THE KOBERGERS OF NUREMBERG.
1440-1540.
ANTHONI KOBERGER (the elder), who for a number of years held the position of the leading publisher of his time, came of an old Nuremberg family. One of his ancestors had been a burgomaster of Nuremberg as far back as 1349, and took an active part at that time in a successful effort to overthrow the rule of the nobles over the city, and, during the two centuries following, the Kobergers continued to be leading citizens.
Anthoni was born about 1440, or ten years before the completion of Gutenberg’s printing-press. He was probably brought up as a jeweller, an occupation in which in the later years of his life he was again interested, but in 1472, he devoted himself to the new art of printing, and in 1473 he issued the first volume, bearing a date, which is certainly identified as his. The work chosen was one of the great books of the world’s literature, Boethii Liber de Consolatione Philosophiæ cum Commentario Thomæ de Aquino, a dignified and judicious selection with which to initiate the publishing undertakings of the Kobergers, and one which was fairly representative of the general character of their subsequent issues.
Albert Dürer, whose original trade was that of a goldsmith, had served as godfather for Anthoni Koberger, and Anthoni’s eldest son was apprenticed to Dürer. There was a close connection, in Germany as well as in Italy, between the earlier book illustrators and the goldsmiths and other artificers in metals, and not a few of the first designers and engravers, together with some of the best of the printers, came, like Dürer, from the ranks of the metal-workers.
The first printing-office in Nuremberg had been established in 1470, by Heinrich Kefer, of Mayence (who had been an assistant of Gutenberg), in company with Sensenschmid from Eger, and their first publication was a tract on the Song of Solomon, by Dr. Gerson, Chancellor of Paris, who had died in 1429. It was very exceptional for printers of this time to begin their operations with a work by a contemporary or recent writer.
Anthoni’s active work as a publisher continued until about 1513. His contemporary, Johann Neudorffer, writing about 1509, says that he was then employing about twenty-four presses, with over a hundred workmen, the latter comprising compositors, pressmen, binders, correctors, illuminators, and designers.[73] All of these, says Neudorffer, were provided with their meals by their employer, in a building apart from the works, and they were obliged to go between the two buildings at regular hours and with military discipline. It is noteworthy to find so fully organised and disciplined a book-manufacturing concern within half a century after the beginning of printing, and we may fairly assume that the founder was a man of distinctive character and ability.
In the actual number of separate works issued, Koberger was possibly equalled by one or more of his contemporaries, but in respect to literary importance and costliness, and in the beauty and excellence of the typography, the Koberger publications were not equalled by any books of the time excepting the issues of Aldus in Venice. He did not limit his publishing undertakings to the works printed from his own presses, but gave contracts for the printing of a number of important publications to printers in other cities. In 1525, for instance, Grüninger of Strasburg prints for Koberger the translation by Pirckheimer of the Geography of Ptolemy, and Amerbach of Basel, who had begun his work as a corrector with Koberger, printed for him, later, a number of works.
Koberger’s correspondence shows that he had agents or active representatives not only in the other book-centres of the empire, such as Frankfort, Leipzig, Vienna, Basel, Strasburg, and Cologne, but in more distant cities, with which business interchange must, during the first years of the sixteenth century, have been subject to serious risks and to many interruptions, such as Paris, Buda-Pesth, Warsaw, Venice, Florence, Rome, Antwerp, Bruges, and Leyden. In this matter of organising connections and distributing machinery throughout the Continent, Koberger had a decided advantage over his great contemporary Aldus, who found, as we have seen, no little difficulty in maintaining permanent satisfactory arrangements for the distribution of his books north of the Alps. Aldus was obliged to depend chiefly upon his direct correspondence with individual buyers among the scholars of Europe, but Koberger secured larger results by utilising the services of the book-trade, the organisation of which in Germany and France was now taking shape. He was himself, in fact, a bookseller as well as a publisher and printer, selling both to the book-trade and at retail, and he was the first of the booksellers of Germany, and possibly of Europe, to issue a classified catalogue of current publications. Kapp describes his book-shop as the best equipped repository for standard literature (Sortiments-Buchhandlung), in Germany. Possessing full knowledge and experience of all divisions of book-making and of book-selling, Koberger was in a position to take an active part in furthering the organisation of the German book-trade, of which for a number of years he was recognised as the natural leader.
One of the results of the Reformation had been, as will be noted in the chapter on Luther, to transfer the centre of literary activity from the south to the north of Germany. Previous to this time, Nuremberg had been conveniently enough located for the publishing trade and for the distribution of books, but, if it had not been for the energy and enterprise of Koberger, it would doubtless have been very much outclassed in the importance of its book-trade by some one of the cities possessing facilities for water transportation. Koberger appears not to have been a bigoted Romanist, but his sympathies were on the whole with the Church party, and his theological publications, which formed by far the most important portion both of his undertakings and of his retail stock, were nearly all in line with conservative Catholic theology. The sales of all the older theological works, the writings of the Fathers, etc., were very much lessened by the effects of the Reformation, and, after the Reform doctrine had begun to take root in Nuremberg, this division of the business of the Kobergers was materially interfered with. Notwithstanding the very considerable demand that came up in Nuremberg for the writings of the Reformers, the imprint of Anthoni Koberger appears never to have been associated with any of these.
In order to indicate the general character of his undertakings, I give the titles of some of the more characteristic of his publications. I omit half a dozen volumes issued prior to 1473, which have not certainly been identified as Koberger’s.
The total list for the forty years from 1473 to 1513, in which year Anthoni Koberger died, aggregates no less than two hundred and thirty-six separate works. These were nearly all in large octavo or quarto form, and the larger number comprised several volumes. The most considerable and the most costly undertaking was the Hugo Bible issued in eight volumes. Anthoni issued in all no less than fifteen issues or impressions of the Scriptures. A very large proportion of his books were, as the selection indicates, devoted to theology, and the list includes a number of collections of sermons and tracts (always in Latin text) by writers whose names are known otherwise little or not at all. It is possible that the cost of the printing of these was in some cases borne by the divines who were responsible for them, but there is no reference in the record of Koberger’s business to any publications “for the author’s account.” It is not easy to understand how it was practicable, within half a century of the beginning of printing, to build up a publishing machinery adequate for the effective distribution of such a collection of solid literature. In fact, a publisher of to-day, whether in Germany or elsewhere, would hardly venture to base his business upon such a series of heavy books.
During the forty years of his work, Anthoni’s imprint appears upon but three publications in German. The number of classical editions is also much smaller than is usual with the publishing lists of the period. In planning his big series of Latin tomes, Koberger was addressing himself to scholars, and only to scholars of the orthodox Catholic faith. The production of editions of the pagan writers he left to his great contemporary, Aldus of Venice, and to Badius of Paris. The latter, in the preface to his edition of the Letters of Politian, refers to Koberger as “that glorious Nuremberger ... esteemed by honourable men everywhere as the prince of booksellers ... the man who conducted his business with the most exact integrity, and with the highest ideals ... with whom the production and distribution of good books was carried on as a sacred trust.”[74]
Conrad Leontorius, a Cistercian monk, and the well-known Jacob Wimpfeling, both speak of Koberger as “a true Humanist,” which is evidence that, notwithstanding his theological interests and associates, Koberger was by no means to be classed with the narrow or bigoted Romanists. A man who stood in intimate friendly relations with such leaders of liberal thought as Conrad Celtes, Albert Dürer, and Pirckheimer, must himself have possessed some intellectual breadth and distinctiveness. Koberger had a full mastery of Latin, which was, in fact, a first requirement for any publisher of scholarly literature, but with Greek his acquaintance appears to have been limited. He did not venture upon any such serious editorial responsibilities with his publications as those undertaken by Aldus, and later by the Estiennes, but he appears to have possessed excellent judgment in the selection of scholarly editions and advisers. One of Koberger’s associates emphasises “his enormous capacity for persistent work, the far-seeing and wide-reaching enterprise, the conscientious regard for the rights of others, the large conceptions and the careful attention to details, the keen sense of humour, and genial and cheerful manner,”[75] qualities which must certainly have formed an exceptionally advantageous combination for an effective business career. His correspondents in Basel speak of him with a cordial affection which indicated a closer relation than that of mere business, and further evidence of such friendship is afforded, after the death in Basel of his old associate Amerbach, by the care given by Koberger to Amerbach’s children. In 1500, the Emperor Maximilian writes to “our trusty Anthoni Koberger, whose great service entitles him to honour, alike from ourselves and from the realm.”
Koberger seems to have had the all-valuable faculty of making many friends and no enemies. He was valued by the Catholics as a most serviceable ally and representative, while by not a few of the Reformers he was regarded as a personal friend, and in all the bitter controversies of the time (the years immediately preceding the Reformation) there appear never to have been any harsh expressions used concerning the Nuremberg publisher. It is true, however, that it was not until after Koberger’s death that the religious contests developed into their fiercer phase.
The most important work on the foregoing list of Anthoni’s publications was, as said, the edition of Cardinal Hugo’s Bible, in eight volumes folio. This work was undertaken in co-operation with Koberger’s friend Amerbach in Basel, and the volumes were printed in Basel. The plan of the publication had, however, originated with Koberger, and the larger portion of the very considerable investment required for its production was supplied by him. The Hugo, whose notes and commentaries formed the basis for this edition, had been born at St. Cher in Dauphiné, about the year 1200. He was for a time an inmate of the Dominican cloister of S. Jacob, but, later, became an instructor in the Theological Faculty of the University of Paris. He prepared a revised text of the Vulgate, known as the Correctorium Bibliæ, which was never printed, but which was afterwards utilised in the preparation of what was known as the Bible of the Sorbonne. The work published by Koberger had been written about 1240, under the title Postilla in Universa Biblia juxta Quadruplicem Sensum. It was used for two centuries (of course in manuscript form) as one of the theological text-books of the Sorbonne, but the codex from which Amerbach’s type-setters did their work was secured from the Cistercian monastery in Heilsbronn.
Hugo was made a cardinal by Pope Innocent IV., and died in Italy in 1263. The text of the Scriptures as revised by him, together with his notes, were utilised by Luther and by a number of the later editors and translators of the Scriptures, and the enterprise of Koberger in preserving this text in printed form was, from a scholarly point of view, fully justified. As a commercial venture, the undertaking was, however, a mistake, the sales not proving sufficient to return the very considerable outlay. The Greek Testament of Erasmus, and the Lutheran versions of the New and of the Old Testaments, while not the only editions of the Scriptures which proved remunerative publications, were certainly very noteworthy exceptions as to the extent of their popularity and of their commercial value.
Koberger’s publishing catalogue had included, as said, no less than fifteen impressions of the Biblia Latina, eight of which presented material differences of notes and commentaries which entitled them to be described as distinct editions. In addition to these, he interested himself in keeping in stock, and in describing in his Sortiments-Catalog, examples of all the noteworthy issues of the Bible as yet in print. These included the four-volume Bible printed in Strasburg, 1478-1480, containing the commentary of Walafrid Strabo (dating from 849) and the notes of Anselm of Laon, written in 1117, the Lyons editions of Castellanus and of Gradibus, and the several issues of Froben and others in Basel. The characteristic feature of all the editions of the Scriptures preceding the Reformation was the long series of notes and commentaries. Luther took the ground that the words of God in Holy Writ had been so overlaid and overweighted with the comments of men that their true purport was in danger of being lost sight of or not properly apprehended. In Luther’s Bible, therefore, the bold innovation was adopted of printing the text of the Scriptures without note or commentary.
In the year 1483, the year in which Luther was born, Koberger published his German Bible. The text was translated from the Latin of the Vulgate, and was illustrated with woodcuts. I have not been able to ascertain what was the German idiom used for this version, but it was a form that never took any permanent place in the literature of the country. Luther, referring to the Nuremberg Bible, declared that “no one could speak German of this outlandish kind.”[76] Two German versions of the Bible had been published before this of Koberger, one in Strasburg and one in Cologne. They were both based on the Vulgate, and neither was complete. Some years after the death of Anthoni Koberger, his nephew Johannes issued the first Nuremberg editions of Luther’s version of the New Testament and of the Psalms. Both volumes were printed by Friedrich Peypus, and both were illustrated by woodcuts. The fonts of type were the same as those used in Anthoni’s Bible of 1483. The imperial edict and the ecclesiastical censure do not appear to have been effective in preventing the sale through South Germany, in the usual channels, of these Nuremberg editions. I have not been able to find record of any correspondence between Johannes Koberger and Luther in regard to these editions. In 1525, Luther made overtures to Melchior Koberger concerning publishing arrangements for the Lutheran books in South Germany, and suggested using his book-shop in Wittenberg as a depot for the Koberger publications. The negotiations came to nothing however. The activity of the House appears by that time to have been exhausted.[77]
Anthoni Koberger had born to him no less than twenty-five children, and it appeared, therefore, as if there should have been no difficulty in perpetuating the family name or in carrying on the work which had made the name famous. The publishing concern was continued, however, only until 1540, first by his nephew Johannes, and later by his sons Anthoni and Melchior. With the death of the founder, however, the energy and the initiative of the House appear to have departed, and, during the succeeding twenty-seven years, but fifty-three works were added to the list of its publications. These additions included a number of impressions of the Biblia Latina, editions of S. Augustine, S. Ambrose, and Fulgentius, and the Geography of Ptolemy, edited by Pirckheimer. The last work bearing the Koberger imprint was the Bohemian Bible, issued by Melchior in 1540. This was printed for him by Melchtaler, and, according to Hase, was not so much a business undertaking as a contribution made by Melchior to the cause of the Bohemian Brothers, a sect in the teachings of which he had interested himself.
The fact that the first place in their undertakings was given by the Kobergers to editions of the Bible is the more exceptional, as, in the theological instruction of the time, the Scriptures certainly occupied no such place, and, for the thirty years following 1493, the Kobergers were the representative theological publishers of Germany. As their catalogue shows, however, they added to their long series of Bibles the chief works, first, of the Fathers of the Church, and, later, of the great scholastic writers. The editions of S. Ambrose, S. Augustine, S. Jerome, and S. Chrysostom, have already been referred to. Of these works there were, however, other, if less desirable, editions already in print. Among the authors first presented in printed form through the enterprise of the Nuremberg publishers were Petrus Lombardius (d. 1164), Hugo of St. Victor (d. 1141), Alexander of Hales (d. 1245), Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), Bonaventura (d. 1274), and Duns Scotus (d. 1308).
The authoritative works on Canonical Law were issued from the Koberger Press, together with the series of Papal Decretals of Gregory IX., Boniface VIII., and Clement V. A much smaller measure of attention was given by him to classic writers, but his list included an edition of Selections from the Teachings of Plato, prepared by Alkinous, and the Introduction to Aristotle of Porphyry. A work which has retained a longer vitality than any of the writings of the above formidable series of scholars is the collection of monkish tales, probably compiled in the thirteenth century, and known as the Gesta Romanorum, the first printed edition of which was issued by Koberger in 1494. In the year 1518 (that is, five years after the death of Anthoni), there was published from the Koberger Press the Germania of Franciscus Irenicus, which included a special chapter on Nuremberg, contributed by Conrad Celtes. Hase speaks of this as the first noteworthy attempt to present German national history from a popular and patriotic standpoint.
The catalogues of nearly all of the publishers whose work was done within the half century succeeding Gutenberg were devoted to what would to-day be described as “heavy” literature. The most noteworthy exception to this statement is the list of publications issued by Caxton in London, between 1476 and 1492, a list which included hardly any “solid” books. The long lists of folios of scholastic writings give to the student of to-day the impression that these first publishers felt a very serious responsibility indeed in connection with the use of this “God-given art” of printing, and would have considered the use of the printing-press for frivolous literature as a kind of breach of trust. This description would, however, apply with exceptional force to the undertakings of the first Koberger, whose name appears to have been associated with no work more trifling than the famous Gesta Romanorum, which, while indeed to be described as fiction, was fiction of a very pious character and purpose. The catalogue of Koberger constituted, in fact, a very good representation of the foundations of scholarly Catholicism. The Catholic teachers, who rested their contention for the supremacy of the Roman Church upon history and tradition as interpreted for fifteen centuries by the scholars of the Church, depended for the material of their teachings upon such folios as those produced by Koberger. Weighty as were these folios, and assured as appeared to be the foundations upon which the great structure of ecclesiasticism had been raised, their instruction was undermined, and their authority, for a large portion at least of the community, was overthrown a little later by the influence of the widely circulated pamphlets and sheets, the Flugschriften, which brought to the people the teachings of the Reformers.
For the years between 1517 and 1532, the contest for the control of German thought and of German faith was fought out very largely by means of the productions of the printing-press, and with these productions the fight was between the folios and the pamphlets, the former standing for the traditional faith of the Church Universal, and the latter for the doctrines of the Reformers. In North Germany the victory rested with the pamphlets. Anthoni Koberger’s death occurred before the beginning of this new epoch of thought and of this new phase of publishing. His work had been completed during the age of orthodox scholarship, the authority of which, previous to 1513, had hardly been seriously questioned.
Jacob Wimpfeling, a Humanist, who was also an orthodox Catholic, writing in 1501, says (in a phrase which is curiously akin to the expressions from the Berlin or Leipzig of to-day): “We Germans practically control the intellectual world. We use our power and our influence for the service of God, for the care of souls, and for the development of the people.... It is for this work that we owe the largest acknowledgment for the service of a man like Koberger, who employs his publishing facilities only for the production of that which is best.”
At about the same date Amerbach writes to Koberger: “You have never printed anything that is worldly or frivolous; your books are all of righteous and godly literature. For the support of the true faith and for the development of godly scholarship, you have brought before the world the books which are the most trustworthy and authoritative, the books which have stood the test of time.”[78]
It was to Koberger’s business advantage that the fiercer strife of the Reformation was delayed until his own career was at an end. As already indicated, the religious controversies and the strife which they engendered interfered seriously with the demand for existing literature. The lists of the German publishers of the first decade of the sixteenth century, were devoted almost exclusively to editions of the Fathers and to works of doctrine or of devotion prepared for Catholic readers, together with editions of certain selected classics. The Lutheran movement lessened to a very great extent the demand for these three classes of books. With such burning issues before them as were presented by the leaders on either side of the great controversy, the people no longer had leisure for pagan writers or for old-time theological writings. While large numbers were absorbed in the tracts coming from Wittenberg, the others whose sympathies and belief remained with the Church of Rome were more interested in the pamphlets of writers like Eck or Cochläus, than in the Confessions of S. Augustine or the treatises of S. Jerome. The publishers heretofore devoted to theology, who were unwilling to place their imprints upon the works of the Lutherans, and who were also out of sympathy with the bitter and often by no means scholarly pamphlets of their opponents, found their business seriously undermined by the great contest which was dividing Germany. While the Reformation did very much to increase the demand for printed material and to further the business of a number of publishers and booksellers throughout Germany, it had a disastrous effect upon the business of the Kobergers, and was an important factor in bringing that business to a close.
A further important cause of the weakening of the foundations of the concern was the impairment of the capital, caused by the withdrawal from year to year of the amounts due to the long series of heirs, but few of whom were prepared to retain any interest in the book business. Several of the sons and grandsons returned to the old occupation of the Kobergers, and became workers in gold and silver.
Anthoni Koberger had, in common with the other printers of Germany, followed Gutenberg in adopting for his type the style that we describe as Gothic, but for which the German writers of the time use the term fractur. In 1492, however, he used for his edition of Virgil a type based upon a Venetian model, similar to that in use at this time by the father-in-law of Aldus. It is probable that the most distinctive contribution which had been made by Gutenberg to the work of book-printing was the discovery of a method of making type by casting. The art of cutting or engraving letters and other symbols was, of course, no new thing. The technical training of Fust, himself a goldsmith and stamp-cutter, was doubtless of material service in connection with the development of the manufacture of type, as well as in the production of designs for initials and tail-pieces. Nuremberg had long been a centre for skilled artificers in metals, gold, silver, and copper, and their services were largely made use of by Koberger and other of the earlier printers.
One result of utilising the letters of known scribes as models for the fonts of type was to secure for each font a very distinctive individuality of its own. Luther was, for instance, able to claim that through the special character of his Wittenberg type, modelled on the script of his own scribes, the authorised editions of his books could be identified, and could be guaranteed as correct and complete.[79] The fonts in Koberger’s printing-office did not include any Greek text, and in the edition of Boëthius, issued by him in 1576, which was in other respects a beautiful piece of typography, the lines of quotations from the Greek were left blank, to be filled in by hand. Very few of the German printers of the time possessed any Greek fonts. While Latin was their working language, the newly revised or newly discovered Greek had for them still an unfamiliar aspect. Thomas Anshelm, writing from Hagenau in 1518, says of one of Koberger’s younger authors: “His style is bad; he is bringing in too much Greek.” Hans Grüninger, of Strasburg, who took charge for Koberger of the printing of the great Geography of Ptolemy, found no little difficulty with the Greek terms. He writes to the editor, Pirckheimer: “The Greek is very troublesome, and is costing me altogether too much.” Pirckheimer on his part complains: “Koberger promised me that there should be a full supply of Greek type, and I find out only now, in reading the proofs, that your type has neither accents nor points.” In the printing of Greek, the publishers of Venice and of Paris were at this time considerably in advance of their German contemporaries.
The leading German publishers of Koberger’s generation were fortunate in having at hand a number of scholars who were ready to render service in the selection and editing of manuscripts, in the collating of texts, and in the supervision of the work of the typesetters. In the beginning of the sixteenth century, a man who was competent to fill the office described in the publishing records as “press-corrector,” required to possess a varied and comprehensive scholarship. A mastery of Latin was an acquirement so usual as not in itself to constitute any claim to scholarly attainment. With this knowledge, it was, however, essential, at a time when so large a proportion of the works printed belonged to the class of theology, for the corrector to be versed in Hebrew and in Greek. As the typesetters were collected from different parts of Europe, it was also convenient, if not necessary, for the man who supervised their work to possess a working knowledge, at least, of German, French, Italian, and Dutch. The selection and collation of manuscripts, with the purpose of securing a fairly correct “copy” for the printed text, called for a certain measure of skill in palæography, and also necessitated such familiarity with the classic writers or Church Fathers as would enable the more evident blunders of the scribes to be corrected by the general sense of the context. It was not unusual, as the records of various of the earlier publishing offices show, to utilise as the basis of the printed text half a dozen, or occasionally as many as a dozen manuscripts, in which case the preparation of the final “copy” for the typesetters rested with the correctors. Among the scholarly associates who did work of this kind for the Press of Koberger, were his friend Amerbach, of Basel; Professor Frissner, of Leipzig; Pirckheimer, of Nuremberg; Von Wyle, Wimpfeling, and Beckenhaub. The last named was an ecclesiastic from Mayence.
Among the responsibilities that came upon the correctors was that of visiting the libraries or monasteries where famous manuscripts were preserved, and of arranging, when practicable, for the hire or the loan of such manuscripts. When, as was frequently the case, the custodians were unwilling to permit their parchments to go out of their hands, the transcripts for the use of the typesetters had to be prepared (often with considerable difficulty) in the place where the manuscript was stored—sometimes even on the old armarium (or library chest) to which the parchment was chained. Some of these transcripts were made by the correctors themselves. From time to time, when it did not seem practicable to arrange for the copying, we find the publishers offering for the original manuscripts prices which, under modern calculations, seem to be exorbitant, and which must have constituted a very serious addition indeed to the risk of these earlier publishing undertakings.
Pirckheimer writes to Hans Koberger, in 1520, concerning a manuscript of Fulgentius: “They told me in the first place that it absolutely could not be bought, but finally, after increasing our offer step by step to a sum that I am almost afraid to report to you, I managed to bring the volume away with me.” In September, 1485, Busch writes from Italy to Amerbach, who is acting on behalf of Koberger: “I am sending to you with this what I believe to be a magnificent copy of the Institutes (of Cassian), the text of which has been carefully collated. This parchment must be preserved with exceptional care, as, if a single spot should come upon it, we should be liable for heavy damages. It must be returned to me not later than S. Martin’s Day, and the transcribing must be done in your own house, from which the parchment must not be taken.”
Busch appears to have continued to perform this class of service for Koberger, for we find him, ten years later (in May, 1495), writing again as follows: “I have succeeded in getting hold of a beautiful copy of Hugo. I am not allowed to remove the manuscript, but am having transcripts prepared from it. I have three good writers employed in the work, who are able to turn out each six quaternes a week.” The Hugo here referred to was the text of the Postillas or commentaries written in the thirteenth century by Cardinal Hugo, which formed the basis of the great Hugo edition of the Scriptures, the publication of which was begun by Koberger in 1497, and was completed in 1504. The set comprises seven volumes folio. The manuscripts upon which the text was based and which were doubtless those referred to by Busch, formed the great treasure of the library of the Cistercian Monastery at Heilsbronn. This particular parchment, or series of parchments, had been written by, or had been written under the direction of, Abbot Conrad, between the years 1303 and 1329. The editors who coöperated with Koberger in the production of the Hugo Bible were, in addition to Amerbach, Conrad Leontorius, the Humanist Jacob Wimpfeling, and Heynlin von Stein. For the editing of S. Augustine Koberger secured the help of Augustin Dodo, and his edition of S. Jerome was supervised by the great scholar Reuchlin.
The association of Koberger with Albert Dürer has already been referred to. Some time before Koberger’s book-presses began their work in Nuremberg, Dürer had been using hand-presses for the impressions of his woodcuts and of his designs engraved on copper. Hase is of opinion that Dürer gave direct coöperation in Koberger’s press-room, and that the excellence and evenness of print of the Koberger editions may be very largely credited to Dürer’s artistic supervision.[80]
At least one work remains which bears the imprint of Dürer as printer. A volume containing the Book of Revelation bears on its title-page, Gedrücket zu Nürnberg durch Albrecht Dürer, Maler, nach Christi Geburt MCCCC. und danach im XCVIII. jahr. There is, however, no record of the establishment of any book-printing-office under Dürer’s ownership, and it seems probable that the volume in question was printed on a Koberger press under Dürer’s supervision.
A few years later, we shall find the artist and engraver Cranach associating himself in a similar manner with the work of Luther’s printers in Wittenberg. The connection between the work of designers who were also engravers and who usually did the printing of their own impressions, and that of the book-printers in whose volumes many of the same designs were included, is a very obvious one.
After the time of the close of the business of the Kobergers, a considerable change took place in the character of the publications issued in Germany. A continually increasing proportion of these were printed in German, while the costly folios, quartos, and octavos were to a very great extent replaced by low-priced duodecimos, cheap pamphlets and tracts (Flugschriften). The burning issues brought to the front by the Reformers were of interest not only to scholars, but to the mass of the people, and to supply information on these issues called for reading-matter printed in the vernacular, and in the cheapest possible form. There would not, at first thought, seem to be any reason why this new demand for cheap books on the part of the masses should lessen the sale to the educated classes of literature in more costly and permanent form. This was, however, certainly the effect during the quarter of a century in which the earlier issues of the Reformation were fought over. The Reformers had their hands full with the controversy. They were making Church history, and had little time for the study of the history of the Church in past centuries. The writings of the Fathers of the Church, who were the spiritual ancestors of the Protestants no less than of the Catholics, were for the time put to one side, although some years later they again found place in the libraries and in the university work of the Protestants. For the study of the philosophy of the schoolmen and for a proper appreciation of the literature of classic times, the period of the Reformation was likewise unfavourable. Philosophy and poetry demand periods of leisure and cannot be pursued to advantage during periods of civil and religious strife.
The bearing of these influences upon the publishing conditions of Germany in the sixteenth century is obvious. There was, after 1517, an enormous increase in the circulation of printed matter and a very great development in the habit of reading on the part of the people at large, and the intellectual activities engendered by the popular interest in the religious and ecclesiastical controversies had in the end a very important part in furthering the growth of the literary and the publishing activities of Germany. During the earlier years of the contest, however, the first result was an actual diminution in the demand in Germany for the class of books to the production of which publishers of the higher grade had devoted themselves. Some of the firms, who could not easily adapt themselves to the new conditions, or who did not find themselves in sympathy with the new influences, decided, like the Kobergers, to retire altogether. New men took the lead in the publishing business of Germany. The first period in the age of printing, the period in which its service had been rendered almost exclusively to scholars, came to a close. German replaced Latin, and the Press became the servant of the people at large.
In the general course of Koberger’s publishing undertakings, the question of compensation for authors, or at least for original work of authors, could have arisen but very seldom, and in this respect his experience was identical with that of publishers generally in his generation. Their publications consisted chiefly, and with some firms exclusively, of works of an earlier time, the authors of which had long been dead; in the limited instances in which they used their presses for the books of living writers, the main purpose of these writers was to bring their productions before the public, and they considered themselves under obligations to the publishers who were willing to incur the risk and expense of the undertaking. The books written by the few authors of Koberger’s generation were for the most part works of doctrine or having a dogmatic purpose of some kind. The object of their production was not the possibility of gain, but the influencing of public opinion, the furthering of a cause, the overthrow of abuses, or the defence of institutions that had been assailed. For such aims the chief thing, almost the only thing, to be considered was the securing of as wide a circulation as possible. Apart from this consideration, these writers might easily have considered it presumptuous to expect compensation for the publication of their productions, when the publishers had available for their use all the literary heritage of antiquity, together with the long series of writings of the Church Fathers. It was also, of course, the case that under the publishing and bookselling conditions of the time, when it was by no means easy to bring effectively before a reading public the works of authors whose names were famous in literature or in the records of the Church, the difficulty must have been enormously greater in the case of books, however distinctive in themselves, by writers who were not known to the public. There was, in fact, no adequate machinery for bringing new books to the attention of possible readers. Many years were still to elapse before anything in the shape of a periodical came into existence, and in the impossibility of reviews or of advertisements, there was no way of giving or of distributing information about new books except by word of mouth or by personal correspondence.
It is to be borne in mind that I am speaking of the years immediately preceding the Reformation. The enormous public interest aroused by the writings of Luther and his associates brought about an immediate change in publishing methods and possibilities, a change which will be described in a later chapter. The books of Erasmus, which in large part preceded the Lutheran writings, must be considered as having constituted a noteworthy exception to the literary conditions of his time. Their record also will be given farther on. It remained the case, however, that with a few inconsiderable exceptions, the only moneys paid to authors by the first Koberger were for editorial service. Hase mentions that in the production of the great Chronicle of Schedel, funds had to be provided only for the illustrations and for the printing, the compiler, Hartmann Schedel, and his associate, George Alt, being willing to accept their compensation in the form of sets of the work.
The scholars of the Humanistic school had made it their chief interest to further the production and the understanding of the works of the classic writers, and when the influence of the Reformation brought about a reaction against the influence of the literature of Greece and Rome, these Humanist scholars found their special occupation gone. Many of them sought occupation on the staffs of the publishers and earned a livelihood in editorial service of a different character, or sometimes in purely hack work in collating and proof-reading. When the Basel edition of S. Jerome was in preparation, Amerbach applied to Reuchlin for aid in connection with the printing of the Hebrew portions, and wrote, “We shall be very ready to pay for your help whatever you may ask.” Reuchlin had shortly before completed the publication of his Rudimenta. The work had been undertaken at the author’s cost, and as the sales were but small, he found himself in trouble with his printer, Anshelm. He wrote to his good friend Amerbach, “I shall be well pleased to do the editorial work required for the Jerome without compensation if you will relieve me from the claims of this troublesome Anshelm.”[81] It is evident that Reuchlin, while imagining that he was publishing his Rudimenta at his own risk, had in fact left the payment of the printer’s bill to be contingent upon the sales of the book, having no other resources available, and the printer had, therefore, been made involuntarily a sharer of the risk, while if the work had succeeded, he would have been entitled to no share in the profits. Anshelm’s account must, however, have been settled by Amerbach, in consideration of the work done by Reuchlin on the Jerome, as we find him, later, again in friendly relations with the Hebrew scholar.
Shortly after the death of Anthoni Koberger, we begin to find more frequent references in the correspondence of the publishers of Germany to compensation for original literary work. Boniface Amerbach had recommended to Froben the Lucubrations of Zasius, and writes in 1518 concerning the author: “Zasius thinks that he ought to be paid for this work, and speaks of thirty florins as a proper price. I should, however, not assent to any such demand. He is anxious to get his book into print, and had said before that he should expect to be paid well if it succeeded, and should be quite ready to accept little or nothing if it failed to sell, a result which, however, he could not believe possible.”[82] In 1524, Hans Koberger arranged with Zasius, through Dr. Roth, for the publication of the Intellectus Juris. He first offered as honorarium fifty or sixty copies of the book. To this suggestion Zasius replied: “I must have my honorarium in hard cash.... I have had an enormous amount of labour and pains in getting this material into shape, and I ought to receive not less than fifty guldens.” This was an early instance of the very natural, though not very reasonable, expectation or requirement on the part of the author that his compensation ought to be based upon the extent of the labour given to the book, instead of upon the return that the public was willing to make for the book itself.
Koberger did not come to terms for the Intellectus Juris, and it was finally published by Cratander, who paid for it twenty florins. Zasius does not appear, however, to have got along very well with Cratander, for we find him a little later breaking away from him with the word, “The devil take the printers [zum Teufel mit deinen Drückern], who never have treated me decently.”[83] Zasius appears to have had his full share of the genus irritabile. Some expressions in his correspondence recall the references made by Martial to his four publishers.
He was a near friend of Zwingli, and a number of the letters preserved in the Epistolæ were addressed to Zwingli. Zasius was in sympathy with the earlier efforts of the Reformers against the abuses that had crept into the Church, but he held with Erasmus that the duty of Christians was to reform and not to destroy or to divide the Church.
The authors were doubtless in a position in many cases to dispose of their free copies for money. It is evident, however, from the literary correspondence of the time, that the practice was very general on the part of authors of sending complimentary copies to each other, a practice which, as developed, came to absorb a substantial portion of the edition. Authors were able to build up their libraries with books received in exchange, but collections of books, however essential or desirable, did not help directly towards income. This distribution of complimentary copies became naturally a still more considerable item when there was question, not simply of an exchange of scholarly compliments, but of the widest possible distribution of a teaching or a doctrine. Thus Luther is described as giving away whole editions of certain of his monographs, which he could do the more easily as the editions printed in Wittenberg were, for the most part, the property of the author.[84]
The practice of securing money presents in consideration of dedications or of eulogies printed in prefatory epistles, seems to have played an important part in the calculations of certain classes of authors during the first half of the sixteenth century. Cuspinian writes to Pirckheimer, in 1501, asking counsel concerning the advisability of dedicating the first volume of a work he had in press with Koberger to the chief magistrate of Nuremberg. Pirckheimer tells his friend that some more advantageous patron could doubtless be found. “You must remember,” he writes, “that we are here a very commercial people ... and some among our magistrates hardly understand what literature is.”[85] Five years earlier, however, Martin Behaim (or Behem) had received from the Nuremberg magistrate of that day a gift of twenty-four florins for some honourable mention of the magistrate’s name on his big map of the world.[86] A year or two earlier, namely in 1488, the magistrates in Nuremberg had given to Siegmund Mensterlin thirty-seven florins for his Chronicle of the city. This may, however, be considered in the light of a direct payment for a service to the city, rather than as an honorarium for a compliment. In 1502, Conrad Celtes received in like manner from the treasury in Nuremberg the sum of twenty florins, “for his labour in the description of our city and for the record of its origin.”
The general question whether it befitted the dignity of authors (considered possibly not so much in the light of literary producers as of gentlemen who had happened to interest themselves in literature) to receive compensation for their work, was a matter of debate during a large part of the sixteenth century. It was inevitable, while all the conditions of literary production and distribution were still to be shaped, and while the difficulties of estimating with any degree of accuracy the possibilities of securing commercial returns for literary productions were still so great, that many questions concerning the division of ownership and returns, when any returns accrued, must arise and must for some time remain unsettled. The whole matter of compensation for literary service remained, therefore, during the period between the beginning of printing and the establishment of some system of control of the books printed, in a hap-hazard and anomalous condition. We find authors of one group, whose interest is limited exclusively to the circulation of sound doctrine, wondering that any writers of doctrinal works could permit themselves to receive pay for bringing the truth to mankind. We find other equally unselfish but more far-seeing authors like Luther and Melanchthon, accepting pay for books sold, if only for the purpose of instituting a larger production and a wider distribution of similar books. We find writers devoting their pens to the defence of the Roman Church unwilling to accept any returns from their booksellers, but quite ready to receive compensation for their labours in the form of presents of money from pope, cardinals, or bishops. Other authors, such as Cuspinian, whose letter has been quoted, who considered it beneath their dignity to make an agreement with their publishers for a royalty or an honorarium, were quite willing to utilise their pens in the composition of high-flown complimentary epistles or of fulsome dedications, which were, as they hoped, to result in bringing to the writers substantial presents from the patrons thus flattered. In the bitter controversy which Ulrich von Hutten, in the last year of his life, carried on with Erasmus, and in the course of which the knight took pains to bring together a long series of invectives, he found no ground for criticism in the relations borne by Erasmus to various patrons for whose gifts he had been a supplicant, but thought he could say nothing more invidious of his scholarly opponent than that he had received moneys from the publisher Froben, moneys which had been earned by the sale of the works of Erasmus.
The point of view and the standard of action were, however, in the course of a few years to be materially changed. The organisation of the German book-trade, carrying with it a substantial though by no means complete measure of protection for the productions of each of the publishers taking part in the organisation, had as its immediate result a great development in literary production, in the circulation of books, and in the extent of the returns secured. A later and hardly less important result was the securing for original literature of an assured business foundation. Literary producers, thus placed in a position to secure a compensation for their labours proportioned to the extent of the value placed by the community upon their production, were freed from the necessity of earlier years, of seeking gifts and of depending upon patrons.