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Johannes Gutenberg 1398-1468 was a German goldsmith and printer who is credited with being the first European to use movable type printing in around 1439 and being one of the major influences for mass production of printed material in the age. His major work, the Gutenberg Bible is highly valued as a quantum leap improvement upon woodblock printing, and revolutionized European book-making. Gutenberg’s printing technology was used throughout Europe and was a key factor in advancing the European Renaissance

Other advancement in printing technology that Guttenberg utilized was the use of oil-based ink, and the use of a wooden printing press similar to the screw olive and wine presses of the period. The key to his success was to combine these technologies into a system that was the forerunner of true mass production.

Between 1450 and 1455, Gutenberg printed several texts, but details are not known; his texts did not bear the printer’s name or date, so attribution is possible only through external references. Certainly several church documents including a papal letter and two indulgences were printed.

Indulgences were awarded by the Catholic Church as a remission of sin, earned either by prayer or, especially in the later Middle Ages, through a donation of money. A letter of indulgence took the form of ready-made receipts leaving an empty space for the name of the purchaser, who was meant to take it to a father confessor as proof of having obtained the right to the forgiveness of sins. It seems possible that Gutenberg printed indulgences as early as 1452, at the request of Nicolaus Cusanus, the prominent German cardinal – a very early connection between printing and the bureaucratic needs of the Church. But none of the indulgences which may have been printed in 1452 has survived.

For a printer, indulgences mean cash, paid for by the Church. For the Church it meant that an otherwise manpower heavy and time consuming task could be produced at a fraction of the cost and time – for which they could make money on as well. It is not known how many indulgences were printed but by the end of the century, one indulgence was said to have been printed in as many as 142,950 copies.

This money in turn fed back into the technology and rapid expansion of the printing industry and ironically had the effect of slowly removing the monopoly that the clergy had on literacy. Standardization of important books and documents such as The Bible, Laws and educational material brought great advances for all walks of life. Mass production of Latin and Non-Latin texts meant that literacy rates rose in the middle classes. Scholars and scientists could share more readily their ideas and works, and all this in the early stages of the Renaissance.

By contrast, only thirty years earlier the Pre-Reformation Cambridge University Library owned 122 books, each of which had been valued to the same as a farm or a vineyard such were the costs involved in producing works.

The creative genius of Gutenberg was to select and adapt already existing technologies and bring them together into a simple system – a uniform system, something that could only be achieved to a certain degree with hand written manuscripts and works done by scribes. Taking his own knowledge of metalwork and casting, combining it with the already perfected screw-press system for wine making and experimenting with newer materials for printing on – he found a golden formula for success.

But in his quest for a system that would make him money – in what is arguably his greatest work – The Gutenberg Bible (shown below), he showed that the balance between the practical and decorative elements of the book could be balanced. The main body of text, the bulk of the Bible and the place where most mistakes could happen and were the most costly when making copies of the book could be printed, proof read and amended before comparatively huge amounts of exactly the same page could be reproduced, again and again. The intricate illumination and decoration of the page afterwards was still out of the reach of printing technology and usually had to be completed by skilled members of the clergy and artists of the day.

A simple combination of skills and technologies that advanced society, education, understanding, diplomacy . . . everything. I can think of no greater artist, creative, inventor, call him what you will – who has had such a huge effect. Hats off to you Mr Gutenberg, you did good . . .

The BBC commissioned a show recently in which Stephen Fry investigates the story of the Gutenberg Press.

Stephen’s investigation combines historical detective work and a hands-on challenge. He travels to France and Germany on the trail of Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press and early media entrepreneur. Along the way he discovers the lengths Gutenberg went to keep his project secret, explores the role of avaricious investors and unscrupulous competitors, and discovers why printing mattered so much in medieval Europe.

But to really understand the man and his machine, Stephen gets his hands dirty – assembling a team of craftsmen and helping them build a working replica of Gutenberg’s original press. He learns how to make paper the 15th-century way and works as an apprentice in a metal foundry in preparation for the experiment to put the replica press through its paces.

Watch and enjoy: