Books and their makers during the Middle Ages

by George Haven Putnam

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.