The Day the Universe Changed - James Burke [53]
The principal effect of printing, however, was on the contents of the texts themselves. The press reduced the likelihood of textual corruption. Once the manuscript had been made error-free, accurate reproduction was automatic. Texts could not easily undergo alteration. The concept of authorship also emerged. For the first time a writer could be sure of reaching a wide readership which would hold him personally responsible for what he had written. Printing made possible new forms of cross-cultural exchange without the need for physical communication. New ways were developed to present, arrange and illustrate books. It became feasible to collect books systematically, by author or subject. But the most immediately evident effect of printing lay simply in the production of many more copies of existing manuscript texts.
A prime example of the proliferation of an already established text was the use of the press by the Church to reproduce thousands of printed indulgences. These were documents given to the faithful in return for prayer, penitence, pilgrimage or, most important of all, money. The early sixteenth-century Popes, especially Julius II, had grandiose plans for the embellishment of Rome after the fall of the rival city of Constantinople in the previous century. Rome would become the centre of the world and indulgences would help to pay for the work of expensive artists such as Michelangelo.
The papal indugence form, with the blanks (third row from top and bottom) where the buyer filled in the amount of his contribution and his name.
The widespread cynicism which greeted this ecclesiastical involvement with the world of technology was undoubtedly a contributing factor to the rebellion of the Augustinian friar of Wittenberg, Martin Luther, which sparked off the Reformation. In 1517, Maximilian I’s silver jubilee year, indulgences were being hawked in great numbers near Wittenberg by one of the papal commissioners for sales, a certain Tetzel. His techniques were flamboyant, and the credulous flocked to hear him and to buy his wares. The demand for indulgences was so great that a thriving black market was generated.
Luther reacted to events by producing ninety-five criticisms of the Church, which he nailed to a notice board in his church in Wittenberg. He also sent a copy to his Bishop and one to friends. Luther’s expectations of a quiet, scholarly discussion of his grievances among his friends were rudely shattered when copies were printed and distributed. Within a fortnight the ‘theses’ were being read throughout Germany. Within a month they were all over Europe. Luther found himself at the head of a rebellious army he had never thought to command. The only way to make the rebellion effective was to use the same weapon that had started it: the press.
Three years later 300,000 copies of Luther’s works were on the market. The broadsheet carried his words to every village. The use of cartoons brought the arguments to illiterates and his choice of the vernacular strongly appealed to the nascent nationalist temper of the Protestant German princes. ‘Print,’ Luther said, ‘is the best of God’s inventions.’ The first propaganda war had been won.
The Lutheran use of print as a propaganda weapon. Scurrilous anti-Pope cartoons like this made their point even to the illiterate.
The new power to disseminate opinion was seized eagerly by anybody with a desire to influence others. The printers themselves had shown the way with their advertisements. Now the broadsheet radically changed the ability to communicate. Broadsheets were pinned up everywhere, stimulating the demand for education and literacy