THE IMPACT OF THE
PRINTING PRESS
PRE-GUTENBERG EUROPE
No books
Illiterate population
Oral culture
Priests announced news at church
Local priests often didn’t own a Bible
Villagers listened to traveling readers
No schools
Feudal society
Church maintains control over masses by
limiting access to information
WHAT!? NO BOOKS!?
Ok, there were some books. But they were
mostly in Latin and belonged to the
Church or aristocrats.
500 AD – 1500 AD: Monks
copied books by hand
1100 AD: Universities begin
to train and pay scribes to copy books by
hand
1440-50
Gutenberg invents the printing press.
WHAT WAS THE FIRST BOOK PRINTED?
The Bible
WHAT LANGUAGE WAS IT PRINTED IN?
Latin
The printing press
made it possible
to print a large
number of books
(exact copies) in a
short time.
WHAT WAS THE EFFECT OF PRINTING ON
LANGUAGE?
National languages
replace Latin
Regional dialects become
standardized (everyone
uses the same words)
Rules for grammar and
spelling develop
HOW DID PRINTING CHANGE BOOKS?
Title page
Table of
contents
Page numbers
Index
Footnotes
HOW DID PRINTING CHANGE SOCIET Y?
1. Printing
spread
across
Europe
like
wildfire…
By 1500 there were
20 million books on
35,000 different
topics!
EFFECTS ON SOCIET Y
2. Literacy
3. Schools
4. National identity
5. Common people have access to
information
6. People discover contradictions between
texts, this affects their perception and
thinking. Critical thinking!
EFFECTS ON SOCIET Y
7. Traditional power structures
began to be challenged (The
Reformation)
8. Scientific knowledge expanded
(The Renaissance)
9. The Church began to lose its
absolute authority
REVOLUTIONARY THINKERS
Machiavelli (1469-1527) Father of
political science
Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543)
Astronomy- the earth revolves around the
sun
Galileo (1564-1642): Astronomytelescopes and the solar system
Rene Descartes (1596-1650): Philosophy“I think, therefore I am.”
10. INDIVIDUALISM
Printing press promotes the idea
that everyone can have their own
opinion.
And maybe get it published so it
can spread!
A FEW HUNDRED YEARS LATER ALL THESE
EFFECTS HELP TO CREATE…
Democracy!
REVIEW
How did the printing press affect Western culture?
Literacy
Access to knowledge
Schools
Spread of science
Standardized languages
Nationalism
Questioning authority
Individualism
DEMOCRACY