A few notes on some of the words in this colophon may be offered. “Codex,” which has been paraphrased “copy,” meant originally a collection of tablets waxed over for writing on, and so any book in which the leaves are placed one on another instead of being formed into a roll. “Capital letters” must be understood of large initials, not merely, as the phrase is often used to mean, majuscules, or “upper-case” letters. “Adinventio” appears to mean simply invention, and not, as with our knowledge of stories of “prefigurements” of printing in Holland afterward completed in Germany we might be inclined to think, the perfecting of an invention. The epithet “artificiosa” probably only means skilful, without emphasizing the contrast between the artificial methods of printing as compared with the natural use of the hand. About “caracterizandi” it is not easy to feel quite sure. Does it complete “imprimendi” by adding to the idea of pressing the further idea of the letter (?a?a?t??) impressed, or is “imprimendi” already fully equivalent to printing, while “caracterizandi” refers to engraving the letters on the punches? Lastly, it may be noted that in calamus, “reed,” and exaratione, “plowing up,” which properly refers to the action of the “stilus” of bone or metal on the waxed surface of a tablet, we have reference to two different methods of writing, one or other of which must necessarily be slurred. Not all colophons present so many small linguistic difficulties as this, but few are wholly without them, and many of the renderings which will be offered in ensuing chapters must be accepted merely as the best paraphrases which could be attained.

This first colophon was repeated by Fust and Schoeffer with very slight alterations in the Psalter of 1459 (in which were added the words “et honorem sancti iacobi,” “and to the honour of S. James,” the patron of the Benedictine monastery at Mainz, for whose use the edition was printed), in the “Durandus” of the same year, the Clementine Constitutions published in 1460, and the Bible of 1462.

Meanwhile, in 1460, there had been published at Mainz an edition of the “Catholicon,” a Latin dictionary compiled by Joannes Balbus of Genoa, a Dominican of the thirteenth century. The colophon to this book, instinct with religious feeling and patriotism, and interesting for its pride in the new art and use of some technical terms, yet lacks the one important piece of information which we demand from it—the name of the printer.

In addition to the “Catholicon,” the British Museum possesses three books in the same type, which are, therefore, ascribed to the same press—a “Tractatus racionis et conscientiae” of Matthew of Cracow, and two editions of the “Summa de articulis fidei” of S. Thomas Aquinas; but these, perhaps because they are only little books, have no printer’s colophon. On November 4, 1467, a Latin-German vocabulary known as the “Vocabularius Ex Quo” was finished at Eltville, near Mainz, by Nicolaus BechtermÜnze and Wigandus Spiess of Ortenberg, having been begun by Heinrich BechtermÜnze, brother of Nicolaus. It is printed in the same type as the “Catholicon,” reinforced by some slight additions, and it is noteworthy (as illustrating what we may call the hereditary or genealogical feature which runs through many colophons) that in taking over the type used in the “Catholicon,” part of the wording of its colophon was taken over also, though a few words appear to be borrowed from Fust and Schoeffer. To show this we may quote the colophon to the 1467 “Vocabularius” as transcribed by Mr. Hessels (“Gutenberg: was he the inventor of printing?” p. 141):

The omission of the third line of the “Catholicon” quatrain, obviously because the word “Catholice” no longer had especial import, makes the construction even more mysterious than in the original, nor is this the only instance we shall find of such mauling.

While the Eltville colophon thus mainly takes its phrasing from that of the “Catholicon,” with a few words from Fust and Schoeffer’s thrown in, the latter firm were themselves not above borrowing a happy phrase, since in the “Liber Sextus Decretalium Bonifacii VIII” not only do we find an antithesis introduced to the “artificiosa adinuentio,” but in some copies, if Maittaire is to be trusted, the praise of Mainz is bodily taken over, so that the full colophon now reads:

By this time even a patient reader may well be weary with this ringing of the changes on the two colophons first printed, respectively, in 1457 and 1460. But, without pushing the suggestion too far, we may at least hazard a guess as to how they came thus to be amalgamated in December, 1465. For it was in this year that Gutenberg, who, when all is said, is the most probable printer for the “Catholicon” and the other books which go with it, became a pensioner of Adolph II, Archbishop of Mainz, and presumably gave up printing. The two small books in the “Catholicon” type (i.e. the “Tractatus racionis et conscientiae” and the “De articulis fidei”) appear in Schoeffer’s catalogue of 1469-70. Whether he bought the stock of them as early as 1465 cannot be proved, but it would seem reasonable to connect his taking over the “Catholicon” colophon in that year with the disappearance of Gutenberg from any kind of rivalry. As between printers in different cities, there was certainly no copyright in colophons any more than there was in books. We shall see presently how, when books of Schoeffer’s were reprinted at Nuremberg and Basel, his colophons, with slight alterations, were taken over with them. But in Germany at this time, between citizens of the same town, trade rights, I fancy, were much more respected than at Venice, for instance, or at Paris, where the editions of Caesaris and Stoll were impudently pirated by two other firms in the very same street. At all events, it is worth noticing that the “Catholicon” printer’s colophon seems to have been taken over by Schoeffer, who bought some of his stock, and by the brothers BechtermÜnze, who had the use of his types.

Passing now to other of Schoeffer’s colophons, we find in the edition of the “Officia et Paradoxa” of Cicero of this same year, 1465, a more personal form of the colophon, which gives us an explicit statement that Fust, the capitalist of the business, probably owing to failing health, now left the actual superintendence of the printing to his son-in-law Schoeffer, the quondam scribe. It runs:

“Presens Marci tulii clarissimum opus Iohannes Fust Moguntinus ciuis, non atramento plumali, canna neque aerea, sed arte quadam perpulcra, Petri manu pueri mei feliciter effeci finitum, Anno 1465.” This statement, that “I, Johann Fust, citizen of Mainz, completed the book by the labor or instrumentality (manu) of my son Peter,” was repeated in the reprint of February 4, 1466, and thenceforth the name of Fust disappears from the annals of printing.

In 1467 we find the colophon attributed by Maittaire to some copies of the “Sextus Decretalium” repeated (with the omission of Fust’s name) in the “Secunda Secundae” of S. Thomas Aquinas and the second edition of the Clementine Constitutions, and this became for some time Schoeffer’s normal colophon. In 1470, however, he varied it in his edition of S. Jerome’s Epistles in order to introduce a compliment paid by the saint to the city of Mainz, which made it peculiarly appropriate that his work should be popularized by a Mainz printer. This colophon runs:

In 1472, in the “Decretum Gratiani cum glossis,” we get another variant and an addition of some importance:

A similar colophon was used in the “Nova compilatio Decretalium Gregorii IX” of 1473, and the phrase “suis consignando scutis” occurs again in Schoeffer’s edition of S. Bernard’s Sermons (1475) and in several books of the three following years. In 1479, in an edition of the “Decretals of Gregory IX,” the phrase is varied to “cuius armis signantur,” after which Panzer records it no more. This first mention of the shields has for us far more interest than the pompous recital of how Sixtus IV was pope, and Frederick of Austria king of the Romans, and Adolph of Nassau archbishop of Mainz when this “Decretal of Gratian” was printed “in the noble city of Mainz, which our ancestors used to call the golden city, and which has been so highly favored by its preËminence in printing.” Needless discussions have been raised as to what was the use and import of printers’ devices, and it has even been attempted to connect them with literary copyright, with which they had nothing whatever to do, literary copyright in this decade depending solely on the precarious courtesy of rival firms, or possibly on the rules of their trade-guilds. But here, on the authority of the printer who first used one, we have a clear indication of the reason which made him put his mark in a book—the simple reason that he was proud of his craftsmanship and wished it to be recognized as his. “By signing it with his shields Peter Schoiffer has brought the book to a happy completion.” When Wenssler of Basel copied Schoeffer’s books, he copied him also in affixing their marks and in drawing attention to them in the same way. Wenssler, too, was a good printer, and though he was certainly not claiming copyright in books which he was simply reprinting, he was equally anxious to have his handiwork recognized.

If yet further evidence be wanted, we can find it in the colophon to Schoeffer’s 1477 edition of the “Tituli Decisionum antiquarum et nouarum,” which reads as follows:

Some other features which occur in the wording of this will be noted later on. For our present purpose it is of interest to find the mark of the shields attached to a book which is distinctly stated to have been printed “Romanam post impressionem,” “after the edition printed at Rome,” and for which, therefore, no literary copyright is conceivable.

In the 1473 reprint of the “Sextus Decretalium” we note that Schoeffer now considered himself venerable, or perhaps it would be fairer to say “worshipful” (“per venerandum virum Petrum schoiffer de Gernshem feliciter est consummatum”), but in his edition of S. Augustine’s “De Ciuitate Dei,” of the same year, we find a more important variant. This reads:

The struggles of the fifteenth-century Latinists to express the technicalities of printing are always interesting, and the phrase “caracterum apicibus elementatum” is really gallant. Following the Greek st???e?a, the Romans used the word “elementa” originally for the component sounds of speech and then, by transference, for the letters of the alphabet. “Elementatum,” therefore, is strictly appropriate, and might be rendered “with the letters built up or put together,” while “caracterum apicibus” of course refers to the engraving in relief which forms the face of the type.

In 1475, perhaps as an echo of some verses in the “Noua compilatio Decretalium Gregorii IX” of 1473, we find a new phrase tacked on to the “arte impressoria” in an edition of Justinian, noting the fact that though Providence did not consider antiquity worthy of the art, it had been granted to our times (“qua quidem etsi antiquitas diuino non digna est visa indicio, nostra nichilominus tempestate indulta”). In 1476 again Schoeffer advertises that his edition of Justinian’s Institutes was printed “in the noble city of Mainz am Rhein, the inventress and first perfectress of the printing art” (“In nobili urbe Maguncia Rheni, impressorie artis inuentrice elimatriceque prima”), while in the Clementine Constitutions of the same year he substitutes “alumnaque” for “elimatriceque,” presumably in the sense of pupil or practiser, reverting subsequently to “elimatrice.” In 1478 he once more varies the praises of Mainz by calling her “domicilium Minerve firmissimum,” “the most stable home of Minerva.” With this year 1478, which closes the period of Schoeffer’s chief activity, we may bring our survey of his colophons to an end. Thereafter he printed more intermittently, and, if the absence of colophons may be trusted, as I think it may, with less interest in his work. But during these twenty-two years from 1457 to 1478, inclusive, he had made his books bear continual testimony to one great fact, that the art of printing had been invented and brought to perfection in Germany, in the city of Mainz; and in any weighing of the comparative claims that have been advanced on behalf of Germany and Holland, I think that the evidence of Schoeffer’s colophons alone would suffice to give the priority to Germany and Mainz.

Of the clearness and energy of the claim made in these Mainz colophons, we have already given abundant illustration, nor can there be any doubt that it obtained wide publicity. Schoeffer printed at least one advertisement of his books, and he had an agency for their sale in Paris. Besides this, his editions were copied by other printers. So far as publicity could be insured in the fifteenth century, it was insured by Schoeffer, aided by the printer of the “Catholicon,” for the statement that printing was invented at Mainz; and despite the rivalry between city and city, and between country and country, during all the years that this assertion was being repeated in one colophon after another, no printer in any other book ventured to challenge it. No doubt there are facts on the side of Holland which have to be explained as best we may, but in the face of these Mainz colophons the explanation must be of such a kind as to leave undisputed the fact that it was at Mainz that printing with movable types—“mira patronarum formarumque concordia proporcione et modulo”—first became a practicable art. On the other hand, as to the individual inventor of this art the fifteenth-century colophons are absolutely silent. There is nothing in any Mainz colophon answering to the boast of John of Speier at Venice, “primus in Adriaca formis impressit aenis,” by which he asserted his individual priority over any other firm. The only statement of the kind is in the extraordinarily crabbed verses added by the corrector Magister Franciscus, after the colophon, to the “Institutiones Justiniani” of 1468, and reprinted in that of 1472, and in the Decretals of 1473, but omitted in 1476. This states that two Johns, both of whom the town of Mainz produced (genuit), were the renowned first stampers of books (librorum insignes protocaragmaticos), and that with them was associated a Peter; and the natural interpretation of these allusions identifies the “protocaragmatici” (though the “proto” may refer to preËminence quite as well as to priority) with Johann Gutenberg, Johann Fust, and Peter Schoeffer.

So far as they are intelligible, therefore, these verses in the Institutes of Justinian confirm and extend the evidence of the colophons, and may be cheerfully accepted. Our last colophon in this chapter is not quite in the same case. This famous and ingeniously arranged addendum to the edition of the “Compendium de Origine regum et gentis Francorum” of Johann Tritheim, printed by Johann Schoeffer at Mainz in 1515, is shown as one of our illustrations, but may nevertheless be transcribed here for the sake of expanding its contractions:

This may be rendered:

It would be too much to call this colophon untruthful, inasmuch as the term “primarius auctor,” like “protocaragmaticus,” does not necessarily claim primacy in point of time; nevertheless, it certainly suggests this primacy and generally assigns to Fust a more decisive part than we can easily believe that he played. We need not censure too hardly John Schoeffer’s family feeling, even though it led him to ignore Gutenberg in a way which earlier testimony forbids us to believe to be just; but it seems evident that family feeling was so much to the fore as to place this long historical colophon on quite a different footing from that of the earlier ones written by Schoeffer himself.