The Move from Pen to Print –
Was this a revolution in communications?
Glossary:
Texts – anything written or printed
Scribal – handwritten texts – written by scribes – men paid to copy out texts by hand.
Canonical texts - books that everyone thinks are important – like the Bible or, before
the scientific revolution Galen’s anatomy after it Newton’s laws.
Orality – passing on of information by word of mouth
The Invention of Printing:
In the 1440s Johannes Gutenberg invented a way of producing movable metal (brass)
type, as distinct from individually engraved or cast letters, a new kind of oil based
printer's ink and the wooden hand press, which lead the way to mass production of
books. The ‘Gutenberg Bible’, named after the printer, was produced in Mainz around
1454-5. It was the first major book printed in the west. Perhaps about 180 copies were
printed and significant parts of 48 copies still survive. The British Library holds two
copies. See British Library Web site: http://prodigi.bl.uk/gutenbg/file1.htm#top:
Debate over significance of this invention:
A) Eisenstein’s thesis:
Elizabeth L. Eisenstein The printing press as an agent of change. communications
and cultural transformations in early-modern Europe. 2 Vols. (Cambridge, 1979).
1) Argued that the change from scribal to print production – ‘transforming powers of
print’: the technology of the press, replication of texts, images and symbols - achieved
something new – a ‘Print Culture’ and changed the early modern world. She claimed
that Renaissance, Reformation and Scientific Revolution were rendered permanent
through availability and fixity of ideas, canonical texts, stabilisation laws and
language which printing brought about.
2) Eisenstein argues that the printing press endowed certain traits on texts absent from
scribal copies:
 Standardisation –same text reprinted over and over – a ‘single text might enable
scattered observers to scan the heavens for the same signs on the same date.’
 Diffusion and dissemination of knowledge – massive increase in numbers of
books etc printed, increase in libraries, international book fairs, etc.
 Preservation – ‘the art that preserved all other arts’ - laws, ancient languages,
leading to an accumulation of data and eventual outmoding of ancient authorities
through the ability to encounter contradictions, check differences between texts,
and to discredit theories.
3) Eisenstein argued that contemporaries saw this as a revolution:
John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs (London, 1583), p. 707.
‘hereby tongues are known, judgement increaseth, books are dispersed, the Scripture
is seen … times be compared, truth discerned, falsehood detected … and all …
through the benefit of printing. Whereof I suppose, that either the pope must abolish
printing, or … he must seek a new world to reign over: for else as this world standeth,
printing will doubtless abolish him.’
4) Eisenstein argued that printing brought new occupational groups (printers, proof
readers, publishers etc), gatherings in printing shops, new marketing and
manufacturing techniques, transcended borders and limitations of travel (easier to
move books than people) and led to dissemination of knowledge – especially
scientific knowledge, and especially in Protestant states:
Tycho Brahe – astronomer
Johannes Kepler – astronomer – reworked and published Brahe’s work as Rudolphine
Tables.
William Janszoon Blaeu – publisher and maker of maps and globes – printed 1572
Nova as ‘Tycho’s star’ in gold on his globes.
Eisenstein argued that the development of scientific advance in Catholic states was
hampered by the Papal Index. This listed books forbidden to be printed or read by
Catholics and included many scientific books such as works by Galileo and Brahe.
B) The Johns Thesis
Adrian Johns The Nature of the Book (Chicago,1998).
Johns argued that Eisenstein’s concept of a revolution from scribal to print culture had
gone too far:
1) Argued that this technology not a break with the past - many continuities:
 Continuing Scribal Publication and importance of orality: (Love, Fox,)
 Printing errors and piracy – no ‘fixity’ - Problem of trust/credit of commercial
print : print seen as destabilising not rationalising influence. Control of text by
author as well as authority undermined by piracy, inaccuracy, reader. (eg work
Ginzburg, Chartier, Darnton).
 Continuing importance of patronage and status or personal reputation for
dissemination and acceptance of ideas: eg Galileo, Royal Society.
 Agency – human not mechanical: print finally achieved credibility through hard
sale by printers, publishers and authors – not through appearance of technology.
Reliable mass production not available until 19th century with steam printing and
huge runs.
 Importance of Reading: ‘inablililty of a text to constrain its readers’: see eg
Ginzburg Cheese and the Worms on Menoccio 16thc. miller in Italy or Sharpe
Reading Revolutions reading of key texts by William Drake in 17thc. Johns argued
no new ‘print culture’ emerged in 15th century but a ‘culture of print’ developed
which was an addition to not a replacement for the culture of reading and
dissemination of knowledge that already existed. Question not did printing change
the world but when did print standardise reading practices and become more
credible than other methods of dissemination? No automatic link between
knowledge and print or between print and veracity.
 Need for local focused approach – rather than sweeping continental assumptions:
for example, Catholic France ignored Papal Index and all Protestant states had
censorship – e.g. Locke in exile in Holland.
C) Conclusion:
On one hand production, distribution and accesibility to texts increased Europe wide
from 15th c. onwards. On the other hand these texts transmitted as many errors and
spurious information as sound knowledge. A ‘culture of print’ did emerge and
historians need to do more to study reading practices in order to explain what role
print may have played in the Renaissance, Reformation and Scientific Revolution.