Vernacular: The Printing Press
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Translation to Vernacular
In the 1450s Johannes Gutenberg invented his own printing press, using an old winepress model. The printing press that Gutenberg created is possibly one of the most historically significant inventions since man learned how to sail. The start of printing marked the end of the era, and initiated the start of the renaissance era in Europe. Marilyn Gilmore suggested in Eisensteins book, The Printing Press As An Agent of Change, “The invention of printing with moving type brought the most radical transformation in the conditions of intellectual life in the history of Western civilization.”
Elizabeth Eisenstein argues that, the printing press was an agent of change throughout Europe. (Eisenstein, 1979) The press pushed for the shift from scripture to printed copies, it changed European society by creating a new means of writing, reading, and recording that was set to change the renaissance era. The press brought with it new ways of learning which would require new skills, open mindedness, and a hunger for knowledge . The printing press would bring about a change for key individuals to
successful attack the Catholic Church, and erode the power of Catholicism. The printing press also paved a path for magic to become science, no longer was the art of making medicine a practice to be handed down, but procedure to be typed down and shared among colleges and those wishing to learn. These would become the stepping stones that Europeans would use to launch themselves into the renaissance era moving away from medieval and oral means of teaching as print became a more popular and reliable method.
I stated Gutenberg invented printing, however the Chinese and Koreans had been printing since roughly the seventh or eighth century. (Ong, 2002) However the Chinese and Koreans had respective issues with their means of printing, the Chinese struggled as they had no easy means of recreating the complex pictograms they use in their vernacular. The Koreans has moveable metal type, but they made the mistake of using whole words instead of the individual letter like Gutenberg did, so it came down to the Chinese and Koreans not having an easily workable alphabet like Gutenberg did with the Latin and German languages. Also contributing to the success of the Gutenberg printing press, was the ease of which his press, could also use his scheme of letters and moveable print, for English, French, and Spanish, along with the other vernaculars across Europe.
Neil Postman writes, “The printing press opened a door upon which European culture had been anxiously knocking. And which it was opened, the entire culture went flying through.” (Postman, 1982) Postman further argues that the intellectual condition within Europe starting around the mid-fifteenth century made the printing press a
necessary piece of technology in their time, similar to how the current generation believes cell phones and Facebook are necessary. The printing press traveled quickly through Europe after its invention. By the 1470s, between fifteen and twenty years after it was created, printing presses were documented in twelve European cities as far away as Rome and Venice. Then by the 1480s, only ten more years, they had printing presses as far Eastward as Budapest, and all the way North to London. By the 1500s the printing press had made its presence known all across Europe, and by 1502 over eight million books had been printed by the European printing presses. (Misa, 2004)
The Protestant reformation spear headed by Martin Luther was a success in large part, thanks to the printing press. Postman argues that before the printing press it was difficult for a writing to take credit for his work, as scripture was taken from manuscripts from older times. Postman writes, “… the concept of the individual and, highly personalized authorship could not exist within a scribal tradition.” (Postman, 1982) The printing press made Luther famous across Europe, as he posted his 95 Theses on the church door he never could have imagined that it would travel across Europe at the speed it did. Thomas Misa states that it took two weeks for Luthers theses to travel across Germany and only two more weeks to travel across the rest of Europe, he wrote that it was due to the publishers sense of the market for Luthers work that made it travel so quickly. This surprised Luther, that print made his work so popular so quickly, he has never intended for the common people to read his theses, as he wrote it in Latin, not a vernacular
across Europe, we know this as he wrote a letter to Pope Leo expressing this, which can be found in Thomas Misas, Technology and Culture: From the Renaissance to the Present. As we know bibles were not printed in a common tongue, a vernacular, back in the early 1400s as the church wanted to hold onto the power of god and force the common people to learn from their priests, however with the Protestant reformation, Protestants were encouraged to read the bible for themselves. Luther rewrote the bible in German, so that every German home could have a bible, so that they could read it for themselves. Luther later became an advocate of the printing press as he became more successful with its use in generating text.
We can see a transformation across Europe as the printing press moves across the continent. Everything changes, the oral tradition from the mediaeval ages to more advanced means of bookkeeping, teaching, and reading. When the press came to Florence in the 1470s, the Medici and Florentines thought the practice barbaric, however eventually learning took a turn for the better. When the Florentine university started teaching from printed books however the Lorenzo Medici did take notice, not of the printed books, but of the students and artists who were flocking to the city in an attempt to learn. Lorenzo also felt like he had to pursue some form of printing “artist” as he felt he was a creator of artists. While many Europeans favored the printing press for its ability to educate the masses, and print in many different vernaculars, the elitist of society such as the Medici turned their noses up at the printing press at its introduction. (Hancock, 2005)
Naturally, with the invention of the printing press, we would see the split in society form between the literate and the illiterate, those who could read and those who couldnt, be it in the vernacular or Latin. The gap widened and Postman suggests that it was largely due to those knowing how to read, being able to discuss different things as they were either from print, or at a minimum printed. This divide allowed for the middle class to be created effectively splitting society down its educational divide, where the poor didnt know how to read, while the middle class could read and