RASTELL the name of two early English printers.
I. John Rastell or Rastall, printer and author, was born at London towards the end of the 15th century. He was educated at Oxford, and married Elizabeth, the sister of Sir Thomas More. He was a man of considerable learning and, although not bred to the law like his son, showed his devotion to legal studies by his writings. He went into the printing business about the year 1514, and produced Liber assisarum , with a preface by himself. His first dated publication was Abbreviamentum librorum legum Anglorum (1517). He also printed The Wydow Edyth (1525), A Dyaloge of Syr Thomas More (1529), and a number of other books. The last dated piece from his press was Fabyl’s Ghoste (1533), a poem. He lived “at the sygne of the meremayd at Powlysgate.” John Rastell, the Jesuit, who has been frequently confounded with him, was no relation. By his will, dated 20th April 1536, he appointed Henry VIII. one of his executors; administration was granted on the renunciation of the executorship by the king on 18th July 1536. It is a curious document, and contains a long account of the testator’s religious belief. Rastell was occupied upon a concordance at the time of his death; its publication was provided for by the will (see Arber’s Registers of Comp, of Stationers, ii. 8, 9). He died at London, leaving two sons, —William, printer and judge (see below), and John, a justice of the peace....
Rastell’s chief writings are the following. The Pastyme of People; the Chronycles of dyuers Realmys and most specyally of the Rcalme of Englonde (1529), now of extreme rarity; a note in the catalogue of the British Museum says, “the only perfect copy known.” It ranges from the earliest times to Richard III., and was edited by Dibdin in 1811 for the quarto series of English chronicles. A new Boke of Purgatory, 1530, being dialogues on the subject between “Comyngo au Almayne a Christen Man, and one Gyngemyn a Turke.” This was answered by John Frith, producing Rastell’s Apology against John Fryth, also answered by the latter. The controversy is said to have ended in Rastell’s conversion to the Reformed religion. Expositioncs terminorum legum anglorum (in French, also translated into English, 1527; reprinted as recently as 1812 as Lcs Termes de la Ley). The Abbreviacion of Statutis (1520), the first abridgment of the statutes in English, with an interesting preface by Rastell, giving reasons for the innovation; down to 1625 fifteen editions appeared.
II. William Rastell (c. 1508-1565), printer and judge, son of the above, was born in London about 1508. At the age of seventeen he went to the university of Oxford, but did not take a degree, being probably called home to superintend his father’s business. The first work which bears his own imprint was A Dyaloge of Sir Thomas More (1531), a reprint of the edition published by his father in 1529. He also brought out a few law books, some poetry, an edition of Fabyaris Cronycle (1533), and The Apologye (1533) and The Supplycacyon of Soulys of his uncle Sir Thomas More. His office was “in Fletestrete in saynt Brydys chyrche yarde.” He became a student at Lincoln’s Inn on 12th September 1532, and gave up the printing business two years later. In 1547 he was appointed reader. On account of his religion he left England for Louvain; but upon the accession of Mary he returned, and was made sergeant-at-law in October 1555. He was one of the seven sergeants who gave the famous feast that year in the Inner Temple Hall (see Dugdale’s Orig. Jurid., 1680, p. 128). His patent as judge of the Queen’s Bench was granted on 27th October 1558. One of his predecessors, John Boteler, had also been printer and judge. Rastell continued on the bench until 1562, when he retired to Louvain without the queen’s licence. By virtue of a special commission issued by the barons of the Exchequer on the occasion an inventory of his goods and chattels was taken. It furnishes an excellent idea of the modest nature of the law library (consisting of twenty-four works) and of the chambers of an Elizabethan judge (see Law Magazine, February 1844). He died at Louvain on 27th August 1565.
It is difficult to distinguish between the books written by him and those by his father. The following are believed to be his: A Collecdon of all the Statutes (1557), A Table collected of the Yeares of the Kynges of Englande (1561), both frequently reprinted witli continuations, and A Colleccion of Entrees, of Declaracions, &c. (1566), also frequently reprinted. The entries are not of Rastell’s own drawing, but have been selected from printed and MS. collections; their “pointed brevity and precision” are commended by Story. He supplied tables or indexes to several law books, and edited La novel natura brevium de Monsieur Anton. Fitzherbert and The Workes of Sir T. More in the English Tonge (1557). He is also stated to have written a life of Sir T. More, but it has not come down to us.
See Bale, Scriptores maioris Brytanniae, 1557-59; Pits, Relationes hist. de rebus Angl., 1619; Tanner, Bibliotheca , 1748; Ames, Typogr. Antiq., by Dibdin, 1816, iii. pp. 81, 370; Wood, Athenae Oxonienses, 1813, i. pp. 100, 343; Dodd, Church History, 1739, ii. p. 149; Foss, Biographia Jurídica, 1870; Reeves, History of the Engl. Law, 1869, iii. p. 432; Marvin, Legal Bibliography, 1847; Clarke, Bibliotheca Legum, 1819; Bridgman, Legal Bibliography, 1807; Catalogue of Books in the British Museum before 1640), 1884.
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