page_title: Androw Myllar
section_title: Printing
hierarchical_section_title: Androw Myllar / Printing
caption_attribution_description: English: Androw Myllar's woodcut device from the chapbook of 'The Porteous of Nobleness'. 'Chepman and Myllar prints', National Library of Scotland.
context_page_description: Androw Myllar was the first Scottish printer.
context_section_description: Chepman having found the necessary capital, and Myllar having obtained the type from France, probably from Rouen, they set up their press in a house at the foot of Blackfriars Wynd, in the Southgait, now the Cowgate, of Edinburgh, and on 4 April 1508 issued the first book known to have been printed in Scotland, The Maying or Disport of Chaucer, better known as The Complaint of the Black Knight, and written not by Chaucer but by Lydgate. This tract consists of fourteen leaves, and has Chepman's device on the title-page, and Myllar's device at the end. The only copy known has been held in the Library of the Faculty of Advocates at Edinburgh since 1788.
  Bound with this work are ten other unique pieces, eight of which are also from the Southgait press, but two only of all are perfect, The Maying or Disport of Chaucer and The Goldyn Targe of William Dunbar. Four of the tracts bear the devices both of Chepman and of Myllar, and three others that of Myllar alone.
  The titles of the other pieces, two only of which are dated, are as follows:
  The Knightly Tale of Golagros and Gawane, 8 April 1508 
  The Porteous of Nobleness, a translation of "Le Bréviaire des nobles" by Alain Chartier, 20 April 1508
  Syr Eglamoure of Artoys
  The Goldyn Targe, by William Dunbar
  Ane Buke of Gude Counsale to the King
  The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy
  The Tale of Orpheus and Erudices his Quene, by Robert Henryson
  The Ballade of Lord Barnard Stewart, by William Dunbar
  Two other pieces, The Tretis of the Twa Mariit Wemen and the Wedo, also by Dunbar, and A Gest of Robyn Hode, are contained in the same volume, but they are printed with different types, and there is no evidence to prove that they emanated from the first Scottish press. About two years later, in 1510, the Aberdeen Breviary, the main cause of the introduction of printing into Scotland, was executed by the command and at the expense of Walter Chepman; but doubt exists as to the actual printer of this, the last but most important work of the primitive Scottish press. Neither in connection with the Breviary nor elsewhere does Androw Myllar's name again occur.
caption: The Porteous of Nobleness
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