‘My House…Lying Within the Citie of Caunterbury’: A Sixteenth-Century London Stationer’s Legacy
This article provides a detailed account of a set of property deeds relating to a house which still stands in St Paul’s parish, Canterbury and which was held by a series of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century London stationers. For a brief period, this included Thomas Pavier, best known for his involvement with the potentially deceptive publication of Shakespeare plays in 1619, the so-called ‘False Folio’ or ‘Pavier Quartos’. Pavier’s property agreement reveals a previously unknown relationship with the son of his deceased colleague James Roberts, raising new questions over this much-debated affair. Additionally, in 1552, the property was held by London stationer, Thomas Knight, at a time when Canterbury resident, John Mychell, the last sixteenth-century provincial printer lived almost opposite the property discussed here. This prompts discussion of Canterbury’s early free stationers and the close connections between London and the provincial book trade.
A set of recently discovered property deeds opens a window onto sixteenth- and seventeenth-century links between London stationers and the provincial city of Canterbury. It also reveals a hitherto unknown connection between two London stationers: publisher of Shakespeare’s plays, Thomas Pavier, and Richard Roberts, the son of Pavier’s colleague, Shakespeare play copyright holder and printer, James Roberts.[fn1] The earliest deeds incorporate the signature and seal of Thomas Pavier (Fig. 1). The final document of the series names the property as the Duke’s Head, an extant listed sixteenth-century former pub in Church Street St Paul’s, an extra-mural street in Canterbury close to the former Benedictine monastery of St Augustine’s Abbey. The earliest surviving documents, dated 26 Jul 1620, relate to an agreement between Pavier and a tailor of Canterbury, Henry Peeke, but evidence an earlier transaction (1 Sep 1619) between Pavier and Richard Roberts shortly after the death of Richard’s father and in the same year as the publication of Shakespeare’s False Folio, also known as the ‘Pavier Quartos’.
[fg]jpg|Fig. 1 CCA-U538/5/1 Signature and seal of Thomas Pavier (Image copyright Canterbury Cathedral Archives).|Image[/fg]
The property in the parish of St Paul’s, Canterbury came to Richard Roberts via his father, James, who acquired it by marriage to Martha Knight. Martha inherited the property from her father, London stationer Thomas Knight. Thus, the Canterbury property was possessed by a series of London stationers from at least 1552, four years before the cessation of provincial printing in Canterbury. In this regard, it is notable that the parish of St Paul’s in Canterbury has been established [pg294][pg295]as the likely site of a sixteenth-century printing press in the city in a location close to the property detailed here.
This article sets out initial findings of research and begins with a brief description of the deed collection and property before considering Thomas Knight’s legacy, James and Richard Roberts, and Thomas Pavier. The major section examines the broad circumstances of the Roberts/Pavier original 1619 agreement. The final section of the paper explores Canterbury’s early free stationers and their links with London and the location of the sixteenth-century Canterbury printing press.
The deeds and property
The Deeds
The set of property deeds (CCA-U538/5/1-12) consists of ten assignment documents, one formal lease, a deed poll, and subsidiary items (Appendix).[fn2] They cover the period from 26 Jul 1620 to 6 Jan 1923 with a significant gap between January 1780 and the last document. Five are seventeenth-century, six eighteenth- century, one twentieth-century and one undated. As a collection, they present the progression of ownership and document styles: earlier documents include bulbous, poorly formed seals; later documents include intricate, detailed seal marks and well- preserved Stamp Duty stamps. The collection includes a small paper memorandum concerning an arched sink at the property which incorporates a manuscript plan of the plot dated 1719. The original two indentures, marking the agreement between Thomas Pavier and Richard Roberts made 1 Sep 1619 appear not to have survived but are implied in other documents.
The Property
The property to which the deeds relate is an extant Grade II listed, sixteenth- century, three-storied, timber-framed building featuring an overhanging gable in St Paul’s parish in Canterbury (Fig. 2).[fn3] It has been noted that the standing structure may be part of a larger original.[fn4]
[fg]jpg|Fig. 2 The Duke’s Head, Church Street St Paul’s, Canterbury, 1952 (©Kent Messenger Group).|Image[/fg]
St Paul’s is an extra-mural parish but sat within the bounds of Canterbury’s early modern city liberty and in the city’s Burgate ward. In the late sixteenth century, it was one of the poorest Canterbury parishes but was largely rural with a small suburban area close to the city walls.[fn5] The property’s location in Church Street St Paul’s – a short street leading directly from the city wall’s Burgate thoroughfare to the Cemetery Gate entrance of St Augustine’s Abbey – is close to the parish boundary and city wall. Manuscript maps of this area show a significant level of housing already established along both sides of Church Street by the late sixteenth century (Fig. 3). The dissolved abbey of St Augustine’s, just beyond Church Street, sat within an ex-liberty borough – Longport – and its lay cemetery accommodated burials for some of the deceased of St Paul’s which had no churchyard of its own.[fn6] After its dissolution in 1538 it became a private residence. Also scattered across St Paul’s parish were rental properties held by the early modern city corporation some of which had belonged to the Abbey prior to dissolution.
Prior to 1874, census and directory records either detail the property as number five or identifiably place it in that position by reference to occupants of the property [pg296][pg297]and those nearby. By 1881, Church Street property numbers were reassigned such that it became number four though some later maps, including the 1906 OS map, continued to identify the public house in Church Street as number five.
[fg]png|Fig. 3 CCA-Map/49 (L), c.1560; CCA-Map/123 (R), c. 1640, Church Street St Paul’s, Canterbury: The church is to the righthand side of the street and St Augustine’s gate is top left in both images. The property is located to the mid-lefthand side of the street. (Image copyright Canterbury Cathedral Archives.)[fn7]|Image[/fg]
The property has also endured several name changes. The earliest extant deeds (1620) only identify the property as ‘in St Paul’s Canterbury’ but by 1718 it is referenced as formerly the Rose and Crown with a later note ‘since The Duke of Cumberland’. After this, it was altered to The Duke’s Head and the most modern document (1923), confirms the link from The Duke’s Head back to the original 1619 agreement. A variety of photographs exist which feature the building in its former life as The Duke’s Head.[fn8]
The dimensions of the plot given in the property assignment of 26 Jul 1620 are ‘3 score + 12 ft’ in depth from the street – consistent with the current plot depth. This deed also notes the presence of a well in the garden. The well is marked on the March 1719 plot sketch to the rear of the house; the sketch also reveals a paved yard to the rear and a stable towards the back of the plot (Fig. 4). It shows the location of an arched sink ‘for water to sew into’ with dimensions 6ft 9in. long and 4ft 1in. deep. An added note records that this was ‘taken up 4 Apr 1726 when that part of the messuage was razed’.
[fg]jpg|Fig. 4 Enclosure to U538/5/8 Sketch of plot, 1719 (Image copyright Canterbury Cathedral Archives).|Image[/fg]
The Roberts/Pavier agreement (1619)
Thomas Knight’s Legacy The 1619 transaction between Richard Roberts and Thomas Pavier is outlined in the later assignment of 26 Jul 1620. This includes detailed assurance of Richard [pg298]Roberts’ identity as the son of London stationer, James Roberts, and grandson of Thomas Knight: …Richard Roberts of Kingston upon Hull in the County of York & citizen & stationer of London son & heir of James Roberts late citizen & stationer of London & Martha his wife deceased who was daughter and heir of Thomas Knight late of London bookseller also deceased…[fn9] The recited pedigree traces Richard Roberts’ lineage via his mother to his grandfather, Thomas Knight, a resident of the parish of St Gregory next St Paul’s in London at the time of his death and identified in U538/5/1 as ‘late of London and bookseller’. Knight’s executors, London stationer, John Walley, and merchant tailor, John Pounte, were granted probate on 27 Jul 1552, just over a week after his will was written.[fn10]
Amongst other bequests, Knight’s will confirms his possession of the Canterbury property and identifies two children: Martha and Abraham. By Thomas Knight’s emphatic declaration, ‘I meane I do give to my said two Children’, the siblings are jointly bequeathed ‘my house or Tenement scituate and lyinge within the Citie of Caunterbury: the fee symple thereof’ with the caveat that should either of them die then the survivor is to inherit the house fully. Since the two children are dependent at the date of writing he makes provision for them until of age, again with a clear direction concerning the house in Canterbury: ‘I will not that my said house or tenement be solde awaye before that my said sonne Abraham shalbe come to his laufull age’ or in the event of Abraham’s decease, Martha’s eighteenth birthday.
Rental income from the property is a key part of Thomas Knight’s plan for his children after his death. However, it seems likely that Abraham died, leaving Martha in sole possession of the house in Canterbury which, sixteen years after the death of her father, she brought to James Roberts through marriage. How Thomas [pg299]Knight came by the property himself is yet to be determined. Nevertheless, it seems straightforward that James Roberts held the property until his own death when it passed to his son, Richard.
James and Richard Roberts
James Roberts, a freeman of the London Stationers’ Company (entered 27 Jun 1564), initially specialised in printing almanacs and made a good living from a regularly renewed patent.[fn11] James married Martha Knight on 27 Jun 1568 at St Gregory by St Paul’s in London.[fn12] Together they had at least eleven children, beginning with Alice, baptised 24 Apr 1569 at St Anne’s, Blackfriars.[fn13] All their subsequent children were baptised at St Martin’s church in Ludgate, including Richard, the third son and seventh child baptised on 10 May 1577.[fn14] The baptism dates suggest a possible family move sometime between April 1569 and August 1570. No godparents are recorded for Richard but the 1570 baptismal entry for the eldest son – named James after his father – includes godparents Jarrett Dewce, Richard Watkyns and Elsabeth Newberye.[fn15] Dewce is probably Garrat Dewes, fellow stationer of The Swan in St Paul’s Churchyard (London); Watkyns, the individual of that name who received freedom as a member of the Stationers’ Company in April 1557 following an apprenticeship and with whom James Roberts held a joint almanac printing monopoly from 1571; and Elsabeth Newberye, probably also of the Stationers’ Company and known to have taken an apprentice in 1604.[fn16] This gathering of stationers as godparents for James Roberts’ first-born son reinforces the close-knit environment of the Company and James’s connections within it. It is appealing to consider that Thomas Pavier – who came to work closely with James Roberts – could have stood as godson to Richard in 1577, however, Pavier was closer in age to the son than the father, being born c.1570, only seven years before Richard Roberts.
Richard’s mother, Martha, died before he reached the age of sixteen, his father James remarrying in September 1593 to Alyce, the widow of fellow printer, John Charlewood.[fn17] James Roberts also took over Charlewood’s printing activities, which included the Stationers’ Company endorsement to print playbills. Between 1598 and 1603 Roberts registered five of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men’s plays including works of Shakespeare.[fn18] In 1606, James retired, his business being sold to William Jaggard. Direct evidence for the death of James Roberts has not been forthcoming. David Kathman identifies the cessation of annuity payments pointing to his death in ‘late 1618’, certainly after the last payment dated 24 June that year.[fn19] The wording in the newly-discovered lease above is consistent with this, confirming his death prior to July 1620 and almost certainly before 1 Sep 1619, the date of the original Roberts/Pavier agreement concerning the Canterbury property. In the absence of a will for James Roberts his heir(s) and executor(s) remain unknown. Richard was his third son but there is some evidence suggesting at least one of his older brothers pre-deceased their father. The above-mentioned eldest son, James, may have died since there is a baptism for another James in 1581, leaving Robert (baptised 1573) and Richard, as the two eldest male children.[fn20] Given James Roberts’ probable death sometime after June 1618, and the recitation of Richard’s pedigree, including the phrase ‘son and heir of James Roberts’, it seems likely that Richard inherited the house in Canterbury from his father.[pg300]
Little has been uncovered about Richard Roberts’ life, but it is notable that he is described as a ‘stationer of London’ despite living in Kingston-upon-Hull in the early seventeenth century. Indeed, he followed his father into the Stationers’ Company, being admitted by patrimony in 1611 at the relatively late age of 34.[fn21] Although James Roberts’ working relationship with Thomas Pavier is well-known, no connection between Richard Roberts and Pavier has been documented until now. Evidence of the 1619 property transaction confirms a continued association between the two families, no doubt reinforced by membership of the Stationers’ Company.
Thomas Pavier
Thomas Pavier, the son of a Shropshire yeoman, was born around 1570 and was therefore only a few years older than Richard Roberts (baptised 1577).[fn22] He is believed to have arrived in London in the early 1590s, entering a draper’s apprenticeship with William Barley, who, though a draper, was heavily involved in the book trade. Pavier, alongside his brother, Roger, and his master, were part of a court case brought by the Stationers’ Company in 1598 against the involvement of drapers in the book trade. Consequently, Pavier spent time in the Fleet prison, no doubt an early lesson in the perils of being on the wrong side of the Stationers’ Company in a court case. Nevertheless, on completion of his apprenticeship and following the resolution of the draper/stationer dispute he was accepted into the Stationers’ Company in 1600. He immediately set up a shop in Cornhill, moving his business in the year he was married (1614) to Ivy Lane, the property wherein the peppercorn rent for the house in Canterbury was due.[fn23]
Pavier’s position in the Stationers’ Company steadily progressed such that in 1604 he was elected to the livery of the Stationers’ Company, eight years behind James Roberts (elected 1596) with whom he then served. Fifteen years later, on 14 Jun 1619, he was further elected to sit on the governing board of the Company as part of the Court of Assistants, a role which involved him in stock aspects of the Company, implying a favourable personal financial situation.[fn24]This appointment was three months before he signed the Canterbury property indentures with Richard Roberts.
Regarding his publishing portfolio, Pavier’s early days involved ‘translations of foreign news’ but around 1613 he ceased printing newsbooks, and ‘ballads and broadsides which mainly reflected domestic broils and murders’ and turned to printing religious tracts. Except for the ‘Pavier Quartos’ (see below), his publication of plays was concentrated prior to 1611.[fn25] Pavier continued to work and hold office in the Stationers’ Company until his death in 1625. His will (1626) makes no mention of Richard Roberts although he leaves money to three other friends as well as the son of his former master, William Barley.[fn26] He also bequeathed seven properties including his own house and one in which a ‘Mr Smyther’ lived. This latter could have been the residence of the scrivener, Mr Smyther, who drew up and signed the earliest of the newly discovered deeds.[fn27] It is no surprise that there is no mention of the Canterbury property since Pavier had assigned it away to Henry Peeke in 1620. Nevertheless, Pavier’s will indicates his propensity for remembrance of friends and his significant personal property portfolio and therefore familiarity with property transactions.
[pg301]The 1619 Agreement Elements of the original indentures of 1 Sep 1619 are recited in the first extant deed, the Pavier to Peeke assignment dated 16 Jul 1620. This recitation points to the original transaction being the establishment of a long lease ‘untothend and terme and for and during the term of one thousand years’ from the previous feast of John the Baptist (24 Jun 1619) in return for a peppercorn rent, if requested, to be paid on Christmas Day at the ‘then and nowe dwelling house of the said Thomas Pavier in Ivye Lane in London’, Pavier’s address since 1614.[fn28]
The missing indentures may have been drawn up and signed in Stationers’ Hall in London. On this date, Pavier is recorded in the Stationers’ Register as party to a publishing agreement with two other fellow stationers.[fn29] It seems probable that Pavier took advantage of being at the Hall to sign his own private agreement with Richard Roberts, the Stationers’ Company premises being an obvious place for Company members to transact business. At the sealing of the original agreement, it seems Richard Roberts received a sum of £40 from Pavier for the property. Just under one year later, when Pavier reassigned the property to Henry Peeke in 1620 he received £42, a five per cent increase on his outlay. This onward assignment indicates that Pavier had no plan to return the property to Richard Roberts, a point confirmed by the ensuing set of deeds.
Two weeks after the original pair of indentures were drawn up, on 15 Sep 1619, the Entry Book of the Office of the Clerk of Recognizances shows that Richard Roberts appeared before the Chief Justice, Sir Henry Hobart, in the Court of Common Pleas and became bound to Thomas Pavier for £100 (Fig. 5).[fn30]
[fg]jpg|Fig. 5 TNA, LC4/199, Richard Roberts’ recognizance, 15 Sep 1619 (©TNA).|Image[/fg]
This recognizance in the form of a statute staple was probably a bond for the performance of covenants set out in the original indentures.[fn31] Without these documents there can be no certainty over what these covenants were, however, it is possible that they were of a standard nature relating to the validity of Richard Roberts’ ownership of the property and his non-interference once the transaction had taken place. On the surface, Pavier’s motives appear financially enabling or supportive to Roberts. Perhaps Pavier took the property to provide £40 to Richard Roberts along with the hopeful intention of obtaining a return on his investment. Certainly, Pavier’s financial position was such that he had sufficient money to assist Roberts in this way. He had a successful business and was involved in both [pg302]the English and Latin Stock of the Stationers’ Company which required significant financial investment, and in 1612 he was able to pay £20 to offset his appointment as Renter Warden.[fn32]
If the original transaction was financially driven, then the need would appear to have arisen on Richard Roberts’ side. Yet, Roberts’ financial position would also seem to have been robust given his own standing as a Stationers’ Company member and possession of at least the Canterbury property which would have provided him with rent had he required it. Roberts’ own lack of action in regaining the property points to the absence of any long-term interest in it or the rent it could provide. Alternatively, the transaction could have been a means for Pavier to assist in offloading a property which Richard Roberts – living in Kingston-upon-Hull in the north of England – had recently inherited but did not wish to hold or maintain. This scenario suggests a familiarity between the two men, understandable given Pavier’s business relationship with James Roberts and that both were Company men. Without further evidence it is impossible to be sure of the context of the agreement, however, there appears to have been little benefit to be gained by Pavier in taking on a property he paid for and then disposed of so quickly.
In seeking further motives, the timing of the transaction is relevant and prompts necessary consideration of a specific line of thought. It was in early 1619 that the Pavier Quartos were published. This bound quarto collection consisted of nine playbooks from several publishers either by or with links to William Shakespeare, crucially, with differing title page dates.[fn33] The point of interest here is that the Quarto collection carried falsely-dated imprints of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice and A Midsummer Night’s Dream published by Thomas Pavier but bearing the deceased James Roberts’ name, a puzzle which continues to vex historians. Given the newfound connection between Pavier and Richard Roberts, and the fact it entails a financial transaction, the question must be asked as to whether the Roberts/Pavier property agreement could reflect some inducement or settlement in relation to this deceptive affair. Could Pavier’s help have been a demand from Richard Roberts in acquiescing to using his father’s name in the way it was? Whilst not delving here into the intricacies of the controversy of the Pavier Quartos, it is useful to set out a summary of the issue and debates in order to reflect on the question of whether there could be any direct connection between the two.[fn34]
Pavier is, perhaps, better known as a stationer of this period because of his involvement in the publication of the so-called ‘False Folio’ or ‘Pavier Quartos’. There has been much discussion of his motives and character as historians attempt to clarify his involvement in a potentially underhand affair, it having been reasoned that he was the major player in the Quarto publication of 1619, produced four years before the First Folio Shakespeare collection of 1623.
The conundrum of the Pavier Quartos began with William Greg’s early twentieth- century analysis which uncovered the likely single printing date – 1619 – of the collection of playbooks despite their apparently different publication dates. In the light of this discovery, Greg’s reasoning led him to suggest that Pavier ‘must for some reason have become nervous about his undertaking and have determined to issue the rest of the plays he was reprinting under the guise of remainders of earlier editions’.[fn35]Hence the theory that Pavier had masterminded a deceitful publication with several false playbook dates, two of which were those bearing the deceased [pg303]James Roberts’ name. This led to the 1619 collection being given the name ‘Pavier Quartos’.
As long ago as 1909, Alfred Pollard highlighted that living copy owners could have given approval to the scheme or were able to defend their rights if infringed, something not possible for James Roberts who had died just a few months before publication of the Quarto collection.[fn36] The implication was that Pavier had used his deceased colleague’s name as there could be no comeback from him. James Roberts’ likely death in 1618 allowed the assumption that that was the end of his role in the affair – as indeed it was – but the now documented connection between Pavier and James’s stationer son in this timeframe keeps open potential family involvement.
In 1992, Gerald Johnson acknowledged that many modern bibliographers saw Pavier as ‘one of the scoundrels in the book trade during the time of Shakespeare’, though his own characterisation set him out to be ‘one of the most enterprising and successful publishers’ of the early seventeenth century.[fn37] By 2007, Sonia Massai took a step beyond Johnson to characterise Pavier as ‘a conscientious, if not a fussy, publisher, who took an active interest in the quality of the texts he published’.[fn38] She pictures him as an ‘early annotating reader’ arguing that he may have annotated the copy of the 1619 quartos prior to printing.[fn39] Additionally, as Johnson pointed out, Pavier’s Stationers’ Company election to the governing board in the middle of 1619, noted above, made it unlikely that ‘at this stage in his career, [he] would have perpetrated a fraud that put his reputation at risk’.[fn40] He further argues that ‘some strong or unusual inducement must have been necessary to convince him’ to join the enterprise, putting forward financial gain and ‘connections among publishers involved’ as possible reasons.[fn41] This questioning of Pavier’s involvement and gradual rehabilitation of his character has recently found additional support whilst not exonerating him entirely. Sonia Massai argues that a fellow printer, Isaac Jaggard (working with his father, William), may have supported Pavier’s decision to publish the gathered playbooks in order to secure ‘marketing benefits’ for the later work of the First Folio in which father and son played a key role.[fn42] As such, the Pavier Quartos might be seen in the light of one of a variety of ‘experiments in market development’ occurring at that time within the book trade.[fn43]
Most recently, following a detailed analysis of the ‘ghosts, holes, rips and scrapes’ in surviving copies of the Quarto plays, Zachary Lesser proposes that ‘attempts at deception were more likely Jaggard’s than Pavier’s’.[fn44] His conviction that it was Jaggard ‘at the center of the project, not Pavier’ led him to alter his description mid-way through his book from the ‘Pavier Quartos’ to the ‘Jaggard Quartos’.[fn45] Indeed, recent scholarship favours this term, the ‘Pavier/Jaggard Quartos’, or the ‘Jaggard/Pavier Quartos’ as the debate now shifts away from Pavier as chief protagonist.[fn46] In part, these arguments hinge on the Jaggards’ potentially more legitimate claim to use James Roberts’ name since it was William Jaggard who had taken over James’s business in 1606: ‘The false imprint substitutes the very printer from whom Jaggard could quite plausibly claim he had inherited these old playbook copies printed in 1600’.[fn47] Thus, moving on from Greg’s early assessment of Pavier, there is no denial of Pavier’s involvement in the project but emphasis on him as sole instigator is shifting, as is the reasoning behind the project’s deceptive elements.
It is possible that, though noted, the role of James Roberts in the planned Quarto [pg304]publication and the impact of his death has not been given full consideration.[fn48] James died sometime in the months after 24 Jun 1618, potentially around six to nine months before publication of the Pavier Quartos. Where mentioned, it has often been to promote the opportunity that this afforded Thomas Pavier – for example, that he was ‘perhaps emboldened by Roberts’ death’ – rather than any collaborative difficulties it may have produced.[fn49] Given Pavier’s apparent close relationship with the Roberts family as witnessed by the newly-discovered house deeds, it is perhaps less likely that Pavier – or Jaggard – sought to take advantage after James’s death and more likely that James – and potentially his son, Richard – were party to the project in some way or had at the very least been consulted. Given the previous absence of a connection between Pavier and James’s son, Richard, it is unsurprising that the possibility of a continued family involvement with the Quarto project after James’s death has not been considered. Perhaps, in the light of the uncovered relationship between Pavier and Richard Roberts, it is something worth revisiting.
How then might the above relate to the Roberts/Pavier transaction of 1619? There is no evidence either way, at this point, regarding Richard Roberts’ possible involvement in the Quarto publication but he was almost certainly aware of it. The property deeds confirm that he and Thomas Pavier were in communication at this point and engaged in business transactions together. In the absence of further evidence, however, the initial assessment of the reason behind the property deal is best seen as representing Richard Roberts sorting out his father’s affairs with help from a family friend.
Transactions 1620-1651
Whatever the deeper nature of Richard Roberts’ and Thomas Pavier’s arrangement, it is obvious that neither desired the property in Canterbury. Richard likely held it for less than a year and within another year Pavier had assigned the property away. The earliest surviving documents (July 1620) mark this assignment from Pavier to Henry Peeke, a tailor of Canterbury. Peeke is likely the son of Henry Peeke/ Pike, a cutler, who received freedom of the city of Canterbury on 8 May 1596 after serving an apprenticeship.[fn50]The timing of his freedom may also have been prompted by the imminent birth of his son who just a week later was baptised in St George’s church (15 May).[fn51] This ensured that the young Henry – the tailor – would later be able to obtain freedom of the city by patrimony, which he did on 28 Sep 1618, two years before the property transaction with Pavier.[fn52] Though it was early in the tailor’s working life, he was, at that point, free to trade in the city and could perhaps have sought a building from which to run his tailoring business, maybe with financial support from his father who was a witness to the property deal. However, the assignment from Pavier to Peeke implies that the house was in the occupation of a gentleman, Thomas Drury, pointing to its being used as a source of rental income, and providing a sense of the standard of the property at this time. A ‘Mr Drewrey’ can be traced in a Burgate Ward watch assessment for 1610 and a St Paul’s parish collection for the poor in March 1615.[fn53] He may also be the ‘Mr Drewe’ of St Paul’s mentioned in a deposition of 1617 suggesting he may have been a long-term tenant.[fn54][pg305]
Whether Henry Peeke used the house for personal, business or rental purposes, after just two years he assigned on the statute staple bond. This went to John Clarke ‘of Fulham in the County of Middlesex gent’, perhaps the stationer of London who died in 1651.[fn55] Peeke and Clarke must have remained in contact as, in 1634, the property and bond were reunited in a combined assignment from the two men to Richard Piggot, ‘citizen and grocer of London’. This may well be the Piggot who lent thousands of pounds to Parliament and whose son went on to become a knight and alderman of London and is mentioned in Samuel Pepys diary.[fn56] A note on U538/5/4 suggests a close link between Clarke and Piggot, the former being described as ‘cozen’. The subsequent assignment in 1651 from Piggot the elder to a John Clarke – in the presence of Richard Piggot junior and others – is quite possibly to the earlier Clarke’s son. This suggests a continuing association between those who held the property over this period.
The transactions which followed during the eighteenth century, though not considered further here, continued to see the property held by a series of wealthier individuals, reinforcing its perceived value over time. The final extant document from 1923 – some three hundred years after the original Roberts/Pavier transaction – by reference, usefully connects The Duke’s Head pub with the original 1619 agreement.
This brief foray into post-1620 transactions clearly reveals the generally elite nature of the individuals through whose hands the Canterbury property passed and exposes potentially important networks of personal connection. It also highlights the value placed on the property in Canterbury over a long period whilst leaving open many questions about those in possession of the property, those who may have been resident in the property, and the uses to which it was put before becoming a public house.
Provincial book trade connections
Having looked forward from 1619, the property deeds also allow us to look back into the sixteenth century when the house was in the hands of Richard Roberts’ father, James, and his grandfather, Thomas Knight. This early period of the property’s history sits within the broader context of book trade connections between London and the city of Canterbury.
James Roberts in Canterbury?
It is possible that James Roberts received rent from the house for years without ever visiting Canterbury; additional evidence, however, raises a possibility that coming into possession of the house provided him with an opportunity to, at least, build working connections with the provincial city. Canterbury city’s chamberlains’ accounts record that on 20 Mar 1570, a stationer, James Robards, was admitted to the freedom of the city with a waiving of the usual payment.[fn57] Freedom by redemption without monetary penalty for the privilege of entry and trade was given at the discretion of the city corporation. Few individuals each year were afforded this favour out of an annual total of between seven and twenty-two freeman admissions in the period 1560-1580.[fn58]Since such freedoms [pg306]were exceptions to the rule of payment further evidence of the circumstances are sometimes found in the accounts or in the minutes of the city’s Burghmote court. In this instance, no explanatory minute has been found and the account record is basic. Individuals might also petition magistrates for their freedom but only two dated petitions to the court exist for the sixteenth century, neither of which relate to Robards. Nevertheless, a free grant of freedom suggests a willingness on the part of the city corporation to welcome James Robards into the city’s elite group. As a property holder – and respected member of the Stationers’ Company – this could be consistent with James Roberts’ standing at this time.
The coincidence of name and occupation are not in themselves conclusive evidence, but circumstantial considerations begin to build a reasonable case for at least considering this theory. The date of James Robards’ admission to the freedom of Canterbury is consistent with the fortunes of James Roberts at that time. It is about six years after Roberts became a freeman of the London Stationers’ Company and took on his first apprentice, and shortly before the time when he obtained the joint patent which would sustain his business income for many years.[fn59] It is a couple of years after his marriage to Martha and exactly between the baptisms of his first two children, already noted above as taking place in different parishes. The freedom entry describes James Robards as ‘off ye citte off Canterbury’, allowing a level of speculation as to whether, if Robards were Roberts, the young family might even have moved to Canterbury for a short period of time. Alternatively, it may be that property possession was sufficient to warrant an ‘of the city’ attribution.
No firm corroborating evidence underpins the proposition of Roberts as Robards, though use of the term ‘stationer’ in the Canterbury account record might also be credited with some significance. As Marta Straznicky highlights, post-1557 (the date of incorporation of the Stationers’ Company), use of the term ‘stationer’ more accurately indicates a member of the Company.[fn60] However, a 1571 list of eleven Stationers’ Company members living outside London for more than a year yet paying tax dues to the city of London does not include Roberts, although it does include Canterbury resident Richard Wallis (see below).[fn61]
No further evidence of Robards has been found to date, the only record is of his freedom. Furthermore, he is surprisingly absent from discussions of Canterbury (or London) stationers, for example, his name does not appear in Plomer’s Libraries and Bookshops of Canterbury which details other Canterbury stationers of this period.[fn62] This absence of information could reinforce the idea that Roberts is Robards since, despite receiving freedom of Canterbury, he likely lived and spent his working life in London. Indeed, whilst maintaining a level of scepticism about the singularity of Roberts and Robards, the idea is worthy of further investigation given James Roberts’ later business connections and that Christopher Marlowe was born in the neighbouring St George’s parish in 1564. If James Roberts (either alone or with his new wife and one year old daughter, Alice) did indeed reside in Canterbury for even a short period of time then there exists the possibility of his acquaintance with the Marlowe family.
If the family did move to Canterbury, it is clear from the string of baptisms in the St Martin’s Ludgate register that the family did not remain in the city long. Overall, it is perhaps more likely that the family remained in London whilst James travelled alone to Canterbury on short visits to develop beneficial connections facilitated [pg307]by possession of the Canterbury property. Wherever he lived, and whether or not Roberts is Robards, James likely continued to receive rent from the house until his death in c.1618 when it passed to his son, Richard. James apparently saw no reason to let go of the property, even after his wife Martha – who may have had an emotional connection to the house – had died.
Early Canterbury Stationers with London Connections
In broader view, Canterbury’s book trade connections with London were both necessary and enduring. As David Shaw notes, ‘Provincial booksellers maintained (or even depended on) good links with the centre of the English book trade in London’.[fn63] Canterbury’s earliest recorded stationers were in the city in the late fifteenth century, including one in Burgate ward though this ward extended beyond St Paul’s parish and across a section of the walled city.[fn64] From 1537 onwards, a succession of individuals working in the book trade were granted freedom to conduct their business in the city during the sixteenth century and several had London connections. The earliest of these, John Mychell, was one of the last provincial printers of the sixteenth century, a contemporary of Thomas Knight and a near neighbour to his Canterbury property in St Paul’s parish.
Blayney suggests Mychell may have been born in Canterbury, presumably an extrapolation from identifying Mychell’s father – also called John and possibly a joiner or stonemason – as a resident of Canterbury’s Ivy Lane within St Paul’s parish.[fn65] However, Mychell served his apprenticeship in London with Thomas Godfray and began his printing there (later 1520s), later working from the Long Shop in the Poultry.[fn66] It is likely that through Godfray’s business he encountered the Canterbury-based monk of St Augustine’s Abbey, Robert Saltwood, a man Blayney suggested ‘shaped’ the works Mychell chose to print.[fn67] The relationship with Saltwood may even have led to Mychell subsequently working as a ‘professional printer’ for – and possibly within – the abbey, an idea with recent support from Clark and Palmer.[fn68] Such a situation was not limited to Canterbury. At this time, other abbeys – Tavistock, Abingdon, St Alban’s, Syon – ‘were experimenting significantly with print by establishing their own presses or by entering into close relationships with local printers’.[fn69] It has been proposed that such enterprises had a distinctly commercial intent though sometimes more personal than institutional.[fn70] Blayney dated the onset of Mychell’s printing activities in Canterbury from at least 1535 but several works are suggestive of an earlier date, possibly 1532, but almost certainly by 1534.[fn71] In Canterbury, Mychell continued his association with Saltwood and initially paid the city corporation 8d. to trade as an intrante ‘Bokebynder’ (1533-4).[fn72] Mychell may not have made a wholesale move out of London but had ‘established bases in both cities’, highlighting the strength of connections between London and the provincial city.[fn73] Indeed, Knight may have sold books in Canterbury, much as Mychell did in the early days.[fn74] The, as yet, unanswered, question is whether Knight used his house in Church Street for this purpose.
Whilst, as Plomer suggested, it is possible that Mychell’s Canterbury press was first sited within the bounds of St Augustine’s Abbey – in similar manner to the monastic press at St Alban’s – it seems likely that it would have been removed at or [pg308]by the time of the abbey’s dissolution in July 1538.[fn75] Whether rehoused or already established, current consensus suggests a later site for the press in Mychell’s nearby house in Church Street, less than 100m from the abbey and almost opposite the Canterbury property under consideration here. One of Mychell’s earliest Canterbury works, Here foloweth the churle and the byrde (John Lydgate, 1534) confirms the parochial location: Printed ‘at Cantorbury in saynte Paules parysshe by Iohan Mychel’.[fn76] Given the proximity of Thomas Knight’s and John Mychell’s properties, it is useful to set out the exact arrangement. Hobbs was the first to offer evidence that John Mychell ‘had moved to the corner of Lower Bridge Street and St Paul’s Church Street where he held a messuage on which he paid 3s. a year’.[fn77] Lower Bridge Street ran outside but along the city wall, at the bottom of the map details above (Fig. 3). This corner house property, to the righthand side of the street in Fig. 3, was formerly held by St Augustine’s Abbey, and post-dissolution by Canterbury city corporation along with a range of other ex-Abbey properties.[fn78] It is conceivable, therefore, that the press remained on the same site having been established in the property when it belonged to St Augustine’s Abbey. Without direct evidence of the exact site of the press but with new evidence of another stationer’s house so close by further questions arise: could Knight have worked in association with Mychell, was Knight’s house for his own domestic or business use or was it rented out, and could Knight’s property even have been used to house a printing press at some point?
By 1538, Mychell’s immediate neighbour in St Paul’s parish was John Twyne, headmaster of Canterbury’s King’s School (c.1524-1560).[fn79] On the other side, Twyne bounded St Paul’s church, and almost directly opposite Twyne was Thomas Knight’s property. Mychell and Twyne, along with Robert Saltwood, appear to have been associates for some years and Mychell increasingly worked with Twyne as he ‘moved away from his monastic patrons’ during the 1530s.[fn80] In 1536, an unnamed ‘prynter dwelling in the parysche of sent pollys’ – considered to be Mychell – was presented at Quarter Sessions for printing blasphemous books.[fn81] The presentment, however, makes clear that the press was ‘mayntenyd procured and abetited thereunto by John twine of the sayd parysche’. Twyne, by this time with ‘distinct Lutheran proclivities’, is considered to have ‘joined the ranks of the reformers’.[fn82] Blayney suggested it was Saltwood who ‘persuaded’ Mychell ‘to set up a press near the abbey in Canterbury’, providing him with certain printing types and ornaments, but Mychell may equally have been encouraged and supported by Twyne.[fn83] Thomas Knight’s association with the men is unknown but given the closeness of their properties they may well have been acquainted, depending on when Knight obtained the property in Canterbury.
Despite the backdrop of the presentment, Mychell obtained more formal city freedom as a ‘Prynter’ on payment of ten shillings on 14 Sep 1537.[fn84] This move, perhaps precipitated by the dissolution of the abbey, brought Mychell’s printing more directly under the control of the city corporation. Mychell died in 1556 – four years after Thomas Knight – ending sixteenth-century provincial printing in England.[fn85] Twyne survived until 1581, though in the post-1560 period likely lived out of the city whilst retaining his property in St Paul’s.[fn86] Both men could easily have had connections with Thomas Knight though it remains to be determined as [pg309]to whether the intimate location of the houses of Mychell, Twyne, and Knight is coincidental or evidences some deeper book trade connection.
After the death of John Mychell, Canterbury’s Burghmote granted freedom to a string of stationers through to the early seventeenth century, many of whom also had London connections. A contemporary of Mychell, is ‘Stacyoner’ and bookseller, Thomas Kele who paid ten shillings on 2 October 1547 for his freedom of the city of Canterbury.[fn87] Duff suggests Kele was active in London from c.1526 later moving, like Mychell, to Canterbury but retaining strong links with the book trade in London through his two sons, Richard, a printer, and John, a bookseller.[fn88] Since Thomas Knight likely held the Canterbury property for some time before his death in 1552, Kele may also have had connections with Knight.
After Kele and Mychell, there appears to be a gap in Canterbury’s free stationers until John Gye’s payment for freedom in May 1560 when he is described as ‘of Canterbury’.[fn89] Nothing more is known about Gye, but in 1569, just under a year before James Robards’ grant of freedom, a John Gye was buried in the London parish of St Gregory by St Paul’s.[fn90] This is the parish where James Roberts married Martha Knight in 1568 and adjacent to the parish of St Martin, Ludgate into which they subsequently moved. Whilst a tenuous link, the evidenced connections between London and Canterbury stationers make it one worthy of future attention as it may be that Gye’s death left open the opportunity for James Roberts (if Robards) to obtain freedom in Canterbury.
Two others are noted as stationers in Canterbury at about the same time as James Robards’ received his freedom in early 1570. Clement Bassock – who Plomer describes as ‘in all probability a bookseller’ appears to have lived and died in Canterbury.[fn91]A Clement Bassock appears in subsidy rolls of the late 1550s in Canterbury’s Burgate ward which includes the parish of St Paul.[fn92] Despite no Canterbury or Stationers’ Company freedom records for Bassock his service as Canterbury sheriff, alderman and mayor means he must have been a resident and freeman by May 1562.[fn93] He died in 1583.[fn94]
Contemporary with Bassock but a confirmed member of the Stationers’ Company living in Canterbury in 1571 as noted above is Richard Wallis.[fn95] He also appears to have worked as a Notary Public in the Consistory Court of Canterbury, and this may have been his usual occupation.[fn96] Nevertheless, his Company membership could have brought him into contact with James Roberts, whose possible Canterbury freedom occurred when Wallis lived in the city. Richard’s probable son, Francis Walleys, was a contemporary of Christopher Marlowe and probably a fellow scholar at the King’s School in 1579/80.[fn97] Two further Canterbury stationers obtained freedom before the end of the sixteenth century, Joseph Buckley (free 1590) and Esdras Johnson (1594).[fn98]However, Wallis’s Company membership – and maybe James Roberts’ freedom – perhaps mark the end of such close associations with London Stationers’ Company members working in Canterbury.
This short chronology of the run of early free stationers in Canterbury reveals freedoms generally sequential rather than concurrent. These earliest Canterbury stationers had significant connections with London reinforcing academic interest in Thomas Knight possessing the house in Canterbury and the possibility of James Roberts being James Robards. That Knight’s house was in St Paul’s parish and so [pg310]close to that of John Mychell adds to the sense of potential connections that the newfound deeds make possible. But many questions remain.
Conclusion
Thomas Knight’s legacy of the Canterbury house to his children set in train a series of documented property transactions spanning several centuries. The broad scope of this early research following the discovery of the set of property deeds provides a tantalising insight into the history of the extant sixteenth-century building in Canterbury. The social status of individuals possessing the property bears witness to its perceived value from the mid-sixteenth century onwards.
The deeds evidence a confirmed link between London stationers Richard Roberts and Thomas Pavier, an interesting connection given the circumstances and timing of the publication of the Pavier – or Jaggard – Quartos. It seems probable, however, that it was a practical arrangement between the two men such that Pavier assisted Richard Roberts to dispose of an inherited property neither had any long-term interest in, but which Pavier was better placed to deal with.
That this property was held by a series of London stationers for at least around seventy years is notable and highlights the close connections between stationers of London and Canterbury. However, the fundamental significance of this remains unknown. Uncovering how Thomas Knight obtained the property, and residents over time, may help determine the uses to which the house was put and whether it was a domestic, business or rental property. There is no doubt it was close to the sixteenth-century house of printer John Mychell in St Paul’s parish but was this purposeful or coincidental? Further uncertainty surrounds the question of whether James Roberts is James Robards but, if so, it suggests a hitherto unknown close working association between Roberts and the city of Canterbury.
In conclusion, this article is speculative in places, but purposefully raises pertinent questions for further research. Undoubtedly, the answers to some of these questions will widen our understanding of the lives of early modern stationers and the book trade, especially for the city of Canterbury.
Acknowledgements
The author is grateful to the late Ken Reedie who first identified the deeds and was instrumental in obtaining them and donating them to Canterbury Cathedral Archives in 2016 on behalf of The Friends of Canterbury Museum. Grateful thanks also go to Dr Imogen Wedd for invaluable advice concerning property documents and Dr Sheila Sweetinburgh for discussion of an early draft.[pg311]
Appendix
Documents relating to the property Notes: Archive references are CCA- unless otherwise indicated Not all documents listed are discussed in this article
[tb][th]Reference|Date|Parties to agreement|Type of agreement[/th]
[tr][Non-extant but implied]|1 Sep 1619|Richard Roberts / Thomas Pavier|Original pair of indentures[/tr]
[tr]TNA LC4/199 & LC4/45|15 Sep 1619|Richard Roberts / Thomas Pavier|Recognizance in the form of a statute staple with associated defeasance[/tr]
[tr]U538/5/1|26 Jul 1620|Thomas Pavier / Henry Peeke|Assignment of lease[/tr]
[tr]U538/5/2|26 Jul 1620|Thomas Pavier / Henry Peeke|Assignment of statute staple[/tr]
[tr]U538/5/3|24 May 1622|Henry Peeke / John Clarke|Assignment of statute staple[/tr]
[tr]U538/5/4|26 Aug 1634|Henry Peeke & John Clarke / Richard Pigott|Assignment of lease[/tr]
[tr]U538/5/5|10 Feb 1651|Richard Pigott / John Clarke|Assignment of lease[/tr]
[tr]U538/5/6|27 Sep 1701|Anne Hills (admin. John Clarke) / Valentine Taunton|Assignment of lease (incl. probate doc.)[/tr]
[tr]U538/5/7|28 Mar 1717|Elizabeth Taunton (exec. V. Taunton) & Elizabeth Hobday (admin. Anne Hills) / John Pilcher|Assignment of lease[/tr]
[tr]U538/5/8|20 Oct 1718 & 25 Oct 1718|John Pilcher / John Lellesden; John Lellesden / Valentine Jeken|Assignments of lease (incl. sketch plan of plot, 1719)[/tr]
[tr]U538/5/10|5 Apr 1774|John Whitfield / Thomas White|Lease (1 yr)[/tr]
[tr]U538/5/9|31 Jan 1780|Ann Jeken, David & Elizabeth Newman / John Jackson|Assignment of lease[/tr]
[tr][Non-extant but implied]|10 Mar 1912|Rev. Henry George Hilton & Francis Delafesse Simpson; Francis Delafesse Simpson & Frederick Nichols Marcy / Charles Rigden, Annie Catherine O’Brien, William Donough O’Brien|Indenture of lease and release[/tr]
[tr]U538/5/11|6 Jan 1923|Annie O’Brien & Charles Rigden|Deed Poll: enlargement to fee simple[/tr]
[tr]U538/5/12|n.d.|[Mentions a Mr Turnock]|Short note re a trust[/tr]
[/tb]
[pg312]
Endnotes
[fn]1|For short summaries of both men’s professional history see Marta Straznicky, ‘Appendix B: Selected Stationer Profiles’, in Marta Straznicky, ed., Shakespeare’s Stationers (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), pp. 276, 281.[/fn]
[fn]2|CCA-U538/5/1-12.[/fn]
[fn]3|Historic England, entry number 1336813. See also Canterbury Archaeological Trust Annual Report (1983-4), p. 56.[/fn]
[fn]4|Canterbury Archaeological Trust, ‘Interim Report 1984’, Archaeologia Cantiana (Arch. Cant.), 101 (1984), p. 310.[/fn]
[fn]5|Peter and Jennifer Clark, ‘The Social Economy of the Canterbury Suburbs: The Evidence of the Census of 1563’, in Studies in Modern Kentish History ed. by Alec Detsicas and Nigel Yates (Kent Archaeological Society, 1983), pp. 65-86 (p. 68).[/fn]
[fn]6|William Somner, The Antiquities of Canterbury (1703; repr. EP Publishing Ltd, 1977), pp. 33- 4. For parish and borough boundaries see rear insert map in The Parish of St. Martin and St. Paul Canterbury, ed. by Margaret Sparks (Friends of St Martin’s, 1980).[/fn]
[fn]7|Fuller versions of both maps may be consulted in print in Arch. Cant., 144 (2023), pp. 216-242 or online in Canterbury Cathedral Archives image library.[/fn]
[fn]8|For example, several images are held by the Beaney Library, Canterbury (Section B/P).[/fn]
[fn]9|CCA/U538/5/1.[/fn]
[fn]10|‘Thomas Knighte, bookseller of London’, PROB 11/35/259, July 1552. He also appoints London merchant tailor Richard Hills, possibly the 1559 London MP, as overseer; Richard’s wife is godmother to Martha.[/fn]
[fn]11|D. Kathman, ‘Roberts, James (b. in or before 1540, d. 1618?), bookseller and printer’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB) <https://www.oxforddnb.com>.[/fn]
[fn]12|London Metropolitan Archives (LMA) P69/GRE/A/001/MS10231, fol. 74r, in <https://www. ancestry.co.uk>.[/fn]
[fn]13|LMA P69/ANN/A/001/MS04508/001, [fol. 3v] in <https://www.ancestry.co.uk>.[/fn]
[fn]14|LMA P69/MTN1/A/002/MS10212, fols 109r, 111v, 113r, 114r, 116r, 117v, 118v, 120r, 121v, 123r. Similar entries in duplicate register LMA P69/MTN1/A/002/MS10213, in <https://www. ancestry.co.uk>.[/fn]
[fn]15|LMA P69/MTN1/A/002/MS10212, fol. 109r, in <https://www.ancestry.co.uk>.[/fn]
[fn]16|H. R. Tedder, rev. by I. Gadd, ‘Dewes, Garrat (b. in or before 1533, d. 1591)’, in ODNB; Watkyns, Richard (1556, 1557) in Records of London’s Livery Companies Online (RLLCO) <https:// www.londonroll.org>; Kathman, ‘Roberts, James’, ODNB; Newberry, Elizabeth (1605), in RLLCO.[/fn]
[fn]17|William E. Miller, ‘Printers and Stationers in the Parish of St. Giles Cripplegate 1561-1640’, Studies in Bibliography, 19 (1966), 15-38 (p. 34).[/fn]
[fn]18|Straznicky, ‘Appendix B’ in Shakespeare’s Stationers, pp. 281-2; Lukas Erne, Shakespeare as Literary Dramatist (CUP, 2013), p. 111. See also Michael J. Hirrel, ‘The Roberts Memoranda: A Solution’, The Review of English Studies, New series, 61:252 (2010), 711-728.[/fn]
[fn]19|Kathman, ‘Roberts, James’, ODNB; W. Craig Ferguson, ‘The Stationers’ Company Poor Book, 1608-1700’, The Library, ser. 5, 31 (1976), 37-51 (p. 48): payments were made from 1608 to 1618.[/fn]
[fn]20|James’s daughter, Ann (bur. 1570, St Martin, Ludgate), and his son with Alice Charlewood, John (bur. 1603, St Giles Cripplegate) are also known to have died young; see Miller, ‘Printers and Stationers’, p. 34.[/fn]
[fn]21|18 Nov 1611: Edward Arber, ed., A Transcript of the Registers of the Company of Stationers of London, 1544-1640, 5 vols (vol. 3), p. 319. Kathman, ‘Roberts, James’, ODNB.[/fn]
[fn]22|The details of Pavier’s life are largely drawn from Gerald Johnson’s work since, surprisingly, Pavier has no entry in the ODNB and his article represents the most comprehensive account of Pavier’s life and work. Gerald D. Johnson, ‘Thomas Pavier, Publisher, 1600-1625’, The Library, ser. 6, 14 (1992), 12-50.[/fn]
[fn]23|Johnson, ’Pavier’, p. 16.[/fn]
[fn]24|Johnson, ‘Pavier’, p. 21.[/fn]
[fn]25|See Straznicky, ‘Appendix B’ in Shakespeare’s Stationers, pp. 276-9 for a summary of Pavier’s publishing in relation to Shakespeare.[/fn]
[fn]26|PROB 11/148/384 (1626).[/fn]
[fn]27|The other five are: the dwelling houses of Mr Thomas Allinson, Mr Dixon and Mrs Harris (no locations given but probably in London) and houses at ‘Grainsborow’ and Stratford.[/fn]
[fn]28|Post-1619 assignments appear to be transfers of the property by long lease since they do not reflect common features of a mortgage by demise. Johnson, ‘Pavier’, p. 16.[/fn]
[fn]29|Johnson, ‘Pavier’, p. 43. This agreement is published in full in W. A. Jackson, ed., Records of the Stationers’ Company 1602 to 1640 (Bibliographical Society, 1957), pp 112-3.[/fn]
[fn]30|Entry Book of Recognizances TNA LC4/199, fol.135; Index to Entry Books LC4/214; Recognizance Rolls LC4/45; Roll Index LC4/184. It is referenced in CCA-U538/5/2.[/fn]
[fn]31|CCA-U538/5/2 also notes the existence of a defeasance from Pavier to Roberts which allowed for a void of the recognizance. See University of Nottingham, Manuscripts and Special Collections Research Guidance, ‘Bonds’, ‘Recognizance in the nature of a Statute Merchant / Staple’ and ‘Defeasance’ in <https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscriptsandspecialcollections/researchguidance>.[/fn]
[fn]32|Johnson, ‘Pavier’, pp. 21-2; Straznicky, ‘Appendix B’ in Shakespeare’s Stationers, p. 276.[/fn]
[fn]33|Zachary Lesser provides a summary to the collection and its most obvious inconsistencies in his introduction to Ghosts, Holes, Rips, and Scrapes: Shakespeare in 1619, Bibliography in the Longue Durée (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021), p. 2.[/fn]
[fn]34|There are many contributions to all aspects of this debate, for a summary of scholarship in this area see: Lesser, Ghosts, pp. 26-32.; See also Chap. 4 ‘The Pavier Quartos (1619)’ in Sonia Massai, Shakespeare and the Rise of the Editor (CUP, 2007), pp. 106-135; Lukas Erne, Shakespeare and the Book Trade (CUP, 2013), pp. 175-9. Zachary Lesser and Peter Stallybrass, ‘Shakespeare between Pamphlet and Book, 1608-1619’ in Margaret J. Kidnie and Sonia Massai, eds, Shakespeare and Textual Studies (Cambridge University Press, 2015) pp. 105-133 (esp. pp. 119-133).[/fn]
[fn]35|W. W. Greg, ‘On Certain False Dates in Shakespearian Quartos’, The Library, ser. 2, 9 (1908), 113-131 (p. 127).[/fn]
[fn]36|Alfred W. Pollard, Shakespeare Folios and Quartos: A Study in the Bibliography of Shakespeare’s Plays, 1594-1685 (Methuen & Co., 1909), pp. 100-1.[/fn]
[fn]37|Johnson, ‘Pavier’, p.1.[/fn]
[fn]38|Massai, Rise of the Editor, p. 135.[/fn]
[fn]39|Ibid.[/fn]
[fn]40|Johnson, ‘Pavier’, p. 35.[/fn]
[fn]41|Johnson, ‘Pavier’, p. 36.[/fn]
[fn]42|Massai, Rise of the Editor, pp. 118-9.[/fn]
[fn]43|Alexandra Halasz, ‘The Stationers’ Shakespeare’, in Shakespeare’s Stationers ed. by Marta Straznicky (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 17-27 (p. 26).[/fn]
[fn]44|Lesser, Ghosts, p. 135.[/fn]
[fn]45|Lesser, Ghosts, p. 78.[/fn]
[fn]46|A summary of academic uses of these terms is given by Chris Laoutaris in Shakespeare’s Book: The Intertwined Lives Behind the First Folio (William Collins, 2023), p. 387 (note to p. 58).[/fn]
[fn]47|Lesser, Ghosts, pp. 136-7. See also pp. 12, 28, 67, 77-8.[/fn]
[fn]48|Pollard, Shakespeare Folios, pp. 100-1.[/fn]
[fn]49|Kathman, ‘Roberts, James’, ODNB; Johnson, ‘Pavier’, pp. 37-9.[/fn]
[fn]50|CCA-CC/F/A/20, fol. 175v and J. M. Cowper, The Roll of the Freemen of the City of Canterbury from A.D. 1392 to 1800 (pr. Cross & Jackman, 1903), p. 224. A note reveals that freedom was granted despite his master not having registered him as an apprentice.[/fn]
[fn]51|CCA-U3/3/1/1, 1596.[/fn]
[fn]52|CCA-CC/F/A/22, fol. 307r & Cowper, Freemen, p. 67.[/fn]
[fn]53|CCA-U3/81/11/4/1; CCA-CC/B/C/A/W/12.[/fn]
[fn]54|Duncan Harrington, ‘Ambrose Warde, An Inhabitant of St. Paul’s Canterbury’, in The Parish of St. Martin and St. Paul Canterbury, ed. by Margaret Sparks (Friends of St Martin’s, 1980), 61-64 (p. 63).[/fn]
[fn]55|PROB/11/219/6.[/fn]
[fn]56|House of Commons Journal, vol. 5, 1646-1648 (London, 1802) pp. 654-7 (1 Aug 1648), in <https://www.british-history.ac.uk>.[/fn]
[fn]57|CCA-CC/F/A/17, fol. 52v.[/fn]
[fn]58|Graham Durkin, ‘The Civic Government and Economy of Elizabethan Canterbury’ (Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Kent, 2001), p. 62.[/fn]
[fn]59|Kathman, ‘Roberts, James’, ODNB.[/fn]
[fn]60|Marta Straznicky, ‘Introduction: What is a Stationer?’ in Marta Straznicky, ed., Shakespeare’s Stationers, p. 1.[/fn]
[fn]61|Arber, Transcript, vol. 5, p. lii. Peter W. M. Blayney, The Stationers’ Company and the Printers of London, 1501-1557 (Cambridge University Press, 2013), vol. 2, p. 906.[/fn]
[fn]62|Henry R. Plomer, ‘The Libraries and Book Shops of Canterbury’, Book Auction Records, 14 (1916-17), i-vii (pp. ii-iv).[/fn]
[fn]63|David J Shaw, ‘Canterbury’s External Links: Book-Trade Relations at the Regional and National Level in the Eighteenth Century’, in The Mighty Engine: The Printing Press and its Impact, ed. by Peter Isaac and Barry McKay (St Paul’s Bibliographies, 2000), pp. 107-119 (p. 107).[/fn]
[fn]64|Shaw ‘External Links’, p. 114; Plomer, ‘Libraries’ (p. ii); F. C. Avis, The 16. Century Long Shop Printing Office in the Poultry (Glenview Press, 1982), p. 8.[/fn]
[fn]65|Blayney, Stationers’ Company, vol. 1, pp. 277, 282.[/fn]
[fn]66|Stuart Palmer, ‘Book Printing and Protestant Reform in Reformation Canterbury, 1532–1556’, in Kentish Book Culture: Writers, Archives, Libraries and Sociability 1400-1660, ed. by Claire Bartram (Peter Lang, 2020), pp. 157-184 (p. 173). See also J. C. Whitebrook, Notes and Queries, 153 (1927), 255-259 (pp. 255-8).[/fn]
[fn]67|Blayney, Stationers’ Company, vol. 1, pp. 284, 433; Palmer, ‘Book Printing’, p.166.[/fn]
[fn]68|James G. Clark, ‘Print and Pre-Reformation Religion: The Benedictines and the Press, c.1470–c.1550’, in The Uses of Script and Print, 1300-1700, ed. by Julia C. Crick (CUP, 2010), pp. 71-92 (p. 88); Palmer, ‘Book Printing’, p. 166.[/fn]
[fn]69|Alexandra da Costa, Reforming Printing: Syon Abbey’s Defence of Orthodoxy 1525-1534 (OUP, 2012), p. 38; Clark, ‘Print and Pre-Reformation Religion’, pp. 74-90.[/fn]
[fn]70|De Costa, Reforming Printing, pp. 39, 40, 50-51; Palmer, ‘Book printing’, p. 182; Clark, ‘Print and Pre-Reformation Religion’, p. 87.[/fn]
[fn]71|Blayney, Stationers’ Company, vol. 1, p. 433; Julia Boffey, ‘John Mychell and the Printing of Lydgate in the 1530s’, Huntington Library Quarterly, 67:2 (June 2004), 251-260 (pp. 252-3); Palmer, ‘Book printing’, p. 182.[/fn]
[fn]72|Blayney, Stationers’ Company, vol. 1, p. 282.[/fn]
[fn]73|Boffey, ‘John Mychell’, p. 252; Whitebrook, p. 256.[/fn]
[fn]74|Personal communication, Dr S. Palmer.[/fn]
[fn]75|Clark, ‘Print and Pre-Reformation Religion’, p. 90; Palmer, ‘Book Printing’, pp. 166-7; Plomer, ‘The Libraries’, p. iii.[/fn]
[fn]76|ESTC 17013.[/fn]
[fn]77|J. E. Hobbs, ‘An Early Press in Canterbury’, The Library, ser. 5, 33 (1978), 172 (p. 172). See Hobbs, ‘Early Press’ and Blayney, Stationers’ Company, vol. 1, p. 433, fn. C for details of documentary evidence.[/fn]
[fn]78|One of the ‘St Augustine’s Rents’ listed in the annual city Chamberlains’ Accounts (CCA- CC/F/A series).[/fn]
[fn]79|G. H. Martin, ‘Twyne, John (c. 1505-1581)’, ODNB. As Blayney notes, Twyne’s name is entered next to Mychell’s in city subsidy rolls, Blayney, Stationers’ Company, vol. 1, p. 434; CCA- CC-B/C/S/1/1, 2r; CCA-CC-B/C/S/1/2, 1v.[/fn]
[fn]80|Palmer, ‘Book Printing’, p. 167. [/fn]
[fn]81|Zell first suspected Mychell: M. Zell, ‘An Early Press in Canterbury?’, The Library, ser. 5, 32 (1977), 155-6 (p. 156).[/fn]
[fn]82|Blayney, Stationers’ Company, vol. 1, p. 433; Palmer, ‘Book Printing’, p. 167. It should be noted that Twyne’s religious stance appears ambiguous over time with evidence of both conservative and reforming actions: Martin, ‘Twyne’, ODNB; Andrew G. Watson, ‘John Twyne of Canterbury (d. 1581) as a Collector of Medieval Manuscripts: A Preliminary Investigation’, The Library, ser. 6, 8 (1986), 133-151 (pp. 134-5).[/fn]
[fn]83|Blayney, Stationers’ Company, vol. 1, p. 284; Boffey, ‘John Mychell’, p. 257.[/fn]
[fn]84|Blayney, Stationers’ Company, vol. 1, p. 434.[/fn]
[fn]85|Blayney, Stationers’ Company, vol. 2, p. 911; Plomer, ‘The Libraries’, p. iii.[/fn]
[fn]86|Martin, ‘Twyne’, ODNB. Helen Miller, ‘Twyne, John (1507/8-81), of Canterbury and Preston, nr. Wingham, Kent’, in History of Parliament online <https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org>.[/fn]
[fn]87|Blayney, Stationers’ Company, vol. 1, p. 437 provides a transcript. This predates the Stationers’ Company membership records commencing in 1555: Myers, Robin, and Michael Harris, eds, The Stationers’ Company and the Book Trade, 1550-1990 (St Paul’s Bibliographies, 1997), p. 36.[/fn]
[fn]88|E. Gordon Duff, A Century of the English Book Trade: Short Notices of All Printers (pr. for The Bibliographical Society, 1905), pp. 83-84; Plomer, ‘The Libraries’, p. iii.[/fn]
[fn]89|CCA-CC/F/A/16, fol. 103r; Cowper, Freemen, p. 272.[/fn]
[fn]90|26 April 1569, St Gregory by St Paul composite register, LMA P69/GRE/A/001/MS10231, p. 132 in <https://www.ancestry.co.uk>.[/fn]
[fn]91|Plomer, ‘The Libraries’, p. iii.[/fn]
[fn]92|CCA-CC/B/C/S/2/2 and CCA-CC/B/C/S/3/27.[/fn]
[fn]93|J.H.S. Palmer, ‘Politics, Corporation and Commonwealth: The Early Reformation in Canterbury, c. 1450-1559’ (Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Kent, 2016), pp. 352, 372-3; McKerrow, R. R., ed., A Dictionary of Printers and Booksellers in England, Scotland and Ireland and of Foreign Printers of English Books 1557-1640 (The Bibliographical Society, 1910), p. 26.[/fn]
[fn]94|CCA-CC/B/C/S/2/2; Plomer, ‘The Libraries’, p. iv; PRC 17/44/121a. McKerrow, Dictionary, p. 26.[/fn]
[fn]95|Arber, Transcript, vol. 5, p. lii.[/fn]
[fn]96|McKerrow, Dictionary, p. 281. PROB11/99/162.[/fn]
[fn]97|William Urry, Christopher Marlowe and Canterbury (Faber and Faber, 1988), p. 106.[/fn]
[fn]98|CCA-CC/F/A/19, fol. 92r & Cowper, Freemen, p. 255; CCA-CC/F/A/20, fol. 74r & Cowper, Freemen, p. 279. Buckley served part of an apprenticeship with Clement Bassock (apprenticed 6 Oct 1581) though Bassock died two years into the apprenticeship and Buckley later paid for his freedom in 1590. See also McKerrow, Dictionary, p. 54.[/fn][pg316]