COLLABORATE: Look at this engraving of an early print shop where the Gutenberg press is in use. Can you identify the following aspects of the printing process in the picture?
• Metal letters being placed on a frame • Ink being spread onto a page • Sheets drying
The effects of the printing press
Gutenberg’s invention spread quickly. Printing presses were operating in every major European city by 1500. This growth in printing had very important consequences for European history:
• Printed books were much cheaper than handwritten manuscripts, allowing more people to buy them.
• More people learned to read and write. • People read more and were introduced to new ideas. • Fiction became more popular as people began to read for entertainment.
• The control that the Catholic Church had over learning and ideas declined. It was now possible for people to challenge the Church and spread their ideas to a wide audience very quickly. This would be key to the Reformation (as we will see in chapter 10).
CHECKPOINT!
1. Before the printing press, how were books produced in Europe? 2. Describe how printers used Gutenberg’s printing press.
• The use of Latin declined as writers wrote in the vernacular (language as spoken by people in their native country).
3. Name and explain two effects of the invention of the printing press.
4. What is the vernacular? .
I understand why the invention of the printing press was such an influential event.
TIME TO GO BACK I CAN MOVE FORWARD
COLLABORATE: Can you think of any inventions from the last 100 years that had a huge effect on society, like the printing press did in the Renaissance?
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• The letter frame being pressed onto a page • The pages being bound together into a book
