A Familiar Sight: ‘Dutch Type’ and the First Printer of Norwich

Abstract

Anthony Solempne, the first printer of Norwich, was among the many Dutch Protestants to flee religious persecution in the Southern Netherlands in the late 1560s and seek refuge in the Northern Provinces, France, and England. Dutch immigrants arrived in such numbers they soon formed around half the population of Norwich, the local inhabitants distinguishing themselves from the ‘otherness’ of these new arrivals by dubbing them ‘Strangers’. Solempne marketed many of his works to this growing community of displaced Dutch refugees through his use of vernacular and possibly his choice of type. This article considers how typography can embody aspects of ‘foreignness’ and familiarity on the printed page. A typographical analysis of Solempne's works forms the foundations for discussions on attributable works and the broader network of Dutch printers in England and the Continent who used a distinctive ‘Dutch type’ that would have been readily familiar to the ‘Strangers’ of Norwich. In doing so, it recognises the potential contribution of typographical studies to our understandings of ‘nationhood’ in northern Europe during the early modern period.