Abstract
This chapter considers Margaret Beaufort’s role as patron to the early English printers and asks in what ways and to what extent we might consider these relationships collaborative. In their prologues, epilogues, printer’s marks, and colophons, William Caxton, Wynkyn de Worde, and Richard Pynson provide a record of their working arrangements with Beaufort that bear witness to the multiple roles she played in English book history—as writer, translator, commissioner, purchaser, distributor, and reader. Rhetorically rich and visually emphatic—these paratexts illuminate the ways in which Beaufort’s promotion of textual production could provide a model of royal patronage from which later Tudor women would draw inspiration and authority.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Bibliography
Atkinson, William and Margaret Beaufort, trans. A ful deuout and gostely treatyse of the imitacyon and folowynge the blessed lyfe of our moste mercyful sauyour cryste. London: Richard Pynson, 1504.
Beaufort, Margaret, trans. The mirroure of golde for the synfull soule, translated by Margaret Beaufort. London: Richard Pynson, 1506.
Blake, N. F. “William Caxton.” In Middle English Prose: A Critical Guide to Major Authors and Genres, edited by A. S. G Edwards, 389–412. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1984.
———. Caxton’s Own Prose. London: André Deutsch, 1973.
———. Caxton and His World. London: André Deutsch, 1969.
Boffey, Julia. “Wynkyn de Worde.” In British Literary Booktrade, 1475–1700, edited by James K. Bracken and Joel Silver, 333–338. Detroit: Gale, 1996.
Brant, Sebastian. The shyppe of fooles, translated by Henry Watson. London: Wynkyn de Worde, 1509.
Breuiariu[m] secundu[m] vsum herford. London: Ingelbert Haghe, 1505.
Breviarium secundum usum Sarum Pars hiemalis. London: R. Pynson, 1507.
Caxton, William, trans. Blanchardyn and Eglantine. (Westminster: William Caxton, [1489]).
Demers, Patricia. “‘God may open more than man maye vnderstande’: Lady Margaret Beaufort’s Translation of the De Imitatione Christi,” Renaissance and Reformation 35, no. 4 (2012): 45–62.
———. Women’s Writing in English: Early Modern England. Buffalo: Toronto University Press, 2005.
Driver, Martha. The Image in Print: Book Illustration in Late Medieval England and its Sources. London: British Library, 2004.
Edwards, A. S. G. and Carol M. Meale. “The Marketing of Printed Books in Late Medieval England.” The Library 15, no. 2 (1993): 95–124.
Fisher, John. Here after foloweth a mornynge remembrau[n]ce had at the moneth mynde of the noble prynces Margarete countesse of Rychemonde [et] Darbye. London: Wynkyn de Worde, 1509.
———. This sermon folowynge was compyled [and] sayd in the cathedrall chyrche of saynt Poule within ye cyte of London by the ryght reuerende fader in god Iohn bysshop of Rochester, the body beyinge present of the moost famouse prynce kynge Henry the. Vij. London: Wynkyn de Worde, 1509.
———. This treatyse concernynge the fruytfull saynges of Dauyd the kynge [and] prophete in the seuen penytencyall psalmes. deuyded in seuen sermons was made and compyled by the ryght reuerente fader in god Iohan fyssher doctour of dyuynyte and bysshop of Rochester. London: Wynkyn de Worde, 1508.
Gillespie, Vincent. “Introduction.” In Companion to the Early Printed Book in Britain 1476–1558, edited by Vincent Gillespie and Susan Powell, 1–12. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2014.
Hellinga, Lotte. William Caxton and Early Printing in England. London: The British Library, 2010.
Hodnett, Edward. English Woodcuts 1480–1535. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973.
Hosington, Brenda M. “Women Translators and the Early Printed Book.” In A Companion to the Early Printed Book in Britain, 1476–1558, edited by Vincent Gillespie and Susan Powell, 248–271. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2014.
———. “Lady Margaret Beaufort’s Translations as Mirrors of Practical Piety.” In English Women, Religion, and Textual Production, 1500–1625, edited by Micheline White, 185–203. Farnham: Ashgate, 2011.
Hylton, Walter. Scala Perfecc[i]onis. Westminster: Wynkyn de Worde, 1494.
Johnston, Stanley Howard Jr. “A Study of the Career and Literary Publications of Richard Pynson.” Ph.D. diss., University of Western Ontario, 1977.
Jones, Michael K. and Malcolm G. Underwood. The King’s Mother: Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Keiser, George R. “The Mystics and the Early English Printers: The Economics of Devotionalism.” In The Medieval Mystical Tradition in England, edited by Marion Glasscoe, 9–26. Cambridge: Brewer, 1987.
Kuskin, William. Symbolic Caxton: Literary Culture and Print Capitalism. London: University of Notre Dame Press, 2008.
Lowry, M. J. C. “Caxton, St Winifred and the Lady Margaret Beaufort.” The Library 6.2 (1983): 101–117.
Mayor, John E. B. “Advertisement.” In The English Works of John Fisher, edited by John E. B. Mayor, vii–xxxii. London: Early English Text Society, N Trübner & Co, 1876.
Nall, C. “Margaret Beaufort’s Books: A New Discovery.” Journal of the Early Book Society 16 (2013): 213–220.
Neville, P. A. “Richard Pynson, King’s Printer (1506–1529): Printing and Propaganda in Early Tudor England.” Ph.D. diss., University of London, Warburg Institute, 1990.
O Jhesu endles swetnes of louying soules. Westminster: William Caxton, 1491.
Pender, Patricia. “Patterns of Print: Women’s Textual Patronage in the ‘Early’ Early Modern Period.” In The Routledge Companion to Women, Sex and Gender in Early Modern Anglophone Literature, edited by Kimberley Anne Coles and Eve Keller. London: Routledge, forthcoming 2017.
Pinches, J. H and R. V. The Royal Heraldry of England. London: Hollen Street Press, 1974.
Powell, Susan. “Lady Margaret and Her Books.” The Library 20, no. 3 (1998): 197–240.
Rankin, Mark. “Competing English Translations of Sebastian Brant’s Shyp of Folys at the Accession of Henry VIII.” Paper presented at the Renaissance Society of America, Boston, March 2016.
Schutte, Valerie. Mary I and the Art of Book Dedications: Royal Women, Power, and Persuasion. New York: Palgrave, 2015.
———. “Royal Tudor Women as Patrons and Curators.” Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal 9, no. 1 (2014): 79–87.
Summit, Jennifer. “William Caxton, Margaret Beaufort and the Romance of Female Patronage.” In Women, the Book and the Worldly, edited by Lesley Smith and Jane H. M. Taylor, 151–165. Woodbridge: D. S. Brewer, 1995.
Williams, Franklin B. Index of Dedications and Commendatory Verses in English Books Before 1641. London: Bibliographical Society, 1962.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Pender, P. (2017). “A Veray Patronesse”: Margaret Beaufort and the Early English Printers. In: Pender, P. (eds) Gender, Authorship, and Early Modern Women’s Collaboration . Early Modern Literature in History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58777-6_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58777-6_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-58776-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-58777-6
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)