Oldest printed advertisement in English

As a book historian I see a lot of medieval and early-modern material. While each item is remarkable in that it survived for 500-1000 years, or even more, every once in a while you come across something that really jumps out. This single sheet of paper from c. 1477, smaller than a toothbrush, is such a case. You are looking at a slip that was printed by William Caxton, England’s first printer. On it he praises a book he just produced, the Sarum Ordinal, a manual for priests. The sheet describes the book and then states that “you can get a copy at the Red Pale" (the name of his shop) in Westminster, London. You will not be disappointed because the book is “good and cheap", it further states. It is clear that we are dealing with an advertisement, likely handed out in the streets of London. It is not the oldest known book advertisement; I introduced a remarkable one from c. 1445 in this Tumblr, and I know older ones. However, crucially, this inconspicuous piece of paper is the first printed advertisement in the English language. How befitting that it praises the very invention through which it was created: printing - a technique that had made the slip both good and cheap.

Pic: Oxford, Arch. B e. 37 (80x146 mm, c. 1477). More information and a zoomable image are found here. More on marketing practices in the late-medieval book trade in this blog I wrote, which includes a 13th-century advertisement in French.