Part 32
In 1465, Adolph II made Gutenberg one of the gentlemen of his court for “agreeable and voluntary service rendered to us and our bishopric.” The nature of the service is not defined. Gutenberg was certainly not a soldier. His German biographers do not believe that, as diplomatist or politician, he had favored the cause of the destroyer of the liberties of his native city. Helbig thinks the words used are purely conventional, and that this distinction was conferred on Gutenberg because he was connected with the old nobility of the city. It is a more common and a more reasonable belief that Adolph recognized, to some extent, the utility of Gutenberg’s invention, and took this method to honor the inventor.
WE, Adolph, elected and confirmed archbishop of Mentz, acknowledge that we have considered the agreeable and voluntary service which our dear and faithful Johan Gutenberg has rendered to us and our bishopric, and have appointed and accepted him as our servant and courtier. Nor shall we remove him from our service as long as he lives; and in order that he may enjoy it the more, we will clothe him every year, when we clothe our ordinary suite (_unsern gemeinen hoffgesind_), always like our noblemen, and give him our court dress; also every year twenty mout of corn and two voer of wine for the use of his house, free of duty, as long as he lives, but on condition that he shall not sell it or give it away. Which has been promised us in good faith by Johan Gutenberg. Eltvill, Thursday after St. Antony, 1465.[279] [p441]
The man who had invented an art which promised to renew the literature of the world, who had printed two great _Bibles_, a _Latin Dictionary_, and many minor works relating to religion, had surely rendered service to the first ecclesiastical dignitary of Germany.
Here Gutenberg’s work ends. If not disqualified by the infirmities of age from the management of his printing office, his position as courtier must have compelled his attendance at the court of the archbishop. Possibly, the rules of the court required Gutenberg to withdraw from business. Whatever the reason, we see that the printing office at Eltvill passed into the hands of his relatives by marriage, the brothers Henry and Nicholas Bechtermüntz. It does not appear that these men had been formally instructed as printers in Mentz. As they acquired no rights of proprietorship in this office, as they were men of middle age, rich, of noble birth and of high civic position, it may be supposed that they took charge of the office to oblige Gutenberg and the archbishop, and, perhaps, from a pure love of the new art.
In the year 1467, this printing office at Eltvill produced a book now known as the _Vocabularium ex quo_, called so because these first words of the work serve to distinguish it from other vocabularies. It is an abbreviation of the _Catholicon_, and for that reason is described in the colophon as an _opusculum_, or a little work; but it is a heavy quarto of 330 pages. It is printed with the types of the _Catholicon_, and shows the same peculiarities of composition. The colophon says that “this little book was made, not by reed, nor pen, nor stencil plate, but by a certain new and subtile invention . . . by Henry Bechtermüntz, of blessed memory.[280] . . . Nicholas Bechtermüntz, and Wygand Spyess of Orthenburg.”[281]
Gutenberg could not have abandoned his printing office with much regret. He had abundantly demonstrated the [p442] utility of his invention and his own ability as a printer by the publication of two great books and many pamphlets. His art had been adopted in five German cities: it was then making its entry in Rome; it was eagerly sought for by the king of France. A future of unbounded popularity and usefulness was before it. The young men to whom Gutenberg had taught the practice of printing had so improved that they were his equals and superiors, and the old man of quite seventy years could not cope with these competitors. His ambition for pre-eminence in his own art, or for the wealth that should have been derived from its practice, if he ever had such aspirations, had to be given up. It was time that he should quit the stage.
Gutenberg did not long enjoy the leisure or the honors of a courtier. In February, 1468, he was dead. Nothing is known of the cause or the circumstances of his death, nor is there any mention of a surviving family. We have to conclude that John Gutenberg, the inventor of the greatest of modern arts, died, weighed down by debts, and unattended by wife or child. The disposition of his printing office is stated in the following document:[282]
I, THE undersigned, Conrad Humery, doctor, acknowledge by this writing, that his eminence the prince, my gracious and dear lord Adolphus, archbishop of Mentz, has generously delivered to me certain formen [matrices or moulds], characters [types], instruments, utensils, and other implements connected with printing, which John Gutenberg left after his death, which materials belonged and still belong to me:[283] but, for the honor and the satisfaction of his eminence I am bound, and I pledge myself, by this document, never to put them to use but in the city of Mentz, and further, to sell them, at a fair price, to a citizen of Mentz in preference to any other. In testimony whereof, I have put my seal to these presents, which have been made in the year of our Lord 1468, on the Friday after Saint Matthew’s day [26th of February]. [p443]
In this strange document we again find the word _formen_, and the _formen_ are specified first, as if they were the most valuable tools. As types are specifically described, it is plain that these _formen_ must have been matrices or moulds.
Humery kept his word. The types and tools of Gutenberg remained with Nicholas Bechtermüntz until his death. They were then transferred to the custody or the possession of the Brothers of the Life-in-Common, who had a printing office at Marienthal, near Eltvill, as early as 1468. That this place was regarded as a part of Mentz may be inferred from the imprint they put on their first book, which is to this effect: Dated in our city of Mentz on the last day of August, 1468. Eltvill was the chosen residence of the archbishop, and under his jurisdiction, and might properly be considered as a dependency or a part of the city of Mentz.
For some unknown reason these Brothers of the Life-in-Common made no use of the types of Gutenberg. In the year 1508, they were sold to Frederic Hauman of Nuremberg, who established a printing office in Mentz, and who used these types in many of his books.[284] The house that had been occupied by Hauman as a printing office was subsequently used for the same purpose by Albinus, a printer of [p444] the seventeenth century. The types of Gutenberg were in this house at the end of the sixteenth century, for Serarius, in his _History of Mentz_, says that he had seen them there.[285]
Humery’s promise that, in the sale of the printing materials then contemplated, he would give preference to a citizen of Mentz, was obviously made at the request of the archbishop. It follows that the types of the dead printer were then regarded as relics of value of which the city should be proud. This request, which would not have been made without occasion, seems to confirm the conjecture that Gutenberg had previously sold the types, or at least the matrices, of the _Bible of 36 lines_ to Albert Pfister, of the monastic town of Bamberg. It is not probable that the deed of gift would have been clogged with this stipulation, if there had been no sale.
This request of the archbishop is the only evidence we have that Gutenberg’s work was appreciated, but the appreciation came when he was dead. No contemporary writer noticed the _Bible of 42 lines_, and no one during his lifetime suitably honored Gutenberg as a great inventor. The archbishop, who knew the merit of the man, and pitied his misfortunes, had not a word to say in the document that made him a courtier of his services as an inventor or printer.
This indifference or want of perception seems inexcusable, but it was not altogether without cause. The readers of that time were somewhat familiar with printed impressions in the form of block-books, and the _Bible of 42 lines_ may have seemed to them but a block-book of larger size and of higher order. Knowing that engraving, ink, paper, and impression upon surfaces in relief, were used in both processes, the ordinary book-buyer could have inferred that type-printing was the natural outgrowth of the older and well-known art of block-printing. According to this view, Gutenberg invented little or nothing; he did but little more than combine some old and well-known processes; he distinguished himself more by the great size of his books than by the novelty or merit [p445] of his process. It is but proper to expose this sophistry, for it is perpetuated to this day in several books on typography.
This grave error did not originate with the first printers, who knew the full difference between type and block-printing. They knew that Gutenberg was indebted to the earlier block-printers for a great deal of his knowledge, but they knew as well that his system of printing was a great and an original invention, for they clearly understood, what the ordinary book-reader did not, the value of its characteristic feature. And here it may be repeated, for the error is common and it is necessary to be emphatic, that the merit of Gutenberg as an inventor is not based upon his supposed discovery of the advantages of movable types, but upon the system by which he made the movable types. All the printers of that period recognized the fact that Gutenberg’s method of making the types, or the type-mould, with its connections, was the proper basis or starting-point of the invention. Schœffer, who first printed a notice of the new art, speaks of it as the “masterly invention of printing and also of type-making,” implying that the art of printing was inseparably connected with that of type-making. John Gutenberg, in the _Catholicon_, has not a word to say about isolated types, nor about a combination of types: the admiration which he invokes for the masterly invention should, in his view of the matter, be bestowed on its system of making the types, or on the “admirable proportion, connection and harmony of the punches and matrices.”
Gutenberg made no effort to secure for himself his rightful honors as the inventor of printing, but his friends who knew the nature and value of his services were not neglectful. We have abundant evidence that Gutenberg was the man, and Mentz the place, where printing was invented.
Trithemius, from information furnished by Peter Schœffer, said, in a book written before 1490, “About this time (1450), the admirable and then unheard-of art of composing and printing books, by means of types, was conceived and invented at Mentz, by a citizen of Mentz, named John Gutenberg.” [p446]
Matthias Palmer, in 1474, said that John Gutenberg, a knight of Mentz, had invented the art of printing books.
Ulric Zell’s testimony, given in 1499, is equally explicit.[286]
Polydore Virgil, in his treatise on _Inventions_, says, in the first edition, that printing was invented by one Peter [probably Peter Schœffer], but in the second edition of 1517, he corrected the error, and attributed the invention to Gutenberg.
Wimpheling, in 1499, wrote and published at Heidelberg some verses praising Gutenberg, in which he said, “Blessed Gensfleisch! through you Germany is famous everywhere. Assisted by Omniscience, you John, first of all, printed with letters in metal. Religion, the wisdom of Greece, and the language of the Latins, are forever indebted to you.” Two professors at Heidelberg, at an earlier date (1494), had written panegyrics on Gutenberg as the inventor of typography, in which he is honored above all the great men of antiquity.[287]
Two friends of Gutenberg who, no doubt, knew all about his invention, put up tablets to his memory, in which his merit as an inventor is distinctly acknowledged. The inscriptions on these tablets have not received the attention which they merit. The tablet first placed was put up not long after his death by his relative, Adam Gelthus, near his tomb in the church of St. Francis. This is a translation of the inscription:
To John Genszfleisch, inventor of the art of printing, and deserver of the highest honors from every nation and tongue, Adam Gelthus places this tablet, in perpetual commemoration of his name. His remains peacefully repose in the church of St. Francis of Mentz.[288] [p447]
Gelthus properly describes Gutenberg’s invention as _the_ art of printing. In a practical view, there was no other.
Equally instructive is the pithy inscription on the second tablet, which was put up by Ivo Wittig,[289] in the court of the house of the Gensfleisch family, where Gutenberg is supposed to have died,[290] and which was then used as a law school.
To John Gutenberg, of Mentz, who, first of all, invented printing letters in brass [matrices and moulds], and by this art has deserved honor from the whole world, Ivo Wittig places this stone in commemoration, 1508.[291]
Ivo Wittig, who had probably known Gutenberg, and who clearly understood his process, is not content with a paraphrase of the Gelthus inscription. In plain words, he specifies the key of the invention: Gutenberg, first of all, made types in brass moulds and matrices. In other words, it was only through the invention of the type-mould and matrices in brass that printing became a great art. This inscription shows that [p448] Wittig, then professor of history in the University, and probably the most learned man in Mentz, regarded John Gutenberg as the true inventor of printing.
Considered from a mechanical point of view, the merit of Gutenberg’s invention may be inferred from its permanency. His type-mould was not merely the first; it is the only practical mechanism for making types. For more than four hundred years this mould has been under critical examination, and many attempts have been made to supplant it. Contrivances have been invented for casting fifty or more types at one operation; for swaging types, like nails, out of cold metal; for stamping types from cylindrical steel dies upon the ends of thin copper rods—but experience has shown that these and like inventions in the department of type-making machinery are impracticable. There is no better method than Gutenberg’s. Modern type-casting machines have moulds attached to them which are more exact and more carefully finished, and which have many little attachments of which Gutenberg never dreamed, but in principle and in all the more important features, the modern moulds may be regarded as the moulds of Gutenberg.
Gutenberg’s merit as an original inventor, although never properly recognized during his life, was never denied. But this merit was disallowed and set aside after his death by the sons and friends of Peter Schœffer. They said that printing was only half invented by Gutenberg, and that the complete invention is really due to Gutenberg’s assistant and successor. As this claim has been repeated by many authors, it is necessary, for the vindication of Gutenberg, to review the work and workmanship of Peter Schœffer and John Fust.
[p449]
XXIII
The Work of Peter Schœffer and John Fust.
Schœffer a Copyist at Paris in 1449 . . . Fac-simile of his Writing . . . Enters the Service of Gutenberg . . . Psalter of 1457, with Fac-simile of Types and Initials in Colors . . . Accurate Register of Initial made by Painting the Cut . . . Evidences of Painting . . . Fac-simile of Colophon in Colors . . . Different Theories concerning the Method of Printing . . . Schœffer’s First Claim as an Inventor . . . Psalter probably Planned by Gutenberg . . . Fac-similes of the Types of the Rationale Durandi and of the Bible of 1462 . . . Trade-Mark of Fust and Schœffer . . . Fac-simile of the Types of the Constitutions . . . Jenson’s Mission to Mentz . . . Printing not a Secret . . . Death of Fust . . . Partnership of Schœffer and Conrad Fust . . . Fac-simile of Types of 1468 . . . Schœffer becomes a Judge . . . Schœffer’s Claim to the Invention of Matrices . . . Statements of John Schœffer and of Trithemius . . . Their Improbability . . . Statement of Jo. Frid. Faustus . . . Its Untrustworthiness.
* * * * *
The man who enters the service of Gutenberg and Fust at Mentz after 1450, when the invention was completed, and has yet the courage to declare in 1468, that he, Petrus, entered first of all the sanctuary of the art, is, notwithstanding all his technical ability as a typographer, a bragger, against whose information we ought to be on our guard.
_Van der Linde._
* * * * *
Peter Schœffer was born at Gernszheim, a little village situated on the Rhine, near Mentz, about the year 1430. Before he was twenty years of age, he was copying books at Paris, as is clearly enough shown in the colophon of an old manuscript book, which says that “this book was completed by me, Peter, of Gernszheym, or of Mentz, during the year 1449, in the most glorious University of Paris.” This isolated fact is the only authority for the assertion that Schœffer was a calligrapher, engaged by Gutenberg to design the letters and ornaments of the _Bible of 42 lines_. He may have been qualified for this service, but the thin letters and angular ornaments of his colophon are not like the thick types and flowing lines of Gutenberg’s Bible. Like all poor students [p450] of his time, Schœffer was a copyist, but we have no evidence that he was a calligrapher or an illuminator. As a student of the University of Paris, he was qualified to read and correct the proofs of a Bible in Latin, and this may have been the duty for which he was engaged. If so, he was not really needed in the printing office until the types were founded, or until 1453; but whether he came then or before, it is obvious that he entered the printing office as a boy from school, and that all he knew of printing was taught him by Gutenberg. He proved an apt scholar. Fust’s confidence in his ability is enough to show that he had added skill to his knowledge, and that, when Gutenberg departed, he was competent to supervise and manage all the departments of the printing office.
Bernard thinks that Schœffer’s first work in his new place was to change the appearance of the _Bible of 42 lines_[292] by the cancellation of eight pages of 42 lines, and the substitution of pages of 40 lines, with summaries printed in red ink. The extraordinary licence then enjoyed by copyists allowed the compositor to abbreviate the words of a manuscript copy [p451] of 42 lines, until they were crowded into the space of 40 lines. The page was made of full length by leading out, or by widening the lines with bands of stout parchment.
The first book published by Fust, after his separation from Gutenberg, was the _Psalter[293] of 1457_, a folio of 175 leaves, which is almost as famous as the _Bible of 42 lines_. Only seven fair copies of the edition of 1457 are known, and all of them are on vellum. The leaves of this book are nearly square, smaller in size than those of the _Bible of 42 lines_, but, like that book, they are made up, for the most part, in sections of ten nested leaves. The size of the printed page is irregular, but most pages are about 8 inches wide and 12 inches high. The Psalms are printed in types of Double-paragon body, and the introductory or connecting text in types of Double-great-primer body.[294] As the cut or fashion of these types is like that of the Bibles of Gutenberg, it is possible that they were designed by the same hand. The leaf was not broad enough for the large-sized types, but a very large portion of it was given up to the initial letters and their pendants, which are of unusual dimensions. The space allotted to the print is small: but a few lines of the large types could be put on a page, and on many pages it was necessary to use small types. The fault of uneven or ragged outline on the right side of the page, which has been noticed in the _Bible of 42 lines_, is repeated more strikingly in the _Psalter_. Here and there spaces were made for plain chant notes of music, parts of which appear in printing ink, while other parts seem to have been retraced with a pen.
It is obviously an imitation not only of the copyist’s but of the illuminator’s work upon a fine manuscript. It was intended that the book should show the full capacity of the newly discovered art. Letters and lines in red ink are to [p452] be found on every page, and there are many very large and profusely ornamented initials in red and blue inks. To the young reader who is accustomed to the severe and colorless style of modern printing, the boldness and blackness of the stately text types of this _Psalter_, the brightness of its rubrics, and the graceful forms of its two-colored initials, are really bewildering. They lead him to the belief that the workmanship of the book is of the highest order. This has been the opinion of many eminent authors;[295] the _Psalter of 1457_ has been called the perfection of printing.
The initial letter B, the largest in the book, which is at the beginning of the first Psalm, _Beatus vir_, has been often reproduced, and commended as an example of skillful engraving, brilliant color and faultless register. The design is beautiful, and admirably fitted for relief printing, but it is not in the Gothic or German style: the palm-leaf fillet-work is oriental, and was probably copied from some Spanish manuscript, the illuminator of which had been taught in the Moorish schools. In a few copies, the letter is red and the ornament is blue; in other copies, the colors are reversed. In all copies the thin white line which separates the red from the blue is always of uniform thickness: there is no overlapping or meeting of the adjacent colors. The register is without fault in all the copies. The quality of the ink has been greatly praised: we are told [p454] that the black of the text is very deep and glossy, that the red has a vividness of color, and the blue a delicacy of tint, not to be found in the productions of any modern printer. It has been asserted that this _Psalter_ is more neatly printed than any modern book; that Schœffer, with rudely made types, a rough press of wood, and with small experience in, or scientific knowledge of, ink-making, succeeded in producing presswork that has never been excelled on modern presses. These bold assertions require careful examination.