A BRIEF HISTORY _of_ PRINTING
PART II
THE ECONOMIC HISTORY OF PRINTING
BEING A BRIEF SKETCH OF THE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS OF THE PRINTING INDUSTRY
FROM 1450 TO 1789, INCLUDING GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS, CENSORSHIP,
INTERNAL CONDITIONS _and_ INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS
BY
FREDERICK W. HAMILTON, LL.D.
EDUCATIONAL DIRECTOR
[Illustration]
PUBLISHED BY THE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
UNITED TYPOTHETAE OF AMERICA
1918
Copyright, 1918
United Typothetae of America
Chicago, Ill.
Composition and electrotypes contributed by
S. H. Burbank & Co., Inc.
Philadelphia, Pa.
PREFACE
In this volume, as in the preceding, an effort has been made to give the
reader some idea of the actual conditions of the printing industry in
Europe from the time of the invention down to the French Revolution.
Attention has been devoted to the organization and conditions of the
industry, the circumstances under which the work was done, and the
actual life and work of the men who did it.
The method of treatment chosen has been topical rather than
chronological. It has been thought that a series of pictures of
different aspects of the industry would be of more value than the
ordinary detailed study of periods, of schools, and of the actual work
produced at various times which is rather suited to advanced students
than to beginners. This method of treatment necessarily involves a
certain amount of repetition, but probably less than would be required
if an attempt were made to fit the same information into a chronological
framework.
To an extent even greater than in the previous volume the writer has
endeavored to reconstruct in part at least the general conditions of the
time. The economic history of printing or, indeed, any history of
printing is a part of the general history of the period. It so happens
that the peculiar conditions of the printing industry had a very marked
effect in the changes which took place in the industrial world in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The attempt is made to show the
working of these influences in the treatment of certain parts of the
subject. The main purpose, however, throughout has been to give the
young printer of today an idea of the work and life of the old printers,
who were very human men, engaged, though under different conditions, in
the same struggle to earn their bread and butter which occupies our
attention today.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
GOVERNMENTAL REGULATIONS 7
CHAPTER II
PRIVILEGES AND MONOPOLIES 16
CHAPTER III
CENSORSHIP 26
CHAPTER IV
DEVELOPMENT OF THE IDEA OF COPYRIGHT 34
CHAPTER V
TRADE GUILDS AND THE COMING OF THE NEW INDUSTRY 38
CHAPTER VI
THE COMMUNITY OF PRINTERS 49
CHAPTER VII
HOW THE OLD-TIME PRINTERS WORKED 53
CHAPTER VIII
INTERNAL ORGANIZATION OF THE INDUSTRY 58
CHAPTER IX
RELATIONS BETWEEN EMPLOYER AND EMPLOYED 72
SUPPLEMENTARY READING 79
REVIEW QUESTIONS 80
CHAPTER I
GOVERNMENTAL REGULATIONS
We turn now to a study of the printing industry in some aspects
concerning the industry as a whole, rather than the life and work of the
great printers. A very large part of what follows will be found to deal
with conditions in France. This happens because the study has been far
better worked out for France than for any other country. While much
incidental information is to be obtained from other histories,
Mellotté’s _Histoire Economique de l’Imprimerie_ stands alone as a study
of the printing industry from this point of view. Unfortunately it
concerns only France and ends with the French Revolution of 1789.
Conditions in France, however, were not greatly different from those
existing elsewhere and for that reason the study which follows, based
largely on Mellotté’s work, will give a fairly accurate idea of the
condition of the industry in general. It is to be regretted that
Mellotté’s book has not been translated into the English as it is a mine
of information of great interest and value to all students of the
industry.
The history of the printing industry is hardly intelligible unless one
begins with a general understanding of the industries of the Middle Ages
and the organization of those who were engaged in them. When Gutenberg
practiced printing there was no such thing in the world as a factory.
Perhaps the nearest approach to one might be found in some royal
arsenal, shipyard, or mint where certain industries were carried on on a
large scale. The day of invention had not yet dawned. Machinery, except
of the most primitive types, did not exist. Consequently, industrial and
social conditions were different in every respect from those which now
prevail.
The work of the Middle Ages was hand-work carried on by a small group of
workmen living in the household of the master; in other words it was
what we call today household industry. Very often there was no one
engaged in the work except the master and his family. Sometimes he had
an apprentice or two. Master workmen usually employed as many
apprentices as they could use. The apprentices paid for the privilege of
learning the trade. As we shall see presently, the knowledge of a trade
and admission to the ranks of the master workmen was a privilege very
well worth paying for.
The apprenticeship indenture or agreement was a contract covering a
certain number of years, usually seven. During this period the
apprentice was obliged to work for the master to the best of his
ability, to be careful of the master’s goods, and to be subject in every
way to his personal control, a control which extended to the infliction
of corporal punishment if the apprentice were idle or disobedient.
The master was bound to teach the apprentice his trade so that if the
apprentice used due diligence he might at the end of his agreement
qualify as a journeyman. He was obliged to furnish him board and lodging
in his own (the master’s) home, to keep him decently clothed and,
especially toward the end of the period, to give him a small wage for
pocket money. We shall look a little closer at this matter of
apprenticeship in a later chapter.
The masters themselves were organized into guilds. These guilds were a
combination of what we now know as trade unions and employers’
associations. Everybody connected with the trade in a regular and legal
manner belonged to the guild. In some cases the master workman became so
prosperous that he employed a considerable number of other master
workmen and devoted his time to superintendence, but whether he were in
this way an ancestor of a modern captain of industry or were at the
other end of the scale, an apprentice just under indenture, he was
recognized as part and parcel of the trade guild. If he were not free of
the guild he was not permitted to work at the industry excepting as an
employee. As we shall see, there grew up in this way an intermediate
class of hired workmen who were neither apprentices nor masters.
The guilds acted very honestly and conscientiously in the interests of
both the public and the trade. While they monopolized the industry,
restricted the number of persons engaged in it, and permitted no outside
competition, they guaranteed the quality of workmanship and product. A
guild member putting inferior goods upon the market or in any way
detracting from the workmanlike standards of the guild was liable to
severe penalties, and as a rule these penalties were conscientiously
inflicted.[1]
Footnote 1:
A more detailed account of the guilds will be found in Chapter V.
The introduction of printing raised new questions. Printing did not fit
into this scheme of things for several reasons. As a newly discovered
art it did not properly belong to any of the known industries, which had
gradually become consolidated into strong guilds. The printers,
therefore, found themselves outside the recognized trade law.
They were, therefore, taken in hand by the authorities until such time
as their own trade organization developed. Not only was the printing
trade outside the guild organizations, but it was different from them in
several important principles. In the first place, it was from the
beginning a machine occupation; in the second place, it involved
division of labor; and in the third place, it dealt with a product
entirely different from that of the other craftsmen. The dawn of the
printing industry was the dawn of an age of machinery in production. The
product of the printing press was not simply an article of consumption.
There is no comparison between a piece of cloth or a pair of shoes and a
book. The book is a source of information and enlightenment, or the
reverse. It may stir men to the ecstasies of devotion or incite them to
rebellion or unsettle the foundations of their religious faith. It may
serve the highest interests of mankind or it may be in the last degree
dangerous to the church, the state, and the individual.
Obviously, to the fifteenth century mind everything called for the
regulation of the industry. The fifteenth century, like those which
immediately preceded it, was an age of regulation. The idea of the
freedom of commerce and industry, so dear to the modern political
economist, had not yet been conceived. All industry was subject to the
most minute regulations partly imposed by the state and partly imposed
by the guild. All the concerns of human life were subject to regulation,
including even what people in different ranks of life should eat, drink,
and wear. As there was no trade organization to regulate printing, of
course it became immediately the subject of governmental interest.
Scarcely had the art of printing appeared when the governmental rights
of regulation were invoked to destroy it, fortunately without success.
Most important inventions deprive certain workmen of their occupation.
The invention of printing was no exception. It necessarily meant the
economic ruin of the copyists and threatened the illuminators. By the
middle of the fifteenth century the copying of books had to a
considerable extent come out of the monasteries and become a regular
occupation. In 1472 there were in France ten thousand of these copyists,
to say nothing of the illuminators. These copyists were organized into
guilds with charter rights and a definite legal position. Seeing their
livelihood threatened, they attempted in every way to prevent the
introduction of printing. They invoked their charter rights and
attempted to protect themselves thereby against the invasion of their
field by the printer. Not only that, but they were probably back of the
popular clamor which raised the accusation of witchcraft against Fust
and drove him out of Paris in 1465. Their opposition, however, was
unsuccessful. A few of them retained their work. For a long time the
manuscript book retained the esteem which is so often felt for hand work
as compared with machine work. Long after the invention of printing
there were many eminent collectors of books who would not have a printed
book in their libraries. To this day there are a few people who live by
engrossing and illuminating, although not generally by the copying of
books.
An admirable illustration of the beauties and disadvantages of this kind
of work may be found in the Congressional Library at Washington. There
is there displayed in a series of frames a very wonderful engrossed and
illuminated copy of the Constitution of the United States. The text is
beautifully engrossed and the illuminated borders and the illustrations
are in the finest style of modern art. At first sight it is a wonderful
piece of work, but it requires but a slight examination to see that the
text is full of errors. Words are omitted and misspelled so that the
whole thing is practically worthless so far as its content is concerned.
A few of the copyists became printers. Probably the greater number of
them lost their distinctive occupation and became absorbed in some way
or other into other industries or, if they were too old for this,
suffered the evils incident to permanent loss of occupation.
The illuminators at first made common cause with the copyists. Before
long, however, they discovered that the copyists were making a hopeless
fight and that their own occupation had a chance of surviving. They,
therefore, for the most part went over to the printers and found
occupation in the new industry, either directly in their old occupations
as illuminators or in slightly modified form as illustrators. Many of
the early books show hand-illuminated capitals and some show illuminated
margins and hand-painted illustrations equal to those of the finest
manuscripts. It was, however, only the more expensive books which were
separately hand-illustrated. The field of book illustration,
substantially as we know it through the medium of pictures mechanically
reproduced, was soon developed and offered a large field for the
exercise of artistic ability and taste.
The kings and rulers generally favored printing as a means of spreading
intelligence. The fifteenth century kings, unlike some of a little later
period, were believers in education and patrons of learning and the
arts. They had not yet come to see that their thrones, or at least their
prerogatives, might be threatened by learning, and therefore they did
their best to encourage it. Among all these royal patrons of printing,
Francis I of France is the most conspicuous. When he first came to the
throne he was under the influence of those who were hostile to the new
art and attempted to stifle it by stringent legislation. An edict of his
issued in 1534 prohibits printing on pain of hanging for the offender.
Exactly why King Francis took so positive a position is not clear, but
fortunately he very soon changed his mind and repealed the edict. From
this time forward he did everything in his power to encourage printing
and printers, as we have already seen in recounting the history of the
Estienne family. In 1536 he made an arrangement, the first of the kind,
to have a copy of every book that was printed filed in the Royal
Library. In 1538 he favored the printers by granting them an edict of
exemption from service in the City Guard, a service to which residents
generally were liable.
During King Francis’s reign labor troubles arose in the industry. Enough
references have already been made to show that the strike is by no means
a modern institution and that strikes in printing offices are pretty
nearly as old as the industry. There were strikes, some of them of a
rather serious nature, among the Parisian printers in the reign of King
Francis. As soon, however, as it appeared that they were liable to
injure the industry or interfere seriously with the work of the master
printers the king suppressed them by a heavy-handed use of the royal
authority, insisting that trade disputes must not be allowed to
interfere with the successful prosecution of the industry and that the
journeymen must not be permitted by strikes to put a stop to the
operations of their employers.
In 1585 King Henry III of France issued an edict relieving printers from
the application of a general edict taxing artisans. This action was
based on the ground that the work of the printer was so far superior in
character to that of other mechanics that the printer was not to be
regarded as a mechanic at all. He was formally recognized as being in a
social class above the members of the trade guilds and almost, if not
quite, in the class of gentlemen. Of course, we are speaking now in
terms of the sixteenth century and not of the twentieth.
As an incident of this recognized social superiority the printer was
permitted to wear a sword, a right which was denied to artisans
generally. The old prints showing the interiors of print shops almost
invariably show at least one of the workmen wearing a sword, or show a
sword conspicuously displayed standing against a pillar or the wall. The
introduction of the sword into these pictures is deliberately done to
indicate the social pretensions of the printer of this period. It is
worth remembering because although it involves a certain artificial
social distinction which we now consider rather absurd it also involves
certain principles which we should do well not to lose sight of. In
those days printing was regarded as a profession rather than strictly a
trade, and the printer was deeply impressed with the value and
importance of his work, a value and importance which were not only
claimed by him but recognized by his fellow citizens. It was very
strongly felt that a man who made a book was engaged in a much more
important piece of work than a man who made a pair of shoes or forged a
sword. The more of this spirit of self respect, the more of this
recognition of the importance of printing and the printed product we can
recover today, the better off we shall be.
From the beginning printers were troubled by typographical errors. Some
of the earlier printers, like Caxton and Gehring, had their books
corrected by hand after they were printed. As a rule, however, the
modern practice of more or less careful proof reading preceded
publication. There were constant complaints of inaccuracy, especially on
the part of the cheap printers and the printers of pirated editions. The
influence of the better printers and the insistent demands of the public
finally brought about a reasonable degree of textual accuracy. It is
interesting to note that royal regulation attempted to deal with this
matter as it dealt with so many other things.
Charles IX of France issued an edict in 1592 the vital portion of which
read as follows: “The said Masters shall furnish copies carefully
edited, corrected, and made clear to the compositors lest through
default of this their labor be hindered.” The principle underlying the
edict was a good one. It is certainly in the interest of all concerned
that compositors should be furnished good copy. There is unfortunately
every reason to believe that the efforts of this royal champion of copy
editing were not attended with very much success.
In 1618 Louis XII organized the corporation of printers which will be
discussed later. Louis XIV reaffirmed the preceding edicts governing and
regulating the industry, and his great minister Colbert, in 1686, issued
certain new regulations. In these it was provided that every shop should
have a minimum equipment of two presses well provided with type. This
was probably intended to put a stop to the small shops which did poor
work and were very difficult to regulate under the police regulations
which will be later discussed. The number of shops in Paris was fixed by
this edict at 36. Private printing—that is to say, the exercise of the
industry by persons not members of the Community of Printers—was
absolutely forbidden. The quality of the work put out was insisted upon
under severe penalties in case proper standards were not maintained. The
long standing disagreement between booksellers and printers was settled
by a decision that booksellers could not be members of the Community of
Printers, unless they were themselves printers. The bookseller, pure and
simple, who was merely a dealer in books was thus barred out of the
Community.
Louis XVI, the last king of the old regime, went still further in the
matter of the regulation of journeymen. By his regulations every
journeyman printer was obliged to register with the public authorities,
to take out an identification card, and to have his domicile legally
fixed and registered with the public authorities. He could not obtain
employment without showing his card and could not change his residence
without notifying the public authorities.
In 1789 came the Revolution which swept away all the edicts regulating
printing. In this ruin royal regulation, trade organization, police
supervision, and every other restraint on the trade went down together.
Printing was unregulated and unlicensed. As an actual result there came
a flood of printing of a very low character both mechanically and
morally.
Some great houses like that of Didot stood fast by the old standards,
but small printing houses flourished and the unregulated condition of
the trade was in many respects most unfortunate. In the long run,
however, economic laws asserted themselves as they always do. The
establishment of a settled government under Napoleon and the reassertion
of the old laws of libel and the like put a stop to some of the worst
extravagances. At a later period, the growth and development of unions
of the modern type has had its influence everywhere and the industry has
at last come into its own, unhampered by artificial regulations and
unrestrained by ill-advised attempts to prevent abuses which can better
be dealt with by general statutes applying to all industries and by the
operation of economic law.