Aldis, M.A.
Cambridge: at the University Press 1916
Printing -
considered the dividing line between the medieval and the
modern periods of history. But just about that same time
another event was taking place: an event which, though not
heralded by clash of arms or ruin of empire, affords an
equally significant landmark. This was the invention of
printing, or try Photography, as the art of printing with
movable types is more precisely termed; and it would be
difficult to point to any discovery which has had so
far-reaching an influence upon the history of the civilized
world.
This revolution, for revolution it may well be called, was
brought into existence so quietly" so unobtrusively, that not
times, the individual to be honored as its inventor, and actually the country of its origin are matters of dispute. .
The art of printing with movable types, whenever and wherever it may have had its beginnings, was preceded by the
production of single pictures printed from wood-blocks. One of the earliest of these which bears a date is the St
Christopher of 1423, now in the John Rylands Library at Manchester. The authenticity of the date 1418 on another of
these woodcuts, at Brussels, has been challenged on the ground that the figures have been tampered with. It seems
a natural development that lines of descriptive text should be added to such woodcuts; and the 'block-books,' which
consist of pictures and text cut on the same wood-block, have usually been regarded as occupying a position midway
between the single picture and the book printed from movable type, thus forming a link in the evolution of the
invention.
These block-books, of which upwards of a hundred issues and editions, comprising some thirty separate works, have
been recorded, were produced chiefly in the Netherlands and Germany. They fall into two classes. The earlier were
printed in thin pale brownish ink on one side of the leaf only. They were produced by placing a sheet of paper upon
the inked block and transferring the image to the paper by friction on the back of the sheet with a burnisher or some
similar instrument, without mechanical pressure. The other, and later, class were usually printed in a press with
ordinary black printing ink and on both sides of the paper.
Since the contents of each individual page had to be engraved upon a block of wood, the making of a block-book was
a laborious process, and the engraved blocks were, of course, useless for any other work. This method of multiplying
copies was suitable only for works that were of moderate length and for which there was a large and continuous
demand. These books were, accordingly, of a popular nature, mainly concerned with religious instruction or pious
edification, and lending themselves readily to pictorial or allegorical illustration. Typical examples are 'the Biblia
Pauperum, a series of pictures from the life of Christ, accompanied by parallel subjects from the Old Testament; the
Apocalypse, an attractive subject for illustration; and Ars Moriendi, a series of pictures representing the trials which
beset the dying and the spiritual helps by which they may be overcome.
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