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GUTENBERG, JOHANN (c. 1398–1468)

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Originally appearing in Volume V12, Page 741 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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GUTENBERG, JOHANN (c. 1398–1468) , See also:German printer, is supposed to have been See also:born c. 1398–1399 at See also:Mainz of well-to-do parents, his See also:father being Friele zum Gensfleisch and his See also:mother Elsgen Wyrich (or, from her birthplace, zu Gutenberg, the name he adopted). He is assumed to be mentioned under the name of " Henchen " in a copy of a document of 1420, and again in a document of c. 1427–1428, but it is not stated where he then resided. On See also:January 16, 1430, his mother arranged with the See also:city of Mainz about an See also:annuity belonging to him; but when, in the same See also:year, some families who had been expelled a few years before were permitted to return to Mainz, Gutenberg appears not to have availed himself of the See also:privilege, as he is described in the See also:act of reconciliation (dated See also:March 28) as " not being in Mainz." It is therefore assumed that the See also:family had taken See also:refuge in See also:Strassburg, where Gutenberg was residing later. There he is said to have been in 1434, and to have seized and imprisoned the See also:town clerk of Mainz for a See also:debt due to him by the See also:corporation of that city, releasing him, however, at the representations of the See also:mayor and councillors of Strassburg, and relinquishing at the same See also:time all claims to the See also:money (310 Rhenish guilders =about 2400 See also:mark)). Between 1436 and 1439 certain documents • It is difficult to know which of the Gutenberg documents can be trusted and which not. Schorbach, in his See also:recent See also:biography of Gutenberg, accepts and describes 27 of them (Festschrift, 1900, p. 163 sqq.), 17 of which are known only from (not always accurate) copies or transcripts. Under See also:ordinary circumstances See also:history might be based on them. But it is certain that some so-called Gutenberg documents, not included in the above 27, are forgeries.

Fr. J. Bodmann (1754–1820), for many years See also:

professor and librarian at Mainz, forged at least two; one (dated See also:July 20, 1459) he even provided with four forged See also:seals; the other (dated Strassburg, March 24, 1424) purported to be an autograph See also:letter of Gutenberg to a fictitious See also:sister of his named Bertha. Of these two documents See also:French and German texts were published about 1800–1802 ; the forger lived for twenty years afterwards but never undeceived the public. He enriched the Gutenberg literature with other fabrications. In fact Bodmann had trained himself for See also:counterfeiting See also:MSS. and documents; he openly boasted of his abilities in this respect, and used them, sometimes to amuse his See also:friends who were searching for Gutenberg documents, sometimes for himself to fill up gaps in Gutenberg's See also:life. (For two or three more specimens of his capacities see A. Wyss in Zeitschr. See also:fur Altert. u. Gesch. Schlesiens, xv. 9 sqq.) To one of his friends (Professor Gotthelf See also:Fischer, who preceded him as librarian of Mainz) one or two other fabrications may be ascribed. There are, moreover, serious misgivings as to documents said to have been discovered about 1740 (when the citizens of Strassburg claimed the See also:honour of the invention for their city) by See also:Jacob Wencker (the then archivist of Strassburg) and J.

D. Schoepflin (professor and See also:

canon of St See also:Thomas's at Strassburg). For instance, of the above document of 1434 no See also:original has ever come to See also:light; while the draft of the transaction, alleged to have been written at the time in a See also:register of contracts, and to have been found about 174o by Wencker, has also disappeared with the register itself. The document (now only known from a copy said to have been taken by Wencker from the draft) is upheld as genuine by Schorbach, who favours an invention of See also:printing at Strassburg, but Bockenheimer, though supporting Gutenberg and Mainz, declares it to be a fiction (Gutenberg-Feier, Mainz, 1900, pp. 24-33). Again, suspicions are justified represent him as having been engaged there in some experiments requiring money, with Andreas Dritzehn, a See also:fellow-See also:citizen, who became not only See also:security for him but his partner to carry out Gutenberg's See also:plan for polishing stones and the manufacture of looking-glasses, for which a lucrative See also:sale was expected at the approaching See also:pilgrimage of 1440 (subsequently postponed, according to the documents, although there is no See also:evidence for this postponement) to See also:Aix-la-Chapelle. Money was See also:lent for this purpose by two other friends. In 1438 another See also:partnership was arranged between Gutenberg, Andreas Dritzehn, and Andreas and Anton Heilmann, and that this had in view the See also:art of printing has been inferred from the word " drucken " used by one of the witnesses in the See also:law proceedings which soon after followed. An See also:action was brought, after the See also:death of Dritzehn, by his two See also:brothers to force Gutenberg to accept them as partners in their See also:brother's See also:place, but the decision was in favour of the latter. In 1441 Gutenberg became See also:surety to the St Thomas See also:Chapter at Strassburg for Johann Karle, who borrowed Inc guilders (about £16) from the chapter, and on See also:November 17, 1442, he himself borrowed 8o livres through See also:Martin Brechter (or Brehter) from the same chapter. Of his whereabouts from the 12th of March 1444 (when he paid a tax at Strassburg) to the 17th of See also:October 1448 nothing certain is known. But on the latter date we find him at Mainz, borrowing 15o See also:gold guilders of his kinsman, See also:Arnold Gelthus, against an See also:annual See also:interest of 72 gold guilders.

We do not know whether the interest on this debt has ever been paid, but the debt itself appears never to have been paid off, as the See also:

contract of this See also:loan was renewed (vidimused) on See also:August 23, 1503, for other parties. It is supposed that soon afterwards Gutenberg must have been able to show some convincing results of his See also:work, for it appears that about 1450 Johann See also:Fust (q.v.) advanced him 800 guilders to promote it, on no security except that of " tools " still to be made. Fust seems also to have undertaken to advance him 300 guilders a year for expenses, See also:wages, See also:house-See also:rent, See also:parchment, See also:paper, See also:ink, &c., but he does not appear to have ever done so. If at any time they disagreed, Gutenberg was to return the 800 guilders, and the " tools " were to cease to be security. It is not known to what purpose Gutenberg devoted the money advanced to him. In the minutes of the law-suit of 1455 he himself says that he had to make his " tools " with it. But he is presumed to have begun a large See also:folio Latin See also:Bible, and to have printed during its progress some smaller books 1 and likewise the Letter of See also:Indulgence (granted on the 12th of See also:April 1451 by See also:Pope See also:Nicholas V. in aid of See also:John II., See also:king of See also:Cyprus, against the See also:Turks), of 31 lines, having the earliest printed date 1454, of which several copies are preserved in various See also:European See also:libraries. A copy of the 1455 issue of the same Indulgence is in the See also:Rylands Library at See also:Manchester (from the Althorp Library). It is not known whether any books were printed while this partnership between Gutenberg and Fust lasted. See also:Trithemius (See also:Ann. Hirsaug. ii. 421) says they first printed, from wooden with respect to the documents recording Gutenberg's lawsuit of 1439 at Strassburg.

Bockenheimer explains at See also:

great length (l.c. pp. 41-72) that they are forgeries. He even explains (ibid. pp. 97-107) that the so-called Helmasperger document of November 6, 1455, may be a fabrication of the See also:Faust von See also:Aschaffenburg family, who endeavoured to claim Johann Fust as their ancestor. There are also (I) a fragment of a fictitious " See also:press," said to have been constructed by Gutenberg in 1441, and to have been discovered (!) at Mainz in 1856; (2) a forged imprint with the date 1458 in a copy of Pope See also:Gregory's Dialogues, really printed at Strassburg about 1470; (3) a forged See also:rubric in a copy of the Tractatus de celebratione missarum, from which it would appear that Johann Gutenberg and Johann Nummeister had presented it on See also:June 19, 1463, to the Carthusian monastery near Mainz; (4) four forged copies of the Indulgence of 1455, in the Culemann Collection in the Kastner Museum At See also:Hanover, &c. (see further, Hessels, " The so-called Gutenberg Documents," in The blocks, a vocabulary called Catholicon, which cannot have been the Catholicon of Johannes de Janua, a folio of 748 pages in two columns of 66 lines each, printed in 146o, but was perhaps a small glossary now Iost.2 The Latin Bible of 42 lines, a folio of 1282 printed pages, in two columns with spaces See also:left for illuminated See also:initials (so called because each See also:column contains 42 lines, and also known as the See also:Mazarin Bible, because the first copy described was found in the library of See also:Cardinal Mazarin), was finished before the 15th of August 1456;' German bibliographers now claim this Bible for Gutenberg, but, according to See also:bibliographical rules, it must be ascribed to See also:Peter Schoffer, perhaps in partnership with Fust. It is in smaller type than the Bible of 36 lines, which latter is called either (a) the See also:Bamberg Bible, because nearly all the known copies were found in the neighbourhood of Bamberg, or (b) Schelhorn's Bible, because J. G. Schelhorn was the first who described it in 176o, or (c) Pfister's Bible, because its printing is ascribed to Albrecht Pfister of Bamberg, who used the same type for several small German books, the See also:chief of which is See also:Boner's Edelstein (1461, 4to), 88 leaves, with 85 woodcuts, a See also:book of fables in German See also:rhyme. Some bibliographers believe this 36-See also:line Bible to have been begun, if not entirely printed, by Gutenberg during his partnership with Fust, as its type occurs in the 31-line Letters of Indulgence of 1454, was used for the 27-line See also:Donatus (of 1451?), and, finally, when found in Pfister's See also:possession in 1461, appears to be old and worn, except the additional letters k, w, z required for German, which are clear and See also:sharp like the types used in the Bible. Again, others profess to prove (Dziatzko, Gutenberg's friiheste Drucker praxis) that B'6 was a reprint of B42. Gutenberg's work, whatever it may have been, was not a commercial success, and in 1452 Fust had to come forward with another 800 guilders to prevent a collapse.

But some time before November 1455 the latter demanded repayment of his advances (see the Helmasperger Notarial Document of November 6, 1455, in Dziatzko's Beitrage zur Gutenbergfrage, See also:

Berlin, 1889), and took legal proceedings against Gutenberg. We do not know the end of these proceedings, but if Gutenberg had prepared any printing materials it would seem that he was compelled to yield up the whole of them to Fust; that the latter removed them to his own house at Mainz, and there, with the assistance of Peter Schoffer, issued various books until the See also:sack of the city in 1462 by See also:Adolphus II. caused a suspension of printing for three years, to be resumed again in 1465. We have no See also:information as to Gutenberg's activity, and very little of his whereabouts, after his separation from Fust. In a document dated June 21, 1457, he appears as See also:witness on behalf of one of his relatives, which shows that he was then still at Mainz. Entries in the registers of the St Thomas See also:Church at Strassburg make it clear that the annual interest on the money which Gutenberg on the 17th of November 1442 (see above) had borrowed from the chapter of that church was regularly paid till the 11th of November 1457, either by himself or by his 2 Ulric Zell states, in the See also:Cologne See also:Chronicle of 1499, that Gutenberg and Fust printed a Bible in large type like that used in missals. It has been said that this description applies to the 42-line Bible, as its type is as large as that of most missals printed before 15oo, and that the See also:size now called See also:missal type (See also:double See also:pica) was not used in missals until See also:late in the 16th See also:century. This is no doubt true of the smaller missals printed before 1500, some of which are in even smaller type than the 42-line Bible. But many of the large folio missals, as that printed at Mainz by Peter Schoffer in 1483, the Carthusian missal printed at See also:Spires by Peter Drach about 149o, and the Dominican missal printed by See also:Andrea de Torresanis at See also:Venice in 1496, are in as large type as the 36-line Bible. Peter Schoffer (1425–1502) of Gernsheim, between Mainz and See also:Mannheim, who was a copyist in See also:Paris in 1449, and whom Fust called his servant (famulus), is said by Trithemius to have discovered an easier way of See also:founding characters, whence Lambinet and others concluded that Schoffer invented the See also:punch. Schoffer himself, in the See also:colophon of the Psalter of 1457, a work which some suppose to have been planned and partly printed by Gutenberg, claims only the mode of printing rubrics and coloured capitals. ' The See also:Leipzig copy of this Bible (which formerly belonged to Herr Klemm of See also:Dresden) has at the end the MS. year 1453 in old Arabic numerals. But certain circumstances connected with this date make it look very suspicious.

Library, 1909). 1 Among these were perhaps (I) one or two See also:

editions of the work of Donatus, De octo partibus orationis, 27 lines to a See also:page, of one of which two leaves, now in the Paris See also:National Library, were discovered at Mainz in the original binding of an See also:account book, one of them having, but in a later See also:hand, the year 1451 (?); (2) the Turk-Kalendar for 1455 (preserved in the See also:Hof-Bibliothek at See also:Munich); (3) the Cisianus (preserved. in the See also:Cambridge Univ. Libr.), and perhaps others now lost. surety, Martin Brechter. But the See also:payment due on the latter date appears to have been delayed, as an entry in the register of that year shows that the chapter had incurred expenses in taking steps to have both Gutenberg and Brechter arrested. This time the difficulties seem to have been removed, but on and after the 11th of November 1458 Gutenberg and Brechter remained in See also:default. The chapter made various efforts, all recorded in their registers, to get their money, but in vain. Every year they recorded the arrears with the expenses to which they were put in their efforts to See also:arrest the defaulters, till at last in 1474 (six years after Gutenberg's death) their names are no longer mentioned. Meantime Gutenberg appears to have been printing, as we learn from a document dated See also:February 26, 1468, that a See also:syndic of Mainz, Dr See also:Conrad Homery (who had formerly been in the service of the elector See also:Count See also:Diet her of Ysenburg), had at one time supplied him, not with money, but with some formes, types, tools, implements and other things belonging to printing, which Gutenberg had left after his death, and which had, and still, belonged to him (Homery); this material had come into the hands of Adolf, the See also:archbishop of Mainz, who handed or sent it back to Homery, the latter undertaking to use it in no other town but Mainz, nor to sell it to any See also:person except a citizen of Mainz, even if a stranger should offer him a higher See also:price for the things. This material has never yet been identified, so that we do not know what types Gutenberg may have had at his disposal; they could hardly have included the types of the Catholicon of 1460, as is suggested, this work being probably executed by Heinrich Bechtermunze (d. 1467), who afterwards removed to See also:Eltville, or perhaps by Peter Schoffer, who, about 1470, advertises the book as his See also:property (see K. See also:Burger, Buchhandler-Anzeigen).

It is uncertain whether Gutenberg remained in Mainz or removed to the neighbouring town of Eltville, where he may have been engaged for a while with the brothers Bechtermunze, who printed there for some time with the types of the 146o Catholicon. On the 17th of January 1465 he accepted the See also:

post of salaried courtier from the archbishop Adolf, and in this capacity received annually a suit of See also:livery together with a fixed See also:allowance of See also:corn and See also:wine. Gutenberg seems to have died at Mainz at the beginning of 1468, and was, according to tradition, buried in the Franciscan church in that city. His relative Arnold Gelthus erected a See also:monument to his memory near his supposed See also:grave, and See also:forty years afterwards No Wittig set up a memorial tablet at the legal See also:college at Mainz. No books bearing the name of Gutenberg as printer are known, nor is any genuine portrait of him known, those appearing upon medals, statues or engraved plates being all fictitious. In 1898 the See also:firm of L. See also:Rosenthal, at Munich, acquired a Missale speciale on paper, which See also:Otto Hupp, in two See also:treatises published in 1898 and 1902, asserts to have been printed by Gutenberg about 1450, seven years before the 1457 Psalter. Various German bibliographers, however, think that it could not have been printed before 148o, and, judging from the facsimiles published by Hupp, this date seems to be approximately correct. On the 24th of June 1goo the five-hundredth anniversary of Gutenberg's See also:birth was celebrated in several German cities, notably in Mainz and Leipzig, and most of the recent literature on the invention of printing See also:dates from that time. So we may See also:note that in 1902 a vellum fragment of an Astronomical Kalendar was discovered by the librarian of See also:Wiesbaden, Dr G. Zedler (See also:Die alteste Gutenbergtype, Mainz, 1902), apparently printed in the 36-line Bible type, and as the position of the See also:sun, See also:moon and other See also:planets described in this document suits the years 1429, 1448 and 1467, he ascribes the printing of this Kalendar to the year 1447. A paper fragment of a poem in German, entitled Weltgericht, said to be printed in the 36-line Bible type, appears to have come into the possession of Herr Eduard See also:Beck at Mainz in 1892, and was presented by him in 1903 to the Gutenberg Museum in that city.

Zedler published a facsimile of it'in 1904 (for the Gutenberg Gesellschaft), with a description, in which he places it before the 1447 Kalendar, C. 1444-1447. Moreover, fragments of two editions of Donatus different from that of 1451 (?) have recently been found; see Schwenke in Centralbl. fur Bibliothekwesen (1908). The recent literature upon Gutenberg's life and work and See also:

early printing in See also:general includes the following: A. von der Linde, Geschichte and Erdichtung (See also:Stuttgart, 1878) ; id. Geschichte der Buchdruckerkunst (Berlin, 1886) ; J. H. Hessels, Gutenberg, Was he the Inventor of Printing ? (See also:London, 1882) ; id. See also:Haarlem, the Birthplace of Printing, not Mentz (London, 1886) ; O. Hartwig, Festschrift zum fiinfhundertjahrigen Geburtstag von Johann Gutenberg (Leipzig, 1900), which includes various treatises by Schenk zu Schweinsberg, K. Schorbach, &c.; P. Schwenke, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte See also:des ersten Buchdrucks (Berlin, 1900) ; A.

Borckel, Gutenberg, sein Leben, &c. (See also:

Giessen, 1897) ; id. Gutenberg and See also:seine beruhmten Nachfolger See also:im ersten Jahrhundert der Typographie (See also:Frankfort, 1900) ; F. See also:Schneider, Mainz and seine Drucker (1900) ; G. Zedler, Gutenberg-Forschungen (Leipzig, 1901) ; J. H. Hessels, The so-called Gutenberg Documents (London, 1910). For other See also:works on the subject see See also:TYPOGRAPHY. (J. H.

End of Article: GUTENBERG, JOHANN (c. 1398–1468)

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