MDT Ep. 100: Concerning the Litigious Origins of Printing

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For our 100th episode, we look at one of the technologies that marks an endpoint for the middle ages, the printing press, and consider how Johann Gutenberg may be a prototype for today’s paranoid tech tycoons and the lawsuits that so often dog them.

Today’s Texts

• Van der Linde’s, A. The Haarlem Legend of the Invention of Printing. Translated by J.H. Hessels, Blades, East, & Blades, 1871. Google Books.
• Schröder, Edward. Das Mainzer Fragment vom Weltgericht. Gutenberg-Gesellschaft, 1908. Archive.org.
• Trithemius, Johannes. “From In Praise of Scribes.” In Writing Material: Readings from Plato to the Digital Age. Edited by Evelyn B. Tribble and Anne Trubek, Longman, 2003, pp. 469-475.

References

• Green, Jonathan. “The Sibyl’s Book.” Printing and Prophecy, edited by 
• “Gutenberg in Strasbourg.” The International Gutenberg Society, https://www.gutenberg-gesellschaft.de/en/johannes-gutenberg/gutenberg-in-strasbourg/
• “Helmasperger’s Notarial Instrument.” Gutenberg Digital,www.gutenbergdigital.de/gudi/eframes/texte/frameset/indexnot.htm
• Lienhard, John H. “Johann Gutenberg.” Engines of Our Ingenuity, no. 753, University of Houston, 1993, www.uh.edu/engines/epi753.htm
• Needham, Paul. “Early Print and Paleography.” The Oxford Handbook of Latin Palaeography, edited by Frank Coulson and Robert Babcock, Oxford UP, 2020.
• White, Eric Marshall. “Printed for Performance: Ceremonial and Interactive Aspects of Books from Europe’s First Presses.” RBM: A Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage, 2014, pp. 15-30, rbm.acrl.org/index.php/rbm/article/download/412/412

Music Credit: Edvard Grieg, Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16, II. Adagio, performed by Skidmore College Orchestra and made available under the CC-PD license on MusOpen.org.

Image: Leaf from a Gutenberg Donatus (British Library) and an image of the Sibyllenbuuch Fragment (via Wikimedia Commons).