The Gutenberg Printing Press

The Gutenberg Printing Press History

Here is a timeline of the Gutenberg printing press history.

Advantages of the Gutenberg Printing Press

The Gutenberg printing press was made of small blocks shaped into letters. These movable pieces could be arranged to form sentences and ink would be applied to them. These inked-up pieces would be pressed against a sheet of paper, creating a printed page.

Fig. 1 Photograph of a modern reproduction of the Gutenberg Printing Press.

Gutenberg used his goldsmith skills to create metal movable type, this was the ultimate material to use as it was very durable. The printing press made this copying books much quicker than and allowed books, pamphlets and posters to be printed and reproduced at a rate never seen before.

Here are some advantages of the Gutenberg printing press compared to handwriting, or scribing, as it was then called.

The Gutenberg printing press could therefore produce books, posters, and pamphlets cheaply and quickly. An establishment with a printing press could distribute their literature easily. Once printing information became readily available in the 15^th century, the way society produced and reproduced information changed dramatically.

Effect of the Gutenberg Printing Press

Before the Protestant Reformation, most of Europe was Catholic. Roman Catholic authorities believed that the Bible was only to be read and interpreted by Bishops and the Pope who could read Latin. The Church had previously had exclusive control of religious texts which were stored in cathedral and monastic libraries.

The first book to be published by Gutenberg was his “42 Line Bible," called as such because it had 42 lines per page. It was printed in the language of Latin for Catholic churches and provided uniformity of the Bible for Catholicism. But despite the Roman Catholic Church using the Gutenberg printing press, they still believed that literature was restricted to the elite.

Fig. 2 Photograph of the Gutenberg Monument in Strasbourg, Germany.

This changed with the rise of the Protestant Reformation. Martin Luther was a German priest who had lost faith in the Catholic Church. He protested against many Catholic ideas like only Bishops and the Pope being allowed to read the Bible. Luther believed in a "priesthood of all believers," the idea that everyone had the same rights as a priest to read and understand the Bible. Martin Luther printed his new religious ideas, not in Latin, but in German. He argued that the Bible should be translated into German so that it was more accessible.

The printing press meant that the Catholic Church's previous monopoly over religious debate was broken. Protestant and Roman Catholic debate was printed to the public, for example in the Augsburg Confession (1530) and the Apology of the Augsburg Confession (1531). No longer behind closed doors, religious debate was now available to the public.

Impact of the Gutenberg Printing Press

Pamphlets made spreading information a drastically quicker process. This can be seen in the Peasants War in 1524. The Peasants War was waged by peasant farmers who were protesting against their exploitation by the ruling German nobility and princes as well as the Roman Catholic Church which collected taxes and enforced Catholicism.

Luther's 95 theses ushered in a moment of radical change. The Catholic Church, long the unquestioned authority of Europe, was now being challenged. The ideas Luther conveyed via the printing press inspired these peasants against what they saw as unfair and unjust use of religious and political authority. Thomas Müntzer, a Reformer who opposed the feudal system, the Roman Catholic Church and Martin Luther’s Reformation efforts, led the Peasants War in 1524.

Fig. 3 Print of Thomas Müntzer, leader of the Peasants War in 1525.

Under his leadership, the peasants published their demands in a text known as “The Twelve Articles” which was distributed widely in 1525. Some of the demands were religiously motivated, such as changing the tithing system, others were regarding the end of serfdom and access to land. Bible verses were included in the Articles to justify the demands and the war. Despite their use of Protestant ideas, Luther himself never fully supported the peasants.

The Gutenberg printing press helped to spread Luther’s preachings about religious reform, but also helped to publish the demands of the peasants and Luther’s reactions to war. The advances in information communication as a result of the printing press helped to both start and end the Peasants’ War, demonstrating a new approach to religious and political crisis.

Importance of the Gutenberg Printing Press

As demonstrated with the Peasants War, the ability to print and disseminate information at such a rapid rate introduced an information revolution in Europe. Luther’s translations of the Bible into German opened up the religious text to any literate German. This reflected the Protestant message of sola scriptura.

This broke the moral and intellectual authority the Roman Catholic Church had held with scripture and aided the Protestant cause.

Fig. 4 Drawing celebrating William Caxton's establishment of the Printing Press in England in 1476. The King James Bible was printed and distributed because of Caxton's effort to bring printing to England.

Luther’s translations also led to other translations such as the King James Bible. The King James Bible (1611) was a Bible translated into English that has become one of history’s most printed books, with as many as 5 billion copies being printed worldwide as of 2015.

The abundance of literature produced by printing presses corresponded by an increase in literacy rates throughout Europe. As books were cheaper and more accessible to the public, people were more inclined to read and understand texts themselves. The Royal and Church libraries no longer held control of information as they once did.