My thanks are due for permission to have facsimiles made from books in their charge to the Warden and Fellows of New College, Oxford, the Master and Fellows of Magdalene College, Cambridge, and to the authorities of the British Museum and the Cambridge University Library. E. G. D. _October 1911._ LIST OF PLATES 1. TITLE-PAGE OF THE ANTONIUS SIRECTUS, PRINTED FOR H. JACOBI _to face_ p. 26 From the unique copy in the Library of New College, Oxford. 2. COLOPHON AND DEVICES FROM WHITINTON’S GRAMMAR, PRINTED AT YORK BY URSYN MYLNER IN 1516 _to face_ p. 57 From the unique copy in the British Museum. 3. TITLE-PAGE OF FISHER’S SERMON, PRINTED AT CAMBRIDGE BY JOHN SIBERCH IN 1522 _to face_ p. 82 From the copy in the Library of Magdalene College, Cambridge. 4. TITLE-PAGE OF THE EXHORTATION TO THE SICK, PRINTED AT IPSWICH BY JOHN OSWEN IN 1548 _to face_ p. 110 From the copy in the Sandars Collection, University Library, Cambridge. LECTURE I. OXFORD. In the two series of lectures that I had the pleasure of delivering in Cambridge as Sandars Reader in 1899 and 1904, I dealt with the printers, stationers, and bookbinders of Westminster and London from 1476 to 1535, the period from the introduction of printing into England by William Caxton to the death of his successor, Wynkyn de Worde. In the present series I propose to turn to the provincial towns and trace the history of the printers, stationers, and bookbinders who worked in them from 1478, when printing was introduced into Oxford, up to 1557. I have extended the period to 1557, because in that year a charter was granted to the re-formed Company of Stationers, and in this charter was one very important clause, “Moreover we will, grant, ordain, and constitute for ourselves, and the successors of our foresaid queen, that no person within this our kingdom of England, or dominions thereof, either by himself, or by his journeymen, servants, or by any other person, shall practise or exercise the art or mystery of printing, or stamping any book, or any thing to be sold, or to be bargained for within this our kingdom of England, or the dominions thereof, unless the same person is, or shall be, one of the society of the foresaid mystery, or art of a stationer of the city aforesaid, at the time of his foresaid printing or stamping, or has for that purpose obtained our licence, or the licence of the heirs and successors of our foresaid queen.” The effect of this enactment was virtually to put an end to all provincial printing, and with the exception of a few Dutch books, printed under a special privilege at Norwich between 1566 and 1579, and a doubtful York book of 1579, no printing was done outside London until 1584-5, when the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford once more started their presses.