booksellers
should be men of reputation and gravity, and foreigners, (so it
should be best for the prizing of books,) and that they might have
the privilege to buy books of foreign merchants[14].
It was, no doubt, as a result of this petition that five years
later Cambridge printing was formally established by royal charter
on 20 July, 1534, when Henry VIII by letters patent gave licence to
the Chancellor, masters, and scholars
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