have been defeated in a fair contest. Whenever such an accusation
is accompanied, as it was in this instance, with dramatic details,
it effects a lodgment in the popular belief, from which it is not
easily removed. Junius was not the first, nor the last, to use this
discreditable but effective method of making-up a case. There is an
old French record which narrates how Nicholas Jenson was sent from
Paris to Mentz in the year 1458 to get a knowledge of the German
invention. Jenson did acquire this knowledge, and became an eminent
printer. His detractors say that he stole the secret; his eulogists
say that he learned nothing, that he was the real inventor.—The story
of Richard Atkyns about the English theft is too full of absurdities
for criticism.—Sometime between 1520 and 1570, Daniel Specklin wrote a
chronicle of Strasburg, in which he relates that printing was invented
at that city in the year 1440, by John Mentel; that Mentel’s unfaithful
servant, one John Gensfleisch, stole the secret, not the punches, and
took it to Mentz.—There is a popular legend in Italy that Pamphilo
Castaldi invented printing types at Feltre in the year 1450; that John
Fust, who happened to be in the town, abstracted the knowledge of the
invention, carried it to Mentz, and arrogated all the honors of the
rightful inventor.
[199] It was on the inner cover or binding of this account book that
the fragment of a typographical _Donatus_ was found. See page 259.
[200] Lambinet had reason to speak of the aged witnesses, Cornelis,
Gallius and Talesius, as “walking and talking centuries.” Van der Linde
characteristically describes the story of Junius as “a story in which
all the authorities hear the principal facts in their infancy, but only
to communicate them to each other in their second childhood.”
[201] Erasmus says: “All those who apply themselves to the sciences
are under no small obligations toward the excellent town of Mentz, on
account of the excellent and almost divine invention of printing books
with tin letters, which, as they assure us, was born there.”
[202] To satisfy these doubts, and to bridge the chasm between
Coster of 1440 and Bellaert of 1483, Meerman undertook to show that
Coster’s three grandsons, Peter, Andrew and Thomas, continued the
practice of typography and printed many small works. Dr. De Vries
maintained that “there was after Coster’s death, until about 1470, an
uninterrupted, carefully concealed practice of printing. . . . That
there existed in Holland for many years a seminary of the practicers
of the art is confirmed by many and strong evidences.” But De Vries
offers conjectures for evidences. History is silent about the printing
office that was conducted by the sons of Coster. This office and these
printers were really created by Meerman to fill a disagreeable gap in
the story of Junius—a gap not seen by any of his numerous commentators
from Scriverius to Seiz. There is no book that bears their names;
there is no record that mentions them as printers; there is not even a
tradition that they had anything to do with printing. If their names
had not appeared upon the pedigree of Gerrit Thomaszoon, we should
know nothing of them. The typographical successors of Coster are as
fictitious as their progenitor.
[203] Wolf, _Monumenta Typographica_, vol. 1, pp. 193 and 621.
[204] _Laurecrans voor Laurens Coster von Haarlem, eerste Vinder von
de Boeck-druckery, etc._ Haarlem, 1628. Reprinted in Dutch, with
description in Latin, in Wolf’s _Monumenta Typographica_, vol. 1, pp.
209–451. The poetry of Scriverius is as whimsical as his prose. Here is
his charge of theft against John Gutenberg:
Ah, rascal! ah, are you there? is it you Hans Gutenberger?
Why does this name become you? Yes, two-fold rascal, and worse!
Notorious by theft, oh shameless man!
This word is still too mild for your villainy.
Because you concealed Laurens’ good and carried it away,
And stole it falsely: so hear we now speak
Of Goedenbergher’s praise; however they disguise it,
By the Goeden-berg they betray the Guyten-(rogue)berg.
[205] Condensed from Hessels’ translation in _Haarlem Legend_, p.
113–14.
[206] Wolf, _Monumenta Typographica_, vol. 1, pp. 813–868.
[207] Seiz, _Annus Tertius Sæculoris Inventæ Artis, etc._ Haarlem, 1742.
[208] Condensed from Hessels’ translation in _Haarlem Legend_, p. 123.
[209] John Enschedé then said that “Jansen Koster used no wooden
movable letters, as later, and still living scholars [Meerman]
assert—scholars who know nothing of the mechanism of type-founding—and
who, therefore, gently swerve from the path of simple truth.” Meerman’s
reason for rating this Dutch edition of the _Speculum_ as first of
all was the inferior appearance of the types and the printing, which
inferiority, he maintained, had been produced by wood types and want
of experience in presswork. Fournier told him truly that the types
of his alleged first edition were metal types; that the printing of
the book was inferior because the types were worn out; that his first
edition had all the signs of a last edition—but Meerman refused this
explanation.
[210] Dr. De Vries, the most eminent defender of the legend in this
century, said: “The work of the learned but not very judicious Meerman
had done more injury to the cause of Haarlem than the writings of all
other antagonists.”
[211] _Éclaircissemens sur l’histoire de l’invention de l’imprimerie._
1843.
[212] This Museum then contained, among other relics, copies of the
_Apocalypse_, the _Ars Moriendi_, the _Canticles_, the _Donatus_, the
_Speculum_, the _Temptations of Demons_, and other printed works that
have here been noticed in the chapter on The Works and Workmanship of
an Unknown Printer, most of which were claimed as the work of Coster’s
office. The wood block of the _Horarium_ (see page 260), some official
documents, some autographs of the sheriff Louwerijs Janszoon, a
picture said to be a likeness of Coster, several engravings of Coster
(curiously dissimilar, and one of which is an undeniable forgery), are
also contained in this Museum. Van der Linde denounced the Museum as a
municipal show-booth. _The Haarlem Legend_, p. 164.
[213] Gerrit Thomaszoon died about 1563 or 1564. In the year 1611,
the pedigree belonged to Adrien Rooman, the town printer at Haarlem.
At his death it fell into the hands of Dr. John Vlasveld. For nearly
two centuries it was unknown to the public. In 1809, it was sold
at auction, Jacobus Koning paying for it, and for an old wood-cut,
supposed to be the work of Coster, four hundred guilders.
[214] Van der Linde, _The Haarlem Legend of the Invention of Printing_,
p. 42. In the singular words “who brought the first print in the world”
we may find the cause of that mysterious indefiniteness of description
which may be observed in all the authorities. It is more than an
indication that the story of Junius is based on the pedigree and on
information derived from Thomaszoon and his friends.
[215] There is, of course, no reason why a chandler could not have
invented typography, but we have no evidence that this chandler
invented anything. Our knowledge of the tastes of the man, as shown in
his selection of a new business, is enough to prove that he was not at
all like the later chandler, Benjamin Franklin, with a leaning to types
and letters.
[216] The variable orthography of the name of Coster, which is here
copied literally from the records, is a sufficient explanation of the
irregularities in the spelling of his name which are to be found in all
the authorities. I have adopted the orthography as I find it in the
book of Van der Linde.
[217] The exact nature of the relationship between Laurens Janszoon
Coster and Gerrit Thomaszoon is not clearly defined, but the archives
of the town and the vellum pedigree corroborate each other in
establishing the existence—of Lourens Janszoon Coster (son of Jan
Coster), tallow chandler and innkeeper, who left Haarlem in 1483—of
Thomas Pieterszoon (probably the son-in-law of Coster), sheriff,
who died in 1492—of Gerrit Thomaszoon (according to the pedigree, a
great-great-grandson of Lourens Janszoon Coster), a sheriff and an
innkeeper. He was, also, a sacristan or church-warden.
[218] For this unwarrantable confusion of the names and deeds of the
two men Junius and Scriverius are responsible. Junius, who wrote in
Latin, caught at the word Coster, which he found in the pedigree, as
a subject for the display of his critical ability. He explains and
expounds it: “Lourens Janszoon, surnamed Coster, by reason of the
office which belonged to the family by hereditary right.” There was no
need for this absurd expansion of the meaning of the word _custos_.
This attribution of an honorable office to an insignificant man was
purposely made to give him a dignified position. Gerrit Thomaszoon, who
knew that Coster was a man of no note, gave him only the distinction
of the first printer. This was not enough for Junius, who thought
that he would be deficient in patriotism if he did not make Coster
as reputable as his rival Gutenberg, who was represented as of noble
blood. The word Coster was his opportunity, and he made the most of it.
It is not probable that Junius studied the archives of Haarlem for the
purpose of getting exact information about Coster, but it is possible
that he had read or heard of Lourens Janszoon, the wealthy man, and
that he confounded him with Coster, the chandler. Whether he made
this confusion with intent or in ignorance cannot now be ascertained,
but we can see that the wealth and respectability of Janszoon were
attributed to Coster. Scriverius perpetuated the blunder. He found a
document signed by Louwerijs Janszoon, as sheriff, in 1431. Without
further research, he leaped to the conclusion that this man who died in
1439, who had nothing in common with Coster but similarity of name and
similarity of occupation as innkeeper, was the very Lourens Janszoon
Coster who, according to Junius, invented types and practised printing
in 1440.
[219] Moxon’s copy of this engraving is shown on page 333 of this book.
[220] Van der Linde tells a curious story about Hollandish credulity:
The most amusing imitation was that of an amateur artist of the
last century, C. Van den Berg, who wished to play the collector J.
Marcus a trick. He engraved a small wood-cut after the portrait of
Van Campen, with the name _Laur’ Jassoe_, in old-fashioned style,
underneath. With a little soot and dirt, he gave the copies an
antique appearance, and made Marcus happy for a few weeks. The poet
Langendijk, the type-founder Enschedé, and other amateurs, each got a
copy. Van den Berg was too honest to mean anything more than fun; he
told afterward to Marcus himself the value of that antique wood-cut.
Although every investigator could and ought to have known these
things, yet Jacobus Koning was bold enough, in the second nomenclature
of his collection of rare books and manuscripts, to describe a copy of
this portrait as “_printed by_, or at the time of, Lourens Janszoon
Koster.” . . . . . . The Haarlem painter L. Van der Vinne, in his
youth, painted, in the beginning of the former century, a study, after
a drawing of Van Campen. But lo! in 1762, this picture is offered
for sale by Van Damme at Amsterdam (the same who produced the false
inscriptions respecting the imaginary Corsellis of Oxford), provided
at the back with a very old inscription, _Lours Jans to Harlem_
MCCCCXXXIII, and the monogram A O, which was explained to mean Albert
Van Oudewater. Excellent discovery! Here was a genuine contemporaneous
portrait by a painter of the fifteenth century! A trifle, however, was
wanted to make the joy perfect. Albert Van Oudewater, who had painted
the celebrated inventor of printing in 1433, was born in 1444! This
history is full of despairing irony from beginning to end. Just as
the sheriff Lourens Janszoon invents the art of printing _after his
death_; just as Cornelis works at _Donatuses before his birth_; just
as the chandler Lourens Janszoon Koster entirely forgets his invention
_during his lifetime_; so the painter Albert Van Oudewater becomes a
zealous Costerian “_long before he was born_.” Van der Linde, _The
Haarlem Legend_, p. 145.
[221] The striking dissimilarity between the calm philosophic face of
the Coster of Meerman and the sour look and misanthropic features of
the Coster of Scriverius is neatly explained by Dr. Abr. De Vries:
The portrait given by Scriverius was painted from a sketch or
study made after Coster’s death, and was, necessarily, gloomy and
cadaverous; but no portrait, however beautiful, unless it was a true
and genuine likeness, could satisfy the truth-loving Scriverius. The
truth was to be well founded if he endorsed it. The cadaverous hue and
the marks of death in Van Campen’s picture are strong evidences for
the genuineness and faithfulness both of the original representation
and of Van Campen’s copy!
[222] In Holland, Dr. Van der Linde’s book has been denounced as
impolitic and unpatriotic, but it has not, as yet, met with a suitable
answer. The indignation manifested toward the author has been so
violent that he, a native Hollander, has found it expedient to remove
to Germany.
[223] The only positive evidence which seems to give a color of
probability to the assertion that typography was first practised in the
Netherlands is the fact that an unknown printer had printed there some
little books before the arrival of Ketelaer and De Leempt, in 1473.
Whoever this printer may have been, it still remains to be proved that
he did any typographic work before 1463.
[224] There is no known authentic autograph of Gutenberg. In his
day the name was written by other persons, Guttemburg, Gudenburch,
Goodenberger, Guthembergius, Gudenbergh, Kuttenberg, and in many
other ways. The form of spelling used in this book is the one that is
preferred by the German bibliographers. Gensfleisch, in German, is
goose-flesh; Gutenberg is good hill.
[225] Bodmann, a librarian at Mentz, said that he had discovered two
old documents which set forth that Gutenberg had a brother, Conrad, and
two sisters, Hebele and Bertha. Helbig says that these documents, as
reprinted by Fischer, are spurious.
[226] It seems that Else Gutenberg was the last surviving member of her
family. According to a German custom prevailing at that time, a son
was, under certain circumstances, permitted to take the name of his
mother when it was feared that her family name might become extinct.
[227] The name of the brother of Frielo Gensfleisch, senior, was John
Gensfleisch, senior. He is the man improperly described by Meerman as
the elder brother of John Gutenberg. The identity of his baptismal name
with that of the inventor of printing has been the occasion of many
mistakes. The uncle has been confounded with the nephew. The family
was wealthy: it had, in or near Mentz, three houses or estates, known
as Zum Gudenberg, Zum Jungen and Zum Gensfleisch. The members of the
family were sometimes called Sulgeloch or Sorgenloch, from a property
on which they resided outside of Mentz.
[228] This is the version of chroniclers in the interest of the nobles.
The childish dispute about precedence seems an insufficient cause for
the quarrel. It was, probably, the occasion, but not the cause. It was
the spark which set on fire the stifled resentment of the burghers
against a long course of neglect and of misgovernment. The Gensfleisch
families seem to have been always prominent in the civil disturbances
of Mentz. Gutenberg’s great-great grandfather took sides with one
of the rival archbishops, and, in 1332, aided him in burning some
convents, for which he was put under ban by the Emperor Louis. In the
same year, he and other noblemen made themselves so offensive to the
burghers that they were obliged to flee for their lives.
[229] Charles Winaricky, a learned Bohemian, wrote a dissertation on
the birthplace of Gutenberg—_Jean Guttenberg, né en 1412 a Kuttenberg
en Bohème_, 12mo. Brussels, 1847—in which he tried to prove: that
Gutenberg was born in the year 1412, in the town of Kuttenberg in
Bohemia, from which town he derived his name; that he was a graduate
of the university of Prague; that he acquired his knowledge of
metallurgy from the metal workers of that old mining town; and that
his proficiency in many curious arts was the result of his Bohemian
education. Winaricky’s book abounds with curious information, but
his reasoning is largely based on conjecture. It cannot be used to
discredit the positive dates and facts of many German records.
[230] This is the form of complaint: “I, Johan Gensfleisch, the
younger, also called Gutenberg, declare by this letter, that the
worshipful sage burgomaster and the council of the town of Mentz owe
me every year a certain interest, according to the contents of letters
which contain, among other things, that, if they do not pay me, I am at
liberty to seize and imprison them. As I have now to claim much rent in
arrears from the said town, which they were hitherto not able to pay
me, I caused M. Nicolaus, secretary of Mentz, to be seized, whereupon
he promised me and swore to give me 310 valid Rguilders, to be paid at
Oppenheim, before the following Whitsuntide. I acknowledge, by this
letter, that the burgomaster and council of Strasburg have induced me
to relieve of my own free will, in honor and love of them, the said
M. Nicolaus from his imprisonment, and from the payment of the 310
guilders. Given on Sunday (12th of March), 1434.”
The ease with which Gutenberg relinquishes his monetary claim, and
which at once shows him to be a better knight than financier, exhibits
a trait of character which explains much in his later fate. Van der
Linde, _Haarlem Legend_, p. 13.
[231] For more than three hundred years this important document,
with other records of the courts of Strasburg, rested unknown and
undisturbed in the old tower _Pfennigthurm_, in which place it was
discovered by Wenkler, the keeper of the records. He communicated
this fact to Schoepflin, who, perceiving its value, made it the great
feature of the _Vindiciæ Typographicæ_. The record is imperfect, for
it does not contain all the testimony of all the witnesses. Whether
this deficiency is due to the neglect of the recorder, or to the decay
or mutilation of the record, has not been fully explained. Schoepflin,
who says it is written in an almost obsolete German dialect hard to
be understood, reprinted it in full, accompanied with a translation
in Latin, which has been censured as inaccurate. Dr. Dibdin, and a
few carping bibliographers, who looked with disfavor on all newly
discovered documents which obliged them to revise their own theories,
have tried to throw discredit on this record, but its authenticity
is now recognized as beyond controversy. The records were placed in
the Library of Strasburg for safety, but they were destroyed by the
Prussians during the siege of that city in 1870.
[232] Conventionally used for I.
[233] The eighteen witnesses were Master Hirtz, Jacob Imerle, Midhart
Honöwe, Heinrich Bisinger, Wilhelm von Schutter, the wife of Lorentz
Beildick, M. Jerge Saltzmütter, Stösser Nese von Ehenheim, Martin
Verwer, Henrich Seidenneger, M. Gosse Sturm, of Saint Arbogastus, Hans
Ross, the goldsmith, and his wife, Andrew Heilmann, Claus Heilmann,
Heinrich Olse, Hans Riffe and Johan Dritzehen. Their testimony is not
on the record. It is unfortunate that we have lost the testimony of
M. Gosse Sturm, of Saint Arbogastus, and Ross, the goldsmith. It is
probable that these men, who had intimate relations with Gutenberg,
could have described this secret art with greater clearness.
[234] After the development of the towns, all members of the nobility
did not seek their occupation exclusively in deeds of knighthood.
Industry, art, and the refinement of town life gradually superseded the
warlike spirit of the nobility, to whom the town offered distinguished
dignities and situations, while enterprises of commerce and industry
gave them distinction and riches. The privilege of coining money,
especially, was often farmed out to an association of ancient
families. At Mentz this association consisted of twelve families
(Münzer-Hausgenossen), among whom was also the family of Gensfleisch.
They possessed, moreover, the privileges of the valuation of coin,
of the assize of weights and measures, or offices for the exchange
of money and of the sale of gold and silver staves to the mint. Such
employment brought them chiefly in connection with the goldsmiths,
whose work consisted, at that time, of one of the most considerable
trades, which comprised mechanics and chemistry, nay, the whole
dominion of plastic and graphic art, in its application to metals,
whether separate or in conjunction with diamonds and other precious
materials. They were mostly patricians who established powder-mills,
paper-mills and similar new manufactories. Van der Linde, _Haarlem
Legend_, p. 17.
[235] Glass mirrors, almost unknown in the fourteenth century, were
regarded as novelties in the fifteenth. It seems that they were first
made in Germany. Winaricky lays great stress on the fact that the
Bohemians were the earliest and the most skillful workers in glass, and
that they also excelled as lapidaries and metallurgists. He says, but
without proof, that the art of polishing stones and making mirrors was
acquired by Gutenberg in Bohemia. The learned Beckmann says that
“Early German mirrors were made by pouring melted lead or tin over a
glass plate while yet hot as it came from the furnace. In and around
Nuremberg, convex mirrors were made by blowing with the pipe in the
glass bubble while it was still hot a metallic mixture with a little
salts of tartar. When the bubble had been covered and cooled, it was
cut in small round mirrors. These small convex mirrors were called
_ochsenaugen_, or ox-eyes. They were set in a round board, and had a
very broad border or margin. One of them in my possession is two and
a half inches in diameter. . . . This art is an old German invention,
for it is described by Porta and Ganzoni, who both lived in the
beginning of the sixteenth century, and who both expressly say that
the art was then common in Germany. Curious foreigners often attempted
to learn it, and imagined that Germans kept it a secret.”
[236] The most common prejudice is the supposition, _à priori_,
legitimated strictly scientifically by nothing, that printing with
movable types was only an improvement on that with wooden blocks
on which the letters were cut; that it was a development of it, an
extension, a fortunate application, the highest step of the ladder,
consisting of playing cards, images of saints, pictures with super, sub
and other scriptions, texts without pictures. In short, xylography, in
a technical, logical and reformatorical sense, would be the mother of
typography. But it is such only in the sense of an external impulse, of
an external push to meditating on quite _another_ means than wood or
metal engraving, or _another_ mode of obtaining books. Zell finds that
push in the block-Donatuses, but the inspiration of genius, the first
invention of a quite independent art, of a totally new principle, which
has nothing in common with wood and metal engraving, he ascribes . . .
to Gutenberg. In Gutenberg’s mind, the grand idea arose that all words,
all writing, all language, all human thoughts, could be expressed by a
small number, a score of different letters, arranged according to the
requirements; that, with a large quantity of those different letters,
united as one whole, a whole page of text could be printed at once,
and, repeating this process continually, large manuscripts could be
swiftly multiplied. . . . This thought, this idea, begot the invention
of typography. . . . Every other explanation is at once unhistorical
and unpsychological. _Haarlem Legend_, p. 11.
[237] Wolf, _Monumenta Typographica_, vol. I, p. 586.
[238] See page 315 of this book. The chronicler is in error in
specifying Mentz as the place where the art was discovered, but the
specification of the period between 1440 and 1450 as that in which “the
art was being investigated” by John Gutenberg is sustained by other
testimonies.