1. Gutenberg
1400 - 1468
Gutenberg created the print media that Caxton used to produce books in the English we know today. Caxton recognised the benefits to the consumer and saw a large market.
Gutenberg did not invent printing, but the technology to mass produce books and leaflets between 1436 and 1439.
Gutenberg’s achievement was to combine existing and new technology to produce accurate copies, and it is this accuracy which was the key to his success. He also formulated the metal for the type and the ink.
His genius was to invent the technique of mass production of the metal type pieces to a uniform height. If this had not been done, some letters would not print completely and others punch holes in the paper.
Gutenberg’s printing press revolutionised the transmission of knowledge, influencing all European’s Culture at the beginning of the Renaissance. The internet is performing the same function today, 575 years later.
Printing gave everyone identical copies and this halted the existing corruption of text by copyists.
Language was standardised with clearer print making learning easier and individuals could afford their own copies so removing the need for memorisation.
Printing allowed the publishing of scientific work to be distributed around the world and even dress patterns were sold in 1550.
Governments attempted to control freedom of thought and speech with the French Catholic church banning printing in France under the threat of death in 1535,
During my Industrial Design course, a group of us printed an A4 Flyer using movable type with a printing press similar to Gutenberg’s. The difference was that the paper was rolled across the type. We had to adjust the height of the type to get an even print even though we were using modern type.
Sources
Gutenberg’s Web by Susan Ronald 14 July 2008
History of printing
Printing press
Printing press
History of printing
History of paper
Papermaking
Printing ink
Movable type
Movable type
Type case
2. Caxton
1420 - 1492
Gutenberg created the print media that Caxton used to produce books in the English we know today. Caxton recognised the benefits to the consumer and saw a large market.
In the 1460s he served as the Governor of the English Nation of Merchant Adventurers in Bruges, Netherlands and represented his fellow merchants and acted as an diplomat for the King.
1471 Caxton spent his time in Cologne learning the art of printing and translating books into English. This is thirty years after Gutenberg’s press.
In 1475 Caxton and a Flemish printer set up a printing press in Bruges and published Caxton’s own English translations of “The Recuyell of the History of Troye”.
In 1476 he brought his printing press to London and printed the first book in England. He died 16 years later in 1492 having printed over a hundred titles.
Today we would call him an entrepreneur.
At this time the country had many different dialects.
Caxton modified the existing English language being used by lawyers and business into the English we know today. He even invented words.
Later, printers further complicated English by adding odd letters, as they were paid by the number of letters used and many of the foreign printers had their own native spelling rules such as adding the silent H.
Sources
William Caxton – BBC
Shaping of written English by K Crawford
English Pronunciation by G. Nolst Trenite
