A HISTORY OF HERTFORDSHIRE 



office trimmed up or recast. It is a curious 

 thing that Caxton did actually print this same 

 work in Type 2* between July 1478 and the 

 early part of 1480. 



The second book of the year 1480 was Albertus, 

 Liber M odor urn Significandi, only known from 

 a copy in the Bibliotheque Nationale. It 

 was printed in a third type of Gothic, slightly 

 smaller than that in which the Rethorica was 

 printed, making but ninety mm. to twenty 

 lines, and noticeable from the large number of 

 contractions with which it abounds, and in 

 which respect it somewhat resembles the type 

 of Lettou and Machlinia, although it was 

 clearly cut by the same hand as the second 

 fount. Three other books were printed in this 

 type. Two of these were issued in 1481. One 

 is Joannes Canonicus, In Aristotelis Physica, a 

 folio printed in double columns, the handsomest 

 book that came from this press. One leaf said 

 to belong to a copy of this book is now in the 

 Herts. County Museum, and has capitals rubri- 

 cated (by hand apparently), also the margin 

 of the paper with the numbers of the pages 

 written in ink. These were probably added at 

 a later date, as the perfect copy in the Bodleian 

 has none of these features. The second work 

 is Exempla sacra scripture, a quarto without 

 pagination or catchwords, and having the 

 colophon, ' Imprsaq3 apd uilla Sancti Albani. 

 Anno dm m° cccc° Ixxxi",' a copy of which is 

 preserved in the library of the Middle Temple. 

 The third book, Andreas Antoninus, Super 

 Logica Aristotelis, a quarto, appeared in 1482, 

 and is only known from fragments. 



The last two books that came from the St. 

 Albans press were both in Enghsh, and, apart 

 from their printing, have other connexions with 

 St. Albans, which add largely to their interest. 

 The exact date of the appearance of The 

 Chronicles of England is unknown, but in the 

 opening lines of the prologue (sig. a ij) the 

 author says : ' Therfoor i the yeer of our lorde 

 M. iiij" Ixxxiij, And in the xxiii yeer of the 

 regne of kyng Edward the fourth at Saynt 

 Albons so that all men may knaw the actys 

 naemly of our nobuU kyngys of Englond is 

 copylit together thys book.' So that it could 

 not have been printed earlier than that year. 

 But, although the compiler claimed this as an 

 entirely new work of his own, the only part 

 that was original appears to have been the 

 general history of the world from the time of 

 Adam until the days of Brute, the first twenty- 

 six pages of the book. From that point down 

 to the year 1460 the text followed was the 

 same as that used by Caxton when printing the 

 earUer edition of 1480. The book has two 

 other pecuUarities not found in previous issues 

 from this press, the use of red ink, and the 

 signing of all the leaves of every sheet, a thing 

 rarely met with, and arguing the work of a 



260 



novice. The type used to print this book was 

 mainly that found in the Rethorica, but other 

 sorts were introduced, notably a fount of English 

 black letter, which all bibliographers have 

 accepted as being Caxton's Type 3. If they are 

 right, a point that seems open to considerable 

 argument, it forms another hnk between the 

 St. Albans printer and the Westminster press 

 that has to be accounted for. 7he Chronicles, 

 in spite of the clumsy and uneven casting of the 

 type, was fairly well printed. 



The second English book, and the last book 

 as far as is known, that came from this press 

 was the Boohs of Hawking, Hunting, and also of 

 Coat Armours (now popularly known as the 

 Book of St. Albans), which bears the colophon : 

 ' Here in thys boke afore ar contenyt the bokes 

 of haukyng and huntyng with other plesurcs 

 dyuerse as in the boke apperis and also of 

 Cootarmuris a nobuU werke. And here now 

 endyth the boke of blasyng of armys trans- 

 latyt and compylyt togedyr at Seynt Albons, 

 the yere from thincarnacion of our Lorde 

 Jhu Crist. M.CCCC.lxxxvi.' On the last page 

 of text are the words Sanctus Albanus, below 

 the arms of St. Albans, in red, as in the 

 Chronicles. Indeed, with the exception that 

 the type is more worn and the presswork worse 

 than in any other book from this press, the two 

 English books agree typographically in all 

 particulars. Not only do they agree typo- 

 graphically, but in closely similar language we 

 are informed that they were ' compiled ' at 

 St. Albans. Of the Chronicles of England it is 

 said that ' in the xxiij yeer of the regne of Kyng 

 Edward the fourth at Saynt Albons so that all 

 men may know the actes naemly of our nobull 

 Kynges of England is c5pylyt together thys 

 book.' On the colophon to the Books of 

 Hawking, Hunting, and also of Coat Armours, 

 we read, as we have just seen, that last section, 

 ' the boke of blasyng of armys ' was ' trans- 

 latyt and compylyt togedyr at Seynt Albons ' 

 in i486. 



Now the name of a strip of land between 

 Westminster Abbey and the House of Lords 

 might be given as an address by a printer 

 without further explanation, though we should 

 certainly have expected some additional help 

 towards localizing it, but to use such a curt 

 and misleading description to indicate the place 

 of literary composition would be much more 

 extraordinary. It is true that a prophecy that 

 Henry IV should die at Jerusalem was supposed 

 to be fulfilled by his dying in the Jerusalem 

 Chamber at Westminster, but the methods of 

 interpretation open to prophets and to bibli- 

 ographers are not the same. Thus the state- 

 ments that these two books were compiled at 

 St. Albans must be taken to refer to St. Albans 

 in Hertfordshire. This carries with it the refer- 

 ence to St. Albans as the place of printing, 



