The authorities of the British Museum also report that Chinese writers give the name of a certain Pi Sheng who, in the eleventh century, invented movable type, and the Department of Oriental Printed Books and Manuscripts of the same institution possesses a copy of the Wen hsien tung Kao, a Chinese encyclopedia printed in Korea from movable type in A. D. 1337.
To the Koreans also is attributed the invention of copper type in the beginning of the 15th century, and the inspection of books bearing the dates of that period seems to show that they used such type, even if they did not invent them.
The first authentic European printing produced from individual movable type of which we have any recorded impression, bears the date of A. D. 1454. These documents are two different editions of the same Letters of Indulgence issued in that year by Pope Nicholas V. in behalf of the Kingdom of Cyprus. We do not know, however, whether they were printed from metal or wood type.
As to the exact date of the invention of printing from individual movable type in Europe, we know only that it was some time prior to A. D. 1454. Where and by whom the invention came about, a dispute has been waged for more than four hundred years; one of the most hotly contested questions in history. In short, Koelhoff was in part responsible for starting this dispute. He published in his “Cologne Chronicle” a statement by Ulrich Zell, a printer of Mainz in Germany and a contemporary of Gutenberg, that Gutenberg had improved, but not invented the art, which he attributes to Coster of Haarlem, in the Netherlands, in the year 1440. Gutenberg stole Coster’s type, according to Zell, and printed from them in 1442. Other unrefutable evidence shows that Gutenberg could not have begun printing at Mainz before the end of 1450.
In addition to Gutenberg and Coster we also find Waldfoghel of Avignon, in France, and Castaldi of Felte, in Italy, mentioned as claimants of this invention. The value of their respective pretensions has been summed up by one well known authority in the words, “Holland has books, but no documents. France has documents, but no books. Italy has neither books, nor documents, while Germany has both books and documents.” As the case stands at present, after careful and impartial examination of all available evidence, no choice is left but to attribute the invention of printing with individual movable cast-metal type to Lourens Janszoon Coster of Haarlem in the Netherlands between the years 1440 and 1446 and not to Gutenberg of Mainz in Germany.
Zell’s statement in the “Cologne Chronicle” of 1499 is further substantiated by Hadrianus Junius in his “Batavia.” Junius stated that printing from individual movable type was invented by Coster in Haarlem, and that the “Speculum Humanae Salvationes” was one of his first productions. These two statements were made independently of each other and both are corroborated by books to which they refer.
The “Speculum Humanae Salvationes,” attributed to Coster by Junius was partly a folio Latin block-book, and partly typographically printed. From this and other records it has been clearly established that Coster began as a xylographer and ended as a typographical printer, and before 1472 he had manufactured and extensively used at least seven different styles of primitive looking individual movable cast-metal type.
According to tradition, while he was walking in a wood near Haarlem, Coster cut some letters in the bark of a beech tree, and with them, reversely impressed one by one on paper, he composed one or two lines as an example for the children of his son-in-law.
Junius does not say it, but clearly implies that, in this way, Coster came to the idea of the movability of the characters, the first step in the invention of typography. He perceived the advantage and utility of such insulated characters, which hitherto he had been cutting together on one block, and so the invention of printing with individual movable type was made.