University of Virginia Library

The elder John Tate was Mayor in 1473 and died in 1478 or early 1479. His relative Sir John Tate was Mayor in 1496 and died in 1514, and he also had a son John. The situation has confused Blades, Clapperton, and others. But clearly the first John Tate was the father of the paper-maker. The latter is called 'John Tate the younger' in family documents. He died in 1507, he was buried at St Dunstan's in the East, and his will was probated in 1508. See John Stow: A Survey of London, ed. Charles L. Kingsford (1908), I 135, II 176-7; Calendar of the Close Rolls . . . 1476-1485 (1954), nos. 611, 689, 1165; Wills Proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, 1383-1538, II (1893), 518.

Henry R. Plomer: Wynkyn de Worde & His Contemporaries (1925), pp. 55-56.

Edward Heawood: 'Sources of Early English Paper-Supply', The Library, 2d ser., X (1929), 292 and fig. 36. Heawood's example in a Paston Letter appears to be a ghost. His reason for not including this important English mark in Watermarks (Hilversum 1950) may have been that he had the mark from a correspondent in the first place. But he might have published Beazeley's honest tracing. John Fenn does reproduce the Tate mark in Original Letters, II (1787), pl. XIII, to illustrate his preface but not from a Paston letter. Letters of 1494-96 do not have the mark.

Alfred H. Shorter: Paper Mills and Paper Makers in England 1495-1800 (Hilversum 1957), p. 174 and figs. 1-3.

When I wrote my friend E. J. Labarre in high protest, he replied only: 'I thought you would not like that!' As Dr Shorter was mainly interested in the mills, the perverse treatment of the watermarks was mainly Labarre's. Although the collections of the Paper Publications Society prove very useful to the scholar, often the tracings provide only a starting point for bibliographical research.

Rhys Jenkins: 'Paper-Making in England, 1495-1788', The Collected Papers (1936), p. 157. Reprinted from Library Association Record, II (1900).

Victoria History of the County of Hertford, ed. William Page, IV (1914), 256-257. The 'blank leaf after the eleventh book' actually has the Caxton device on the recto but is blank on the verso.

R. H. Clapperton: Paper: An Historical Account of Its Making by Hand (1934), England pl. III. The photograph is of leaf f1 in the Bodleian copy, from Mould E. At the end of this handsome volume are facsimile reproductions of early watermarks by J. Barcham Green, Hayle Mill, Maidstone, including one of the Tate Wheel, in handmade wove without chains.

C. M. Briquet: Les Filigranes (Geneva 1907, Leipzig 1923), II fig. 6608 with note and p. 373. Briquet errs in placing the mill at 'Herford'. Such errors are difficult to get rid of. For instance, Clapperton's Modern Paper-Making, 3d ed. (1952), p. 2, places the mill at Stevenage despite the fact that the author had already convinced himself in Paper: An Historical Account (1934), p. 106, that it really was at Hertford. Thus the error goes on in Colin Clair: A History of Printing in Britain (1965), pp. 2, 29. The mill was on the River Bean outside Hertford near the road to Stevenage.

Briquet thought of twin marks as 'variétés identiques': Les Filigranes, I xix, 17, and thus not something to reproduce. For a basic study see Allan Stevenson: 'Watermarks Are Twins', Studies in Bibliography, IV (1951-52), 57-91, 235, which includes an earlier discussion of Tate's Wheel mark; also application of the method in The Problem of the Missale speciale (Bibliographical Society 1966).

Duff 40, 408, 90, 253; STC 1536, 24876, 5085, 17005.

For the Gallizians and the Klingenthal Mill see The Problem of the Missale speciale, ch. VIII.

A letter of 1466 addressed to Caxton and signed by 'J. Tate' and others of the Mercers' Guild is published by William Blades: The Life and Typography of William Caxton (1861), I, 92. Cynthia Harnett's novel for boys, The Load of Unicorn (1959, Penguin 1966), which deals with Caxton's problem of obtaining paper (with more truth than fact), includes pictures of Caxton's 'friend' Robert Tate and his young relative 'Jack' Tate, who already in 1482 becomes interested in making the first English paper; and the 'water mark of Tate's paper' is pictured at the end.

The last two I have not as yet examined.

The original date of the Bull. Duff 227, STC 14096.

Duff 228, STC 14097. The Eton and Ripon copies are listed by Ramage.

Note on flyleaf of binding containing the Bodleian copy, 'teste A. W. P[ollard]'. This copy measures 10.6 x 16.7" cut.

Mr Neil Ker, Librarian of Magdalen College, has kindly furnished information.

The Eton copies of the Bull and the Supplement, with their host volumes, came to the Library through the bequest of William Horman, Fellow and Vice-Provost, he who contracted with Richard Pynson for the printing of Vulgaria (1519). I am grateful to Dr H. K. Prescot of the College Library for aid and information.

The collection is far stronger than Briquet plus Heawood in Norman Unicorn, Hand, and Pot marks of the fifteenth century. Unfortunately many of the tracings look too faint for further reproduction.

Though long used in France, the term Bastard (as a paper size) is not known in English documents before Thomas Berthelet's bill of 1541-3 rendered to Henry VIII largely for printing proclamations. See Arber's Transcript, II, 50-60.

Joseph Moxon: Mechanick Exercises, ed. Herbert Davis & Harry Carter (1958), p. 322.

Surprisingly, the Bodleian copy shows in D a Wheel with a new and thinner rim. As the mould does not change, this is presumably a repaired watermark.

Frank Isaac: English & Scottish Printing Types 1501-35 * 1508-41 (1930), figs. 2-3.

PCC 3 Bennett. Quoted by Jenkins and the Victoria History.

A curious coincidence! It transpires that a 'Tudor' Rose, perhaps the twin of Briquet's example, occurs in the unique Caxton Psalterium (Duff 354, Blades 38) at the British Museum, the two quarto sheets of gathering i. As the mark is space-centered, whereas Br 6628 after much use has slipped left to the chain, the date of the Psalterium may be 1483 or 1484. As the paper of the book is otherwise Italian, this intrusive Norman paper strongly suggests a cancel. Innocently I ask: How did the Norman papermaker (perhaps at Fervacques south of Lisieux) know that Henry Tudor would come to the English throne in 1485?

As noted by Heawood. Checked by the Folger copy and my own. The book contains also a Harp mark made by R. Guesdon, perhaps for the Irish market.

Such as gartered Arms of England marks in the Ellesmere papers at the Huntington and in manuscripts of Sidney's Arcadia at the Folger and the Bodleian.

224.g.3. The King's copy is C.25.f.7.

This watermark Utopia was created by the late Armin Renker, papermaker and scholar of Zerkall bei Düren.

What results is a sort of duodecimo with the extra sheet, in lieu of cutoff, placed before or after. Not yet in 1506 was there a true Demy or Medium paper such as the eighteenth century had for printing octavos and duodecimos. Then came the fashion of printing and sewing duodecimos in halfsheets. Presumably in the early sixteenth century it was considered easier to sew in fours and eights than in twelves.

See note 21.

A tranchefile is an extra chain placed near the mould end to help the deckle restrain the pulp, and also its impression in the paper. This transchefile impression is useful for estimating the original length of a cut sheet.

Catalogue of . . . Early Printed Books . . . Now Forming a Portion of the Library of J. Pierpont Morgan, ed. A. W. Pollard (1907), III, 204.

Duff 253.

Possibly the burnt copy goes back to the Sotheby fire of 1865 and the damaged Charlemont books sold on 27 September. Victor Scholderer, in his Handlist of Incunabula in the National Library of Wales (Aberystwyth 1940-41), no. 118, notes that the twelve burnt leaves there had belonged to Sir C. Thomas-Stanford.

When Dawson of Los Angeles advertised these leaves, I ordered two with watermarks, specifying the chain patterns from the twin moulds. Muir Dawson readily understood and sent copies so good that I ordered and received two more.

These entries occur in the Household Records at PRO. The first has long been known from BM Add. MS 7099, and the second is noted in the Victoria History, loc. cit., p. 256. There is also an entry for 6 June 1499: 'Itm to the pñters at Westm: 20s'. This may refer to the Supplementary Proclamation.