The Invention of Printing/Chapter 22

by Theodore De Vinne

XXII

The Later Work of Gutenberg.

Establishes a New Printing Office … Calendar of 1457 … Not probable that the Bible of 36 lines was printed at this time … Gutenberg Embarrassed by Debts … Letter of Indulgence of 1461, with Fac-simile … Catholicon of 1460, with Fac-simile and Colophon … Indifference of Gutenberg to Fame. Pamphlets attributed to Gutenberg … Celebration of the Mass, with Fac-simile … Mirror of the Clergy, with Fac-simile … The War between the Rival Archbishops … The Siege and Sack of Mentz … Gutenberg's Office removed to Eltvill … Gutenberg made a Gentleman of Adolph's Court … End of Gutenberg's Labors … His Death in 1468 … Disposition of his Types … His Services not fully Appreciated … True Nature of his Invention … His Merit acknowledged by Writers of his Time … Tablets of Gelthus and Wittig … Permanency of Gutenberg's Invention.

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Why should we talk about monuments of bronze or marble to commemorate the services of Gutenberg? His is a monument which, more frail than any other, will survive them all: it is the Book.

Madden.

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Gutenberg had been legally deprived of his printing office and of the exclusive right to his great invention, but he was not left friendless and utterly impoverished. Nor was his spirit broken by this great calamity. The reflection that Fust was owner of the materials made for printing the Bible of 42 lines, and was about to enjoy all the emoluments of the new art, aroused Gutenberg to rivalry. He was nearly sixty years of age, but he was vigorous in mind, if not in body, and evidently retained all his old power of persuasion. When he determined to found a new printing office, he found helpers: Conrad Humery, a physician, and also clerk of the town of Mentz, provided him with the means, and some of his old workmen came over to join his fortunes.

Gutenberg had some materials toward the equipment of a new office. Fust's mortgage covered only the materials made with Fust's money for the common profit; it did not cover the large types on Double-pica body, which were used upon the Bible of 36 lines, and other materials which might have been made in Strasburg. As these types were subsequently used in several little books which may be attributed to Gutenberg, we may conclude that he retained the punches and matrices in his own possession.

We have indirect evidence that the new printing office of Gutenberg was in operation at the close of the year 1456. With the types of Double-pica body he printed on one side of the paper, obviously made to be pasted on a wall, a broadside, now known as the Calendar of 1457. Of this curious document, only the half of a copy has been found—a fragment which contains the festivals and notable days for six months.It is fairly printed in black ink on coarse paper.

It is the belief of several historians that Gutenberg, hot with anger at the bad faith of Fust, in wresting from him the honor of printing the first Bible, immediately undertook in his new office to publish a rival edition of the same book, or the edition herein described as the Bible of 36 lines. The annotation in one copy of the book of the year 1459, which is supposed to be the date of publication, accords with the conjecture that the book begun in 1456 could have been finished in three years. But there is no evidence that it was begun in 1456, while there are many indications that it was done or should have been done in 1450. Gutenberg had earned fame as a printer^[1] in 1458, but no writer of that time has said that he was then at work on the Bible of 36 lines.

We have evidence, also, that he was embarrassed by his debts. After the year 1457 he was unable to pay the four pounds annually to the chapter of St. Thomas at Strasburg, as he had agreed to do in 1442. The chapter summoned him to appear before a court at Rottweil in Suabia, in 1461, but to no purpose, for he was unable to satisfy this debt. His printing materials were owned by Conrad Humery, and not liable to seizure. It is by no means clearly established that he was, even then, carrying on business in his own name. Helbig thinks it was the fear of legal proceedings, if he had

Fac-simile of the Types of the Letter of Indulgence of 1461.
[From Bernard.]

made himself very conspicuous, that prevented him from putting his name on his books. This omission has made it difficult to specify the books and pamphlets which are supposed to have been printed by him about this time.

One of these works is The Letter of Indulgence of 1461, an indulgence granted by Pope Pius ii to all who should contribute to the restoration of a church at Neuhausen. It is printed in a new face of type, which should have been made before 1460. The types of this indulgence resemble those of the Letters of Indulgence of 30 lines and of 31 lines, but they were cast from different matrices and in a different mould. They seem to be the production of an incompetent punch-cutter; the letters were rudely cut, the matrices were not properly fitted up, and the types do not line. The presswork, upon new types, is good.

In the same face of type, but upon a body a little larger, Gutenberg printed the Catholicon^[2] of 1460, a great folio of 748 pages of double columns, with 66 lines to each column. In some copies of the Catholicon, the summary of contents is printed in red ink, and ornamented with an engraving which fills one side of the first page. The composition is as rude as that of the Bibles; the right side of each column is always ragged from careless spacing. The colophon annexed states that the book was printed at Mentz in 1460, but it does not give the name^[3] of the printer. The silence of Gutenberg concerning his services is remarkable, all the more so, when this silence is contrasted with the silly chatterings of several printers during the last quarter of the fifteenth century,—of whom Peter Schœffer may be considered as the first, and Trechsel of Lyons the last,—each insisting that he, whatever others might have done before him, was the true perfecter of printing. There is no other instance in modern history, excepting possibly that of Shakespere, of a man who did so much and who said so little about it. This colophon is the only passage in this book, and, indeed, in any of his works, which can be attributed to Gutenberg:

By the assistance of the most High, at whose will the tongues of children become eloquent, and who often reveals to babes what He hides from the wise, this renowned book, the Catholicon, was printed and perfected in the year of Incarnation 1460, in the beloved city of Mentz (which belongs to the illustrious German nation, and which God has consented to prefer and to raise with such an exalted light of the mind and of free grace, above the other nations of the earth), not by means of pen, or pencil, or stencil plate, but by the admirable proportion, harmony and connection of the punches and matrices.^[4] Wherefore to thee, Divine Father, Son and Holy Ghost, triune and only God, let praise and honor be given, and let those who never forget to praise [the Virgin] Mary, join also through this book in the universal anthem of the Church. God be praised.

Fac-simile of the Types of the Catholicon of 1460.
[From Bernard.]

The dignified and reverential language of this colophon, so unlike the vainglorious imprints of Fust and Schœffer and the commonplace subscriptions of Pfister, is almost enough of itself to show that the printer of the Catholicon was John Gutenberg. That he should attribute the invention to the assistance and favor of the Almighty, might be expected from a man thoroughly imbued with religious sentiment, but why Gutenberg should, in this and in all other books, neglect to mention himself as the man through whom the invention was accomplished is an irregularity which cannot be explained. This neglect is strange, for Fust and Schœffer had boasted, in an imprint to the Psalter of 1457, of their skill as printers.

Five little pamphlets with texts in a new face of Round Gothic on English body, and with chapter headings in types resembling the text types of the Bible of 42 lines, have been attributed to Gutenberg. They are: A Treatise on the Celebration of the Mass,^[5] a book of 30 leaves; A Calendar, or An Almanac for 1460, in Latin, a quarto of 6 leaves; The Mirror of the Clergy, by Hermann of Saldis, "happily perfected and printed at Mentz," a quarto of 16 leaves; A Treatise on the Necessity of Councils, etc., a quarto of 24 leaves; A Dialogue between Cato, Hugo and Oliver about Ecclesiastical Liberty, a quarto of 20 leaves.^[6] It is possible, but not certain, that Gutenberg printed these books. A Treatise on Reason and Conscience,^[7] by Matthew of Cracow, a small quarto of 22 leaves, and A Summary of the Articles of Faith, by Thomas Aquinas, a quarto of 12 leaves, printed in the types of the Catholicon, may be confidently accepted as the work of Gutenberg. But one copy or fragment of some of these works is known. Gutenberg may have printed many other works which have been destroyed and forgotten.^[8]

Fac-simile of the Types of the Treatise on the Celebration of the Mass.
[From Fischer.]

The existing copies or fragments of pamphlets and books printed before 1462 are enough to prove that printing met with a qualified degree of appreciation. Gutenberg and Fust must have given employment to many presses and workmen: there was a demand for printed work of all kinds from almanacs to dictionaries, and the printers had reason to believe that they would be amply rewarded for their labor. Their hopes were destroyed by the sack of Mentz in 1462.

Fac-simile of the Types of The Mirror of the Clergy.
[From Bernard.]

The city of Mentz then held the first place in the league of the free cities of the Rhine, but her prosperity^[9] was declining. Unceasing civil strifes had driven away the more feeble part of her population. In 1461, it was the wreck of its earlier greatness: it had but 50,000 inhabitants and was burdened with debt. Diether, Count of Isenburg, was then archbishop and elector of the city, by the consent of the majority of the inhabitants; but the rival archbishop, Adolph ii, Count of Nassau, supported by Pope Pius ii, claimed the archbishopric, and made war upon Diether. The consequences of the war, which nearly ruined the city, are forcibly stated by Schaab.

This enmity between two archbishops was the cause of one of the most terrible days to the town of Mentz. It was the 28th of October, 1462, the day on which Christianity celebrated the anniversary of the apostles Simon and Judas. Mentz had remained faithful to the archbishop Diether. Adolph therefore tried to conquer it by stratagem and treason. Traitors were gained over in the town, who entailed upon a half thousand of their fellow-citizens death, and endless misery on many more. By the treachery of some wicked persons the town was assaulted during the night between the 27th and 28th of October, 1462, by the followers of Adolph; its noblest citizens were murdered, the most of them robbed of their possessions, and driven from the town. All kinds of mischief were committed toward those who remained behind. Neither age, rank, nor sex was exempted. The booty was sold publicly in the cattle-market, and the money divided between the soldiers.^[10] Of the expelled citizens only a few gradually returned in secret to their relations. But the town, so populous before, remained empty, and all industry was destroyed. The elector Adolph ii found it necessary, on the Saturday after St. Thomas's day of the same year, to issue a proclamation whereby he promised to all who wished to trade or to exercise a profession in Mentz, protection for their persons and possessions, to induce a few to return. A town, a short time before flourishing with commerce and industry, had been robbed in a few days of its privileges and utterly destroyed.^[11]

In the general sack of the city, the house of Fust was burned, and his printing materials were destroyed. During the three years that followed no books of value were printed in Mentz. We do not know how Gutenberg was affected: we find no authoritative statement that his printing office was destroyed; it is not even certain that his office was then in the city of Mentz. In the year 1466, the printing office which contained his types was in active operation at Eltvill, a village not far from the city. As this was the place where Gutenberg's mother was born, and where she had an estate, it is probable that Gutenberg found some advantage in making it his residence, soon after his separation from Fust. Eltvill was also the place which Adolph ii had selected for his residence before he made his attack on Diether. It may be presumed that Eltvill was the place where Adolph first knew of Gutenberg and his works.

In 1465, Adolph II made Gutenberg one of the gentlemen of his court for "agreeable and voluntary service rendered to us and our bishopric." The nature of the service is not defined. Gutenberg was certainly not a soldier. His German biographers do not believe that, as diplomatist or politician, he had favored the cause of the destroyer of the liberties of his native city. Helbig thinks the words used are purely conventional, and that this distinction was conferred on Gutenberg because he was connected with the old nobility of the city. It is a more common and a more reasonable belief that Adolph recognized, to some extent, the utility of Gutenberg's invention, and took this method to honor the inventor.

We, Adolph, elected and confirmed archbishop of Mentz, acknowledge that we have considered the agreeable and voluntary service which our dear and faithful Johan Gutenberg has rendered to us and our bishopric, and have appointed and accepted him as our servant and courtier. Nor shall we remove him from our service as long as he lives; and in order that he may enjoy it the more, we will clothe him every year, when we clothe our ordinary suite (unsern gemeinen hoffgesind), always like our noblemen, and give him our court dress; also every year twenty mout of corn and two voer of wine for the use of his house, free of duty, as long as he lives, but on condition that he shall not sell it or give it away. Which has been promised us in good faith by Johan Gutenberg.

Eltvill, Thursday after St. Antony, 1465^[12]

The man who had invented an art which promised to renew the literature of the world, who had printed two great Bibles, a Latin Dictionary, and many minor works relating to religion, had surely rendered service to the first ecclesiastical dignitary of Germany.

Here Gutenberg's work ends. If not disqualified by the infirmities of age from the management of his printing office, his position as courtier must have compelled his attendance at the court of the archbishop. Possibly, the rules of the court required Gutenberg to withdraw from business. Whatever the reason, we see that the printing office at Eltvill passed into the hands of his relatives by marriage, the brothers Henry and Nicholas Bechtermüntz. It does not appear that these men had been formally instructed as printers in Mentz. As they acquired no rights of proprietorship in this office, as they were men of middle age, rich, of noble birth and of high civic position, it may be supposed that they took charge of the office to oblige Gutenberg and the archbishop, and, perhaps, from a pure love of the new art.

In the year 1467, this printing office at Eltvill produced a book now known as the Vocabularium ex quo, called so because these first words of the work serve to distinguish it from other vocabularies. It is an abbreviation of the Catholicon, and for that reason is described in the colophon as an opusculum, or a little work; but it is a heavy quarto of 330 pages. It is printed with the types of the Catholicon, and shows the same peculiarities of composition. The colophon says that "this little book was made, not by reed, nor pen, nor stencil plate, but by a certain new and subtile invention … by Henry Bechtermüntz, of blessed memory.^[13] … Nicholas Bechtermüntz, and Wygand Spyess of Orthenburg."^[14]

Gutenberg could not have abandoned his printing office with much regret. He had abundantly demonstrated the utility of his invention and his own ability as a printer by the publication of two great books and many pamphlets. His art had been adopted in five German cities: it was then making its entry in Rome; it was eagerly sought for by the king of France. A future of unbounded popularity and usefulness was before it. The young men to whom Gutenberg had taught the practice of printing had so improved that they were his equals and superiors, and the old man of quite seventy years could not cope with these competitors. His ambition for pre-eminence in his own art, or for the wealth that should have been derived from its practice, if he ever had such aspirations, had to be given up. It was time that he should quit the stage.

Gutenberg did not long enjoy the leisure or the honors of a courtier. In February, 1468, he was dead. Nothing is known of the cause or the circumstances of his death, nor is there any mention of a surviving family. We have to conclude that John Gutenberg, the inventor of the greatest of modern arts, died, weighed down by debts, and unattended by wife or child. The disposition of his printing office is stated in the following document:^[15]

I, the undersigned, Conrad Humery, doctor, acknowledge by this writing, that his eminence the prince, my gracious and dear lord Adolphus, archbishop of Mentz, has generously delivered to me certain formen [matrices or moulds], characters [types], instruments, utensils, and other implements connected with printing, which John Gutenberg left after his death, which materials belonged and still belong to me:^[16] but, for the honor and the satisfaction of his eminence I am bound, and I pledge myself, by this document, never to put them to use but in the city of Mentz, and further, to sell them, at a fair price, to a citizen of Mentz in preference to any other. In testimony whereof, I have put my seal to these presents, which have been made in the year of our Lord 1468, on the Friday after Saint Matthew's day [26th of February].

In this strange document we again find the word formen, and the formen are specified first, as if they were the most valuable tools. As types are specifically described, it is plain that these formen must have been matrices or moulds.

Humery kept his word. The types and tools of Gutenberg remained with Nicholas Bechtermüntz until his death. They were then transferred to the custody or the possession of the Brothers of the Life-in-Common, who had a printing office at Marienthal, near Eltvill, as early as 1468. That this place was regarded as a part of Mentz may be inferred from the imprint they put on their first book, which is to this effect: Dated in our city of Mentz on the last day of August, 1468. Eltvill was the chosen residence of the archbishop, and under his jurisdiction, and might properly be considered as a dependency or a part of the city of Mentz.

For some unknown reason these Brothers of the Life-in-Common made no use of the types of Gutenberg. In the year 1508, they were sold to Frederic Hauman of Nuremberg, who established a printing office in Mentz, and who used these types in many of his books.^[17] The house that had been occupied by Hauman as a printing office was subsequently used for the same purpose by Albinus, a printer of the seventeenth century. The types of Gutenberg were in this house at the end of the sixteenth century, for Serarius, in his History of Mentz, says that he had seen them there.^[18]

Humery's promise that, in the sale of the printing materials then contemplated, he would give preference to a citizen of Mentz, was obviously made at the request of the archbishop. It follows that the types of the dead printer were then regarded as relics of value of which the city should be proud. This request, which would not have been made without occasion, seems to confirm the conjecture that Gutenberg had previously sold the types, or at least the matrices, of the Bible of 36 lines to Albert Pfister, of the monastic town of Mamberg. It is not probable that the deed of gift would have been clogged with this stipulation, if there had been no sale.

This request of the archbishop is the only evidence we have that Gutenberg's work was appreciated, but the appreciation came when he was dead. No contemporary writer noticed the Bible of 42 lines, and no one during his lifetime suitably honored Gutenberg as a great inventor. The archbishop, who knew the merit of the man, and pitied his misfortunes, had not a word to say in the document that made him a courtier of his services as an inventor or printer.

This indifference or want of perception seems inexcusable, but it was not altogether without cause. The readers of that time were somewhat familiar with printed impressions in the form of block-books, and the Bible of 42 lines may have seemed to them but a block-book of larger size and of higher order. Knowing that engraving, ink, paper, and impression upon surfaces in relief, were used in both processes, the ordinary book-buyer could have inferred that type-printing was the natural outgrowth of the older and well-known art of block-printing. According to this view, Gutenberg invented little or nothing; he did but little more than combine some old and well-known processes; he distinguished himself more by the great size of his books than by the novelty or merit of his process. It is but proper to expose this sophistry, for it is perpetuated to this day in several books on typography.

This grave error did not originate with the first printers, who knew the full difference between type and block-printing. They knew that Gutenberg was indebted to the earlier block-printers for a great deal of his knowledge, but they knew as well that his system of printing was a great and an original invention, for they clearly understood, what the ordinary book-reader did not, the value of its characteristic feature. And here it may be repeated, for the error is common and it is necessary to be emphatic, that the merit of Gutenberg as an inventor is not based upon his supposed discovery of the advantages of movable types, but upon the system by which he made the movable types. All the printers of that period recognized the fact that Gutenberg's method of making the types, or the type-mould, with its connections, was the proper basis or starting-point of the invention. Schœffer, who first printed a notice of the new art, speaks of it as the "masterly invention of printing and also of type-making," implying that the art of printing was inseparably connected with that of type-making. John Gutenberg, in the Catholicon, has not a word to say about isolated types, nor about a combination of types: the admiration which he invokes for the masterly invention should, in his view of the matter, be bestowed on its system of making the types, or on the "admirable proportion, connection and harmony of the punches and matrices."

Gutenberg made no effort to secure for himself his rightful honors as the inventor of printing, but his friends who knew the nature and value of his services were not neglectful. We have abundant evidence that Gutenberg was the man, and Mentz the place, where printing was invented.

Trithemius, from information furnished by Peter Schœffer, said, in a book written before 1490, "About this time (1450), the admirable and then unheard-of art of composing and printing books, by means of types, was conceived and invented at Mentz, by a citizen of Mentz, named John Gutenberg."

Matthias Palmer, in 1474, said that John Gutenberg, a knight of Mentz, had invented the art of printing books.

Ulric Zell's testimony, given in 1499, is equally explicit.^[19]

Polydore Virgil, in his treatise on Inventions, says, in the first edition, that printing was invented by one Peter [probably Peter Schœffer], but in the second edition of 1517, he corrected the error, and attributed the invention to Gutenberg.

Wimpheling, in 1499, wrote and published at Heidelberg some verses praising Gutenberg, in which he said, "Blessed Gensfleisch! through you Germany is famous everywhere. Assisted by Omniscience, you John, first of all, printed with letters in metal. Religion, the wisdom of Greece, and the language of the Latins, are forever indebted to you." Two professors at Heidelberg, at an earlier date (1494), had written panegyrics on Gutenberg as the inventor of typography, in which he is honored above all the great men of antiquity.^[20]

Two friends of Gutenberg who, no doubt, knew all about his invention, put up tablets to his memory, in which his merit as an inventor is distinctly acknowledged. The inscriptions on these tablets have not received the attention which they merit. The tablet first placed was put up not long after his death by his relative, Adam Gelthus, near his tomb in the church of St. Francis. This is a translation of the inscription:

To John Genszfleisch, inventor of the art of printing, and deserver of the highest honors from every nation and tongue, Adam Gelthus places this tablet, in perpetual commemoration of his name. His remains peacefully repose in the church of St. Francis of Mentz.^[21]

Gelthus properly describes Gutenberg's invention as the art of printing. In a practical view, there was no other.

Equally instructive is the pithy inscription on the second tablet, which was put up by Ivo Wittig,^[22] in the court of the house of the Gensfleisch family, where Gutenberg is supposed to have died,^[23] and which was then used as a law school.

To John Gutenberg, of Mentz, who, first of all, invented printing letters in brass [matrices and moulds], and by this art has deserved honor from the whole world, Ivo Wittig places this stone in commemoration, 1508.^[24]

Ivo Wittig, who had probably known Gutenberg, and who clearly understood his process, is not content with a paraphrase of the Gelthus inscription. In plain words, he specifies the key of the invention: Gutenberg, first of all, made types in brass moulds and matrices. In other words, it was only through the invention of the type-mould and matrices in brass that printing became a great art. This inscription shows that Wittig, then professor of history in the University, and probably the most learned man in Mentz, regarded John Gutenberg as the true inventor of printing.

Considered from a mechanical point of view, the merit of Gutenberg's invention may be inferred from its permanency. His type-mould was not merely the first; it is the only practical mechanism for making types. For more than four hundred years this mould has been under critical examination, and many attempts have been made to supplant it. Contrivances have been invented for casting fifty or more types at one operation; for swaging types, like nails, out of cold metal; for stamping types from cylindrical steel dies upon the ends of thin copper rods—but experience has shown that these and like inventions in the department of type-making machinery are impracticable. There is no better method than Gutenberg's. Modern type-casting machines have moulds attached to them which are more exact and more carefully finished, and which have many little attachments of which Gutenberg never dreamed, but in principle and in all the more important features, the modern moulds may be regarded as the moulds of Gutenberg.

Gutenberg's merit as an original inventor, although never properly recognized during his life, was never denied. But this merit was disallowed and set aside after his death by the sons and friends of Peter Schœffer. They said that printing was only half invented by Gutenberg, and that the complete invention is really due to Gutenberg's assistant and successor. As this claim has been repeated by many authors, it is necessary, for the vindication of Gutenberg, to review the work and workmanship of Peter Schœffer and John Fust.

1. Philip de Lignamine, in a book entitled A Continuation of the Chronicles of the Popes, which he printed in Rome in 1474, writes concerning the year 1458: "Jacob Gutenberg of Strasburg, and another called Fust, very skillful in the art of printing with characters of metal on been parchment, each printed three hundred leaves daily at Mentz." Jacob is an error of memory or of typography, and the mention of Strasburg as Gutenberg's birthplace is incorrect, but the statement that he printed in 1458 is, no doubt, true. It seems the testimony of a printer, whose knowledge of the facts had derived either from personal observation, or from the reports of workmen once employed at Mentz.
2. This Catholicon was written, or edited, as the title informs us, by John of Genoa, of the fraternity of preachers, or mendicant friars. It contains an elaborate Latin grammar and an etymological dictionary in five divisions. It was a text book of authority in the higher schools.
3. Van Praet says that Gutenberg, as a noble, dared not advertise his connection with a mechanical art. This is absurd, for Gutenberg's connection with printing in Mentz had been known for at least ten years, and printing was not then regarded as a business derogatory to the standing of a noble. Wetter says that Gutenberg was humiliated by the superior workmanship of Fust and Schœffer. But the work of these printers was not of such unquestionable superiority. Helbig's conjecture seems most plausible, but Gutenberg may have been so intent on the personal satisfaction he derived from the realization of his ideas, that he was comparatively indifferent to the gratification derived from notoriety.
4. In Germany, the punch or the model letter is known as the patrice, a word obviously derived from the root of the Latin patronarum of the text. The reversed duplicates of punches, here translated as matrices, are noticed in the text as formarum, a variation of the word form, which we find so often in the record of the Strasburg trial. "The admirable proportion, harmony and connection of the punches and matrices," should be understood, not as a commendation of the beauty of the printed letters, but as a specification by the inventor of what he conceived was the great feature of typography, the making of types of different faces and thickness on bodies of absolute uniformity, so that they could be combined with ease. It should be noticed that the invention or the use of isolated letters or types is not boasted of; it was the method of making the types which the inventor regarded as the most admirable feature of his invention.
5. This work is attributed to Gutenberg, chiefly on the authority of this inscription, which was found in a copy in the possession of the Carthusian Friars at Mentz:

   The Carthusian Friars near Mentz, through the liberality of John Gutenberg, own this book, which was made by his wonderful art, and by the skill of John Nummeister, clerk. In the year of our Lord 1463, on the 13th calend of July [June 19].

   Helbig doubts the genuineness of this annotation, and intimates that it may be the work of Bodmann, a librarian at Mentz, who has been suspected of attempts to foist spurious documents on those who were eager to know more of the life and labors of Gutenberg. In his treatise on the Typographic Monuments of Gutenberg, Fischer, on the authority of Bodmann, printed the copy of a verbose document which set forth that John Gutenberg and Frielo Gensfleisch assented to the action of their sister Hebele in conveying to the Convent of Saint Clare, of which she was then a nun, her share in the paternal inheritance. It also recites that John Gutenberg will give to the convent a copy of every book to be printed by him. This document, which is dated 1459, is not accepted as genuine by discreet bibliographers.
6. Bernard says that some of these works were probably printed by an unknown printer at Mentz (not the printer of the Indulgence of 31 lines); but this conjecture of two printing offices, about which history and tradition are silent, which never produced any work of value, cannot be accepted.
7. A copy of this book in the National Library at Paris has an annotation which sets forth that "Henry Kepfer of Mentz put this book in pledge for twelve days, and has not reclaimed it. …" Henry Kepfer was one of Gutenberg's workmen who appeared for him on the trial.
8. Fischer says that a library at Mentz once contained several pamphlets printed by Gutenberg in the large types of the Bible of 36 lines. He gives fac-similes of the illuminated initials in one of these pamphlets, which closely resemble those of the Psalter of 1457. This similarity is more than an indication that the letters of this Psalter were made by Gutenberg.
9. In the tenth and eleventh centuries, Mentz, then the capital of Germany, contained a population of about 100,000 inhabitants. It the most powerful city of the empire, the great city where the emperors were crowned. In the fourteenth century, it was so strong that it could send out of its walls 10,000 was armed citizens to destroy the strongholds of the noble robbers who had ravaged its commerce.
10. Helbig says that all the larger houses that had not been destroyed by fire were confiscated. The booty was divided in three parts: Adolph took the first and the best part, the nobles of his army claimed the second; the soldiers, "a band of mercenary savages, "took the remainder. Notes et dissertations, p. 52.
11. Hessels' translation.
12. Schaab says that an aristocratic appointment at the court procured this nobleman a comfortable life. Voluntarily he followed the princely court, where he had a free table and fodder for his horses. Even for his dress he received cloth in the court colors, and generally wore a kind of mantle, called Tabard. It was in accordance with the morals of that time to carouse at court. They went there with empty cups and returned with full ones. The princes tried not before the sixteenth century to put a check to this excess by special orders. The elector Johan Schweikard von Kronenberg ordered, even in the year 1605, to leave the grossen Saumagen—this was the name of the cups then used—for the future at home. … However comfortable and German-like all this may look, miserable were these court-wages, this dress, these alms presented to the inventor of typography. But no, it is perfectly in harmony with the general course of earthly things. Van der Linde, Haarlem Legend, p. 29.
13. Henry Bechtermüntz had died before the book was finished.
14. The Vocabularium ex quo was reprinted by Nicholas Bechtermüntz, in the same types and in the same form, in the years 1469, 1472, and 1477. Only one copy is known of the first edition of the book.
15. From the preface to a curious and little-known poem entitled Encomion Chalcographiæ, by Arnold Bergellanus, as reprinted by Wolf in his Monumenta Typographia, vol. i, p. 5.
16. It appears from this, that Humery, who owned the printing office, had neglected to properly record or establish his title. It was through the grace of the archbishop, who understood the matter, that he was spared the trouble of re-establishing his right by legal process.
17. One day when I was reading this interesting passage [of Bodmann, concerning the types of Gutenberg], the idea presented itself to me that it would be well to examine with care a certain volume printed by Frederic Hauman, which was in a neglected corner of my library. I took it up, not thinking that I should make any discovery. I knew that the last productions of the presses of Nicholas Bechtermüntz were printed with other types than those of Gutenberg, and that, among the known impressions of the Brothers of the Life-in-Common at Marienthal, none were executed with these characters. But judge of my astonishment, of my joy, perhaps, when I recognized in this neglected book not only the types of the Catholicon of 1460, the only ones appertaining to Gutenberg that could have been employed in the books that proceeded from the presses of Eltvill, but also the types that had been used in the Letters of Indulgence of 1454 and 1455, in the Appeal against the Turks of 1455, the Calendar of 1457 described by Fischer, the Bible of 36 lines, and all the characters of Albert Pfister—or, to be brief,—when I recognized the most ancient types of John Gutenberg. Helbig, Une découverte pour l'histoire de l'imprimerie, p. 4.

    Helbig gives a list of seven books, of little value, printed by Hauman, in these types of Gutenberg. He expresses his astonishment that they had not before been identified, but he offers no explanation of the singular fact that these types were not used by any printer between 1469 and 1506.

18. Helbig, Une découverte pour l'histoire de l'imprimerie, p. 4, note.
19. See pages 315 and 316 of this book.
20. Many authors who do not mention Gutenberg speak of Mentz as the city in which printing was first practised. Van Laar, at Cologne, in 1478; Caxton, at Westminster, in 1482; the archbishop Berthold of Mentz in 1486; Meydenbach of Mentz in 1494—these are a few of the many writers who have certified to this fact. A cloud of witnesses, says Van der Linde, join in the song of Celtes: "You wind yourself, already, O broad-waved Rhine! to the town of Mentz, which first of all printed with metal letters." Van der Linde, Haarlem Legend, p. 32.
21. In the year 1742, the Jesuits, who then had control of the church of Saint Francis, tore it down in order to rebuild another edifice upon the same ground. The tablet and the tomb of Gutenberg were destroyed. The inscription on this tablet was published for the first time in a book printed by Peter Friedburg at Mentz in the year 1499. Helbig, Notes et dissertations, p. 10.
22. Ivo Wittig was an ecclesiastic of eminence, chancellor and grand rector of the University of Mentz, to which he gave his large library of books and manuscripts. When the Swedes approached Mentz, this precious library was removed. Unfortunately, it was put on a boat of the Rhine which was wrecked, and his rare collection of books was lost. Helbig says it is an irreparable loss, for Wittig was deeply interested in printing, and his collection, no doubt, contained materials of the highest importance concerning its history.
23. This is an error. This house is not connected with the history of printing in any other way than in being the residence of Gutenberg when a child. When the Gensfleisch family were sent or went in exile, their houses were confiscated. It is not probable that Gutenberg died in the house bearing his name.
24. The Jesuit Serarius says that he saw this tablet one hundred years after it was erected. Between 1632 and 1636, when the Swedes were in Mentz, this house was sacked, but the tablet was spared. In 1741, it was taken down and placed in the wall in the court of a house belonging to the University. But this monument, which escaped the barbarity of the Swedish soldiers, was destroyed by the conscripts of the French republic, who were lodged in this house between the years 1793 and 1797. Helbig says it is probable that these ruffians suspected John Gutenberg of aristocratic tendencies. They did not know that the old citizen of Mentz was, unwittingly, the leader of all democrats, revolutionists and reformers, the man above all others, who, by his invention, had paved the way for the French revolution.