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References
See W. D. Macray, Annals of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, A.D. 1598–A.D.1867 (London, Oxford, and Cambridge, 1868), pp. 30–31, 44–6, and R. C. B. Partridge, The Legal Deposit of Books throughout the British Empire (London, 1938), pp. 2, 17–21, 288–92. The most recent account is by Ian Philip, The Bodleian Library in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: The Lyell Lectures, Oxford 1980–81 (Oxford, 1983), pp. 27–30. Of these only Philip, who recog-nizes his importance, mentions John Norton (if necessarily briefly and not in this context).
See The New Dictionary of National Biography entry by Ian Gadd. Nortondiedon19 December 1612 (John Barnard, ‘The Financing of the Authorized Version 1610–1612: Robert Barker and ‘‘Combining’’ and ‘‘Sleeping’’ Stationers’, Publishing History, 57 (2005), 5–52 (at p. 9). The earlier date is that from the International Genealogical Index, where his birthplace is given as Billingsley, Shropshire, which matches the entry of his apprenticeship in 1578 (see Edward Arber, A Transcript of the Records of the Company of Stationers of London, 5 vols. (London and Birmingham, 1875–94), ii.82.
Introduction, The History of the Book in Britain, Volume 4: 1557–1695, ed. John Barnard and D.F. McKenzie, assisted by Maureen Bell (Cambridge, 2002), p. 1. Ian Gadd notes that in 1557 the Stationers’ Company was ranked 56th out of 63 guilds and that it was still among the poorer companies in 1692 (Ian Gadd, ‘‘‘Being like a Field’: Corporate Identity in the Statio-ners’ Company, 1557–1684’’ (D. Phil. thesis, University of Oxford University, 1999), pp. 125–6.
Ed.G.W.Wheeler, Letters of Sir Thomas Bodley to Thomas James, first Keeper of the Bodleian Library [1599–1613] (Oxford, 1926), No. 83, p. 88 (7 June 1603).
The evidence for this is brought together very compactly by R. A. Beddard, ‘‘The Official Inau-guration of the Bodleian Library on 8 November 1602’’, Library, 7th series (2002), 255–83, at pp. 257, 259–62.
D. J. B. Trim’s important article, ‘‘Sir Thomas Bodley and the International Protestant Cause’’, Bodleian Library Record, 16 (1997–99), 314–40, establishes the intellectual, religious and European dimensions of Bodley’s career. R. A. Beddard’s account of Bodley’s collection supports this paragraph (‘‘The Official Inauguration of the Bodleian Library’’, pp. 274–6).
Matthew became Archbishop of York in 1606.
J. B. Gavin, ‘‘Elizabethan Bishop of Durham: Tobias Matthew, 1595–1606’’ (Ph. D. thesis, McGill University, 1972), p. i. See also John Barnard and Maureen Bell, The Early Seventeenth-Century Book Trade and John Foster’s Inventory of 1616, Proceedings of the Leeds Philosoph-ical and Literary Society, xxiv (1994), pp. 29–30. Foster’s inventory includes entries for ‘‘One Cattalogg of the Mart’’ worth 4d. and 24 ‘‘Cattaloges of the Martes’’ valued at a shilling alto-gether (p. 70). These were most probably for the Frankfurt Fair and seem to have been among the books for sale. Matthew had an incomplete run of the catalogues for the years under consideration here: this is now in York Minster Library (xv. L. 76–77).
Wheeler, Letters of Sir Thomas Bodley.
Partridge, The Legal Deposit of Books throughout the British Empire, p. 2.
The two leaves in the Herball containing the portrait and title page were cut out and stolen in the 1980s: these high quality photographs are now the only record of the two painted leaves.
Robert Barker was a donor in 1604 (Macray, Annals of the Bodleian Library, p. 25). It is noteworthy that, in view of John Norton’s connection with them, that Sir Henry Savile and William Camden were also donors of the library in 1601 (p. 19).
The largest was Bishop Jewel’s Works (1609, 1611), which contained 399 sheets: Gerard’s Herball was made up of 371 sheets (i.e., 185.5 sheets per partner). Thereafter, with the excep-tion of Jewel’s Works and Calvin’s Institutes (1611), John Norton’s share in large books was 116 sheets or less.
The woodcuts were originally used in Tabernaemontanus’ Eicones plantarum (Frankfurt, 1590). See Blanche Henrey, British Botanical and Horticultural Books before 1800, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1975), i.36–54, 247, for the fullest account of the complexities of Gerard’s authorship and the illustrations. See also Wilfrid Blunt and Sandra Raphael, The Illustrated Herbal (London, 1979), p. 165.
HMC, Buccleuch and Queensberry, i. 33–4.
HMC, Salisbury, xiv.179–80. For the edition involved see STC 2184.5. For the Order in Council supporting Barker’s case, see ed. John Roche Dasent, Acts of the Privy Council 1601 –4 (London, 1907), pp. 14–15.
Eds. W. W. Greg and E. Boswell, Records of the Stationers’ Company 1576 to 1602 – Register B (London, 1930), p.82.
Greg and Boswell, Records of the Stationers’ Company, p.82(5October).
Greg and Boswell, Records of the Stationers’ Company, p.84.
In 1601 John Chamberlain began using Norton’s shop as a poste restante address for hiscorrespondence with Dudley Carleton in Paris (ed. Sarah Williams, Letters written by JohnChamberlain during the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, Camden Society, 1st series, lxxix: London, 1861, p. 147).
Ed. John Bruce, Correspondence of James VI. of Scotl and with Robert Cecil and others in England...., Camden Society, 1st ser., 78: London, 1861, p. 90.
Bruce, Correspondence of James VI. of Scotland, p. 92
See note 2 above.
He was apprenticed on 8 January (Arber, A Transcript of the Records of the Company of Stationers of London, ii.82).
‘‘A briefe discours of the right use of givinge armes with the late abuses aboute that mattere and the best means by which they maie be reformed orderly’’; the author claims Norton had purchased ‘‘the cote both of Talbott and Mortimer’’ (Bodleian Library, Rawlinson Ms. B.56, fol. 23r). This document was ‘‘Written upon the appointment of the earl of Essex as marshal (fols. 36, 35b, 44) in 1597 by a grandson of Thomas Howard, fourth Duke of Norfolk, who was restored to the office of earl marshal by Q. Mary in 1553 (fol. 16b), and apparently addressed to the former nobleman’’ (Catalogi Codicum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecae Bodleianae Partii Quintae ... Ricardi Rawlinson, J. C. D. ... , ed. W. D. Macray,1vol. in 5parts (Oxford, 1862–1900), i. col. 465). Other examples of this abuse cited include ‘‘Lacye the Mercer’’, the Queen’s embroiderer and a fishmonger.
The monument, which on the wall of the North side chapel is about 7 feet by 20 feet tall. Its inscription reflects Jane Norton’s considerable self-regard (but also gives a full list of their children): ‘‘Here lieth the Body of MrsIane Norton the Eldest Davghter of | Thomas Owen Esq oneofthe Iustices of theCommonPleas to | QveeneElizabeth; shewas thewifeofBonham Norton Esq. 45 | Yeeres and had issve by him 7 sonnes Bonham William Thomas | Arthur Iohn Roger George AID [sic] | 4 Daughters Sarah Vrsvla Mary | and Margaret she lived a widow 6 yeres and died Jvne 3 1640 | being aged 70 yeres. This monument is erected by her appoint | ment in memorial of her father her eldest brother SrRoger| Owen herhusband andherselfe This structure was finished ... . 651 [?]’’. It is significant that Bonham Norton’s profession is omitted in favour of his social standing. He was made Sheriff to the county in 1611.
Ed.C.R.J.Currie, Victoria County History, Shropshire, x (Oxford, 1998). 79, 92–4.
J. andJ.A.Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses....Part I from the earliest times to 1751, 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1922–27): there John Norton is identified as ‘‘Doubtless’’ the stationer. However, Venn also says, ‘‘Perhaps adm. as Fell.-Com., ‘of Kent’’’, but all of John Norton’s connections are with Shropshire, though his uncle had property in Kent (Henry R. Plomer, Abstracts from the Wills of English Printers and Stationers from 1492–1630 (London, 1903), p. 32. The fact that Bonham also matriculated at Cambridge adds force to the identification.
Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses. Bonham matriculated at Trinity College in Lent 1580–1.
For the best account of Norton’s activities in Edinburgh, see Alastair J. Mann, The Scottish Book Trade 1500–1720: Print Commerce and Print Control in Early Modern Scotland. An Historiographical Survey of the Early Modern Book in Scotland(Linton, 2000), pp. 14, 91, 136–7.
J. Lee, Memorial for the Bible Society (Edinburgh, 1824), p. 50.
R. Lauweart, ‘De handelsbedrijvigheid van Officina Plantiniana op de Büchermesse te Frank-furt am Main in de XVIe eeuw’, De Gulden Passer, l (1972), 124–80 (at pp. 169–70), reports London importers in Plantin’s records as follows: Ascanius de Renialme (S 1586-Q 1600) as buying 585/2/6 guilders worth of books and selling 58/19/0. John Norton (Q 1588-S 1600) bought 72/2/0 guilders worth and sold 6/4/0; James Rimé (S 100) sold 14/0/0 guilders worth; and Hans Wantemeel (Q 1592-Q 1597) bought 12/0/0 guilders worth: Joseph Barnes of Oxford also bought 12/0/0 guilders worth in S 1600. It is unusual for an Englishman to deal direct with Plantin at all as early as 1588.
Wattes was freed in 1589: he had been apprenticed to William Norton on 5 August 1583 (Arber, A Transcript of the Records of the Company of Stationers of London, ii.118), so the two men were together in their master’s shop for three years.
Mann, The Scottish Book Trade, p. 14.
Norton had a business presence in London prior to 1594. In 1591 he sent his uncle parcels of books published in Scotland (which were impounded, but most of these are innocent except for two works by John Penry, the Marprelate author, exiled in Scotland: also include were JamesVI’spoems(Arber, A Transcript of the Records of the Company of Stationers of London, ii.38), on 9 August 1592 he apprenticed John Bill for eight years, and he entered and published STC 14938 in 1593, a book by George Ker, previously published in Edinburgh by Robert Waldegrave.
Peter W. M. Blayney, The Bookshops in Paul’s Cross Churchyard, Occasional Papers of the Bibliographical Society, No. 5 (1990), p. 53, cited from Guildhall Library, MS. 11,816A, fol. 73a.
Blayney, The Bookshops in Paul’s Cross Churchyard, pp. 53–54, figs. 8 and 11. The shop’s frontage was 42 feet: it was 28 feet deep. Bonham Norton inherited his father’s shop, the Queen’s Arms, first leased to William Norton in 1573: by 1599 Bonham Norton had an interest in additional shops (pp. 35–37).
William A. Jackson, Records of the Court of the Company of Stationers 1602 to 1640 (London, 1957), p. 25. The annual rent was £1/6/8d.
David Calderwood, The History of the Kirk of Scotland, ed. Thomas Thomson (Edinburgh, 1844), v.511.
Ecloga Oxonio-Cantabrigiensis.
Catalogus universalis pro nundinis Francofurtensibus (Frankfurt, Autumn 1600), sig. C4v (Bodleian, Antiq. e. G. 1): on a few occasions my information is based on the Leipzig version of the catalogues, Frankfurt and Leipzig Fair Catalogues: Michaelmesse 1594-Michaelmesse 1860, ed. Bernhard Fabian (Hildesheim, 1977–83).
Further see, John Barnard, ‘‘Financing the Authorized Version 1610–1612’’, Appendix 2.
See Letters of Sir Thomas Bodley.
See Stanley Rypins, ‘‘The Printing of Basilikòn Dôron, 1603’’, Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 64 (1970), 393–417. John Manningham reports the work’s publication in his diary entry for 30 March 1603 (p. 393n). Norton and his partners were immediately threat-ened by Edward Allde’s pirated edition of 1,500 copies. Although the Stationers’ Company fined Allde, the partners were also fined on 13 April for selling the book at an excessive price (Jackson, Records, pp. 2–3).
Calendat of State Papers Domestic 1601–1610, 17 May 1603: see Nancy A. Mace, ‘‘The History of the Grammar Patent, 1547–1620’’, Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 87 (1993), 419–36. Arnold Hunt gives a succinct account of this patent and of patents more generally in ‘‘Book Trade Patents, 1603–1640’’, The Book Trade & its Customers: Essays for Robin Myers, ed. Arnold Hunt, Giles Mandelbrote and Alison Shell (Winchester and New Castle, Del., 1997), pp. 27–54. As King’s Printer, Thomas Berthelet was paid by Henry VIII for printing proclamations but he also acted as the King’s bookseller, supplying Latin books among others (see the account worth £117/0/6½d for the years 1541–43, Arber, A Transcript of the Records of the Company of Stationers of London, ii.50–60.
Mace, ‘‘The History of the Grammar Patent’’, p. 430.
Just as Robert Barker, the King’s Printer of English books, supplied James I with books in the vernacular (Paul Morgan, ‘‘A King’s Printer at Work: Two Documents of Robert Barker’’, Bodleian Library Record, 13.5 (1990), pp. 370–74).
These are as follows: 100 marks on 23 January 1608 ‘‘for certain books for the Prince’’; £173/16/4 on 13 November 1609 ‘‘for binding sundry books, covered with velvet, &c. for the King’s service’’; £60/2/8 on 12 March 1610 for books for the Duke of York, testified for by his tutor, Thomas Murray (CalendarofStatePapersDomestic1601–1610); £50 on 5 April 1611 ‘‘for books for the King’s use’’ (Calendar of State Papers Domestic 1611–18).
T. A. Birrell, English Monarchs and their Books: from Henry VIII to Charles II: The Panizzi Lectures 1986 (London, 1987), p. 26.
Birrell, English Monarchs and their Books, pp. 26–7.
King James VI and I and the Reunion of Christendom (Cambridge, 1997, 2000).
STC 14400. This first English version was printed by Robert Barker in 1607 (as King’s Printer in English), as was, more surprisingly, the first Latin edition in the same year (STC 14403). Norton published the Latin translation again in 1608 (STC 14404) and advertised it in the Frankfurt catalogues (Catalogus universalis (Spring 1608), sig. B1r (York Minster, xv. L. 76 (5))). On the work’s composition, see David Harris Wilson, ‘‘James I and his Literary Assis-tants’’, Huntington Library Quarterly, 8 (1944–45), 35–57, at pp. 40–42.
Eds. Julian Roberts and A. G., John Dee’s Library Catalogue (London, 1990), p. 13.
That is, STC 14405 (1609), the Latin translation of Triplici nodo triplex cuneus which has a general title-page, Apologia pro juramenti fidelitatis with the addition of a ‘‘Premonitory’’ preface (see D. H. Wilson (above, n. 52), pp. 40, 44–5), was advertised in the Frankfurt cata-logue for autumn 1609. James sent a copy of his ‘Premonition’, on a subject which touches all Christian princes, 7 June 1607, to Archduke Albert of Austria, with a covering letter saying that a copy has been received by the King of France, and copies were sent to the King of Spain and the Emperor (HMC, Salisbury, 21, p. 64). D. H. Wilson (pp. 48–9), notes that these copies were elaborately ‘bound in velvet and stamped and cornered in gold’.
Johannes Kemke, Patricius Junius (Patrick Young) Bibliothekar de Könige Jakob I. und Karl I. von England, Sammlung Bibliothekwissenschaftlicher Arbeiten, vol. xii (Leipzig, 1898), p. 9.
Henry R. Plomer, ‘‘The King’s Printing House under the Stuarts’’, Library, n.s. 2 (1901), 353–75, at 354.
Morgan, ‘‘A King’s Printer at Work’’, p. 370.
DNB, citing William Ball, Treatise concerning the Regulating of Printing (1651), p. 27.
The figure had been reduced to £8,000 by 1629.
John Barnard, ‘‘The Financing of the Authorized Version 1610–1612’’, pp. 5–52. This modifies Plomer’s account of the way in which the Authorized Version was financed.
Plomer, ‘‘The King’s Printing House under the Stuarts’’, pp. 353–75, provides the standard account of the struggles in the courts between Bonham Norton and Robert Barker. These courtroom battles are re-examined by Maria Wakely in a forthcoming article in the Library. Graham Rees has a forthcoming article on the King’s Printers in this period in the Huntington Library Quarterly.
The two men met when Ortelius visited England in 1577 (DNB).
Catalogus universalis (Autumn 1607), sig. C1v (York Minster xv. L. 76 (4)).
R. A. Skelton, County Atlases of the British Isles 1579–1850: A Bibliography (London, 1970), No. 5.
Skelton, County Atlases, No. 6.
Abraham Ortelius, An Epitome of Ortelius ... (STC 18857). dated ‘‘[1601?]’’ by STC, which also notes that it was printed for John Norton in Antwerp by H. Swingenij. However, see C. Koeman, Atlantes Neerlandici: Bibiography of Terrestrial, Maritime and Celestial Atlases and Pilot Books Published in the Netherlands up to 1800, 5 vols. (Amsterdam, 1967–71), Ort 65, where it is dated ‘‘1602’’: Norton came to an arrangement with Baptist Vrient to use the plates from his Latin 1601 Antwerp edition of the work for his own London edition (Ort 58) (as he did for his edition of the full work in 1606–8 – for which see next note and text above). I have accepted Koeman’s date here on the grounds that Vrient would not have wanted an English edition competing with his own in the same year. STC dates the other contemporary London edition of the Epitome, printed abroad for J. Shawe, London (STC 18856), as 1603, based on the imprint. Koeman reports that this (Ort 65) is the English version of a 1601 Antwerp Latin edition with the Galle maps (Ort 63), which was itself competing with Vrient’s Antwerp edition. It may be, however, that both English editions came out in 1603 and so were in compe-tition simultaneously as the Latin ones had originally been on the Continent. (There is a problem about the format of Norton’s Epitome: STC records as obl. 8o, whereas Koeman says it is obl. 32o, giving the source as List of Atlases in the Library of Congress, 418.) John Bill was paid 20s. for a copy of ‘‘Ortelius Epitome’’ among the books sold to the Duke of Northumberland, 1610–2 February 1611: it was among the more expensive books – a large English Bible cost 50s. (HMC, 6th Report, pp. 229b-230a).
Koeman, Atlantes Neerlandici, Ort 37,citing ed.R.A.Skelton, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum: A Series of Atlases in Facsimile, 1st ser., No. 3 (Amsterdam, 1968). Remarkably, John Norton had seven copies of Ortelius’ Theatrum as early in his career as October 1596. See the letter of Jacobus Colius Ortelius (1563–1628), a wealthy silk merchant, to Abraham Ortelius (1527–98): ‘‘I sent to Norton for sale six copies of the map of Germany and six of that of Utopia; the former he has sold, the latter not yet. 4. He tells me that he has had seven copies of your ‘Theatrum’, whereas you wrote to me of four only’’ (ed. J.H. Hessels, Ecclesiae Londino-Batavae Archivum, Tomus Primus. Abrahami Orteli ... et ad Jacobum Colium Orteliarum ... Epistolae .... (Cambridge, 1887), Letter 294, p. 696. (The Latin says only ‘‘Nortono’’: Lawrence Worms believes, I think correctly, that John not Bonham Norton was the bookseller involved.)
This sequence is the reverse of normal practice: the plate mark left by the maps made it more sensible to print the letterpress first (Koeman, Atlantes Neerlandici, Ort 37).
Koeman, Atlantes Neerlandici. Ort 37, map (12) [148].
P. R. van den Broecke Marcel, Ortelius Atlas Maps: an Illustrated Guide(t’Goy, Netherlands, 1996), p. 19.
Ed. Skelton, Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, pp. xvii, viii.
Letters of Sir Thomas Bodley, No. 201, p. 206, dated 26 February [1611].
Philip, The Bodleian Library in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, p. 27. Thedocu-ment (Oxford University Archives, 1606–11) is transcribed by Partridge, The Legal Deposit of Books, pp. 288–90.
Letters of Sir Thomas Bodley, No. 216, pp. 216–17, dated 23 July [1611] .
Letters of Sir Thomas Bodley, No. 220, p. 219.
This date is usually given as 18 January, but the transcript gives the decade as ‘‘vicesimo’’ (Partridge, The Legal Deposit of Books,p. 290).
Oxford University Archives, A.27; printed in Macray, Annals of the Bodleian Library, pp. 34–36, Partridge The Legal Deposit of Books, pp. 290–91.
Macray, Annals of the Bodleian Library, p. 36, and Partridge The Legal Deposit of Books, pp. 291–2.
Partridge, The Legal Deposit of Books, p. 289.
Cyprian Blagden, The Stationers’ Company: A History, 1403–1959(London, 1960), p. 96.
They had also, like the other London trade Companies, been obliged to invest in the Ulster Plantation in 1610 (Jackson, Records, pp. 45ff.), which was to bring in useful rents.
Gadd, “‘Being like a Field’: Corporate Identity in the Stationers’ Company’”, p. 24 and note, corrects, with advice from Peter Blayney, the history of the Company’s permanent and tempo-rary premises.
DNB. The edition was not a financial success: the original asking price for the 1,500 copies was £9 but was later sold for £3.
On 10 June 1610 the Company gave special allowance to the printer Melchisidec Bradwood to take on six extra apprentices for the work and to set up a press at Eton (printing was jealously restricted to London normally), where Savile could oversee the work (Jackson, pp. 42–3). A handful of other works were published from Eton by the team of Savile, Bradwood and Norton: see STC 12346, 14622 (1610); 2353.5 (1611).
In the event, Savile himself also used his own circles in an attempt to sell the edition. On 17 September 1610 David Hoeschelius wrote to Jacobus Colius Ortelius from Augsburg asking for a note to be delivered to Savile, and saying that the editon of Chrysostom is looked forward to eagerly (ed. Hessels, Ecclesiae Londino-Batavae Archivum, Letter 354, pp. 835–6. For his part, Norton advertised the book on the continent: see Catalogus univeralis (Frankfurt, autumn 1612 and autumn 1613), sigs. A4v and sig. B1r (York Minster Library, xv. L. 76 (9), xv. L. 77 (2)).
See previous note: Norton’s title is given in the autumn 1612 advertisement but not in the shortened one in the following year.
See note 2 above. Patrick Young told Bishop Richard Montagu that Norton was seriously ill on 17 November 1612 (Kemke, Patricius Junius (Patrick Young), pp. 15–16. On 2 December, Bonham Norton was acting as Master in his place.
Plomer, Abstracts from the Wills of English Printers and Stationers, p.46.
Letters of Sir Thomas Bodley, No. 80, p. 84.
Hand-coloured copies of Gerard’s Herball (1597) are rare. There is a copy, bound in two volumes, in the King’s Library in the British Library (35.g.13), which has some of the images coloured in, like the Bodleian copy, but the task was never completed – the portrait, title-page and decorative initials are uncoloured. The two volumes give no sign of having been owned by James I.
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Barnard, J. (2008). Politics, Profits and Idealism: John Norton, the Stationers’ Company and Sir Thomas Bodley. In: Earnshaw, R., Vince, J. (eds) Digital Convergence – Libraries of the Future. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84628-903-3_24
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