Impressorie Arte: The Impact of Printing in Exeter and Devon

Abstract

The majority of the provincial presses were located in the south east of England, in the two university towns of Oxford and Cambridge, and also in Saint Albans, Abingdon, Canterbury and Ipswich. In the south west of England there was a solitary press in the small town of Tavistock. This chapter discusses the general features of early provincial printing before concentrating in more detail on Tavistock and the south west of England. In the whole of the south west of England there was only a single press during the first century of printing. Educational facilities in Exeter had grown during the course of the middle ages. Teaching was also provided in Exeter by the Franciscan friars in the years around 1337 and the Dominican friars in the fifteenth century. Printed books were reaching households in Devon in the early sixteenth century, or at least the households of the aristocracy. Keywords:Devon; England; Exeter; Oxford; printing; Tavistock