e in parchment, and them
sell by retail, whereby many of the king's subjects, being
binders of books, and having no other faculty therewith to
get their living, be destitute of work, and like to be
undone, except some reformation herein be had,--Be it
therefore enacted, &c." By the 4th clause or provision, if
any of these printers or sellers of printed books vend them
"at too high and unreasonable prices," then the Lord
Chancellor, Lord Treasurer, or any of the Chief Justices of
the one bench or the other--"by the oaths of twelve honest
and discreet persons," were to regulate their prices. This
remarkable act was confirmed by the 25th Hen. VIII., ch. 15,
which was not repealed till the 12th Geo. II., ch. 36, Sec.
3. A judge would have enough to do to regulate the prices of
books, by the oaths of twelve men, in the present times!]

[Footnote 177: The reader will be pleased to refer to p. cx.
of the first volume of my recent edition of the
_Typographical Antiquities of Great Britain_.]

[Footnote 178: The following is from 'the churchwardens'
accompts of St. Margaret's, Westminster. "A.D. 1475. Item,
for 11 great books, called Antiphoners, 22_l._ 0_s._ 0_d._"
_Manners and Expenses of Ancient Times in England_, &c.,
collected by John Nichols, 1797, 4to., p. 2. _Antiphonere_
is a book of anthems to be sung with responses: and, from
the following passage in Chaucer, it would appear to have
been a common school-book used in the times of papacy:

This litel childe his litel book lerning,
As he sate in the scole at his primere
He _Alma Redemptoris_ herde sing,
As children lered hir _Antiphonere_:

_Cant. Tales_, v. 13,446, &c.

"A legend, an _Antiphonarye_, a grayle, a psalter," &c.,
were the books appointed to be kept in every parish church
"of the province of Canterbury" by Robert Winchelsen.
_Const. Provin. and of Otho and Octhobone_, fol. 67, rect.,
edit. 1534.]

[Footnote 179: "The year books, 9 v. parcels, as published,
impr. in different years by Pynson, Berthelet, Redman,
Myddylton, Powell, Smythe, Rastell, and Tottyl, 1517 to
1531." Some of them have the prices printed at the end; as
"The Prisce of thys Boke ys xiid. unbounde--The Price of
thys Boke is xvid. un bownde;" and upon coun