“We, Henne (John) Genszfleisch of Sulgeloch, called Gudinberg, and Friele Genszfleisch, brothers, affirm and publicly declare by these presents, and make known to all, that with the counsel and consent of our dear cousins Johann and Friele and Pedirmann Genszfleisch, brothers in Mentz, we have renounced and do renounce by these presents, for us and our heirs, singly, together and at once, without fraud or reserve, all the property that has passed by our sister Hebele to the Convent of St. Clair at Mentz, in which she has become a nun; whether the said property has been received by her on the part of our father Henne Genszfleisch, or been given by himself, or in whatsoever other manner, whether in grain, money, furniture, jewelry, or of whatever kind it may be, which the respectable nuns, the Abbess and sisters of the said convent have received, whether as a body or individually, or which other persons of the convent may have received from the said Hebele, be it great or small; and we have promised and do promise by these presents, in good faith for us and our heirs, that neither we nor any person on our part, nor our above named cousins nor their heirs, nor any person on their part, shall demand back or reclaim from the said convent, or from the Abbess, or from the convent as a body, or from any persons who reside there individually, the said property, be it what it may, either in whole or in part, and that we will never demand it back, whether by the ecclesiastical or civil judge, or without the assistance of the judge, and that neither we nor our heirs, will ever molest the said convent by word or deed, either secretly or publicly, in any matter whatever. And, with respect to the books which I, the above named Henne, have given to the library of the convent, they are to remain there always, and in perpetuity, and I the above-named Henne, purpose to give also, and without fraud, to the said convent for its library, for the use of the nuns present and future, for their religious services, whether in reading or singing, or in whatever manner they may please to make use of them, according to the rules of their order, the books which I, the above-named Henne, have already printed up to the present hour, or that I may print in future, so far as they shall be pleased to make use of them; and in consideration of this, the above-mentioned Abbess and the nuns of the said convent of St. Clair, have for themselves and their successors, declared and promised, that they will absolve me and my heirs from the claim which my sister Hebele had to 60 florins, which I and my brother Friele had promised to pay and deliver to the said Hebele as her dower, and as the share, coming from the estate of Henne our father, which he assigned to her as her portion, in virtue of a certain instrument drawn up for that purpose, without fraud or deceit. And in order that this (agreement) may be held firmly and fully binding by us and by our heirs, we have given to the said nuns, and to their convent and order, the present letters sealed with our seals. Signed and delivered, the year of the birth of J. C. 1459, on the day of St. Margaret.” (July 20).

To this document four seals were attached inscribed—

Contradicting, as this agreement does, the views held by Mr. Ottley, he says, “I confess I have great doubts of its genuineness, though perhaps they are ill-founded.” M. Ph. Berjeau,[79] in his introduction to Mr. Ottley’s work asserts that it is a forgery; and on the authority of M. de Laborde says, “that Bodman, the Archivist of Mentz, bothered by Oberlin, Fischer, and all the bibliographers of his time, who wanted him to discover some new information about Gutenberg, thought it worth his while to forge two documents, which just helped them to fill the two gaps which occur in his history, one from 1420 to 1430, the other from 1455 to 1460.” The other document referred to by M. de Laborde is that already given in the note on pages 71 and 72.

But it has already been shewn from contemporary authorities in Italy and France, that Gutenberg was known in those countries to be still printing at Mentz in 1458. The motive imputed to M. Bodman as an inducement to the criminal act charged against him by MM. Laborde and Berjeau, cannot therefore be correct. Writers on both sides, in their eagerness to confute their opponents, are much too apt to cry out “forgery!” when documents are quoted which are fatal to their pre-conceived views. There is however one point in this agreement which needs explanation.

A certain Henne (John) Gensefleisch is referred to as the father of the brothers John and Friele. But it is well known that their father’s name was Frielo, and not Henne. How then is this discrepancy to be accounted for? Even supposing that M. Bodman was tempted to forge a document like the one in question, he would surely not have so worded it that it should bear upon its face the proof of its falsity. The property to which Hebele the nun was entitled, and the reclamation of which the two brothers and the three cousins renounced, must have been a portion of the ancestral patrimony, to a share of which each member of the family had a well defined claim. Now their common ancestor was a certain Henne Gensefleisch, whose son Frielo was Rathsherr or councillor of Mentz in the year 1332, and played a very prominent part when the great rising of the guilds against the patricians took place in that year. The preservation of the patrimony of a family being an object in which all its members were interested, no portion could be alienated without the consent of all concerned. This frequently led to the female members of a family being placed in convents, for which provision might be made in the original entailment of the property. It also limited marriages among the males; since forfeiture of his share of the patrimony was one of the penalties inflicted upon any who married without the family consent. There does not therefore appear to be any solid reason for rejecting the document as spurious. Moreover, in a copy of the “Tractatus de celebratione Missarum,” originally in the library of the Chartreux of Mentz, and afterwards in the city library, M. Fischer the curator discovered the following memorandum in Latin:—“The Chartreux of Mentz possesses this book through the liberality of Johann called Gutenberg, the production of his art, and the science of Johann Nummeister, completed (confecta) on the 19th of the kalendar of July in the year 1463.” So that it is plain that Gutenberg was printing in that year; and this memorandum further proves, that he made presents of his works to the ecclesiastical establishments of the city; a fact which confirms, in that respect at least, the authenticity of the previously cited agreement.

In 1465, the Elector Adolph appointed Gutenberg a gentleman of his Court; and by a public decree, dated the 18th January, bestowed upon him an annual grant of twenty “malters” of corn, two barrels of wine for his household; and an official court suit; the honor was thus by no means an empty one. He did not however long enjoy it. After an active and eventful life, he died in the year 1468.[80] The exact date of his decease is not recorded, nor are there any particulars known of the circumstances attending his death. But that he was in possession of a printing office up to the very last, is proved beyond doubt by the following acknowledgment of the receipt of the materials by the Syndic Homery.

“I, Conrad Homery, doctor, make known by this letter that his Highness my gracious and well-beloved Prince Adolph, Archbishop of Mayence, has graciously caused to be delivered to me the ‘forms,’ characters, tools, and other objects relating to printing, which Johann Gutenberg left at his death, and which belonged to me, and belong to me still; but for the honor and for the pleasure of his Highness, I have bound myself, and am so bound by this letter, never to use them in any other place than in Mayence; and moreover, only to sell them, in preference, to a citizen of this place, who shall offer an equal price with any other. In faith of which declaration, I have appended my seal to this present. Given in the year 1468, the Friday after the festival of St. Matthew (26th February.)”

Thus ended the life of John Gutenberg; the first maker of separable metal Types; the inventor of the Letter Press; the Founder of the Typographic Art.

His remains were interred at the church in the convent of the Franciscans near the house Zum Junghen, where, not long after, one of his kinsmen erected a tablet, the inscription on which ran as follows:—