Early Printed Books

by E. Gordon Duff

CHAPTER III.

SPREAD OF PRINTING IN GERMANY.

Before 1462, when the sacking of Mainz by Adolf von Nassau is popularly supposed to have disseminated the art of printing, presses were at work in at least two other German towns, Strasburg and Bamberg.

The first of these places is mentioned by Trithemius, who records that after the secret of printing was discovered, it spread first to Strasburg. Judging merely from authentic dates, this is evidently correct, for we have the date 1460 for Strasburg, and 1461-62 for Bamberg. There are, however, strong reasons for supposing that this order is hardly the correct one, and that Bamberg should come first. Since, however, the statement and the dates exist, it will be safer for us provisionally to consider Strasburg as the first, and state later on the arguments in favour of Bamberg.

Though no dated book is known printed at Strasburg before 1471, in which year Eggestein printed the Decretum Gratiani, and though Mentelin’s first dated book is of the year 1473, yet we know from the rubrications of a copy of the Latin Bible in the library at Freiburg, that that book was finished, the first volume before 1460, and the second before 1461. Concerning the printer, John Mentelin, a good deal is known. Born at Schelestadt, he became a scribe and illuminator; but, like many others, abandoned the original business to become a printer. P. de Lignamine in his Chronicle says that by 1458, Mentelin had a press at Strasburg, and was printing, like Gutenberg, three hundred sheets a day. By 1461 he had finished printing the forty-nine line edition of the Latin Bible. He died on the 12th December 1478, leaving two daughters, one married to Adolf Rusch d’Ingwiller, his successor; the other, to Martin Schott, another Strasburg printer. Very few of his books are dated; and as his types have not yet been systematically studied, the books cannot be ranged in any accurate order.

Taking the information in Lignamine’s Chronicle as exact, and we have no reason to doubt its accuracy, we may take certain books in the type of the Bible as the earliest of Mentelin’s books.[11] Round 1466 we can group some other books, the Augustinus de arte predicandi and the Homily on St. Matthew by St. Chrysostom. A copy of the former book in the British Museum is rubricated 1466; and of the latter a copy in the Spencer Collection has the same year added in manuscript. In Sir M. M. Sykes’ sale was a volume containing copies of these two books bound together in contemporary binding. About 1470, Mentelin issued a catalogue containing the titles of nine books, including a Virgil, a Terence, and a Valerius Maximus. Mentelin also printed the first edition of the Bible in German, a folio of 406 leaves. Several copies are known with the rubricated date of 1466; and the same date is also found in a copy of the Secunda secundæ of Aquinas. Many other of his books contain manuscript dates, and show that they are considerably earlier than is usually supposed.

[11] In the University Library, Cambridge, is a very interesting copy of the first volume of this Bible, bought at the Culemann sale. It consists for the most part of proof-sheets, and variations from the ordinary copies occur on almost every page. It is printed on small sheets of paper in the manner of a broadside, the sheets being pasted together at the inner margin.

Henry Eggestein, whose first dated book was issued in 1471, was living in Strasburg as early as 1442, and probably began to print almost as soon as Mentelin. The earliest date attributable to any of his books is 1466, the date written by Bamler, at that time an illuminator, in the copy of one of his forty-five line editions of the Bible now in the library at Wolfenbüttel. In 1471, Eggestein himself tells us that he had printed a large number of books. A little time before this he had issued a most glowing advertisement of his Bible. He appeals to the good man to come and see his wonderful edition, produced, as the early printers were so fond of saying, not by the pen, but by the wonderful art of printing. The proofs had been read by the best scholars, and the book printed in the best style. This Bible, which has forty-five lines to the column, was finished by 1466, for the copy now in the library at Munich was rubricated in that year. The only printed dates that occur in Eggestein’s books are 1471 and 1472. Hain gives three books of the years 1474, 1475, and 1478 as printed in his type, but these contain no printer’s name.

The most mysterious printer connected with the history of the Strasburg press, is the printer who used a peculiarly shaped capital R, and is therefore known as the R printer. He seems to have been very generally confounded with Mentelin till 1825, when the sale catalogue of Dr. Kloss’ books appeared. In this sale there happened to be two copies of the Speculum of Vincent de Beauvais, one the undoubted Mentelin edition, the other by the R printer. The writer of the note in the catalogue stated that, on comparison, the types of the two editions, though very like each other, were not the same. Since the type is different, and the peculiar R has never yet been found in any authentic book printed by Mentelin, we may safely say that Mentelin was not the printer. To whom, then, are the books to be ascribed? Many consider them the work of Adolf Rusch d’Ingwiller. M. Madden attributes them all to the Monastery of Weidenbach at Cologne, in common with most of the other books by unknown printers, and dates them about 1470. Bradshaw, writing to Mr. Winter Jones in 1870, says: ‘In turning over a volume of fragments yesterday, I found a Bull of Sixtus IV., dated 1478, in the type of the famous “R” printer so often confounded with Mentelin. His books are commonly put down to 1470 or earlier, and I believe no one ever thought of putting his books so late as 1478.[12] Yet this little piece is almost the only certain date which is known in connection with this whole series of books.’ Complete sets of the Speculum of Vincent de Beauvais are very often made up, partly from Mentelin’s and partly from the R printer’s editions, which points to their having been probably printed at the same place and about the same time. The earliest MS. date found in any of the books by the R printer is 1464; for a note in the copy of the Duranti Rationale divinorum Officiorum in the library at Basle, states that the book was bought in that year for the University. If this date is authentic, it follows that Strasburg was the first place where Roman type was used.