![]() The height of his professional printing career came in 1454-55 when the first edition of his famous Bible came off the press. Like other inventors before and since his time, after he conceived his initial idea and constructed it, he tested it, improved it, and kept working on it, always making it function better and more efficiently. Did the Roman Catholic Church Ever Deplore What Gutenberg Made Possible? The Roman Catholic Church’s actual response was the opposite of what some people attribute. For one thing, more beautiful illuminations (each page with its elaborate capitals and its illustrative marginalia) further drew attention to them. Instead, the Roman Catholic Church went out of its way to produce more illuminations and make them beautiful. The Roman Catholic Church usually produced illuminations, and they didn’t lament the creation of additional Bibles in the world. I spoke a few moments ago about illuminations, the painfully slow, exact, careful, and welcome creation of new copies of the Bible. Vulgate Latin was for ordinary men and women going about their ordinary lives, yet still needing to talk, read and write, and debate. They didn’t learn the High Latin of the Lords of the Church but the Vulgate (for the common or “vulgar” population). So if people learned to read and write, think about what they read, and discover their culture’s customs to pass along to their children, they had to learn Latin. In the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, people learned about the world around them in monasteries and churches. What Language Did People Read in the Middle Ages? So, if they perceive that some element of the Renaissance-era church frowned on the publication of the Gutenberg Bible, they are not surprised and trumpet their point. They assign this dynamic to the Roman Catholic Church, as they do to every other institution they can identify as having been villainous throughout western history. Today’s academic world is preoccupied with the notion that every powerful institution is motivated by excluding anyone from power and prestige who doesn’t belong to its own elite ranks. ![]() ![]() But perhaps not for the reason sometimes claimed nowadays. How Did the Roman Catholic Church React to the Existence of the New Gutenberg Bible? ![]() So much so that Bibles could be made for buyers among the general public… and in their local language. Gutenberg’s process was quick, slick, and inexpensive compared to illumination. He invented the printing press, a machine that used his new moveable type to quickly reproduce page after page (generally on paper) so that each page for a book was uniform with that same page in the next book. His invention meant that Bibles were no longer the sole property of nobility (who could afford illuminated versions) or church masters (who could judge them on theological grounds). To the extent that Johannes Gutenberg advanced any new ideas about the Bible’s content, his contribution was that Bibles should be readily available to laypeople. Gutenberg became famous because he invented moveable type, which made any printing project easier, quicker, less costly, and rapidly repeatable. However, Gutenberg himself did not become famous as a translator of the Bible or as a man who advanced any new biblically theological ideas. So, the Gutenberg Bible is named after the person Johannes Gutenberg. He was born into a prosperous family, and he learned to read early. Johannes Gutenberg was born in Germany, in Mainz, which is near Frankfurt and Wiesbaden in southwest Germany, in about 1398 or 1399. Does “Gutenberg Bible” Refer to a Person, Place, Translation, or Theological Idea? These materials were used for the monks’ work in the Middle Ages (paper was not commonly used in Europe until the 1450s). Both parchment and vellum are animal skins that have been treated to accept the ink and the paint used during illumination. The monks had to be literate (meaning they could read), and they had to have exhibited artistic mastery when copying the letters in words onto pages of vellum or parchment. Illuminating was done by an important monk or team of monks. It was usually performed by monks, who had time enough to apply their own artistic and calligraphic efforts to glorify the Lord’s words. The process was slow, careful, and exacting. How were Bibles “Printed” Before the Gutenberg Bible?īefore Gutenberg, Bibles were not “printed,” as we use the term today. The Gutenberg Bible is famous because it represents a moment in historical time when the act of reproducing what we call books changed forever.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |