Learning objectives

• To Understand the history of development of print in Europe, the print

revolution and its impact
• To Establish the link between print culture and circulation of ideas.
• To Get familiarized with pictures, cartoons, extracts from propaganda
literature and newspaper.
• To Analyze the leaps in mass literacy in Europe.
• To Trace the growth of press in India.
• To Discuss the Impact of print on poor and women
• To Identify the new forms of publication
 Print in China
• The earliest kind of print technology was developed in China, Japan and
Korea.
• From AD 594 onwards books in china were printed by rubbing paper against
the inked surface of woodblocks. Earliest Chinese books were made in
‘accordion’ style.
• Textbooks for the recruitment in civil service examinations were the major
producer of this printed material.
• By the seventeenth century, as urban culture bloomed in China, the uses of
print diversified.
• Print was no longer confined to scholar-officials. Merchants used
printed material in their everyday life.
• Reading became a part of leisure activity and rich women
started publishing their own poetry and plays.
• This new reading culture attracted new technology.
• In the late 19th century, Western printing techniques and
mechanical presses were imported.
• Shanghai became the hub of the new print culture.
The Diamond Sutra
• The text was originally discovered in 1900
by a monk in Dunhuang, China, an old
outpost of the Silk Road on the edge of the
Gobi Desert.
• The Diamond Sutra, a Sanskrit text
translated into Chinese, was one of 40,000
scrolls and documents hidden in “The Cave
of a Thousand Buddhas,” a secret library
sealed up around the year 1,000 when the
area was threatened by a neighboring
kingdom.
• Many practitioners believe that the
Mahayana Sutras were dictated directly by
the Buddha, and The Diamond Sutra takes
 Print in Japan
• Hand-printing technology was introduced by Buddhist missionaries from China into
Japan around AD 768-770.
• The Buddhist Diamond Sutra is the oldest Japanese book, printed in AD 868,
containing six sheets of text and woodcut illustrations.
• Printing of visual material led to interesting publishing practices.
• In the late 19th century, illustrative collections of paintings depicted an elegant
urban culture and libraries and bookstores were packed with hand-printed material
of various types – books on women, musical instruments, etc.
• Situated on the stunning
slopes of Gaya Mountain,
Haeinsa Temple is home
to the Tripitaka

Koreana.
• It is a Korean collection
of Buddhist scriptures.
• They were inscribed on
the UNESCO Memory of
the World Register in
2007.
• Kitagawa Utamaro, born in
Edo in 1753, was widely known for his
contributions to an art form called Ukiyo,
‘pictures of the floating world’ or depiction
of ordinary human experiences,
especially urban ones.
• These prints travelled to contemporary
US and Europe and influenced artists
like Manet, Monet and Van Gogh.
• In 1295 Marco Polo returned to Europe after exploring China and along with him, he
brought the knowledge of woodblock printing.
• Italians began producing books with woodblocks and transferred the technology all
over Europe.
• Luxury editions were handwritten on expensive vellum, meant for aristocratic circles
and rich monastic libraries because to them, printed books were cheap and of poor
quality.
• Merchants and students from university towns bought the cheaper printed copies.
• Booksellers of Europe exported books to many different countries due to its rising
demand.
• Book fairs were organized.
• Scribes or skilled hand writers were employed more often and by booksellers more
• But the production of handwritten manuscripts could not satisfy the ever-
increasing demand for books.
• Copying was expensive, laborious and time consuming process.
• Manuscripts were fragile, awkward to handle, could not be carried around or
read easily
• So, Europe widely started using woodblocks to print textiles, playing cards, and
religious pictures with simple, brief texts.
• There was clearly a great need for even quicker and cheaper reproduction of
texts.
• The breakthrough occurred at Strasbourg, where Johann Gutenberg developed
the first-known printing press in the 1430s.
Gutenberg and the Printing Press
The long handle attached to the screw
was used to turn the screw & press down
the platen over the printing block that
was placed on top of a sheet of damp
paper.
He developed metal types for the 26
characters of the Roman alphabet &
devised a way of moving them around to
compose different words of the text,
known as the moveable type printing
machine.
It remained the basic print technology
over the next 300 years. The press could
print 250 sheets on one side per hour.
• Gutenberg grew up on an agricultural estate where he had seen wine and
olive presses.
• He learnt the art of polishing stones, became a master goldsmith, learnt how
to create lead moulds used for making trinkets.
• Gutenberg adapted existing technology to design his innovation.
• Moulds became metal types for the letters of the alphabet.
• The olive press provided a model for the printing press.
• He made the system perfect by 1448.
• He printed the Bible first.
• It took 3 years to produce 180 copies which was fast and efficient production
at that time.
The Gutenberg
Bible was printed in
Mainz in 1455 by
Johann Gutenberg
and his associates,
Johann Fust and
Peter Schoeffer.
Only 48 copies are
known to have
survived, of which
12 are printed on
vellum and 36 on
paper.
• Printed books resembled the written manuscripts.
• The metal letters imitated the ornamental handwritten styles.
• Hand with foliage and other patterns were drawn on borders.
• Illustrations were painted.
• Space for decoration was kept blank on the printed page for the rich.
• The designs and the painting school that would do the illustrations could be personally
chosen.
• Printing presses were set up in most countries of Europe by the 1550s.
• Printers from Germany travelled to other countries to spread the technology.
• Book production boomed.
• Almost 20 million copies of printed books were printed by the end of the 15th century.
• This shift from hand printing to mechanical printing led to the print revolution.
A printer’s workshop, sixteenth
century. All the activities are going on
under one roof.
In the foreground on the right,
compositors are at work, while on
the left galleys are being prepared
and ink is being applied on the metal
types; in the background, the printers
are turning the screws of the press,
and near them proofreaders are at
work. Right in front is the final product
– the double-page printed sheets,
stacked in neat piles, waiting to be
bound.
 The Print Revolution and
Its Impact

The print revolution transformed the

lives of people, heavily transforming
their relationship with information,
knowledge, institutions and
authorities.

It influenced popular perceptions.

 A New Reading Public

• The invention of printing press gave birth to a new and ever growing readership.

• Printing reduced the cost of books since multiple copies could be produced efficiently and

quickly with lesser labour involved.

• A new reading culture was observed

• The common people lived in a world of oral culture.

• They heard sacred texts read, ballads recited and folk tales narrated.

• Books started reaching wider sections of people

• Then Public began shifting to reading from hearing.

• In Europe rates of literacy were very low.

• Publishers had to keep in mind the wider reach of the printed work.

• They included popular ballads and folk tales for those who could not read but

could at least listen to them being read out in gatherings.

• They were profusely illustrated with pictures.

• Oral culture thus entered print and printed material was orally transmitted.
• This is one of the many images produced in
early modern Europe, celebrating the coming of
print.
• The printing press descending from heaven,
carried by a goddess.
• On two sides of the goddess, blessing the
machine, are Minerva (the goddess of wisdom)
and Mercury (the messenger god, also
symbolising reason).
• The women in the foreground are holding
plaques with the portraits of six pioneer printers
of different countries.
• In the middle ground on the left (figure
encircled) is the portrait of Gutenberg.
 Religious Debates and the Fear of Print
• Print created the possibility of wide circulation of ideas, and introduced a new world of
debate and discussion.
• People who disagreed with authorities transmitted their ideas through print.
• Through this, they could persuade people and even mobilise them.
• Some people like religious authorities and monarchs, as well as many writers and
artists, were apprehensive of the effects created by printed books and materials upon
people’s minds.
• Irregulated publishing could cause rebellious and irreligious thoughts to spread.
• This would destroy the authority of good literature.
• This resulted in widespread criticism of the new printed literature that had begun to
circulate.
Who was Martin Luther? What was his contribution to the Protestant
Reformation?

Martin Luther
(1483-1546)
was a German monk,
priest and professor of
theology.
• In 1517, the religious reformer Martin Luther wrote ninety five Theses criticising
many of the practices and rituals of the Roman Catholic Church.
• He challenged the Church to debate his ideas.
• Quick printing and reproducing helped develop his ideas into a revolution which
led to a division within the Church and to the beginning of the Protestant
Reformation.
• Luther’s translation of the New Testament sold 5,000 copies within a few weeks.

• Luther thanked printing technology when he said that, ‘Printing is the ultimate gift

of God and the greatest one.’

• Print brought about a new intellectual atmosphere and helped spread the new
ideas that led to the Reformation.
 Print and Dissent

• Print and popular religious literature stimulated individual and

distinct interpretations of faith even among less educated or
informed people such as the worker classes.
• Menocchio, an Italian worker, reinterpreted the message of
the Bible and formulated a view of God and Creation that
enraged the Roman Catholic Church.
• Menocchio was ultimately executed to repress heretical
ideas.
• This led to the Roman Church imposing repressive control
over publishers and booksellers and began to maintain an
This sixteenth-
century print
shows how the
fear
of printing was
dramatised in
visual
representations
of the time.