The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, Vol. III, 1400-1557 (review)

Reviews 201 Hellinga, Lotte and J. B. Trapp, eds., The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, Vol. Ill, 1400-1557, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999; cloth; pp. xxiv, 743; 67 b/w plates, 6 figures; R.R.P. $269.10; ISBN 0521573467. This is a most ambitious yet far from an unsubtle overview of the period in Br that begins with the book as it was at the time of Chaucer's death and ends with the book as it was in 1577, when, with the royal charter of incorporation granted to the Stationers' Company, the press was recognised as 'a self-regulatory closed shop' (p. 606). To set out the authors and titles of the 28 contributions would take too much space; all but one, however, are well-grouped under three broad headings: Technique and Trade'(examining illumination, printing, bookbinding, trade mechanism, importation), 'Collections and Ownership' (private, monastic and royal), and the largest, 'Reading and the Use of Books' (covering scholars, the professions, and lay readers). Attached is an extensive bibliography. Its detected errors are very few ('Kinross' for 'Kinloss' under 'Stuart, J', or, more seriously, the absence of the 'Nielsen 1919' and 'Nielsen, 1931-3' cited on p. xix). This is followed by a general index, with an additional help-list for finding printers and publishers; then an index of manuscripts, with a separate list of eponymous manuscripts; and, finally, a generous gathering of photographic illustrations, which is efficiently invoked throughout. The Introduction (Hellinga and Trapp) considers over-arching themes; among them theflourishingof translation, in an era when 'at least half-a-dozen languages were current' (p. 7), beside the growing importance of English; the emergence ofthe professional author; the interaction between 'native' and 'alien' at many levels (raw materials, trained personnel, legislation). Trapp's following freestanding opening chapter, 'Literacy, books and readers', raises questions about the nature of society in this period ('where learning by rote or by heart was common', p. 32), highlighting the many ways in which books were read and used. Thefirstsection, practical in orientation, provides (as far as this reviewer can assess) the very latest information (and supposition) about the history of Britain's book production in these years. This is especially so of Alexander's 'Foreign illuminatiors and illuminated manuscripts', wherein there is fully integrated discussion of little-known examples, such as the Chatsworth book of hours given to Margaret Tudor by her father Henry VII. Hellinga's following commentary on early printers and the book trade must cover ground more familiar, but this is done with expert thoroughness, and her extrapolations, such 202 Reviews as those proceeding from the section on the manufacture of type in England (p. 79), are extremely valuable. Christianson's chapter on printing in London (like Baker's, later, on the 'The books of the c o m m o n law', see p. 429) would do well with an accompanying map showing Paternoster Row, St Pauls, Westminster, Holborn and Chancery Lanes and so on. Many of Christianson's arguments (for instance, that by this time, the need for collaboration on the various aspects of the printing process depended upon the existence of a 'trade quarter') would be illuminated. Some contributions, like those of King ('The book-trade under Edward and Mary') in this section and Neville-Sington ('Press, politics and religion', pp. 567-607) in the last, partly overlap. In this case, King analyses the period in terms of the printers, including Crowley and Bale, adding statistical tables of book production, while the latter concentrates on the royal use of printing (to justify policy, promulgate law) over the longer period of Henry, Edward, and Mary, in this context providing (among much else) a different view of the function of printed indulgences. Lane Ford's 'Importation of printed books into England and Scotland', referred to by many of the contributors, draws upon a controlled database set up especially for the volume. She thus makes the point with conviction that England and Scotland 'were separate countries, had different foreign alliances, different trade routes, and looked to different intellectual centres' (p. 181). One would wish for the extension of her revealing tables (on the main centres of English...