Typography

TYPOGRAPHY (i.e. writing by types) is the general term for the art of printing movable (cast-metal) types on paper, vellum, &c. It is distinct from writing, and also from wood-engraving or xylography, which is the art of cutting figures, letters, words, &c., on blocks of wood and taking impressions from such blocks by means of ink, or any other fluid coloured substance, on paper or vellum.

I

History Of Typography Although the art of writing and that of block-printing both differ widely from printing with movable metal types, yet this last process has apparently been such a gradual transition from block-printing,' and block-printing in its turn such a natural outcome of the many trials that were probably made to produce pictures, books, &c., in some more expeditious manner than could be done with handwriting, that a cursory glance at these two processes will not seem out of place, especially as a discussion on the origin and progress of typography could hardly be understood without knowing the state of the literary development at the time that printing appeared.

The art of printing, i.e. of impressing (by means of certain forms and colours) figures, pictures, letters, words, lines, whole pages, &c., on other objects, as also the art of engraving, which is inseparably connected with printing, existed long before the 15th century. Not to go back to remoter essays, there is reason to suppose that medieval kings and princes (among others William '' We do not deal here with copperplate engraving (chalcography), nor with the question, raised by some authors, whether this art preceded that of wood-engraving (xylography), or vice versa. The earliest known date of the former is 1446 on the small engravings of " the Passion " in the Berlin Royal Print Room, whereas the earliest known date of wood-engraving is 1418 (on the Brussels Mary engraving). Both arts were naturally dependent upon MSS. for the forms of their letters, but as to the question of transition from the art of writing to that of typography, xylography alone can be regarded as the intervening and connecting link between those two arts, and there are good reasons for assuming that the inventor of printing with movable types was a xylographer (see below).

the Conqueror) had their monograms cut on blocks of wood or metal in order to impress them on their charters. Such impressions from stamps are found instead of seals on charters of the i 5th century. Manuscripts, even of the 12th century, show initials which, on account of their uniformity, are believed to have been impressed by means of stamps or dies.' Before the invention of printing, say about 1436, bookbinders are known to have impressed names or legends or other inscriptions on their bindings in two ways: (1) by means of single, insulated letters engraved reversely downwards into a stamp of brass, whereby the letters appeared en relief on the leather or parchment of the binding; (2) by letters engraved reversely en relief on the brass stamp, whereby the letters sank into the binding. For this reason the term impressor, applied afterwards to the " printer," was, in the first instance, applied to the binder, whereas ligator was the proper word for him (see F. Falk, Der Stempeldruck, in " Festschrift," 1900, p. 73 sqq.; Zedler, Gutenberg-Forschungen, 1901, p. 6). But the idea of " multiplying " representations from one engraved plate or block or stamp, or other form, was unknown to the ancients, whereas it is predominant in what we call the art of blockprinting, and especially in that of typography, in which the same types can be used again and again.

Block-printing and printing with movable types seem to have been practised in China and Japan long before they were known in asia t ic Europe. It is said that in the year 175 the text of East . the Chinese classics was cut upon tablets, and that impressions were taken of them, some of which are supposed to be still in existence. Printing from wooden blocks can be traced as far back as the 6th century, when the founder of the Suy dynasty is said to have had the remains of the classical books engraved on wood, though it was not until the 10th century that printed books became common. In Japan the earliest example of block-printing dates from the period 764-770, when the empress Shiyau-toku, in pursuance of a vow, had a million small wooden toy pagodas made for distribution among the Buddhist temples and monasteries, each of which was to contain a dharani out of the Buddhist Scriptures, entitled " Vimala nirbhasa Sara," printed on a slip of paper about 18 in. in length and 2 in. in width, which was rolled up and deposited in the body of the pagoda under the spire. In a journal of the period, under the year 987, the expression " printed book "(suri-hon)is applied to a copy of the Buddhist canon brought back from China by a Buddhist priest. This must have been a Chinese edition; but the use of the term implies that printed books were already known in Japan. It is said that the Chinese printed with movable types (of clay) from the middle of the i ith century. The authorities of the British Museum exhibit as the earliest instance of Korean books printed with movable types a work printed in 1337. To the Koreans is attributed the invention of copper types in the beginning of the 15th century; and an inspection of books bearing dates of that period seems to show that they used such types, even if they did not invent them.2 From such evidence as we have, it would seem that Europe is not indebted to the Chinese or Japanese for the art of blockprinting, nor for that of printing with movable types.

In Europe, as late as the second half of the 14th century, every book and every public and private document was written by hand; all figures and pictures, even MS. playing cards and images of saints, were drawn with the pen or painted with a brush. In the r3th century there already existed a kind of book trade. The organization of universities as well as that of large ecclesiastical establishments was at that time incomplete, especially in Italy, France and Germany, without a staff of scribes and transcribers (scriptores), illuminators, lenders, sellers and custodians of books (stationarii librorum, librarii), and pergamenarii, i.e. persons who prepared and sold the vellum or parchment required for books and documents. The books supplied were for the most part theological, legal and educational, and are calculated to have amounted to above one hundred different works. As no book or document was approved unless it had some ornamented and illuminated J 'Passavant, Le Peintre-Graveur, i. 18 (Leipzig, 1860-1864); John ackson, Wood Engraving (London, 1839); Bruno Bucher, Gesch. der lechn. Kunste, I. p. 362 seq.

2 See Ern. Satow, " On the Early History of Printing in Japan," in Trans. Asiat. Soc. of Japan, x. 48 seq.; and Stan. Julien, " Documents sur l'art d'imprimer," &c., in Journ. Asiat., 4me ser., vol. ix. p. 505.

initials or capital letters, there was no want of illuminators. The workmen scribes and transcribers were, perhaps without exception, calligraphers, and the illuminators for the most part artists. Beautifully written and richly illuminated manuscripts on vellum became objects of luxury which were treasured by princes and people of distinction. Burgundy of the r5th century, with its rich literature, its wealthy towns, its love for art and its school of painting, was in this respect the centre of Europe, and the libraries of its dukes at Brussels, Bruges, Antwerp, Ghent, &c., contained more than three thousand beautifully illuminated MSS.

In speaking of the writing of the manuscripts of the 15th and preceding centuries it is essential to distinguish C '/ass f ' in each country between at least four different wr;tvg. classes of writing, two of which must be again subdivided into two classes.

I. The book hand, that is, the ordinary writing of theological, legal and devotional books, used by the official transcribers of the universities and churches, who had received a more or less learned education, and consequently wrote or transcribed books with a certain pretence of understanding them and of being able to write with greater rapidity than the ordinary calligrapher. Hence they produced two kinds of writing: (a) the current or cursive book hand, of which several illustrations are given in Wilh. Schum, Exempla Codicum Amplon. Erfurtensium; the volumes of the (London) Palaeogr. Society, &c. Quite distinct from this current writing, and much clearer and more distinct, is (b) the upright or set book hand, which was employed not only by writers who worked for universities and churches, but also by persons who may be presumed to have worked in large cities and commercial towns for schools and the people in general without university connexion. (2) In the church hand (Gothic or black letter) were produced transcripts of the Bible, missals, psalters and other works intended for use in churches and private places of worship and devotion. This writing we may again subdivide into two classes: (a) the ornamental or calligraphic writing, found exclusively in books intended for use in churches or for the private use of wealthy and distinguished persons, and (b) the ordinary upright or set church hand, employed for less ornamental and less expensive books. (3) The letter hand may be said to be intermediate between the set literary book hand and the set literary church hand, and to differ but little from either. It was employed in all public documents of the nature of a letter. (4) The court or charter hand was used for charters, title-deeds, papal bulls, &c.3 These different kinds of writing served again, in the first instance, as models for cutting the inscriptions and explanatory texts that were intended to illustrate and explain the figures in blockbooks, and afterwards as models for the types used in the printing of books and documents.

Dypold Laber (Lauber), a teacher and transcriber at Hagenau in Germany, is known to have carried on a busy trade in manuscripts about the time of the invention of printing. His prospectuses 4 in handwriting of the middle of the 15th Century century announce that whatever books people wish C to have, large or small, " geistlich oder weltlich, Books, hilbsch gemolt," are all to be found at Dypold Lauber's the scribe. He had in stock Gesta Romanorum, mit den Viguren gemolt; poetical works (Parcival, Tristan, Freidank); romances of chivalry (Der Witfarn Ritter; Von eime Getruwen Ritter der sin eigen Hertze gab umb einer schônen Frowen willen; Der Ritter unter dem Zuber); biblical and legendary works (A Rimed Bible; A Psalter, Latin and German; Episteln and Evangelien durch das Jor; Vita Christy; Das gantze Passional, winterteil and summerteil; devotional books (Bellial; Der `Selen Trost; Der Rosenkrantz; Die zehn Gebot mit Glosen; Small Bette-Bucher); and books for the people (Gute bewehrte Artznien-Bucher; Gemolte Loss-Bucher, i.e. fortune-telling books; Schachtzabel gemolt). The lower educational books consisted for the most part of the Abecedaria, containing the alphabet, the Lord's Prayer, the creed, and one or two prayers; the Donatus, a short Latin grammar extracted from the work of Aelius Donatus, a Roman grammarian of the 4th century, and distinctly mentioned in a school ordinance of Bautzen of 1418; the Doctrinale, a Latin grammar in leonine verse, compiled by Alexander Gallus (or De Villa Dei), a minorite of Brittany of the 13th century; the Summula logica of Petrus Hispanus (afterwards Pope John XXI.), used in the teaching of logic and dialectics; and Dionysius Cato's Disticha de Moribus, and its supplement called Facetus, with the Floretus of St Bernard, used in the teaching of morals. As helps to the clergy in educating the lower classes, and as a means of assisting and promoting private devotion, there were picture books accompanied with an easy explanatory text, for the most part representations of the mystic relation 3 See further Palaeography.

4 An original copy of one of them is in the British Museum (Addit. MS. 28752).

between the Old and New Testaments (typology). Among these books the Biblia pauperum 1 stands first. It represents pictorially the life and passion of Christ, and there exist MSS. of it as early as the 13th century, in some cases beautifully illuminated.' A richly illuminated MS. of it, executed in the Netherlands c. 1400, is in the British Museum (press-mark, King's 5), and also fragments of one of the ,4th century (press-mark, 31,303). A remodelling and development of this work is the famous Speculum humanae salvationis, of which we shall speak when dealing with the blockbooks and early printed books. It was written in rhymed prose before 1324, and represents, in forty-five chapters, the Bible history of the fall and redemption of mankind interwoven with Mariolatry and legend. Of this work alone more than 200 MSS., illuminated or without pictures, are known to exist in various libraries of Europe. The National and Arsenal Libraries in Paris each possess one written some time after 1324; the British Museum has sixteen MSS. of it (eleven of which are illuminated) of the 14th and 15th centuries, written in the Netherlands, Germany, France and England, one (press-mark, 16,578) bearing the distinct date 1379 and another (press-mark, Egerton, 878) that of 1436. A work of a similar nature is the Apocalypsis, of which at least two recensions with illustrations may be pointed out. One gives the text as we know it, with or without commentary, for which cf. Brit. Mus. 17,333 (French), 18,633 (French, but written in England), Reg. 2 D. xiii. and 22,493 (French) - all four early 14th century. Another is more a short history or biography of St John, but the illustrations follow those of the former work very closely; cf. Brit. Mus. 19,896 (15th century, German). It is this last recension which agrees with the blockbook to be mentioned hereafter. Other devotional works are the Ars Moriendi, the Antichrist and other works which will be mentioned below among the blockbooks.

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When all this writing, transcribing, illustrating, &c., had reached their period of greatest development, the art of printing from wooden blocks (block-printing, xylography) on silk, cloth, vellum, paper, &c., made its appearance in Europe. This art was already a great advance on writing, in that it enabled any one with a few simple tools to multiply impressions from any block of wood with text or pictures engraved on it, and so produce a number of single (paper) leaves or sheets with text or pictures printed on them in almost the same time that a scribe produced a single copy of them.

It seems to have been practised, so far as we have evidence, on cloth, vellum and other stuffs as early as the 12th century (Weigel, Anfange, i. so); and on paper as far back as the second half of the 14th century; while it began to be largely employed in the early part of the 55th all over Germany, Flanders and Holland in the production of (I) separate leaves (called briefs, from breve, scriptum), containing either a picture (print, Arent, shortened from the Fr. em print, empreinte, and already used by Chaucer, C.T. 6186, six-text, D. 604, printe, prente, preente, and in other early English documents; also called in colloquial German Helge, Helglein, or Halge), or a piece of text, or both together; and of (2) whole sheets (two leaves), a number of which, arranged like the MSS. in quires or gatherings, formed what are called " blockbooks," sometimes consisting of half picture and half text, or wholly of text, or altogether of picture.

The earliest dated woodcut that we know of is the Mary engraving, discovered at Malines, and now preserved in the Brussels Royal Library. It bears the date mccccxviii. Some authors Early dated have asserted that an 1 has been scratched out between Wood= the fourth c and the x; that, therefore, the date is 1468. Engravings. But there is no ground for such an assertion (cf. H. Hymans, L'Estampe de 1481, Brussels, 1903). A slightly modified reproduction of it, on a reduced scale, which could hardly be placed later than 5460, is preserved in the St Gall Library. The next date is 1423 found on the St Christopher, preserved in the John Rylands Library (Spencer collection) at Manchester. In the third place comes the woodcut of 1437 preserved in the Imperial Library at Vienna, which was discovered in 1779 in the monastery of St Blaise in the Black Forest, and represents the martyrdom of St Sebastian, with fourteen lines of text. The date, however, is said by some to refer to a concession of indulgences. A woodcut, preserved in the same library in Vienna, which represents St Nicolas de Tolentino, has the date 1 This title is applied to at least three works: (I) the wellknown blockbook, of which we speak below, (2) a treatise " in qua de vitiis et virtutibus agitur," and (3) a work in rhyme by Alexander Gallus.

2 See Laib and Schwarz, Biblia pauperum (Zurich, 1867).

1440, but written in by hand; as the saint was canonized in that year it may refer to that event. Another in the Weigel collection, representing the bearing of the cross, St Dorothea and St Alexis, has the date 1443, also written in by hand, though the woodcut is considered to belong to that period. These are the only known woodengravings with dates ranging from 1418 to 5443. But there exist a good many woodcuts which, from the style of the engraving, are presumed to be of an earlier date, and to have been printed partly in the 14th and partly in the first half of the 15th century. J. D. Passavant (Le Peintre-Graveur, 1860-1864, i. 27 seq.) enumerates twenty-seven of them, all of German origin and preserved in various libraries in Germany; 154 are recorded in the Collectio Weigeliana (vol. i., 1866), and W. L. Schreiber (La Gravure sur bois, vols. i. and ii., 1891 and 1892) enumerates over 2000 of them, some of which may be ascribed to the Netherlands, exx.g. (I) representing the Virgin Mary, with Flemish inscriptions in the museum in Berlin; (2) representing the Virgin Mary (see above) in the library at Brussels; (3) representing St Anthony and St Sebastian, in the Weigel collection (now in the Brit. Mus.); (4) a St Hubert and St Eustatius, in the royal library at Brussels; (5) representing the Child Jesus, in the library at Berlin; (6) the Mass of St Gregory, with indulgence, in the Weigel collection (cf. I, 195), now at Nuremberg.

In these blocks, as in wood-engraving now, the lines to be printed were in relief. The block, after the picture or the text had been engraved upon it, was first thoroughly wetted with a thin, watery, pale brown material, much resembling distemper; then a sheet of damp paper was laid upon it, and the back of the paper was carefully rubbed with some kind of dabber or burnisher, usually called a frotton, till an impression from the ridges of the carved block had been transferred to the paper. In this fashion a leaf or sheet could only be printed on one side (anopisthographic); and in some copies of blockbooks we find the sides of the leaves on which there is no printing pasted together, so as to give the work the appearance of an ordinary book. Any one wanting to set up as a printer of briefs or books needed no apparatus but a set of woodblocks and a rubber. We know only three blockbooks which do not possess this characteristic, as the Legend of St Servatius in the royal library of Brussels, which may be called a xylo-chirograph (see below), in which the pictures occur on both sides of the paper (with some lines of text written underneath), but apparently impressed by hand from blocks without any rubbing, there being no traces of any indentures either on the rectos or the versos; Das Zeitglocklein in the Bamberg Library (cf. Falkenstein, P. 49); Das geistlich and weltlich Rom, in the John Rylands Library (Spencer collection) and at Gotha (cf. Falkenstein, p. 46); but these belong to the end of the 15th century, and therefore to a later period than the ordinary blockbooks.

Formerly it was the general opinion that playing cards had been the first products of xylography; but the earliest that have been preserved are done by hand, while the printed cards date from the 15th century, therefore from a Block period in which woodcuts were already used for other Printers. purposes. Some of the wood engravings and blockbooks are supposed to have been printed in monasteries. In a necrology of the Franciscan monastery at NOrdlingen, which comes down to the beginning of the 15th century, this entry occurs: " VII. Id. Augusti, obiit Frater h. Luger, laycus, optimus incisor lignorum "; and on some of the engravings we find the arms of certain monasteries, which may, however, merely mean that they were printed for, not in, those monasteries. The registers of Ulm mention several woodengravers (formschneider) - in 1398 a certain Ulrich; in 1441 Heinrich Peter von Erolzheim, Joerg, and another Heinrich; in 1442 Ulrich and Lienhart; in 1447 Claus (Nicolas), Stoffel (Christopher) and Johann; in 5455 Wilhelm; in 1461 Meister Ulrich, &c. In a register of taxes of NOrdlingen we find from 1428 to 1452 a certain Wilhelm Kegeler mentioned as brieftriicker; in 1453 his widow is called alt brieftriickerin; and in 1461 his brother Wilhelm is registered for the same craft. At Mainz there was a printer, Henne Cruse, in 1440. At Nuremberg we find in 1449 Hans (Spoerer?), a formschneider, while his son Junghans exercised the same industry from 1472 to 1490. Hans von Pfedersheim printed at Frankfort in 1 459; Lienhart Wolff, priefdrucker, is mentioned in the registers of Regensburg of 1463; Peter Schott at Strassburg in 1464. A certain George Glockendon exercised the same trade at Nuremberg till 1474, when he died and was succeeded by a son and afterwards by a grandson. In Flanders a Jan de Printere was established at Antwerp in 1417; and printers and wood engravers (haute bildsnyters) worked there in 1442 (Privileges of the Corporation of St Luke at Antwerp). At Bruges printers and beeldemakers (makers or engravers of images) were enumerated in 1454 among the members of the fraternity of St John the Evangelist. The printers of playing cards seem to have constituted a separate class.

All these entries show that long before the middle of the 15th century there were men who exercised the art of wood-engraving and printing as a trade or craft. It seems also certain that wealthy persons and religious institutions were wont to possess sets of blocks, and, when occasion arose, printed a set of sheets for presentation to a friend, or in the case of monasteries for sale to the passing pilgrim. A printer of briefs or blockbooks had no need to serve an apprenticeship; printed from wooden blocks; in others the text was chi chirography. written first, and woodcuts pasted or printed in spaces reserved for them. These books, combining woodengraving with handwriting, are now in technical language called xylo-chirographs (wood-handwritten books); they may also be called semi-blockbooks, and form an intervening stage between the manuscript book and the blockbook (xylograph) entirely printed from wooden blocks. They tend to show that xylography, after having been for some time confined to the production and multiplication of insulated pictures, was gradually applied to the printing of whole series of illustrations, to be added to written texts, or to have written texts added to them. It is not possible to assign definite dates to these xylo-chirographs; they could hardly be placed after, but may, for ought we know, be contemporaries of the blockbooks. We know nine of them; the years 1440 (which occurs in No. 5) and 1463 (found in No. 9) marking, for the present, the period within which they can be placed.

(1) Biblia Pauperum, in the Heidelberg University Library, German work, MS., Latin text added to engravings (cf. Schreiber, Manuel, iv. 90, c. 1460; photogr. pl. xlv.); (2) Anti-christus, one part of which is in the Paris Bibl. St Gen. (see Bernard, Orig. de l'impr. i. 102), another at Vienna, Alb. Bibl.; Bavarian work, MS., German text added to engravings (Schreiber iv. 231, pl. Iv.); (3) Vita et Passio Jesu Christi, 48 leaves, in the Vienna Hofbibliothek, German work, the woodcuts printed on the versos, Latin prayers written on the rectos (Schreiber iv. 321, c. 1450, pl. lxxxx.); (4) Septem planetae, seven xylographically printed plates in the Berlin K. K. Library, German work, with German explanatory text written on separate leaves facing the engravings (Schreiber iv. 417, c. 1470, pl. cxi.); (5) Pomerium spirituale, by Henricus de Pomerio (or Henri Vanden Bogaert), in the Brussels Royal Library, bearing the date 1440 in two places; its twelve engravings seem to have originally been published as a blockbook, without any text (see below); 1 in this copy they are cut up, pasted on other (contemporary), leaves of paper, and a Latin MS. commentary added to them (see Alvin, Documents iconogr.; Schreiber iv. 317, pl. lxiv.; Conway, Notes on the Exercitium super Pater Noster; Holtrop, Mon. typ. p. 9). Some bibliographers unreasonably contend that the engravings cannot be earlier than c. 1470, and that the year 1440 is the date of the original, now lost, which the transcriber of this copy inadvertently repeated. (6) Exercitium super Pater Noster (ascribed for good reasons to the same Henri Vanden Bogaert); imperfect copy (8 leaves) in the Paris National Library (Invent. D. 1581); woodcuts printed on the recto of each leaf, and an explanatory text (in Flemish) written underneath them (Schreiber iv. 245, pl. lxxxvii.; Conway, 1. c.); (7) the same Exercitium, with the same eleven engravings that were issued, some time before, as a complete blockbook (see below), a copy of which is preserved in the public library at Mons, in which the engravings are cut up and (after the Flemish verses of the blockbook had been cut away) pasted, with their versos, on the versos of other contemporary leaves, with an explanatory (Latin) text written on the recto of the leaf next to each engraving (Schreiber iv. 247, pl. lxxxviii.; Conway, 1. c.; (8) a MS. of the Speculum humanae salvationis, with the written date 1461 (Munich Hof.-u. Staatsbibl. cod. lat. 21543), in which the 192 illustrations, usually found in the MSS. of the Speculum, have been impressed from small wooden blocks in the spaces reserved for them in the MS.; (9) another MS. of a German version of the Speculum in the same Munich library (Cod. Ger. 1126), with the written date 1463, in which the 192 woodcut illustrations, impressed in No. 8, are again impressed in the spaces reserved for them.

Of blockbooks of probable German origin the following are known: - I. The A pocalypsis, or Historia S. Johannis evangelistae ejusque visiones apocalypticae (Germ. Das Buch der haymlichen Offenbarungen 1 Dumortier testifies to having seen a copy of the engravings unaccompanied by MS. (" Notes sur l'imprimerie," in Bull. Acad. Roy. de Belg., 1841, vol. viii.).

Sanct Johans)

Of this work six or seven editions are said to exist, each containing 48 (the 2nd and 3rd edition 50) illustrations, on as many anopisthographic leaves, which seem to have been divided into three quires of eight sheets each.

The first edition alone is without signatures. Cf. S. L. oofG Sotheby, The Blockbooks, i. 1. A copy of the 5th edition (according to W. L. Schreiber, Manuel, iv. 168), 48 leaves, is in the Cambridge University Library. A copy of the supposed 4th edition in the British Museum (C. 9, c. I), and one of the 6th edition (IB. 14); also a single leaf (with signature H) of the 5th edition (IB. 16).

2. Ars moriendi. - Although the origin of this work must be ascribed to the Netherlands, some authors think that there are early German editions, among others that spoken of below as the 2nd Dutch edition. Certainly German is the edition of Hans Sporer of Nuremberg (1473), in the public library at Zwickau, and a fragment of leaf 18, in the British Museum (IB. 20); another by Ludwig zu Ulm, in the Paris National Library, and the one described in Collectio Weigel. (ii. 16), where also other, but opisthographic, editions are described (see Sotheby i. 70; Schreiber iv. 253). A copy of one of these in the British Museum (IA. 24). A copy of an edition printed in a press and ascribed to Augsburg, in the British Museum (IB. 23).

3. Ars memorandi quatuor evangelia; 30 leaves, folio, printed on one side, 15 leaves being letterpress and 15 plates (Sotheby ii. 2; Schreiber iv. 135). Copy in the British Museum ('IB. 17). ' 4. Salve Regina, bears the name of its engraver, Lienhart czu Regenspurck; 16 leaves; 2 leaves (signature a) are wanting in the only copy known of it, which was in the Weigel collection (ii. 103) and is now in the British Museum (IB. I); Schreiber iv. 381.

5. Vita et Passio Christi (German); 32 leaves, small 8vo. Two copies in the Paris Library (Sotheby ii. 143; Schreiber iv. 320, who describes other issues in German and Italian).

6. The Ten Commandments for Unlearned People (Die Zehn Bott fur die ungelernte Leut)

Ten leaves in the library at Heidelberg bound up with MS. No. 438; see Joh. Geffcken, Bildercatechismus (Leipzig, 1855), 4to; Sotheby ii. 160; W. L. Schreiber iv. 234.

7. The Passion of our Lord; 16 leaves in the Weigel collection (Sotheby ii. 141; Schreiber iv. 320), now in the British Museum (IA. 25).

8. The Antichrist (Der Enndchrist); 26 leaves, small folio (Sotheby ii. 38; Weigel ii. III; Schreiber iv. 217). Copies in the Manchester Rylands Library (Spencer collection); Coll. Weig. No. 264, leaf 6 and the upper half of 7 now in the British Museum, where also a fragment of leaf 28 is preserved; four copies at Munich.

9. The Fifteen Signs of the Last Judgment; 12 engravings, usually bound up with the engravings of The Antichrist (Sotheby ii. 42; Schreiber iv. 217). Copies as of No. 8. An edition was also published at Nuremberg in 1472 by Jung hannss Priffmaler (copy at Gotha).

To. Symbolum A postolicum; small 4to, 7 leaves printed on one side only, containing 12 woodcuts. Cf. Sotheby ii. 148; also Schreiber iv. 239, who describes three editions: (I) at Vienna; (2) at Heidelberg; (3) with German inscriptions, at Munich.

H.. The Legend of St Meinrad; 48 leaves. Copies in the libraries at Munich and Einsiedeln (Sotheby ii. 150; Schreiber iv. 385).

12. The Acht Schalkheiten, of which 8 leaves were in the Weigel collection (i. 112; Sotheby ii. 1 54) .

13. The Fable of the Sick Lion; 12 leaves. Copies in the Berlin Museum, and in the Heidelberg Library (No. 438). Cf. Sotheby ii. 159, pl. lxxxvi.; Schreiber iv. 444 14. Defensorium Inviolatae Virginitatis b. Mariae Virginis; 16 leaves, folio, with the initials of the printer F(riedrich) W(althern) and the date 1470 on the first leaf (Schreiber iv. 368; Sotheby ii. 63). Copies in the British Museum (IB. 2); two at Paris; three at Munich; one at Berlin; another at Stuttgart.

15. The same work, 27 leaves, large folio, 1471, with the imprint " Johannes eysenhi.it impressor (at Regensburg) Anno ab incarnacois dnice M° quadringentesimo septuagesimo j° " (cf. Sotheby ii. 72; Schreiber iv. 374). Copies in the British Museum (IC. 4). at Berlin, Gotha, Manchester.

16. The Dance of Death (Dance Macabre; der Doten Dantz); 27 leaves; two editions; one in the library at Heidelberg; another at Munich (cf. Schreiber iv. 432; Sotheby ii. 156).

17. Die Kunst Ciromantia of Dr Johan Hartlieb (Sotheby ii. 84; Schreiber iv. 428). Ten leaves of the edition of Jorg Schapff of Augsburg c. 1478 in the British Museum (IB. 8).

18. Der Beichtspiegel or Confessionale; 8 engravings (Sotheby ii. 145; Schreiber iv. 252). Copy in the royal library (Mus. Meerman) at the Hague.

19. Exercitium super Pater Noster, only one leaf (the first) preserved at Kremsmtinster, of a German edition (Schreiber iv. 247). For two xylo-chirographic issues of this Netherlandish work, see above, and below for a xylographic edition. 20. Biblia Pauperum, German text; copy in the British Museum (IB. 3); and a copy of another edition (40 leaves) with the device of Hans Spoerer, and the date 1471 (IC. 5).

21. The Apostles' Creed; 7 leaves, folio. Copy at Wolfenbiittel. 22. The Credo, in German; 12 leaves, 4to. Copy in the Munich Royal Library.

any neat-handed man could print for himself. We learn from the inventory of the possessions of Jean de Hinsberg, bishop of Liege (1 4 1 9 - 1 455), and his sister, a nun in the convent of Bethany, near Mechlin, that they possessed " unum instrumentum ad imprimendas scripturas et ymagines, " and " novem printe lignee ad imprimendas ymagines cum quatuordecim aliis lapideis printis." These entries would seem to indicate that people purchased engraved blocks of wood or of stone from the wood-cutter rather than books from a printer.

Concurrently with these single woodcuts, with or without written or xylographic text, arose a class of books, in some of which written texts were added to pictures 23. Pro13ugnacula, seu Turris sapientiae (Sotheby ii. 164). One sheet, piano, in the British Museum (IC. 30). It may have originated in the Netherlands.

Blockbooks of Netherlandish origin are: i. Apocalypsis S. Johannis. - Copy in the Haarlem Town Library. A copy of the 3rd (?) edition, of 50 leaves, in the British Museum Of Nether- (IC. 40), the leaves 36 and 38 having been supplied from O Net another copy. Leaf 21 of another copy in the same. library.

Origin. 2. Biblia Pauperum; 40 folio leaves (each bearing a signature: a to v; .a. to .v.). As many as seven editions have been distinguished by Sotheby (i. 43), Holtrop (Mon. typ. p. 3), and ten by Schreiber (iv. I), who likewise mentions a Latin edition of 50 leaves, besides the two editions with German texts of 1470 and 1471. The British Museum Catalogue of 15th-century books enumerates copies or fragments of copies of seven editions.

3. Speculum humanae salvationis

Of this work a blockbook must have existed, of which only 10 sheets (= 20 leaves) with woodcuts and texts, besides 12 isolated woodcuts (used in 1483), have come down to us. We speak of it at length below when dealing with the typographic editions known of this work.

4. Ars moriendi; 24 leaves, small folio, 13 containing text, II plates. See above (German) No. 2; Sotheby i. 69; Holtrop, p. 8; Schreiber iv. 253, who enumerates thirteen editions, some of which are German. 1 The theory, started a few years ago, that the engravings of this blockbook are imitations of the sketches by the master E. S. (see M. Lehrs, Der Kunstler der Ars moriendi, 1890; L. H. Cust, The Master E. S., 1898) is wholly inadmissible. Copy in the British Museum (IB. 18), and an imperfect one in the Haarlem Town Library.

5. A copy of another edition of 24 leaves in the British Museum (IA. 19).

6. Canticum Canticorum; Historia seu Providentia B. Virginis Mariae ex Cantico Canticorum; 16 leaves in folio, two editions (Sotheby i. 77; Holtrop, p. 6; Schreiber iv. 151). Copies in the Haarlem Town Library (wanting the leaves 3, 4, 7, II, 13, 15, 16); the British Museum (IB. 46), which possesses also a copy of another edition (IC. 47).

7. Liber Regum, seu Historia Davidis; 20 leaves, folio (Sotheby i. 120 b; Schreiber iv. 146). Some consider this to be a German work.

8. Exercitium super Pater Noster, by Henricus de Pomerio or Henry Vanden Bogaert; io leaves, small folio (Sotheby ii. 137; Holtrop p. io; Conway, Notes on the Exercitium, 1887; Schreiber iv. 245). For other editions see the two preceding sections.

9. Pomerium Spirituale, by the same author as No. 8; 12 leaves, having 12 woodcuts. This blockbook is now only known from a xylo-chirographic issue with the MS. date 1440 (see above), preserved in the Brussels Royal Library. See Conway, Notes on the Exercitium. 10. Temptationes Demonis temptantis hominem de septem peccatis mortalibus; a single large folio leaf printed on one side (Sotheby i. 122°; Schreiber ii. 249). One copy in the British Museum (IC. 29), another in the Wolfenbiittel Library.

11. Vita Christi, or The Life and Passion of Christ; 36 cuts, originally printed in a press on six anopisthographic leaves, in 8vo. Copy in the Erlangen Library (Campbell, Annales, 746). 12. Historia Sanctae Crucis; a fragment of one leaf (with signature g), formerly in the Weigel Collection (ii. 92), but now in the museum at Nuremberg; it seems to be only a proof-sheet.

13. Alphabet (grotesque) in figures (Holtrop p. I i; Sotheby i. 122; Schreiber ii. 324-327). - There is one copy in the British Museum and another in the Basel Library, the latter having the date 1464 engraved on the letter A, which is mutilated in the Museum copy. A similar alphabet preserved at Dresden seems to be a copy made in Germany.

14. Donatus (Aelius) de octo partibus orationis. Leaf 6 of an edition c. 1500 of 16 leaves in the British Museum (IA. 48). For other xylographic editions of this work cf. Holtrop, Mon. typ. Besides the works of Sotheby, Holtrop, Weigel, Schreiber, Lehrs, Cust, &c., quoted above, consult Sir W. M. Conway, The Woodcutters of the Netherlands in the 15th Century (Cambridge, 1884); Heinecken, Idee generale (Leipzig, 1771); J. Ph. Berjeau's Facsimiles of the Biblia Pauperum, Canticum Canticorum, Speculum (London, 18 591861), and idem, Catal. Illustre des livres xylogr. (London, 1865); Dodgson, Cat. of Early German and Flemish Woodcuts in the Brit. Mus. - When the art of writing, and that of printing from wooden blocks (xylography), and all the subsidiary arts of illuminating, Invented at decorating and binding manuscripts, books, pictures, Haarlem. &c., were at their greatest height, and had long passed out of the exclusive hands of the monasteries into the hands 1 Heinecken enumerates six editions, of which one has German inscriptions. See also an article by Guichard, in Bull. du Bibliophile (Paris, 1841).

xxvll. 17 of students and artisans, the art of printing with movable cast-metal types (typography) was invented. As to when, where and by whom this invention came about, a dispute has been waged for more. than four hundred years. It will be seen below that we must attribute it, as in our former edition, to Lourens Janszoon Coster, of Haarlem, and not to Johan Gutenberg, of Mainz.

In saying this, we are aware that in the year 1900 (exactly four hundred years after the Cologne Chronicle had publicly started the dispute by saying that Gutenberg had improved but not invented the art) Germany enthu- the claims p ) y of Germany.

siastically celebrated the supposed 50oth anniversary of his birthday. The speeches delivered on that occasion, after making faint allusions to the doubts and opposition of former times, all declared that, after the rediscovery of the Helmasperger document of 1455, which could not be found in 1880 (Hessels, Gutenberg, pp. 99-101), it was impossible for any unbiased person to dispute Gutenberg's claims to the honour of the invention any longer.

In the same year a Gutenberg Museum was erected at Mainz to be a repository for anything connected with Gutenberg and printing; also a Society (Gutenberg-Gesellschaft) founded with the view of publishing any book that related, however remotely, to Gutenberg and his invention, to which the whole civilized world was invited to subscribe, as its object was to honour the genius who had conferred such an inestimable boon on mankind by his invention. As a first result, a " Festschrift " was published containing an historical introduction by Professor Hartwig; and articles on the first steps to typography (Schreiber); stamp-printing before Gutenberg and the Psalters of 1 457, 1 459, &c. (Falk); 15th-century printing in France (Labande); German printers in Spain and Portugal (Habler); German printers in Italy (Marzi); the coloured initials in Fust and Schoeffer's Psalter (Wallau); the Turkkalendar for 1455 (Wyss); the earliest spread of typography (Velke); also an elaborate pedigree of the family Gansfleisch (Schenk zu Schweinsberg), and an equally full account (by Schorbach) of all the documents related to Gutenberg. This " Festschrift " was followed by publications of the " Gutenberg Society ": I. (1902) Die iilteste Gutenberg type (Zedler); II. (1903) Die Donatand Kalendar type (Schwenke); III. (1904) Das Mainzer Fragment vom Weltgericht (Schroder, Zedler, Wallau); IV. (1905) Das Mainzer Catholicon (Zedler); V., VI., VII. (1908) Das Mainzer Fragment vom Weltgericht (Schroder); Die B42 type im Schiifferschen Missale Mogunt. von 1493 (Zedler); Die Missaldrucke P. Scho fers and seines Sohnes Johann (Tronier); Zu den Biicheranzeigen Peter Scho fers (Velke).

We admit the great value of these learned and painstaking publications, and those who have the time and patience to study the mass of material here brought together in a somewhat bewildering fashion, will find their knowledge enriched on various subjects connected with early printing, but no proofs that Gutenberg invented it. It is clear from these books that their authors firmly believed from the outset that Gutenberg invented printing, and printed nearly every book that appeared or can be placed before his death in 1468. Under this impression they always speak of him as the " great master," the " great genius," &c., and represent him, not as inventing printing by accident, but as conceiving, somewhere about 1436 or earlier, the idea of inventing it, and meditating from that moment over the problems which he had to solve. Consequently, our authors read a good deal between the lines of their documents, which we fail to find there, and in this way the texts of the documents always show somehow that " the great master " is making or has already made his invention. For instance, the Strassburg lawsuit of1436-1439is to them an unimpeachable proof that Gutenberg was secretly working there at printing and trying to solve his problems; when he is paying there, during the same time, a considerable sum in duties for large quantities of wine, we are told that he was then in good circumstances; but when he borrows money in 1442, 1448, 1450 and 1452, and is summonsed in 1455 for not repaying the two last loans, and prosecuted in 1457 for not paying the interest due on his first debt, it is all owing to his difficulties in working out the problems of his invention, though the documents themselves never allude to any " invention " and may be interpreted in quite a different way.

We proceed to examine the documents. The earliest mention and description of the new art is perhaps that in the Donatus issued by Peter Schoeffer at Mainz before 1456, which, according to its colophon, was finished " Arte nova imprimendi seu caracterizandi (from character = letter). .. absque calami exaratione." Fust and Schoeffer said of the Mainz Psalter of 1457 that it was formed by an " adinventio artificiosa imprimendi ac caracterizandi absque calami ulla exaratione. The colophon of the Catholicon of 1460 says that the book was printed " non calami, stili, aut pennae suffragio, sed mira patronarum formarumque concordia, proporcione, ac modulo." In 1462 Albrecht Pfister says that he had " gedrucket " the Four Histories. Fust and Schoeffer say of the Liber Sextus Decretalium, published in 1465, that it was completed " non atramento (" atramento communi in the Justinianus of 1468 and 1472), plumali canna neque aerea, sed artificiosa quadam adinventione imprimendi seu caracterizandi," which phrase they slightly varied in Cicero's Officia, issued in the same year: " non atramento, plumali canna neque aerea, sed arte quadam perpulcra." The edition of St Jerome's Epistles of 1470 is said to have been completed by an " ars impressoria," the Decretum Gratiani of 1472 by an " ars quaedam ingeniosa imprimendi," the Dyalogus of 1478 by an " ars magistra." We find further - " ars sancta or divin g, nova ars scribendi," novum exscribendi genus prope divinum," "sculptoria archetyporum ars," " ars mirifica formandi," " ars excusoria," " nova imprimendi ratio," " ars pressurae," " chalcotypa ars," "chalcographia " (1472 and later), " chalcographia excusoria impressoriaque," " libraria impressio," " empryntynge " (Caxton, 1482), " prenterei " (Schoeffer, 1492), " truckery " (1505), " impression des livres " (1498), and " prenten." The early printers called themselves, or were called by others, " librorum prothocaragmatici " (Gramm. Rhythm., 1468), " impres sores librorum," " exsculptor librorum " (Jenson, 1471), chalcographus " (1473; Hain 13036), " magister artis impressoriae," " boeckprinter "; and during the 16th century we find them still frequently called " chalcotypus " and " chalcographus." The types were at first designated more by negative than positive expressions. In 1468 they were called " caragma," later on " caracter " or " character," ' ` archetipae notae " (1473 Hain 13036), sculptoria archetyporum ars, chalcotypa ars," " formae," " artificiosissimae imprimendorum librorum formae." We soon hear also of the process and material by which they were produced. The Grammatica of 1468, published by Schoeffer, says that it was " cast " (sum fusus libellus). In 1471 " aeneae formulae " are spoken of; and Bernardus Cenninus and his son testify that they had printed the Virgil " expressis ante calibe caracteribus et deinde fusis literis " (with letters first cut into steel and then cast). In 1473 Friedrich Creusner at Nuremberg states that he had " cut " (sculpsit) the work of Diogenes (Hain 6192). Johan Zeiner of Ulm says in 1474 that he had perfected a book, not with the pen, but with letters of metal (stagneis caracteribus). In 1474 Joh. Ph. de Lignamine speaks of " metallicae formae." In 1476 Husner of Strassburg represents the Nider as being printed with " letters cut of metal (litteris sculptis artificiali certe conatu ex aere)." Nicolas Jenson printed in 1480 with letters " cut and cast " (sculptis ac conflatis).

The word typographus seems to occur for the first time in 1488, in the preface of P. Stephanus Dulcinius Scalae to the Astronomicon of Manilius, printed in that year at Milan by Antonius Word Zarotus; 1 in 1498 Erasmus uses it in a letter (dated Feb. 13) to Christianus, a Lubeck merchant;' and in 1517 Johan Schoeffer applies the word to himself in the colophon of the Aeneas Sylvius published by him. But of the use of the word typographia no earlier instance is known than 1520, in which year Gerardus Noviomagus (= Geldenhaurius) in his Lucubratiuncula de Batavorum Insula (pref. to Nicol. Buscoducensis, dated 1520) says: " inventa Germanorum. .. bombarda videlicet, typographia, pyxis chartaque nautica "; and Johan Schott, a printer of Strassburg, in the Geogr. Ptolem. published by him, describes his grandfather, Johan Mentelin, as " primes typographiae inventor." Gerardus, it may be added, borrowed the whole passage from Pet. Montanus (li. 1 Adag., published an. 1504), who has chalcographia instead of typographia. Meerman indeed a speaks of a use of the word typographia (or at least of typographus) earlier than 1520, and refers to the preface of Bernardinus Veronensis in the edition of Tibullus, Catullus and Propertius published at Venice in 1493 by Symon Bevilaqua, " at least," Meerman adds, " as it (the preface) is read in the Annal. typogr. of Maittaire, i. 560, 2nd ed." But on page 560 Maittaire quotes the first two lines of Bernardinus's preface (till dicit) and then adds: " Graecis characteribus destitutus, typo graphus necesse habuit hiatus in commentario hic illic relinquere, is evidently Maittaire's own remark, not that of Bernardinus. The present writer at least has been unable to find such a passage in the Tibullus.

When we, for the moment, leave out of sight the question as to when, where, and by whom the art was invented, and 1 Maittaire, Annales Typogr. i. 508, note I.

Opp. iii. col. 24.

Origg. Typogr. i. 32, note cx. take our stand on well-authenticated dates in such printed documents as have been preserved, we find that the first printed date, 1454, occurs in two different editions of the same letter of indulgence issued in that year by Pope Nicholas V. in behalf of the kingdom of Cyprus.

These two editions bear no printer's name, nor the place of printing, but are distinguished respectively as the 3 i-line and the 30-line Indulgence. The one with 31 lines claims priority,' from a chronological point of view, over the one with ndu gence 30 lines, because one of the sold copies that has been ndu g. preserved was issued at Erfurt on the 22nd of October 1 454 (in the possession of Herr Ernst Fischer at Weinheim, Centralbl., 1909, p. 30); a second (in the Hanover Archives; Veroffentl. II. tab. i.) at Fritzlar on the 12th of November 1 454; a third (in the Mus. Meerman, at the Hague) at Erfurt on the 15th of November 1 454, &c., whereas of the 30-line Indulgence the earliest sold copy that has as yet come down to us was issued at Cologne on the 27th of February 1455, though it has the printed date mccccliiii., which was altered with the pen to mcccchuij. In the 31-line Indulgence occur (a) a large church type used for the headings and commencing words of the absolutions, for the first word in the document and for the Christian name of the pope's legate; (b) a smaller text or brief type for the text; (c) a large initial V and two large initials M, which slightly differ from each other. In the 30-line Indulgence occur (a) a large church type, used as in the 31-line Indulgence; (b) a smaller text or brief type for the text; (c) a large initial U, and two large initials M differing from each other.

These two different editions are usually regarded as having been printed at Mainz; and, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, we assume that such really was the fact. But we must at the same time conclude that about October 1454 there were at least two rival printers at work there: (1) the printer of the 3 i-line Indulgence, who may have been Johan Gutenberg, perhaps subsidized by Johan Fust; (2) the printer of the 30-line Indulgence, who was no doubt Peter (Schoeffer) de Gernssheym, as this Indulgence is connected with one of 1489 printed by him. Four written copies of this 1454 Indulgence are known to exist which respectively bear the dates: Frankfurt, 10th April 1454 (in the possession of Herr Lais, Wiesbaden); Frankfurt, 11th April 1454 (Frankfurt Archives); 11th July 1454 (place unknown; Darmstadt archives); Lubeck, 6th October 1454. As their dates precede by a few weeks only the earliest known date (Oct. 22, 1 454) on a printed copy, they mark, perhaps, the exact time when printing made its appearance at Mainz, in an already advanced state of perfection.

Basing ourselves on the above Indulgences with their printed date, and four different types, we subjoin two lists of the books which the German bibliographers of the present day regard as having all been printed by Johan Gutenberg at Mainz, in the types or " developments " of them, employed for these Indulgences. They are arranged in two columns (A and B) according to types, but without regard to strict or supposed chronology. For further details cf. Hessels, Gutenberg (1882), p. 150 sqq.; Schwenke, Berlin Festschr. (and in the T7ereentl. of the Mainz Gutenberg-Gesellsch.); Zedler (Gutenberg-Forsch. and in the Vereentl.), &c.

A.

Types: I (large church type, also called the 36-line Bible type) and II (smaller brief type), used by an unknown printer, not later than October 1454.

i. 31-line Indulgence; three different issues (A, B, C), with the printed year mccccliiii., and one issue (D) with the printed year mcccclv. All printed on vellum. Of issues A and B no sold copies have yet come to light; but three unsold copies of each are preserved at Brunswick, Wolfenbiittel and Hanover (Culemann coll.). Of issue C ten sold copies are known to exist in various libraries with dates ranging from the 22nd of October 1454 to April 1455, besides three unused copies. Of issue D ten sold copies with dates from the 7th of March 1 455 to the 30th of April 1455 and four unused copies are known.

No inferences can be drawn from this priority, as it merely rests on the date of a sold copy that has come to light.

B.

Types. III (large church type, somewhat smaller than Type I, also called the 42-line Bible type) and IV (a smaller brief type), used by Peter Schoeffer de Gernssheym (1454-1455).

i. 30-line Indulgence; one issue (A) with the printed year mceccliiii., and two issues (B, C) with the printed year mcccclquinto. All printed on vellum. Of issue A only one copy has been discovered (now in the RylandsSpencer Library), which was sold atCologne on the27th of February 1 455, the printed date mccccliiii having been altered with the pen to mcccclu u i. Of issue B two sold copies, with dates April i 1 and 2 9, 1 455, are in the Berlin Library and the British Museum. Of issue C a sold copy with date April 2 4, 1 455 is at Wolfenbiittel.

A (contd.). Type I continued; for type II. (of which no further trace is found) see below.

ii. Poem on the " Weltgericht." Fragment of one leaf (paper), discovered at Mainz about 1892, preserved in the Gutenberg Museum at Mainz; presumed to have been printed c. 1443-1444.

iii. Donatus, 27 lines. Fragments of 4 vellum leaves (4, 5, 8, 9) recently discovered in the Heiligenstadt Library, and now preserved in the Berlin Royal Library.

iv. Donatus, 27 lines. Two rubricated vellum leaves (5 and to) of an edition of 14 leaves, usually called the Donatus of 1451, preserved in the Paris National Library.

v. Donatus, 27 (?) lines. Two strips of vellum leaves, containing the remains of 3 lines and about 30 mutilated letters, discovered in the Heiligenstadt Library, and now in the Berlin Royal Library.

vi. Astronomical Kalendar, said to be for the year 1448, therefore supposed to have been printed at the end of 1447. Fragments of two large vellum rubricated sheets, printed on one side, discovered in 1901 in the binding of a MS. belonging to the monastery of Schonau, near Mainz, now preserved in the Wiesbaden Landesbibliothek.

vii. Donatus of 18 leaves, 26 lines, on vellum; of which 2 rubricated sheets (4 leaves, I, 2, 9, to) are preserved in the Berlin Royal Library; probably issued between 1447 and 1450 (Centralbl. xxvii. 65 sqq.).

viii. Manung widder die Durken. An almanac for January 1 455, in 4to, 5 paper leaves, 20 and 21 uneven lines. A unique copy, discovered at Augsburg, now in the Munich Hof Library.

ix. A German translation of the bull of Pope Calixtus III., dated XII. Kal. Julii (=Jun. 20) 1456. Fourteen rubricated leaves 4to, in the Kalendar type, except that two of the capital E's belong to the B36 type (13b and 14 blank), preserved in the Berlin Royal Library; not to be ascribed to P. Schoeffer (Centralbl. xxvii. 63).

x. Conjunctiones et oppositiones solis et lunae (now called by German bibliographers Laxier-Kalendar). A calendar for 1457, a broadside paper sheet, printed on one side, of which the upper half of the only copy known, discovered at Mainz, is in the Paris Library.

xi. Der Cisianus (not Cislanus) zu Dutsche. A broadside paper sheet, 36 lines, printed on one aide, with separate headline. The Tross-copy mentioned in suppl. to Brunet's Manuel (1878, sub voce " Cislanus ") was bought in 1870 for the Cambridge University Library.

xii. Donatus, 27 lines, 14 vellum leaves, of which the British Museum possesses the leaves 4, to and II (entire) with fragments of the leaves 2, 6-9 and 13. A fragment of 62 lines B (contd.). Type III continued (till about 1 457; of Type IV no further trace is found).

ii. Donatus, of 35 lines, folio, printed, according to the colophon, " per Petrum de Gernssheym. in urbe Moguntina cum suis capitalibus." iii. Bible of 42 lines (also called Mazarine Bible and referred to below as B 42), printed before the 15th of August 1456, as the binder of the paper copy in the Paris Library states that he finished its rubrication on that day. Two volumes folio, 641 leaves in2 columns of 4211neseach, though in somecopies thecolumns of pp. I to 9 contain 40 lines only, while the 10th page has 2 columns of4 'lines each,thedifference in the number of lines making no difference in the space which they occupy. For other copies see Hessels, Gutenberg, p. 170; Dziatzco, Beitr. zur Gutenbergfrage (Berlin, 1889); Schwenke, Festschr., who has drawn up a list of all the copies known to be still in existence. The copy known as the Klemm copy, which was bought by the Saxon Government in 1886, and presented to the " Deutsches Buchgewerbemuseum " at Leipzig, has the year " 1 453 " written in small Arabic numerals of 15th-century form at the bottom of the last leaf of the second volume. But this date is highly suspicious, for Klemm, who must have known its importance and high value, never mentioned it, though he described his copy three times, in 1883 and 1884.

iv. Donatus of 33 lines. Vellum fragment at Oxford, without printed initials.

v. Donatus of 33 lines. Vellum fragment at Paris, without printed initials; also three rubricated leaves (5, 6 and 8) in the Berlin Royal Library (Centralbl. xxvii. 68).

vi. Donatus of 33 lines. Leaf t (defective) on vellum, mentioned in Ludw. Rosenthal's Cat. 105, No. 3, and purchased by the Berlin Royal Library, which has also acquired the leaves t and II (Centralbl. xxvii. 69.). The large Psalter initials are used for the initials of chapters.

vii. Donatus of 33 lines. Leaf (vellum) discovered in the Berlin Royal Library.

viii. Donatus of 33 (?) lines. Small fragment, discovered in the library at Giessen, of a vellum leaf, which Schwenke thinks may be the 10th of an edition which differs from Schoeffer's 35-line edition, and also from the Paris 33-line edition.

ix. Donatus of 26 lines. One defective vellum leaf, discovered in a Munich private library, and now in the Mainz Gutenberg Museum.

x. Donatus of 26 lines. One vellum leaf at Mainz, another at Hanover, a third in the British Museum.

xi. Donatus of 24 (?) lines, between 1470 and 1477 (Schwenke).

A (contd.). in the Bodleian Library two small fragments discovered in the library at Heiligenstadt.

xiii. Donatus, 27 lines, which Schwenke calculates to have consisted of 14 vellum leaves, of which the leaves 6 to 9 are now in the Berlin Royal Library.

xiv. Donatus. 27 lines. Three strips of a rubricated vellum leaf 5 discovered in the Karlsruhe Hot-Bibhothek.

xv. Donatus. 27 lines. One rubricated vellum leaf (6). in the Kalendar type. in the Berlin Library (Centralbl. xxvii. 62) xvi Donatus. 27.28 or 30 (?) lines. Fragments of two vellum leaves of an edition of 12 (?) leaver discovered in the binding of a book (printed at Milan in 1476) which formerly belonged to the Episcopal Library at Salzburg, and is now in the Munich Hof-Bibliothek.

xvii. Donatus, 27 (or 30?) lines. Vellum fragments of an edition of 12 (?) leaves in the British Museum (C. 18. e. i No. 5). Leaves t and 2 are in the Bodleian Library, and leaf 8 in the Mainz Town Library.

xviii. Donatus, 27 lines. Fragment of a vellum leaf (3?) discovered in the binding of a MS. in the Munich Hof-Bibliothek.

xix. Donatus, 27 lines. Two vellum fragments of the leaves 6 9, the upper part of which is preserved in the Bodleian Library (Auct. 2 Q infra I. 50 No. 6), the lower part in the Bamberg Royal Library (VI. F 1).

xx. Donatus, 28 (?) lines. One defective vellum leaf, showing 25 lines, formerly in the possession of Jacq. Rosenthal (Incun. typ. ii. No. 2154), afterwards in the Amherst collection (Handlist No. 5). Another leaf in the Mainz Gutenberg Museum.

xxi. Bible of 36 lines (referred to everywhere as B 36), 2 vols., folio, 882 leaves, with 2 columns of 36 lines each on a page. Some bibliographers, assuming that Pfister printed it, call it the Pfister Bible. A paper copy of it is in the Paris Library, and also a separate copy of the last leaf, which bears the MS. date 1461. Other copies are preserved in the Rylands-Spencer Library, in the British Museum, at Jena, Leipzig, Antwerp, &c. (Hessels, Gutenberg, p. 160; Bernard, Origine, ii. 31).

B (contd.). xii. Cantica ad Matutinas; only known from one vellum leaf (the first) in the Paris Library, considered to be the remains of a Psalterium. for the printing of which Humery may have furnished (!) the type (Schwenke Untersuch. p. 72 seq.). Judging from the leaf preserved, the work corresponds in every respect to the 42-line Bible, having double columns 42 lines. &c.

Type V. - The " first stage " of Type VII., supposed by Otto Hupp (Ein Missale Spec.) and others to have served for printing (1) a Missale speciale, in the possession of Ludw. Rosenthal at Munich; (2) a Missale abbreviatum discovered in 1900 in the Benedict Church of St Paul in the Lavantthale.

Type VI. - The large type for the Psalter of 1457.

Type VII. - The small type for the same Psalter (" second stage " of Type V). Types VI and VII were also used for the " Canon Missae " of 1458, a copy of which is preserved in the Bodleian Library.

Type VIII used for (t) Joannis de Balbis Catholicon of 1460. Large folio, 373 leaves, with two columns of 66 lines each on a page; (2) Matth. de Cracovia, Tractatus racionis, 22 leaves with 30 lines to the page, 4to; (3) and (4) Thomas de Aquino, Summa de articulis fidei, two 4to editions, one of 13 leaves with 34 lines to the page; the second of 12 leaves with 36 lines to the page; (5) an Indulgence of 1461 of 15 lines (see Hessels, Gutenberg, p. 171 sqq.).

The above eight types and the books printed with them (besides a few others printed by Albrecht Pfister at Bamberg) are the only ones that bear, more or less closely, on the question regarding the introduction, or possible invention, of printing at Mainz.

Till recently the church type 1, of the 31-line Indulgence, had always been regarded as identical with that of B 36, and the church type 3, of the 30-line Indulgence, with that of B 4V. But, as the capital P of Indulgence 30 seems not to occur in B 42, and on examination minute differences show themselves in other respects, identity between the two types cannot be accepted. The use of the brief type 2 of Indulgence 31 seems to have been limited to printing this one document, as its great resemblance to the type employed at Eltville in 1472 for printing a Vocabularius ex quo, and Thomas Aquinas' Summa de articulis fidei, amounts not to identity. Nor has any further trace been found of the brief type 4 of the Indulgence30, so that the four types used for the two Indulgences were, perhaps, specially manufactured for them and discarded afterwards or melted down for other types.

Hence there is nothing to connect these two broadsides with any locality or any printing-office, except that one of the initial M's of the Indulgence 30 re-occurs as the initial M of the second absolution of a 33-line Indulgence of 1489, which was unquestionably printed by Peter Schoeffer at Mainz, for " Raymundus Peyraudi archidiaconus Alniensis in ecclesia Xanton," who issued it at the order of Pope Innocent VIII., " pro tuicione orthodoxe fidei contra Turchos. " For this reason types 3 and 4 and the books printed with them, including B 42, must all be ascribed to him, all the more as he printed, with the type of B 42, the 35-line Donatus, which bears his name in the colophon. As Schoeffer, in the colophon of this Donatus (ii.) which bears his name, says that it was printed " cum suis capitalibus," and as these capitals gradually disappear after 1 459 and the type of the 42-line Bible is no longer found after 1456, we must presume that some of the twelve incunabula mentioned above (in col. B) were printed by Peter Schoeffer alone before he entered (in 1457) into partnership with Johan Fust (see Hessels, Gutenberg, p. 166 seq.).

During the last two decades, however, the two types (3 and 4) and most of the books mentioned above in column B, including B 42, together with the two types (1 and 2), and several of the books in column A, including B 36, have been attributed by German bibliographers to Gutenberg. This singular proceeding is chiefly owing to the late Dr Dziatzko's treatises (Beitrcige zur Gutenbergfrage, 1889; Gutenberg's fruheste Druckerpraxis, 1890) on Gutenberg's supposed work as a printer. This author, noticing that the two types of B 36 and B 42, their signs of contraction, marks of punctuation, &c., though differing in size, closely resemble each other in form, concluded that they were manufactured in one and the same office, by one and the same printer, that is, Gutenberg. He thought his conclusion confirmed by the two Bibles being printed on the same kind of paper showing the same watermarks, and arranged in quires in the same way, and divided off into parts at the same place. Finally, from a misprint in B 42 being rectified in the Stuttgart copy of B 36 by a cancel (Druckerpraxis, p. 95), he concluded: (a) that B 36 was a reprint of B 42; that the latter was printed by Gutenberg during his partnership (1450-1455) with Fust, who supplied the money and the material, while he himself superintended the manufacture of the type, instructed the compositor and printer, and therefore was its printer; and that the type came afterwards into Schoeffer's possession; (b) as B 42 was Gutenberg's first work, and had been begun in 1450, B 36, a reprint of it, could not be dated before this year; but as its type already existed in 1454 (in the Indulgence 31), Gutenberg, foreseeing his quarrels with Fust, must have been preparing it since 1453, and have printed with it, first, some Donatuses, the Indulgence 31, &c., and finally B 36, with the technical and financial assistance of Albrecht Pfister who, shortly before 1458, acquired its type and printing-material (see further, Hessels, " A Bibliogr. Tour, " in The Library, July 1908). Dr Dziatzko, noticing also a " resemblance " between the types and the workmanship of the two Indulgences, attributed both these broadsides likewise to Gutenberg.

His conclusions, and the method of research by which he reached them, the German bibliographers of the present day have adopted and amplified into a bibliographical and typographical " system," which professes to examine minutely the form and size of every letter, capital or small; the combined letters like do and de cast on one type; the signs of contraction above, or by the side of or through certain letters, the marks of punctuation, the habits and workmanship of the printer, the arrangement of the quires, the paper and its water-marks, &c.

The " system " divides the Gothic or Church types with which B 36 and B 42 and the other books mentioned above are printed into " chief " and " by-forms," (Hauptand Nebenformen). The tops and bottoms of the former are ornamented with minute protruding tags, angles and points, while the " by-forms " miss most of these ornaments, their limbs being straight on the left or right, so as to be easily joined to the protruding tags, angles and points of the " chief forms, " whenever the two come together. For instance, if a u or a t follows an e, the " by-form " of u with straight limbs was to be used, while the t was to be without its crossbar protruding on the left.

The bibliographers who deal with the incunabula enumerated above, in accordance with this " system," regard the books in which they find these chief and by-forms used in their proper places as the earliest, and therefore as the products of Gutenberg's " creative genius and skill," while they ascribe the books which bear evidence of the misuse of those forms to other printers, but their types to him. But this is an uncertain guide, as by errors in the distribution of the types after the printing of the first or second pages this misuse may already occur in the third and further pages of a book. In this way, however, the " system " arranges the books enumerated above in the following approximately chronological order: 1 4432 444. " First phase " of the Gutenberg type (=the Donatus type). The numbers ii., iii., iv. (with the suspicious date 1451) and v.

1447 (end of) till 1457(?). " Second phase " of the same type (=the Kalendar type). The numbers vi. to xiv.

1450-1453. B42 presumed to have been finished in or before 1453, taking this year, written in the Klemm copy, as genuine.

1453. " Third phase " of Gutenberg's type, B 36 (xviii., of which the earliest known date is 1461).

1 454. The two Indulgences with their types (1, 3; 2, 4). 1457. The two Psalter types.

1461, 1462 till (?). Pfister, who is said to have acquired the type of B 36 from Gutenberg, is known to have issued a book with the date 14 February 1461, and another with the year 2462. Hence, Schwenke says that the 36-line Bible type, which he regards as a " continuation. " of the Donatus, and the Kalendar types, had a life of nearly 20 years (Veroffentl. ii. I). Type v. is thought to be Gutenberg's earliest (before 1443!) by the few who regard the " Missale speciale " and the " Missale abbreviatum " as his work.

The " Donatus type " is so called from the Paris Donatus, on one of whose leaves the year 1451 is written. Zedler, somewhat unreasonably, considers this date to be a forgery of Professor Bodmann, though he is known to have forged other Gutenberg documents. This type is regarded as the same as that of the Astronomical Kalendar, but in an earlier, more imperfect stage. As this Kalendar calculates the ephemerides of the sun, moon and stars, either for the year 2429 or for 1448 or 1467, it is presumed to have been printed for 1448, that is at the end of 1447, and as its type looks new and almost perfect, the Paris Donatus is placed considerably earlier because its type looks old. The poem on the " Weltgericht " i No. ii.) is said to show all the forms of the Donatus type, but as ts workmanship looks primitive, it is dated back to 1443-1444 The Heiligenstadt Donatus (No. iii.) is placed after the " Weltgericht " (ii.), but before the Paris Donatus (iv.) and the other Heiligenstadt Donatus (v.). Some German bibliographers do not feel sure that Gutenberg manufactured types v., vi. and vii., though they have no doubt as to the remaining. Others are of opinion that Pfister printed some of the books in the type of B 36; Schwenke thinks this Bible could not have been begun before 1457, but all agree that every book in the above lists must have been printed either by Gutenberg himself, or in his office, or with his type, or under his superintendence.

Though the church type 1 cannot be said to be identical with that of B 36, and no further trace of the brief type 2 has been found, we see no reason for separating Indulgence 3 ' from Mainz printing. And assuming that it was printed there, its printer may have been Johan Gutenberg, who was at Mainz in 1454.

A peculiarity of the above-mentioned " system " is that it ascribes two types, so different in size, shape and form, as those of B 36 and B 42, to one and the same printer, merely because they " resemble " each other. This shows that the " system " takes no account of the fact that the inventor of printing, and all the early printers who came after him, in manufacturing their types necessarily imitated the forms of the written characters of their time. Hence if two printers simultaneously erected their presses in one town, their types, though cut and cast independently, were apt to resemble each other, as appears from various examples. The printers of B 3 ' and B 42 are no exception to this rule; they each took a MS. as their model, and the types which they produced are simply imitations of the Gothic or Church hand, which, from its first beginnings in the 10th century, if not earlier, can clearly be traced down to, and reached its greatest development in, the 15th century.' The written characters of all ages and countries resemble and yet differ from each other in various respects; and as their resemblances and differences are closely reproduced by the metal printing types of every country, we are able to ascribe MSS. as well as incunabula to definite countries, some manuscripts even to " schools, " a few even to definite scribes. But when two types differ in size and form, however slightly, and there is no evidence that they belonged to one and the same printer, some of their characteristics may justify us in ascribing both to the same country or town, but not to the same printer. It is, moreover, not safe to ascribe incunabula to one and the same printer on account of their similarity of the quires and divisions into volumes, their paper or water-marks (which Dziatzko observed in the two Bibles), as these particulars are nothing but a continuance of the MSS.

1 The Cambridge University Library possesses two folio volumes (press-mark; Dd. 7. I, 2), the writing of which, ascribed in the catalogue to 1490, resembles the types of B 42 with all its chief and by-forms so much, that at first sight they might be mistaken for copies of this Bible.

Nor is his evidence for saying that B 36 is a reprint of B 42 conclusive. The types of B36 and B 42 may be ascribed to Germany, but as both are used for the printing of a Bible and editions of Donatus, it is improbable that the printer of B 42 and one set of Donatuses should manufacture, about the same time, another type for another Bible and another set of Donatuses. We have shown above that B 42 must, on bibliographical grounds, be ascribed to Peter Schoeffer at Mainz, and as he used its type for a book which actually bears his name, all the other books in the same type must be ascribed to him. It follows that B 36 and every other book in column A must be assigned to some other printer or printers.

Type v. is a Church type and resembles those of B 36 and B42, but it can have nothing to do with Gutenberg or the invention of printing, as it is not earlier than 1480-1490. Types vi. and vii., which are nothing but imitations of the written Psalters of the time, are employed for a work, the colophon of which distinctly mentions Fust and Schoeffer as the printers; hence they cannot be claimed for Gutenberg. Of the Catholicon type we speak below. Therefore the books numbered i. to xxi. in column A of the above list are the only ones about which there can be any doubt or discussion.

Here we encounter another peculiarity of the above-mentioned " system," which treats the three different types detected in these twenty-one works not as different, but as " phases " or " developments " of one and the same type, while the differences between them, and the absence or presence of certain forms of letters, are taken as guides for approximately dating the books, and for subdividing the type, hitherto known as the 36-line Bible or Gutenberg type, into three or more varieties. For instance, Schwenke (Centralbl., 1908, p. 74) explains that " the types b, c, i, s, t enable us to distinguish the earliest from the later elements in the Donatus type; the ` Weltgericht ' shows, at least of i and s, the old forms still unmixed. But in the Paris Donatus, the new forms appear by the side of the old forms, though the latter are already to a great extent superseded. The new (Heiligenstadt) Donatus comes between these two works; it has chiefly the old b, which begins to a great extent to be absent in the Paris Donatus." As we cannot regard types which differ in form as " developments " of one type, we must deal with three types in column A, that is (1) the so-called Donatus type; (2) the Kalendar type; (3) the 36-line Bible type, besides the two employed for the Indulgence 31. Gutenberg's career, and the straightened circumstances in which he appears to have lived, so far as they are known to us, make it difficult to ascribe them all to him.

More than thirty documents have come to light which enable us to trace Johan Gutenberg from 1420 to 1468. Dr Carl Schorbach has published nearly all their texts, with elaborate explanations, in the Festschrift zum goo jdhr. Geburtstage von J. Gutenberg (suppl. to Centralbl. f. Biblioth., 1900, p. 163 sqq.), and they are further explained by Hessels (Gutenberg, was he the Inventor of Printing ? 1886; idem, The so-called Gutenberg Documents, 1911) .

At least six of them are known to be forgeries, among them the " relics " of a printing-press with the date " 1441 " which were accidentally(!) discovered in 1856 in the " Hof zum Jungen " which had always been supposed to have been Gutenberg's first printingoffice at Mainz, but which we now know not to have been the case. Assuming that the Gutenberg mentioned in the remaining documents is no other than Henne (= Hans or Johan) Gensfleischcalled Gutenberg from his mother (whose maiden name was Elsa Wyrich) having lived in the " Hof zum Gutenberg " at Mainz, where he is supposed to have been born about moo - he appears to have lived at Strassburg from 1436 (?) till the 12th of March 1444, in easy and somewhat luxurious circumstances, at least during the first three years, as he was then paying duties for large quantities of wine (about 1924 liter). But this prosperity does not seem to have continued, for on the 17th of November 1442 he borrowed 80 pounds Strassburg denarii (=about 4800 marks) from the Strassburg St Thomas Chapter, a Strassburg citizen, Martin Brechter, being his surety. From the 12th of March 1444 till the 17th of October 1448 there is no trace of him, but on the latter day he again borrowed, this time at Mainz, 150 gold guilders. Both these loans he never redeemed, nor is it known whether he ever paid any interest on his Mainz loan. But the account books of the Thomas Chapter, still preserved in the Strassburg Public Archives, show that the interest of 4 pounds per annum on his loan of 1442 was regularly paid, by him or his surety, till 1457 The interest due in the latter year was also paid, but difficulties appear to have occurred before the Chapter received it, as there is an item in their account book for1457-1458of two shillings for expenses, incurred by them for arresting Gutenberg and his surety. In and after 1458 no further payments were made; the Chapter had recourse to law, and made various efforts to arrest the defaulters, but in vain; and in 1474, six years after Gutenberg's death, the debt is no longer recorded in the Chapter's accounts. He can be traced at Mainz from 1450 (when he borrowed money from Fust) till the 21st of June 1457, when he is a witness at the conveyance of property in Bodenheim near Mainz. After this date we hear no more of him until the 17th of January 1465, when the archbishop of Mainz appointed him as his servant and courtier for life on account of the " grateful and willing service which he had rendered to himself and to his Stift, and will and may render in future. " The nature of this " service " is not stated. It has always been supposed that he was then residing at Eltville, the residence of the archbishop, and that he died there about or before the 26th of February 1468, on which day Dr Kunr. Humery received from the archbishop some " printing apparatus which belonged to him, and which he had lent to Gutenberg." But recent researches seem to have shown that Gutenberg remained at Mainz till his death, and was buried there.

Apart from the six forgeries, about which there is no dispute, Bockenheimer, a Mainz magistrate, istrate, explains (Gutenberg-Feier, Mainz, 1900) as forgeries also (I) the document of the 14th of March 1434, which represents Gutenberg as having at Strassburg arrested and released the secretary of Mainz for a debt which this city owed him; (2) a document of 1437 recording a breach of promise case between Gutenberg and a Strassburg lady; (3) the records of a Strassburg lawsuit between Gutenberg and some Strassburg citizens in 1 439; (4) the Helmasperger notarial instrument of the 6th of November 1455, recording a lawsuit of Joh. Fust against J oh. Gutenberg. The last two, and a third dated the 26th of February 1468, mentioned above, are the only documents that can be said to connect Gutenberg with the art of printing. Various external and internal circumstances throw serious doubts on the genuineness of the 1439 documents; but suppose they were genuine, they only show that Gutenberg had been engaged, with other Strassburg citizens, in " polishing stones " and " manufacturing looking-glasses," and promised to give instruction in " new arts." A " press," however, is mentioned, and a clause reports that one of Gutenberg's witnesses, Hans Diinne, a goldsmith, had testified that he had earned nearly 100 guilders from Gutenberg, " merely for that which belonged to printing " (alleine das zu dem trucken gehoret). The document contains nothing to connect Gutenberg with the art of printing, except this line, which has clearly been added (as an afterthought) by a different hand from the one that wrote the two first lines of this witness's testimony, a circumstance which makes the whole document more than suspicious. Several theories, however, as to Gutenberg printing at Strassburg in or before 1439 have been built upon this document, and German bibliographers are even now expressing their hope of finding some day evidence of Gutenberg having printed Donatuses and other works in that town.

As to the notarial instrument of 1455, Bockenheimer suggests that as it contains absurdities which are contradictory to all the legal usages of the time, it may be a forgery of the Faust family, perhaps of Joh. Fr. Faust von Aschaffenburg (who pretended to descend from Joh. Fust, whom he called " Faust "), who appears to have possessed, in or about 1600, an " original " of the instrument. From this " original " are derived all the texts published before 1741. In that year, however, J. D. Kehler (Ehren-Rettung Joh. Guttenberg's, Leipzig) printed the text again from an " original " which is now in the Göttingen University Library (republished by Dziatzko, Beitrage, Berlin, 1889), and is perhaps identical with Faust von Aschaffenburg's " original." Though an analysis of the text brings out various incongruities as to the business relations between Fust and Gutenberg, it is difficult to look upon the Göttingen document as a forgery, and we deal with it here as genuine.

It is dated the 6th of November 1455, and records some of the proceedings in the lawsuit between Johan Fust (q.v.) and Gutenberg, which had taken place on that day in the convent of the Barefooted Friars at Mainz, whereby the former sought to recover from Gutenberg 2026 guilders in repayment of 1600 guilders which he had advanced to him (800 about August 1450, and another 800 about December 1452), with the interest thereon. The document first relates that, on some previous day (not stated), Fust had testified (1) that by a written agreement between them, Gutenberg was to " finish the work " (line 24) with the 800 guilders to be advanced to him at 6%; Fust being unconcerned whether it cost more or less. (2) Gutenberg had not been content with these 800 guilders, and Fust, wishing to please him, advanced him another 800 guilders at 6%. (3) He had himself borrowed this money, and as Gutenberg had never paid any interest, the principal sum and the interest thereon amounted to 2026 guilders (=between 15,000 and 16,000 marks), which he now demanded from him.

(4) On the same occasion Gutenberg had replied that Fust should have furnished him with 800 guilders, wherewith to make his " tools " (or apparatus; Germ. Geczuge), and he should be content with this money, and might devote it to his own use. (5) Such tools should be a pledge to Fust. (6) The latter should also give him (lines 37 to 40) annually 300 guilders for maintenance and furnish workmen's wages, house-rent, parchment, paper, ink, &c. (7) If they did not agree further, he should return Fust his 800 guilders, and his tools should be free; but it was to be well understood that he should finish " such work " (line 41) with the money which Fust had lent him on his pledge, and he hoped that he had not been bound to Fust to spend such 800 guilders on " the work of the books " (line 41). (8) Fust had told him that he did not desire to take interest from him; nor had these 800 guilders all, and at once, come to him in accordance with the agreement. (9) Of the additional 800 guilders he wished to render Fust an account; hence he allowed Fust no interest, nor usury, and hopes not to be legally indebted to him.

We assume, though it is nowhere stated, that these clauses relate to the " printing of books," to be executed by Gutenberg with the money which Fust advanced to him. But as he was already in debt at Strassburg since the 17th of November 1442 (and had to pay annually interest on this debt), and at Mainz since the r7 th of October 1448 (also against interest), it is not surprising that when he contracted this fresh loan in 1450, at the high rate of 6%, he (by not giving any security except tools which he had still to make) practically admitted that he was penniless, and stipulated that Fust should give him also an annual sum for maintenance, and besides furnish workmen's wages, house-rent, parchment, paper, ink, &c., in fact everything required for setting up a printing-office and keeping it going. Fust seems not to have complied with these demands, otherwise he would have mentioned them in his account and at the trial. But he advanced another 800 guilders in December 1452, barely two years after his first advance, merely to please Gutenberg, who had not been satisfied with the first 800.

It is argued that Gutenberg must have been able to show Fust some specimens of his work to induce him to lend him so much money, and we have seen above that German bibliographers attribute to him a poem on the " Weltgericht, " which they date c. 1 4431 444, and the Paris Donatus which they date a little later, both printed, it is said, in the " first phase " of the " Gutenberg type," but showing already some traces of wear and tear; and thirdly, an Astronomical Kalendar (a broadside of 4 leaves) which they ascribe to the end of 1447, and regard as a " masterpiece " printed in a new type, said to be a " development " or " second phase " of the Gutenberg type, which must have been used for several years afterwards, till a fresh or " third phase " was cast of it (for B 36) with the alteration of some of the letters. But if Gutenberg had printed these three works in the years ascribed to them, however small they may be, he must be supposed to have had, from 1443 to 1448, types for printing them, and patrices and matrices for making his types, besides a press and various other tools for printing. Yet the notarial instrument of 1455, if it is genuine, reveals him as borrowing money, not so early as 1443, but so late as 1450, for " preparing his tools," and as having, at the time, nothing to offer his creditor as security except the tools which he still had to make(!). But, says one theory, Gutenberg, intending to print a Bible, and finding the type in his possession too large for it, manufactured a smaller one with the aid of Fust's money, while another theory would have it that he wanted to begin with the printing of a Missal, and for this purpose casted two types, one large and the other smaller. Difficulties, however, arose which induced him to use the smaller type for B 42, which was finished about the beginning of 1 453, and Dziatzko places the type of B 36 also in the year 1453, while Schwenke assigns a life of nearly twenty years (1443-1462) to this type.

If, however, Gutenberg had cast all these types, and printed all these books, and sold them, straight from 1443 to 1450, and from 1450 straight on to, say, 1455, he could not have done this without Fust, his money-lender, becoming aware of it, especially as Fust, for his first advance of 800 guilders, was to have received, as security, the " tools " which Gutenberg had to make before he could begin to print. Yet in 1455, fully five years after Fust had entered into such close financial relations with Gutenberg, he claimed, in spite of what he must have known of Gutenberg's supposed activity, the whole of the money which he had advanced, with interest and compound interest on it. And Gutenberg, instead of pleading on the first day of the trial that he had from 1450 to 1455 printed two large folio Bibles and a considerable number of other books, merely refers to the initial stages of his work, to " tools " to be prepared by him as a future pledge for Fust; he tells the judges that he had expected Fust to supply him with various necessaries for printing and his own existence, without saying whether Fust had complied with his demands or not, and finally declares that he had not felt called upon to devote the first 800 guilders to the " work of the books "; that he was ready to account for the second 800, but did not feel indebted to Fust either for interest or anything else, while, on the second day of the trial, he absented himself, and merely sent two of his workmen to hear what was going on (!). This does not look as if he had performed much from 1450 to 1455, but rather the reverse. Anyhow, if the Helmasperger instrument of November 1455 is not a fabrication, it shows that Gutenberg could not have begun to print before 1450; that in this year, 1450 (about August), when he borrowed money from Fust, he had no property such as a printing-office, presses, types, patrices, matrices, &c., which he must have possessed if he had been printing since 1443, to offer his creditor as security; had not a penny to maintain himself; besides being already in debt at Strassburg since 1442, and at Mainz since 1448.

The remainder of the instrument records the verdict given on the first day of the trial which decided (1) when Gutenberg shall have rendered his account of all receipts and disbursements paid out by him on the " work for the use [or profit] of them both " (i. 49), whatever less 1 money he then has received and taken in above it, that shall be reckoned in the 800 guilders; (2) but if the account should show that Gutenberg had paid out more for Fust than 800 guilders which had not come in their common good [or use] (line 60) Gutenberg shall return it to Fust; (3) and if Fust adduces by oath or by reasonable evidence that he has borrowed the above money on interest, and not lent it of his own money, then Gutenberg shall also pay such interest according to the tenor of the schedule.

The verdict is followed by Fust's sworn declaration regarding the amount of his claim, which he had been ordered to make in Gutenberg's presence, but which he now made in his absence, declaring (4) that he had taken up 1550 guilders which Gutenberg had received and which also had gone on " our common work " (line 60); (5) that he had annually given interest and loss, part of which he still owed; six guilders for every 100 guilders which he had thus taken up; (6) of all that Gutenberg had received of this borrowed money, which has not gone on the " work " of them both, which is found in the account, he claimed from him the interest in accordance with the verdict.

Gutenberg appears not to have produced the account which he was expected (clause 1) to render, as Fust's allusion to an account (in clause 6) must refer to his own account. Hence we know not whether he made any " disbursements. " The " receipts " seem to mean nothing more than the instalments of the first 800 guilders which he acknowledged to have received from Fust, though some authors think that allusion is made to things (printed books or broadsides ?) from which he might have received money by sale or otherwise.

It is to be noticed that Fust speaks here (for the sake of accuracy?) of having taken up 1550 not 1600 guilders, as in his first account. On the whole the wording of the verdict and the sworn declaration is obscure, and open to different interpretations, but it is impossible to ascribe to Gutenberg, on the strength of this document, the manufacture of the types and the printing of all the books in column A above, especially when we have regard to his own inexplicable silence at the trial, when it was incumbent on him for his own sake to show what he had done with Fust's money, and still more when we have regard to the pecuniary difficulties in which he had been placed at least eight years before he contracted these heavy new loans with Fust. Within the space of two years after the trial he was bankrupt, unable to pay either his loans or the small interest thereon, and might have ended his days in prison if the Strassburg St Thomas Stift had been able to have him arrested.

Certain circumstances point to Albrecht Pfister of Bamberg as the printer of the numbers vii., viii., ix., xviii. and perhaps those that come between them in column A. Even in former years when the church type of the Indulgence 3l (1454) was believed to be identical with that of B 36, it was the general opinion that, though Pfister could not have printed the Indulgence, he had acquired its church type from Gutenberg for printing B36 Now that a closer examination has shown that the type of B36 need not be dated so early as 1454, the known dates of Pfister (1461, 1462) harmonize with the approximate date (1460) of B36. It is admitted that the types of vii., viii. and ix. differ from that 1 The instrument says: " was er dan men gelts dar uber enpfangen. .. hait. " Senckenberg, Kohler, Van der Linde, &c., printed nun for the correct reading men. This latter word has hitherto been interpreted as meaning more (see Dziatzko, Gutenbergfrage, p. 34, note 1; Schorbach, in Festschr. of 1900, p. 259). Zedler (Gutenbergforschungen, p. 65, note) thinks that it is a dialectic by-form of the Mid. H. German mein found in mein-kouf, meinrdt, mein-swern, mein-tdt, and still preserved in the Mod. H. German Meineid; he translates it therefore as " widerrechtlich " (unlawfully). But men is the same as the Mid. Dutch min (see Verdam's MiddelNederl, Woordenb, in voce) = New Netherl. minder, and means less, the only meaning which can give sense to this clause.

of B 36 in the form of certain capitals. But Pfister issued on the 14th of February 1401 at Bamberg, with the B 36 type, an edition of Boner's Edelstein (88 leaves fol., with wood-engravings), and at least eight other works (Hessels, Gutenberg, p. 161, seq.), one of which bears the date 1462, the seven others none.

Most of the copies of the 36-line Bible now known to us were at one time or another preserved in the libraries of Bavaria, and several fragments have been found in monasteries of that country, even in a register of the year 1460 of the abbey of St Michael at Bamberg. Moreover, a transfer or sale of type from Gutenberg to Pfister is contrary to all analogy in the infancy of printing, when every printer started with a type of his own making.

It is alleged that, in consequence of the lawsuit between Gutenberg and Fust, the former was deprived of all tools, &c., The which he had made, or is supposed to have made, Catholicon with the latter's money, and that afterwards a cer Type. tain Dr Homery or Humery, a syndic of Mainz, lent him fresh money to enable him to set up another printingoffice.

This allegation is made on the strength of a letter of obligation (dated Feb. 26, 1468) referred to above, and given by Dr Homery to Adolph, the archbishop of Mainz, by which he acknowledges to have received from the said archbishop " several forms, letters, instruments, implements and other things belonging to the work of printing, which Johan Gutenberg had left after his death, and which had belonged and still did belong to him (Dr Homery)." It is to be observed that Homery, though willing to assist or oblige Gutenberg, had been cautious enough to reserve to himself all rights to this printing apparatus, in somewhat the same way as Fust in 1450 demanded, or was promised, to receive Gutenberg's " tools " as pledge for his advances. The Homery apparatus could hardly have been of large dimensions, seeing that it was readily passed on first from him to Gutenberg, then from the latter to the archbishop and returned again to its owner. But it is presumed that with these types, which appear in the above list as type VIII., Gutenberg had printed (1) Joannis de Balbis, Catholicon of 1460, copies of which exist in the Cambridge University Library, three in the British Museum, two in the Paris Library, in the Spencer collection of the Rylands Library, in the Wolfenbiittel and Mainz libraries, &c.; (2) Matthaeus de Cracovia, Tractatus rationis, 22 leaves, of 30 lines, 4to, three copies of which are in the British Museum, one in the Rylands, one in the Cambridge, two in the Paris Library, &c.; (3 and 4), two editions of Thomas Aquinas, Summa de articulis fidei, in 4to., the first of 13 leaves and 34 lines (two copies of which are in the British Museum, one in the Rylands and one in the Cambridge Library, &c.); the second of 12 leaves and 36 lines (copies in the British Museum and the Paris Library); and (5) an indulgence of 1461 of 15 lines.

We have seen above that on the 17th of January 1465 Adolph II., archbishop of Mainz, had appointed " Johan Gudenberg, his servant and courtier. " It has always been inferred from this that Gutenberg had quitted Mainz and gone to Eltville (Elfeld) to reside at the archbishop's court, and that, his dignity as courtier preventing him from printing himself, he passed the Catholicon types on to Henry Bechtermuncze at Eltville. It seems certain that in 1467 the Catholicon type with some additions (already found in the Indulgence of 1461) was at Eltville near Mainz, in the hands of Henry and Nicholas Bechtermuncze and Wigandus Spyes de Orthenberg, who issued on the 4th of November of that year (vi.) Vocabularius ex quo (a Latin-German vocabulary) in 4to, 166 leaves, 35 lines, the only known copy of which is in the Paris Library, and (vii.) Vocabularius ex quo, 2nd edition, with colophon dated the 5th of June 1469, 4to, 165 leaves, 35 lines, copies of which exist in the Rylands, the Blenheim, and the Paris libraries. It is therefore asked how the Bechtermunczes could have been using the Catholicon type in 1467, if we assume that it was this type to which Homery refers in his letter of obligation as being in his possession. Some, therefore, conclude that the Catholicon and the four other works in the same type were printed at Mainz by Henry Bechtermuncze, who may afterwards have transferred his printing office to Eltville. In that case it is difficult to see what type Homery could refer to, unless it were type II, a close imitation of which, if not the actual type, was used by Nicholas Bechtermuncze at Eltville in printing (March 12, 1472) a 3rd edition of the Vocabularius ex quo, 166 leaves, 35 lines, copies of which are preserved in the Paris and Hamburg libraries, and an edition of Thomas Aquinas, Summa de articulis fidei, 12 leaves, 35 lines (Munich Library).

It would seem, however, that Fust and Schoeffer were the printers and publishers of the Catholicon, and the other three works mentioned above, as the latter advertised them for sale in a list which he printed and circulated in1469-1470(see Konr.

Burger, Buchhiindleranzeigen des 15 Jahrhunderts, Leipzig, 1907, No. 3). Schoeffer may of course have purchased the stock of these books from Gutenberg or acquired it after his death from Homery, but as nothing compels us to attribute the printing of these books to Gutenberg, there is still less reason to deny that Fust and Schoeffer printed them, as the much discussed colophon of the Catholicon is found, almost verbatim, in three books published by them in 1465 and 1467. Hence the numbers i. to vi. are the only ones that could be ascribed to Gutenberg.

Even this number, involving the manufacture of four different types (apart from the alterations in the forms of certain letters which involved the making of new patrices and matrices) would be large for a man who, after having lived in luxury for some years, practically subsisted from 1442 to 1455 on money which he borrowed from various parties and never repaid. But the poem on the " Weltgericht," printed on paper, could scarcely be placed at the head of a list which includes and, but for this poem, begins with vellum printed works. Moreover, as it can hardly be regarded as a specimen of primitive printing, it takes a more natural place by the side of the paper-printed Turkkalendar, Cisianus and Conjunctiones, which all show that printing on paper was beginning to supersede that on vellum. It is asserted that its type is the same as that of the 1451 Donatus, but this is doubtful.

That the Astronomical Kalendar calculates the ephemerides for 1448 is no evidence of its having been printed at the end of 1447, as kalendars of this kind seem to have been printed without any regard to time and circumstances. Some years ago the Cisianus was ascribed to Gutenberg and to the year 1444, because some of the saints and movable feasts mentioned in it were thought to relate to that year. But as the same saints and feasts occur in the same way in Cisianus editions printed long after 1500, this notion was abandoned. The Astronomical Kalendar in question lays down rules for blood-letting at certain times of the year, and was evidently intended to be hung up in houses as guides for this purpose. It is admitted that it contains mistakes if we apply its calculations to 1448, and it has not yet been proved that these rules required a special kalendar for each year in particular. Removing, therefore, Nos. ii. and vi. to somewhat later dates in the list, the Donatus No. iii. and that of 1451 (No. iv.) with another edition (No. v.) of the same school-book remain at the head of the column A, together with the Indulgence 31, as the only works that could be ascribed to Gutenberg. They bring us down to the time (c. 1451) when he, according to the Helmasperger document, may be supposed to have been in a position to exercise the new art of printing.

It is necessary to point out that eight books - (1) Prognostication or Calendar; (2) Hermann de Saldis, Speculum sacerdotum; (3) Tractatus de celebratione missarum; (4) a work in Berman treating of the necessity of councils; (5) Dialogus inter Hugonem Cathonem et Oliverium super libertate ecclesiastica; (6) Sifridus de Arena, Determinatio duarum quaestionum; (7) idem, Responsio ad quatuor quaestiones; (8) Klagspiegel, or New geteutscht Rechtbuch - have been ascribed to Gutenberg on the strength (a) of the date 1460, which was said to be found in a Prognostication in the Darmstadt library, and (b) of a so-called rubrication alleged to be in a copy of the Tractatus de celebratione missarum, in which " Johannes dictus a bono monte " and Johannes Numeister are represented as offering this work on the 19th of June 1463 to the Carthusians at Mainz. But the date in the Prognostication has been falsified from 1482 into 1460, and the rubrication in the Tractatus is a forgery (Hessels, Gutenberg, pp. 107-114). The eight books are now considered to have been printed by Erhard Reuwich.

Apart from these disputed points there is no further difficulty as regards the history of Mainz printing. Fust and Schoeffer worked together from 1457 to 1466, starting in August 1457 with an edition of the Psalterium, printed in large missal types, which, as far as we know, is the first printed book which bears a date, besides the place where it was printed and the name of the printers. It was reprinted with the same types in 1459 (the second printed book with date, place and name of printer), in 1490, and in 1502 (the last work of Schoeffer, who had manufactured its types). In 1459 Fust and Schoeffer also published Gul. Durantus, Rationale divinorum of iciorum, with the small type (usually called Durandus type) with which they continued to print long afterwards. In 1460 they published the Constitutiones of Pope Clement V., the text printed in a type (Clement type) about a third larger than the Durandus. This type was, however, in existence in 1459, as the colophon of the Durandus is printed with it.1 The Invention Controversy. - Now that we have traced the art of printing from the moment (14J4) that it made its 1 See further Bernard, Origine, i. 21 6 seq.

appearance in a perfect state at Mainz, and have seen that none of the particulars known to us of the life and career of Johan Gutenberg, who is alleged to have invented it, nor any of the books said to have been printed by him, afford us any basis for ascribing that honour to him, we will examine what has been said during a period of more than four hundred years on the question of the invention. For this purpose we will gather up into a chronological sequence (a) a few of the most important expressions used by the earliest printers in their colophons, (b) whatever documentary evidence there may be on the subject, and (c) some accounts of the earliest authors on the question. The Roman numerals i., ii., &c., are for the sake of convenient reference.

The earliest 1 testimony (i.) is the notarial instrument, dated the 6th of November 1455, of the lawsuit between Fust and Gutenberg, already mentioned above, which records transactions between the two men from August 1450 to November 1455, Fust speaking of the work and of " our common work "; Gutenberg of " tools " which he wanted to prepare, of " workmen's wages, house-rent, vellum, paper, ink, &c.," of " such work " and of " the work of the books, " whereas the judges speak of " the work to the profit of both " and " their common use. " (ii.) In the first 2 book published with a date (the Mainz Psalter, issued the 14th of August 1457 by Fust and Peter Schoeffer) it is said that it was perfected at Mainz by an " adinventio art ficiosa mprimendi ac caracterizandi absque calami Colophons, ulla exaratione, repeated and varied later, by the same printers in their colophons of the years 1459 to at least 1470. (iii.) In 1460 the colophon of the Catholicon published at Mainz without the printer's name, after stating that " the book was printed at Mainz, the genial city of the renowned German nation, which town God's mercy had deigned to prefer and adorn above the other nations of the earth by such an exalted light of genius and spontaneous gift, " adds that the book was printed and completed " non calami, stili, aut pennae suffragio, sed mira patronarum formarumque concordia, proporcione, et modulo. " This work (which is to be ascribed to Peter Schoeffer) is considered to have been printed by Gutenberg, and the mention of God's mercy, &c., is regarded as an allusion to the invention of printing. The phrase is, however, also found, with some variations, in the Liber sextus Decretalium, in the Summa of Thomas Aquinas, and in the Clementinae, published respectively on the 17th of December 1465, the 6th of March and the 8th of October 1467, by Fust and Schoeffer. (iv;) On the 17th of January 1465 Adolph II., archbishop of Mainz, by a public decree, appointed Gutenberg as his servant in reward for " his services, " but he does not say what kind of " services " he had rendered, nor does he speak of him as the inventor of printing, nor as a printer.

(v.) In the Grammatica rhythmica, published in 1466 by Fust and Schoeffer, the third line of the colophon runs: " Hinc Nazareni sonet oda per ora Johannis, " which was formerly regarded as an allusion to Johann Fust or Johann Gutenberg, but which more probably refers to Johann Brunnen or Fons, the author of the grammar.

(vi.) On the 26th of February 1468 Dr Homery wrote to the archbishop of Mainz the letter quoted above, from which it may be inferred that Gutenberg had been a printer, though nothing is said as to his being the inventor of printing. (vii.) In 1468 Schoeffer reprinted Fons's Grammatica, in the colophon of which it is said: " At Moguntina sum fusus in urbe libellus meque (the book) domus genuit unde caragma venit. " (viii.) Schoeffer published on the 24th of May 1468 the 1st edition of Justiniani Imper. Institutionum juris libri VI., cum glossa. To this were added by way of colophon some verses commencing: " Scema tabernaculi, " &c., in which it is said that (the ornament of the church) Jesus " hos dedit eximios sculpendi in arte magistros ... Quos genuit ambos urbs Moguntina Johannes, librorum insignes prothocaragmaticos," which is regarded as an allusion to Joha