Hadrian Junius, said to have been the most learned man in Holland after Erasmus, is the first to give to the world the fully-developed legend of Coster. This he does in his Batavia, which was finished in 1568 and published posthumously twenty years later. It is he who first mentions Coster by name, and gives the story of the walk in the woods. He relates how Coster devised block-printing, and calling in the help of his son-in-law, Thomas Peter, produced the block-book Speculum Humanæ Salvationis, and then advanced to types of wood, then to types of lead, and finally to types of lead and tin combined. Prospering in his new art, he engaged numerous workmen, one of whom, probably named Johann Faust, as soon as he had mastered the process of printing and of casting type, stole his master's types and other apparatus one Christmas Eve, and fled to Amsterdam, thence to Cologne, and finally to Mentz. For all this Junius also adduces no better authority than hearsay, but nevertheless it is his statements which have brought Coster to the front and given him such reputation as he now enjoys.
No books bearing Coster's name are known, though this in itself is no argument against him, for the name of Gutenberg himself is not found in any of his own productions. It is not only highly improbable that Coster was the first printer, but also doubtful whether he printed anything at all. But those who think otherwise consider that the idea of printing occurred to him about 1428 or 1430, and that he executed, among other books, the Biblia Pauperum, the Speculum, the Ars Moriendi, and Donatus.
The people of Holland still retain their faith in Coster. Statues have been erected, medals struck, tablets put up, and holidays observed in his honour.
[CHAPTER VIII
GUTENBERG AND THE MENTZ PRESS]
Johann or Hans Gutenberg was born at Mentz in or about the year 1400. His father's name was Gensfleisch, but he is always known by his mother's maiden name of Gutenberg or Gutemberg. It was customary in Germany at that time for a son to assume his mother's name if it happened that she had no other kinsman to carry it on. Of Gutenberg's early life, of his education or profession, we know nothing. But we know that his family, with many of their fellow-citizens, left Mentz when Gutenberg was about twenty years of age, on account of the disturbed state of the city. They probably went to Strasburg, but this is uncertain. In 1430 Gutenberg's name appears among others in an amnesty, granted to such of the Mentz citizens as had left the city, by the Elector Conrad III., but apparently he continued to live in Strasburg. Two years later he visited Mentz, probably about a pension granted by the magistrates to his widowed mother. This is practically all that is known of the earlier part of Gutenberg's life.
It is curious that nearly all the recorded information concerning Gutenberg is in connection either with lawsuits or with the raising of money. From the contracts for borrowing or repaying money into which he entered, we gather that he was always hard pressed, and that his invention ran away with a good deal of gold and paid back none. Gutenberg cast his bread on the waters, and it is we who have found it.
The first known event of his life which directly concerns our subject is a lawsuit brought against him by Georg Dritzehn. Mr Hessels implies, though he does not actually state, that he suspects the authenticity of the records of this trial. But no proof of their falsity can be adduced, and the integrity of the documents otherwise remains unquestioned. They cannot now, however, be subjected to further examination, for they were burnt in 1870 at the time of the siege of Strasburg.
The action in question was brought against Gutenberg in 1439 by Georg Dritzehn, the brother of one Andres Dritzehn, deceased, for the restitution of certain rights which he considered due to himself as his brother's heir. From the testimony of the witnesses as set down in the records of the trial, we gather that Gutenberg had entered into partnership with Hans Riffe, Andres Dritzehn, and Andres Heilmann; and one of the witnesses deposed that Dritzehn, on his death-bed, asserted that Gutenberg had concealed “several arts from them, which he was not obliged to show them.” This did not please them, so they made a fresh arrangement with Gutenberg and further payments into the exchequer, to the end that Gutenberg “should conceal from them none of the arts he knew.”
Again, Lorentz Beildeck testified that after Andres Dritzehn's death, Gutenberg sent him to Claus, Andres' brother, to tell him “that he should not show to anyone the press which he had under his care,” but that “he should take great care and go to the press and open this by means of two little buttons whereby the pieces would fall asunder. He should, thereupon, put those pieces in or on the press, after which nobody could see or comprehend anything.”
Besides this, Hans Niger von Bischoviszheim said that Andres Dritzehn applied to him for a loan, and when witness asked him his occupation, answered that he was a maker of looking-glasses. Later on, a pilgrimage “to Aix-la-Chapelle about the looking-glasses” is mentioned.