Guild regulations restricted the use of engraving for the illumination of manuscripts, but the demands of monks for the production of religious pictures as a device for propaganda of the faith and as an exchange for penance following the organization of indulgences by Clement VI and Boniface IX led to the use of wood engravings. As in China the demands of religion in Buddhism had led to the wide-scale production of block prints, so in Europe block prints possibly introduced from China during the Mongolian supremacy began to appear in the latter part of the fourteenth century. Large numbers of prints could be produced cheaply and distributed widely. The objection of copyists' guilds to engraving of a text on the same block as the picture were overcome and block books began to appear as early as 1409.[237] As in China paper and block printing were adapted to the large-scale demands of religion, but in the West the sale of indulgences to offset the decline in revenue from the nation-states brought protests ending in the Reformation. Revenue from penance encouraged deeds for which penance was required and proved an unhappy support for ecclesiastical finance.
The monopoly of knowledge built up under ecclesiastical control in relation to time and based on the medium of parchment was undermined by the competition of paper. The bias of paper as a medium was evident in China with its bureaucratic administration developed in relation to the demands of space. A bureaucratic administration supported by a complex alphabetical script written with a brush implied limited possibilities of linking an oral and a written tradition and facilitated the spread of Buddhism, with its emphasis on the production of charms and statues among the lower classes. Limited supplies of satisfactory writing material in India strengthened the monopoly of the oral tradition held by the Brahmans, emphasized the importance of the concept of time, and invited competition from the invaders during the period of expansion of the Macedonian empire. India had no god of writing but a goddess of knowledge, learning, and eloquence. The exclusive right of teaching was bestowed by God on hereditary priests. Invasion was accompanied by the spread of Buddhism and writing, but not to the extent of supporting a bureaucratic administration. The culture of Buddhist India became a civilizing and humanizing factor responsible for an empire based on spiritual and not on political and military unity.[238] The limited possibilities of political bureaucratic development with an emphasis on space in India accentuated an emphasis on religious development in contrast with the political bureaucratic development of China.[239] Hence Buddhism spread with great rapidity in China but eventually, failing to overwhelm the political bureaucracy, spread to Japan.
The spread of Buddhism and writing and printing in China was accompanied by an expansion of the paper industry and by its migration to the West through the Mohammedans. Paper responded to the invitation of the monopoly of knowledge based on parchment and reflected in monasticism with its emphasis on the concept of time and through competition hastened the development of political bureaucracy with its emphasis on the concept of space.
FOOTNOTES:
[180] See H. Pirenne, ‘Le Commerce du papyrus dans la Gaule mérovingienne’ (Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, Comptes rendus des séances de l'année 1928, pp. 178-91); also Economic and Social History of Mediaeval Europe (New York, 1937). The monastery at Corbie received rent including papyrus after 716. J. W. Thompson, Economic and Social History of Europe in the Later Middle Ages, 1300-1530 (New York, 1931), i, p. 89.
[181] See H. C. Lea, A History of Auricular Confessions and Indulgences in the Latin Church (Philadelphia, 1896).
[182] Cited J. W. Thompson, The Medieval Library (Chicago, 1939), p. 40.
[183] He wrote that he felt ‘of all bodily tasks a perhaps not unjust preference for the work of scribes (provided they copy accurately) since by reading and re-reading Holy Scripture they gain wholesome mental instruction, and by copying the precepts of the Lord they help to disseminate them far and wide’. ‘What happy application, what praise-worthy industry, to preach unto men by means of the hand, to untie the tongues by means of the fingers, to bring quiet and salvation to mortals, and fight the Devil's insidious wiles with pen and ink! For every word of the Lord which is copied deals Satan a wound.’
[184] Cited J. W. Thompson, op. cit., p. 109
[185] John Edwin Sandys, op. cit., p. 120.
[186] ‘We declare unanimously in the name of the Holy Trinity that there shall be rejected and removed and anathematised out of the Christian Church every likeness which is made out of any material and colour whatsoever by the evil art of painters.’ Cited E. J. Martin, A History of the Iconoclastic Controversy (London, n.d.), p. 51; see also Edwyn Bevan, Holy Images (London, 1940).
[187] Charles Dièhl, History of the Byzantine Empire (Princeton, 1925), p. 58.
[188] Mellitus, sent to preach to the Saxons, was instructed to ‘keep the old temples, and, after destroying the idols they contain, turn them into churches. Keep the old festivals and allow the people to kill oxen as usual but dedicate the feast to Holy martyrs whose relics are in the Church.’ Cited by Françoise Henry, Irish Art in the Early Christian Period (London, 1940).
[189] E. J. Martin, op. cit., p. 122.
[190] See Lewis Leopold, Prestige, a Psychological Study of Social Estimates (London, 1913), p. 275.
[191] See E. A. Loew, The Beneventan Script: A History of the South Italian Minuscule (Oxford, 1914).
[192] See T. F. Carter, The Invention of Printing in China and Its Spread Westward (New York, 1925).
[193] See F. B. Wiborg, Printing Ink (New York, 1926).
[194] See Lin Yutang, A History of the Press and Public Opinion in China (Chicago, 1936), p. 20.
[195] See D. Diringer, op. cit., pp. 329 ff.; also on China, pp. 98-110.
[196] See Gerard de Gre, Society and Ideology (New York, 1943).
[197] See G. Le Strange, Baghdad during the Abassid Caliphate (Oxford, 1900); also André Blum, La Route du papier (Grenoble, 1946).
[198] See Robert Byron and D. T. Rice, The Birth of Western Painting (London, 1930), for a suggestion of discussion of the implication of the iconoclastic controversy to the history of painting.
[199] See Vaughan Cornish, Borderlands of Language in Europe and their Relation to the Historic Frontier of Christendom (London, 1936), pp. 47 ff.
[200] See J. M. Hussey, Church and Learning in the Byzantine Empire, 867-1185 (London, 1937).
[201] Cited Vasiliev, op. cit. ii, p. 235.
[202] See Henri Alibaux, Les premières Papeteries Françaises (Paris, 1926), for a concise lucid account of the spread of the paper industry; also Dard Hunter, Papermaking through Eighteen Centuries (New York, 1930).
[203] See The Legacy of Islam, ed. by the late Sir Thomas Arnold and Alfred Guillaume (Oxford, 1931), and G. E. Von Greenebaum, Medieval Islam, a Study in Cultural Orientation (Chicago, 1946).
[204] See The Legacy of Israel, ed. E. R. Bevan and Charles Singer (Oxford, 1927).
[205] See John Edwin Sandys, A Short History of Classical Scholarship, p. 136.
[206] G. C. Coulton, Europe's Apprenticeship, a Survey of Medieval Latin with Examples (London, 1940), p. 14.
[207] Ibid., p. 15.
[208] Otto Jesperson, Language, its Nature, Development and Origin (London, 1922), pp. 23-4.
[209] Gregory VII wrote in 1079: ‘For it is clear to those who reflect upon it; that not without reason has it pleased almighty God that Holy Scripture should be a secret in certain places, lest if it were plainly apparent to all men, perchance it would be little esteemed and be subject to disrespect; or it might be falsely understood by those of mediocre learning and lead to error’, cited Margaret Deanesly, The Lollard Bible and Other Medieval Biblical Versions (Cambridge, 1920), p. 24.
[210] Margaret Deanesly, The Lollard Bible, p. 31.
[211] K. J. Holzknecht, Literary Patronage in the Middle Ages (Philadelphia, 1923).
[212] See H. M. Chadwick, The Heroic Age (Cambridge, 1926).
[213] See Steven Runciman, The Medieval Manichae, a Study of the C
hristian Dualist Heresy (Cambridge, 1947); also T. K. Oesterreich, Possession, Demoniacal and Other, among Primitive Races, in Antiquity, the Middle Ages and Modern Times (London, 1930).
[214] See H. C. Lea, A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages (New York, 1900).
[215] See Paul Vinogradoff, Roman Law in Medieval Europe (London, 1909).
[216] See James Bryce, The Holy Roman Empire (New York, 1919).
[217] See H. O. Taylor, The Medieval Mind (London, 1925); M. L. W. Laistner, Thought and Letters in Western Europe, A.D. 500-900 (London, 1931); R. L. Poole, Illustrations of the History of Medieval Thought and Learning (London, 1932); C. H. Haskins, The Renaissance of the Twelfth Century (Cambridge, 1927).
[218] See Hastings Rashdall, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1895).
[219] M. de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, translated by Mr. Nugent, The Spirit of Laws (London, 1752), ii, pp. 322.
[220] Ibid. 325.
[221] See James Bryce, Studies in History and Jurisprudence (London, 1901), pp. 275 ff.
[222] C. H. McIlwain, The Growth of Political Thought in the West (New York, 1932), p. 192.
[223] Ibid.
[224] Cited C. H. McIlwain, The Growth of Political Thought in the West, p. 365.
[225] See J. W. Thompson, The Literacy of the Laity in the Middle Ages (Berkeley, 1939).
[226] See Margaret Deanesly, The Lollard Bible and Other Medieval Biblical Versions (Cambridge, 1920). ‘Hardly any event in English economical history has been so full of results as the plague of 1349 was. It emancipated the serf, and it demoralized the Church. It gave occasion to the teaching of Wiklif, and assured the Reformation. Had it not been for the insurrection of 1381, and the identification of Lollardy with sedition and rebellion, the separation from Rome would have occurred in the fifteenth century. The tie which bound Western Europe to the Papacy was very slender at the Council of Constance, when John XXIII was deposed and Martin V elected. But the English rulers dreaded the Lollards, and remained orthodox and uneasy.’ J. E. Thorold Rogers, The Economic Interpretation of History (New York), p. 263.
[227] For an interesting suggestion that filigraines were a type of symbolism used by paper-makers and ‘every ream turned out by these pious paper-makers contained some five hundred heretical tracts each of which ran its course under the unsuspecting nose of orthodoxy’, see Harold Bayley, A New Light on the Renaissance displayed in Contemporary Problems (London, 1909), p. 40.
[228] See G. R. Owst, Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England (Cambridge, 1933).
[229] From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, translated and edited H. H. Girth and C. Wright Mills (New York, 1946), p. 178.
[230] A. L. Smith, Church and State in the Middle Ages (London, 1913).
[231] See Eileen Power, The Wool Trade in English Medieval History (Oxford, 1941).
[232] P. Boissonade, Life and Work in Medieval Europe (London, 1927), pp. 189-90.
[233] Henry Hallam, Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the 15th, 16th and 17th Centuries (New York, 1887), p. 75.
[234] See J. W. Clark, Libraries in the Medieval and Renaissance Periods (Cambridge, 1894).
[235] J. A. Herbert, Illuminated Manuscripts (London, 1911), p. 265. See also Falconer Madan, Books in Manuscript: A Short Introduction to their Study and Use (New York, 1927).
[236] Ibid., p. 310.
[237] See André Blum, The Origins of Printing and Engraving (New York), and Carl Zigrosser, Six Centuries of Fine Prints (New York, 1937).
[238] D. Diringer, op. cit., p. 401.
[239] See a suggestive discussion, J. H. Denison, Emotion as the Basis of Civilization (New York, 1928), pp. 100 ff.; also The Legacy of India, ed. G. T. Garratt (Oxford, 1937); L. T. Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, a Study in Comparative Ethics (New York, n.d.), pp. 525-39.
VI
PAPER AND THE PRINTING PRESS
The monopoly built up by guilds of copyists and others concerned with the making of manuscripts had its effects in high prices which in turn invited attempts to produce at lower costs. It was significant that these attempts were made in territory marginal to France in which copyists' guilds held a strong monopoly, and that they were concerned with the production of an imitation of manuscripts such as Bibles, which commanded, partly as a result of size, very high prices. In 1470 it was estimated in Paris that a printed Bible cost about one-fifth that of a manuscript Bible. The size of the scriptures had an important effect in hastening the introduction of the parchment codex and in turn the introduction of printing. The feudal divisions of Germany provided an escape from the more rigid central control of France.
Profits were dependent on exact reproductions of expensive manuscripts. It was necessary to develop arrangements by which type could be cast resembling exactly the letters of the manuscript and in sufficient quantity to facilitate setting up pages for printing. The alphabet which had been conventionalized to a limited number of letters used in innumerable combinations in words lent itself to adaptation to mechanical production of large numbers of the same letters which could be put together in the required combinations. In contrast with China, where the character of the script involved large-scale undertakings supported by governments, the alphabet permitted small-scale undertakings manageable by private enterprise.
The problem of producing quantities of letters with speed was solved through the resources of a highly technical metal industry. Letters were cut on punches which were hardened and driven into softer metal to provide a cast for the letter. For arrangement on a page each letter must be of the same height and of the same length, though the sizes of letters and in turn the breadths varied. An adjustable mould suited to varying breadths and in which various punched letters could be inserted at the bottom was basic to efficient production of type. In addition it became important to secure a metal which had a low melting-point and which did not contract and expand in response to temperature. An alloy including lead and antimony, of which one expanded and the other contracted with increased temperature, gave satisfactory results. Solution of the problems of metal type production was accompanied by a solution of the problem of ink. Engraved wooden blocks used indelible ink which was not suited to metal. Painters had developed oil as a base for paint and linseed oil and lamp-black were adapted to ink for metal type. Finally, arrangements for pressing parchment and paper firmly on the inked type and releasing them quickly were worked out on a screw press. Rapid manipulation in raising and lowering the press was essential to low-cost printing. In the production of a large book capital investment in equipment and raw materials was substantial. A single press could employ at least two typesetters and two printers. Six presses were used to print the Gutenberg Bible. Early printers used an alphabet of over 150 characters, including ligatures and devices which had been introduced by copyists.
An increase in the number of trained printers, particularly after the sack of Mainz in 1462, was followed by migration to other centres in Germany and in Europe. Supplies of paper and a market for books attracted printers to Italy. Paper-makers became concerned with printing as a means of expanding the market. Imitation of manuscripts compelled printers to produce type corresponding to the various writing hands developed in different regions. In Germany gothic writing and gothic type prevailed, and in Italy the roman characters developed during the classical revival of the Renaissance predominated. Venice as a centre of trade in Greek manuscripts became a centre under the influence of Aldus for the production of Greek type. As the market for large, costly, and cumbersome folios was met, convenient crown octavos at moderate prices were produced. In turn italic as a more compact type based on the Vatican chancery script was used. The influence of copyists and illuminators delayed the introduction of printing in Paris until 1469, but the delay and the control exercised by the University favoured the introduction of roman type,[240] early in the sixteenth century. Printing spread to the Low countries and from there Caxton introduced it to England. Since Italy and Fr
ance had concentrated on ecclesiastical and classical works, Caxton was compelled to emphasize books in English, and he printed translations and English works, notably those of Chaucer.
By the end of the fifteenth century presses had been established in the larger centres of Europe. They had been concerned with the reproduction of manuscripts for the use of the Church, law, medicine, and trade. They had reproduced manuscripts in Latin and in Greek and in the vernaculars notably in Germany and England. With these developments a book trade had been built up and the size of printing establishments increased. The task of making available the manuscripts which had accumulated over centuries had been well begun. Printing accentuated a commercial interest in the selection of books and the publisher concerned with markets began to displace the printer concerned with production. The monopoly of monasticism was further undermined. The authority of the written word declined. ‘The age of cathedrals had passed. The age of the printing press had begun.’[241]
Empire and Communications Page 18
