Welsh Journals

Among the books formerly in the possession of Sir Charles Thomas-Stanford and now in the National Library of Wales there is a volume of theological tracts (Cassianus, De institutis sanctorum patrum, etc., N.L.W. MS. 1222) written at Bordeken in Westphalia in the years 1418-1421, at the end of which have been added the following memorial verses (contractions resolved) An English version claiming to be as good poetry as the original is sub-joined The city famed of Mainz, which rivers twain enrich, It will be seen that the verses refer to the catastrophe, well known to students of early printing, which overtook Mainz in the night from the 28th to the 29th of October, 1462, when the city was stormed by its archbishop, Count Adolf of Nassau, as part of the process of securing his claim to the see against a rival, the Elector Diether of Isenburg. Four hundred of the burghers-one third of the total number-were killed, the rest driven out, one hundred and fifty houses burnt and all property put to sack. Among the refugees was, in all probability, Johann Gutenberg himself, while the house zum Guten- berg was confiscated and never reverted to the family. Most of the exiles were allowed to return in the course of the following year, but the prosperity of Mainz was gone, and Fust and Schoeffer, who had completed their 48-line Bible little more than two months before the night of terror, printed no more for nearly three years (the Seneca, De iv vir- tutibus, purporting to be signed by them in 1463 has a 'faked' colophon.) The impetus given to the spread of typography over the West by the scattering of Mainz craftsmen unable to find work at home is often exaggerated. The new art had been marking time, geographically speaking, for some years before the sack and continued at first to do so after it. The efforts which produced the 36-line Bible at Bamberg in the late 1450's and the Catholicon at Mainz in 1460 were not sustained. The press of Mentelin at Strasburg, which may date back to 1458, seems to have stood idle for some time after 1461, so that it is difficult to feel sure that there was any printing done in Europe at all in the years immediately following the temporary extinction of Fust and Schoeffer, unless Pfister was then still turning out his popular illustrated books at Bamberg. Actually, it would fseem, the presses set up by Sweynheym and Pannartz at Subiaco in 1465 and by Zel at Cologne a short while after were the first new ventures of the kind anywhere for some four years. Zel certainly, and Sweynheym and Pannartz probably, learnt their craft at Mainz, and so did the first printers at Eltville and Basel, who followed in 1467 and 1468 respectively. But the real movement did not begin until the early 1470's, by which time its connection with an event of eight years' standing is no longer obvious. Victor Scholderer, THE SACK OF MAINZ IN 1462. Vrbs Maguntina. quam ditant flumina bina Turribus et meniis. corroborata nimis Octobri mense. ruit ignibus et perit ense Symonis et lude die louis festiuitate Post m bis duo c semel .1. bis sex superadde Annos Verbigene sic scribens hec memorare. Full stoutly guarded round about with tower and wall and ditch, Was in October month by fire and sword thrown down, The day of Simon and of Jude, on Thursday it was known. Take m and twice two c's, then 1 with double six, So write the years of Word-born God and in your mind them fix.