History of Western Civil: Printing Press Impact on 15th Century Europe

This essay examines the profound impact of the printing press, invented by Johannes Gutenberg in 15th-century Europe. It details Gutenberg's life, his innovative movable type technology, and the subsequent publication of the Forty-Two-Line Bible. The essay highlights how the printing press accelerated the European Renaissance, broadened access to knowledge, and facilitated the translation of the Bible into vernacular languages, which in turn fueled the Protestant Reformation. It discusses the influence of printed materials on scientific and cultural advancements, the rise of humanism, and the overall societal transformation during this period. The essay concludes by drawing parallels between this historical period and the modern information age. The essay also references key historical figures and movements, such as Martin Luther and the humanist movement.

Running head: HISTORY OF WESTERN CIVIL
History of Western Civil
Name of the university
Name of the student
Author note

1HISTORY OF WESTERN CIVIL
The paper intends to determine the impact of printing press or moveable type in 15th
century Europe through a discussion of the inventor’s life, Johannes Gutenberg. Johannes
Gensfleisch Gutenberg was born in Mainz, Germany in circa 1395. Although, there are very
little chronological information about his family life still from the limited local sources it can
be assumed that he was a member of goldsmith merchant family. The printing press was
invented by this German craftsman, who introduced new developed features unlike
contemporary Chinese and Korean techniques of printing papers and books. Using this
technology, one of the first notable printed books was published, which is Forty-Two-Line
Bible.
He started investigating with technology of printing from around 1436. Being
impatient of his time consuming experiments, his financer denied to provide resources after
11 long years. It took five more years to achieve establishment by the publication of
Gutenberg’s Bible without any financers’ support. Due to an after effect of craftsman revolt
their family was bound to move into France where experiments regarding printing flourished.
Although, moveable type was much familiar across Asia yet Gutenberg’s use of metal alloys
made the production faster.
According to Abel (2017), European history of printing started back in 1423, when
woodcut was used to be helpful for printing on clothes and printing on paper did not start
until 15th century. Woodcut was used to print playing cards and images related to religious
beliefs. Printed material used to be coloured manually as per wish. Books are mostly
handwritten at that point of time. His individual invention was to create a molding method, as
described in Moodie (2014, p.456), which help to write numerous lead characters as per
requirements. 15th century Europe experienced a remarkable incident and impact both in the
field of education and information.

2HISTORY OF WESTERN CIVIL
The impact of the publication of Bible using printing technology was huge and
difficult to be described within few words. 15th century Europe was going through a social
and cultural revolution when the printing press was invented and accelerated the rise of
European Renaissance. Printing works such as books, papers, posters not only created the
opportunity of learning and gathering knowledge to wider range of audiences but also the
boundary of reading religious books was eliminated from the society gradually after the
translation of Bible into several convenient languages other than Latin.
When common people realised the means of Bible, as described in Dondi (2013, p.
85), it certainly led towards protestant revolution and consequently people receive
enlightenment and created history in the field of science and literacy. Martin Luther
questioned if the purpose of religion is to serve the common people then why instead of
Latin, a convenient understandable native language is not being used. Religion came with
new meaning and enlightenment as an impact of inventing printing press to wider range of
readers irrespective of their economic, social and educational background. Luther’s
influential words cannot be delivered to the target audiences as fast as it arrived without
Gutenberg’s invention. Printed pamphlets were circulated in various countries to enhance the
human awareness. In a nutshell, this remarkable invention influenced overall progress and
development of human race.
Therefore, as described in Kovarik (2015), similarity has been found with the
contemporary information age with that of European transformation during the middle of 15th
century. As with the emergence of advanced technology the revolution has been occurred in a
form of information age, the invention of printing press also led the European society towards
a reformation along with scientific revolution. People started to reject their traditional believe
of living in earth cantered universe and adopt the idea of sun centred universe. Although, as

3HISTORY OF WESTERN CIVIL
per the study of Harvey (2015, p.1490), it took time to create this remarkable change as
human mentality and culture cannot be ignore over a night.
As per the study of Lanska and Lanska (2013, p.62), one of the most notable aspect of
15th century Renaissance in Italy was humanism, re-emergence of the classical Greek
language. This movement received high support and success in the field of European culture
as well. Therefore, as per the Renaissance belief, education helps a man to achieve a better
lifestyle and printing press initiated to reveal the truth by which people are progressing
towards acceptance of reality and application of newly achieved thoughts. The consequences
over 15th century Europe was positive as most of the philosophers and theologians
encouraged the progress of culture, literature and science as well.
Later life of Gutenberg is not prominent just like the fragmentary stories of his early
life. There is a saying that he lost his eyesight during the last few months of his lifetime. He
was buried at town Eltville in Germany after his death on 3rd February in the year 1468.

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References
Abel, R. (2017). The Gutenberg revolution: A history of print culture. Routledge.
Dondi, C. (2013). The European Printing Revolution. The Book: A Global History, 80-92.
Harvey, D. J. (2015). The Law Emprynted and Englysshed: The Printing Press as an Agent
of Change in Law and Legal Culture 1475-1642. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Kovarik, B. (2015). Revolutions in communication: Media history from Gutenberg to the
digital age. Bloomsbury Publishing USA.
Lanska, D. J., & Lanska, J. R. (2013). Medieval and Renaissance anatomists: The printing
and unauthorized copying of illustrations, and the dissemination of ideas. In Progress
in brain research (Vol. 203, pp. 33-74). Elsevier.
Moodie, G. (2014). Gutenberg’s effects on universities. History of education, 43(4), 450-467.