1785–90.
| Jenkinson, F. J. H. | On a letter from P. Kaetz to J. Siberch (C.A.S. Proc. VII. 188). Cambridge, 1890. |
| On a unique fragment of a book printed at Cambridge early in the sixteenth century (C.A.S. Proc. VII. 104). Cambridge, 1890. |
Loftie, W. J. A Century of Bibles. London, 1872.
Monk, J. H. The Life of Richard Bentley, D.D. London, 1830.
Mullinger, J. B. The University of Cambridge. 3 vols. Cambridge, 1873–1911.
Newth, S. On Bible Revision. London, 1881.
Nichols, J. Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century. 6 vols. London, 1812.
Pollard, A. W. Fine Books. London, 1912.
Reed, T. B. A history of the old English letter foundries. London, 1887.
Roberts, W. The Earlier History of English Bookselling. London, 1889.
Sayle, C. E. Early English printed books in the University Library, Cambridge (1475–1640). 4 vols. Cambridge, 1900–7.
| Stokes, H. P. | Cambridge Stationers, Printers, Bookbinders, &c. Cambridge, 1919. |
| The Esquire Bedells of the University of Cambridge (C.A.S. Publications, 8º Series, XLV). Cambridge, 1911. |
Straus, R. and Dent, R. K. John Baskerville. London, 1907.
Willis, R. and Clark, J. W. Architectural History of the University of Cambridge. 4 vols. Cambridge, 1886.
| Wordsworth, C. | The Correspondence of Richard Bentley. 2 vols. London, 1842. |
| Scholae Academicae. Cambridge, 1877. |
I
JOHN SIBERCH
Excursions into the realm of legend have long served as the traditional method of approach of the academic historian to his subject. True, the story of the foundation of the university of Cambridge by "one Cantaber, a Spaniard, about 370 years before Christ," or, as Fisher described him in 1506, "Cantaber, a king of the East Saxons, who had been educated at Athens," is now definitely rejected as unhistorical; but it was only in 1914 that the name of Sigebert, King of the East Angles, was removed from the list of royal benefactors[1].
University printing, like the university itself, has its Apocrypha. Edmund Carter, writing in 1753, includes a short section on University Printers:
Printing had not been long used in England before it was brought hither, but by whom it is difficult to ascertain, tho' it may be supposed that Caxton, (who is said to be the first that brought this curious art into England, and was a Cambridgeshire Man, born at Caxton in that County, from which he takes his Name) might Erect a Press at Cambridge, as well as at Westminster, under the care of one of his Servants; (for it is Conjectured, he brought several from Germany with him). The first Book we find an Account of, that was Printed here, is a Piece of Rhetoric, by one Gull. de Saona, a Minorite; Printed at Cambridge 1478; given by Archbp. Parker to Bennet College Library. It is in Folio, the Pages not Numbered, and without ketch Word, or Signatures.
Alas for Carter's pious suppositions! Caxton, according to his own testimony, was born in Kent and Cambridge can claim only to be the place of compilation of the Rhetorica; the phrase at the end of the book, Compilata in Universitate Cantabrigiae, no doubt led to the entry being made in the catalogue in the form Rhetorica nova, impressa Cantab, fo. 1478, and the mistake persisted for two centuries.
Nor is Oxford without a controversial prologue to the story of its printing. In the first Oxford book the date appears in the colophon as mcccclxviii and for long it was sought to establish the claim that Oxford printing preceded Caxton. But though it has been contended that the ground for the claim "has not yet entirely slipped away," it is now generally accepted by bibliographers that the printer omitted an x from the date, which should in fact be mcccclxxviii.
"The oldest of all inter-university sports," said Maitland, "was a lying match."
To return to Cambridge, we are on firmer, though not very spacious, ground, when we come to the name of John Siberch, the first Cambridge printer. "True it is," says Thomas Fuller, "it was a great while before Cambridge could find out the right knack of printing, and therefore they preferred to employ Londoners therein … but one Sibert, University Printer, improved that mystery to good perfection."
Of the life of Siberch, either at Cambridge or elsewhere, we know little. He was the friend of several great humanists of the period, including Erasmus; he was in Louvain, evidently, in 1518. "I was surprised," writes Erasmus to John Caesarius on 5 April of that year, "that John Siberch came here without your letter."
The earliest appearance of his name on a title-page is in 1520, when Richard Croke's Introductiones in rudimenta Graeca was printed at Cologne "expensis providi viri domini Ioannis Laer de Siborch."[2] His full name, then (of which there are many forms), is John Lair and his place of origin Siegburg, a small town south-west of Cologne.
A discovery made by Mr. Gordon Duff in the Westminster Abbey Library in 1889 makes it almost certain that Siberch was already in England when Croke's book was printed; for in a copy of a book bound by Siberch there was found, besides two printed fragments and a letter from Petrus Kaetz[3], a portion of the manuscript of the Rudimenta Graeca. It seems clear, therefore, that Siberch was in England when proofs and 'copy' of the work were sent to him.
Richard Croke (afterwards the first Public Orator) was at this time the enthusiastic leader of Greek studies in Cambridge. He had earned fame as a teacher at Cologne, Louvain, Leipzig, and Dresden and, in succession to his friend Erasmus, was appointed Reader in Greek to the university in 1519. His text-book could not be printed in England, because there was as yet no Greek fount owned by an English printer; and it is quite probable, as Mr. Duff suggests, that John Siberch, himself settled in Cambridge, had undertaken to have Croke's work printed by a friend, possibly by his old master, in Cologne. Possibly, too, Croke may have previously met Siberch in Germany and, with Erasmus, have been responsible for his coming to Cambridge. This, of course, is conjectural, but of the friendship between Erasmus and Siberch there is no doubt, since, in a letter from Erasmus to Dr. Robert Aldrich, written on Christmas Day 1525, there is a message sent to "veteres sodales Phaunum, Omfridum, Vachanum, Gerardum, et Joannem Siburgum, bibliopolas."
From this it would naturally be inferred that Siberch was still in Cambridge in 1525, but his name does not appear in the Subsidy Roll of 1523–24 and it is probable, therefore, that, unknown to Erasmus, he left in the early part of 1523[4].
Siberch, then, probably lived in Cambridge from 1520 to 1523, a period during which the labours of the first Cambridge humanists were beginning to bear fruit. In 1497, the Lady Margaret, mother of Henry VII, had appointed as her confessor John Fisher, Master of Michaelhouse; and "to the wealth and liberality of the one," in Mullinger's words, "and the enlightened zeal and liberality of the other the university is chiefly indebted for that new life and prosperity which soon after began to be perceptible in its history."
To the Lady Margaret were due the foundation of St. John's and Christ's Colleges and the Professorship and Preachership which bear her name; Fisher, afterwards Bishop of Rochester and President of Queens' College, was the first holder of the Divinity chair and it was at his invitation that Erasmus,