Prior to the fourteenth century all learning was monopolized by the church. Its power was exercised to make every branch of knowledge harmonize itself with the teachings of Catholic Christianity. In revolt against these shackles arose a few independent spirits who sought to rest religious doctrine on the foundations of reason to some degree, at least. Nevertheless, superstitions still clung to and mingled with all these new studies, and the age did not witness their separation. The higher intelligence traveled gradually, but very slowly. The art of printing came to its assistance and proved to be its strongest auxiliary. To Germany belongs the glory of this invention, and she can boast no higher service rendered to mankind. The art of wood-engraving was the preliminary step which led to it. It was soon employed for pictures of sacred scenes and persons; so that the many who could neither read nor write had a sort of Bible in their picture collections. But the grand conception of making movable types, each bearing a single letter, and composing the words of them, was first formed by John Gutenberg, of the patrician family of Gänsefleisch, of Mayence. He was driven from his native city by a disturbance among the guilds, and went to Strasburg, where he invented the art of printing about the year 1450. Great trouble was experienced in discovering the proper material in which to cut the separate letters; neither wood nor lead answered well. Being short of resources, Gutenberg formed a partnership with John Faust, also of Mayence. Faust’s assistant, Peter Schöffer, afterward his son-in-law, a skillful copyist and draughtsman, discovered the proper alloy for type-metal, and invented printing-ink. In 1461 appeared the first large book printed in Germany, a handsome Bible, exhibiting the perfection that the art possessed at its very origin.
When Adolphus of Nassau captured Mayence in 1462, the workmen skilled in the art, which had been kept a secret, were scattered through the world; and by the end of the fifteenth century the principal nations of Europe, and especially Italy, France, and England, had become rivals of Germany in prosecuting it. Books had previously been transcribed, chiefly by monks, upon expensive parchment, and often beautifully ornamented with elaborate drawings and paintings. They had therefore been an article of luxury, and confined to the rich. But a book printed on paper was easily made accessible to all classes, for copies were so numerous that each could be sold at a low price. Beside books of devotion, the writings of the Greek and Latin poets, historians and philosophers, most of which had fallen into oblivion during the Middle Ages, now gradually obtained wide circulation. After the fall of Constantinople, and the subjugation of Greece by the Turks, fugitive Greeks brought the works of their forefathers’ genius to Italy, where enlightened men had already begun to study them. This branch of learning, called “the Humanities,” spread from Italy through Germany, France, England, and other countries, and contributed powerfully to produce a finer taste and more intelligent habits of thought, such as put to shame the rude ignorance of the monks. It was the art of printing that broke down the slavery in which the blind faith of the church held the human mind; and even the censorship which Rome set up to oppose it was not able to undo its work.