1 - From Manuscript to Print: Continuity and Change

Summary

The introduction to Europe of ‘the crafte of printyng’ was noted with approbation in a short passage included in William Caxton's 1480 printed edition of the cronicles of england (STC 9991): ‘Also a=//boute this tyme the crafte of enprintinge was first founde in Ma=//gunce in Almayne / Whiche craft is multiplied thurgh the Worlde // in many places / and bookes bene had grete chepe and in grete nom//bre by cause of the same craft’ (sig. y1v). Caxton composed the passage himself, adapting it from a widely circulating compilation of European history called the Fasciculus Temporum, which was probably available to him in a Continental printed edition. The passage was to have a long life, reappearing in variant forms in other chronicles well into the sixteenth century. As rendered in John Rastell's The pastyme of people (STC 20724, 1530?) it was further elaborated: ‘Also in this same tyme the crafte of Printynge of bokes began in the city of Almayne / na=//med Magonce whiche is nowe meruaylously increasyd / whiche hathe ben cause of great ler=//nynge and knowelege / and hathe ben the cause of many thynges and great chaunges / & is lyke // to be the cause of many straunge thynges here after to come’ (sig. [E]6v).

Both Caxton and Rastell noted the positive effects of printing. It made books available more cheaply and in greater numbers; it enabled more efficient dissemination of knowledge, and thus had a dynamic role in processes of intellectual and cultural change.