About a year after Caxton had established himself at the Red Pale, and had issued the _Dictes or Sayengis_, and two years before the city of London had attained to the dignity of a printing-press, typography began to be practised at Oxford, but by whom is not known, though very possibly by Theodore Rood of Cologne. The first Oxford book was the _Exposicio in Simbolum Apostolorum_ of St Jerome, a work which happens to be dated 1468, and has thereby led some to assign to Oxford the credit of having printed the first book in this country. But that date is now acknowledged to be a printer's error for 1478. A similar misprint led to a similar error as to the first book printed in Venice. The _Decor Puellarum_, executed by Nicolas Jenson, purports to have appeared in 1461, and thus was at one time supposed to be the first book printed in Venice, but the date is now recognised as a misprint for 1471, which leaves John of Spires the first Venetian printer and his _Epistolæ familiares_ of Cicero, 1469, the first Venetian printed book. Cambridge was more than forty years later than Oxford in providing herself with a printing-press. In the same year that London began to print appeared the first books from the press at the Abbey of St Albans, namely, _Augustini Dacti elegancie_, and the _Nova Rhetorica_ of Saona. As both were printed in 1480 it is uncertain which is the earlier. This press was probably started in 1479, but of the printer nothing is known, except that when Wynkyn de Worde reprinted the _Chronicles of England_ from a copy printed at St Albans, he refers to him as the St Albans "scole mayster." The famous _Bokys of Haukyng and Huntyng, and also of Cootarmuris_, commonly known as the Book of St Albans, written by the accomplished Juliana Berners, prioress of the neighbouring nunnery of Sopwell, was printed at the monastery in 1486, and reprinted ten years later by Wynkyn de Worde. CHAPTER XII EARLY PRINTING IN SCOTLAND Scotland was one of the last of the countries of Europe to appreciate the advantages of typography so far as to possess herself of a printing-press. She was also, as we have pointed out in a previous chapter, the only one, save England, and possibly Holland, to have the art of printing brought to her by one of her own sons and not by a foreigner.