William Barley
Encyclopedia
Apprenticeship
Apprenticeship is a system of training a new generation of practitioners of a skill. Apprentices or protégés build their careers from apprenticeships...
as a draper
Draper
Draper is the now largely obsolete term for a wholesaler, or especially retailer, of cloth, mainly for clothing, or one who works in a draper's shop. A draper may additionally operate as a cloth merchant or a haberdasher. The drapers were an important trade guild...
in 1587, but was soon working in the London book trade. As a freeman of the Drapers' Company
Worshipful Company of Drapers
The Worshipful Company of Drapers is one of the 108 Livery Companies of the City of London; it has the formal name of The Master and Wardens and Brethren and Sisters of the Guild or Fraternity of the Blessed Mary the Virgin of the Mystery of Drapers of the City of London but is more usually known...
, he was embroiled in a dispute between it and the Stationers' Company
Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers
The Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers is one of the Livery Companies of the City of London. The Stationers' Company was founded in 1403; it received a Royal Charter in 1557...
over the rights of drapers to function as publishers and booksellers. He found himself in legal tangles throughout his life.
Barley's role in Elizabethan
Elizabethan era
The Elizabethan era was the epoch in English history of Queen Elizabeth I's reign . Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history...
music publishing has proved to be a contentious issue among scholars. The assessments of him range from "a man of energy, determination, and ambition", to "somewhat remarkable", to "surely to some extent a rather nefarious figure". His contemporaries harshly criticized the quality of two of the first works of music that he published, but he was also influential in his field. After becoming the assignee
Assignment (law)
An assignment is a term used with similar meanings in the law of contracts and in the law of real estate. In both instances, it encompasses the transfer of rights held by one party—the assignor—to another party—the assignee...
of the composer and publisher Thomas Morley
Thomas Morley
Thomas Morley was an English composer, theorist, editor and organist of the Renaissance, and the foremost member of the English Madrigal School. He was the most famous composer of secular music in Elizabethan England and an organist at St Paul's Cathedral...
, Barley published Anthony Holborne
Anthony Holborne
Anthony Holborne was a composer of English consort music during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.-Life:Holborne entered Pembroke College, Cambridge in 1562. He was admitted to the Inner Temple Court in 1565. Holborne married Elisabeth Marten on 14 June 1584. On the title page of both his books he...
's Pavans, Galliards, Almains (1599), the first work of music for instruments rather than voices to be printed in England. His partnership with Morley enabled him to claim a right to the music publishing patent
Printing patent
The printing patent or printing privilege was a precursor of modern copyright. It was an exclusive right to print a work or a class work of works....
that Morley held prior to his death in 1602. Some publishers ignored his claim, however, and many music books printed during his later life gave him no recognition.
Drapers' Company
In a deposition of 1598, Barley refers to his age as "xxxiii yeeres or thereabowt", placing his date of birth around 1565. Evidence suggests that Barley may have been born in WarwickshireWarwickshire
Warwickshire is a landlocked non-metropolitan county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, although the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare...
. Little else is known about his early life. Barley was in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
by 1587, having completed an apprenticeship with the Drapers' Company
Worshipful Company of Drapers
The Worshipful Company of Drapers is one of the 108 Livery Companies of the City of London; it has the formal name of The Master and Wardens and Brethren and Sisters of the Guild or Fraternity of the Blessed Mary the Virgin of the Mystery of Drapers of the City of London but is more usually known...
in that year. He trained as a bookseller under Yarath James, a small-time publisher. James operated out of a shop in Newgate Market, near Christ Church Gate, in the 1580s. His interest in ballads was shared by Barley, who published a number of them during his lifetime. By 1592, Barley had opened his own shop in the parish of St Peter upon Cornhill
St Peter upon Cornhill
St Peter upon Cornhill is an Anglican church in the City of London, located on the corner of Cornhill and Gracechurch Street. It is currently a satellite church in the parish of St Helen's Bishopsgate, and is used for staff training, bible studies and a youth club.The church was used by the Tank...
, whose register recorded his marriage to a Mary Harper on 15 June 1603 and christenings and burials of people associated with his family. He conducted business out of this shop for the next twenty years.
Barley is probably the same William Barley who opened a branch office in Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
. This action brought him into conflict with the authorities. Barley most likely relied on his assistant, William Davis, to run the Oxford shop while he maintained the business at St Peter upon Cornhill. Davis was arrested in 1599 because Barley had failed to register as a bookseller with Oxford University. The two redeemed themselves though, and in 1603, Barley and Davis were admitted as "privileged persons" of Oxford University. Privileged status at Oxford allowed tradesmen to practice their trade free from the jurisdiction of the town's authorities.
Barley ran afoul of London authorities as well. In September 1591, a warrant was issued for his arrest, although the charge is unknown. Barley also found himself in the midst of a longstanding feud between the Drapers' Company and the Stationers' Company
Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers
The Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers is one of the Livery Companies of the City of London. The Stationers' Company was founded in 1403; it received a Royal Charter in 1557...
. At the time, the latter held a monopoly over the publishing industry; the Drapers' Company wanted its members to be able to function as publishers and booksellers as well, insisting that it was the "custom of the City" to grant its freemen the right to engage in the book trade.
From 1591 to 1604, Barley was associated with at least 57 works. The exact nature of his involvement is, at times, hard to identify. Some works were printed "for" him, others were "to be sold by" him, and two state that they were printed "by" him. He partnered with notable printers and publishers during this period, including Thomas Creede
Thomas Creede
Thomas Creede was a printer of the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, rated as "one of the best of his time." Based in London, he conducted his business under the sign of the Catherine Wheel in Thames Street from 1593 to 1600, and under the sign of the Eagle and Child in the Old Exchange from 1600 to...
, Abel Jeffes, and John Danter. With Creede, Barley was involved in the publication of A Looking Glass for London and England (1594) and The True Tragedy of Richard III
The True Tragedy of Richard III
The True Tragedy of Richard III is an anonymous Elizabethan history play on the subject of Richard III of England. It has attracted the attention of scholars of English Renaissance drama principally for the question of its relationship with Shakespeare's Richard III.The True Tragedy of Richard III...
(1594). During this period, Barley entered none of these works in the Stationers' Register
Stationers' Register
The Stationers' Register was a record book maintained by the Stationers' Company of London. The company is a trade guild given a royal charter in 1557 to regulate the various professions associated with the publishing industry, including printers, bookbinders, booksellers, and publishers in England...
(by entering a title into the register, a publisher recorded their rights to the work). This is probably due to the Stationers' feud with the Drapers'; the Stationers' viewed the ability of non-members to enter works into the register as a special privilege. Thus, Barley relied on others, such as Creede, Jeffes, and Danter, to enter these titles. Whether Barley merely acted as a bookseller for the enterers or, in private agreements with them, actually retained the rights to some of the works remains unclear.
In 1595, the Stationers' Company fined Barley 40 shilling
Shilling
The shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive...
s for illicitly publishing a number of works. Three years later, the organization sued him and a fellow draper, Simon Stafford, for allegedly publishing privileged books
Printing patent
The printing patent or printing privilege was a precursor of modern copyright. It was an exclusive right to print a work or a class work of works....
. A raid on Barley's former premises found 4,000 copies of the Accidence, a Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
grammar book protected by monopoly. Despite pleading his innocence in court, Barley, along with Stafford, Edward Venge, and Thomas Pavier
Thomas Pavier
Thomas Pavier was a London publisher and bookseller of the early seventeenth century. His complex involvement in the publication of early editions of some of Shakespeare's plays, as well as plays of the Shakespeare Apocrypha, has left him with a "dubious reputation."-Life and work:Pavier came to...
(who was Barley's apprentice), was found guilty and sentenced to prison. The lawsuit affirmed the Stationers' Company's control over the Elizabethan book trade. Stafford, Pavier, and other draper-booksellers joined the company within a few years so that they could continue their trade. Curiously, Barley did not join them until 1606. The reasons for the delay are debated among scholars. Bibliographer
Bibliography
Bibliography , as a practice, is the academic study of books as physical, cultural objects; in this sense, it is also known as bibliology...
J. A. Lavin suggests that the Stationers' Company rejected Barley because he had no experience in the printing business. Gerald D. Johnson believes that his partnership with Thomas Morley
Thomas Morley
Thomas Morley was an English composer, theorist, editor and organist of the Renaissance, and the foremost member of the English Madrigal School. He was the most famous composer of secular music in Elizabethan England and an organist at St Paul's Cathedral...
, who held a royal patent on music publishing, allowed him to circumvent any legal obstacles. The Stationers' Company could not interfere with the publication of works under royal grant.
Music publishing
In Elizabethan England, music printing was regulated by two royal patents issued by the queen: one for metrical psalterMetrical psalter
A metrical psalter is a kind of Bible translation: a book containing a metrical translation of all or part of the Book of Psalms in vernacular poetry, meant to be sung as hymns in a church. Some metrical psalters include melodies or even harmonizations...
s (psalms set to music) and one for all other types of music and music paper. The patent-holders thus held a monopoly—only they or their assignees could legally print music. After printer John Day
John Day (printer)
John Day was an English Protestant printer. He specialised in printing and distributing Protestant literature and pamphlets, and produced many small-format religious books, such as ABCs, sermons, and translations of psalms...
's death in 1584, the patent for metrical psalters transferred to his son Richard Day
Richard Day (printer)
Richard Day was an English printer, Church of England clergyman, and the son of printer John Day. He was born in Aldersgate, London, where his father maintained a home and a newly established printing press. He studied at Eton College and enrolled at King's College, Cambridge in 1572, where he was...
and was administered by his assignees, who were members of the Stationers' Company. The more general one was awarded to composers Thomas Tallis
Thomas Tallis
Thomas Tallis was an English composer. Tallis flourished as a church musician in 16th century Tudor England. He occupies a primary place in anthologies of English church music, and is considered among the best of England's early composers. He is honoured for his original voice in English...
and William Byrd
William Byrd
William Byrd was an English composer of the Renaissance. He wrote in many of the forms current in England at the time, including various types of sacred and secular polyphony, keyboard and consort music.-Provenance:Knowledge of Byrd's biography expanded in the late 20th century, thanks largely...
in January 1575. Despite the monopoly, Tallis and Byrd were not successful in their printing endeavors; their 1575 collection of Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
motet
Motet
In classical music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions.-Etymology:The name comes either from the Latin movere, or a Latinized version of Old French mot, "word" or "verbal utterance." The Medieval Latin for "motet" is motectum, and the Italian...
s called Cantiones quae ab argumento sacrae vocantur failed to sell and was a financial disaster. After Tallis died in 1585, Byrd continued holding the patent, producing works with his assignee, Thomas East
Thomas East
Thomas East , was an English printer and music publisher.East was made a freeman of the Stationers' Company on 6 December 1565...
. The monopoly expired in 1596, prompting prospective music publishers such as Barley to take advantage of the resulting power vacuum.
Font
In typography, a font is traditionally defined as a quantity of sorts composing a complete character set of a single size and style of a particular typeface...
, Barley (using the services of Danter and his wood blocks) published The Pathway to Music, a music theory
Music theory
Music theory is the study of how music works. It examines the language and notation of music. It seeks to identify patterns and structures in composers' techniques across or within genres, styles, or historical periods...
book, and A New Booke of Tabliture, a tutor for the lute
Lute
Lute can refer generally to any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes....
and related instruments that included compositions by John Dowland
John Dowland
John Dowland was an English Renaissance composer, singer, and lutenist. He is best known today for his melancholy songs such as "Come, heavy sleep" , "Come again", "Flow my tears", "I saw my Lady weepe" and "In darkness let me dwell", but his instrumental music has undergone a major revival, and has...
, Philip Rosseter
Philip Rosseter
Philip Rosseter was an English composer and musician, as well as a theatrical manager. From 1603 until his death in 1623 he was lutenist for James I of England. Rosseter is best known for A Book of Aires which was written with Thomas Campion...
, and Anthony Holborne
Anthony Holborne
Anthony Holborne was a composer of English consort music during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.-Life:Holborne entered Pembroke College, Cambridge in 1562. He was admitted to the Inner Temple Court in 1565. Holborne married Elisabeth Marten on 14 June 1584. On the title page of both his books he...
. Both featured numerous errors, and for the latter, Barley seems not to have gained prior publishing approval from the composers. Dowland disowned A New Booke of Tabliture, calling his lute lessons "falce and unperfect", while Holborne complained of "corrupt coppies" of his work being presented by a "meere stranger". Modern musicologists have labelled the publication "exasperating" and "seedy". Morley criticized The Pathway to Music, stating that the author should be "ashamed of his labour", and that "[v]ix est in toto pagina sano libro" ("there is scarcely a page that makes sense in the whole book"). Despite their flaws, both works seem to have been instrumental in introducing music tutor books to the London market.
Two years later, Morley was awarded the same printing monopoly that Byrd had held. Morley's pick of Barley as an assignee (rather than experienced printers such as East or Peter Short
Peter Short (printer)
Peter Short was a London printer of the later Elizabethan era. He printed several first editions and early texts of Shakespeare's works....
, both of whom had previously worked with Morley) is surprising. Morley may have been looking for help in challenging the metrical psalter patent of Richard Day and his assignees. At that time, East and Short were stationers, and the Stationers' Company was actively enforcing the Day monopoly. Barley, however, was not a stationer, and in 1599 he and Morley published The Whole Booke of Psalmes and Richard Allison
Richard Allison
Richard Alison was an English composer. He wrote de la Tromba, a fine broken consort piece which has several professional recordings and first became well known due to the Julian Bream Consort....
's Psalmes of David in Metre. The former was a small pocket edition that was largely based on East's 1592 publication of the same name. This work, although pirated and filled with small errors, provides some evidence of Barley's editorial skill; musicologist Robert Illing notes that if Barley "is to be discredited for roguery, he must also be applauded for his strokes of musical imagination" for successfully compressing such a large work into a pocket-sized production. In Allison's work, the two claimed that they had exclusive rights on the metrical psalter. Duly provoked, Day sued. The outcome of his lawsuit is not known, but neither Barley nor Morley ever published another metrical psalter.
Under Morley, Barley published eight books. The covers of each indicated that they were "printed by" Barley, but examination of the typography reveals this to be unlikely. At least two of the works contain designs that seem to belong to a device used by London printer Henry Ballard. Significant among these eight works is Holborne's Pavans, Galliards, Almains (1599), the first work of music for instruments rather than voices to be printed in England, and the first edition of Morley's influential The First Booke of Consort Lessons (1599).
Stationers' Company
Barley's relationship with Morley was short-lived. By 1600, Morley had turned to East as his assignee, authorizing him to print under his name for three years. Two years later, Morley died, and his music patent fell into abeyance. Unable to rely on the protections and privileges of Morley's monopoly, Barley most likely came under increasing pressure from the Stationers' Company. His financial circumstances also deteriorated after he was the target of a successful lawsuit by a cook named George Goodale, who was seeking payment of a debt of 80 poundsPound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
. As a result of the suit, many of Barley's goods were seized, including various books and reams of paper. Barley greatly reduced his output from 1601 to 1605, publishing only six works.
Barley evidently decided that it was futile to continue resisting the Stationers' Company, and on 15 May 1605, he successfully petitioned the Drapers' Company for a transfer to the Stationers' Company. On 25 June 1606, the Stationers' Company admitted him as a member. That same day, the Company's court, which had the authority to resolve disputes between members, negotiated a settlement in a lawsuit Barley had brought against East concerning the copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
s on certain music books. East claimed that since he had lawfully entered the books into the Company's register
Stationers' Register
The Stationers' Register was a record book maintained by the Stationers' Company of London. The company is a trade guild given a royal charter in 1557 to regulate the various professions associated with the publishing industry, including printers, bookbinders, booksellers, and publishers in England...
, the rights of the works belonged to him. Barley disagreed, claiming that the works were his through his partnership with Morley, who had held the royal music patent. The court's compromise settlement recognized the rights of both, stipulating that if East were to print an edition of any of the books in question, he was to acknowledge Barley's name on the imprint, pay Barley 20 shillings, and supply him with six free copies. On the other hand, Barley could not publish any of the books without the consent of East or his wife.
Despite the settlement recognizing his claim to Morley's music patent, Barley seemingly found it difficult to enforce his rights, even with his new role as a stationer. Less than half of the known music books published from 1606 to 1613 recognized Barley's rights on the imprint. Barley took Thomas Adams
Thomas Adams (publisher)
Thomas Adams was an English publisher. Born into a yeoman's family, he became an apprentice to Oliver Wilkes, a member of the Stationers' Company, on 29 September 1582; he was transferred to a new master, George Bishop, on 14 October 1583. Adams himself was admitted to the Company on 15 October 1583...
to the Stationers' court in 1609, challenging the copyrights of the music books Adams had published. The court handed down a settlement similar to the one between East and Barley. However, none of the music books Adams published afterward contained any recognition of Barley's patent.
Barley himself published four books under his patent. In March 1612, one of Barley's servants died, possibly from plague. After receiving charitable remuneration from the Stationers' Company, Barley moved, first to the parish of St Katherine Cree
St Katherine Cree
St Katharine Cree is a Church of England church in the Aldgate ward of the City of London, located on Leadenhall Street near Leadenhall Market.-History:...
, and later to a house on Bishopsgate
Bishopsgate
Bishopsgate is a road and ward in the northeast part of the City of London, extending north from Gracechurch Street to Norton Folgate. It is named after one of the original seven gates in London Wall...
. Records from St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate
St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate
St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate is a Church of England church in the City of London, first mentioned in 1212 and dedicated to St Botolph.The nearest London Underground station is Liverpool Street.-History:...
indicate his burial on 11 July 1614. His widow, Mary, and their son, William, were legatees of the will of Pavier. Mary Barley, who later remarried, transferred five of her husband's patents to printer John Beale. Some of Barley's remaining copyrights may have also been passed to the printer Thomas Snodham.