Books and their makers during the Middle Ages

by George Haven Putnam

CHAPTER II.

THE INVENTION OF PRINTING AND THE WORK OF THE FIRST PRINTERS OF HOLLAND AND GERMANY.

1440-1528.

“ FOUR men, Gutenberg, Columbus, Luther, and Copernicus, stand at the dividing line of the Middle Ages, and serve as boundary stones marking the entrance of mankind into a higher and finer epoch of its development.”[421]

It would be difficult to say which one of the four has made the largest contribution to this development or has done the most to lift up the spirit of mankind and to open for men the doors to the new realms that were in readiness. The Genoese seaman and discoverer opens new realms to our knowledge and imagination, leads Europe from the narrow restrictions of the Middle Ages out into the vast space of Western oceans, and in adding to the material realms controlled by civilisation, widens still more largely the range of its thought and fancy. The Reformer of Wittenberg, in breaking the bonds which had chained the spirits of his fellow-men and in securing for them again their rights as individual Christians, conquers for them a spiritual realm and brings them into renewed relations with their Creator. The great astronomer shatters, through his discoveries, the fixed and petty conceptions of the universe which had ruled the minds of mankind, and in bringing to them fresh light on the nature and extent of created things, widens at the same time their whole understanding of themselves and of duty. The citizen of Mayence may claim to have unchained intelligence and given to it wings. He utilised lead no longer as a death-bringing ball, but in the form of life-quickening letters which were to bring before thousands of minds the teachings of the world’s thinkers. Each one of the four had his part in bringing to the world light, knowledge, and development.

At the time when the art of printing finally took shape in the mind of Gutenberg, the direction of literary and intellectual interests of Germany rested, as we have seen, largely with Italy. The fact, however, that the new art had its birthplace, not in Florence, which was at that time the centre of the literary activities of Europe, but in Mayence, heretofore a town which had hardly been connected at all with literature, and the further fact that the printing-presses were carrying on their work in Germany for nearly fifteen years before two printers, themselves Germans, set up the first press in Italy, exercised, of necessity, an important influence in inciting literary activities throughout Germany and in the relations borne by Germany to the scholarship of the world.

The details of the life and early work of Gutenberg are at best but fragmentary, and have been a subject of much discussion. It is not necessary, for the purpose of this treatise, to give detailed consideration to the long series of controversies as to the respective claims of Gutenberg of Mayence, of Koster of Haarlem, or of other competitors, as to the measure of credit to be assigned to each in the original discovery or of the practical development of the the printing-press. It seems in any case evident that whatever minds elsewhere were at that time puzzling over the same problem, it was the good fortune of Gutenberg to make the first practical application of the printing-press to the production of impressions from movable type, while it was certainly from Mayence that the art spread throughout the cities, first of Germany, and later of Italy and France.

It is to be borne in mind (and I speak here for the non-technical reader) that, as indicated in the above reference, the distinction and important part of the invention of Gutenberg was, not the production of a press for the multiplication of impressions, but the use of movable type and the preparation of the form from which the impressions were struck off. The art of printing from blocks, since classified as xylographic printing, had been practised in certain quarters of Europe for fifty years or more before the time of Gutenberg, and if Europe had had communication with China, xylography might have been introduced four or five centuries earlier.

With the block-books, the essential thing was the illustrations, and what text or letterpress accompanied these was usually limited to a few explanatory or descriptive words engraved on the block, above, beneath or around the picture. Occasionally, however, as in the Ars Moriendi, there were entire pages of text engraved, like the designs, on the solid block. The earlier engraving was done on hard wood, but, later, copper was also employed. It is probable that the block-books originated in the Netherlands, and it is certain that in such towns as Bruges, Antwerp, and Amsterdam, the art was developed more rapidly than elsewhere, so that during the first half of the fifteenth century, the production of wood engravings and of books made up of engravings (printed only on one side, and accompanied by a few words of text), began to form an important article of trade. The subjects of these designs were for the most part Biblical, or at least religious. One of the earlier of the block-book publications and probably the most characteristic specimen of the class, is the volume known as the Biblia Pauperum. This was a close imitation of a manuscript book that had for five or six centuries been popular as a work of religious instruction. It had been composed about 850, by S. Ausgarius, a monk of Corbie, who afterwards became Bishop of Hamburg. The scriptorium established by him at Corbie was said to have been the means of preserving from destruction a number of classics, including the Annals of Tacitus.[422] The use, five centuries later, as one of the first productions of the printing-press, of the monk’s own composition, may be considered as a fitting acknowledgement of the service thus rendered by him to the world’s literature. Examples of manuscript copies of the Biblia Pauperum are in existence in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, in Munich, in the British Museum, and elsewhere, and there is no difficulty in comparing these with the printed copies produced in the Netherlands, which are also represented in these collections.

It is probable that Laurence Koster of Haarlem, whose name is, later, associated with printing from movable type, was himself an engraver of block-books. Humphreys is, in fact, inclined to believe that the first block-book edition of the Biblia Pauperum was actually Koster’s work, basing this opinion on the similarity of the compositions and of their arrangement to those of the Speculum Humanæ Salvationis, which was the first work printed from movable type, and the production of which is now generally credited to Koster.[423] The Biblia Pauperum was printed from blocks in Germany as late as 1475, but before that date an edition had been printed from movable type by Pfister in Bamberg.

As has been pointed out by many of the writers on the subject, the so-called invention of printing was not so much the result of an individual inspiration, as the almost inevitable consequence of a long series of experiments and of partial processes which had been conducted in various places where the community was interesting itself in the multiplication of literature.

If, as is probably the case, the first book printed from movable type is to be credited to Koster, it remains none the less the case that Gutenberg’s process must have been worked out for itself, and that the German possessed, what the Hollander appears to have lacked, not merely the persistence and the practical understanding required to produce a single book, but the power to overcome obstacles and to instruct others, and was thus able to establish the new art on a lasting foundation.

The claims of the Hollanders under which Koster is to be regarded as the first printer, or at least (bearing in mind the Chinese precedents in the tenth century) the first European printer, from movable type, claims which Humphreys accepts as well founded, are in substance as follows: Laurence Koster was born, somewhere in Holland, about 1370, and died in Haarlem about 1440. He is believed to have made his first experiments with movable wooden types about 1426, and to have worked with metal types about ten years later. The principal of the earlier authorities concerning Koster’s career is a certain Hadrian Junius, who completed, in 1569, a history of Holland, which was published in 1588. He speaks of Koster as being a man of an honourable family, in which the office of Sacristan (custos, Coster or Koster) was hereditary, and he describes in detail the development of the invention of type, from the cutting of pieces of beech-bark into the form of letters, to the final production of the metal fonts. Junius goes on to relate the method under which Koster’s first book (from type), Speculum Humanæ Salvationis, was printed, in 1430. This book, the origin of which is not known, had for many years been popular among the Benedictines, and few of their monasteries were without a copy. As a result of this popularity, many examples of the manuscript copies have been preserved, some of which are in the Arundel collection in the British Museum. Zani says that the Speculum was compiled for the assistance of poor preachers, and in support of this view he quotes certain lines, which may serve also as an example of Latinity and of the general style:

Predictum prohemium hujus libri de contentis compilavi

Et propter pauperes predicatores hoc opponere curavi.[424]

Koster appears to have produced, about 1428, an edition of a portion of the Speculum in which the entire pages (presenting on the upper half two designs, and on the lower two columns of text) are printed from solid wooden blocks. Humphreys gives examples of these pages. The cutting of the text, all the letters of which had, of course, to be cut in reverse, is a wonderful piece of work. About 1430, was completed the first issue printed from movable types. The arrangement of the pages is the same, the upper half is occupied with two designs (printed in brown ink, from wooden blocks), and the lower half is given to the text, printed in black ink, from the metal type. The first typographic edition contains a number of xylographic pages. In the type-pages, the block-illustration was printed first, and the sheet was then imposed again for the printing of the text. Both the designs and the text were modelled to follow very closely the character of the manuscripts of the period. The volume is undoubtedly the earliest European example of printing from type, and the evidence that it was the work of Koster, and that it was produced not later than 1430, or about twenty years earlier than the Bible of Gutenberg, is, I understand, now accepted by the best authorities as practically conclusive. Three editions of the book were printed by Koster before his death in 1440, the third being printed in Dutch (instead of Latin), and being entirely typographic. This is the edition seen and described (128 years later) by Junius. After specifying the method employed by Koster (according to his own views concerning movable type), Junius goes on to say, “It was by this method that he produced impressions of engraved plates, to which he added ‘separate’ letters. I have seen a book of this kind, the first rude effort of his invention, printed by him on one side only; this book was entitled the Mirror of Our Salvation.” While this evidence of Junius comes first into record one hundred and twenty-eight years after the time assigned to the printing of Koster’s first book, it is the conclusion of Humphreys, Blades, and other historians that, in consideration of the circumstances under which Junius wrote, and the nature of the information which was evidently at that time available for him, his testimony may safely be accepted as conclusive. Junius goes on to say that Koster, having perfected his system, and finding a rapidly increasing demand for his printed books, was unable to manage the work with the aid of the members of his own family. He took foreign workmen into his employ, which eventually led to the abstraction of his secret and caused the credit of his invention to be given to others.[425] Junius gives further details concerning the channels through which he secured the record of the work of Koster. He refers to a certain Nicholas Galius who had been his first preceptor, and who remembered having heard the facts connected with Koster’s discovery from a certain Cornelius when the latter was over eighty years of age. Cornelius testified that he had himself been a binder in the establishment of Koster, and the Dutch historian, Meerman, has discovered in the records of the church of Haarlem a memorandum dated 1474, which is evidence that there was at that date a binder in the town called Cornelius.[426]

In claiming for Holland the prestige of inventing the several distinctive processes connected with the printing of books, Humphreys sums up as follows: It is beyond dispute that the Dutch were the first to produce block-books, and thus were virtually the first printers of books. It is also a matter of record that it was the printers of Holland who first devised the art of stereotyping, a process which was applied by John Miller of Amsterdam towards the close of the seventeenth century. There is, therefore, apart from the details above specified and from the evidence of tradition, a strong natural presumption in favour of the development in Holland of the intervening step of substituting movable types for carved pages of letters. Humphreys points out that there are other references to the production in the Netherlands of books from movable metal types, before the date at which Gutenberg’s first volume was completed in Mayence. In a record of accounts of Jean Robert, Abbé of Cambrai, the manuscript of which has been preserved in the archives of the city of Lille, appears the entry: “Item, for a printed (getté en molle) Doctrinal that I sent for to Bruges by Macquart, who is a writer at Valenciennes, in the month of January, 1445, for Jacquet, twenty sous, Tournois. Little Alexander had one the same, that the church paid for.” It is stated later in the record that one of these books proved to be so “full of faults” that it had to be replaced by a written copy.[427] The purport of the term getté en molle (which might possibly have been written jetté or guetté) was first elucidated by M. Besuard, who pointed out that it evidently stood for “cast in a mould,” the reference being to the metallic types, which were so cast. In the letters of naturalisation accorded, in 1474, to the first printers with movable types established in Paris, the term used is escritoire en molle, or writing by means of moulds or moulded letters. Humphreys is inclined to give credit to the theory, which is presented by many of the advocates of Koster, that the first suggestion of the new art was brought to Gutenberg in Strasburg by a workman who had been employed by Koster in Haarlem, but he admits that this theory is supported by practically nothing that can be called evidence, and depends for its authority simply upon the sequence of events, and upon the surmises and probabilities suggested by Junius. It remains the case that after the death of Koster, which occurred either in 1440 or in 1439, the production of books from type came to an end in Holland, and that for instruction in the new art Europe was indebted not to Haarlem but to Mayence. We may accept as conclusive the evidence which gives to Koster the credit of producing the first book printed (outside of China) from movable type, without lessening the value of the service rendered by Gutenberg. The shores of our Western Continent were undoubtedly visited by Eric and his Northmen, but it was Columbus who gave to Europe the New World.

The production of printed books, which changed the whole condition of literary production and of literary ownership, is to be traced directly to the operations of Gutenberg and Fust. Kapp mentions that if it were not for the records of certain court processes of Strasburg and of Mayence, we should have hardly any trustworthy references whatsoever to the work or the relations of Gutenberg prior to 1450.

By means of these court records, however, it has proved possible to secure some data concerning various undertakings in which Gutenberg was engaged before he devoted himself to his printing-office. He belonged to a noble family of Mayence, the family name of which was originally Gensfleisch, a name Latinised by some writers of the time as Ansicarus. For more than a century, the Gensfleische stood at the head of the nobility of the city in the long series of contests carried on with the guilds and citizens.

Until the sacking of the city, after the outbreak of October, 1462, Mayence was the most important of the free cities and of the commercial centres of the middle Rhine district, and was an important competitor for the general trade of central Europe with Strasburg on the upper river and with Cologne in the region below. The citizens felt themselves strong enough, with the beginning of the fifteenth century, to make a sturdy fight against the old-time control claimed by the nobility, and as early as 1420, they had overcome the patricians in a contest which turned upon the reception of the newly chosen Elector, Conrad III. As one result of this struggle, a number of the Gensfleische found themselves among the exiles.

Gutenberg’s father, whose name was Frilo, had held the office of Tax Receiver or General Accountant in the city, and was among those who were banished in 1420. Gutenberg himself was born either in 1397 or 1398. He appears to have passed a portion of his youth at the little village of Eltville, and from there went to Strasburg. In the year 1433, an entry in the tax record of Mayence speaks of Henne Gensfleisch, called Gutenberg, who was an uncle of the printer. About the year 1440, Gutenberg was engaged in Strasburg in the manufacture of looking-glasses, and is already referred to as a man of scientific attainments and learned in inventions.

One of the court records above referred to gives the details of a suit brought by the brothers Dritzehn against Gutenberg, in connection with this first manufacturing business. Another Dritzehn, a brother or a cousin of the above, had as early as 1437 applied to Gutenberg to be instructed (in consideration of the payment of an honorarium) in a “certain art” (in etlicher kunst). Shortly thereafter Gutenberg entered into an arrangement with a certain Hans Riffe of Lichtenau, and instructed him in the trade of manufacturing mirrors, Riffe making an investment in the business and sharing the profits.

Dritzehn made in all, three contracts with Gutenberg; under the first, he was instructed in the art of stone-polishing, and took some interest in this branch of Gutenberg’s business; under the second, he interested himself in the manufacturing of mirrors; while the third contract refers to certain arts and undertakings (kunste und afentur) in which Dritzehn also received instruction, and to the carrying on of which he also contributed an investment.

It is the opinion of some of the students on the subject that the researches of Gutenberg, which resulted in 1450 in the production of a working printing-press, had begun at least ten years back, and that, in connection with these researches, he had been obliged to borrow money or to accept investments from Dritzehn and from other associates. The vague terms used in referring to the undertakings which were associated with or which followed the mirror manufacturing business (“a certain art”) indicate that these associates had been cautioned to give no information as to the precise nature of the work in which Gutenberg was experimenting. Humphreys is of opinion that the term “manufacture of looking-glasses” was used partly as a blind and partly as a joke, and that Gutenberg was actually engaged in the production (with the aid of one of Koster’s assistants) of copies of the Speculum (Mirror). Against this view is the fact that Gutenberg did not print the Speculum at all. If Gutenberg were already working over the printing-press invention at the time of his association with Dritzehn and with Riffe, there may be some justice in the claim of Strasburg to be the birthplace of the printing-press. The completed press, however, was not produced until Gutenberg had returned to the old home city of the family—Mayence.

After the close of the suit brought by Dritzehn against Gutenberg, that is to say, after 1440, there are no further references to Gutenberg’s undertakings in Strasburg. It is not even known whether or not he continued business operations there, but it appears that he was dwelling there as late as 1444. In 1448, he is recorded as again a citizen of Mayence, and it was in Mayence that, in 1450, the completed invention became known to the world.

Gutenberg’s name stands on no title-page and is connected with no colophon. The fact, however, that the full responsibility for the invention belongs to him is borne witness to by his contemporaries, Peter Schöffer, Ulrich Zell, the Abbot Trithemius, Jacob Wimpheling, and others. In a chronicle of the archbishop of Mayence, continued to the year 1555 and compiled by Count Wilhelm von Zimmern, it is recorded that the noble art of book-printing was discovered in Mayence by a worthy citizen named Gutenberg, who devoted to the invention all his time and resources until he had brought it to a successful completion.

In 1470, a letter was written by the scholar, Wilhelm Fichet, of Paris, to the historian, Robert Gaguin, which letter was later printed on the last sheet of a volume published in Paris and in Basel, entitled: Gasparini Pergamensis Orthographiæ Liber. This letter contains an enthusiastic description of the new art of book-printing discovered in Germany by Gutenberg. The writer says: “There has been discovered in Germany a wonderful new method for the production of books, and those who have mastered this method are taking their invention from Mayence out into the world somewhat as the old Grecian warriors took their weapons from the belly of the Trojan horse. The light of this wonderful discovery will spread from Germany to all parts of the earth. I have been told by three foreigners—Kranz, Freiburger, and Gering—that Gutenberg has succeeded in producing books by means of metal letters in place of using the handiwork of the scribes.”

Fichet goes on to speak of Gutenberg as “bringing more blessings upon the world than were given by the goddess Ceres, for Ceres could bestow only material food, while through Gutenberg the productions of the thinkers could be brought within the reach of all people.” This letter was written only two years after the death of Gutenberg, and as it came from Basel, one of the first cities to which the new art had been carried from Mayence, it constitutes very good contemporary evidence as to the immediate credit that was given to Gutenberg for the invention.[428]

The historical date now given for the completion of the invention is August 22, 1450. On this date Gutenberg entered into a contract with Johann Fust, a wealthy citizen and goldsmith of Mayence, under which contract Fust loaned to Gutenberg, with interest at 6 per cent. (a low rate for that period), the sum of 800 gulden in gold. This sum Gutenberg agreed to utilise in developing his invention, while the material of the workshop to be instituted was pledged to Fust as security for the repayment of the loan. The sum proved insufficient for establishing the necessary plant, and two years later Fust added a further sum of 800 gulden.

Gutenberg pledged himself, as afterwards stated in the lawsuit which arose between Fust and himself, to use this money for the printing of books,—“das werk der bücher.” At the time Gutenberg secured this loan, it seemed evident that, in experimenting with and in developing his invention, he had exhausted his own entire resources.

Gutenberg could, of course, lay no claim to being in any literal sense of the term the first printer. Printing in one form or another had been carried on in Germany and elsewhere for a number of years, and printing from movable blocks had, in fact, been done in China 400 years or more before the beginning of Gutenberg’s work. As early as the twelfth century, says Kapp, there are numerous references to cloth printers, stampers of letters, and printers of maps. The oldest wood-cut known to have been produced in Europe, is a representation of S. Christopher, and bears date 1423. At about this time, and probably, in fact, some years earlier, was begun in Holland, as previously stated, the work of printing from wooden blocks, the designs being principally devoted to holy subjects. In connection with such designs, there had been printing also from letterings cut out of solid wooden blocks, and these letterings had even in some cases been cut upon blocks sufficient to occupy an entire page.

The practical contribution made by Gutenberg, which developed from the easy processes of stamping designs and brief lines of lettering, a method by means of which whole books could be produced, was first, in the use of movable metal type, produced by casting, and second, in an improvement made in the mechanism of the hand presses by which larger sheets could be worked.

The first work produced with this movable metal type was a Latin version of the Bible. The description of this volume is first given in a chronicle of Cologne, dating from the year 1499, the statements in which rest upon the authority of Ulrich Zell, who was the first printer in Cologne.

Concerning the further operations of Gutenberg, we are mainly dependent upon the references in the records of the suit brought by Fust, in 1445, for the repayment of his loan, and upon a document of 1468 in which a certain Dr. Humery entered into an undertaking with the Archbishop of Mayence that the printing-office plant left by the deceased Johann Gutenberg shall not be permitted to be taken out of the city of Mayence. This later reference had to do with a second printing-press established by Gutenberg with the aid of the said Humery.

In the suit brought by Fust, Gutenberg contended that the second payment of 800 gulden agreed upon had never been given to him in full. He stated further that Fust had agreed to advance 300 gulden per year for use in the purchase of materials, paper, parchment, type-metal, and ink. The matter of the later accountings between Fust and Gutenberg is evidently a complicated one and need not be considered here in detail. Gutenberg’s inability to repay the first and more important loan for the payment of which his first printing-press had been mortgaged, caused the ownership of this office to come into the control of Fust.

Fortunately, by the time his first venture had thus been closed, as far at least as he was concerned, he had been able to give sufficient evidence of the importance and of the commercial value of the undertaking to be in a position to interest others in his schemes.

His second printing-press was in like manner pledged to the associate who provided the capital,—Dr. Humery,—and the business of this office appears to have been continued without break until the time of Gutenberg’s death in 1468. With these new resources at hand, Gutenberg was able to cast some new fonts of type, and to make various improvements in his working methods.

The first issues of the new press, the organisation of which appears to have been completed about 1457, were volumes containing the writings of Mätthaus de Cracovia and Thomas Aquinas. The third book was the famous first edition of the Catholicon, a grammatical compilation of the Dominican monk Balbus from Genoa. The Catholicon was a folio containing no less than 373 rather closely printed sheets. In the meantime, Fust had associated with him Schöffer or Schoiffher, who had been an assistant of Gutenberg, and the two were continuing work in the original printing-office.

The sacking of Mayence, in 1462, by Adolph of Nassau, put an end, for the time, to all business in the city, including the work of the new printing-presses. Gutenberg betook himself to the neighbouring town of Eltville, which, as early as 1420, had given shelter to his parents, and there he carried on his printing for a time under the protection of Archbishop Adolph.

Kapp points out that the printing art had its development, not in a university centre, but in a commercial town, and was from the outset carried on, not by scholars, but by workers of the people, and that this fact doubtless had an important influence in bringing the whole business of the production of books and the distribution of literature into closer relations with the mass of the German people than was the case in France.

In France, as will be noted later, the first printers were directly associated with the university, succeeding immediately to the official university scribes, and the production of books through the presses continued to be under direct control of the university, as had been the case from the beginning with the production of books in manuscript. The fact that the control of the first French presses rested with the university Faculty, undoubtedly exercised an important influence on the choice of the books to be printed, and the first issues of the French presses were, therefore, in the main restricted to editions of the classics or to works of jurisprudence and medicine belonging to the official lists of the university texts. The earlier issues of the German press, on the other hand, were books belonging in no way to the university curriculum, but were addressed directly to the interests of the people at large.

While the modifications introduced by Gutenberg into the methods of printing, under which the old engraved blocks were replaced by movable leaden type, seem slight in themselves, they constituted nevertheless a new art. The actual changes were but inconsiderable, but the practical result was a revolution in the possibilities of the press.

Gutenberg’s work as a printer was, from a commercial point of view, never successful. During the eighteen years which elapsed between the time of his invention and the date of his death, he seems to have been always under the pressure of debt and money difficulties. He had in fact no time to make money. He had given up, in his devotion to his invention, previous business undertakings which were remunerative, and he had absorbed in the development of the printing-press all the resources that he could control. His interest, however, was evidently that of perfecting an art rather than of creating a business; and in spite of his various difficulties and his several lawsuits with his associates, it is in evidence as part of the testimony in these very suits, that he was recognised by all as a man of knowledge and character, and as a born leader, whose integrity of purpose and whose nobility of aim were acknowledged by all with whom he had to do. With all his misfortunes, he seems never for a moment to have lost confidence in the value to the world of his idea, and to this idea, with no thought of personal gain or advantage, he was willing to devote his means and his life.

The difference between the production each year of a few hundred copies of religious or classical works by the laborious toil of the monks or the university scribes, works which could at best benefit only the limited circle of readers who were within reach either of the monasteries or of the universities, and a world-wide distribution, as well of the great books of the earlier times which belonged to the world’s literature as of the current thoughts of the contemporary generation, was a difference, not of degree, but of kind. It was a revolution in the history of human thought and in the influence of thought upon humanity.

If the invention of printing had not taken shape in the brain of Gutenberg, it would doubtless have come to the world through some other worker, and, in fact, with no very great delay, for other men were already busying themselves with the same great need and were on the track of the same means of supplying the need. As the history stands, however, the credit for the revolution must be given to the mirror-maker of Mayence. Other sailors would certainly have found their way to the Western Continent if the opportunity or the attempt of Columbus had failed, but it is to Columbus that history gives the laurel crown.

Gutenberg, and the printers who followed him, naturally selected as the first models for their newly founded type the script letters with which they were familiar in the best manuscripts. The first font of type manufactured by Gutenberg, which was used in his earliest publication, The Folio Bible, was known as the “missal type,” having been copied from the script adopted by the monks for the books of worship. This style of type was followed for a long time for Bibles and for religious works generally. One of the earlier objections against printed books was that they were so much less beautiful in their appearance than the work of the best scribes, and it was the finest script that remained as the ideal to be attained by the type-founders and the clear black impression of the best oak-gall writing ink that was to be imitated by the impressions from the presses.

The scholarly lovers of fine books in Germany regarded the new art at the outset with no little disapproval and criticism. The collectors who had brought together, with much labour and expenditure, stores of valuable manuscripts dreaded lest, through the multiplication of comparatively inexpensive copies of their texts, the value of their collections should be taken away. When the messengers of Cardinal Bessarion were shown by the Greek Laskaris (later the author of the first Greek grammar that came into print), a specimen of one of the earlier printed books, they spoke sneeringly of this so-called discovery which had been made by a barbarian from a German city.[429] The great manuscript-dealer, Vespasiano, writing in 1482 concerning the magnificent ducal library in Urbino, the volumes in which had been largely either collected or purchased by himself or under his own direction, says: “In this library all the volumes are of perfect beauty, all written, by skilled scribes, on parchment and many of them adorned with exquisite miniatures. The collection contains no single printed book. The Duke (Frederick) would be ashamed to have a printed book in his library.”[430] By collectors like Frederick and manuscript-dealers like Vespasiano, the new art was considered to be merely a mechanical method of producing inartistic volumes, with which none but uncultivated people could be satisfied.

For a number of years, therefore, after the work of the first presses, there were still produced beautiful specimens of manuscripts, more particularly of Italian and French books of worship, and for this class of manuscripts the work of the hand illuminators and miniature painters continued to be utilised. In Germany there are various examples of books which had been printed, being again produced in written copy, as for instance, the Chronicon Urspergense, of Hroswitha.[431] It was also the case that for the production of large choir-books the work of the scribes continued to be useful.

Trithemius, Abbot of Sponheim, wrote to Gerlach, Abbot of Deutz, a letter which was printed in 1494 in Mayence, under the title, De Laude Scriptorum Manualium. In this he says:

“A work written on parchment could be preserved for a thousand years, while it is probable that no volume printed on paper will last for more than two centuries. Many important works have not been printed, and the copies required of these must be prepared by scribes. The scribe who ceases his work because of the invention of the printing-press can be no true lover of books, in that, regarding only the present, he gives no due thought to the intellectual cultivation of his successors. The printer has no care for the beauty and the artistic form of books, while with the scribe this is a labour of love.”[432]

Notwithstanding such criticism on the part of a few scholarly churchmen, the influence of Rome and of the Church generally, during the earlier work of the printers, was very largely favourable and had not a little to do with the support given to the work which might easily otherwise have been given up for lack of adequate business return. The Church of Rome felt itself at this time sufficiently secure in its control of the minds of men to be prepared to utilise to full advantage all methods for distributing its doctrinal literature, and to have no dread as to these same means being used for the scattering of heretical teachings. The popes of the time, largely influenced by the spirit of the Renaissance, gave a cordial welcome to the revival of scholarly interests and to the printing-press as an important means for furthering the general education and the intellectual development of the community. Their interest was by no means limited to the distribution of doctrinal works, but in these earlier years of publishing they welcomed, and to a considerable extent co-operated in, the production of editions, for general circulation, of the works of the pagan classics.

Hegel says, in his Philosophy of History, that the renewed interest in the studying of the writings of the ancients found an important support in the service of the printing-press. He goes on to point out that the Church felt no anxiety concerning this renewed interest in pagan literature, and evidently did not imagine that this literature was introducing into the minds of men a new element of suggestion and of inquiry.

It may be considered as one of the fortunate circumstances attending the introduction of the art of printing that the popes of the time were largely men of liberal education and of intellectual tastes, while one or two, such as Nicholas V., Julius II., and Leo X., had a very keen personal interest in literature and were collectors of books.

The fact that Leo X. was a luxury-loving, free-thinking prince rather than a devoted Christian leader or teacher, may very probably have been in the end a service for the enlightenment and development of his own generation and of the generations that were to come. An earnest and narrow-minded head of the Church could, during the first years of the sixteenth century, have retarded not a little the development of the work of producing books for the community at large.

It was a number of years before the dread of the use of the printing-press for the spread of heretical doctrines and of a consequent undermining of the authority of the Church assumed such proportions in the minds of the popes in Rome and with the bishops elsewhere, as to cause the influence of the Church to be placed against the interests of the world of literature. As a result of this early acceptance by the Church of the printing-press as a useful ally and servant, the first Italian presses were supported by bishops and cardinals in the work of producing classics for scholarly readers, while at the other extremity of the Church organisation, and at a distance of a thousand miles or more from Rome, the Brothers of Common Life were using the presses in their Brotherhood homes for the distribution of cheap books among the people.

Berthold von Henneberg, Elector of Mayence, speaks of “The Divine Art of Printing.”[433] The Carthusian monk, Werner Rolewinck, writes, in his Outline History of the World (Fasciculus Temporum): “The art of printing which has been discovered in Mayence is the art of arts, the science of sciences, by means of which it will be possible to place in the hands of all men treasures of literature and of knowledge which have heretofore been out of their reach.”

Joh. Rauchler, the first Rector of the Tübingen High School (later the University of Tübingen), rejoices that through the new art so many authors can now be brought within the reach of students in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, authors who are witnesses for the Christian faith, and the service of whose writings to the Church and to the world is so great, that he can but consider “this art as a gift directly from God himself.”[434] Felix Fabri, Prior of the Dominican monastery in Ulm, says, in his Historia Suevorum, issued in the year 1459, that “no art that the world has known can be considered so worthy, so useful, so much to be esteemed, indeed, so divine as that which has now, through the Grace of God, been discovered in Mayence.”

The first printing work done by the Brothers of Common Life dates from 1468. They appear to have promptly utilised their scribes as compositors and their illuminators as designers for the new form in which their books were produced. Many of the Benedictine monasteries which had for so many centuries led the way in the preservation and the multiplication of literature at once associated presses with their monasteries and had their monks trained in the art of setting type and of printing sheets.

Among the monastery printing-presses were those of the Carthusian monastery in Strasburg, the monastery of S. Ulrich and Afra, in Augsburg, and the Benedictine monasteries in Nuremberg and Rostock. As a rule, in places where the work of scribes had been active, the printing-press found a ready acceptance. It was not long, however, before so great a development in the methods of the printing business was brought about that it became difficult for the monasteries to carry on the work effectively, and by the middle of the sixteenth century the production of books in monasteries had practically ceased.

The favourable relations between the Church and the printers were checked by the Humanistic movement, which, a generation or more before the Reformation, began to bring into question the authority of the Church and the infallibility of papacy. The influence of the Humanistic teachers was so largely furthered by the co-operation of the printers that the jealousy and dread of the ecclesiastical authorities were promptly aroused, and they began to utter fulminations against the wicked and ignorant men who were using the art of printing for misleading the community and for the circulation of error. The ecclesiastics, who had at first favoured the widest possible circulation of the Scriptures, now contended that much of the heretical teaching was due to the misunderstanding of the Scriptures on the part of readers who were acting without the guidance of their spiritual advisers.

The authorities of the Church now began to take the ground that the reading of the Scriptures by individuals was not to be permitted, and that the Bible was to be given to the community only through the interpretation of the Church. At the same time, the authority of the Church was exerted to repress, or at least to restrict, the operations of the printing-press, and to bring printers and publishers under a close ecclesiastical supervision and censorship. It was now, however, too late to stand between the printing-press and the people. Large portions of the community had become accustomed to a wide circulation of books and to the selection without restriction of such reading-matter as might be placed within their reach, and this privilege they were no longer willing to forego.

It was nevertheless true that in certain countries, particularly in Italy and in France, the censorship of the Church was strong enough seriously to hamper and interfere with publishing undertakings and to check the natural development of literary production. Even in Italy, however, the critical spirit was found to be too strong to be entirely crushed out, and from Venice, the most important of the Italian publishing centres, it proved possible to secure for the productions of the printing-press a circulation that was practically independent of the censorship of Rome.

The Humanistic movement was, on other grounds, of immediate service for the printers and publishers, in that it brought about an active demand for the works of classical writers, a demand which it required the fullest resources of the earlier printers to supply.

If the invention of Gutenberg had taken shape during the period when there happened to be no such active intellectual literary interests, the first printers might easily have found it difficult to secure business for their presses and the development of the business of book production would have been seriously hampered. The long series of controversies which were brought into being by the Reformation, and the large mass of controversial literature which was the result of the Reformation, constituted, a generation later, another favourable influence in securing an assured foundation for the business of the printers. If it be the case that the work of the leaders of the Reformation could hardly have been carried on without the aid of the printing-press, it is also true that at a time when the business of the early printers was in a very critical and unremunerative condition, the impetus given to the production of literature, and the increased eagerness on the part of the common people for literature, formed an essential factor in making an assured foundation for the business of the printers and the publishers.

In 1462, on the 28th of October, Archbishop Adolph of Nassau captured the city of Mayence and gave it over to his soldiers for plunder. The typesetters and printers, with all other artisans whose work depended upon the commerce of the city, were driven to flight, and it appeared for the moment as if the newly instituted printing business had been crushed out. The result of the scattering of the printers, however, was the introduction of the new art into a number of other centres where the influences were favourable for its development.

The typesetters of Mayence, driven from their printing-offices by the heavy hand of the Church, journeyed throughout the world, carrying their new knowledge and training and they were able to give to many communities the means of education and enlightenment through which the great revolt against the Church was finally instituted. The work of the printers, checked for the time in Mayence, took shape promptly in Strasburg, and from there was taken down the Rhine to Cologne, and in a few years was also in active operation in Basel, Augsburg, Ulm, and Nuremberg. In 1464, as elsewhere described, German printers carried their invention into Italy and erected the first Italian printing-press in Subiaco. And in 1470, also through Germans, the work of the printers began in Paris.

The shrewd and enterprising merchant Fust, by means of whose capital Gutenberg had been able to begin his business operations, would hardly have pressed his suit against his associate, if he had not had confidence in the value of the invention. As soon as, through the decision of 1455, he came into possession of the presses, he at once put these again into operation. He found a practical superintendent or co-worker in Peter Schöffer. Schöffer was a German by birth, but had carried on work in Paris as a scribe or writer of higher class manuscripts, as illuminator, and as a manuscript-dealer. Returning to Mayence in 1454, he had entered the employ of Gutenberg as type-setter and proof-reader. Later, having married the daughter of Fust, he was taken into partnership by his father-in-law, and was able to make a satisfactory organisation and a wide development for the business of the printing-office. The first publication issued by Fust & Schöffer was a psalter printed (in Latin) on parchment, with the great missal type.

The second work, undertaken, not at the risk of the printers, but at the cost of two of the Mayence monasteries, was an edition of a great choir-book. This psalter, or rather psalterium, is the first printed work in which the name of the printer is given and the date of the publication. It apparently proved possible to secure for this book even with the very inadequate distributing machinery that was available, a remunerative sale, as it was printed again in 1490, in 1502, in 1515, and in 1516.

Among the earlier publications of Fust & Schöffer are the Rationale Divinorum Officiorum of the Dominican monk Durandus, which was issued in 1459, the Codex Constitutionum of Pope Clement, issued in 1460, and the Bull of Emperor Frederic III. against Diether von Isenburg, printed in 1461. The most beautiful and most important production of their press was, however, the great Latin Bible issued in 1462, in two folio volumes, and which is known as the “48 line Bible.”

The work of the printing-office was, as previously stated, stopped by the sacking of the city, and the two partners appear to have migrated for the time to Frankfort. In 1464, they were again in Mayence, and in that year they published the sixth book of the Decretals of Pope Boniface VIII., and the De Officiis of Cicero. The latter was the first of the German editions of the classics, and remained a favourite book with the German printers, being repeatedly reprinted.

In 1453, Fust made a journey to Paris in order to find sale there for his big Bible. This was four years before the first Paris printing-press began its work, and it was in connection with this big Bible that the gossip arose of Fust being able, through compact with the Devil, to produce an indefinite number of copies of a book. It could not be understood how in any other way these copies could be offered so cheaply. The University of Paris was at that date the most important in Europe, and the influence of the University upon the cultivation of the city and its close relations with the old book-trade in manuscripts, had made Paris the most important European centre for literary production and the place where scholars were in the habit of looking for their material. It was in Paris, if anywhere, that it should prove possible to find sale for the Latin Bible, and Fust’s efforts appear to have met with a prompt success. The first Bible bearing a date was completed in 1462, and is known as the Mayence Bible. At the time it was in readiness (in October) nothing could be done in getting it into the market, as Mayence was being besieged by Adolph of Nassau. In 1466, Fust is again in Paris with copies of the second edition of his De Officiis, and with other of his publications.

There is still preserved in the city library of Geneva a copy of this edition of Cicero, which contains the record that it was bought by Louis de la Vernada, in Paris, in July, 1466, from Fust.[435]

Fust & Schöffer may claim to have been the first printers who acted also as publishers and booksellers. Notwithstanding the many difficulties with which they had had to contend, they were able to offer their books at prices which, to the old dealers in manuscripts, seemed astounding and which gave some pretext for the charge of magic. Madden says that a copy of the “48 line Bible” printed on parchment, could be bought in Paris, in 1470, for 2000 francs, and that the cost of the same text a few years earlier in manuscript form would have been five times as great. Bishop John of Aleria, writing in 1467 to Pope Paul II., says that it is now possible to purchase in Rome for 20 gulden, gold, works which a few years earlier would have cost not less than 100 gulden, and that other books now selling as low as 4 gulden would previously have cost not less than 20 gulden. The first results of the printing-press appear, therefore, to have been a reduction of about four fifths in the price of work of a scholarly character.

Fust is entitled to the description, not only of the second printer and of the first publisher, but of the first pirate in printed books. In 1465, Mentel printed in Strasburg under the title of De Arte Prædicatoria, the fourth book of S. Augustine’s De Doctrina Christiana. The editor states that he had, for the purpose of this edition, collected manuscript texts in the libraries of Heidelberg, Speyer, Worms, and Strasburg, and that he had induced Joh. Mentel, a “master of the art of printing,” to put the volume into a form available for the general use of clerics.

Fust reprinted this volume in 1466, following the text with precision, and simply replacing Mentel’s name with his own. This is the first instance of literary appropriation of which there is any record, after the beginning of printing.[436]

After the death of Fust, which occurred early in 1467, Schöffer continued the business with Fust’s sons, and established branches in Paris and in Angers. His name appears for the first time alone on the title-page of the Thomas Aquinas, published in a folio of 516 pages in March, 1467. He prints it in full as Petrus Schoiffher de Gernsheim. In a receipt for 15 gold crowns, paid by the College of Autun for a copy of this, Schoiffher styles himself Impressor Librorum. He appears to have made sale in Paris not only of his own publications, but of the books issued by other German printers.

In a copy of the work of Johannus Scotus, printed by Koberger in 1474, now contained in the library of the Paris Arsenal, appears the entry, “I, Peter Schöffer, printer from Mayence, acknowledge that I have received from the worthy Magistrate, Johannus Henrici, of Pisa, three scuta as the price of this book.”[437] Schöffer seems to have acted in some measure also as purchasing agent for the University of Paris, through an associate, Guimier, who was a licensed member of the Paris guild. The Paris branch of the business was given up a few years later, and Schöffer devoted his energies to extending his trade in Germany. In 1479, his name appears in the list of the citizens of Frankfort, and the removal to Frankfort of his publishing headquarters constituted the first step towards the selection of that city as the centre of the publishing and bookselling trade of Germany, a position that it retained for more than a century. Schöffer continued, however, to do the work of his printing in Mayence.

Some light is thrown upon the extent of the publishing undertakings carried on at the time by Schöffer with his associate Hancquis, by the record of a suit brought by the two partners in 1480 against a certain Bernhard Inkus, of Frankfort. They charged Inkus with having begun the publication of a considerable series of books, the property right in which (Eigentumsrecht) vested in themselves and in Conrad Henki (who was a son of Fust). It does not appear from the record of this trial on what grounds Schöffer and his associates claimed the right to control these books, or whether the unauthorised issues of which they complained had been printed by the defendant Inkus or were simply being offered for sale by him on behalf of other printers.

The case appears to have been referred or possibly appealed to a court in Basel, and by this court was issued some preliminary injunction against the continued sale of the books complained of. The record giving the final decision of the case is, however, missing. The lack of full details of the suit is the more to be regretted as it appears to have been the first case after the invention of printing involving, if not copyright ownership, at least a certain control by contract.

In the same year we find the Magistracy of the City of Frankfort applying to the Magistracy of the City of Lübeck for the protection of Schöffer against some illegitimate infringement of Schöffer’s business rights on the part of the Lübeck citizen Hans Bitz. Here also is there no record as to the result of the application. The firm also had dealings with Ulm, as appears from a claim made, in 1481, for the collection of the moneys due from certain citizens in Ulm—Harscher, Ruwinger, and Ofener, for books delivered. They sent to Ulm, with a protection certificate given by Elector Diether of Mayence, a representative who was empowered to collect the money. There was at the outset some delay in connection with an alleged informality in his authorisation, but the Magistracy of Ulm sent back word that as soon as the requisite authorisation was secured, the collection of the money would be enforced in due course.

These cases are evidence of a certain organisation of machinery for the distribution of books and for the management of a publishing business, within a comparatively brief period after the beginning of the work of the printing-presses, and they indicate also that the second firm which entered into the business of printing had succeeded in establishing such business on fairly assured foundations, and in carrying on successfully large undertakings. It is to be noted further that Fust & Schöffer, and other of the earlier German printers, did their work without the assistance of any patronage, and without even the advantage of a university connection. The early printers of Italy would have found it impracticable to carry on their operations without the assistance of certain wealthy and enterprising noblemen who were prepared to interest themselves in the new art either from curiosity or from philanthropy, and as late even as 1495, that is to say nearly half a century after the beginning of printing, the organisation of the business of Aldus was dependent upon the favour and services of certain of his noble friends. In Paris the first printers were helped, and in part supported, by the money of patrons or of the Crown, and by the co-operation and influence of the University. In England also the influence of Oxford was of material importance in securing for the first printers some assured foundation and support, while the work of Caxton and his immediate successors in London was also largely furthered by, if not actually dependent upon, the work or help of noble and wealthy friends.

In Germany, however, the printing work began, as we have seen, through the enterprise and ingenuity of a citizen manufacturer who was supported by the middle class of the community, and who made his first connections directly with the townspeople. The help of the universities appears to have been of comparatively smaller importance. It probably counted for more in Cologne than in any other of the university cities in which the earlier printers did their work.

In the course of the thirty-six years of his independent business activity, that is from the death of Fust in 1466 to the time of his own death, Schöffer printed in all fifty-nine works which bear date and which have been identified as his. His firm took rank for this period as by far the most important printing and publishing concern in existence.

With hardly an exception, the books issued from his press were folios. They were printed with fifty to sixty lines on the page, and contained an average of about 300 pages or 150 sheets.

Among the works included in the list are the Constitutiones of Clement V., the Institutions of Justinian, the Expositio Sententiarum of Thomas Aquinas, the Epistolæ of S. Jerome, the sixth book of the Decretals of Boniface VIII., the Decretals of Gregory IX., the Codex of Justinian, and the Expositio Psalterii of Joh. Torquemada. The last named volume had already been printed in Subiaco and again in Rome under the direct supervision of the author, who was supplying the funds for carrying on the first printing-office established in Italy.

After Schöffer’s death in 1502, his son printed an edition of the Mercurius Trimegistus.

I do not find record of the arrangement entered into by Schöffer for the editing of the texts of the works printed by him. The collection of manuscripts for use as “copy” for printers, and the collection of different manuscripts in order to secure the most complete and accurate texts, must have called for a considerable measure of scholarly and of general literary knowledge.

It does not appear that Schöffer had enjoyed opportunities for making himself a scholarly authority, or that he ever made claim to any special scholarly attainments. There is no record of editorial work done by himself in the books issued from his press, as was the case to so exceptional a degree a few years later with the books printed by Aldus; nor has Schöffer preserved in connection with his editions the names of the editors who supervised their publication, as came to be the practice later with the issues of the Aldine press, of Froben in Basel, and of Koberger in Nuremberg. As far as I can ascertain, however, the Schöffer texts compared favourably for accuracy and for authority with other of the earlier printed books, and it is to be assumed, therefore, that he had been able to organise an adequate critical staff or to secure from time to time, as required, the services of competent scholars.

The business founded by Gutenberg, taken possession of under mortgage by Fust, and carried on first by Fust & Schöffer, and later by Schöffer and other associates, lasted nearly one hundred years. The first publication was, as noted, the big Psalterium, printed in 1457, and the last, an edition of the German version of the books of Livy, printed by Ivo Schöffer in 1557.

It seems evident that while the credit for the great invention fairly belongs to Gutenberg, and the original planning and initiative of the business were his, a large measure of business capacity must have belonged to his partner Fust, who had also, to be sure, the advantage of being a capitalist to begin with, a factor as important in the earliest time of publishing as in the present day.

One of the most definite pieces of testimony in regard to the connection of Gutenberg with the invention of printing, testimony which possesses special value as coming from a person possessing first-hand knowledge of the facts, is contained in an Epilogue written in verse by John Schöffer (son of Peter), and printed at the end of the Livy published by him in 1505. It is addressed to the Emperor Maximilian, and reads as follows:

“May your Majesty deign to accept this book which was printed at Mayence, the town in which the admirable art of typography was invented, in the year 1450, by John Gutenberg, and afterwards brought to perfection at the expense, and by the labour, of John Fust and Peter Schöffer.”

It would not belong to the plan of this historical sketch to give in detail a record of the successive concerns which carried on throughout Germany, with increasing rapidity and with undertakings of ever widening importance, the business of printing and publishing. I propose merely to present the records of a few of the earlier concerns, and to make such reference to typical firms of later generations as may give an impression of the gradual development of the book-trade, and as may serve also as examples from which to judge of the development of the idea of the literary property in Germany, and the varying positions taken under the enactments and other governmental measures in regard to such property.

The books printed during the first half-century were, as we shall note, almost exclusively reissues of ecclesiastical or pagan classics, and apart from such original work as may have been put into introductions or notes, did not call for the labour of contemporary authors. Among the earlier of original German publications is to be classed a German grammar entitled Die Leyenschul, printed by Peter Jordan in Mayence in 1531. This grammar, which remained for a considerable time an authority on its subject, does not bear the name of the author or editor.

Another of the earlier original works for the sale of which the author may have secured some compensation was the Astronomie of Joh. Stöffler, which was printed in Ottenheim in 1513.

One of the more important of the earlier publishing concerns of Mayence was that of Franz Behem, who printed in the ten years succeeding 1539 an important series of theological works. With the close of Behem’s business in 1552, Mayence appears to have lost its relative importance in connection with the work of printing and publishing.

In Strasburg, which had contested with Mayence the prestige of being the actual birthplace of the printing-press, important publishing undertakings were carried on from a very early date, and for a number of years the city of Basel alone could compete with Strasburg in the number and importance of the books issued from its presses. The two publishing concerns whose individual enterprises and whose rivalry with each other did so much to bring Strasburg into importance as a factor in the German book-trade, were those of Johann Mentel and of Heinrich Eggestein. Mentel’s first publications were a Latin Bible in two folio volumes, which was the first Bible printed in the smaller Gothic type; an edition of De Doctrina Christiana of S. Augustine; an edition of the Summa of Thomas Aquinas; an edition of the Bible in German, which appeared in 1466; the Speculum Historiale of Vincentius Bellovacensis, etc. Madden finds record of twenty-one publications which can certainly be identified as Mentel’s, and which comprise in all forty-one volumes, of which thirty-seven are in large folio. During the time of his business activity, (1465-1478) he appears to have published about two volumes a year.[438]

Humphreys points out that Mentel was in advance of the other German printers of the day in first using, in place of the confused old Gothic black letter, the clear Roman letter which was in use in Italy. Mentel’s most important publication, the collection of the Specula of S. Vincent of Beauvais, issued in 1473, in eight volumes folio, was printed in type of the Roman letter.[439] M. Bernard, in his Origines de l’Imprimerie, is of opinion that it was in printing these theological works which were in accord with the taste of the reading public of his day, that Mentel realised a fortune, while many of his competitors ruined themselves in reproducing the Latin classics, the taste for which before the close of the fifteenth century was not sufficiently developed to ensure a remunerative sale. He was also the first of the German printers to print descriptive catalogues of his books. At the head of the catalogue was a notice to the following effect: “Those who wish to possess any of these books have only to address themselves to the sign of——.” Here a blank was left, in order that each retail bookseller to whom the catalogue was sent might fill in his own name and sign. Such a detail (which is, I may mention, quite in accord with modern publishing methods) indicates that there was as early as 1470, a well developed bookselling machinery in western and central Germany.

Mentel’s principal rival in Strasburg was Heinrich Eggestein. Eggestein appears to have been a man of scholarly training, and had received from some university the degree “Magister.” To him belongs the credit of the issue, in 1466, of the first Bible printed in German. Important as was this work, the printer was not interested in associating with it his imprint, and the volumes are identified as the work of his press only by circumstantial evidence.[440] The first work which was edited and which bears his imprint was an edition of the Decretum Gratiani, printed in a gigantic folio in 1471. Before this date, he had issued three Bibles in Latin text. The Decretum was again printed by Eggestein in 1472, although the original issue of 1471 had been promptly pirated by the enterprising Schöffer. It is evident that it proved possible to secure for the book an immediate and presumably remunerative sale.

Another of Eggestein’s publications in 1472 was an edition of Clementinæ. In this he gives his imprint and gives notice also that he has already issued a long series of books treating of “divine and human law.” The last book bearing a date, issued by Eggestein is the Decretals of Innocent IV., printed in 1478.

The third Strasburg printer was George Huszner, who was originally a goldsmith. He married the daughter of another goldsmith, Nikolaus of Hanau, who later worked with his son-in-law as aurifaber et pressor librorum.[441] The Speculum Judiciale of Bishop Wilhelm Duranti, printed by Huszner in 1473, is described by Kapp as a master-piece of typography. This bears the name as editor of Joh. Beckenhub, who calls himself a cleric. Martin Flach of Strasburg, whose business activity covered the years 1475 to 1500 published something over seventy works, which were, with hardly an exception, devoted to theology and dogma.

In 1480, was printed a magnificent edition of the Latin Bible in four volumes, known as Biblia Latina cum glossa ordinaria Walafridi Strabonis et interlineari Anselmi Laudunensis. This was issued by Anton Koberger of Nuremberg and it has only recently been discovered that it was printed for him by Adolph Rusch of Strasburg. While it was by far the most noteworthy typographical undertaking that had been completed up to that date, the printer had not thought it important to associate his name with the volumes. Rusch was a publisher as well as a printer, and was also a large dealer in paper, supplying this to printers in Strasburg, Nuremberg, Basel, and elsewhere. He further carried on a miscellaneous business as a bookseller and in purchasing from other publishers for his miscellaneous trade supplies of other publications, and he was accustomed to make payment for the same in paper. He seems altogether to have been a man of very wide activities, whose influence must have been of considerable importance in connection with the early organisation of the German book-trade. He had married a daughter of the Strasburg printer, Mentel, and through his wife, inherited an interest in Mentel’s business. Rusch purchased from the printer Amerbach, in exchange for paper stock, a portion of the edition of S. Augustine’s De Civitate Dei, which appears to have shared with certain essays of Cicero the honour of being one of the most frequently printed books in the early lists.

One of the earlier of the Strasburg printers who gave particular attention to works in German was Johann Reinhart, also known (from his birthplace) as Johann Grüninger, whose list comprised German editions of works in theology and religion, and in poetic literature, together with a series of folk-songs and stories for the people. While his fellow publishers were at that time, with hardly an exception, limiting their undertakings to works planned for scholars, such as reprints of the classics and theological works printed in Latin, Reinhart addressed himself at once to a popular audience, and while in so doing he was undoubtedly of service in furthering the education of his generation, he appears also to have secured for himself satisfactory business results. He gave particular attention to illustrated books, securing the service of a number of noteworthy designers and engravers, and ornamenting his books, not only with full-page illustrations, but with elaborate initial letters and head- and tail-pieces. He is chronicled as being the only publisher in Strasburg who, after the Reformation was in full development, continued to print Catholic tracts and pamphlets. As an instance of the large distribution that it was possible to secure at the beginning of the sixteenth century for certain classes of books, is to be noted the sale made by Reinhart in 1502 to Schönsperger, of 1000 copies of a volume of The Lives of the Saints. Reinhart was one of the printers whose presses were utilised by the great publisher Koberger of Nuremberg. In 1525, he printed for Koberger the translation by Pirckheimer of the great Geography of Ptolemy. In this work the translator appears himself to have retained an interest.

There have been preserved a number of the letters which passed between Pirckheimer, Koberger, and Reinhart, while this work was going through the press. It appears that, notwithstanding Reinhart’s personal supervision of the undertaking and his interest in securing for the pages satisfactory ornamentations, Pirckheimer had found frequent occasion for dissatisfaction and criticisms, and in his letters there are many expressions which might have been written by authors of to-day who were not satisfied that the printers were following “copy” correctly. At one point, Pirckheimer says that if he could have foreseen all the difficulties that he was to experience in securing a correct printing for his volume, he would have burned the manuscript rather than have put it to press.

Reinhart points out, on his part, however, that, in the first place, the manuscript had not been prepared in such manner that the compositors could follow it correctly, and that, secondly, he had given no little of his own personal attention to re-arranging and re-shaping the “copy” in order that the text might be as correct as possible.

Pirckheimer was also unhappy in connection with certain of the designs with which the printer had ornamented his text, and expresses the wish that in place of using Italian designers, the printer had given the work to good Germans.[442]

From the middle of the eleventh century, Cologne had competed with Mayence for the distinction of being the most important trade centre of Germany. Its favourable position made it a natural point of exchange for business operations between the dealers of the North Sea and those of the Mediterranean. To Cologne came from the south by way of the passes of the Alps, the wares, not only of Italy, but those which had been brought from the East by the vessels of Venice and of Genoa, while from the great Russian mart of Novgorod and the enterprising Hanseatic city Lübeck, were brought the goods of Russia and of the far North. In Cologne were also ware-houses under the charge of trading guilds of their several nations, whither were brought the goods of England, France, and the Low Countries.

It was not only in mercantile undertakings, however, that the city had secured for itself prestige. The University, founded in the early part of the fourteenth century on the model of that of Paris, was considered to have surpassed in the importance of its scholarly work the older institutions of Heidelberg, Prague, and Vienna; and it remained for many years at the head of the scholarship of Germany and a particular exponent of the doctrinal theology of the Catholic Church. Cologne was, therefore, recognised by the early printers as an exceptionally favourable centre for the prosperous development of their work, and the printing and publishing undertakings of the city assumed at an early date very considerable importance.

The existing library of the city contains over 400 works, principally theological, but including also volumes in jurisprudence and in higher class instruction, which were produced by Cologne printers before the close of the fifteenth century. At this time the University contained no less than 4000 students, and the requirements of these students for text-books and of their instructors for works of reference, must have given a very decided impetus to the work of the earlier publishers, while the trade connections possessed by Cologne with the cities of the North and East furnished channels through which the publishers were able to extend the demand for their books. The first introduction of the printing-press into Cologne was due to the sacking of the City of Mayence in 1462, when Ulrich Zell, of Hanau, who like Peter Schöffer, called himself a clericus moguntinensis, and who had been an apprentice of Gutenberg, having been driven from Mayence, brought to Cologne the invention of his master. While it is possible that his printing undertakings began earlier, the first dated work issued from his press was published in 1466, and was an edition of the Liber Johannes Chrysostomi super Psalmo Quinquagesimo. This was promptly followed by a volume containing the De Officiis of Cicero. No publishing list of the period appears to have progressed very far without including one or more of the essays of Cicero. The latest book published by Zell was a commentary by Girard Hardervicus on the new Logic of Albertus Magnus. The list of books known to have been produced by Zell includes no less than 120 titles, but a large number of these were pamphlets of moderate compass, and only eighteen were in the folio form which was the standard of the time.

A printer whose work was in part contemporary with that of Zell, was Johann Koelhoff, who included in his list eighty publications, of which seven were in the German tongue. These last are spoken of by Kapp as possessing distinctive interest for theologians, because they included some of the earliest printed examples of the Low-German dialect. Bartholomäus Unkel, whose list included in all twenty works, printed, in 1480, in the Low-German dialect an edition of the Sachsenspiegel, a work which found place during the following century in the lists of very many of the German publishers.

As before mentioned, the influence of the University was given strongly to the support of Orthodox doctrines of the Catholic Church, and doctrinal books which did not conform to the university standard of orthodoxy were not printed in Cologne. It is probable that in the beginning of the publishing operations, no direct censorship was attempted on the part of the theologians of the University, but it seems evident that they were able notwithstanding, to discourage publications the opinions of which they might consider pernicious.

The name of Franz Birckmann, whose printing operations began in 1507, occupies an important place in the list of the publishers of Cologne, and his business relations with Paris and his connections with the book-dealers of London have brought his name into reference in much of the correspondence of his time. Birckmann appears, at the outset at least, not to have himself been a printer. His first book, the Missale Coloniense, was printed for him in Paris. Kirchhoff speaks of Birckmann as possessing a fine business capacity and exceptional enterprise and creative genius, and refers to him as carrying on his undertakings now in London and Canterbury, then in Bruges, Liége, or Frankfort; again in Cologne, Antwerp, Tübingen, and Basel. The list of the places visited by this enterprising publisher of the time serves to give an indication as to the centres where literary activities were the most important.[443] Erasmus, writing on the 21st of December, 1520, from Canterbury, to his friend Andreas Ammonius in Rotterdam, speaks of Birckmann as being ready himself to undertake the introduction into England of any books that might be called for. Birckmann appears finally to have established in London a permanent business office, for the volume, Graduale ad Usum Sarum, which was printed for him in Paris in 1528, bears as an imprint, Franz Birckmann of St. Paul’s Church Yard.[444]

This early connection of the publishers of Cologne with London is of special interest in connection with the record of William Caxton, the first English printer, who was said to have learned his art in Cologne and to have brought it thence (by way of Bruges) to London. In the same series of letters to Ammonius, Erasmus speaks of giving to Birckmann the manuscript of his Proverbia, of his Plutarch, and the Lucian, in order that he might arrange to have the books printed in Paris, by Jodocus Badius. For some reason, not stated, Birckmann decided not to place these works in the hands of Badius, but took them to Froben, in Basel, which was the means of bringing Erasmus into connection with that publisher, with whom he had satisfactory intimate relations for so large a portion of his life.

As has been stated in another chapter, the theologians of the Faculty of the Sorbonne had taken a strong stand against the writings of Erasmus, and it is very possible that Badius was unable to secure a permit or a privilege for these volumes.

Birckmann seems, at about this time, to have secured some interest, if not in the general business of Froben, at least in a certain number of his publishing undertakings. In 1526, Birckmann came into trouble with the authorities of Antwerp on account of his having sold there an edition of the translation of S. Chrysostom, which had been made by Ökolampadius, and which had come under the ban of the Antwerp censorship. The publisher succeeded in freeing himself from the penalties imposed by the Antwerp magistracy only after a long contest and a considerable expenditure of money.[445] It is a little difficult to understand the precise grounds of the opposition raised by the Antwerp censors, and I have not been able to get at the details of the case. It is of interest as one of the earliest examples of censorship upon the press which occurred in Northern Europe. Kapp is of opinion that the censorship exercised by the Church authorities in Cologne was more rigorous than that instituted by the authorities in Bavaria. It seems certain that the Catholic University of the Rhine was able to exercise no little influence in shaping the direction of the earlier literary undertakings of North Germany.

Caxton’s sojourn in Cologne must have been some time between the years 1471 and 1474. Further details concerning his work in Bruges and his later publishing undertakings in London will be given in the chapter on printing in England. During the latter part of the fifteenth century and the earlier years of the sixteenth, Cologne printers secured for themselves an unenviable reputation as unauthorised reprinters of works which were the result of the scholarly labours and investment of publishers elsewhere. They issued editions as nearly in fac-simile as might be of a number of the classics published in Venice by Aldus, and they followed these, later, with the imitations of the scholarly texts published by Plantin in Antwerp and by the Elzevirs in Leyden.

While it was the case that these texts, with rare exceptions, were the work of authors dead centuries before, and that in the works themselves the original publishers could rightfully claim no control, it is to be borne in mind that the production of the earlier editions of such classics had nevertheless called for a very considerable expenditure of capital and of labour, as well in the securing of the codices used as “copy” by the type-setters as in the revision and editing of these codices by the scholarly commentators employed, and also in the preparation of notes, introductions, and elucidations for the volumes. The risk and investment incurred by Aldus in the production of his edition of Aristotle, and the exceptional character of the original labour invested by the publisher in such a work are grounds for considering that his contention for the control of the text which came from his printing-office, at least for a certain term of years, was as well founded as might be a contention of to-day for a book which was in its entirety the work of a contemporary writer.

The city whose publishing operations are next to be considered in the chronological record is Basel. For a number of years after the invention of printing, Basel remained one of the most important publishing centres, not only of the German Empire (to which at this time the city belonged), but of Europe. Its position on a direct line of communication between Italy and Germany had given it an importance in connection with the general trade of Europe, and the facilities which furthered this general trade became of value also in connection with the production of books. The University of Basel, founded in 1460, speedily brought to the city men devoted to scholarly pursuits, many of whom took an early interest in the work of the printing-press, and were ready to give their co-operation to publishers like Froben, not only in editing manuscripts for the press, but even in the routine work of the printing-offices in the proof-reading and correcting. In 1501, at the time Basel broke away from the imperial control, the city had already secured for itself a cosmopolitan character, and had become a kind of meeting place for the exchange of thought as well as for the goods of representatives of all nations. At this time there were in the city no less than twenty-six important publishing and printing concerns. The earliest book bearing a date and an imprint which was issued from a Basel printing-press was an edition of the Gregorii Magni Moralia in Jobum, which appeared in 1468. But one or two copies exist, of which the one that is in the best preservation is contained in the National Library of Paris.

Printing was introduced into Basel by Berthold Ruppel, who, in 1455, had been an apprentice with Fust. The first work which is identified as Berthold’s, but which does not bear a date, is the Repertorium Vocabulorum Exquisitorum of Conrad de Mure. The difficulties which have attended all organisations of labour appear to have begun at an early date in Basel, as there is record of a strike of the compositors occurring as early as 1471. This strike lasted for a number of months and was finally adjusted by the arbitration of the authorities of the town, certain concessions being made on the part of both the master and the employees. The magistrate issued a decision or mandate to the effect that on a certain date the workmen must return to their shops and accept the authority of their masters, and this order appears to have been accepted. It does not appear what course could have been taken to force the men to their work in case they might still have been recalcitrant. The fact that a difference between the printers and their men should have been a matter of such general importance indicates that already within twenty years of the beginning of printing in Germany, the business in Basel had assumed large proportions.

In 1474, there was printed in Basel an edition of the Sachsenspiegel, a work of popular character, which can share with the Bible and with different essays of Cicero, the honour of being the most frequently published book in Germany during the first quarter century of printing.

Between 1478 and 1514, Johann Amerbach, one of the most scholarly of the early editors, printers, and publishers of Germany, made Basel his headquarters. His work was, however, by no means limited to Basel, as he co-operated with Koberger in Nuremberg and with other of his contemporaries in editorial and publishing responsibilities in other cities.

His most important publication in Basel was a series of the works of the Church Fathers. In carrying these books through the press, he was able to secure the co-operation of a number of the well known scholars of the time, including Beatus Rhenanus, Dodo, Conon, Wyler, Pellikan, and, above all, his old instructor, Heynlin.

Before beginning business in his own name in Basel, Amerbach had co-operated with Koberger in the production of the great Bible with the commentaries of Hugo, and he was also in active relations with Rusch of Strasburg. The last book which was printed with his own name is an edition of the Decretum Gratiani, which appeared in 1512. His edition of the works of S. Jerome, left unfinished at the time of his death, was completed by his pupil and successor, Johann Froben.

Froben, who was like his master, not only a printer but a scholar of wide attainments, did more, possibly, than any printer of his time, except Aldus of Venice, to further through his publishing undertakings the development of scholarship and of literature. He appears to have had a thorough knowledge, not only of Latin, which was common to all the scholars of his time, but of Greek and Hebrew, which were rarities even in university centres. It was the case with Froben, as with Aldus, that he himself assumed the task of preparing for the press the texts of a number of works issued by him, a task which included a comparison of manuscripts, in order to secure the most correct readings, and such thorough knowledge of the text as would make possible the correction of errors, not only of typography, but of statement. Froben’s work and character have been commemorated by the loving words of Erasmus, who during the last twenty years of Froben’s life held with him the closest relations of friendship as well as of business.

It was through Froben that the larger publishing undertakings of Erasmus were carried on, undertakings which were later in part shared with Aldus of Venice. Froben’s work was done exclusively for scholarly readers. His imprint appears upon no book printed in German, while the list of books issued by him during the thirty-six years of his business activity includes no less than 257 works, nearly all of which were of large compass and distinctive importance. Erasmus himself, ranking at that time possibly as the greatest scholar of Europe, was ready to give to Froben his assistance in supervising texts for the compositors and in the corrections of the proofs. The details of the business arrangements entered into by publishers like Froben with their scholarly assistants have unfortunately not been preserved, but it would appear as if in many cases these scholars had given their services as a labour of love, and solely with a view to furthering the development of scholarship and literature. Erasmus was for a number of years an inmate of Froben’s house, and it is probable that he received a certain annual stipend for his editorial services, in addition to the returns paid to him from the sale of his books. The most important of the issues from the Froben press in the matter of popular sale and of business success were, as indicated, the writings of Erasmus. Erasmus, in fact, was possibly the first author who was able, after the invention of printing to secure from the sale of his books any substantial returns. It is evident from the various references made by Erasmus that those returns were sufficient to make him substantially independent, notwithstanding the fact that piracy editions of his books were printed in Paris, in Cologne, and elsewhere.

Further information concerning the publishing undertakings of Erasmus will be found in the chapter devoted to him.

Pamphilus Gengenbach, described as the first dramatist of the sixteenth century, and who was also a poet, undertook between the years 1509 and 1522, the business of a printer. We do not learn with what success. A more noteworthy printer of Basel of the same period, noteworthy at least from the point of view of commercial success, was Langendorf. He built up his business by the publication of piracy editions of the writings of Luther, out of which he is reported to have made large profits.[446]

The first German printer who appears to have received honours from royalty was a certain Heinrich Petri, who was carrying on business between 1520 and 1579, and who in 1556, in recognition of his services to the community, was knighted by Charles V.

As before indicated, the work of the printers and publishers of Basel was very much furthered by the presence and by the intelligent co-operation of the members of its University Faculty. The University was of service not only in making a certain important market for editions of scholarly books, but, as a more important consideration, in giving to the publishers the aid of scholarly advisers, editors, and proof-correctors. By the close of the fifteenth century, Basel had secured so great a prestige for the production of accurate editions of important texts, and for the beauty and costliness of its typography, that commissions came to its printers from all parts of Europe.

In 1510, Sir Thomas More, desiring, as he writes, to secure a European circulation for his books, causes the same to be printed in Basel, while during the years between 1490 and 1520, the popes send to Basel printing-offices the orders for their commercial printing.

The next city in chronological order to be considered as a publishing centre is Zurich, in which printing began in 1504.

The first of the Zurich printers whose name has been preserved is Christ Froschauer, who is known principally through his association with Zwingli. Froschauer, who devoted himself earnestly to the cause of the Calvinists, had a religious as well as a business interest in securing a wide circulation for the works of Zwingli and his associates, and together with these works, he printed editions of the Bible, not only in German, but in French, Italian, Flemish, and English. Froschauer’s editions were the first Bibles printed on the Continent in the English language. For these Bibles, which were distributed at what to-day would be called popular prices, very considerable sales were secured, and the presses of Froschauer were thus made an important adjunct to the work of the Reformation.

In Augsburg, the printing business of which began to assume importance in 1468, the interests of the publishers were, on the other hand, largely associated with the cause of the Roman Church. The first book with an Augsburg imprint and date was issued by Zainer, and was an edition of the Meditationes Vitae Domini Nostri Jesu Christi. In 1470, was published by Schüssler a Latin edition of Josephus, and in 1477, Sorg, who was one of the most active of the Augsburg publishers, issued the book of the Council of Constance, which contained no less than 1200 wood-cuts, presenting the 1156 coats-of-arms which were represented at the Council.

The most famous of the printer-publishers of Augsburg was, according to Kapp, Ratdolt, whose list comprised principally mathematical works and books of religious music. His edition of Euclid, issued in 1482, constituted the first European edition of the Syracusan mathematician. The sales of the orthodox theological books, which constituted a special interest of the Augsburg publishers, were largely checked by the Reformation. George Willer, an enterprising Augsburg bookseller, who sold not only his own publications but those of other German publishers, is to be credited with the printing of the first classified catalogue known to Germany.

Among the earlier publications of Ulm, the most important was the geography of Ptolemy, issued by Holl in 1484, with important maps.

The eminence of the city of Nuremberg in the work of publishing is principally due to the scholarly enterprise of one family, that of the Kobergers, whose work began about 1470. Antonius Koberger, the first of the line, is grouped with Froben of Basel and with Aldus of Venice for the commercial importance of his undertakings, and above all for the scholarly ideal of his business operations. His active business work covered the years 1470-1503. Among his earlier important publications was an edition of Thomas Aquinas, issued in 1474, and of the Consolations of Philosophy of Boëthius, printed in 1475. The latter was the first printed edition of a book which had been for nearly a thousand years famous among books in manuscript, and which possibly shares with S. Augustine’s City of God the reputation of being the work most frequently found in the old monastery libraries. By the year 1500, Koberger was utilising no less than twenty-four presses, and undoubtedly was sending out annually more books than any other publisher of his time. He had branches or agencies in Frankfort, Paris, and Lyons, a business correspondence in the Netherlands, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Poland, and England, as well as, of course, throughout Germany. In respect to the bulk of the business done by him and of the commercial success secured, he was a greater publisher than either Aldus or Froben, his two most famous contemporaries. The work of Aldus, which is considered in detail in another chapter, was, however, distinctive on the ground of the special difficulties to be overcome and of his enterprise and scholarly ambition in the production of Greek literature. The interest of the work of Froben centres partly in his close friendship and long association with Erasmus, and in the fact that, as the publisher for Erasmus, he secured the first important copyright returns for a contemporary author which had been known in the record of publishing.

Koberger gave special attention to the production of Bibles and of works in orthodox theology. The latter division of his list was largely interfered with by the increasing influence of the Lutherans.

Koberger took the initiative in the production of books containing expensive and elaborate illustrations, and his illustrated editions will compare more favourably with those of Plantin and with the other publishers of the Low Countries, than is the case with the issues of any other German publisher. Nuremberg had always been the centre of art interests, and there appear to have been in the town many designers whose services could be secured for the production of wood-cuts.

The great German Bible, published by Koberger in 1483, filled with artistic illustrations engraved on wood, compares not unfavourably with the illustrated Bible issued by Plantin fifty years later.

The Schedelsche Chronik, published in 1493, contained no less than 2000 wood-cuts prepared by the Nuremberg artists, Wohlgemut and Pleydenwurf. After the work of the Reformers became active, the presses of Nuremberg were occupied for some years in issuing controversial tracts and pamphlets upholding the orthodox views of the Church; while, under an edict of the magistrates issued in 1520, the printers of Nuremberg were forbidden to print and the dealers were forbidden to sell the writings of Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and their associates. Notwithstanding this prohibition, however, there was enough sympathy with the Reformation among many of the Nuremberg printers to keep them interested in the surreptitious production (under risk of fine, confiscation, and imprisonment) of very many of the Protestant tracts of the times. While the Catholic tracts were, however, catalogued in due course and openly sold, the Protestant pamphlets had to be smuggled in and out of the city and disposed of under various covers and precautions.

In giving chronological consideration to certain of the distinctive publishing centres and printer-publishers of Germany, it is necessary at this time to refer to the important undertakings of the Brothers of Common Life, whose work in the manuscript period has already been described.

As in the earlier manuscript publishing, the Brothers had interested themselves particularly in reaching with their books the common people, and had for this purpose produced their versions in the folk dialects. When, therefore, they had replaced the scriptoria of their Houses with well organised printing-offices, they devoted their presses mainly to the production of devotional books, and of books of general instruction planned for the service and information of the middle and lower classes, and printed in the vernacular.

While I have not found record of the business results secured through these printing-offices established by the Brothers, it seems probable, in view of the excellent distributing machinery they possessed for their output, and from the fact that they were almost the first among printers to prepare publications expressly for the use of the lower and middle classes, that they secured from the sales of their books satisfactory business returns, so that the profits produced by their presses may easily have formed an important part of the resources and the income of the Order. Their first printing-presses were established in Marienthal in 1468, in Brussels and in Rostock in 1476, and in Nuremberg in 1479. In 1490, there were no less than sixty different printing establishments carried on under the supervision of the Brothers. I am not sufficiently familiar with the various phases of the complex history of the Reformation to be able to speak definitely concerning the influence exercised upon the controversies and the contest of the time by the publications of the Brothers. It is my impression that these publications remained on the whole orthodox, but that they represented the more liberal wing of Catholic Orthodoxy.

The city of Leipzig, which a century after the invention of printing became the centre of the book-trade of Germany, and the most important book-producing city in the world, began its printing somewhat later than the other German cities whose work has already been referred to.

The earliest printing-press set up in Leipzig was that of an anonymous printer who issued, in 1481, an edition of the essay of the Dominican Annius von Viterbo, entitled Glosa Super Apocalipsim. The second Leipzig publication, also issued without imprint, was an edition of the fifteen astrological propositions of Martin Polich. The first Leipzig publisher whose name is recorded is Markus Brandis, who issued, in 1484, a volume entitled Regimen Sanitatis, which was the work of Archbishop Albicius of Prague, who had died in 1427. It is not easy to decide on what basis these first three publications of the future publishing mart were selected, and it is difficult to understand how a remunerative sale could have been depended upon for any one of the three.

By the year 1513, the production of Breviaries had become an important interest with the Leipzig presses. A printer named Lotter secured a reputation in the earlier years of the sixteenth century for the excellence of his typography, and was employed by the Archbishop of Heller in printing the Breviaries and the Missals of the Dioceses of Brandenburg. In 1492, a certain Gregor Werman printed Sacrarum Historiarum Opus. The name of the author does not appear in connection with the work. In 1497, Bötticher issued an edition of Virgil’s Bucolics, the first classic which bears a Leipzig imprint.

By the year 1495, the book-trade of Leipzig had assumed very considerable proportions, not only in connection with printing and publishing, but in the organisation of machinery for collecting and distributing the publications of other cities. In this branch of the book business, Leipzig was already beginning to rival Frankfort. The booksellers’ association, organised in 1525, is, at the present time, 370 years later, the most effective and intelligently managed trade organisation that the world has known. Leipzig publishers gave from an early period special attention to the printing of the controversial literature of the Reformation, and, as was natural from their close relations with Wittenberg, the sympathies of the larger proportion of the printers were in accord with the Lutherans.

Under the trade restrictions established by Duke George of Saxony, who was a Catholic, and whose reign covered the period between 1524 and 1533, the work of the Protestant printers was very seriously hampered, and the whole book-trade of Leipzig was affected. The writings of the Reformers were repressed as far as practicable by rigorous censorship, while those of the Romanists found few buyers. Lotter, the son of the first printer of that name, removed his printing-office to Wittenberg, where he continued, though still under the difficulties of a rigorous supervision, to distribute the writings of the Reformers. The magistracy of Leipzig, appreciating the importance of the book-trade, attempted in the first place to secure for its operations the necessary protection. Later, however, it was compelled, under pressure from the Duke, to put into effect the ducal regulations for supervision and censorship, and two ecclesiastical censors, appointed under the ducal authority, secured the aid of the city officials in making examination of the books printed, and in confiscating or cancelling all heretical works found in the book-shops of either Leipzig or Dresden.

Under the edict issued in 1528, all books printed by Vogel, Goltz, and Schramm of Wittenberg, were forbidden to be offered for sale in Leipzig or Dresden, and were forbidden transportation to the Frankfort Fair. The immediate result of these anti-reform operations of the Church and of the Duke was the practical destruction for the time being of the book-trade of Leipzig.

In 1539, a printer of Leipzig, named Michel Wohlrabe, secured for himself notoriety through the extent of his piracy publications. He issued editions of the Lutheran Bible and of other writings of the Reformers, in the face, not only of the claims of these writers to control their own publications, but of the prohibition of Duke George against the production of any Lutheran literature whatever. After the death of George, however, there came a change in regard to the influence of the ducal government, and at the request of the Elector John Frederic, an edict was issued forbidding the further printing in Leipzig of any anti-Lutheran literature. This removed one difficulty in the way of Wohlrabe’s operations, and Luther and his friends found that they were helpless, in the conditions which then obtained in the law and in the book-trade, to prevent the circulation of these unauthorised editions.

Luther’s complaints, referred to further on, were principally directed, as it must be remembered, not against the loss of profits to himself, but to the injury to the community and the grievance to the writers in having books circulated in an unrevised and incorrect text.