An Early Printing Press
Soon the press was spread all over Europe, making information more widely available, and dramatically cutting down on the cost of books. By the sixteenth century the printing press had spread to more than two thousand cities. That is not to say that books were cheap, as an original Gutenberg Bible cost three year's worth of an average clerk's wage. Many peasants who lacked education would not have been able to read anyways, therefore it is still mostly the nobility and clergy who would have likely owned and read books. It did, however provide greater opportunities for education and learning. Today around 50 of the original 200 Gutenberg bibles still survive.
One of the original Gutenberg Bibles
Sources:
http://scarc.library.oregonstate.edu/omeka/exhibits/show/mcdonald/incunabula/gutenberg/
http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/press.html
What a beautiful bible! I can't image a world without a computer and large machinery to just make copies whenever we want them. I guess one of the bright sides is that the printing press saved a lot of monks a lot of hand problems.
ReplyDeleteAnd NUNS as scribes. Just finished a book on The Female Scribes of German Monasteries!
ReplyDeleteIt very interesting to learn how the printing press press spread over Europe. It had major impacts on trade politics, and education, similar to how media impacts our lives today. I recommend taking the "Printed Book" class at Drury if you're interesting in learning more.
ReplyDeleteI cannot image being a scribe. I complain after writing for an hour for a test. This amazes me that before the creation of the printing press, the only way to copy books was to scribe them, and that there are still copies from that. This post really makes me appreciate the growth in technology. Great post!
ReplyDeleteYes, a reminder from Stacie, that the class Printed Books, taught by Bill Garvin is part of Drury's Medieval and Renaissance studies program. Together with HIST 223, you are almost halfway to the minor.
ReplyDeleteIt's crazy to think of how much time writing a whole book by hand. I can't imagine using a printing press would be harder to use than writing a whole book, but I wonder how hard the original printing presses were to use.
ReplyDeleteIts kind of humorous that some people regard this as "the most important invention in human history". I can see this concept being very important for the spread of messages such as religion but does that really make it the most important invention in history? Especially when looking at all the people that were massacred over religion and the spread of certain messages as opposed to a different outlook of the world. In my own opinion, the printing press could either be one of the most important inventions, or one of the most deadly.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Eric on this. Early printing presses couldn't have been easy to use, but they had to have been a little easier than scribing complete texts.
ReplyDeleteMan, here I am thinking it is rough typing up an essay while nuns and monks had to copy entire texts. which must have taken absolute ages. I wonder what the scribes thought of the printing press when it became widespread, how they reacted to the simplification of their job. Very interesting post.
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