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
Mychell printed also an edition of Stanbridge’s _Accidence_, of
Lidgate’s _Churl and Bird_, and of Robert Saltwood’s _Comparison
between four birds_. Saltwood was keeper of the chapel of the Virgin
Mary at Canterbury when on December 4, 1539, he signed the surrender.
His name is not found after this nor does he appear in the list of
pensioners. He seems to have taken an interest in poetry, and it was
for him that the _Boccus and Sydracke_ was printed, so perhaps we may
trace to his instigation the separate works of Lidgate which Mychell
printed. In the colophon to his own book Saltwood is described only as
monk, with no mention of Canterbury, and the place of printing is not
stated, so that it may have been issued by Mychell at London.
Mary’s succession seems to have caused the cessation of the press,
and certainly the class of theological works, which had been its main
output, was not such as would be received with favour under the changed
conditions.
Mychell, however, still remained at Canterbury, though his press was
idle. The only piece of printing that can be assigned to him after
Mary’s accession is a semi-official tract of four leaves. _Articles
to be enquyred in thordinary visitacion of the most reverende father
in God, the Lorde Cardinall Pooles grace Archebyshop of Caunterbury
wythin hys Dioces of Cantorbury. In the yeare of our Lorde God M. V.
C. Lvi._ Pole was only consecrated Archbishop in March 1556, so that
the pamphlet must have been printed after that date. No perfect copy
is known, but the first and last leaves, which belonged to Herbert and
which he described in his _Typographical Antiquities_, are now in the
Douce Collection in the Bodleian. The pamphlet is unique in another
respect, as it is the only piece of provincial printing in England
issued during Mary’s reign.
Ames in his _History of Printing_, published in 1749, mentions two
books printed for Martin Coffin, a stationer living at Exeter. The
first, an edition of Stanbridge’s _Vocabula_, was printed at Rouen
by Lawrence Hostingue and Jamet Loys. This would put the date about
1505 when these two printers were in partnership and before 1508 when
Hostingue left Rouen.
The other book is an edition of _Catho cum commento_, also printed
at Rouen by Richard Goupil who was at work about 1510. This is also
mentioned in Bagford’s notes. The first of these books was sold in
Thomas Rawlinson’s sale where Ames probably saw it, and the second may
perhaps have been bound up with it, but since that sale in 1727 all
traces of them have disappeared.
Martin Coffin remained some time longer in England, for we find him
taking out letters of denization in the year 1524 on April 28, and in
these he is described as a bookbinder.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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