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The following request has come in from Lotte Hellinga, who would be grateful
for REED-L members' response:

'I am completing an extensive catalogue of the English incunabula in the
British Library, among them a volume with the six comedies of Terence
printed in London by Richard Pynson at various dates between 1494 and 1497
(Duff 391). It is a complicated story of printing and reprinting, but it
appears to me that they were produced with intervals, one at a time.

With Richard Pynson, who hailed from Normandy and is known to have had
connections in Rouen, it is always possible that he acquired manuscript copy
in Northern France. On the other hand, he printed schoolbooks for the
English market, and it seems rather likely that  a school in England
commissioned him to print the comedies as and when they were required. For
the curriculum? Or for performance?

There is a faint indication that suggests that his manuscript copy
originated in England, for there are a few words of English in the glossary
attached to Andria: ' sodes blandientis.vt sodes. tel me I prey the'.
From the work of NIcholas Orme it is known that Terence was performed at the
Magdalen School in Oxford. My question is: Do you know of any other schools
in England where Terence was performed (or read)?

My catalogue is, as I said, extensive, in that I try to identify as much as
possible the origins of the texts used by the printers, and also their
market. Pynson produced much for the Inns of Court, where lawyers provided
him with manuscripts and where he had a steady market. He printed also a
substantial number of schoolbooks, but as either a source or a market that
is much less easy to define.

Yours sincerely,

Lotte Hellinga

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