Printing Anglo-Saxon in Holland and John Selden's Mare Clausum seu de Dominio Maris

Abstract

[Provision of the special sorts needed to print Anglo-Saxon required drawing on the skill of a punchcutter. For John Selden's Mare Clausum (London, John Stansby 1635) the special sorts used were sixteenth-century ones inherited by Stansby ultimately from those made for Archbishop Parker (†1575)- Selden's book, on the dominion as opposed to the freedom of the seas, caused such a political stir that three Dutch editions were produced somewhat hastily in 1636. This article considers how the printers of these editions, who had no access to the exclusively English tradition of printing Anglo-Saxon, coped with the problem of printing passages in that language. Two of the printers, the Elzeviers and the Maires in Leiden, apparently used the same punchcutter, who may have been Arent Corsz[oon] van Hoogenacker. It was the first attempt to cut a set of Anglo-Saxon special sorts in the seventeenth century., Provision of the special sorts needed to print Anglo-Saxon required drawing on the skill of a punchcutter. For John Selden's Mare Clausum (London, John Stansby 1635) the special sorts used were sixteenth-century ones inherited by Stansby ultimately from those made for Archbishop Parker (†1575)- Selden's book, on the dominion as opposed to the freedom of the seas, caused such a political stir that three Dutch editions were produced somewhat hastily in 1636. This article considers how the printers of these editions, who had no access to the exclusively English tradition of printing Anglo-Saxon, coped with the problem of printing passages in that language. Two of the printers, the Elzeviers and the Maires in Leiden, apparently used the same punchcutter, who may have been Arent Corsz[oon] van Hoogenacker. It was the first attempt to cut a set of Anglo-Saxon special sorts in the seventeenth century.]