Books and their makers during the Middle Ages

by George Haven Putnam

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.