Stationers' Company

   The ordinances of the mistery of Scriveners and lymenours were submitted to the Mayor and Aldermen in 1403 and approved (Cal. L. Bk. I. p.26).

   First mentioned in 1417 as the Mistery of Scriveners, Limners and Stacioners (Cal. L. Bk. 1. p.173).

   The Company would therefore appear to have been composed originally of the scriveners, or text writers and Illuminators or lymenours, together with the Stacyoners, defined in the Prompt. Parv. c. 1440, as "he that sellythe bokys," from Latin " stacionarius."

   Later, after the discovery and introduction of printing in England, the printers seem to have obtained admission into the Company, for at the time of the incorporation of the Company in 1557 by Philip and Mary the patent was expressly granted to them in their capacity of printers to assist the government in the control of printed publications.

   Its privileges, however, have never been confined to this one branch of the trade, but have included at all times printers, booksellers, publishers, as well as the manufacturers of materials for writing and printing.

   The word "Stationer," as suggested above, appears to be derived from the Latin "Stationarius," which term was in use in the universities to designate those persons who were in charge of a Station or depät where the standard texts of classical works were kept and who were authorised to deal out these texts to the students by sale or loan (L. and M. Arch. Soc. Trans. II. 37 et seq.).

   There were similar stations " for trading purposes in use in Cheap in the 14th century, for in 1379 the " Stations " around the High Cross and "le Brokenecros" were leased by the Mayor and Chamberlain to divers persons, and the profits applied for public purposes (Cal. L. Bk. H. pp.131-3).

   Thus the word Stationer was originally used to denote a bookseller, and the present narrower definition assigned to it must be regarded as of modern origin.

   The registers of books entered at Stationers' Hall since 1557 constitute a most valuable record of the literature of the period, and form a priceless possession of the Company.

   There is an interesting account of the Company, etc., compiled from the records in Trans. L. and M. Arch. Soc. N.S. II. (1), p.119.