Gutenberg and the Invention of the Printing Press

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Gutenberg and the Invention of the Printing Press
Johann Gutenberg (1398-1468)
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Introduction

• After the fall of the Roman Empire, learning
  survived in Monasteries.
• Repositories of texts from ancient Greece and
  Rome that survived in Europe were hidden away.
• The 7th to 9th Century development of the
  illuminated manuscript
• Example The Book of Kells Appearance was just
  as important, if not more so, than content

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Introduction

• Some of the problems with making books before the
  Gutenberg press were
• The process was expensive
• It was time-consuming
• The text was open to being changed depending on
  the scribe
• Activities had to be coordinated between
  painters, binders, sewers, illuminators, and
  sellers. As a result, only wealthy aristocracy
  could own books.

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The Book of Kells

• Written around the year 800 AD, it contains a
  Latin text of the four Gospels with smaller
  painted decorations to illumine the text.

It was widely held that the average working man
of that time period would not read a book that
was not illuminated.
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Illustrated Manuscripts and their influence on
news

• Monasteries had little effect in the flow of
  communication, or news.
• Manuscripts were not intended to be accounts of
  contemporary events.
• Books were housed in libraries, usually connected
  to monasteries and cathedrals, or a royal house
• Lack of cataloging system as a way of knowing
  what was available in the collection.
• The masses did not receive any news, other than
  announcements from those in power as to what was
  going to happen to them.

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Illustrated Manuscripts and their influence on
news

• Distinction between learned literacy (Latin) and
  vulgar literacy (the vernacular)
• The goal of universal literacy was unthinkable in
  the Middle Ages
• Religious institutions linked to the Roman
  Catholic Church were the biggest promoters of
  literacy
• These institutions were also the regulators of
  the written word

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What changed?

• The growth of towns and commerce saw the
  emergence of merchants and financers.
• They created further need for information.
• First commercial application of information or
  news occurred during 15th and 16th Centuries.
• The rise of the House of Fugger a powerful
  German merchant and banking family that dominated
  European business at that time.
• Jakob Fugger used newsletters to keep the
  far-flung branches of his company informed.

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Fugger Newsletters

• Information collected by correspondents, tracked
  economic and political activity.
• Information was sent to bank managers so they can
  use it to negotiate deals and influence politics.
• By 16th Century, House of Fugger had its own news
  agency in full operation.

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Invention of Printing by Johannes Gutenberg (1440)

• Printing not entirely new before this time
• Printing, using wood blocks, existed in Korea
  (8th Century)
• Moveable type cast, 10th Century in China.
• Casting type in metal and printing books (Korea
  by 15th Century)

• However, invention of moveable type was not seen
  as a significant discovery of the Far East.
• China, Korea, and Japan all lacked an alphabet
  since their written language consist of over 40
  thousand separate symbols
• The 26-letter alphabet used in Western languages
  gave the moveable type such an important place in
  history of printing.

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The Wooden Printing Press

• Earliest known printed books were produced using
  wooden blocks with the text carved on them.
• Process was laborious and time-consuming which
  made books scarce and expensive.

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The Gutenberg Press (1436-1440)

• Innovative printing machine that used movable
  type.
• Created individual pieces of type such as
  letters, punctuations marks and abbreviations.
• Process began with a punch A rectangular block
  made of softer metal with a hammer-blow.
• Typecaster then poured in molten lead mixed with
  a small of antimony.
• Typecaster made numerous copies of each raised
  image.
• Raised image was inked for printing (typeface)

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The Gutenberg Press cont.

• The types were then placed in a box called a Type
  case.
• Type case had enough compartments so that each
  letter, number and character was assigned a
  specific compartment of its own.
• To compose a page, printer selected letters one
  at a time and line them up in a composing
  stick.
• Then using pieces of type with no face on them,
  spaces between words were adjusted to justify the
  line to required length.

The Type Case
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cont

• Gutenberg modeled his typefaces on the letters
  used in handwritten books (imitating the Monks)
• This style black letter or gothic.
• Very popular style in Germany until mid-1940s.
• Printers began to use modern Roman type,
  developed in France, in the 2nd half of 16th
  Century.

Black Letter or Gothic
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The Gutenberg Bible

• About 180 Copies were printed.
• Quarter of the total printed in vellum, reminder
  in Italian paper.
• Although it is not the first book to be printed
  by Gutenberg's new system, it is his major work,
  and has iconic status as the start of the
  "Gutenberg Revolution" and the "Age of the
  Printed Book.

The production of the Gutenberg Bible in 1455
marked the beginning of the mass production of
books. This was a HUGE deal!
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Social Impacts of Gutenbergs invention

• Increased the speed of printing and improved
  accuracy and reliability in the transmission of
  texts.
• Reduce the price of printed materials making them
  more accessible to the masses (free exchange of
  ideas)
• Encourage the spread of vernacular languages like
  German, French, Italian and English (before was
  primarily Latin)
• Weakened the power of the Catholic Church (power
  based in the use of Latin as a language to
  worship God)
• Printing allowed a larger audience to read
  Luthers German translation of the Bible.
• Accelerated the pace of the Protestant Reformation

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The Spread in Europe of the Printing Press

• First printing press in England established in
  1477, London soon became one of the most
  important centers for printers and it still is
  today
• Authorities limited printing to London in order
  to keep an eye on printers.
• Printers were licensed and subject to severe
  penalties if they disobeyed the law.
• In 1584 Cambridge University also started
  printing.
• In 1587 Oxford University followed.
• In 1593 Shakespeare Venus Adonis was printed.
  This represented the start of a new era in
  literature.

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Oldest ancestors of modern newspaper Gazette

• Newssheets circulated widely in Venice in 16th
  Century.
• Venice was a center of trade and information
  making essential for the merchants to know
  location of vessels and the value of jewels and
  spices carried.
• In 1556 Venetian Government ordered the
  collection of information and dispatch of news
  Gazette.
• Gazette had information on wars and politics in
  Italy and Europe. Distributed weekly and far away
  (London)
• Duplicates of these dispatches were made
  available to merchants.
• The printing press dramatically increased the
  circulation of reading material Between
  1450-1550, 6000 works printed

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Printing press and newspapers

• Printers in northern Europe produced mostly
  religious books Bibles, Psalters, and missals.
• Italian printers printed secular works Greek and
  Roman classics, stories of secular Italian
  writers and scientific works of Renaissance
  scholars.
• An important early use of printing Pamphlets
  reporting single news event and usually printed
  in one side
• In 16th and 17th Centuries, thousands of
  pamphlets circulated in Europe
• Pamphlets did not qualify as newspapers because
  they appeared only once, report in one story.

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Early Newspapers in Europe

• Newsgathering had two primary sources newspapers
  and ships captains.
• News printed in newspapers of this era were at
  least one month old.
• First half of 17th Century, more modern
  newspapers began to appear.
• Differed from pamphlets because they were issued
  from printing press regularly.
• Printed weeklies appeared in many cities (Basel
  1610, Vienna 1615, in France 1631, Italy 1639,
  etc)
• Printers in Amsterdam exported weeklies in French
  and English as early as 1620.

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continue

• First regular newspaper printed in England The
  Weekly News (1622)
• This newspaper had news items from Europe, and
  occasionally from Asia and America.
• Rarely covered domestic issues - politically
  dangerous - instead reported on French military
  blunders.
• Early period of the press marked by strict
  censorship.
• First major change came after English Civil War
  national news suddenly assumed a new importance.
• Newspapers liberated by breakdown of Kings
  authority began to discuss freely local and
  national issues.

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The First Writer?

• The Dutch humanist was the first scholar who
  lived off his writing
• He used the printing press effectively to promote
  his style of Christian humanism

Erasmus
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The Medium as the Message?

• The 1962 book The Gutenberg Galaxy The Making of
  Typographic Man, argued that the invention of
  printing marked a radical shift in western
  culture to the visual

Marshall McLuhan
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A Printing Revolution?

• In 1979, Elizabeth Eisenstein published her The
  Printing Press as an Agent of Change, in which
  she argued that the printing press was the
  decisive element spurring on the Renaissance, the
  Reformation, and the Scientific Revolution

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What Does It Really Mean?

• Should a material object take precedence over
  living, breathing human beings as agents of
  change? Is this what happened?
• Did the medium of print really change how people
  thought and experienced the world?
• Does the emphasis on revolution obscure
  continuities with the medieval past?

Huh?!