SPREAD OF PRINTING IN GERMANY.

Before 1462, when the sacking of Mainz by Adolf von Nassau is popularly supposed to have disseminated the art of printing, presses were at work in at least two other German towns, Strasburg and Bamberg.

The first of these places is mentioned by Trithemius, who records that after the secret of printing was discovered, it spread first to Strasburg. Judging merely from authentic dates, this is evidently correct, for we have the date 1460 for Strasburg, and 1461-62 for Bamberg. There are, however, strong reasons for supposing that this order is hardly the correct one, and that Bamberg should come first. Since, however, the statement and the dates exist, it will be safer for us provisionally to consider Strasburg as the first, and state later on the arguments in favour of Bamberg.

Though no dated book is known printed at Strasburg before 1471, in which year Eggestein printed the Decretum Gratiani, and though Mentelin’s first dated book is of the year 1473, yet we know from the rubrications of a copy of the Latin Bible in the library at Freiburg, that that book was finished, the first volume before 1460, and the second before 1461. Concerning the printer, John Mentelin, a good deal is known. Born at Schelestadt, he became a scribe and illuminator; but, like many others, abandoned the original business to become a printer. P. de Lignamine in his Chronicle says that by 1458, Mentelin had a press at Strasburg, and was printing, like Gutenberg, three hundred sheets a day. By 1461 he had finished printing the forty-nine line edition of the Latin Bible. He died on the 12th December 1478, leaving two daughters, one married to Adolf Rusch d’Ingwiller, his successor; the other, to Martin Schott, another Strasburg printer. Very few of his books are dated; and as his types have not yet been systematically studied, the books cannot be ranged in any accurate order.

Taking the information in Lignamine’s Chronicle as exact, and we have no reason to doubt its accuracy, we may take certain books in the type of the Bible as the earliest of Mentelin’s books.[11] Round 1466 we can group some other books, the Augustinus de arte predicandi and the Homily on St. Matthew by St. Chrysostom. A copy of the former book in the British Museum is rubricated 1466; and of the latter a copy in the Spencer Collection has the same year added in manuscript. In Sir M. M. Sykes’ sale was a volume containing copies of these two books bound together in contemporary binding. About 1470, Mentelin issued a catalogue containing the titles of nine books, including a Virgil, a Terence, and a Valerius Maximus. Mentelin also printed the first edition of the Bible in German, a folio of 406 leaves. Several copies are known with the rubricated date of 1466; and the same date is also found in a copy of the Secunda secundÆ of Aquinas. Many other of his books contain manuscript dates, and show that they are considerably earlier than is usually supposed.

Henry Eggestein, whose first dated book was issued in 1471, was living in Strasburg as early as 1442, and probably began to print almost as soon as Mentelin. The earliest date attributable to any of his books is 1466, the date written by Bamler, at that time an illuminator, in the copy of one of his forty-five line editions of the Bible now in the library at WolfenbÜttel. In 1471, Eggestein himself tells us that he had printed a large number of books. A little time before this he had issued a most glowing advertisement of his Bible. He appeals to the good man to come and see his wonderful edition, produced, as the early printers were so fond of saying, not by the pen, but by the wonderful art of printing. The proofs had been read by the best scholars, and the book printed in the best style. This Bible, which has forty-five lines to the column, was finished by 1466, for the copy now in the library at Munich was rubricated in that year. The only printed dates that occur in Eggestein’s books are 1471 and 1472. Hain gives three books of the years 1474, 1475, and 1478 as printed in his type, but these contain no printer’s name.

The most mysterious printer connected with the history of the Strasburg press, is the printer who used a peculiarly shaped capital R, and is therefore known as the R printer. He seems to have been very generally confounded with Mentelin till 1825, when the sale catalogue of Dr. Kloss’ books appeared. In this sale there happened to be two copies of the Speculum of Vincent de Beauvais, one the undoubted Mentelin edition, the other by the R printer. The writer of the note in the catalogue stated that, on comparison, the types of the two editions, though very like each other, were not the same. Since the type is different, and the peculiar R has never yet been found in any authentic book printed by Mentelin, we may safely say that Mentelin was not the printer. To whom, then, are the books to be ascribed? Many consider them the work of Adolf Rusch d’Ingwiller. M. Madden attributes them all to the Monastery of Weidenbach at Cologne, in common with most of the other books by unknown printers, and dates them about 1470. Bradshaw, writing to Mr. Winter Jones in 1870, says: ‘In turning over a volume of fragments yesterday, I found a Bull of Sixtus IV., dated 1478, in the type of the famous “R” printer so often confounded with Mentelin. His books are commonly put down to 1470 or earlier, and I believe no one ever thought of putting his books so late as 1478.[12] Yet this little piece is almost the only certain date which is known in connection with this whole series of books.’ Complete sets of the Speculum of Vincent de Beauvais are very often made up, partly from Mentelin’s and partly from the R printer’s editions, which points to their having been probably printed at the same place and about the same time. The earliest MS. date found in any of the books by the R printer is 1464; for a note in the copy of the Duranti Rationale divinorum Officiorum in the library at Basle, states that the book was bought in that year for the University. If this date is authentic, it follows that Strasburg was the first place where Roman type was used.

The next important printer at Strasburg is George Husner, who began in 1476 and printed up till 1498. His types may be recognised by the capital H, which is Roman, and has a boss on the lower side of the cross-bar. John Gruninger, who began in 1483, issued some beautifully illustrated books, the most celebrated being the Horace, Terence, and Boethius, and Brandt’s Ship of Fools. He and another later Strasburg printer, Knoblochzer, share with Conrad Zeninger of Nuremberg the doubtful honour of being the most careless printers in the fifteenth century.

Albrecht Pfister was printing at Bamberg as early as 1461, and his first dated book, Boner’s Edelstein, was issued on 4th February of that year. He used but one type, a discarded fount from Mainz which had been used in printing the thirty-six line Bible and the other books of that group. By many he is credited with being the printer of the thirty-six line Bible,—a theory which a short examination of the workmanship of his signed books would go far to upset. Pfister seems to have been more of a wood engraver than a printer, relying rather on the attractive nature of his illustrations than on the elegance of his printing. We can attribute to him with certainty nine books, with one exception all written in German, and with two exceptions all illustrated with woodcuts. Mr. Hessels is of opinion that certain of these books ought to be placed, on account of their workmanship, before the Boner of 1461; as, for instance, the Quarrel of a Widower with Death, in which the lines are very uneven. There are certain peculiarities noticeable in Pfister’s method of work which occur also in the Manung widder die Durke, a prognostication for 1455, preserved in the Royal Library, Munich, and in the Cisianus zu dutsche at Cambridge, the most marked being the filling up of blank spaces with an ornament of stops. The curious rhyming form of these calendars, and the dialect of German in which they are written, resemble exactly the rhyming colophon put by Pfister to the Boner’s Edelstein. In all three cases the ends of the lines are not marked, but the works are printed as prose.

Paulus Paulirinus of Prague, in his description of a ‘ciripagus’ wrote: ‘Et tempore mei PambergÆ quidam sculpsit integram Bibliam super lamellas, et in quatuor septimanis totam Bibliam super pargameno subtili presignavit scriptura.’ Some writers have suggested that these words refer to the thirty-six line Bible; but a ‘Bible cut on thin plates’ can only be a block-book, and probably an edition of the Biblia Pauperum. Paul of Prague composed a large part of his book before 1463, when no other printer besides Pfister was at work at Bamberg, and these words probably apply to either the Latin or German edition of the Biblia Pauperum which Pfister issued.

We have no information as to when or where Pfister began to print, and the extraordinary rarity of his books prevents much connected work upon them. There is no doubt that he came into possession of the type of the thirty-six line Bible, and in this type a number of books were printed. The earliest of these books is probably the Manung Widder die Durke, which, since it was a prognostication for 1455, was presumably printed in 1454. This book, as far as it is possible to judge, was manifestly printed after the thirty-six line Bible, and by a different printer. In it we first find the peculiar lozenge-shaped ornament of stops which continues through the series of books in this type. The calendar of 1457 in the BibliothÈque Nationale, probably printed in 1456, is the next piece in the series to which an approximate date can be given. Of this calendar, originally printed on a single sheet, only the upper half remains, found in 1804 at Mainz, where it had been used as a cover for some ecclesiastical papers. It bears the following inscription: ‘Prebendarum. Registrum capituli ecclesie Sancti Gengolffi intra muros MoguntiÆ receptorum et distributorum anno LVII., per Johan: Kess, vicarium ecclesie predicte.’ Thus, at the end of the year 1457 or beginning of 1458, it was treated at Mainz as waste-paper. With this calendar may be classed the Cisianus zu dutsche at Cambridge, a rhyming calendar in German.

There are, then, the series of nine or ten books, usually all given to Pfister, though only two bear his name; and of these some are after and some can be placed before 1461. The typographical peculiarities of Pfister’s signed books are the same as those of the early calendars, and point to his having also produced them. This brings us at once into the obvious difficulties, for we should have Pfister printing as early as 1454, while Gutenberg was still in partnership with Fust. The knowledge about Pfister’s press is too meagre to allow any of these difficulties to be cleared up, though something may yet result from a more careful examination of the books themselves. The only examples in England of books printed by Pfister (with the exception of the Cisianus) are in the Spencer Library. There are there four books and a fragment of a fifth.

The conjecture put forward by M. Dziatako, that Gutenberg may have printed the thirty-six line Bible in partnership with some other printer, as, for example, Pfister, would certainly, if any proof in its favour could be adduced, simplify matters very much. We should then have all the books in a natural sequence, from the Bible to the latest books of Pfister, and we could account for the printing of the Manung in 1454, while Gutenberg was still in partnership with Fust and Schoeffer for the production of the forty-two line Bible. The workmanship of the thirty-six line Bible is in some points different from the later books, all of which were probably the work of Pfister, who, according to this theory, must have been at work at Mainz as early as 1454. The contract between Gutenberg and Fust did not necessarily bind the former to print only with Fust, so that he may also have worked with Pfister, and taught him the art.

Pfister’s last dated book, The Histories of Joseph, Daniel, Judith, and Esther, was printed in 1462, not long after the day of St. Walburga (May 1).

After this time we hear of no book printed at Bamberg till 1481, when John Sensenschmidt printed the Missale Ordinis S. Benedicti, commonly known as the Bamberg Missal.

Cologne, from its situation on the Rhine, was in a favourable position for receiving information and materials from Mainz, and we find that by 1466, Ulric Zel of Hanau, a clerk of the diocese of Mainz, was settled there as a printer. His first dated book was the Chrysostom Super psalmo quinquagesimo; but some other books were certainly issued before it. The Cicero De Officiis, a quarto with thirty-four lines to the page, is earlier, and is perhaps the first book he issued. It has many signs of being a very early production, and may possibly have been issued before Schoeffer’s edition of 1465.

M. Madden, in his Lettres d’un Bibliographe, has argued that a very early school of typography existed at Cologne, in the Monastery of Weidenbach. Though his researches have thrown a great deal of light on various points connected with early printing, and are in some ways of real value, much that he has theorised about Weidenbach requires confirmation. We can hardly be expected to believe, as he would try to persuade us, that Caxton, and Zel, and Jenson, and many other printers whose types belong to different families, could all learn printing at this one place. It would be impossible for men who had learnt to print in the same school to produce such radically different kinds of type, and work in such different methods. The early tentative essays of Zel’s press can be clearly identified, and their order more or less accurately determined, from their typographical characteristics. His earliest books were quartos; and of these the first few have four point holes to the page. These point holes are small holes about an inch from the top and bottom lines, and nearly parallel with the sides of the type, made by the four pins which went through the paper when one side of the page was printed, and served as a guide to place the paper straight when the other side was printed.[13]

Then, before he settled down to printing his quartos with twenty-seven lines to the page, he experimented with various numbers of lines. We can safely start with the following books in the following order:—

These form an early group by themselves, and commence on the first leaf; the second group begins with

Then follows a number of tracts by Gerson and Chrysostom, all having four point holes, and all probably printed before 1470. Zel continued to print throughout the whole of the fifteenth century.

At a very early date there were a number of other printers settled at Cologne, all using types which, though easily distinguishable, are similar in appearance and of the same family; and their books have generally been ascribed to Zel. To many of them it is impossible to put a printer’s name; and certain of them have been divided into groups known by the title of the commonest book in that group which has no edition in another group. For instance, we have a certain number of books printed by the printer of the Historia Sancti Albani; another printer is known as the printer of Dictys (perhaps Arnold ther Hoernen); another as the printer of Augustinus de Fide (perhaps Goiswin Gops), and so on. No doubt, in time, when the Cologne press has been more carefully studied, the identity of some of these printers will be discovered; but at present there are a great many difficulties waiting to be cleared away.

Arnold ther Hoernen, who began to print in or before 1470, was the pioneer of several improvements. The Sermo ad populum, printed in 1470, has a title-page, and the leaves numbered in the centre of the right-hand margin; very soon after he printed a book with headlines. He printed ‘infra sedecim domos,’ and used a small neat device, of which there are two varieties, always confused. John Koelhoff, a native of Lubeck, printed at Cologne from 1472 (?) to 1493, when he died. If the date of 1472 in his Expositio Decalogi of Nider be correct, he was the first printer who used ordinary printed signatures; but the date of the book is questioned. The shapes of the capital letters in Koelhoff’s types are very distinctive; and it is curious to notice that a fount unmistakably copied from them was used by a Venetian printer named John de Colonia. Nicholas Gotz of Sletzstat, who began printing about 1470, though we find no dated book of his before 1474, and who finished in 1480, used a device engraved upon copper in the ‘maniÈre criblÉe,’ or dotted style. It consists of a coat-of-arms surmounted by a helmet and crest, with his motto, ‘Sola spes mea inte virginis gratia.’ In some books we find the motto printed in a different form—‘Spes mea sola in virginis gratia.’ In 1475 was issued the Sermo de presentacione beatissime virginis Marie, the only book known containing the name of Goiswinus Gops de Euskyrchen. In 1476, Peter Bergman de Olpe and Conrad Winters de Homborch began to print, and were followed in 1477 by Guldenschaff, and in 1479 by Henry Quentell, the last named being the most important printer at Cologne during the latter years of the fifteenth century.

Gunther Zainer was the first printer at Augsburg; and in March 1468 issued his first dated book, the Meditationes vite domini nostri Jesu Christi, by Bonaventure. Some of his undated books show signs from their workmanship of having been printed at a still earlier date. At first he used a small Gothic type, but in 1472 he published the EtymologiÆ S. Isidori in a beautiful Roman letter, the first, with a date, used in Germany. His later books are printed in a large, thick, black letter, and have in many cases ornamental capitals and borders. He was connected in some way with the Monastery of the Chartreuse at Buxheim, and to their library he gave many of his books; and we learn from their archives that he died on the 13th April 1478. By 1472 we find two more printers settled in Augsburg, John Baemler and John Schussler. The first of these, before becoming a printer, had been a scribe and rubricator, and as such had sometimes signed his name to books. This has given rise to the idea that he printed them, and he is often quoted as the printer of a Bible in 1466. He worked from 1472 to 1495, printing a very large number of books. Schussler printed only for three years, from 1470 to 1473, issuing about eight books, printed in a curious small type, half-Gothic, half-Roman, and very like that used at Subiaco. About 1472-73, Melchior de Stanheim, head of the Monastery of SS. Ulric and Afra, purchased some presses and began to print with types, which seem to have been borrowed from other Augsburg printers, such as Zainer, Schussler, and Anthony Sorg. The latter started on his own account in 1475, and issued a very large number of books between that year and 1493.

The early Augsburg books are especially noted for their woodcuts, which, though not perhaps of much artistic merit, are very numerous and curious. Some very beautifully printed books were also produced about the end of the century by John Schoensperger, who is celebrated as the printer of the Theurdanck of 1517.

In 1470, John Sensenschmidt and Henry Keppfer of Mainz, whom we have before spoken of as a servant of Gutenberg, began to print at Nuremberg. Their first book was the Codex egregius comestorii viciorum, and in the colophon the printer says: ‘Nuremburge anno, etc., LXXº patronarum formarumque concordia et proporcione impressus.’ These words are exactly copied from the colophon of the Catholicon, which is considered to have been printed by Gutenberg.

In 1472, Frederick Creusner and Anthony Koburger, the two most famous Nuremberg printers, both began to print. They seem to have been closely connected in business, and we sometimes find Creusner using Koburger’s type; for instance, the Poggius of 1475 by Creusner, and the Boethius of 1473 by Koburger, are in the same type. Most of the early Nuremberg types are readily distinguished by the capital N, in which the cross stroke slants the wrong way. Koburger was perhaps the most important printer and publisher of the fifteenth century. He is said to have employed twenty-four presses at Nuremberg, besides having books printed for him in other towns. About 1480 he issued a most interesting catalogue, of which there is a copy in the British Museum, containing the titles of twenty-two books, not all, however, printed by himself. In 1495 he printed also an advertisement of the Nuremberg Chronicles.[14]

Though Spire was not an important town in the history of printing, a book was printed there as early as 1471. This was the Postilla super Apocalypsin [Hain, 13,310]. It is a quarto, printed in a rude Roman type, but with a Gothic V. Two other works of Augustine and one of Huss (Gesta Christi) are known, printed in a larger type, but without date, place, or name of printer. It has usually been assumed, on what grounds is not stated, that these books were printed by Peter Drach; but as at present no book is known in this type with his name, it is perhaps wiser to assign them to an unknown printer. Peter Drach’s first dated book was issued in 1477, and the history of his press at this time is particularly interesting. The type in which his Vocabularius utriusque Juris of May 1477 is printed, is absolutely the same as that used in December of the same year for printing the Vocabularius ex quo, printed, according to its colophon, by Nicholas Bechtermuntze at Eltvil. On this subject it is best to quote Mr. Hessels’ own words, for to him this discovery is due:[15]—

‘I may here observe that Type 3 [that of Bechtermuntze in 1477] is exactly the same as that used by Peter Drach at Spire. When I received this Vocabulary [ex quo of 1477] from Munich, the only book I had seen of Drach was the Leonardi de Utino Sermones, published in 1479; and it occurred to me that Bechtermuncze had probably ceased to print about this time, and might have transferred his type to Drach. But this appears not to have been the case, as Drach published already, on the 18th May 1477, the Vocabularius Juris utriusque, printed with the very same type, and must therefore have been in possession of his type simultaneously with Bechtermuncze. The question therefore arises, Did Drach perhaps print the 1477 Vocabulary for Nicolaus Bechtermuncze?’

This question must, unfortunately, be left for the present where Mr. Hessels has left it, but it offers a most interesting point for further research.

From 1477, Peter Drach continued to print at any rate to the end of the fifteenth century; but it is perhaps possible that there were a father and son of the same name, whose various books have not been separated. The Omeliarum opus of 1482 [Hain, 8789] is spoken of as ‘factore Petro Drach juniore in inclita Spirensium urbe impressum.’ The only other interesting printers at Spire were the brothers John and Conrad Hijst, whose names are found in the preface to an edition of the Philobiblon of Richard de Bury, which they, printed about 1483. They used an ornamental Gothic type, generally confused with that belonging to Reyser of Eichstadt, and their unsigned books are almost always described by Hain and others as printed ‘typis Reyserianis.’

Only one printer is known to have been at Esslingen in the fifteenth century. This was Conrad Fyner, who began to print in 1472, and continued in the town till 1480. Though the first dated book is 1472, it is most probable that several of the undated books should be placed earlier. Fyner’s first small type is extremely like one used at Strasburg by Eggestein, if indeed it is not identical, and their books are constantly confused. In 1473, Fyner printed Gerson’s Collectorium super Magnificat, the first book containing printed musical notes; and in 1475, P. Niger contra perfidos Judeos, which contains the first specimen of Hebrew type. One book in Fyner’s type [Hain, *9335] is said to be printed by Johannes Hug de Goppingen. In 1481, Fyner moved to Urach, where he printed one book, and after that date he disappears.

At Lavingen only one book is known to have been printed in the fifteenth century. It is the Augustinus de consensu evangelistarum [Hain, *1981], issued on April 12, 1473. Madden conjectures from the appearance of the type and the capital letters that the book was printed by John Zainer of Ulm. Both type and capitals, however, are different, but their resemblance is quite natural considering the short distance between Ulm and Lavingen.

At an early period Ulm was very important as a centre for wood engraving, and several block-books are known to have been produced there. An edition of the Ars Moriendi is signed Ludwig ze Ulm, whom Dr. Hassler conjectures to have been Ludwig Hohenwang. The earliest printer that we find mentioned in a dated book is John Zainer of Reutlingen, no doubt a relation of Gunther Zainer the printer at Augsburg. He issued in 1473 a work by Boccaccio, De prÆclaris mulieribus, illustrated with a number of woodcuts, and having also woodcut initials and borders. He printed from this time to the end of the century, many of his books being ornamented. Another printer at Ulm to be noticed is Conrad Dinckmut, who printed from 1482 to 1496. He was probably a wood engraver, for he illustrated many of his books with woodcuts, and also produced a xylographic Donatus, of which there is an imperfect copy in the Bodleian.

In 1473, printing was introduced into Merseburg by Luke Brandis, who moved in 1475 to Lubeck. In 1475, also, Conrad Elyas began to print at Breslau, and by 1480 no fewer than twenty-three towns had printing presses. Between 1480 and 1490 the art was introduced into fifteen more towns, and between 1490 and 1501 into twelve. So that the total number of plates in Germany where printing was practised in the fifteenth century is fifty.

Basle was the first city of Switzerland into which printing was introduced, but it is hard to determine when this took place. The earliest printer was Berthold Rodt, or Ruppel of Hanau, who is supposed to be the same man as the Bertholdus of Hanau who figures in the lawsuit of 1455 as a servant of Gutenberg. It is not till 1473, in the colophon of the Repertorium Vocabulorum of Conrad de Mure, that we find either his name or a date; but many books are known printed in the same type. One of these, the Moralia in Job of St. Gregory, was printed in or before 1468, for one copy contains a manuscript note showing that it was bought in that year by Joseph de Vergers, an ecclesiastic of Mainz. About 1474, Berthold began to print a Bible, but finished only the first volume, dying, it is supposed, about that time. The second volume was printed by Bernard Richel, and is dated 1475. The most important printers of Basle were Wenssler, Amorbach, and Froben. About 1469, Helyas de Louffen, a canon of the Abbey of Beromunster, began to print, and in 1470 issued the Mammotrectus of Marchesinus, finished on the Vigil of St. Martin, the exact day and year in which Schoeffer finished his edition of the same book. Bernard says that the two editions are certainly different, and could not have been copied one from the other, so that the similarity of date must be looked upon as a curious coincidence. This Mammotrectus is the first dated book issued in Switzerland, and is printed in the most remarkable Gothic type used anywhere in the fifteenth century. Many of the capital letters if found by themselves could not be read, and it is a type which once seen can never be forgotten. At the foot of each column in the book is a letter which looks like a signature, but which is put there for the purpose of a number to the column. Helyas de Louffen died in 1475, having printed about eight books, some in Gothic and some in Roman type.

Before the end of the fifteenth century printing presses were at work in five other towns of Switzerland: Geneva (1478), Promentour (1482), Lausanne (1493), Trogen (1497), and Sursee (1500).