Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Permissions
- Conventions
- List of abbreviations
- 1 1357–1500
- 2 1501–1509
- 3 1510–1520
- 4 1521–1528
- 5 1529–1534
- 6 1535–1541
- 7 1535–1541
- 8 1542–1546
- Endnotes to Volume I
- 9 1547–1553
- 10 1553–1557
- 11 1554–1557
- 12 1501–1557
- APPENDIXES
- A The founding of the Company, 12 July 1403
- B Edition-sheets versus ‘masterformes’
- C Importation statistics
- D Privileges, patents, and placards
- E A surfeit of Bourmans
- F John Day of Barholm
- G The sites of six printing houses
- H Maps: Fleet Street, St Paul's Churchyard, and Paternoster Row
- I Stationers’ Hall and its neighbours
- J The charter of 1557
- K Books represented in Graphs 2–3
- Endnotes to Volume 2
- Manuscripts cited
- Bibliography
- Index of STC numbers
- General index
C - Importation statistics
from APPENDIXES
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2014
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Permissions
- Conventions
- List of abbreviations
- 1 1357–1500
- 2 1501–1509
- 3 1510–1520
- 4 1521–1528
- 5 1529–1534
- 6 1535–1541
- 7 1535–1541
- 8 1542–1546
- Endnotes to Volume I
- 9 1547–1553
- 10 1553–1557
- 11 1554–1557
- 12 1501–1557
- APPENDIXES
- A The founding of the Company, 12 July 1403
- B Edition-sheets versus ‘masterformes’
- C Importation statistics
- D Privileges, patents, and placards
- E A surfeit of Bourmans
- F John Day of Barholm
- G The sites of six printing houses
- H Maps: Fleet Street, St Paul's Churchyard, and Paternoster Row
- I Stationers’ Hall and its neighbours
- J The charter of 1557
- K Books represented in Graphs 2–3
- Endnotes to Volume 2
- Manuscripts cited
- Bibliography
- Index of STC numbers
- General index
Summary
The number of reams in a maund
Eleven years after the act of 1534 had banned the importation of bound books, a standard valuation for unbound books was included in the first known printed book of rates, dated 1545. Somewhat redundantly, two entries were given:
Bokes vnbounde the basket or mande iiii.£
Bokes vnbunde the halfe mande .xl.s
(STC 7687, a5r)It is not known whether a maund was a basket of fixed dimensions, or whether a half maund implied a half-empty one or a container of half the standard volume. But since unbound books essentially meant bundles of printed paper it can be assumed that the word was understood to denote a specific number of reams.
Essentially the same entries were repeated in edition after edition, largely unaffected by the periodic revisions until those of 1642 (Wing E 920, B4v) except that in 1562 the order was reversed to place the half maund first (7688.4, A5r). The only significant variation was that the 1582 edition appeared to define the maund as forty reams (7689, A5v). That definition was repeated in the reprint of 1590 but then removed (almost certainly because it was erroneous) when the book was revised yet again in 1604 and the original order of the two entries restored (7690, A6r; 7690.5, B3r). Unfortunately, in 1962 T. S. Willan chose the 1582 edition as the basis for his Tudor Book of Rates, and consequently enshrined the false definition in what has become the standard reference for early modern customs rates. Those who have discussed the matter at all, therefore, have assumed that a maund of unbound books meant forty reams of printed paper.
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- Information
- The Stationers' Company and the Printers of London, 1501–1557 , pp. 942 - 951Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2013