Read Ebook: A Brief History of Printing. Part II: The Economic History of Printing by Hamilton Frederick W Frederick William

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The work of the Middle Ages was hand-work carried on by a small group of workmen living in the household of the master; in other words it was what we call today household industry. Very often there was no one engaged in the work except the master and his family. Sometimes he had an apprentice or two. Master workmen usually employed as many apprentices as they could use. The apprentices paid for the privilege of learning the trade. As we shall see presently, the knowledge of a trade and admission to the ranks of the master workmen was a privilege very well worth paying for.

The apprenticeship indenture or agreement was a contract covering a certain number of years, usually seven. During this period the apprentice was obliged to work for the master to the best of his ability, to be careful of the master's goods, and to be subject in every way to his personal control, a control which extended to the infliction of corporal punishment if the apprentice were idle or disobedient.

The master was bound to teach the apprentice his trade so that if the apprentice used due diligence he might at the end of his agreement qualify as a journeyman. He was obliged to furnish him board and lodging in his own home, to keep him decently clothed and, especially toward the end of the period, to give him a small wage for pocket money. We shall look a little closer at this matter of apprenticeship in a later chapter.

The masters themselves were organized into guilds. These guilds were a combination of what we now know as trade unions and employers' associations. Everybody connected with the trade in a regular and legal manner belonged to the guild. In some cases the master workman became so prosperous that he employed a considerable number of other master workmen and devoted his time to superintendence, but whether he were in this way an ancestor of a modern captain of industry or were at the other end of the scale, an apprentice just under indenture, he was recognized as part and parcel of the trade guild. If he were not free of the guild he was not permitted to work at the industry excepting as an employee. As we shall see, there grew up in this way an intermediate class of hired workmen who were neither apprentices nor masters.

The guilds acted very honestly and conscientiously in the interests of both the public and the trade. While they monopolized the industry, restricted the number of persons engaged in it, and permitted no outside competition, they guaranteed the quality of workmanship and product. A guild member putting inferior goods upon the market or in any way detracting from the workmanlike standards of the guild was liable to severe penalties, and as a rule these penalties were conscientiously inflicted.

Footnote 1:

The introduction of printing raised new questions. Printing did not fit into this scheme of things for several reasons. As a newly discovered art it did not properly belong to any of the known industries, which had gradually become consolidated into strong guilds. The printers, therefore, found themselves outside the recognized trade law.

They were, therefore, taken in hand by the authorities until such time as their own trade organization developed. Not only was the printing trade outside the guild organizations, but it was different from them in several important principles. In the first place, it was from the beginning a machine occupation; in the second place, it involved division of labor; and in the third place, it dealt with a product entirely different from that of the other craftsmen. The dawn of the printing industry was the dawn of an age of machinery in production. The product of the printing press was not simply an article of consumption. There is no comparison between a piece of cloth or a pair of shoes and a book. The book is a source of information and enlightenment, or the reverse. It may stir men to the ecstasies of devotion or incite them to rebellion or unsettle the foundations of their religious faith. It may serve the highest interests of mankind or it may be in the last degree dangerous to the church, the state, and the individual.

Obviously, to the fifteenth century mind everything called for the regulation of the industry. The fifteenth century, like those which immediately preceded it, was an age of regulation. The idea of the freedom of commerce and industry, so dear to the modern political economist, had not yet been conceived. All industry was subject to the most minute regulations partly imposed by the state and partly imposed by the guild. All the concerns of human life were subject to regulation, including even what people in different ranks of life should eat, drink, and wear. As there was no trade organization to regulate printing, of course it became immediately the subject of governmental interest.

A few of the copyists became printers. Probably the greater number of them lost their distinctive occupation and became absorbed in some way or other into other industries or, if they were too old for this, suffered the evils incident to permanent loss of occupation.

The kings and rulers generally favored printing as a means of spreading intelligence. The fifteenth century kings, unlike some of a little later period, were believers in education and patrons of learning and the arts. They had not yet come to see that their thrones, or at least their prerogatives, might be threatened by learning, and therefore they did their best to encourage it. Among all these royal patrons of printing, Francis I of France is the most conspicuous. When he first came to the throne he was under the influence of those who were hostile to the new art and attempted to stifle it by stringent legislation. An edict of his issued in 1534 prohibits printing on pain of hanging for the offender. Exactly why King Francis took so positive a position is not clear, but fortunately he very soon changed his mind and repealed the edict. From this time forward he did everything in his power to encourage printing and printers, as we have already seen in recounting the history of the Estienne family. In 1536 he made an arrangement, the first of the kind, to have a copy of every book that was printed filed in the Royal Library. In 1538 he favored the printers by granting them an edict of exemption from service in the City Guard, a service to which residents generally were liable.

During King Francis's reign labor troubles arose in the industry. Enough references have already been made to show that the strike is by no means a modern institution and that strikes in printing offices are pretty nearly as old as the industry. There were strikes, some of them of a rather serious nature, among the Parisian printers in the reign of King Francis. As soon, however, as it appeared that they were liable to injure the industry or interfere seriously with the work of the master printers the king suppressed them by a heavy-handed use of the royal authority, insisting that trade disputes must not be allowed to interfere with the successful prosecution of the industry and that the journeymen must not be permitted by strikes to put a stop to the operations of their employers.

As an incident of this recognized social superiority the printer was permitted to wear a sword, a right which was denied to artisans generally. The old prints showing the interiors of print shops almost invariably show at least one of the workmen wearing a sword, or show a sword conspicuously displayed standing against a pillar or the wall. The introduction of the sword into these pictures is deliberately done to indicate the social pretensions of the printer of this period. It is worth remembering because although it involves a certain artificial social distinction which we now consider rather absurd it also involves certain principles which we should do well not to lose sight of. In those days printing was regarded as a profession rather than strictly a trade, and the printer was deeply impressed with the value and importance of his work, a value and importance which were not only claimed by him but recognized by his fellow citizens. It was very strongly felt that a man who made a book was engaged in a much more important piece of work than a man who made a pair of shoes or forged a sword. The more of this spirit of self respect, the more of this recognition of the importance of printing and the printed product we can recover today, the better off we shall be.

From the beginning printers were troubled by typographical errors. Some of the earlier printers, like Caxton and Gehring, had their books corrected by hand after they were printed. As a rule, however, the modern practice of more or less careful proof reading preceded publication. There were constant complaints of inaccuracy, especially on the part of the cheap printers and the printers of pirated editions. The influence of the better printers and the insistent demands of the public finally brought about a reasonable degree of textual accuracy. It is interesting to note that royal regulation attempted to deal with this matter as it dealt with so many other things.

In 1789 came the Revolution which swept away all the edicts regulating printing. In this ruin royal regulation, trade organization, police supervision, and every other restraint on the trade went down together. Printing was unregulated and unlicensed. As an actual result there came a flood of printing of a very low character both mechanically and morally.

Some great houses like that of Didot stood fast by the old standards, but small printing houses flourished and the unregulated condition of the trade was in many respects most unfortunate. In the long run, however, economic laws asserted themselves as they always do. The establishment of a settled government under Napoleon and the reassertion of the old laws of libel and the like put a stop to some of the worst extravagances. At a later period, the growth and development of unions of the modern type has had its influence everywhere and the industry has at last come into its own, unhampered by artificial regulations and unrestrained by ill-advised attempts to prevent abuses which can better be dealt with by general statutes applying to all industries and by the operation of economic law.

The governmental regulations just described were similar to those imposed upon all trades. The product of the printing press, however, was not like that of other manufacturing establishments. The use of books is clearly different from the use of ordinary manufactured products. The modern printing press puts out a flood of material which is temporary in its nature. Much of it never gets read at all and comparatively little of it is considered as of permanent value. The early presses, however, turned out books almost entirely. Practically the whole product was of permanent value. It could be easily imitated, and in many cases the imitation could be produced at much less expense than the original as the imitation involved no labor of editors and compilers. Again, communication in those days was very difficult and freight rates were high. If a book could be reprinted freely by anyone who got hold of it, a book printed in a given place could be sold much cheaper than one brought from a distance. For example, a Paris printer could not compete with a Lyons printer in Lyons provided the latter were permitted to print the same books as the former.

But there was another far more important difference. The products of the printing press materially affected the human mind and through it influenced human action. When men began to read and printed matter began to be cheap and plenty, the individual in particular and the state at large entered an entirely new phase of existence. Minds of men might be filled with information or misinformation, with noble or with base desires and purposes, with high thoughts or low by the products of the press. They might be roused to patriotic action or stirred to rebellion. Their religion might be deepened, altered, or destroyed. Immense and unimaginable influence might be and, as soon appeared, was exerted by this new agency.

These facts gave rise to certain problems peculiar to the industry. What right had the publisher to control his product and be protected against a ruinous competition from other printers? Had he any such right at all? Had the author any right to control the printing, publishing, and sale of his works? Had he any right to be secured in the receipt of some remuneration? How could that right be protected? Was the printing press to be allowed to pour out anything its owners pleased, regardless of its effect upon citizenship, religion, or morals, or should the product be controlled so as to secure the helping and not the hurting of mankind? If it was to be controlled, who was to decide upon the measures and standards of control, and on what ground? What was helpful and what was harmful?

The attempted solution of these problems, of course, grew out of the accepted commercial usages of the time. Patents and copyrights as we now know them, regulated by general laws and accessible to all inventors and authors, were unknown. Their place was taken by monopolies which, as we shall see, sometimes had much the same effect as a modern patent or copyright.

A monopoly, sometimes called a privilege, was a grant to a certain person of the sole right to sell or to manufacture a certain thing, to trade in a certain locality, or do something of a similar nature. Monopolies survive today in certain countries, though mainly as governmental monopolies; for example, in Italy the sale of matches is a governmental monopoly. No individual is allowed to sell them except as a government agent, and the traveler is not allowed to take any across the frontier, even in his pocket. In Russia the sale of vodka was a governmental monopoly until the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, when its sale was prohibited. In the middle ages, however, private monopolies were very common. It is important to know that these monopolies or privileges were literally what the latter name indicates. Very often they were given to royal favorites as a means for their personal enrichment. They were purely acts of grace and did not imply any recognition of right on the part of the person to whom they were granted.

Fortunately for the new art the great men of the time were interested in it and, as a rule, it was not difficult to obtain a certain amount of protection by privilege. Venice was perhaps the most advanced state in Europe in the middle of the fifteenth century, certainly it was one of the most advanced. The intelligent business men and astute nobles trained in public affairs who made up the body of citizens of the Republic of Venice were not slow in perceiving that a condition had arisen which must be immediately attended to. The matter was therefore taken up by the Council of Ten, an executive body which had large functions in the government of Venice. Their methods of dealing with the matter may be divided into four heads.

The first was the monopoly under which only one printer was allowed to work in a given town. Such a monopoly was granted John of Spire who, in 1469, was given the sole privilege of doing printing in Venice. Fortunately the unwisdom of this particular method of protection was soon seen and other printers were allowed in Venice.

The next was a form of privilege something like the modern copyright. Under this a publisher or even an author was granted the sole right to print or cause to be printed a certain book. The first one of these copyrights was issued to Antonio Sabellico in 1486. Sabellico was the official historian of Venice and the copyright covered his history. Unlike modern copyrights, which cover but a single book, these privileges might cover anything that an author had written or might write. It is clear that such a blanket copyright in the hands of a publisher might be used very injuriously, and there is evidence that they were so used either to extort money or to impede publication. It is probable that in many cases this form of privilege involved some arrangement between the author and the printer whereby the author shared the profits.

Copyright privileges ran from one to twenty-five years and were sometimes extended. Not infrequently copyright privileges were issued with limiting clauses or conditions, such as that the books should be sold at a "fair price," that the work copyrighted should be published within a year, or that a certain number of copies should be printed per week, and the like.

The third method of protection was by a privilege like a modern patent, covering certain processes or certain kinds of printing. For example: Aldus was granted the sole right to use the italic character, while others were given the sole right of printing in some foreign language.

The fourth method was the absolute prohibition of the importation of books printed outside the territories of the Republic. This was coupled with the refusal of copyright privileges to all books not printed in Venice. Of course, in this whole discussion we must understand that Venice was not the modern city, but the medieval state, which at times was of considerable extent.

This system had certain rather serious defects in practice. In the first place the Council of Ten which issued all these privileges, although usually an extremely businesslike body, kept no record of its relations with printers. Probably this was not a serious matter for the first few years, but the time soon came when no member of the Council could remember what privileges had been granted either to printers or authors. Consequently privileges were very liable to duplication and the Council finally got out of the difficulty by issuing its copyrights with the proviso "If no previous copyright has been issued." This was very comfortable for the Council, but rather uncomfortable for the printer, because it threw upon him the burden of finding out facts which were nowhere on record. Again, there was no machinery for the enforcement of the privileges. While it is probable that legal proceedings could be instituted under them, some other machinery ought to have been provided to make them effective. Lastly, and this was, as we shall see, a common difficulty with all early privileges, they were very narrow in application. Privileges applied only to the territory of Venice and were worthless elsewhere. As we have seen in the case of Aldus, the products of the Venetian press were sold throughout the civilized world, but outside of their place of production they were unprotected by any copyright or other defence. In some cases they were excluded by protective laws similar to those by which Venice attempted to secure her printers from foreign competition. At a somewhat later period some difficulty arose because of the claims of the Papal Court to issue privileges outside of the States of the Church. On the whole, however, the Venetian system was about the best and the simplest of the early systems for dealing with the problems of the printing press.

Turning next to Germany, we find that practically all of the books printed from 1450 to 1500 were reprints of old books. The literary pirate made his appearance almost as soon as the printer appeared. We have already seen that Fust himself was the first of the brood. The fact is not surprising, however, when we remember the conditions of the time. The idea of property in a book excepting as one particular object, a piece of furniture so to speak, never occurred to anybody. Throughout the entire period of manuscript books it was everywhere held that any man who had possession of a book, even temporarily, had a right to copy it. That the owner of the book had any right to control its duplication, even though he had been at great expense to make a copy, was not considered worth discussion. If a man could copy a manuscript which had cost a hundred crowns to make, might he not reprint a book which cost less than one tenth of that amount? It was held that ownership of a printed book carried with it the same rights of reproduction which had from time immemorial been attached to ownership of a written book.

Men who wrote books wrote for the love of it. There was no such thing as authorship as a profession and no such thing as the sale of an author's work, except so far as the books themselves were concerned. It is true that certain writers were helped and perhaps supported by wealthy patrons of literature in the old world or by rich men and politicians who were willing to pay for verses or pamphlets eulogizing their names and praising their exploits. Doubtless, there were writers who lived by their wits in this way, but their case was far different from that of the modern author who either sells his work to a publisher or makes a contract for a royalty. If a man was paid for writing a poem in praise of his patron neither he nor his patron was supposed to control the poem; in a word, there was no conception of any kind of literary property, and the printers soon found that there must be property in books or printing would become impossible.

Germany, like Venice, undertook to deal with the matter by the privilege system, although German privileges seem to have been less varied and more simple than those of the Venetians and to have concerned themselves more exclusively with the printer, to the neglect of the author. As elsewhere, a privilege was the sole right to print a work or a series of works in a given place. The peculiar political condition which existed in Germany made this a rather difficult matter. Germany in the fifteenth century consisted geographically of what is now the Empire of Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. It was composed of a great number of states of very different sizes, from a single city up to a reasonably large country. Each one of these cities had a large degree of self government. They were all supposed to be governed by the emperor. He was called the Holy Roman Emperor and was supposed to be the heir of the old emperors of Rome. He governed largely through assemblages of the princes, called Diets, which were held wherever and whenever the emperor called them. There were also certain imperial courts and governing councils. All this elaborate scheme of government existed largely on paper. It was not generally strong enough to govern effectively, but was generally strong enough to keep things more or less in confusion.

The power of the emperor depended to a considerable extent upon his personal character and his private resources. An emperor who happened to be a strong man, governing a powerful state in the empire from which he could draw money and military support, could hold the states, which were liable to be extremely unruly, in their places and could collect the imperial revenue. A man of weaker personality or without the backing of such private resources could neither keep the turbulent princes in order nor collect the revenue.

The local princes had no sooner begun to issue privileges than the emperor began to do the same thing. A local privilege was not good beyond the limits of the small state which issued it. An imperial privilege was theoretically good throughout the empire, but practically good only in spots. If it conflicted with a local privilege, or the local authority happened to be on bad terms with the emperor it would be worthless. The result of all of this was that at a very early period the printers of Germany got together and made a sort of "gentleman's agreement," as we say today, to respect each other's undertakings. This agreement was practically the best protection of the German book trade until the development of copyright laws at a very much later period. It appears to have been relied upon by the printers more than was the privilege. Privileges were often obtained, partly because it was desirable to keep on good terms with the local authorities and partly because of the relation of privilege to censorship, which we shall discuss later, but it is clear that printing in Germany would have suffered greatly if it had not been for the existence of the "live and let live" agreement of the German printers.

Printers' privileges covered only old books. New books unless covered by some author's privilege were not covered at all, presumably on the ground that in those days, before author's rights to compensation were fully recognized, the expense and risk of producing the classics for a comparatively small market was greater than that of printing new books, especially as many of the new books were controversial and the authors paid the printers. Until about 1800 the printer was a much more important personage in legislation than the author. There was practically very little protection of literary rights of authors excepting what came through privileges, and the printer's privileges were considered much more important than the author's rights. Privileges covered:

Public documents, including church books and school books.

The first printing of books from the body of the world's literature.

New books which were first treatments of some specific subject, generally scientific, technical, or practical.

The granting of a privilege often carried with it exemption from taxation.

Conditions in France were not greatly different from those in Italy and Germany, although France dealt with the problem by means of privileges only and had her problem somewhat simplified by unified administration over a large territory. The first privilege to be issued in France was granted Antoine Verrard in 1507 for an edition of the Epistles of Paul with a French commentary. French privileges were sometimes issued to printers for a single work and sometimes for all the works which they might print. They ran from two to ten years. They might be general, covering the whole kingdom, or they might be local, covering a single province or district. For example, one might have the exclusive privilege of printing certain books or the books of a certain author for ten years, or another might have the privilege of printing anything of a certain sort in the city of Lyons for five years.

It is understood, of course, that a privilege implied prohibition. If a man had a privilege for the works of an author throughout France that meant that no one else in France could print the same books. If he had the privilege for all that he wanted to print in Lyons it meant that nobody else in Lyons could print those books, although anybody outside of Lyons could print them freely. The French law contained one provision which does not appear elsewhere, namely that licenses could be revoked before they expired. They were occasionally issued to persons not residents of France, another provision which appears to have been peculiar to the French law. A third peculiarity is that privileges were occasionally given to authors for the control of their works, but without the right to print them or to sell them. In such a case as that the printer would have to get another privilege to print and sell the books. He would have to pay the author for the right to do so. The question of privilege in France, like the question of censorship, which we shall soon take up, was greatly complicated by the multiplication of authorities and consequent conflict and confusion. Privileges might be issued by the king, by the Parliament of Paris , by the University of Paris, and by the Provost of Paris. The tendency in all things French, however, from early in the 15th century to the French Revolution was toward the concentration of power, so that the right to issue privileges was gradually concentrated in the hands of the king.

To the mind of the fifteenth or sixteenth century man the protection of church and state and of the public was a very much more important matter than the protection of the printer or the author, and it was seen that the printing press might easily distill a venom which would poison the minds of men and threaten the health of institutions. Measures to prevent this occurrence went hand in hand with the granting of privileges. It was only natural that they should do so as they might well be regarded as conditions upon which the privilege should be granted, or, as the idea developed, upon which the trade should be exercised. France early decreed that every piece of printing put out in the kingdom must be certified as "containing nothing contrary to faith, good manners, public peace, and the royal authority." Theoretically, nothing could be more admirable. Doubtless many of us today would like to be assured that all printed matter should meet these requirements. It is obvious, however, that such regulations were liable to work very badly in practice. What constitutes faith, good manners, public peace, and the royal authority? These are, to a considerable extent, matters of opinion. It may happen that the royal authority becomes tyranny and ought to be opposed rather than supported. In the hands of the narrow-minded, ignorant, and unscrupulous, censorship laws may easily open the way to intolerable abuses. As a matter of fact, they have only too often done so, and it is for that reason that we in the United States today insist upon freedom of the press.

Possible injury to the faith was very early perceived by the church. As guardian of the faith and morals of the people, the church felt constrained to see that nothing with heretical or immoral tendencies should be placed in the hands of the faithful. Just as Venice led the way in laws relating to privilege, so she was prominent in the matter of censoring books. Usually the body which issued licenses had charge of the censorship as well. It might not distrust the ecclesiastical examination and censoring of the books, but it made the censorship effective by its refusal of privilege. Later, as we shall see, when this procedure did not prove entirely effective other methods were taken to punish the printers and the authors of books which were deemed injurious. The first book which appeared with the approval of the ecclesiastical authorities was printed in 1480. This approval at first had nothing to do with the privilege to print, but was rather a commendation to the attention of the faithful.

In 1487, however, the Pope issued a bull against objectionable books. This bull was addressed to the States of the Church, Italy, Germany, France, Spain, England, and Scotland. As a result, probably, of this bull, Venice enacted a requirement in 1508 that the approval of the Church should precede the granting of any privilege to print. In 1515 the Lateran Council established the principle of strict censorship. The religious troubles of the sixteenth century had much to do with the application of this principle. In the Protestant countries it was applied much less vigorously than in the Catholic countries. It must not be understood, however, that the Protestants had any broader or more intelligent views on the subject of censorship than the Catholics had. They were just as ready to recognize the principle of censorship and apply it, but the occasions for applying it were, or seemed to be, less frequent. Venice, although always a Catholic country, was careful to keep herself as independent of Rome as possible. The Venetians consequently kept the reins in their own hands with regard to the censorship of books as well as in other matters, although they co-operated with the church authorities and offered no hindrances to the work of the Inquisition.

In 1503 Venice extended the scope of censorship to cover the literary quality of books and translations, the political effect of books, and their effect upon morals. The political and moral censorship appears to have been less effective than the religious and literary. In 1547 the Inquisition took charge of the censorship of books and the punishment of those who offended against the press laws, and continued to exercise those functions until 1730. It is interesting to note that the greatest activity of the Inquisition was in the first half century of its work, a period when religion was still the subject of bitter controversy and bloody warfare. The Inquisition took cognizance of 132 cases between 1547 and 1600. Between 1600 and 1700, however, it only dealt with 55, while from 1700 to 1730 it dealt with only four.

Lines of legislation in Venice regarding censorship ran in certain very definite directions, namely: the legalizing of custom and precedent, protection of the industry against foreign competition and preservation of the excellence of the nation's press, protection of the buyer of books against poor workmanship and excessive charges , and the development of a Bureau to administer the press laws and regulate the industry. In 1549 the book trade was organized by the creation with definite legal recognition of the Guild of Printers and Booksellers. It was believed that the trade could be dealt with better and could do its own work better if it were organized.

The purpose of the guild was three-fold:

As the years went by the tendency was for the state censorship to relax and for the church censorship to become more severe. In time the censorship became very harassing and very troublesome. In 1671, although the Inquisition had ceased to be very active in dealing with the enforcement of press censorship laws, the requirements preliminary to printing a book were so severe that one wonders that printing existed at all. If a man wanted to print a book in Venice at that time he had to secure the following:

Almost every one of these processes had to be paid for. Italy outside Venice was strongly influenced by Rome and the press was comparatively strictly controlled by the influence of the church.

In Germany, on the contrary, the censorship was probably the least severe of any on the Continent. As already noted, there was substantially no printing of original work in Germany until 1500 and consequently no special need of censorship. Shortly afterward Germany was rent in twain by religious dissensions. It must be remembered that the Reformation, being very largely a political movement, the difference between Catholics and Protestants followed geographical lines for the most part. There were comparatively few Protestants in Catholic countries or Catholics in Protestant countries. The Protestants seized upon the printing press as a method of propaganda. They consequently advocated its freedom and encouraged its use. The Catholics at first attempted to defend themselves from this attack by the suppression of printing and the destruction of imported books. After a little time, however, with greater wisdom, they themselves made use of the printing press for a counter propaganda. Those who were disturbed by the censorship in a country in either camp could and did move to one in the other. In this way unless a man had religious opinions which were unacceptable anywhere or wished to publish books which were seditious or immoral it would be entirely easy for him to find a place where he could be undisturbed and probably encouraged.

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