Literature in the other languages of Britain The most important work of literature surviving from the Middle Cornish period is "An Ordinale Kernewek" ("The Cornish Ordinalia"), a 9000-line religious drama composed around the year 1400. Three plays in Cornish known as the Ordinalia have survived from this period. The spread of printing affected the transmission of literature across Britain and Ireland. The first book printed in English, William Caxton's own translation of "Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye", was printed abroad in 1473, to be followed by the establishment of the first printing press in England in 1474. The establishment of a printing press in Scotland under
Press laws Press laws Press laws are the laws concerning the licensing of books and the liberty of expression in all products of the printing-press, especially newspapers . The liberty of the press has always been regarded by political writers as of supreme importance. "Give me liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all other liberties", says Milton in the "Areopagitica". Before the invention of printing, the Church assumed the right to control the expression of all opinion distasteful to her. When the printing press was invented, German printers established themselves at various important centres of