London trade belongs is not called after the printers, but after the older order of stationers. In a “Note of the State of the Company of Printers, Bookesellers, and Bookebynders comprehended under the name of Stacioners,” dated 1582, we are told that “in the tyme of King Henry the Eighte, there were but fewe Printers, and those of good credit and competent wealth, at whiche tyme and before there was an other sort of men that were writers, lymners of Bookes and diverse thinges for the Church and other uses, called Stacioners, which have, and partly to this daye do use to buy their bookes in grosse of the saide Printers, bynde them up, and sell them in their shops, whereby they well mayntayned their families.”24
It seems probable that the English booksellers before the introduction of printing experienced little interference in their business from foreign scribes, and therefore the bringing in of printed books from abroad was distasteful to them. What they particularly objected to was the importation of these books bound instead of in sheets.
By “an Act touching the Marchauntes of Italy” (1 Ric. III. cap. 9) aliens were prohibited from importing certain goods into this country, but this Act was not to “extend to Importers of Books, or to any writer, limner, binder, or printer.”
In Henry VIII.’s reign this importation was found intolerable, and “an Act for Printers and Binders of Bokes” was passed (25 Hen. VIII. cap. 15). It is stated in the preamble when the provision in the Act of Richard III. was made there were few books and few printers in England, but that at this time large numbers of printed books were brought into the country—
Whereas, a great number of the King’s subjects within this realm having “given themselves diligently to learn and exercise the said craft of Printing, that at this day there be within this realm a great number