- "The whole world admits unhesitatingly; and there
can be no doubt about this, that Gutenberg's invention is the incomparably
greatest event in the history of the world -Mark Twain
-
-
- Recently an American team researching world history over
the last centuries declared Johannes Gutenberg to be the "man of the
millennium. In their statement they insisted that with his invention of
the movable letter press, Gutenberg had established a vital precondition
for huge changes in socio-economic, political and cultural fields which
followed in succeeding centuries.
-
-
- There is a deficit of reliable information about the
life of Gutenberg; many aspects of his own biography either remain blank,
are the subject of speculation or still under research. Nevertheless the
question can and should be posed: who was this man and what is the significance
of his invention?
-
-
- There can be no doubt that the printing press has had
an enormous impact on the development of human communication and therefore
human history. Many articles have been written about him in the international
press to coincide with the six hundredth anniversary of his birth"coming
together as it does with the ushering in of a new millennium. Despite somewhat
exaggerated attempts to depict Gutenberg as the man of the second millennium,
one can reasonably describe him as "one among many who made a huge
contribution to human progress.
-
-
- In its early days, printing was known as the German art
or "Schwarze Kunst. It is misleading, however, to depict Johannes
Gutenberg simply as the inventor of printing. Printing with the aid of
engraved wooden blocks had already been practised in Far Eastern countries
such as China, Japan and Korea from the eighth and ninth centuries. Wood
block printing only appeared in Europe in the fourteenth century. The technique
was arduous and time consuming, with every individual block having to be
carved by hand. The technical revolution inaugurated by Gutenberg involved
the development of reusable movable type"the basic principle of which
survived well into the twentieth century. In this respect he justifiably
deserves his title as the "the father of printing.
-
-
- Inventors and their inventions have always fascinated
human beings throughout history, but the significance of the invention
of the movable letter press can be only understood if one becomes familiar
with the life and times of the inventor. Gutenberg's life spanned much
of the fifteenth century"a period bridging the end of the Middle Ages
and the Renaissance, an era of profound social transformation. His own
life and character were forged in a period of the decay of the old feudal
order and the emergence of pre-bourgeois society based on commodity-money
relationships.
-
-
- Centuries of a relative standstill in terms of human
development were finally coming to an end. New technologies were coming
into being or had been imported into Europe from other countries and bygone
civilisations. Already in the thirteenth century those returning from the
Holy Crusades brought back with them a wealth of knowledge from the Greeks
and Romans, lost to educated Europe since the downfall of the Roman Empire.
The discovery of gun powder, the compass and the water wheel, paper production,
the clock and developments in medicine, astronomy and mathematics, together
with the emergence of universities all over Europe, opened up a new chapter
in human history.
-
-
- All of these advances, together with developments in
navigation, broke apart old geographical limitations. Following the example
of Henry of Portugal (Henry the Navigator), and Columbus's discovery of
America in 1492, European navigators began circumnavigating the globe.
An expansion took place"mainly from Portugal, Spain and Western Europe"into
Africa and the New World. The discovery of "new worlds and "new
peoples was the by-product of the efforts by mercantile capital to extend
trade across the oceans. The exchange and comparison of information, both
in the form of maps and printed books, made the globe comprehensible as
a resource to be exploited.
-
-
- During the period of the late Middle Ages the Roman Catholic
Church was the biggest single landowner in Europe. In alliance with the
feudal aristocracy it represented the most powerful bastion of resistance
to change. Its religious doctrine influenced all walks of life and every
branch of learning was dominated by the clergy. Students came mostly from
the feudal aristocracy and many studied to become members of the priesthood.
Much of the power of the Church was based on its ability to enforce the
use of Latin as the language of worship.
-
-
- The invention of movable type press, which made possible
the mass printing of the Bible, shook the foundations of the Church. For
the first time masses of people were stimulated by printed text and became
aware that Jesus Christ was not wealthy, but rather a simple man. New interpretations
of the Bible served, above all, the interests of the new merchant class.
Old boundaries and divisions"differences of caste and race that divided
the masses and cemented the rule of powerful regional kings in the old
feudal system"hindered the emerging bourgeoisie. New interpretations
of the Bible became an important instrument for breaking the monopoly of
the Church and monarchy and enabling the merchants to realise their goal
of a powerful nation-state as opposed to dozens of regional fiefdoms.
-
-
- Fearing growing unrest and opposition to Church authorities
amongst the masses, the Church had to re-invent its own regulations and
codes of law to survive the upheavals. New lines were added to its own
interpretation of the Bible stating: "To possess more money than one
needs is a sin"a clear swipe by the Church and its allies against
the merchant class and its popularised ideals.
-
-
- It was a crime to translate the Bible. "In 1521,
William Tyndale, an Oxford scholar, began to translate the Bible into English.
He did so because he was shocked to find that the people of England were
scripturally illiterate. Tyndale translated the Bible into English, printed
copies of his version at Antwerp, and illegally smuggled the Bibles into
England. In 1535, he was betrayed by a fellow Englishman and was burnt
at the stake. His last words, reportedly, were "Lord, open the king
of England's eyes!(Jay Rogers, The Book That Changed History http://www.gospelcom.net/ccmag/ssm/Rogers.html)
-
-
- The single greatest challenge to the hegemony of the
Catholic Church was initiated in Germany at the beginning of sixteenth
century by Martin Luther, whose publication of the Bible in the German
language initiated what was to become later known as the Protestant Reformation.
During the Middle Ages illiteracy was the norm in Europe; religious propaganda
for the masses had been largely communicated through the spoken word and
images. Luther's powerful challenge to the monopoly of the Catholic Church
came in the form of books"notably Bibles and prayer books in vernacular
(non-Latin) languages.
-
-
- The shift from a religious focus and the worship of god
to other, more earthly horizons created a new demand for printed matter.
The rise of the university and libraries available to scholars filled the
growing demand for books, including those of a secular nature. An increasingly
literate public was able to confront the emerging fields of science as
a whole. The rise of science finally sounded the death bell for the supremacy
of the Church.
-
-
- Despite the demand for knowledge, created by the rise
of the universities, the technology to further motivate this process was
still in a primitive stage. Elizabeth Eisenstein (a researcher and writer
on the Middle Ages as well as printing) argues that this was one of the
reasons for the eclipse of the early "Italian renaissance. Though
the universities remained, "the original burst of scholarship could
not be maintained because the communication system was inadequate to the
task (Elizabeth Eisenstein, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, 2
vols.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979).
-
-
- It is within this context that the significance of Gutenberg's
invention of the printing press must be seen. It created the sole base
for the circulation of the vast knowledge of the late golden renaissance.
The printed book became the means of establishing the vernacular language
as a medium for understanding literary texts, which themselves were to
play such a major role in the democratic revolutions of later centuries
(see note below).
-
-
- The life of Johannes Gutenberg
-
-
- Although the exact year of Gutenberg's birth is not known,
it is estimated he was born around the year 1400. He was the son of a merchant
in one of the largest towns in Germany"Mainz, a town renowned for
its wine with a population of over 6,000 and residence of an elector, one
of the mightiest princes of the Church in Germany. Johannes Gutenberg was
the third of three children. His real name was Johannes Gensfleish, but
he encountered some problems with his surname, which translates into English
as "goose-flesh. He adopted the name of the area where his family
lived, "Zum Gutenberg. In his youth he was educated in Latin by the
clergy, and without his training in Latin his later work may well have
proved impossible.
-
-
- In the early decades of the fifteenth century Mainz,
lying on the River Rhine, was a significant centre for trade. The town
had 40 churches soaring to the skies, mocking the mere mortals forced to
eke out their existence in the streets below. Gutenberg lived there until
about 1428, learning the goldsmith craft and working for his father. The
years 1428-34 are unwritten pages in his biography. It is not clear where
he lived during this period, however records say that from 1434 until 1444
he lived in Strasbourg"possibly in a sort of exile imposed by the
Mainz town authorities for tax irregularities. It was in Strasbourg that
he devoted his time, talents and material means to make the necessary preparations
for the printing of the Bible.
-
-
- "He trained under his father in metal working and
spent some time in Strasbourg perfecting his skills in jewel making, gem
cutting and a variety of other crafts. Although he found little success
in making souvenirs and trinkets for religious pilgrims; one item in his
line did bring some profit and spurred the printing idea.
-
-
- "Gutenberg cast a metal stamp for printing indulgences,
(those Church contracts that Martin Luther hated so much). There was more
of a profit motive in the business than any religious calling. If one could
make money stamping out little scraps of paper, what could be made by taking
on the big job'"the whole Bible itself. As early as the 1430s, he
was working on an idea for a printing press (Frank Granger, Gutenberg"The
Most Important Man of the Millennium <http://teched.edtl.vt.edu/gcc/HTML/PrintingsPast/GutenbergBible.htmlhttp://tec
hed.edtl.vt.edu/gcc/HTML/PrintingsPast/GutenbergBible.html)
-
-
- In one of the most extraordinary ironies of history,
Gutenburg's efforts to make his fortune by popularising the Bible were
to play a decisive role in the undermining of the influence of the organised
church.
-
-
- Biographies of Gutenberg note his bitter disputes with
his business partner, a man named Fust who had invested money in Gutenberg's
work and shared the rights to Gutenberg's print shop. Fust was a wealthy
German merchant who, like all merchants, was looking for a healthy return
on his investment. While Gutenberg was struggling to develop a printing
machine which was cheaper, simpler, faster and more reliable, Fust demanded
concrete results and was concerned that his outlay of finance was misplaced.
Although Gutenberg and Fust belonged to the same new-merchant class, Gutenberg
was driven by the spirit of innovation (most probably with the intention
of earning more money) and this was sufficient to cause friction between
the two.
-
-
- In 1448, soon after his return to Mainz, Gutenberg borrowed
150 gulden from Johannes Fust"at that time a sum equivalent to five
years' income of an average peasant. Once again in 1450 he borrowed a further
800 gulden from Fust"equal to the cost of building 10 peasant houses
out of stone. With this capital Gutenberg had the necessary means to realise
his invention and began melting the letters for printing. However, Fust
became increasingly impatient as Gutenberg's experiments went on for years
without discernible results. He was forced to take credit from Fust for
a third time in 1452, once again a sum of 800 gulden.
-
-
- Finally, in the year of 1456, Gutenberg printed his first
Bible. Even before the Bible was made available to the public, Fust, encouraged
by his son-in-law Peter Schöfer"the third partner of the print
shop"demanded that Gutenberg repay his credits with 6 percent interest.
The debt at this time amounted to 2,026 gulden"enough to finance the
construction of an entire street in Mainz. Gutenberg sought to defend himself
in the courts, lost the case and was forced to give up the print shop,
including his invention, to Fust. Fust made a fortune as sales of the Bible
soared, but not a penny went to Gutenberg.
-
-
- In the final period of his life Gutenberg experienced
great hardship. His sister and brother passed away and he became the last
surviving member of his family. After losing his print shop he lived in
poverty until 1465, when he finally received some support by the city of
Mainz, which, according to town reports, allocated him annually 2,180 litres
of grain, wine and a quantity of cloth for his "personal use. Gutenberg
researchers believe that he passed away in Mainz at the age of 68 in February
1468. Today his remains rest beneath the Franziskus church in Mainz.
-
-
- Gutenberg's Bible
-
-
- Gutenberg's Bible was also known as the 42-line Bible,
referring to the number of lines on each page of the printed book. The
Bible numbered 1,282 pages in all, and was the first book to utilise movable
type printing. This was a system in which pieces of type (a series of blocks
each bearing a single letter on its surface) could be assembled and reused
in multiple combination to print a variety of texts. It was printed on
a hand press, in which ink was rolled over the raised surfaces of hand-set
letters held together within a wooden form. The form was then pressed against
a sheet of paper, successfully printing on both sides of a sheet of paper.
-
-
- When the Bible was finally published as a printed book
in the year 1456 the overwhelming majority of European people were illiterate.
At the end of the fourteenth century in northern Germany only 5 percent
of the population could read. But the emergence of the new medium would
have immediate consequences. By 1500 almost 40,000 editions of the Bible
had been printed throughout Europe. Within just three decades this new
technology had spread all over Europe. Only a handful of innovations can
claim to have had such a rapid and far-reaching influence in human history.
-
-
- Gutenberg's original Bible, written in Latin and printed
in a very thick rich black ink, still remains vividly legible even after
the passing of many centuries. Gutenberg printed nearly 180 copies of his
Bible and it was an immediate bestseller. Only 49 copies of the original
print-run remain in existence. They are to be found in the British Library
in London, the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, the Library of Congress
in Washington DC, the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz, and in the possession
of the German state of Niedersachsen. At a recent auction one of the Gutenberg
Bibles changed hands for $2.4 million. (The Gutenberg Bible is also accessible
in digital form at <http://www.gutenbergdigital.de/http://www.gutenbergdigital.de/.)
-
-
- Nearly 500 years have elapsed since the invention of
the movable type printing machine. Since then the printing industry has
gone through enormous technological advancements. No observer can fail
to be amazed at the speed, power and capacity of the new digital and computer-controlled
print machines on exhibit at the "Drupa'' (the biggest printing and
paper exhibition held once every four years in Düsseldorf, Germany).
-
-
- The recent development of Internet technology has led
a number of experts to predict the end of "Gutenberg's Galaxy. In
their view, rapid developments in communication will put an end to printed
material. But evidence indicates that the development and popularising
of technologies where books are available on CD-ROM or directly on the
web as "books online have not replaced printed books, but instead
function as an important supplement to reading as a whole. We can therefore
anticipate that the world will be able to celebrate the anniversary of
the birth of Johannes Gutenberg for many years to come.
-
-
- Note:
-
-
- At the turn of the nineteenth century the outstanding
German poet Fredrich Schiller wrote: "It is remarkable what a huge
role the art of printing and publicity as a whole played in the rebellion
in the Netherlands. Through a printed organ a single hothead could speak
to millions (Schiller's History of the Downfall of the Netherlands).
-
-
- Background literature:
-
- 1. Georg Hermanowski , Johannes Gutenberg, sein Leben
und sein Werk, München, 1970 2. Albert Kapr, Johannes Gutenberg, Persönlichkeit
und Leistung, Leipzig, 1986 3. Christopher Keep, Tim McLaughlin, Johannes
Gutenberg and the Printed Book 5. Jay Rogers, The Book That Changed History
6. Manfred Aull, Herbert Bühler, Willi Huth, W. Westlinning, Lehr-
und Arbeitsbuch -Grundstufe der Druckindustrie,Technologie für Auszubildende,
1996 7. Helmut Teschner, Offset Druck Technik, Fellbach, 1989
-
-
- The WSWS invites your comments. To <editor@wsws.org
-
- Copyright 1998-2000 World Socialist Web Site All rights
reserved
-
-
-
-
-
- MainPage
http://www.rense.com
-
-
-
- This
Site Served by TheHostPros
|