John Lettou or John of Lithuania ( lt, Jonas Lietuvis,
fl.
''Floruit'' (; abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for "they flourished") denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indicatin ...
1475–1483) was an English bookbinder and printer, presumably from the
Grand Duchy of Lithuania
The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a European state that existed from the 13th century to 1795, when the territory was partitioned among the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Habsburg Empire of Austria. The state was founded by Lit ...
.
[R. Bideleux. ''A History of Eastern Europe: Crisis and Change''. Routledge, 1998]
Seventeen books printed between 1475 and 1480 are attributed to the workshop of the ‘Indulgence Binder’ now identified as Lettou. The identification depends upon the use of waste strips cut from an
indulgence
In the teaching of the Catholic Church, an indulgence (, from , 'permit') is "a way to reduce the amount of punishment one has to undergo for sins". The ''Catechism of the Catholic Church'' describes an indulgence as "a remission before God o ...
of 1480 used in the binding of a Bible, printed by Gotz in 1480, which now belongs to
Jesus College, Cambridge
Jesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's full name is The College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and the glorious Virgin Saint Radegund, near Cambridge. Its common name comes f ...
. Since this waste would have been found only in the workshop of the printer, and the indulgence was printed by Lettou, he must have been both the printer and the binder. John Lettou also published in partnership with
William de Machlinia
William de Machlinia was an English printer who was active in the 15th century.
Life
He was born in Malines ( Mechelen) in the Low Countries. He moved to London where, from 1483, he worked as an independent printer.
Career
Between 1483 and 1490 ...
and they published mostly law books. Lettou is also considered to have been a colleague of the Belarusian first book printer
Francysk Skaryna
Francysk Skaryna (alternative transcriptions of his name: ''Francišak Skaryna'' or ''Francisk Skaryna''; lat, Franciscus Scorina, be, Францыск (Францішак) Скарына ; pl, Franciszek Skaryna, cs, František Skorina; ...
.
See also
*
List of people from Belarus
This is a list of people connected to the Republic of Belarus. It is not limited to persons of Belarusian ethnicity; Russians, Jews, Poles, Vikings, etc., may be found in this list. Over time the Belarusian land has had many rulers, and often it ...
*
List of Lithuanians
This is a list of Lithuanians, both people of Lithuanian descent and people with the birthplace or citizenship of Lithuania.
In a case when a person was born in the territory of former Grand Duchy of Lithuania and not in the territory of modern ...
*
Name of Lithuania
The first known record of the name of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuva) is in a 9 March 1009 story of Saint Bruno recorded in the Quedlinburg Chronicle ( la, Annales Quedlinburgenses). The Chronicle recorded a Latinized form of the Old Church Slavonic
...
*
Lettow Lettow was a by-name given to a few Pomeranian nobles from a noble family from Vorbeck who went to assist Algirdas and Vytautas, the Great Dukes of Lithuania, in the 14th century. ''Lettow'' meant "Lithuania" in the Saxon language, and it appear ...
*
Lettau (surname)
The name Lettau, like its variants Lettow and Lettou, derives from a medieval Saxon name for Lithuania. It appears in the General Prologue to ''The Canterbury Tales'', wherein it is said of the Knight, a veteran of the Baltic Crusades: "Ful o ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lettou, John
15th-century printers
English people of Belarusian descent
English people of Lithuanian descent
English printers