Effects of an earlier printing press in the West
- Thread starter M79
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It would have relative little effect, until the introduction of paper into Europe the cost of the materials to write on was the limiting factor in the spread of book and not the cost of labour. If on the other hand the Frank's developed paper on their own around the same time, the development of the printing press would revolutionise Europe, with a much faster centralising of Frankish states and the Pope would be a much weaker actor.
The Pope benefit from the weakness of the regional churches, by lowering the price of books and writing materials, it enable stronger regional scholarship and make knowledge of what the Bible precisely say more widespread, that weakens the Popes ability to monopolise dogma and theological knowledge. Vellum are to expensive a media to enable this process.
Gutenberg himself went bankrupt printing the bible. One has to question if there were sufficient number of literate consumers in the Early Medieval era to justify investment in printing press even assuming the availability of paper. It may yet lead to an information revolution, but perhaps one in slow motion.
The spread of knowledge has little to do with how powerfull is the pope and the Church, propaganda on the other hand has much more effect. It has really much more to do with the power of national states and their relation with the Church in Rome.
In this scenario a press would have as first beneficiaries to the Universities and their teachers and students thanks the sudden increase in the quantity and availability of books and in its accessibility to have its price reduced to the one of the manuscripts.
Perhaps the Universities may become in publishing centers also from theirs own.
Another possible beneficiary would be the School of Translators of Toledo (Castile) that would see increased production and the diffusion of its manuscripts to be able to be printed.
But unlike OTL, the printing of the Bible will not be a priority and surely, that the Bible print work would remain in the hands of the Church. But possibilities would be open on the one hand that religious dialects and disputes (with Constantinople) or OTL policies, through missives, manuscripts would be produced faster and more widely.
But on the other, unless his European pairs follow example of the Castilian King that had stimulates / orders to his translators and writers, that instead of Latin being the final language of the translation (from Greek and / or Arabic), it was the vernacular / romance (Castilian).
If being followed or not its example, we will could come to see an early development of the vernacular languages like language of culture next to the Latin or replacing it... of course, if the monarchs opt to do or don't for themselves or for being too influenced by his academic counselors (Latin scholars).
The future works (books) printed/edited? will be mostly in Latin language with the obvious possible risks for the continuous development and strengthening of the different national languages.
Finally, it may happen that the printing press is used by some regional power to print in the regional language rather than in Latin or the 'national' language or, given the time, at least the most widespread / prestigious.
As has already been said, the main cost was the material, not the writing. Introduce paper earlier, and then printing makes sense.
wiki said:
Given that paper has arrived in Europe by 1150, you could move printing forward most of 200 years, although that's pushing it. 100 years earlier should be quite doable.
John Fredrick Parker
Donor
Seeing as Europe is on the verge of the Black Death in 1340, I'd expect establishing a printing press earlier would make a great deal of difference, even if that does mean less paper to start with.
As the only states whose economies could really take advantage of it at the time? The Romans and the Caliphate have an intellectual boom beyond that of OTL.
This has the side effect of potentially triggering a technical revolution in the west sooner, and could lead to the Romans using texts as a weapon to keep the West under Constantinople spiritually. Why have 1000 monks in monasteries copying books, when the books take a fraction of the time to make, and the Monks can go a preaching.
This has the side effect of potentially triggering a technical revolution in the west sooner, and could lead to the Romans using texts as a weapon to keep the West under Constantinople spiritually. Why have 1000 monks in monasteries copying books, when the books take a fraction of the time to make, and the Monks can go a preaching.
Clerks were cheaper than vellum until paper was brought in. We think of pious monks poring over their monastery desks but there were many lay scribes plying their ill paid trade in the commercial world.
If paper was available then earlier printing would be for the literate and that then meant writing in Latin to reach the literate with money. Thus the middle class would learn to read and write in Latin to access the new information and Latin would get a lift as the language of everyday commerce etc. and we might see a North and Western Europe as a Latin speaking world; except for the illiterate peasantry. Perhaps a Greek equivalent in Orthodox Eastern Europe? One might compare this to OTL 19th century Wales where English was the language of the middle classes and aspiring Welsh parents wanted schools to teach their children English so that they could improve their social and economic chances. There was a good reason why Newton published in Latin even IOTL.
If paper was available then earlier printing would be for the literate and that then meant writing in Latin to reach the literate with money. Thus the middle class would learn to read and write in Latin to access the new information and Latin would get a lift as the language of everyday commerce etc. and we might see a North and Western Europe as a Latin speaking world; except for the illiterate peasantry. Perhaps a Greek equivalent in Orthodox Eastern Europe? One might compare this to OTL 19th century Wales where English was the language of the middle classes and aspiring Welsh parents wanted schools to teach their children English so that they could improve their social and economic chances. There was a good reason why Newton published in Latin even IOTL.
Faeelin
Banned
There was definitely a market for books. https://medievalbooks.nl/2013/04/15/making-books-for-profit-in-medieval-times/
The notion that the Pope prevented Biblical translations in order to prevent people reading their Bibles is largely a myth. (Aside from anything else, the Pope's practical power outside the Papal States was pretty limited, so it would be difficult for him to prevent translations, even if he had wanted to.) There were translations of the Bible, just not very many, because the language of scholarship was Latin so anybody educated enough to be studying theology would almost certainly be able to read the Bible in Latin anyway.
True, back then, it didn't make sense to write in the local language, well at least most of the time. Let's make a comparison between local languages and latin:
Local Language
Alive and changing
Always giving birth to dialects
Restricted to a country or region
Spoke by the illiterate
Latin
Dead and remains the same
Will probably not give birth to new dialects
Universal language of everyone's church and Lingua Franca
Spoke by the literate
I see people that complain or make conspiratorial theories about why monks and lay men were writing in Latin in the middle ages like a person complaining about the need to write in english in AH.com.
That's a good point. People like to complain about "obscurantist" medieval theologians writing in Latin instead of the common tongue, but very few such people complain when non-Anglophone scholars today write in English. And really, the advantages of having an international scholarly language are significant, even if it means it's a bit harder for people from some countries to understand.
You could have papyrus in from northern Africa. Or, simply "print" onto wax or clay tablets that would simply be erased with the next day's newsletter. In either case, literacy could spread. The problem with paper technology is that it had to spread from China to Europe and to get there, it passed through the Middle East where the trees were not well suited for paper. The key to early paper is for Chinese technology to get to Europe.