You're Dead to Me - Printing in England

Episode Date: July 5, 2024

In this episode, Greg Jenner is joined in 15th-Century England by Dr Lydia Zeldenrust and comedian Robin Ince to learn all about the early history of book printing. 2024 marks the 550th anniversary of the first book printed in English: a history of Troy, produced in 1474 by William Caxton. In the decades that followed, numerous printing shops would be set up across the country, and a huge variety of texts printed, including those that carried potentially dangerous ideas. Starting with the origins of printing in East Asia, this episode explores the first century of printing in England, looking at how books were produced and by whom, what sorts of texts were being printed, who was reading them, and how the state reacted to this new industry. Hosted by: Greg Jenner Research by: Jon Norman Mason Written by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow, Emma Nagouse, and Greg Jenner Produced by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow and Greg Jenner Audio Producer: Steve Hankey Production Coordinator: Ben Hollands Senior Producer: Emma Nagouse Executive Editor: James Cook

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BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner, I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster and today we are grabbing our library cards and book tote bags and heading all the way back to the 15th century to learn about the first 100 years of book printing in England and to help us spread the word we have two very special guests. In History Corner she's a lecturer in Middle English Literature at the University of Glasgow.

She's a specialist in late medieval literature and handily for us she works both with manuscripts and early printed books. It is Dr Lydia Zeldenruss. Welcome Lydia! Did I get the name anywhere near right? Yes, it's tricky, it's a Dutch name, yes, it's always difficult. Seldenrest. Seldenrest. Which means, in Dutch? It means that I rarely rest, it's like seldom rest. Seldom rest, what a great name.

That's basically it, yeah. Anyway, and in Comedy Corner, a man who also seldom rests. If he wore a book he would would be an award-winning trilogy, because his many talents will not fit into a single tome. He's an acclaimed comedian, author, broadcaster. He does absolutely everything. You will probably best know him from co-hosting the infinitely fantastic science show The Infinite Monkey Cage, a BBC Radio 4 programme that pairs brilliant academic experts with comedians.

How would that work? He's also the author of many wonderful books, including Bibliomaniac, a book about how much he loves books and we love him. It's Robin Ince. Welcome to the show Robin. Robin, this is your first time on the podcast. Yeah I'm very excited because having no idea basically, what we're going to talk about. Now you've given the clue and the Gutenberg and all that. Obviously, because you mentioned libraries and I absolutely love libraries.

Sheffield Library, one of my favourite things that happened, I walked into Sheffield Library and an old man was talking to the librarian. He went, I think the book involves a fox that talks, but it might not be a fox that talks, it might be a hawk that has laser eyes or something. My wife wasn't very specific. And the librarian went, don't worry, we'll find it. And four hours later when I left, I said, did you find it? She went, yes, we did.

And there was neither a fox nor a falcon in it. That is one of the many reasons I love libraries. You're normally buttressed by scientists, luxuriously buttressed by scientists, and now you are buttressed by historians. Are you feeling comfortable or are you out of your element today? I think I'm always out of my element. I think that's the lucky thing. When I'm surrounded by scientists, I know how much I don't know and now I'm surrounded

by historians. A man's got to know his limitations and every single day I find a new limitation. You should always be the stupidest person in the room because then you're in the right room. Yes, unless you're president. So, what do you know? This is where I have a go at guessing what you, our lovely listener, might know about today's subject.

And I imagine you're all familiar with printed books because you're at a literary festival and those of you at home, books are a thing I guess, hopefully you know what they are. But the history of early printing, and especially in England, which is what we're talking about today, might be something we're less familiar with. Maybe you've heard of Gutenberg, who invented the printing press and sparked the printing revolution in Europe, and maybe you think he was really funny in the Police Academy movies. That is a joke for 40 year olds and over. But did Gutenberg really invent printing? We will find out. How did this brand spanking

new technology make its way into medieval England? And what would you do if you accidentally print 12,450 too many copies of your lovely book. Let's find out. Right, Robin, here's a once upon a time scenario for you. The year is 1474. You are living in England. You're a man of learning. You've got a bit of cash. Have you read book? I think no, I not read book. I think what I do is I go to the equivalent of the kind of the confessions of a window cleaner movie and once every May I go to the equivalent of the kind of the confessions of a window cleaner movie. And once every May, I go and see various people reenacting

a merchant's tale, because there's a moment where they go, and can pull him up the smock, and an he throng. That, by the way, is all the Chaucer I know. Merchant's Tale was my A-level Chaucer text. So I think I was generally enjoying occasional strolling players, but I wasn't that keen on the dancing bears because I'm someone who empathises with bears. That's a lovely answer.

It's not really what I asked, but it's a lovely answer. No. I'll tell you what, if you're expecting a linear route, then you've never listened to the Infinite Monkey Cage. This is... No, we booked you for a reason, Robin, don't worry. No, so when I say book, I mean the book, because there's just the one.

Can you guess what it is? What is the printed book on sale in 1474? Would it be the Doomsday book? Oh, that's a good guess. It's not the Doomsday book, and it's not the Bible. Oh, I know. Oh, yeah? Go on.

Is it Where the Wolf Leads, which is one of the first Mills and Boon, which is... It's about a French explorer called Dracon Le Loup Blanc. It really is, by the way. And so I reckon it's a Gideon's meals and boon that will be placed in all of the inn's little drawers. Sadly, it's not that, because that would have been an absolute banger in 1474, that was sold at hotcakes. No, it's a classic by the name of William Caxton's

recoil of the histories of Troy. Wow. And this is the anniversary. Give us a cheer for the 550th anniversary of the publication. Oh, very good. I love it. I love it.

That was such a great tone as well. There's a lot of people at home thought their radio was broken. That was fantastic. Now there was a really good noise. All right, give us a cheer for the 550th anniversary of the OG printed book. Please, hey audience, go for it. Woo!

You absolute nerds. Right, so, now I've mentioned it, Robin, you know well the recoil of the histories of Troy. What's your favorite line, would you say? Do you know what? I've only got the pop-up version. Right, so, now I've mentioned it, Robin, you know well the recoil of the histories of Troy. What's your favourite line, would you say? Do you know what? I've only got the pop-up version. Right, yeah. And I'll tell you what, that horse could take an eye out. So that was done before the Bible, then?

So that was printed before... Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh uh Robin has done a very good job there of sort of asking the question because when we talk about the book you assume the Bible and Gutenberg the Bible whatever so Caxton's the book, History of Troy? Yeah so there is a hint in the title of course because it has the word Troy in it it also has that weird word Recoil, Requiel we were not entirely sure Requiel probably is how it would have been pronounced which is a weird word, comes from the French. It means a kind of gathering together or a collection, so it's really a collection of the histories of Troy. It's Troy story, basically. I have to say it's a bit of a misnomer because most of it is about Hercules.

If you know the history of Troy and the fall of Troy, he's not really in there. It's mostly focused on Hercules' earlier adventure. It turns out he destroys Troy twice before the sort of Trojan War that we all know and love. But yes, it is mostly about Hercules and the Trojan War is a bit of an afterthought. So yeah, this is a first book printed in English. It was printed by William Caxton. You will know his name I'm sure, in 1473 to 74 so hence it being an anniversary and it is a translation from French and

Caxton translated it himself. It actually wasn't though printed in England. This is kind of the interesting thing, first book in English not printed in England but it was printed abroad in Flanders probably for exportation towards England but also it was aimed at a kind of local community of merchants in Flanders, English merchants who lived there. Who's Caxton then? Because printing is a new thing, it can't be a family business he's inherited, so how has he ended up going, yeah I'm gonna be a printer, I'm gonna print Troy's story too? The first five decades of his life,

he was a merchant and quite a successful one, a well-connected merchant as well. So we know that he joined the Mercers Company in his teens, and then he went over to Flanders, which was economically quite successful at this time. And it was also experiencing a kind of cultural flourishing. So I think if you think of these sort of beautiful medieval manuscripts, the more lavish, expensive ones with rich colours

like purple and gold and blue and things like that, if you picture that in your mind, odds are that the kind of manuscript you're thinking of would have come from Flanders in this period. And what is Flanders? So Flanders is basically the southern low countries. And what are Flanders? So Flanders is basically the southern low countries. And what are the low countries? There we go. So he is a merchant.

He lives in Flanders and he actually gets an important role. So in 1462 he's made governor of the English merchants in Flanders, so they give him a bit of power. We know that at some point he's in a short period of exile and he finds himself in Cologne. So he spends some time in Cologne, has some time on his hands, and he comes into contact with the printing business because it's really taken off there. And this is a turning point in his life really. He's involved in the printing of a few Latin books.

So you could say that the new technology really made an impression on him. It's really bad, I'm sorry. Yeah. an impression on him. It's really bad, I'm sorry. I think the problem was that you really gave up on that before you delivered it. So yeah, so Caxton's like, okay, this new sort of printing thing sounds fun, and he publishes an English translation of a French history of a Greek story of Troy. It's a classic, we've all done it. And sounds like a surefire bestseller. Robin, why do you think he's choosing that story to be his first? See, now you've added the Hercules thing, so I can see it as something like a kind of

Marvel franchise idea. Because the mere fact that, you know those really annoying Marvel films, like they did that with the second Spideyverse movie, which I thought looked great by the way. Don't think I'm just some old guy who's not up to, you know, rebooting the Spider-Man there. But the whole episode, the whole of the last film was setting you up for the beginning of the story. So I feel it could have been that, which is he knows that this is a universe, that once you've got the kind of the Troy franchise,

that's as big as Guardians of the Galaxy or any of those things. And you've also got all the merchandise, the Troy story thing, as you said, the Hercules dolls, the glamorous kind of Cindy-like Helen of Troy, because I've always seen Helen as more of a the Hercules dolls, you know, the glamorous kind of Cindy-like Helen of Troy, because I've always seen Helen as more of a Cindy than a Barbie. Right, yeah, sure.

So yeah, that's what I'm seeing it as for merch possibility. I think that's a great answer. I mean, you're wrong. So Lydia, why translate this, this history of Troy, this recoil of Troy? So part of it, Cagon actually tells us, he basically tells us he's a bit bored and decided to translate this text that he had lying around and just print the first book in English like you do. The reason he chooses this particular text probably has something to do with the Burgundian court. So we know that Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy was a noted bibliophile as were both his legitimate and illegitimate

sons known as Charles the Bold and Antoine the Grand Bataille or Great Bastard respectively. Sorry, I prefer that one. You can guess which one is the legitimate one and which one is the illegitimate one. Caxton's work brought him into contact with this court and with these dukes, and it also brought him into contact with Margaret of York, who is the younger sister of Edward IV, and she's also the wife of Charles the Bold. She lent her support to this translation and to the printings. We know that the dukes of Burgundy were great lovers of Greek myths.

They really liked that. They were kind of Hercules fanboys basically because they claimed dissent from Hercules. So we know for instance that when Charles got married to Margaret of York at their wedding there were lavish tapestries depicting Hercules's adventures and actually Caxton was involved in the marriage negotiations between Charles and Margaret and he probably was there at the wedding as well so he would have seen this. So Margaret of York probably knew this connection acknowledged it but just went well you've got these stories in French but how about one in English?

Did you say Burgundian? Yes. So that's the correct way if you're talking about you know a group of Burgundy nobility it's Burgundian. Burgundian yeah. I am gonna work out a way of getting that into conversation more frequently. Caxton becomes the prince of prints and We want to show you the front is piece of the book This is the front cover normally you don't judge a book by its cover

But we'd very much like you to judge a book by this cover here because this is a cover I would like to point out the monkey. Well, that's the main thing the fact that little monkeys have always helped sell books I found out that Margaret of York's stepdaughter, Mary of Burgundy, had a little menagerie at court and that included a monkey so that monkey may well be a real monkey. A real monkey? What is the best book on non-human animals in history? Because we were talking before we came out here about Tycho Brahe and of course Tycho Brahe had a moose, a dead moose.

It fell down the stairs. He got drunk and it fell down the stairs. And you know that's a very rich historical... It's how many of us get into science. It starts off with a little bit of kind of animal slapstick shenanigans. And I think even if the moose wasn't drunk, and I know there'll be some moose experts here because this is hay, I mean it's one of the great places,

but like I think the moose would have fallen down stairs anyway, because I don't think their legs are designed to do stairs. So I don't think the inebriation had anything to do with it. I'm not trying to derail the show. I'm just fascinated. That's, you know, it's just. Yeah. We're educating.

We're telling people, don't let your moose climb the stairs. Or go down. Don't. That would be the public information field. Yeah. You've got, don't go near the water, don't play with fireworks, don't let your moose have a can of beer and use the escalator. I honestly don't know where I am now in the script but I...

Do you know what I'm disappointed by? I'm annoyed that you only don't know where you are in the script. I was hoping we'd made you far more lost than that. I was hoping you'd reached existential anxiety by now. Definitely headed that way, but let's crack on. OK, so this book is the first book printed in English, but it's not the first book ever printed full stop. So Robin, do you know where printing technology was

invented, in which modern country would we describe it? So I mean, was it Bible? I just can't believe that it can't have been, and I reckon it will be, I know it wasn't called Germany then, was it? No, not really. So, so, well I'll say Bavaria instead then. So I think, because there's some alliteration, I think it was a Bavarian Bible. It's a lovely answer, it's the answer most people would probably give, and you're only 4,000 miles wrong.

Oh, that's pretty good on a cosmological scale. OK. It's bad on a terrestrial scale. But I view everything in a much, you know, I had a lot of light years to that. That is fair. Lydia, we're talking about the printing press, well, printing is an Asian invention, East Asia, right?

Yes. So the spotlight kind of goes off Europe in this case, and we have to look eastwards. One of the earliest factors in the invention of printing that we need to kind of address first is the invention of paper, because papyrus wouldn't have been sturdy enough for printing, and something like vellum not as practical.

So paper is quite essential. And paper was invented in China in the first century CE. And printing itself started in the seventh century so we are looking to an East Asian context and China in particular. The earliest surviving printed book was printed in China in 868 CE. It's called the Diamond Sutra.

You will know the word sutra probably from a slightly sexier book shall we say It means a kind of collection of knowledge or a manual which is interesting because that recriel was also that collections Yeah, similar sort of thing and it's a Buddhist text and it was printed on a five meter long scroll So it's not a book as we think of the sort of thing that you leaf through But this is one that you roll out. And Chinese printing, in this case, we're talking about woodblock printing. And the way it works is you first write it out on a piece of paper or a papyrus or what have you, you then transfer it to a woodblock and you kind of cut the characters that you need into the woodblock. So the way it works is that you actually cut away everything that you don't need

because when you are using printing technology, the raised bit of the woodblock. So the way it works is that you actually cut away everything that you don't need because when you are using printing technology, the raised bit of the woodblock is what catches the ink. Then you ink it and in that process, you will have noticed it will have mirrored the text that you have. You then ink it, you turn your block around, you put it on a piece of paper and then it gets mirrored again and that's how your text kind of transfers onto the paper. I mean, Gutenberg is often hailed as the inventor, not just of the printing press, but specifically movable metal type.

I think we know that the reason it takes off in Europe is because Gutenberg is printing with only 26 letters in the alphabet, or even fewer than that, actually, probably. But obviously in East Asian languages, you can't do that. They don't have an alphabet. So that's the challenge, right? Yes, that is the challenge. So yeah, in the West, we like to say that Gutenberg invented

metal movable type printing. He did sort of, but that doesn't mean he was the first. So this too was invented in China in the 11th century. It's not quite metal movable type, but it's movable type using baked clay. But in China, woodblock printing kind of remained dominant. So in English, you know, you only need the 26 letters plus a couple of emojis, eggplant, erotica. Do you want to guess how many separate type characters you'd need to carve

if you were going to do a classic Buddhist text in Chinese? 351. About 200,000. Korea is where we do get amazing innovations again in this slightly later period, sort of the 1200s, is that about right? So the woodblock printing, that technique that they used in China goes to Korea as well. But the Koreans innovate and kind of go, here's metal. And this was invented in Korea in the early 13th century and it was attributed to Cho

Yun-yui. He was tasked with printing a very lengthy Buddhist text, again, a Buddhist text, and this was kind of part of a state effort to repel Mongols after the 1232 invasions. And the oldest surviving book in the world, printed with movable metal type, is a Buddhist text produced in Korea in 1377.

So that is about 78 years before the Gutenberg Bible. And one of these Korean texts took 70 years to complete and pretty much the moment they finished it, the Mongol showed up, destroyed it. Oh. Kind of, that's going to sting, right? See, that's why I was wondering, for instance, when you were talking about these beautiful wooden blocks,

you know, how many of those survive? Are the places, museums where you go? Because I love that art, which is kind of pragmatic art that has been created to create something. And I just wondered, where are we able to see these if we are? So I think there are things in museums in East Asia, in Korea, in China and so on in Japan, but we probably aren't seeing them here. So Gutenberg independently comes up with it. The story is sort of a wine press. Obviously the Islamic world was really important in some ways earlier in preserving knowledge and printing culture as well.

So we've got a lot of bits and bobs through that history. Gutenberg is in Mainz, is that right, in the 1450s? He is, yes. This is kind of his centre and this is kind of where stuff starts to spread. And Mainz is what we now call Germany but wasn't then. How long did the Gutenberg Bible take to print? where stuff starts to spread. And Mainz is what we now call Germany, but wasn't then. How long did the Gutenberg Bible take to print? It still took ages. So yeah, Gutenberg in a way, he's interesting

because we kind of say that he invented all this. He didn't quite, although he did perfect lots of techniques. So like you said, he made his own ink and also the press was based on agricultural presses. And the key part there is that he invented a press that put equal pressure on the page. So that means that the ink gets distributed equally. And this was a challenge for lots of people.

And we see that's a challenge with woodblock printing as well. So that's something that he kind of does. We think it still took him months to print the Gutenberg Bible. We know that kind of early pages were on display as a sort of preview. You could have a look at what happens. But yeah, it seems to have gone down really well. The results were good. He was good at kind of perfecting this technique.

So there is a little bit of an anecdote about the future Pope Pius who very excitedly writes to one of his cardinal mates and kind of says, I've seen some pages from this new printed Bible on display and it's so exciting. He basically says that the letters are so clear that you can read it without glasses on. And he's super excited about not needing his reading glasses. So when do reading glasses come in? Mid-1200s. It's a medieval invention. Yeah.

It's really into the history of glasses, really interesting. We'll do an episode on it one day, because it's good. But we don't have time now. Sorry, I keep distracting you. It's a really good question. It's really good. So printing spreads through Germany, Mainz, we know 1471 Caxton's hanging out in Cologne. But it gets into Italy as well. Yes.

And we have, I like this story, two German clerics turn printers. They're hanging out in Rome. And they slightly over calculate their loyal readership, and they're like, we're gonna print a book, and we're gonna do quite a lot of copies, and they slightly over calculated by 12,475 unsold copies, which is quite a lot.

That's remarkable though, that they were able to do that many copies. Yeah. What was the year they did that again? This is 1472. Oh my God, imagine that. So the very first remainder bookshop and it's your, that's the only book there. There's no other book. Literally no, there's not even a market. That bit of rejected, well don't you want to buy, no we don't want to buy your book. There's no other books. There's

no other books. That's that great Clive James poem. I think it's one of the great titles of any poem. The book of my enemy has been remainedered and I feel glad. Yeah. They try and shift it by, funny enough, they write to the Pope and they say, would you fancy having some? And we're not quite sure what he says back he sort of politely says have some indulgences or something it's a slightly like please leave me alone yeah but yeah so 12,475 unsold copies so where are they now that's what I want to know yeah so 1455 Gutenberg sort of invents the printing press

Caxton prints the first English language book in 1474 in Flanders. When does the actual physical printing press cross the English Channel and arrive in England? So Caxton at one point goes back home and he sets up a press in London. We know that he also had a little stall in Westminster Abbey, basically on the precincts of Westminster Abbey. Yeah, he had a stall in Westminster Abbey. He had a little stall for people kind of walking by and he would go, look at my books,

and would be flogging his wares, as you'll be familiar with from being at this festival. Caxtham was there before everyone else. It was a good position really because he was quite near the court but also near the ins of court. So it meant that he had kind of lawyers walking by, scholars, academics,

etc. But also, you know, the nobility, people with money, so he could kind of suck up to all of them and try and sell his books. But it's important to note that we are talking specifically about England here. So yeah, the first presses are in London, and that kind of dominates for ages. So there are some kind of experiments with printing in Scotland, in Edinburgh in particular, for a few years. and then we know about a sort of movable press that was set up in some cave in Wales for secret reasons or something like that but these don't last very long these are kind of short experiments the centre of printing really is London. Okay Robin this being a new brand well brand new industry who do

you think are the kind of early hipsters going into the fields? Well they're not going into the fields are they? Oh sorry, going into the sector. Because they've got someone to do that for them. Going into the sector. It wouldn't surprise me if a lot of the Burgundians and their friends were there. He's done it! But I mean I presume it was the Dukes and the noblemen and the, because also I can't

imagine that anyone else had any money. Was it them? No. Oh. So who are the printers? Are they immigrants? Are they locals who are being trained up? You know, who's physically doing the squishing?

I mean Robin is right that the kind of the support, financial support and moral support and kind of marketing support in a way, lending your name to to something does come from nobility and kind of these these well known people but the printers themselves most of the early printers in England were from abroad so for instance Wink in the Word which I think is the best named printer ever he is Caxton's successor he's probably from the low countries or from northern France and they also employed tradesmen from the continent and at first they were protected so there is an act in 1483 probably from the Low Countries or from Northern France, and they also employed tradesmen from the continent. And at first they were protected.

So there is an act in 1483 that kind of orders against prejudice and disturbance, damage and things like that against foreign artisans and foreign merchants. So they are protected at first, but we do see some public hostility towards these foreign craftsmen. So Richard Pinson, his name probably would have been Richard Pinson or something like that,

because he is from Normandy. We know that he had to move his workshop to within the city of London to get protection because he had been attacked by a mob. So there is some hostility in that sense. And we do see over time that that grows. So from 1523 onwards, there are more and more acts or laws that progressively restrict the activity of princes from overseas. So there's more of a focus on native involvement

and not these foreigners kind of coming in and taking jobs. And I say that as a Dutch person working in UK academia. It's kind of a slightly dangerous job. So we've dealt a lot with books. When was the bookmark invented? The bookmark? The bookmark, yeah, because it feels like I'm fascinated now to know when was the first time perhaps some Duke, I don't know, maybe a Burgundian, was like, oh god I can't remember where I was reading this. What chapter was I up to? What page was I on? Do we know anything about the history of the bookmark? Because Cax and I can imagine, because he's basically set up a gift shop, hasn't he? He's got the

first exit through the gift shop and he's got his book. Everyone always loves one of those bookmarks, a little bit of gold inlay of some cathedral. All the kings of England. Yeah, all the kings of England. William, William, that's enough. I mean, I've seen a variety of techniques in the ancient world. So what's the medieval equipment of a bookmark? So there are some manuscripts that have basically a sort of ribbon attached

to it as a kind of bookmark. So there are some, but it was by no means universal, but there are some books and you usually find them in big books, as you would expect. So a kind of encyclopedia or something like that that because you really need to try and find your way in that or remember where you are We do think with a lot of medieval books that they read a bit differently from us Anyway, not so much front to back as it were but more kind of dipping in and more like a magpie like reading toilet books Yeah, basically So and this is indicated by annotations in books that they sometimes really scribble on something and get really excited and don't look at the rest of the book, basically.

But yeah, so those bookmarks would have been really useful for that. I love the idea of toilet books, because we've got a toilet book, we haven't got a toilet now. Just go in this hole I'm digging. The Recoil of the History of Troy was the first book in English, the language, but what was the first book that Caxton printed on English soil, Robin, do you know? Dick Francis's Whip Hand. Very good guess. Canterbury Tales, close.

Ah, I even mentioned Canterbury! Ah, Gunpullan, Obfie, Spock and Anne Heath-Rong, there we go. Back to me A-level English essay again. Yeah, and it's incredibly popular, isn't it? This is a sort of bestseller. And it becomes even more so in a way, and partly because of Caxton, so he really gives it a bit of an extra push. Not that it needed it, but there you go.

He adds a little prologue in which he hails Chaucer as kind of our great English poet, and that sort of father of English poetry idea. And this really contributes later to the canonisation of Chaucer. So this is around a period in the 16th century when the literary canon starts to take shape. So a lot of what Chaucer says is then copied by other printers.

They also keep referring to him as thus, and it kind of cements his reputation. Have you seen Pasolini's adaptation of The Canterbury Tales from 1973? It's got Adrian Street, the wrestler, in it, amongst other things. One of my favourite Welsh wrestlers. Yeah, I'm playing to the audience. But Robin Asquith is in it. And I was talking about this once and there's a scene in which he has to urinate on the crowd below him, right? And Pasadena said it has to be. You know how racy Chaucer was, right? And he said, you have to do it. The first time at least you have to properly do it. And it was only when he started urinating on the extras

that he found out they hadn't been told. So, I'd share that with you. Ooh, Italian realism there. Yeah, yeah. So, there were five printers in London in 1500. 33 by 1523. So it's growing pretty fast by then. By 1557, there were print shops in York, Cambridge, Oxford, St Albans,

Canterbury, Norwich, Ipswich, Abingdon, all lovely places. But Lydia, the print industry wasn't just made up of typesetters and the ink squisher, I don't know if their job is ink squisher, that's what I want to call it. I like the ink squisher job, that is squishy, squishy, down. But there were other people in the industry, right? We have a huge network of kind of various trades people and crafts people involved in the sale of books So we've got paper makers, of course

So in England most paper is imported there is a short-lived attempt to have a paper mill in England This mill is by John Tate doesn't do so well. It's just a few years doesn't really take off So very few English books actually have that paper mostly Mostly it's imported from abroad, Italy, France, places like that. We've got type cutters so they make the letters. We've got block cutters as well, they make the wood blocks so that's for the illustrations and things like that. In this case what usually happens is they kind of steal images from continental books. They look at them and go, that looks good. I'll copy that. I'm afraid they weren't as Skilled usually so they usually look like crap versions of a continental book, but they go

They sort of steal it so they copy that and we've got the producers of ink. So the ink needs to be made We've got binders people who bind books together because early printed books were sold without a cover You've just got possibly a title page, but it's just the bookie bit. It doesn't have a cover, it's on to you to then go take it to a binder and kind of have it bound for you. And this is also how you can get sort of personalized copies because you can have your own nice binding or you can put it together with other text, things like that, like your own personal library. And we've also got distributors, booksellers. I told you about the little store that Caxton has. I'm making it sound really cute. His little store with the merchandise

and the Hercules plushies. They probably have that. So Sun Prince is kind of sold to potential buyers and readers directly, but we also have the kind of wholesale retail version of books. So there are specialist booksellers who kind of go to the big book fairs, like the one in Frankfurt, and they get lots of books and they have them shipped. But this kind of becomes a bigger enterprise as well than it was with manuscripts. You've sort of mentioned slightly the idea of stealing art from the continent and not doing quite as well, which sort of feels very AI now, doesn't it? But Robin, what do you think is the situation with copyrights and ownership?

Look, I've been wrong on everything. You've got to stop asking me. Lillian knows much more than I do. I don't know why you keep turning round here. I haven't got a clue. It's ridiculous. There is a problem in the format, isn't there? Well, I do. The copyright thing, I would imagine there isn't. Because even in the 20th century, you see so many different ways. It's only quite recently, I think. So I think, as you were saying about those kind of the rip-off copies that are going on all the time,

I reckon, you know, anyone can, you know, make a kind of bulls-up version of some, you know, great text, just as long as they've got, you know, the letters and the squidgy ink. Yeah, I think you're bang on with that, because, I mean, copyright isn't really a thing that exists legally, but we do hear people complaining about their stuff being nicked. Yeah, so there is no copyright So really there's nothing to stop other printers to kind of steal your stuff And so you get pirated copies this becomes quite a lucrative industry because various people do it So must have paid off some printers actually complain about this So they'll add a little prologue to their text and they'll go, well, mine is the legit version, you should buy mine.

The problem there is, of course, that the pirated version will have that same prologue. So who knows which version that you are buying. There is some attempt to stop this. So there is the stationers register in the late 16th century. The idea is that printers have to register on the register for kind of exclusive rights to print a particular text. Whether that always worked in reality is a different question, it still didn't really stop the rip-offs but there was some attempt shall we say. There's a

really interesting cultural tradition very quickly in medieval stories that the best stories are the ones that were borrowed and stolen and even if you wrote an original story you actually sort of had to claim you heard it somewhere else, other people wouldn't trust it was good. So a lot of medieval historians are like, yeah I found this in a bin. They didn't quite say that but the idea actually of novelty wasn't actually something that was prized. What he wanted was old knowledge because it's good if it's old. It's another Chaucer example he has a poem in the Parliament of Fowls where he just says,

all new knowledge comes from old books. So the old of the book, even if it's full of bollocks, it must be good. And so we're hearing about people ripping each other off and stealing each other's work. Sometimes competition went too far. In December 1492, Henry the Type Cutter, what a great name. Obviously his parents knew.

That's an old nominative determination in action. They're like, what shall I do, Father? He got into a disagreement in the print shop with his boss, the Dutch printer, oh I can't pronounce this, quick, Lydia. Hand over to me, Gerard Leo. Leo means lion, so he's called like something lion, yeah. Okay, so he got into a dispute with that guy, and he wanted to leave and start his own business.

Do you want to guess what Henry did to negotiate his exit package? Oh, did he kill him? Yes he did. Yeah. I thought it had taken a long time for a history programme to get up to a bit of homicide, and I reckon this would be the time now. Yeah. You know when you look at the clock on a show stage and you go,

it's murder time. Yeah, he stamped him in the head with his type cutting tools. All of us have felt murderous towards a printer, but normally it's because it won't connect to the Wi-Fi. So, you know, and in fairness his boss's name was Mr. Hewlett-Packard. So, you know, it's fine. Do you want to make it worse? He lived for another few days, basically. It took ages to... Oh, that did make it worse. Collective grown, yeah.

All right. So, the printers were literally killing each other over the race to profits. And once printing has been established, what sort of text do you think are being sold in shops? What kind of material do you think you can get? Are you talking about under the counter? Well, you tell me. Because in all forms of art and creativity there's always this thing which is quite early on, so I'm going to go if we really want to make money, we want to make erotic lithographs, erotic haikus, so I'm reckoning that there were people who were beginning to do the kind of sexy texts.

Sexy texts? Do we have any sexy texts? I mean, there are some, depends on what you think is sexy, I suppose. But I will say, so again, winking the word, he keeps coming up. He is someone who does start a bit of a trend of kind of salacious stories.

He picks this up from trends in the low countries, which is kind of precursors to penny dreadfuls and things like that The latest news of this murderer that's about or slightly salacious ballads. Yes that are a bit sexy So it does happen, but we either have you seen Kafka's connection collection of pornography Just can you mention that I know we're probably men who are finished aren't we but everyone's fun They all had an ice cream. They had a lovely time. But I was really fascinated.

I was reading a book about Kafka and about, and now there's an Oxford college, I think, that's got all of his pornography. And I thought it was such a fascinating thing that, you know, you're meant to just see Kafka as this person going, ugh, had another bad dream where a man broke up and he's an insect and stuff. And you're not meant to think of him going so anyway my answer was pornography which is not a bad answer because you're right and then obviously in the 17th century there's a huge amount of pornography being printed and you know so you're right but in the

15 late 1400s early 1500s what have got? So it's quite a diverse group. So we've got kind of more serious texts, so things like legal treatises, but we all, and school books. Oh, legal treatises, yeah. Sorry, sorry. School books, there's a good market for that. Those are good sellers,

because obviously there'll be new students every year, and they have to buy the new books, and it's a good grift, basically. But you've got narrative fiction as well, verse, kind of the literary text that we would think of there's also texts of religious instructions there's all kinds of text being sold in these shops and by the late 16th century we see music being printed as well which is interesting. One of the things to note is that if you were to go into a bookshop in probably London in the 16th century.

And we know that one of the interesting things with it, even though we have lots of books in Latin, it's also kind of the rise of the vernacular. So we see a rise in vernacular reading as well. Printer's printing for a local market. And it also established the vernacular as a language suitable not just for literature, but also for science and learning

and not just being in Latin. And indulgences too aren't they? So there's a lot being printed and being sold. What effect do you think this has on society? I'm going to guess that not nearly as much as we might imagine because it's such a small specific market. You're maintaining it in Latin as well so you're also making it a kind of exclusive thing which means that it's not going to affect the people who are working in the fields and things like that. So that's my initial idea. That's an interesting idea.

Lydia, where do you... I mean, historians have often described the printing press as the engine room of the Protestant Reformation. Where would you stand on that as a historian of medieval literature and the printing press? I think that's partly true. So we do see that across Europe, printing kind of becomes associated with the spread of new ideas. And partly, those new ideas are Protestantism. So we do see texts related to Martin Luther, John Calvin, et cetera, but also revolutionary scientific ideas.

So Copernicus's weird ideas also get spread in this sense. But there's other ways that it has a bit of an impact. So if we're looking at an English context particularly, printing also plays a key role in the standardization of language. So Caxton, for instance, has a little interesting anecdote about this in a medieval version of the Aeneid, so another classical text, and he talks about the Eges Aeren anecdote. So he basically talks about a merchant who travels across England and wants to buy some eggs. So talks to a local woman and said, can I have some Eges, which would have been his middle English word for it. He's from the North and Eges

is a sort of Old Norse derived word for eggs. We can recognize it still. And she goes, yeah, I don't speak French. No idea what you want from me. And after a while, they establish someone else comes in and actually says, oh, I think he wants ayren. And ayren is actually the southern word for eggs. So now she knows what happens. And Caxton kind of uses this as an anecdote to talk about how English isn't standardized in this period and the kind of challenges of printing for a mass audience because he says, am I supposed to put Eges or Ayrin? Because either way, half the people won't know what I'm talking about. So he has to make interesting choices. I say that, I will say that Caxton himself also spells words differently, like across a text,

sometimes the same page. So he didn't really listen to his own little anecdote, but it is interesting. It does raise these problems when you have got a kind of non-standardized language. And it also introduces standardization in certain spellings that we still use today. One of my favorites would be the H in ghost. In medieval English, it's G-O-S-T. Do you know where the H comes from? No. He's figured it out. He knows what happens here. He gives an answer when I mock him.

I'm really excited by the book. No, because I'm fascinated. The standardization is one of my favorite things, like the standardization of time with the rail time. Yeah, that comes like that. Yeah, exactly. Does it come from Herriwood the Wake? Oh, that's lovely. No, no, a bit early. But no, it comes from the low countries again. It's all the Dutch printers who've come over with Winking the Word and whatever. I'm just wondering if it does. Because I've come to notice there's been very much a low country bias ever since you brought on a low country historian.

As if the whole thing is nothing more than a marketing campaign. He's on to us. He's on to us. Visit the Netherlands. Yes. It's lovely. It's lovely. Go north to Friesland. Sorry, that's very funny.

No, basically, you've got people in the low countries and they're going, I feel like this word needs an H in it, so I'm just going to spell it ghost. And that's why we spell it ghost. So the BBC sitcom would be ghosts. Who are you gonna call? Ghostbusters? It doesn't work, right? I quite like ghost.

It's beautiful. We are nearing the end of the episode. So we need to sort of mention how the authorities reacted to this new communication technology. And Robin, at the start of the episode, you launched straight in with a thesis. Yeah. That they wouldn't like it.

Yeah. Well, I imagine there was in the same way that theatre, you know, a couple of centuries later you had, I forget what he was called now, the bloke who just said, you can't put that on, you can't put that on, and that went, you know, into the 1950s. I would imagine that the moment there was the suggestion that some, you know, especially if we're talking about Chaucer, I mean, Chaucer really is, I don't mean this in a joke way at all, it is tremendously racy. It's people, you know, sticking their arses out of windows

and those arses getting kissed and all that kind of thing. And so I would imagine there was a sense that they had to make sure that this did not get into the hands of what they would consider to be the uneducated people. So Lydia, where are the authorities? Where does the church, where does the king stand on printing presses as a new problem in society

or a new exciting technology? Yeah, so the powers that be did find use for printing to some extent as well. So we talked about those indulgences, so that's obviously religious institutions making a bit of cash on the side. But we also get the institution of the king's or the queen's printer from 1504, so someone who kind of prints works on behalf of the monarch. But there are problems too, so we do see that religious and secular authorities across Europe also want to control the flow of these new ideas, so again Protestantism, things like that. So we see that the first printed edition of the New Testament in English, which is by William Tindale,

which was published in 1525 to 1526. It actually had to be printed abroad, couldn't be printed in England. It was printed in worms in Germany which you might know from the famous diet of worms, possibly this was a meeting. The whole room went ahh. Some people know it. The Petrovič diet? Well how does that work? And it's because the English authorities wouldn't allow this basically at the time. So it takes a while. The first English Bible was printed in England not until 1539. So there's all that concerns and we know that Henry VIII makes a proclamation at some point. This is in 1538 against naughty printed books and he kind of forbids the printing in English without the approval of the Privy Council and he also bans the importation of

books to England without a royal license. So naughty printed books in 1538, probably a bit different to naughty printed books going viral on TikTok now. Do Google Romantic Book Tok, it's very interesting. The Nuance Window! The nuance window! Well, we have turned all the pages in our riveting story, so it's time to hit control-p print on the nuance window. This is where Robin and I pull out a book and do some silent reading for two minutes, while Dr Lydia takes centre stage to tell us something that we need to know about the early history of printing. Without much further ado, take it away, Dr. Lydia. Wait, so though print was often billed as a revolution, print was actually far from an overnight sensation.

So manuscript and early print culture existed side by side for a long time. Early printed books were even made to look like manuscripts. So Caxton's books used types that imitated handwritten Burgundian manuscripts because this is what his readers were familiar with. Many book lovers owned both manuscripts and printed books and some even copied books by hand, complete with drawings kind of made to look like printed woodcuts.

Artisans involved in the book trade did not necessarily distinguish between the two either, so binders might put both manuscripts and printed books together and printed books were sometimes illuminated by hand. Another myth that needs busting is that print made books cheaper and available to everyone. Early printed books were actually still very expensive, so they were often huge, their paper is also excellent quality, so some of the 500 year old books that I work with for my research are in a much better shape than my own 10 year old paperbacks. And they required a massive investment in both time and money because the price of printed books was hefty. Their readers were those people who had a bit of cash lying around.

those people who had a bit of cash lying around. So late medieval manuscript production already saw a rise in wealthy merchants, lawyers and scholars owning books and not just the nobility or religious institutions and this trend continues with printed books. We are talking about the literati really. This is a wealthy, well-educated, elite minority and it takes centuries before we get a sense that your average person can afford books or printed books. But as the example of Margaret of York showed there were a surprising number of women who supported printed books and over time female readership grew. We also see women printers, often widows, but someone like Elizabeth Pickering actually printed under her own name in the 1540s and this rise of women as the makers and consumers of books led to another kind of panic that has nothing

to do with Protestantism or censorship but with the age-old fear that women who read are dangerous. And and we are I can confirm. Thank You Lydia, Robin are women dangerous? No, I think anyone who reads if you read well you should be dangerous to society because you should be able to you know and that that's the thing that I absolutely love and I think you know it's like that you're one of the most famous I suppose you, women reading photographs is that magnificent picture of Marilyn Monroe reading James Joyce's Ulysses, you know, and you but you realize that so many great women are turned into cliches by the status quo.

I was thinking of Sinead O'Connor, she was so funny and she was so smart and she was so brilliant, you know, one of my favorite lines of hers, I'm sorry I know I've gone off the tangent, but I just, well, I've been doing that now for 35 years, but it's, I lie, 52. And there's a beautiful line, Sinead O'Connor said, they buried me, but they didn't know that I was a seed.

And I think that's part of what reading is about as well. When you are buried inside a book, when you are buried inside the library, you are gonna grow into something, you are going to grow into something magnificent. Oh that's lovely. So what do you know now? Great, well it's time now for the So What Do You Know Now? This is our quickfire quiz for Robin to see how much he knows.

Oh look, I proved there's no point in the quickfire quiz. Come on then. Right. Robin, are you feeling full of bookish knowledge? Did you, did all the dates and numbers and names go in or was it sort of very much a sort of vibes thing for you? I've had a lovely day, but I think I'm just going to take the cash and leave. Oh, I have to do this, do I? I'm just going to take the cash and leave.

Oh, I have to do this, don't I? Yeah, you can't phone a friend. Come on then Jim Bowen. Here we go, ten questions. Question one. In which East Asian country was movable cast metal type first invented? Korea. It was, well done.

Question two. Question two. Possibly how many characters would be needed to print a major Chinese Buddhist text? Oh, even when you said it, it got all million-y and billion-y. Something like 27,000. It was 200,000, which you know is bonkers.

I mean, that's just an estimate, but you know, it's a big old number, okay. Question three. Name two of Gutenberg's printing innovations. Oh, I wasn't concentrating at all then. Oh, I think it was Times New Roman and that poopier motorcon you mentioned. Think about the physicality of it, the squish. Yeah, the squishy ink thing.

The squishy, yeah, sort of even squishing, better oils and better production of metal type. Okay, question four, what was the name of the first ever book printed in the English language in 1474 featuring Hercules? Toxteth O'Grady. Very specific reference for some of you there. It was the story's history of Troy. It was, very good, well done. The Recoil of the History of Troy.

Question five. Why did Margaret of York lend her support to William Caxton's production of The Recoil of the History of Troy. Question five, why did Margaret of York lend her support to William Caxton's production of the Recoil of the History of Troy? What relationship did she have to the Hercules? Because her son was really into Hercules books. That's correct. Question six, what sticky end did,

uh-oh, Dutch printer, Gierard Lille. That. Meet in his own printing workshop. He got smashed in the head with someone else's printing tools. He did, he got stabbed by Henry. And he lived for days after.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Question seven. In which German city was William Tyndale's English Bible first printed? Uh, wasn't listening. The diet of? Oh yeah, worms. It was worms, well done, well done.

I kept thinking of Carla Ginsburg's Cheese and Worms. No? Sorry. It's alright. That is actually about worms though. Question eight. Name two other English towns besides London

where 16th century printers set up. We had quite a few. Abingdon and... Oh, Abingdon really stuck. Give me a famous university. And Cambridge. Yes, very good. You could have Oxford, St. Norborns, York, Tavistock, Ipswich, Worcester and Canterbury and Norwich. Question nine,

where does the H in the English word ghost come from? Oh god I do remember this one but my brain is not, Willon there lived in Lombardy, a man who had an H. Harrowwood, wait I can't remember, the Low Countries. It was The Low Countries. Princes of the Low Countries. Got there in the end. Very good. Because I was showing off so much, doing my whole thing about The Low Countries,

I was too busy showing off to learn, which is really the story of my life. This for eight out of 10, because you turned it around. It was a slightly wobbly start, but you've come good. This for eight out of 10. In question 10, in 1538, Henry VIII demanded all printed books be approved by the Privy Council, but which specific books did he ban? Sexy Books.

Yeah, the naughty printed books. Very good, you can have it. It is 8 out of 10 for Robin. It's pretty good. How do you feel now about the history of the printed book in the 15th century? I had a lovely day. I really love listening to stuff like that. My son absolutely loves history and he's always telling me things. To be honest, the ancient ghost is just such a beautiful thing.

It's good, isn't it? Because it makes it so much, again, that bit of contact, whether it's contact with a piece of information or contact with actually something physical it just brings that whole it's brought the ghosts alive no I didn't know it's not meant in any way like that it was I don't know why I did it in Brian Cox's voice I'm a physicist I can't be haunted you're breaking the second law of thermodynamics stop haunting me anyway well thank you so much, Robin. Thank you, Dr. Lydia.

And listener, if you want any more literary episodes from us, why not check out our episodes on vampires in Gothic literature? That's a very saucy, naughty one. Oh, I'd like to have been on that. Well, I love that. Get yourself a Brian Cox time machine and go backwards. We've got one on the Bloomsbury group.

That was our 100th episode. That was really fun and remember if you enjoyed the podcast please leave a review, share the show with your friends, subscribe to Your Dead to Me on BBC Sound so you never miss an episode. But that's all that it's left for me to say now so I just have to say a huge thanks to our guests. In History Corner we had the fabulously book smart Dr Lydia Zeldinbrust from the University of Glasgow. Thank you, Lydia. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And in Comedy Corner, we had our favorite bookworm, Robin Ince. Thank you, Robin. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And to you, lovely listener, join me next time as we crack the spine in another exciting historical story.

But for now, I'm off to send 12,450 unsold copies of my books to the Vatican. Bye! This episode of You're Dead to Me was researched by John Norman Mason, it was written by Emmy Rose Price Goodfellow, Emma Naguse and me, the audio producer was Steve Hankey and our production coordinator was Ben Hollands. It was produced by Emmy Rose Price Goodfellow, me and senior producer Emma Naguse and our executive editor was James Cook. You're Dead to Me is a BBC Studios audio production for BBC Radio 4. Hello, You're Dead to Me fans. Don't say that to our fans.

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