The art of writing, and that of printing from wooden blocks, and all
the subsidiary arts of illuminating, decorating and binding
manuscripts and books, had long passed out of the exclusive hands of
the monasteries into the hands of students and artisans, before
printing with individual movable cast-metal type was invented. This
epoch making invention came into practical use between A. D. 1440 and
1446.
When, therefore, Johannes Koelhoff of Lubeck, Germany, printed the
"Cologne Chronicle" in 1499, he used individual movable cast-metal
type. Typographic printing had long before superseded Xylographic
printing, that is, printing from a solid block of wood on which type
of an entire page were cut individually by hand.
Between the invention of individual movable cast-metal type and the
perfection by the Earl of Stanhope of his printing-press, (a period of
about three hundred and sixty years), very few improvements had been
made in the mechanics of printing. Everything we know today about the
art has come into use since 1799, and if Koelhoff had come to life in
1799 and been permitted to resume his occupation of printer, he would
have found himself practically familiar with the mechanical equipment
of his craft as used in the establishment of the Stanhope Press in
that last year of the eighteenth century.
Centuries before 1440 printing is believed to have been attempted in
China; presumably about the beginning of the Christian era. It is said
that in the year A. D. 175 the text of the Chinese classics was cut
into tablets which were erected outside the national university at
Peking, and that impressions--probably rubbings--were taken of them.
Some of these fac-simile impressions are still in existence, it is
asserted.
Xylography was also practiced in China long before Europe knew the
art. It can be traced as far back as the sixth century, when the
founder of the Suy dynasty is said to have had the remains of the
Chinese classics engraved on wood, though it was not until the tenth
century that printed books became common in China.
The authorities of the British Museum also report that Chinese writers
give the name of a certain Pi Sheng who, in the eleventh century,
invented movable type, and the Department of Oriental Printed Books
and Manuscripts of the same institution possesses a copy of the Wen
hsien tung Kao, a Chinese encyclopedia printed in Korea from movable
type in A. D. 1337.
To the Koreans also is attributed the invention of copper type in the
beginning of the 15th century, and the inspection of books bearing the
dates of that period seems to show that they used such type, even if
they did not invent them.
The first authentic European printing produced from individual movable
type of which we have any recorded impression, bears the date of A. D.
1454. These documents are two different editions of the same Letters
of Indulgence issued in that year by Pope Nicholas V. in behalf of the
Kingdom of Cyprus. We do not know, however, whether they were printed
from metal or wood type.
[Illustration]
As to the _exact_ date of the invention of printing from individual
movable type in Europe, we know only that it was some time prior to
A. D. 1454. Where and by whom the invention came about, a dispute has
been waged for more than four hundred years; one of the most hotly
contested questions in history. In short, Koelhoff was in part
responsible for starting this dispute. He published in his "Cologne
Chronicle" a statement by Ulrich Zell, a printer of Mainz in Germany
and a contemporary of Gutenberg, that Gutenberg _had improved_, but
_not invented_ the art, which he attributes to Coster of Haarlem, in
the Netherlands, in the year 1440. Gutenberg stole Coster's type,
according to Zell, and printed from them in 1442. Other unrefutable
evidence shows that Gutenberg could not have begun printing at Mainz
before the end of 1450.
In addition to Gutenberg and Coster we also find Waldfoghel of
Avignon, in France, and Castaldi of Felte, in Italy, mentioned as
claimants of this invention. The value of their respective pretensions
has been summed up by one well known authority in the words, "Holland
has books, but no documents. France has documents, but no books. Italy
has neither books, nor documents, while Germany has both books and
documents."
As the case stands at present, after careful and impartial examination
of all available evidence, no choice is left but to attribute the
invention of printing with individual movable cast-metal type to
Lourens Janszoon Coster of Haarlem in the Netherlands between the
years 1440 and 1446 and not to Gutenberg of Mainz in Germany.
Zell's statement in the "Cologne Chronicle" of 1499 is further
substantiated by Hadrianus Junius in his "Batavia." Junius stated that
printing from individual movable type was invented by Coster in
Haarlem, and that the "Speculum Humanae Salvationes" was one of his
first productions. These two statements were made independently of
each other and both are corroborated by books to which they refer.
The "Speculum Humanae Salvationes," attributed to Coster by Junius was
partly a folio Latin block-book, and partly typographically printed.
From this and other records it has been clearly established that
Coster began as a xylographer and ended as a typographical printer,
and before 1472 he had manufactured and extensively used at least
seven different styles of primitive looking individual movable
cast-metal type.
According to tradition, while he was walking in a wood near Haarlem,
Coster cut some letters in the bark of a beech tree, and with them,
reversely impressed one by one on paper, he composed one or two lines
as an example for the children of his son-in-law.
Junius does not say it, but clearly implies that, in this way, Coster
came to the idea of the movability of the characters, the first step
in the invention of typography. He perceived the advantage and utility
of such insulated characters, which hitherto he had been cutting
together on one block, and so the invention of printing with
individual movable type was made.
The questions as to whether he continued to print with movable
"wooden" type, or even printed books with them, cannot be answered,
because no such books or fragments of them have come down to us.
Junius' words on this point are ambiguous, and yet, upon the
examination of the first edition of the Dutch Spiegel (of which two
copies are preserved at Haarlem) no one would deny that there are
grounds for this belief. The dancing condition of the lines and
letters make it almost impossible to think that they are impressions
from metal type. But for how long and to what extent movable wooden
type were employed, if at all, cannot be positively stated.
However, this idea of movability, and the accidental way in which it
was discovered, form together the pith of the Haarlem tradition as
told by Junius. Nothing seems more natural than that a block-printer
should cut such separate letters as Coster did on the bark of a tree
and thereupon perceive that they could be used over and over again for
a variety of words on different pages, while those which he used to
cut in a solid block only served him for one page and for one purpose.
It is equally clear from the Haarlem tradition that the art of casting
metal type was the second stage in the invention, a development or
outcome of the primary idea of "movable letters," for Junius says that
Coster "afterwards changed the beechen characters into leaden, and the
latter again into tin ones."
Theod. Bibliander, in 1548, was the first to speak of movable wooden
type and to describe them. First they cut their letters, he reports,
on wood blocks the size of an entire page; but because the labor and
cost of that way was so great, they devised movable wooden type,
perforated and joined one to another by a thread.
Bibliander does not say that he had ever seen such type himself, but
Dan Speckle or Specklin (d. 1589) who ascribed the invention to
Mentelin, asserts that he saw some of these wooden type at
Straussburg; and Angelo Roccho asserted in 1591 that he had seen at
Venice type perforated and joined one to another by a thread, but he
does not state whether they were of wood or of metal.
There is a theory also that between block-printing and printing with
movable cast-metal type there was an intermediate stage of printing
with "sculpto-fusi" type; that is, a type of which the shank had to be
cast in a quadrilateral mold and the characters or letters engraved
afterwards by hand. This theory was suggested by some one who could
not believe in wooden type and yet wished to account for the marked
irregularities of the type used to print the earliest books.
Granting that all the earlier works of typography preserved to us are
impressions of cast-metal type, there are still differences of
opinion, especially among practical printers and type-founders, as to
the probable methods employed to cast them. It is considered unlikely,
although not impossible, that the invention of printing passed all at
once from xylography to the perfect typography of the punch, matrix,
and mold.
The types that Coster made and used were supposed to have been
manufactured in one of three or four probable ways.
Bernard believed that the first movable cast-metal type were molded in
sand, since that method of casting was known to the silversmiths and
trinket-makers of the fifteenth century. In substantiation of his
theory he exhibits a specimen of a word cast as a unit for him by this
process, roughly similar to a modern linotype slug.
A second suggested mode was that of casting in clay molds, by a method
very similar to that used in the sand process, and resulting in like
peculiarities and variations in the type.
Ottley, in his "Invention of Printing," was the chief exponent of this
theory. He believed that type were made by pouring molten lead into
molds of clay or plaster, after the ordinary manner used from time
immemorial in casting statues and other articles of metal.
The imperfections in the type cast by the sand and clay processes--the
difficulty of uneven heights in the various type--is supposed to have
been surmounted either by locking up the form with the type-face
downward on the composing stone, or by perforating the type, either at
the time of casting or afterwards, and holding them in their places by
means of a wire or thread through the perforations.
[Illustration]
To this cause has been attributed the numerous misprints in those
early specimens of the printers' art, to correct which would have
involved the unthreading of every line in which a typographical error
occurred.
A striking proof that the lines were put into the form one by one, as
a piece, instead of type by type, is shown in a blunder in the
"Speculum" of Coster where the whole of a last reference line is
"turned." It is as if a modern linotype slug were put in the form
up-side-down.
A third suggestion as to the method by which the type of those early
days of printing may have been produced is described as a system that
the type-founders of about 1800 called Polytypage, which is a cast
facsimile copy of an engraved block of type matter. Lambinet, who is
responsible for this suggestion, explains that this method really
means an early adoption of the stereotyping process.
Lambinet thought that the early printers may have discovered a way of
molding in cooling metal so as to get a matrix-plate impression of an
entire page. Upon this matrix they would pour molten lead or tin and
by the aid of a roller, press the fused metal evenly so as to make it
penetrate into all the hollows and corners of the letters. This tablet
of lead or tin, when cooled, being easily detached from the matrix,
would then reveal the letters of the alphabet reversed and in relief,
similar to a present day stereotype. The individual letters, of
course, could easily be cut apart by a sharp tool, and the molding
operation could be repeated, using the same matrix. The metal type
faces so produced would be fixed on wooden shanks, type high, and the
font would be complete.
It is impossible to suppose, however, that the Mainz psalter of 1457,
which Lambinet points to as a specimen of this mode of execution, is
the impression, not of type at all, but a collection of "casts"
mounted on wood.
Yet another theory has been proposed by Dr. Ch. Enschede, head of the
celebrated type foundry of that name in Haarlem. Enschede concludes
that the Costerian type were produced from leaden matrices and the
latter from brass patrices. Their bad, irregular condition was due to
the tools being imperfect, and Coster in the first practice of his
invention was inexperienced and therefore bound to produce such
imperfections as are found in the Speculum. Coster's type were cast in
one tempo, that is, the character itself and the shank cast at the
same time in one piece.
Gutenberg's patrices, according to Enschede, were made like
bookbinders' stamps, of yellow copper, i. e., brass. With such
patrices only lead matrices could be made, but the latter could be
produced in two ways. Molten lead could be poured over the patrices or
the patrices could be pressed into cold lead. The first mode is
somewhat complex, but the matrix would have a smooth surface and need
no further adjustment.
The second mode is more simple, but required great force, although
lead is a soft metal. Moreover the surface of the matrix would have to
be trimmed, as the impression forces the metal downwards and
sidewards, which makes the surface uneven, though by this pressure the
lead becomes firmer and more compact, to the advantage of the
type-founder.
Enschede thinks that Gutenberg obtained his matrices by the second
mode. He arrives at this conclusion by reason of the fact that
Gutenberg's types were sharper in their impressions than Coster's.
Developing this theory, he believes that Gutenberg had each letter
engraved on a brass plate 2 mm. thick, therefore a mere letter without
anything underneath it. This brass letter patrix was pressed, by means
of a small flat plate, so far into the lead that its back formed an
unbroken plane with the top surface of the lead, and was then removed.
After the matrix had been made this way, the type were cast, which was
done, not by pouring metal into the matrix, but by pressing the latter
into semi-fused metal. In this way a great many letters could be cast
from one matrix without any injury to it. Gutenberg's method was to
cast in two tempos, according to Enschede, that is, the character was
cast first and the shank was cast by another operation joining it to
the character.
Enschede warns us, however, that his theories are simply those of a
practical founder and not a bibliographer's. But since no tools used
by those early printers and type-founders have come to light to prove
or disprove him, his theory is as valuable as any others advanced as
to the methods used for casting type in those primitive days of
printing.
The shape of the type used as early as 1470 does not seem to differ
materially from those of the present day. This is evident from old
type which were discovered in 1878 in the bed of the river Saone, near
Lyons, opposite the site of one of the fifteenth century
printing-houses of that city.
Also a page in Joh. Neider's "Lepra Moralis" printed by Conrad
Homburch in Cologne in 1476 shows the accidental impression of a type
pulled up from its place in the course of printing by the ink-ball,
and laid at length on the face of the form, leaving its exact profile
indented upon the page.
This accidental imprint shows a small circle, and it is presumed that
the type were pierced latterly by a circular hole, which did not
penetrate the whole thickness of the letter, and served, like the nick
in modern type, to enable the compositor to tell by touch which way to
set the letter in his stick.
The fact that a letter was pulled out of the form seems to show that
the type composing the line could not have been threaded together, as
set forth by Ottley in his theory of clay molds for casting type. It
is to be remembered, however, that in the early days of printing,
every printer was his own type-founder. The method of casting type had
not been standardized and each printer had his own individual ideas
both as to the kind of characters and the method used in casting them.
Some may have threaded their type together in lines and others may
have simply locked them up in the form face downward in the composing
stone to overcome any irregularities caused by crude methods of
casting.
Vinc. Fineschi, of Florence, in Italy, gives an extract from the
cost-book of the Ripoli press, about 1480, which shows that steel,
brass, copper, tin, lead and iron were all used in the manufacture of
type at that period.
Today we have the wizardry of mechanical production in the manufacture
of type. The linotype and monotype machines, uncanny in their
operations, have also come into common practice. Without them printing
would seem almost as primitive, in typography, as it was in its
infancy.