In Germany the vernacular became increasingly important after the fall of the Hohenstaufens in 1368. German music protected by the Hohenstaufens resisted encroachments from the Church. The large number of Dominican nunneries brought a demand for German words to explain scholastic terms and phrases and to adapt abstract thoughts to the minds of pious, imperfectly educated women. Mystical teaching was popularized in vernacular sermons and writings in opposition to scholasticism. Gerard Groote (1340-84), the founder of the Brotherhood of Common Life, set up schools in which translations of the vernacular were taught as a protest against the formalism of the Church. Lay people were instructed and German books and pamphlets circulated. At Deventer printing presses were set up and large numbers of works published in German. As a result of this background large numbers of German bibles were printed before the end of the fifteenth century in spite of the statement of the Archbishop of Mainz ‘that the poverty of our mother tongue is quite insufficient and that it would be necessary for translators to invent unknown names for things out of their head’.[242]
An interest in vernacular scriptures, particularly after the rise of universities, led to conflicts between scholars and the Church.[243] John Reuchlin, a Hebrew scholar at Cologne, was bitterly attacked because of a pamphlet he had written in 1510. Erasmus continued the work of collating and translating manuscripts for publication and achieved notable success in collections of extracts from the classics. With the co-operation of John Froben, a printer at Basle, he published his Greek Testament in March 1516 which ‘contributed more to the liberation of the human mind from the thraldom of the clergy than all the uproar and rage of Luther's many pamphlets’ (Mark Pattison). It became the basis of Luther's German translation printed in 1522, of Tyndale's English translation printed in 1526, and of Estienne's work printed in France in 1550. In his protests against the sale of indulgences by the Church and the drain of money to Rome, Luther was led to emphasize the Pauline doctrine of justification by faith and to attack the doctrine of the sacraments, the bondage of ecclesiastical enactments, and the self-glorification of the priesthood. He took full advantage of an established book trade, and large numbers of copies of the New and later the Old Testament were widely distributed at low prices. Polemical literature implied the printing of pamphlets which were quickly produced on small presses, profitably sold, and capable of wide circulation in the hands of pedlars. High German became the basis of modern German literature. The number of titles printed in Germany increased from 90 in 1513 to 146 in 1518 and 944 in 1523. In the struggle between the folios of ecclesiasticism and the pamphlets and sheets of reformers, the Frankfort Fair declined in importance, particularly after the establishment of a press censorship in 1579, and Leipzig gained enormously as a centre of the book trade. Large firms such as that of Koberger, who concentrated on Catholic works, felt the effects of competition from firms concentrating on Protestant writings.
The outbreak of the Reformation in Germany was paralleled by repression in France and in regions dominated by the Church and the emperor. In Italy Greek declined in importance in the first quarter of the sixteenth century. The fall of Florence in 1512, the sack of Rome in 1527, and the crowning of Charles V at Bologna in 1530 were followed by an extension of Spanish influence. But the decline of learning was marked by the increasing effectiveness of the vernacular shown in the writings of Machiavelli. In France the University of Paris and the monarchy offset the influence of the Frankfort Book Fair and introduced severe repressive measures against Lutheran publications in 1534. Increased efficiency of the printing press, in which production had increased from 20 to 200 leaves per hour, and restrictions on markets contributed to acute labour difficulties at Lyons and Paris after 1538 and to the migration of such printers as Estienne to Switzerland. The printing industry was encouraged, but regulations and suppression of attacks on royalty, religion, and public order led to the publication of books beyond French borders for import to France, particularly after 1570. The influence of the Jesuit Order established in 1540 and the bitter struggle against Protestantism culminating in St. Bartholomew's massacre in 1572 implied the decline of learning. ‘The women and the ignorant—both very important conquests—had been recovered through the confessional and the pulpit.’[244] The position of Greek as an heretical language declined. ‘Philology is eminently the Protestant science’.[245] ‘From 1593, the date of Scaliger's removal to Leyden, the supremacy in the republic of learning was possessed by the Dutch.’[246] ‘The deterioration of learning in the University of Paris circa 1600 is a striking fact in the literary history of Europe.’[247]
Decline in learning in France was paralleled by an improvement of the position of the vernacular. As the contents of written manuscripts were made available through printing the demand for writings of contemporary authors increased. The writings of Rabelais were designed to meet the demands of printers in Lyons, a centre less exposed to interference from the Sorbonne. Montaigne made ‘the first attempt to treat in a modern language and in a popular form, questions of great importance to human character and conduct’.[248] He drove out ‘the servile pedantry of the schools’ (Hallam). Printers such as Geoffrey Tory and Dolet supported the importance of the vernacular. ‘As to the ancients, as well Greeks as Romans, they have never taken any other instrument for their eloquence than their mother tongue’ (Dolet). After the publication of Calvin's Institution de la religion chrétienne in 1540 Protestants[249] continuing their interest in translations of the scriptures made full use of the vernacular and their opponents were compelled to use it in reply. The monarchy recognized the importance of the vernacular in enhancing its prestige and unifying the realm. In 1539 an edict of Francis I brought to an end the use of Latin on the judicial bench and recognition of French as the official language. The Edict of Nantes (1597) was in part a recognition of the influence of Protestantism and the vernacular. By the end of the century the victory of French over Latin was decisive.
Restriction of publications in France was paralleled by encouragement of the production of paper. Mercantilist policies favoured the export of paper. In the words of the Rector of the University of Paris in 1554: ‘par le moyen de la papeterie plus que autre trafic de marchandises qui ne passe en France, tire l'or estranger.’ By the end of the century France dominated the export market for paper and supplied adjacent countries with raw material at low prices for the production of books which were smuggled into France. Such regions as the Netherlands and Switzerland, capable of resisting censorship, exploited the advantages of cheap paper by an emphasis on freedom of the press. Printers migrated from Lyons and Paris to Geneva and other centres.[250] In opposition to imports French printers supported censorship and accentuated the bitterness of the religious struggle between Huguenots and Catholics. ‘The Lyonnese printers availed themselves of the brand of “heretic” to get the Genevan books confiscated at the frontier and thus secure at least the French market. Protestant countries had no index and the Genevan printers could not retaliate in kind. They therefore endeavoured—more irritating still—to undersell.’
In spite of censorship regulations in the Empire, Plantin built up an extensive publishing business in Antwerp after 1550. With the support of the Church and monarchs he completed a polyglot Bible in 1568. After the sack of Antwerp in 1576 he moved in 1583 to the University of Leyden which had been established as a Protestant centre of learning by William of Orange in 1575. He was the first publisher to associate typography with the work of the engraver on a large scale and produced a great series of illustrated works of enormous advantage to science, particularly botany. With his assistance Leyden became a centre of scholarship and learning, attracting notable scholars and scientists such as Clusius and Scaliger. Expansion of printing in the Netherlands was accompanied by the development of a large-scale type-founding industry which produced types of great variety.
An increase in printing in Europe was accompanied by the expansion of news services. News-letters were used by the Fuggers af
ter 1554 and printed sheets developed with improvements in postal services organized by monarchies. Calendars were published in large quantities and by the end of the sixteenth century periodical publications were introduced at Cologne. Accessibility of information favoured the growth of new centres of finance. The success of Spanish arms supported by the Fugger mining interests of south Germany in Italy led to the rise of Genoa at the expense of Florence and the migration of Florentine financiers to Lyons in France. ‘Discovery of Cape Good Hope and America meant that Lisbon superseded Venice and Netherland merchants shifted from fishing to the carrying trade between Spain and Antwerp.’[251] By 1554 the Antwerp[252] money market had become largely dependent on Spanish-American silver. A daily bourse at Antwerp required a permanent news service to provide information on the rating of business houses of different nationalities. Loans were floated in Antwerp by the governments of the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, and England. Antwerp and Lyons displaced the fairs and became the international clearing houses of Europe. Threats of the Inquisition were followed by the emigration of financiers from Antwerp and its destruction in 1576 was followed by the rise of Amsterdam and Holland. The Union of Utrecht in 1579 became the basis of a bourgeois republic. Calvinism was embraced and the privileged position of the priesthood destroyed.
In England suppression of printing was perhaps more effective than on the Continent, but the tendency toward absolutism under the Tudors hastened the influence of the Renaissance and facilitated the introduction of the Reformation. Henry VIII encouraged scholars, became an active founder of schools, and abolished the monasteries. The Renaissance stifled on the Continent blossomed in England. Under monasticism territory and wealth had been monopolized and celibacy became a drain on the resources of education. Abolition of the monasteries was followed by the disappearance of clerical celibacy and development of a wide range of interests. ‘Henry VIII with Thomas Wolsey, Thomas Cranmer, and Thomas Cromwell cleared the field and sowed the seed for Spenser, Sidney, Bacon and Shakespeare.’[253] The accession of Queen Elizabeth permitted by absence of the Salic law which prevailed in France and dominance of a woman over the court were accompanied by patronage of literature. Since England, with its interest in wool rather than linen, was dependent on the Continent for supplies of paper, restrictions on publications were in the interests of mercantilism and maintenance of royal power. Influx of silver from Potosi to Europe after 1545, rising prices, and defeat of the Armada provided the basis of Elizabethan prosperity. Restrictions on publications[254] accentuated an interest in the drama and enabled Shakespeare to exploit and expand the capacities of a language which had not been repressed by print. ‘Perhaps the greatest event in the literary history of England’ was the success of Marlowe's Tamburlaine about 1587. ‘It naturalised tragedy ... and put an end ... to all the futilities of the theorists. Shakespeare appeared before academies when the processes of popular and literary education had not multiplied definitions and hardened usages. He enjoyed a freedom of invention unknown to his successors.’[255] In Athens, tragedy flourished before writing was firmly established and in England before printing had developed its overwhelming power.
The flexibility of the alphabet and its adaptability to mechanization facilitated an approximation of the printed word to the oral tradition. The written tradition dependent on parchment had been inflexible. Paper had expanded in part in relation to the gap between the written tradition dependent on parchment and the oral tradition, and the printed word, at first strengthening the position of the written tradition by its emphasis on manuscripts, later in the sixteenth century bridged the gap with the oral tradition. By the end of that century the vernacular had become an effective basis of literature in the countries of Europe. The flexibility of the alphabet and printing introduced an overwhelmingly divisive influence in Western civilization by emphasizing the place of the vernaculars. The vitality of the vernaculars was strengthened by an emphasis on translations of the scriptures which gave them a sacred appeal.[256]
By the end of the sixteenth century the monopoly of knowledge built up in relation to parchment had been overwhelmed and a fusion achieved with a new monopoly of knowledge built up in relation to paper in the establishment of separate kingdoms in which the Church was dominated by the state as in Lutheranism and Anglicanism. In France the concordat of 1516 virtually separated the French Church from Rome and the importance of the scriptures in the vernacular was offset by the role of literature.[257] Jean Bodin furnished princes with an invincible weapon against religious claims. A common sovereign was the essential element of the political community. In countries in which scriptures in the vernacular were emphasized the importance of interpretation supported scholarship and sects. ‘The prolific source of Protestant sectarianism was the notion that the scriptures speak unmistakably.’[258] Demands for toleration were met in part in Calvinism. Geneva was a community, the first which modern times had seen ‘to combine individual and equal freedom with strict self imposed law to found society on the common endeavour after moral perfection’. Self-control was the foundation of virtue and self-sacrifice the condition of common weal.[259]
In the seventeenth century France continued as a major source of exports of paper, but the results of a mercantilist policy favouring exports and restricting the publication of books led to collapse in the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 and the migration of large numbers of Huguenots including paper-makers to important consuming countries such as Holland and England. Toward the end of the century Holland, with the use of wind power, introduced new methods of cutting rags which did away with the old process of rotting, shortened the length of the process, and produced a better quality of paper. About 1620 Blaeu introduced numerous improvements in the printing press which greatly increased output. Suppression of criticism under a despotic monarchy led to the printing of gazettes and publications in Holland to be smuggled into France. French refugees such as Pierre Bayle developed a critical literature which became the basis of the later criticism of Voltaire and the Encyclopaedists. Le Clerc was probably ‘the first person who understood the power which may be exercised over literature by a reviewer’ (Hallam citing Bishop Monk). As a refugee Descartes worked out his philosophy and destroyed the influence of Aristotelianism. Dutch printers exploited their advantages in large-scale development of printing. The Elzivirs published a large number of works and distributed them throughout Europe. Paper was adapted to production of small formats. Type-founding[260] became a major activity and founts were sold to printers in England and Europe. It shifted from a handicraft undertaking to an industrial enterprise.
In England, as in France, suppression of printing was followed by imports of Dutch publications. Corantos were published in 1621 and were followed by newsbooks, but discussion of domestic news was prohibited. A star chamber decree of 1637 restricted presses in London to twenty and type foundries to four. Such repression preceded the outbreak of civil war and insistence on freedom of the press such as Milton's Areopagitica. Abolition of the star chamber courts in 1641 was followed by intense activity in the publication of pamphlets and newsbooks supporting parliament or royalty. ‘The slightest pamphlet is nowadays more vendable than the works of learnedest men.’ ‘Pamphlet-debate was the first great experiment in popular political education using the printing press as the organ of government by discussion.’[261] Success of parliament was followed by suppression and the policy was continued after the Restoration. Roger L'Estrange introduced a rigorous censorship under the Licensing Act of 1662. Periods of suppression were accompanied by the rise of news-letters which evaded censorship. Restrictions on the press as a medium of political discussion were offset by the rise of coffee-houses in the second half of the century. The extreme difficulties of the press were met by the growth of advertising as a source of revenue, and it was significant that the first advertisements included books or products of the press, quack medicines, tea, and chocolate.
Suppression of the printing of certain type
s of literature released facilities for other types of literature of which the Bible, especially after the King James Version (1611), occupied a foremost place. It became a centre of Puritanical interest and marked the ascendancy of prose over poetry and the drama. The theatre was suppressed by the Puritans in 1647 but revived by Charles II in the Restoration and adapted to the demands of royal patronage.[262] The effects of printing in the increasing use of prose accentuated an interest in science. Worship of the ancients, especially in Aristotelianism, emphasized a sense of decline and despair which was attacked by Bacon as a representative of the grandeur of the Elizabethan age. The attack of the Reformation on authority and emphasis on the Bible were accompanied by an attack on Aristotelianism and the vigorous sponsorship of science. ‘We are the ancients and the ancients are the youth.’ Belief in the scriptures defeated attempts to merge the Hebrew and the classic tradition. Science emerged as a result of the break. A concern with nature rather than mind emphasized truth obtained from things rather than books. The discoveries of Copernicus and Galileo in astronomy, of Columbus in geography, of William Gilbert in magnetism, and of Harvey of the circulation of the blood reinforced the significance of science and of nature in contrast with books. ‘Words are wise men's counters—they do but reckon by them; but they are the money of fools’ (Hobbes). The profound shift in philosophical approach was accompanied as Whitehead has shown by an advance in mathematics associated with the names of Descartes and Newton. In 1660 the Royal Society was founded to encourage an interest in science. ‘It will bring philosophy from words to action, seeing that men of business had so great a share in their first foundation’ (Robert Hooke). Observation of the becoming replaced contemplation of being. The rise of deism rescued nature from Satan and restored it to God. Nature and reason vindicated the rights of individual freedom and property as opposed to the feudal and ecclesiastical order. Hobbes's attack on the soul weakened a central bulwark of ecclesiastical control. ‘To seek our Divinity merely in Books and writings, is to seek the living among the dead’ (John Smith). ‘Why do we not, I say, turn over the living book of the world instead of dead papers’ (Comenius). Science favoured prose and Sprat claimed that the Royal Society was designed ‘to separate the knowledge of nature from the colours of Rhetorick, the devices of Fancy, or the delightful deceit of the Fables’ and was concerned lest ‘the whole spirit and vigour of their design, had been soon eaten out by the luxury and redundancy of speech’. Milton resolved to rescue poetry from the Devil and to raise the English vernacular to the level of Italian by writing an epic which used the Bible as a source. But the prose style of Locke was an index of the age and had the tone of well-bred conversation without ‘the uncouth and pedantic jargon of the schools’.[263] It followed ‘English prose style ... written in the fear of death by heretics for whom it was a religious but also a revolutionary activity’.[264]
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