The Story of Books Part 4

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 a.s.sume 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 doc.u.ments 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 rest.i.tution 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, a.s.serted 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 b.u.t.tons whereby the pieces would fall asunder. He should, thereupon, put those pieces in or on the press, after which n.o.body 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-gla.s.ses. Later on, a pilgrimage "to Aix-la-Chapelle about the looking-gla.s.ses" is mentioned.

By these records, from Mr Hessels' translation of which the above quotations are taken, two things at least are made clear. First, that Gutenberg was in possession of the knowledge of an art unknown to his companions, which he was desirous of keeping to himself, and which those not in the secret wished to learn; and secondly, that a press containing some important and mysterious "pieces," which was not to be exhibited to outsiders until the pieces had been separated, played a prominent part in this secret work. The "looking-gla.s.ses," apparently, were imaginary, and intended for the misleading of too curious enquirers. But it has been ingeniously suggested that the word _spiegel_, or looking-gla.s.s, was a cryptic reference to the _Spiegel onser Behoudenisse_, or _Mirror of Salvation_, and that Gutenberg and his a.s.sistants were engaged in preparing the printed _Speculum_ for sale at the forthcoming fair held on the occasion of the pilgrimages to Aix-la-Chapelle in 1439. This part of his plan, however, was frustrated by the postponement of the fair for a year.

It is hardly to be doubted that the researches privately conducted in the deserted convent of St Arbogastus, where Gutenberg dwelt, concerned the great invention usually linked with his name. Were this probability an absolute certainty, then Strasburg might successfully dispute with Mentz the t.i.tle of birthplace of the art of printing. But to what stage Gutenberg carried his labours in the old convent, or how far he proceeded towards the goal of his ambition, is not known, though it has been conjectured that possibly he and those in his confidence got as far as the making of matrices for types, and that perhaps even the types used for the earliest extant specimens of type-printing were cast there, although not used until Gutenberg had returned to Mentz. On the other hand, there are many who think that matrices and punches are due to the ingenuity of Peter Schoeffer, to whom reference is made below.

When Gutenberg left Strasburg for Mentz is not known, but he was in the latter city in 1448, as is testified by a deed relating to a loan which he had raised. His constant pecuniary difficulties resulted in his entering into partnership, in 1450, with the goldsmith Johann Fust, or Faust, a rich burgher of Mentz, who contributed large loans towards the working expenses, and was evidently to share in the profits of the press. Fust or Faust, the printer of Mentz, has sometimes been identified with the Faust of German legend. The dealings in the black art related of the one have also been ascribed to the other by various story-tellers, some of whom say that in Paris Faust the printer narrowly escaped being burnt as a wizard for selling books which looked like ma.n.u.scripts, and yet were not ma.n.u.scripts. The first printed letters, it should be observed, were exactly copied from the ma.n.u.script letters then in vogue.

The first really definite recorded event in the history of Gutenberg's printing was a lawsuit brought against him by Fust, in 1455, when Gutenberg had to give an account of the receipts and expenditure relating to his work, and to hand over to Fust all his apparatus in discharge of his debt. The partnership was of course dissolved, Gutenberg left Mentz, and Fust continued the printing a.s.sisted by Peter Schoeffer. Schoeffer was a servant of Fust's, who had further a.s.sociated himself with the establishment by marrying Fust's daughter, and to him some attribute the improvement of the methods then employed by devising matrices and punches for casting metal types. It has even been suggested that this device of his, communicated to Fust, induced the latter to rid himself of Gutenberg by demanding repayment of his advances when Gutenberg was unable to meet the call, and that having gained possession of his partner's apparatus, he was able, with the help of Schoeffer and his inventions, to carry on the work to his own profit and glory. But it is difficult to know whether to look upon Fust as a grasping and treacherous money-lender, or as a prudent and enterprising man of business. However this may be, at the time of the lawsuit the work of years was already perfected, printing with moveable types was now an accomplished thing, and the great Mazarin Bible, if not finished, was at any rate on the point of completion.

The earliest extant specimens of printing from types, however, are a.s.signed to the year 1454. These are some Letters of Indulgence issued by Pope Nicholas V. to the supporters of the King of Cyprus in his war with the Turks. They consist of single sheets of vellum, printed on one side only, and measuring _c._ 11 x 7 inches. They fall into two cla.s.ses, of each of which there were various issues; that is to say, (1) those containing thirty lines, and (2) those containing thirty-one lines. The thirty-line Indulgence is printed partly in the type used for the Mazarin Bible. The thirty-one-line Indulgence is partly printed in type which is the same as that used for books printed by Albrecht Pfister at Bamberg, and for a Bible which disputes with the Mazarin Bible the position of the first printed book. Who printed these Indulgences is not certainly known. Both emanated from the Mentz press, and it is not unreasonable to believe that both were executed by Gutenberg, since the Mazarin Bible is most probably his work, and since the types used by Pfister were perhaps at one time possessed by Gutenberg. Still, the point is not clear, and the more general view is that they were the work of two different printers. Some attribute the thirty-line Indulgence to Schoeffer, on the ground that some of its initial letters are reproduced in an Indulgence of 1489 known to be of Schoeffer's workmanship. Yet there seems no reason why Schoeffer in 1489 should not have made use of Gutenberg's types--indeed, it is very probable that he had every chance of doing so, as may be seen from the above account of the dissolution of partnership between Gutenberg and Fust.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TYPE OF THE MENTZ INDULGENCE (30-line, _exact size_).]

Those who a.s.sign the thirty-line specimen to Schoeffer consider the thirty-one-line specimen to be Gutenberg's work. "And though we have no proof of this," says Mr E. Gordon Duff, who holds this view, "or indeed of Gutenberg's having printed any book at all, there is a strong weight of circ.u.mstantial evidence in his favour." It may be taken for granted, then, although proof is wanting, that Gutenberg printed at least one of these Indulgences, and perhaps both. In any case, these are the first productions of the printing-press to which a definite date can be a.s.signed. Some of them have a printed date, and in other copies the date has been inserted in ma.n.u.script. The earliest specimens of each cla.s.s belong to the year 1454.

The next production of the Mentz press, as is generally believed, is the beautiful volume known as the Gutenberg Bible, or the Mazarin Bible, because it was a copy in the library of Cardinal Mazarin which first attracted attention and led bibliographers to enquire into its history.

It ill.u.s.trates a most remarkable fact--that is, the extraordinary degree of perfection to which the art of printing attained all but simultaneously with its birth. Even though we cannot tell how long Gutenberg experimented before producing this book, it is none the less amazing that as a specimen of typographic art the Mazarin Bible has never been excelled even by the cleverest printers and the most modern and elaborate apparatus. It was probably not begun before 1450, the year when Gutenberg and Fust joined forces, and was completed certainly not later than 1456. This latter date is fixed by a colophon written in the second volume of the copy in the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris, which informs us that "this book was illuminated, bound, and perfected by Heinrich Cremer, vicar of the collegiate church of St Stephen in Mentz, on the Feast of the a.s.sumption of the Blessed Virgin, in the year of our Lord 1456. Thanks be to G.o.d. Hallelujah." A similar note is affixed to the first volume.

It is believed by competent authorities that this and all very early printed books were printed one page at a time, owing to an inadequate supply of type, a process exceedingly slow and productive of numerous small variations in the text. The work of printing the Mazarin Bible was in all probability interrupted to allow of the execution of the more immediately needed Letters of Indulgence, in certain parts of which, as we have said, some of the types used in the Mazarin Bible are employed.

We must not omit to mention here another Bible issued from Mentz about this time. It has thirty-six lines to a column, and is therefore known as the thirty-six line Bible, in distinction to the forty-two line or Mazarin Bible. It exhibits a larger type, and is regarded by some as the first book printed at the Mentz press, and, for all that can be proved to the contrary, it is so. Although the point is still undecided, this volume may at any rate be safely regarded as contemporary with the Mazarin Bible.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PAGE FROM THE MAZARIN BIBLE (_reduced_).]

The Mazarin Bible is in Latin, and printed in the characters known as Gothic, or black letter. These were closely modelled on the form of the handwriting used at that time for Bibles and kindred works. It is in two volumes, and each page, excepting a few at the beginning, has two columns of forty-two lines, and each is provided with rubrics, inserted by hand, while the small initials of the sentences have a touch of red, also put in by hand. Some copies are of vellum, others of paper. But henceforward the use of vellum declines.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TYPE OF THE MAZARIN BIBLE (_exact size_).]

The Mazarin Bible is usually considered to be the joint work of Gutenberg and Fust. Mr Winter Jones has conjectured that the metal types used in early printing were cut by the goldsmiths, and that Fust's skill, as well as his money, were pressed into Gutenberg's service. But if, as some have thought, Fust provided money only, while Gutenberg was the working partner, then Fust would hardly have been concerned in its actual production until 1455, when he and Gutenberg separated. Even then--supposing the book to have been still unfinished--it is quite possible that Schoeffer did the work. But no one is able to decide the exact parts played by those three a.s.sociated and most noted printers of Mentz; conjecture alone can allot them.

Gutenberg returned to Mentz in 1456, and made a fresh start, aided financially by Dr Conrad Homery. Here again we are confronted with a want of direct evidence, and can point to no books as certainly being the work of Gutenberg. But there are good reasons for believing that under this new arrangement he printed the _Catholicon_, or Latin grammar and dictionary, of John of Genoa; the _Tractatus racionis et conscientiae_ of Matthaeus de Cracovia; _Summa de articulis fidei_ of Aquinas; and an Indulgence of 1461. There is a colophon to the _Catholicon_ which may possibly have been written by Gutenberg, which runs as follows:--

"By the a.s.sistance of the Most High, at Whose will the tongues of children become eloquent, and Who often reveals to babes what He hides from the wise, this renowned book, the _Catholicon_, was printed and perfected in the year of the Incarnation 1460, in the beloved city of Mentz (which belongs to the ill.u.s.trious German nation, whom G.o.d has consented to prefer and to raise with such an exalted light of the mind and free grace, above the other nations of the earth), not by means of reed, stile, or pen, but by the admirable proportion, harmony, and connection of the punches and types." A metrical doxology follows.

A few other and smaller works have also been believed to have been executed by Gutenberg at this time, but with no certainty.

In 1465 Gutenberg was made one of the gentlemen of the court to Adolph II., Count of Na.s.sau and Archbishop of Mentz, and presumably abandoned his printing on acceding to this dignity. In 1467 or 1468 Gutenberg died, and thus ends the meagre list of facts which we have concerning the life and career of the first printer.

To nearly every question which we might wish to ask about Gutenberg and his work, one of two answers has to be given--"It is not known," or "Perhaps." He does not speak for himself, and none of his personal acquaintance, or his family, if he had any, speak for him. We have no reason to believe that his work brought him any particular honour, and certainly it brought him no wealth. It has been suggested, however, that the post offered to him by the Archbishop was in recognition of his invention, since there is no other reason apparent why the dignity was conferred. But we may well conclude this account of Gutenberg with De Vinne's words, that "there is no other instance in modern history, excepting, possibly, Shakespeare, of a man who did so much and said so little about it."

Fust, the former partner of Gutenberg, died in 1466, leaving a son to succeed him in the partnership with Schoeffer, and Schoeffer died about 1502. Of his three sons (all printers), the eldest, Johann, continued to work at Mentz until about 1533.

The most notable books issued by Fust and Schoeffer were the Psalter of 1457, and the Latin Bible of 1462. The Bible of 1462 is the first Bible with a date. The Psalter of 1457 is famous as being the first printed Psalter, the first printed book with a date, the first example of printing in colours, the first book with a printed colophon, and the first printed work containing musical notes, though these last are not printed but inserted by hand.[2] The colour printing is shown by the red and blue initials, but by what process they were executed has been the subject of much discussion. They are generally supposed to have been added after the rest of the page had been printed, by means of a stamp.

The colophon is written in the curious Latin affected by the early printers, and Mr Pollard offers the following as a rough rendering:--

"The present book of Psalms, adorned with beauty of capitals, and sufficiently marked out with rubrics, has been thus fashioned by an ingenious invention of printing and stamping, and to the worship of G.o.d diligently brought to completion by Johann Fust, a citizen of Mentz, and Peter Schoffer of Gernsheim, in the year of our Lord, 1457, on the Vigil of the Feast of the a.s.sumption."

[2] The first printed musical notes appear in de Gerson's _Collectorium super Magnificat_, printed at Esslingen in 1473 by Conrad Fyner.

These two printers also produced, in 1465, an edition of the _De Officiis_ of Cicero, which shares with the _Lactantius_, printed in the same year at Subiaco, near Rome, by Sweynheim and Pannartz, the honour of exhibiting to the world the first Greek types, and with the same printers' Cicero _De Oratore_, that of being the first printed Latin cla.s.sic, unless an undated _De Officiis_, printed at Cologne by Ulrich Zel about this time, is the real "first."

CHAPTER IX

EARLY PRINTING

Wherever typography originated, it was from Mentz that it was taught to the world. The disturbances in that city in 1462 drove many of its citizens from their homes, and the German printers were thus dispersed over Europe. Within a little more than twenty years from the time of the first issue from the Mentz printing-press, other presses were established at Strasburg, Bamberg, Cologne, Augsburg, Nuremberg, Spires, Ulm, Lubeck, and Breslau; Basle, Rome, Venice, Florence, Naples, and many other Italian cities; Paris and Lyons; Bruges; and, in 1477, at Westminster.

Before the end of the fifteenth century eighteen European countries were printing books. Italy heads the list with seventy-one cities in which presses were at work, Germany follows with fifty, France with thirty-six, Spain with twenty-six, Holland with fourteen; and after these England's four printing-places--Westminster, London, Oxford, and St Albans--make a somewhat small show. Some other countries, however, had but one printing-town. With the possible exception of Holland, England and Scotland are the only countries which are indebted to a native and not (as in every case save that of Ireland) to a German for the introduction of printing.

The early printers were more than mere workmen. They were usually editors and publishers as well. Some of them were a.s.sociated with scholars who did the editorial work: Sweynheim and Pannartz, for instance, the first to set up a press in Italy, had the benefit of the services of the Bishop of Aleria, and their rival, Ulric Hahn, enjoyed for a while the a.s.sistance of the celebrated Campa.n.u.s. Aldus Manutius, too, the founder of the Aldine press at Venice, though himself a literary man and a learned editor, availed himself of the help of several Greek scholars in the revising and correcting of cla.s.sical texts. The exact relations of these editors to the printers, however, is not known. The English printer, Caxton, who also was a scholar, usually, though not invariably, edited his publications himself.

The first printers were also booksellers, and sold other people's books as well as their own. Several of their catalogues or advertis.e.m.e.nts still exist. The earliest known book advertis.e.m.e.nts are some issued by Peter Schoeffer, one, dating from about 1469, giving a list of twenty-one books for sale by himself or his agents in the several towns where he had established branches of his business, and another advertising an edition of St Jerome's _Epistles_ published by Schoeffer at Mentz in 1470. An advertis.e.m.e.nt by Caxton is also extant, and being short, as well as interesting, may be quoted here. It is as follows:--

If it plese ony man spirituel or temporel to bye ony pyes,[3] of two and thre comemoracios of salisburi vse enpryntid after the forme of this preset lettre whiche ben wel and truly correct, late hym come to westmonester in to the almonesrye at the reed pale and he shal haue them good chepe.

Supplico stet cedula.

[3] The Pye, or Pica, directed how saints'-days falling in Lent, Easter, Whitsuntide, and the octave of Trinity, were to be observed with respect to the "commemorations" of these seasons.

The date of this notice is about 1477 or 1478. Other extant examples of early advertis.e.m.e.nts are those of John Mentelin, a Strasburg printer, issued about 1470, and of Antony Koburger, of Nuremberg, issued about ten years later. In 1495 Koburger advertised the Nuremberg Chronicle.

Early printed books exhibit a very limited range of subject, and were hardly ever used to introduce a new contemporary writer. Theology and jurisprudence in Germany, and the cla.s.sics in Italy, inaugurated the new invention, and lighter fare was not served to the patrons of printed literature until a later date. Italy made the first departure, and took up history, romance, and poetry. France began with the cla.s.sics, and then neglected them for romances and more popular works, but at the same time became noted for the beautifully illuminated service-books produced at Paris and Rouen, and which supplied the clergy of both France and England. England, who received printing twelve years after Italy and seven years after France, made more variety in her books than any.

Caxton's productions consist of works dealing with subjects of wider interest, even if less learned and improving--romances, chess, good manners, _aesop's Fables_, the _Canterbury Tales_, and the _Adventures of Reynard the Fox_.

From what sort of type the Bible usually considered to be the first printed book was produced is not known. Some competent authorities think that wooden types were used. Others are in favour of metal, and like the late Mr Winter Jones, scout the notion of wooden types and consider them "impossible things." But Skeen, in his _Early Typography_, declares that hard wood would print better than soft lead, such as Blades hints that Caxton's types were made of, and to ill.u.s.trate the possibility of wooden types prints a word in Gothic characters from letters cut in boxwood.

The objections made to types of this nature are that they would be too weak to bear the press, could never stand washing and cleaning, and would swell when wet and shrink when dried. Some have thought that the early types were made by stamping half-molten metal with wooden punches, and so forming matrices from which the types were subsequently cast.

As we have already noticed in connection with the Mazarin Bible, the forms of the types were copied from the Gothic or black letter characters in which Bibles, psalters, and missals were then written.

When Roman type was first cut is uncertain. The "R" printer of Strasburg, whose name is unknown, and whose works are dated only by conjecture, may have been the first to use it. It was employed by Sweynheim and Pannartz in 1467, and by the first printers in Paris and Venice. It was brought to the greatest perfection by Nicolas Jenson, a Frenchman working in Venice. Caxton never employed it, and it was not introduced into England until 1509. In that year Richard Pynson, a London printer and a naturalised Englishman, though Norman by birth, used some Roman type in portions of the _Sermo Fratris Hieronymi de Ferrara_, and in 1518 he produced _Oratio Ricardi Pacaei_, which was entirely printed in these characters.

Had the idea of the t.i.tle-page, in the modern sense of the term, a very obvious idea, as it seems to us, occurred to the first printers, we should not have to sharpen our wits on the hundred and one doubtful points with which the subject of early bibliography bristles. To-day, the t.i.tle-page not only introduces the book itself, but declares the name of the writer and the publisher, and the time and place of publication. But during the first sixty years of printing t.i.tle-pages were rare, and the old methods followed by the scribes in writing their ma.n.u.script books still obtained. The subject matter began with "Incipit"

or "Here beginneth," etc., according to the language in which the work was written, and such information as the printer considered it desirable to impart was contained in the colophon, or note affixed to the end of the book.