Idaho semi-weekly world. [volume] (Idaho City, Idaho Territory) 1875-1908, 1888-10-12
,n,1rN1loN OF PRINTING.
Gutenberg Entitled to the Credit OF i"'o"'
ing Movable Type.

Gutenberg Entitled to the Credit oil i"'e"'
ing Movable Type.
pefore the middle of tn, fifteenth
century Europe had cheap material
paper, an oily ink, developed for block
book printing. In place of the fluid INK
which could be used only with the
brush; probably the press ITSELF skilled
artisans, trained in the biock-pooR
work; most important OF all. the dc,
maud caused by education. 1t lacked
movable types that could be htted
evenly and readily together, for neither
the porcelain letters OF PITCHING nor
the individual stamps of the early copy
lists had developed to this point. line
invention of printing in its modern
sense consisted in the simple produc'
ton of such types, or, as De Winnie puts
it, of the type-mold which should pro-
duce such types Fifteen cities claim
to be the birthplace of printing, but
the honor rests between Haarlem,
strasburg and Mainz. The Dutch
legend is that some time about or pre-
yious to 1440, one Laurent Janszoon
Roster. custos or sexton of a church In
Haarlem, while in the Hout. or Haar-
/ lem wood, cut letters on beech tree.
which suggested to him wooden types,
/ from which he afterward developed
metal types; and that man in his em-
ploy, escaping with the secret to Mainz.
originated the art there. HARLEM
contains many portrait-monnments OF
Roster, and belief in him IS an article
of the Dutch faith, but later investiga-
tors claim that he is altogether myth.
made up, with much Imagination and
some rascality, of two Haarlcm citi-
zens, neither of whom was printer.
and of the unknown printer" of much
later days.
The German story centers in John
Gutenberg, of the family called Gems
tleisch taking his mothers name in
accordance with German custom, be-
cause her family was dying out--as to
whom there is definite historical
hahn of evidence, including the rec
ords of two lawsuits Nothing is Ger.
tainly known of his first thirty years.
He is supposed to have been born about
1899, at Mainz, whence his family were
exiled, going to Strasburg In 1889 he
appears as q defendant in q lawsuit
brought in Strasburg by an heir OF one
Andrew Dritzehen, to compel Guten
berg to admit him to the secret anC
benefit OF an art into which the de
ceased had bought by payment to Gu
tenberg This art seems to have beer
printing, and the evidence in the sui
shows that Gutenberg sent his servan
to Dritzehen's house, Immediately oil
, his death, to have 'form" of "fou
pieces, Lying in or about press.
separated "by turning two buttons.
$50 that no one might know what i
is.' We do not know, for Gutenber,
= won the suit and kept the secret. Dit
, ferent modern scholars construe sit
E to be parts of the press, pages of type
, matrices, or four-part type-mold
q such as is known to have been use,
by early printers. 1t is not defnitel
known whether Gutenberg printed an
books in Strasburg (some fragments c
a type Donatus being most plausibl
. connected with him there), whic
a caused German critic to declare tina
if Strasburg is the cradle of print
: ing, cit is a cradle withou
. baby" BY 144S Gutenberg had re
moved to Mainz, for ttere is record G
) his hiring money, and in 1850 he mad
a contract with John Fust, money
g lender, to provide money for "pape,
| vellum, ink, wages and the other ma
: terials req''ired," on half-protits, whic
O contract was the basis of the secop
f suit In this suit, brought in l45,
h Fust, who has been sadly confused wit
4 that later Dir. Faust. of Wittenbert
c from whose wicked learning grew til
e Faust legend, f0reclosing the NOR
0 gage, got possession of part cf Gutter
= berg implements and stock, and b
s help of Gutenberg's apprentice, Pete
0 Schoefler who afterward married Fust
). daughter Christina, took UP the bus
e ness Of printing. There is a legen
d that this Schoeffer, and not Gutcnberc
IS invented the typemold, but recent If
). yestigators show that this inventio
;. was peculiarly Gutenberg's.
r. Gutenberg, who started new prin
y ing Office after the separation, by he'll
OF money from Conrad Humery, phys
|, elan and town clerk. printed two ed
n tons Of the Bible. He printed also A
Y edition of the Donatus, several Lette,
Q of Indulgence (the earliest iob-work
: E broadside Calendar of 1887, a Cathol
2 con of 1860, and many other thing
0 lie was alive in 1865, when Archbisho
: Adolph made him one of the gentleme
= Of his court, and WAS dead in 1863. fc
: IN that year Conrad HUNGRY had su
# ceeded to his effects. R. R. Bo,oker. j.,
t Harper's Magazine.
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