William Caxton: The Man
who brought Printing to England
When you think about the
printing press, you might picture Gutenberg, or maybe the rise of books in the
Renaissance. But did you know that the story of printing in England has its own
legendary figure? Meet William Caxton, the fellow who introduced the printing
press to England and helped make books more accessible for everyone.
Who was William Caxton?
William Caxton was born
around 1422 in Kent, England, in an area known as the Weald. The Weald was a
vast area of forest, scrub and pasture with few settlements and no towns. The
main occupations were iron mining and smelting, the production of charcoal and
animal husbandry, especially rearing pigs which could forage in the woods.
According to Caxton, he
and the locals spoke English which was ‘broad and rude’ and hardly understood
by outsiders. Although Caxton never tells us about his parents, there must have
been money enough to pay for schooling and to afford to buy young William an
apprenticeship with a wealthy London mercer, Robert Large, by 1438. For his son
to serve an apprenticeship with Large – Lord Mayor of London in 1439-40 – William’s
father must have had impressive connections in the city and, although there is
no certainty, Stevyn Causton (a variant spelling of Caxton) seems a probable
contender. Stevyn was a contemporary of and fellow mercer with Large. It was
common practice for mercers to take on the sons of their fellows as apprentices
and if Stevyn was prosperous and successful, he would probably have owned a
town house in London and possibly a country retreat in Kent. Was that how
William came to be born in rustic Kent and maybe spent his early years there,
learning his English from a local woman who served as his wet nurse? This would
fit the few facts that we know but is unlikely ever to be confirmed beyond
doubt.
In 1441, Robert Large
died, leaving his wife, Joanna, to continue the business and train the
apprentices, including Caxton. In his will, Large made numerous sizable
bequests which included leaving considerable sums to each of his eight
apprentices. Caxton, as one of the two youngest trainees received a very
generous 20 marks. Around the time of his master’s death, perhaps under
instruction from the widowed Joanna, Caxton appears to have been working in
Bruges, in Flanders (modern day Belgium) but quite what he was doing there is
unclear. It isn’t certain if he’d completed his apprenticeship or not but he
would spend perhaps three decades there, in the Low Countries (now the
Netherlands), with occasional visits back to London.
How did Caxton become a printer?
Mercers did not only
trade in cloth and textiles – known as ‘mercery’. They bought and sold other high
status goods and, like his master, Robert Large before him, there is evidence
that Caxton was building up a market for illuminated manuscripts for which
Bruges was a famous centre of production. King Henry VI of England and other
noblemen bought many Bruges books, the king’s uncle, Humphrey, Duke of
Gloucester, in particular, created a considerable library for the time so there
was no shortage of wealthy English customers to buy the exquisite books, each
one unique.
But these hand-written
and illustrated books took a great many man-hours to create a single volume
and, at the time, the printing revolution was already underway in Europe, enabling
books to be produced faster than ever before. It was most likely during the
eighteen months Caxton spent in Cologne, Germany, from July 1471 to the end of
1472, that he became familiar with the process of printing. Cologne was
particularly welcoming to English merchants and was rapidly becoming a major
centre of printing whereas England was lagging behind with this new technology.
Why is Caxton important?
After seeing the power of
the press firsthand and studying the methods of using it, Caxton decided to introduce
this revolutionary new contraption back home and, in 1476, he set up his own
printing press in London at the Sign of the Red Pale at the Almonry in
Westminster Abbey. This was handy for the king, Edward IV, the nobility at
court and anyone involved in parliamentary procedure or the law courts.
Caxton’s biggest
achievement was making books more affordable and more widely available, opening
up literacy and learning to more people in England. One of his first printed
books was The Canterbury Tales by
Geoffrey Chaucer, a classic of English literature but he didn’t only print
books –he translated them from Latin, French and Dutch into English, helping to
shape the English language as he did so. He printed works in what we now call ‘Middle
English’ and the choices he made in spelling and grammar influenced the way
English would evolve. As an example, in a preface to one of his printed
editions in 1490, Caxton tells the reader a story to demonstrate some of the
difficulties he had in trying to create a version of English that was common to
all:
In my days [it] happened that certain merchants were in a
ship in Thames, for to have sailed over the sea into Zealand [in the
Netherlands] and for lack of wind they
tarried at Foreland [in Kent] and
went to land for to refresh them. And one of them named Sheffelde, a mercer,
came into an house and asked for meat and especially he asked for eggs and the good wife answered that she could
speak no French. And the merchant was angry for he also could speak no French
but would have had eggs and she understood him not. And then at last another
said that he would have eyren, then
the good wife said that she understood him well.
Lo, asks
Caxton, what should a man in these days
now write, eggs or eyren ? Certainly it is hard to please every man by
cause of diversity and change of language.
Caxton’s Legacy
Caxton was a true pioneer
in the world of publishing. He worked hard to create a system for translating
and printing English texts and his work helped standardise the language at a
time when there were no set rules for spelling or grammar. That’s a big deal
when you think about how our language has evolved into what we use today!
Plus, Caxton didn’t just
print literature. He printed books on a wide range of topics – history,
religion, philosophy and instructional books. This means that Caxton’s press
helped spread knowledge and ideas to a much wider audience than ever before.
His first printed book in England was The
Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, a translation from a French work and
Caxton was so proud of it that he wrote a little preface about how he learned
the craft of printing. Such personal touches in his books tell us more about everyday
life at the time and bring history alive rather than simply being works of
literature.
By introducing the
printing press to England, William Caxton helped set the stage for the spread
of literacy, education and new ideas. And who can say, without Caxton’s work,
maybe our world of books and publishing would look very different – and sparse
– today, missing so many great stories.
The Colour of Darkness
In my new novel, The Colour of Darkness, the hero, Seb
Foxley encounters William Caxton. Midsummer in medieval London is a joyous
festivity but, for some, there is nothing to celebrate when Death stalks the
city’s sweltering streets. As livelihoods are brought to ruin and trust withers
in the heat, artist-cum-sleuth, Sebastian Foxley, finds trouble has come to his
own doorstep. Plague rears its hideous head; fire, theft and murder imperil the
citizens.
A beautiful young woman
enchants the men of London and the mob shrieks that witchcraft is to blame when
waxen dolls, spiked with pins, are discovered. With such horrors in his
possession and discovering that guilt lies too close at hand, can Seb unravel the
mysteries and save those he loves before it’s too late?
Join Seb Foxley in this
intriguing and danger-riddled new adventure The Colour of Darkness
Midsummer in medieval
London is a joyous festivity but, for some, there is nothing to celebrate when
Death stalks the city’s sweltering streets. As livelihoods are brought to ruin
and trust withers in the heat, artist-cum-sleuth, Sebastian Foxley, finds trouble
has come to his own doorstep. Plague rears its hideous head; fire, theft and
murder imperil the citizens.
A beautiful young woman
enchants the men of London and the mob shrieks that witchcraft is to blame when
waxen dolls, spiked with pins, are discovered. With such horrors in his
possession and discovering that guilt lies too close at hand, can Seb unravel the
mysteries and save those he loves before it’s too late?
Join Seb Foxley in this intriguing and danger-riddled new adventure, The Colour of Darkness, published by MadeGlobal and out now.
Toni Mount is a best-selling author of both medieval fiction and non-fiction, with over 30 published titles. Her book Everyday Lives in Medieval London was named ‘Best History Book’ by Goodreads and became an Amazon bestseller. Her internationally popular Sebastian Foxley medieval murder mystery series has earned over 15 million page reads on Kindle Unlimited.
A historian and experienced educator, Toni holds a Master’s degree from the University of Kent, a first-class BA with Honours, and diplomas in European Humanities, English Literature and Creative Writing from the Open University, as well as a PGCE from the University of Greenwich. She is a member of the Richard III Society's Research Committee and contributes regularly to history magazines and blogs.
Toni also teaches history and offers a range of unique online courses at MedievalCourses.com. She lives in Kent with her husband Glenn and has two grown-up sons.
tonimount.com
