Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 Literacy, books and readers
- TECHNIQUE AND TRADE
- 2 Foreign illuminators and illuminated manuscripts
- 3 Printing
- 4 Bookbinding 1400–1557
- 5 The rise of London’s book-trade
- 6 The customs rolls as documents for the printed-book trade in England
- 7 The book-trade under Edward VI and Mary I
- 8 Importation of printed books into England and Scotland
- COLLECTIONS AND OWNERSHIP
- READING AND USE OF BOOKS
- Appendix
- List of abbreviations
- Bibliography
- Photo credits
- General index
- Index of manuscripts
- Bibliographic index of printed books
- Plate Section"
- References
2 - Foreign illuminators and illuminated manuscripts
from TECHNIQUE AND TRADE
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 Literacy, books and readers
- TECHNIQUE AND TRADE
- 2 Foreign illuminators and illuminated manuscripts
- 3 Printing
- 4 Bookbinding 1400–1557
- 5 The rise of London’s book-trade
- 6 The customs rolls as documents for the printed-book trade in England
- 7 The book-trade under Edward VI and Mary I
- 8 Importation of printed books into England and Scotland
- COLLECTIONS AND OWNERSHIP
- READING AND USE OF BOOKS
- Appendix
- List of abbreviations
- Bibliography
- Photo credits
- General index
- Index of manuscripts
- Bibliographic index of printed books
- Plate Section"
- References
Summary
No account of the history of the manuscript book in Britain in the fifteenth century would be complete without a discussion of the extent to which foreigners were involved in the native book trade, and, even more striking, of the very considerable numbers of manuscripts written and illuminated abroad which were imported at this time. This chapter confines itself to illuminators and deals only incidentally with scribes and binders. Even with this restriction, it can only be a brief and selective summary of a large and complex topic on which there is still much research to be done.
For the purposes of my discussion I want to distinguish five classes of production and/or importation. First, foreign illuminators may have themselves migrated to work in England. Secondly, manuscripts may have been made abroad and then imported and sold in England speculatively to buyers who had not specifically commissioned them. Thirdly, owners may have acquired manuscripts abroad and brought them back to England. Fourthly, manuscripts may have been sent from abroad as gifts. Fifthly, manuscripts may have been specially commissioned abroad by owners who remained in or returned to England.
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- Information
- The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain , pp. 45 - 64Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1999
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