This is “William Caxton and Printing in England”, section 2.2 from the book British Literature Through History (v. 0.1). For details on it (including licensing), click here.
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With the suppression of the Old English language at the time of the Norman Conquest and the replacement of English with French in official venues, English might have been lost forever. Instead, the English language survived and eventually flourished in the late Middle Ages. The future of the English language was further ensured with the arrival of William Caxton and the printing press in England. View a video mini-lecture on Caxton to learn about Caxton’s influence on the English language.
Caxton’s printing device.
In 1476, Caxton set up a printing press in the vicinity of Westminster Abbey and began to print books, some in Latin as had been traditional, but Caxton also printed books in English. Because there was no standardization in English spelling, Caxton’s choices often became the standard.
Caxton showing the first specimen of his printing to King Edward IV at the Almonry, Westminster.
Daniel Maclise, 1851
The British Library has made available online a comparison of Caxton’s two printings of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, 1476 and 1483. In addition, Barbara Bordalejo in the Canterbury Tales Project at De Montfort University provides a digitized version of the British Library manuscripts that allows the reader to see the Middle English text side by side with the manuscript version and to search for specific lines and words. Britain’s National Archives contains the first document printed by Caxton.
KUHF radio station in Houston, Texas broadcasts “Engines of Our Ingenuity.” John H. Lienhard, Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering and History at the University of Houston, wrote and narrates an audio of an episode on Caxton and the printing press. The website includes both the podcast and a written text.