The English provincial printers, stationers and bookbinders to 1557Duff, E. Gordon (Edward Gordon)
History
The English provincial printers, stationers and bookbinders to 1557
Duff, E. Gordon (Edward Gordon)
Book industries and trade -- Great Britain; Printing -- Great Britain -- History
After printing these two small tracts Mylner moved to a new workshop.
In the lawsuit of 1511 he was spoken of as living in the parish of
St Michael le Belfry, and the two tracts were printed “in cimiterio
ministerii Sancti Petri,” but both addresses probably refer to the same
place, as the church of St Michael’s le Belfry stands alongside the
minster on the south side. A small passage adjoining this church, and
forming the south entrance to the minster close, was formerly known as
Bookbinders Alley.
[Illustration: COLOPHON AND DEVICES FROM WHITINTON’S GRAMMAR, PRINTED
AT YORK BY URSYN MYLNER IN 1516. ]
Mylner moved to Blake Street in the parish of St Helen. It seems
probable that his earlier shop, within the precincts of the minster,
would be in the liberties, and outside the jurisdiction of the
municipal authorities, but Blake Street was another matter, and he
would not be allowed to carry on his business as a printer without
having been admitted to the freedom of the city. In 1515-16, therefore,
we find the name Ursyn Mylner, prynter, entered on the roll of freemen.
He did not obtain his freedom by patrimony, so that he had probably
served his full term of apprenticeship.
In December 1516 he issued a _Grammar_ of Whitinton. It is a small
quarto of twenty-four leaves and only one copy is known. It was sold
in Thomas Rawlinson’s sale in 1727 for one shilling, being bought by
his brother Richard, and at the latter’s sale it was bought by M. C.
Tutet; it is now in the British Museum. On the title-page is a woodcut
of a schoolmaster with three pupils seated on a bench before him. This
woodcut originally belonged to Govaert van Ghemen, who used it at Gouda
in an _Opusculum grammaticale_ printed there in 1486. About 1490, when
he moved to Copenhagen, he parted with some of his material, and this
cut, with a fount of type and some woodcut initials, passed into the
hands of Wynkyn de Worde, who used it in several grammars issued about
1500. At the end of the book, below the colophon, is the printer’s
device. This consists of a shield hanging from a tree supported by a
bear, an allusion to the name Ursyn, and an ass. The shield is divided
per pale, and bears on the one half a windmill, on the other a sun. The
mill is obviously for Mylner, but what the sun is for is not clear. We
see that Mylner had some connexion with Wynkyn de Worde, whose sign was
the sun; and it is perhaps just possible that this might refer to some
trade partnership between the two men. Below the device is an oblong
cut containing a ribbon in which the name Ursin Mylner is printed in
full. In the centre is his trade-mark.
In this same year we find him mentioned as a bookbinder, entered in the
accounts of the minster as paid for binding books for the choir.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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