Invention of the Middle Ages printing press

Throughout history there have been various inventions that have changed the world of the time in which they were created. One of these creations is the invention of the printing press in the Middle Ages. The arrival of the printing press completely changed Western culture, and was one of the triggers for the beginning of the Modern Age. Due to the importance of the printing press, in this lesson from a TEACHER we are going to offer you a summary of the invention of the printing press Middle Ages.

Before the creation of the printing press by Gutenberg there were some rudimentary ways to copy the texts. The documents were preserved and disseminated through copies, generally written by monks, it was a slow method but it was the only known way to preserve the texts.

There are some historical precedents of attempts to create something similar to the printing press, methods to copy documents in a more secure and agile way. The first to try were the Romanss, which in the year 440 a. C. they used stamps that they printed on clay objects. The next to try something akin to printing were the Chinese, who created a method for printing on rice paper.

All these printing methods were very rudimentary, and none were very successful, they all had their problems. Until mid 15th century The great printing system that would change the world was not created.

In this other lesson we will discover what the most important inventions of the Middle Ages.

In the XV century Europe was in search of a new system that will improve the way of preserving and disseminating texts. The cultural demand was growing, but the production of texts had stagnated, the monks could not get to copy the quantities of documents that were requested. And then Johannes Gutenberg appeared.

Johannes Gutenberg he was a goldsmith born in Mainz, in the Holy Roman Empire. He was the son of an upper-class family, his father was a merchant and his mother was the daughter of a grocer. Before inventing the printing press, Gutenberg worked as a blacksmith, smelting gold, it is said that he learned there some techniques that he would later apply to the invention that made him such a relevant historical figure, the printing.

In Gutenberg's time, woodcut was used for short texts, for example pamphlets. The xylography is a method of printing with wooden plates, in which the text was carved by hand, and then bathed in ink. It was a harsh method, as wooden bases could only be used a few times before being useless.

In this context, Gutenberg was looking for a way to create a system so that the copying of documents was achieved in an easier way. Gutenberg gambled that he was able to make a copy of a Bible in less time than the fastest monks took, and that the copies would also be of the same quality.

For this project Gutenberg he created movable types, wooden molds with each of the letters of the alphabet and filled with iron. The shape of the letters tried to resemble those that were common in manuscripts, to achieve a similar style. By means of this new system the bases were more existent than the methods used in the woodcut. Later, Gutenberg added capital letters and pictures. For this he used the woodcut system, thus ending his invention.

To carry out the Gutenberg creation he asked Johann Fust for money, who served as a moneylender. But Gutenberg had miscalculated the time he needed to finish his invention, so he had to ask Fust for money again. Fust left him money again, but this time as a partner, leaving Peter Schöffer as supervisor. A couple of years later, Gutenberg ran out of money again and this time Fust did not lend him the money, keeping the money and putting Schöffer in command. Gutenberg ended his life ruined, unable to finish his great challenge.

The work that Gutenberg failed to finish is the "42-line Bible", known to be the work he gave begins the "Age of printing ”, since from this work began the production of texts through printing, which changed the world of printing. epoch.

To finish this summary of the invention of the printing press in the Middle Ages we must explain the subsequent influence of the printing press in the world. The printing press is one of the most important inventions in history, and that is why its creation changed the world. Some of its consequences were the following:

• It revolutionized the culture, expanding the number of readers due to the increase in books and cost reduction.
• He spread the knowledge, breaking the centralization of knowledge in nobility and church.
• He was the spark of subsequent social, economic and political movements.
• It is considered one of the causes of the passage to the Modern Age.