The probability is that Waldfoghel cut letters of ornamental and artistic forms on dies to be used as initials and the like on manuscripts or on cloth and other materials and devised or borrowed a method of printing from them by the application of power through some sort of screw press. This is in harmony with much that we know to have been done at that time, but is quite apart from anything like typography as we are considering it.

The second is the so-called Coster legend. This story in its legendary form says that Lourens Janssoen Coster invented printing from the chance trifling of an idle hour. He is said to have been strolling in the woods near Haarlem one day and to have cut some pieces of birch bark in the form of letters. With some of these letters dipped in ink he made marks on parchment or paper and found that he could combine them and recombine them so as to make words and sentences. He then began experimenting in earnest. His first letters were carved out of wood, then he made them out of lead, and at last out of tin. Finding the ink used by the copyists unsatisfactory he invented an ink of more viscous kind better suited to the work in hand. The story runs that his new invention attracted much attention and that he made many books which he sold at good profit. The work grew beyond his personal capacity to do it and he took servants or apprentices. Among them was a young fellow named John. John had more brains than honesty, and one day while the family were at church John packed up the type and the matrices and left Haarlem. From Haarlem, the story goes on to say, he went to Mainz where he set up in business for himself and prospered exceedingly. It is from this act, says the story, that all the Mainz printing proceeded. In this form the story is obviously legendary. We shall examine it later in another connection when we shall see this point more clearly, some of the details being evidently introduced to fill the gaps in what may be regarded as history.

The third claim is the commonly accepted Gutenberg legend. Concerning Gutenberg himself we know very little, although somewhat more than we know about Coster. What we do know of him rests almost entirely upon public registers and the records of law suits. No authentic record of his birth exists, but it is supposed to have taken place at Mainz about 1399. Mainz, like many other cities of the time, was a prey to internal disputes and as a result of some such political overturn Gutenberg’s family went to Strasburg some time before 1430. In a legal document in existence at Strasburg we find mention of John Gensfleisch, otherwise known as Gutenberg, of Mainz. His name occurs in a proclamation issued in 1430 granting political amnesty to the Mainz exiles. In the same year he negotiated with the authorities of Mainz for a pension for his mother and in 1432 he was in Mainz. He next appears in the Strasburg court records in 1439, when he was defendant in a suit brought against him by his business partners. In these records are obscure references which have been interpreted as referring to printing. In the light of the clearer reference of later law suits it is not probable that this interpretation is correct.

Gutenberg was then, as for all his life, in financial difficulty. Whatever the outcome of the 1439 suit, he borrowed a hundred pounds in 1441 and in 1442 sold an annual income of four pounds for eighty pounds cash. The Strasburg tax books show that he was in arrears for taxes between 1436 and 1440. By some writers these financial difficulties are supposed to have arisen out of Gutenberg’s devotion to his experiments in typography. It is more probable, however, that they were owing to lack of business ability and possibly to lack of business integrity. The shifts to which he had recourse in his financial difficulties run at times perilously near the line of dishonesty.

In 1448 Gutenberg was back in Mainz and again borrowing money. What happened next can best be read back from what is known as the Helmasperger document, a notarial instrument relating to a law suit which John Fust brought against Gutenberg in 1455. From this document it appears that about 1450, or slightly before, Gutenberg became acquainted with John Fust, who was a prosperous business man in Mainz. The two entered into a contract of partnership for five years. Fust was to advance 800 guilders to Gutenberg at six per cent interest for use in procuring tools and materials, said tools to remain mortgaged to Fust until the loan was paid. In addition Fust was to advance to Gutenberg 300 guilders every year to provide for servant’s wages, house rent, vellum, paper, ink, etc. In return Fust was to receive one half of the profits, but was to be responsible for no debts and was to take no personal part in the business.

It is reasonably clear from this contract that while Gutenberg had hopes in 1450, and we shall probably see later upon what they were founded, he had not even made the necessary tools for printing, much less printed anything. Things did not, however, go smoothly under the new partnership. Instead of Fust paying the eight hundred guilders at once, he spread the payments over two years. Gutenberg, on his part, did not find the three hundred guilders a year sufficient. Fust, therefore, proposed that instead of paying the three hundred guilders a year for the remaining three years of the partnership, he should pay eight hundred guilders down, and remit the interest on the first eight hundred guilders as an offset for the one hundred guilders which Gutenberg would lose under this modification of the original contract.

These arrangements seem to have been carried out but in 1455 the results were so unsatisfactory that Fust brought suit to recover the money advanced. The court decided at least in part in favor of Fust. Gutenberg was unable to return the money which the court awarded to Fust, and in consequence Fust took possession of the business and equipment. Gutenberg appears to have saved something out of the wreck and found a new financial backer in the person of Conrad Humery, a physician and town clerk of Mainz. To this new office are attributed a number of books and pamphlets, the most important one being a Catholicon, 1460, nearly eight hundred pages large folio. In 1462 the city of Mainz was besieged and sacked and the printing industry therein was broken up. In 1466, however, we find printing done in Eltville, a suburb of Mainz, with type which is supposed to have been Gutenberg’s. As this was the birthplace of Gutenberg’s mother and there was a family estate there it is quite probable that the Gutenberg-Humery office was set up in that place. In 1465 we find Gutenberg appointed one of the officers of the court of Adolph II, the militant prince-bishop who had captured and looted Mainz three years before. The patent states that this appointment is made on account of “agreeable and voluntary service rendered to us and our bishopric.” This is the last we hear of Gutenberg except the record of his death in February, 1468.

In brief, this legend tells us that Gutenberg was for years a patient but disappointed seeker after an invention which he had dreamed of but could not make practical, that he finally succeeded only to be robbed of the fruits of his success by an unscrupulous money lender, that in his old age he began again with undaunted courage, struggling always against financial difficulties and always failing to make a wordly success of his great invention, reaping his only reward in the tardy favor of the prince-bishop. That Fust and his son-in-law, Schoeffer, did make a financial success of printing, and that further success was made by Bechtermüntz, who is said to have been a relative of Gutenberg and to have inherited type and material from his second shop, and that from Mainz as a center the art of printing spread over the civilized world are beyond question. These are the legends of the invention. Now let us see if we can find out what really happened.

CHAPTER IV
The Invention

The study of the question of the invention of printing, like that of any other historical question, must deal with the examination of three classes of evidence or so many of them as may be available. These three classes of evidence, in order of their importance, are first, remains, second, contemporary documents, and third, documents or evidence of a later period. For example, there may be tradition widely current and running backward in literary form to within a hundred years of the death of the person referred to, that a certain king ruled in a certain country and did certain things. That is evidence of the third class. There may be extant contemporary works of travelers, histories of other countries, or even the published recollections of old men, which said that at a certain period that king lived and did certain things. That is evidence of the second class. There may be coins, official inscriptions, public documents, emanating directly from this king or even bearing his signature. This is evidence of the first class. This class of evidence is conclusive. The second class is strong, but not conclusive, the third class is very uncertain.