§8. Provincial Presses. XIII. The Introduction of Printing into England and the Early Work of the Press. Vol. 2. The End of the Middle Ages. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature: An Encyclopedia in Eighteen Volumes. 1907

The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume II. The End of the Middle Ages.

XIII. The Introduction of Printing into England and the Early Work of the Press.

§ 8. Provincial Presses.

Soon after Caxton began to print in Westminster, presses were set up in 1478 at Oxford, and, about 1479, at St. Albans. Naturally, the books issued at Oxford were mainly scholastic and, of all the books printed there in the fifteenth and early sixteenth century, but one is in English. This was an edition of the Liber Festivalis of John Mirk, issued in March 1486–7. It is not a mere reprint of Caxton’s edition issued in 1483, but has many points of difference; and, when Caxton printed his second edition, about 1491, he copied this version in preference to his own.

The St. Albans press, like that of Oxford, was mainly employed on learned works. Of the eight books issued, the first six are in Latin; but the last two are in English. The first, The Chronicles of England, printed about 1485, is mainly founded on Caxton’s earlier editions, but with interpolations relating to the popes and other ecclesiastical matters. Its compiler and printer was, as we learn from a later edition, “sometime schoolmaster of St. Albans”; but his name is unknown.