Roman Printing Press
- Thread starter Tjakari
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Either spontaneous creation, or earlier contacts with China. The first paper book that survives dates to the Third Century, so yu'll probably want an earlier creation.
The problem is feudalism. The thread still has zero counterexamples of a feudal innovative society.
Not so much slavery, Carlton, no.
Faelin, and yes, the East did. Tney had the grapes and olives and lamb. And you' re telling us none of the Eastern palaces or Hagia Sophia the vast cathedral existed? Maybe you'd better google istanbul ancient sites. Where does the peasant even start?
The Phaistos disk was from before feudalism started.
Not so much slavery, Carlton, no.
Faelin, and yes, the East did. Tney had the grapes and olives and lamb. And you' re telling us none of the Eastern palaces or Hagia Sophia the vast cathedral existed? Maybe you'd better google istanbul ancient sites. Where does the peasant even start?
The Phaistos disk was from before feudalism started.
Can't letterpress types be cast from bronze or brass? The ancients at the time had plentiful knowledge of lost wax casting which could allow them to create very precise castings of objects in bronze. Casting types doesn't seem to be a problem.
Water-based inks were long used for printing, so that seems to not be a problem to me. Even then, oil-bases are available if the Romans really wanted, pigment can be derived from just soot or bone char, so not trouble there, just mix into water or the oil.
I see basically no technical obstacles to the creation of a printing press in roman times. The script is of course, simple, and various typesets would be devised for both Latin and Greek scripts.
But despite the actual press, the mediums we have available to print on are problematic. Vellum / parchment can be printed on, but not as well as on paper. Papyrus could be printed on as well, I once bought a sheet of papyrus and put it through a (electronic) printer and that worked well, although I'm not sure if the manufacture of that bit of papyrus was the same as ancient papyrus.
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The biggest problem, of course, is the demand. What needs to be read by most people that warrants printing it in large quantities?
It sounds like the true bottleneck is paper. Once paper is available, printing presses would be invented not long after (at least that seems to be the case in OTL, and the Romans apparently already had the necessary precursors to printing).
So make the POD an earlier introduction of paper-making to Roman-controlled areas, either by independent invention or by an earlier transmission from China. Once the Romans have paper-making, the printing press should soon follow.
So make the POD an earlier introduction of paper-making to Roman-controlled areas, either by independent invention or by an earlier transmission from China. Once the Romans have paper-making, the printing press should soon follow.
Early question: The (widespread and commonly traded) existence of block textile printing centuries before shows that the principle was not lacking in the early modern period.
The romans had effective wine screw presses so there is no need to go to the artillery park to find the press technology.
You are welcome to try book printing with pure lead. Notice the little word "alloy".
I do not really think there is a "main problem" here but several. The romans did not have paper production. Their metallurgy was not sufficiently developed to tackle the moveable type. The developments in oil paints that were a necessary precursor for Gutenberg's oil inks were made in the medieval period. Sand casting processes necessary for simply creating the the hand moulds was not yet developed (as far as we know...it is not a well documented technique). The imperial romans had plenty of cheap labour available. I believe we could find several other objections with little effort.
The romans had effective wine screw presses so there is no need to go to the artillery park to find the press technology.
You are welcome to try book printing with pure lead. Notice the little word "alloy".
I do not really think there is a "main problem" here but several. The romans did not have paper production. Their metallurgy was not sufficiently developed to tackle the moveable type. The developments in oil paints that were a necessary precursor for Gutenberg's oil inks were made in the medieval period. Sand casting processes necessary for simply creating the the hand moulds was not yet developed (as far as we know...it is not a well documented technique). The imperial romans had plenty of cheap labour available. I believe we could find several other objections with little effort.
Water-based printing until western printing spread to china. As far as I know chinese painters did not use oil paints until the Manchu dynasty, but to be quite honest, I have not fact-checked this thoroughly.
The "cheap labor argument" is a traditional and not always entirely accurate way to explain the relatively slow pace of technological progress in the roman republican and imperial periods. The reasoning goes more or less like this: roman military expansion during the republic and early empire led to large numbers of slaves being introduced into the roman labor pool, many of them skilled artisans (and intellectuals, for that matter). These artisans are likely the ones who made some of the very labor-intensive art we see from the roman period. Due to the presence of these artisans, and the large unskilled labor pool used in agriculture, mills and mining, Roman society never really needed to invent labor-saving devices to satisfy the needs of the higher strata of society. The ideas were there, and occasionally the technology, but there was no demand for them. The enslaved population continued to remain large after the expansions stopped, since a child born to a slave was the master's property and since slaves were also imported.
With the collapse of roman society in the west, slavery declined (for a number of reasons), and in continental europe more or less was unimporant economically by the year 1000 or so. Many border areas were slower to see a decline, especially the ones plugged into the islamic slave trade, but serfdom provided the agricultural output the elites relied on and the slow rise of urban centres and improvements in rural production techniques led to the use of paid labor instead of slavery. The rapid population growth in especially northern europe seen during the early and high medieval periods kept costs down to some extent, but after the Black Death labor suddenly became very expensive, which meant that late medieval and early modern europe saw a great deal of labor-saving innovation.
This picture is to a large extent inaccurate and has not always been accepted by everyone. We know far less about ancient Rome than we think we do and new evidence keep accumulating of technological developments and the use of labor-saving devices on a relatively large scale, especially during the later empire, in many fields. The roman empire had far more mechanized milling than was earlier believed, for example, and some interesting developments did occur (as it did in other slave societies). Also, there was a lot of technological development before the black death in early and high medieval europe that doesn't quite fit the narrative. Exactly why the empire was never able to produce something like the industrial revolution will remain a mystery and is not a monocausal affair anyway. The truly quickening pace of technological development in europe is a very late phenomenon, after all - most developments made in the early modern period (post-medieval/renaissance to post-enlightenment) build slowly on earlier developments and some technologies remained stable due to technological constraints - europeans were very keen, for example, on building iron breech-loading cannon from the late medieval times onwards, and many attempts and experiments were made from, but these largerly failed to receive a true breathrough due to insufficient metallurgical knowledge and bored bronze cannon dominated european warfare until the rise of modern blast furnaces in the 19th century.
The "cheap labor argument" is a traditional and not always entirely accurate way to explain the relatively slow pace of technological progress in the roman republican and imperial periods. The reasoning goes more or less like this: roman military expansion during the republic and early empire led to large numbers of slaves being introduced into the roman labor pool, many of them skilled artisans (and intellectuals, for that matter). These artisans are likely the ones who made some of the very labor-intensive art we see from the roman period. Due to the presence of these artisans, and the large unskilled labor pool used in agriculture, mills and mining, Roman society never really needed to invent labor-saving devices to satisfy the needs of the higher strata of society. The ideas were there, and occasionally the technology, but there was no demand for them. The enslaved population continued to remain large after the expansions stopped, since a child born to a slave was the master's property and since slaves were also imported.
With the collapse of roman society in the west, slavery declined (for a number of reasons), and in continental europe more or less was unimporant economically by the year 1000 or so. Many border areas were slower to see a decline, especially the ones plugged into the islamic slave trade, but serfdom provided the agricultural output the elites relied on and the slow rise of urban centres and improvements in rural production techniques led to the use of paid labor instead of slavery. The rapid population growth in especially northern europe seen during the early and high medieval periods kept costs down to some extent, but after the Black Death labor suddenly became very expensive, which meant that late medieval and early modern europe saw a great deal of labor-saving innovation.
This picture is to a large extent inaccurate and has not always been accepted by everyone. We know far less about ancient Rome than we think we do and new evidence keep accumulating of technological developments and the use of labor-saving devices on a relatively large scale, especially during the later empire, in many fields. The roman empire had far more mechanized milling than was earlier believed, for example, and some interesting developments did occur (as it did in other slave societies). Also, there was a lot of technological development before the black death in early and high medieval europe that doesn't quite fit the narrative. Exactly why the empire was never able to produce something like the industrial revolution will remain a mystery and is not a monocausal affair anyway. The truly quickening pace of technological development in europe is a very late phenomenon, after all - most developments made in the early modern period (post-medieval/renaissance to post-enlightenment) build slowly on earlier developments and some technologies remained stable due to technological constraints - europeans were very keen, for example, on building iron breech-loading cannon from the late medieval times onwards, and many attempts and experiments were made from, but these largerly failed to receive a true breathrough due to insufficient metallurgical knowledge and bored bronze cannon dominated european warfare until the rise of modern blast furnaces in the 19th century.
Yes, cheap labour was available. But not educated cheap labour!
And this cheap labour were no slaves from the 2nd century on. They were free tenants, day labourers, freelancers and contractors. The roman economy and production forms shifted dramatically during the 1st century AD. In the dacian mines historians could find no slaves but the occasional servus poenae (prisoners). The majority were free freelancers, contractors and tenants. But these guys were usually analphabets or not good enough in writing after just a few years of school in order to copy a book.
In the offices the romans prefered slaves. One reason was loyality and iurisdiction. The roman law knows no procuration! Even if the term origins from the latin word procurator. Actually the first procurators were slaves, because a slave did always act on behalf of his master. A free man could not do that legally. It took a lot of centuries until the roman praetors developed laws which allowed free men to become a procurator. But even afterwards the lower and middle level of clerks in offices were mainly slaves or freedmen.
Homegrown slaves, which needed a lot of investment upfront during childhood and youth, asked for a rather generous peculium (private property), and expected to become a freedman, if 30 years old. Very well educated, demanding and ambitious people, which were more and more protected by roman law. Much better protected than the standard free tenant or day labourer as the late roman codices show clearly. They were much more expensive, than the usual free worker or the slaves on the latifundia in the good old republican days, when the roman generals flooded the market regulary. Look at the roman sources about the society in these 2000 cities and ask yourself, who was rich. You find two big groups: the landowners and freedmen. So how could these freedmen become rich, if they were slaves and cheap labourers in the first 30 years of their life?
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As I noted above, I do not really think the slave labor = slow development is quite as simple as the old model had it, but I have to admit my impression from the last I read on this (Harper's "Slavery in the Late Roman Empire", two or three years ago) is that the idea that agricultural and mining slaves disappeared in the 3rd century isn't standard fare anymore. Of course, that is just Harpers' view on it.
Ummm... Not really. The "Vulgate" (the Bible in Latin) was translated INTO the "Vulgar" (the common tongue), so people didn't have to learn "the Church language" to read it (or have it read to them).
Agreed that a few centuries later, that changed, but the Church's take did change over time. Assuming that it always had a single position is usually a bad idea.
"The Celtic language"? Which one?
For that matter, do you have any indication that there EVER was a Bible in any Celtic tongue before the Reformation?
Marc
Donor
Lest Darkness Fall by L. Sprague de Camp. Novel published in 1949.
I would have thought that book would be in the Read first before posting canon...
True it's a time travel series, but de Camp goes through the viability and complications of introducing plausible transformational technologies such the printing press, telescope, Hindu-Arabic numerals (which appeared circa 500 AD in reality), etc, to the 6th century Europe.
An amazing amount of really culture-altering technologies could have been developed centuries before their official arrivals, even accepting deep conservationism and disinterest - arguably the biggest what if's of history.
I would have thought that book would be in the Read first before posting canon...
True it's a time travel series, but de Camp goes through the viability and complications of introducing plausible transformational technologies such the printing press, telescope, Hindu-Arabic numerals (which appeared circa 500 AD in reality), etc, to the 6th century Europe.
An amazing amount of really culture-altering technologies could have been developed centuries before their official arrivals, even accepting deep conservationism and disinterest - arguably the biggest what if's of history.