§ 92. THE PRINTING-PRESS AND THE REFORMATION. 561
dred and twenty-seven; in the six years after the Reformation, it rose to three thousand one hundred and thirteen."
These works are distributed over fifty different cities of Germany. Of all the works printed between 1518 and 1523 no less than six hundred appeared in Wittenberg; the others mostly in Niirnberg, Leipzig, Cologne, Strassburg, Hagenau, Augsburg, Basel, Halberstadt, and Magdeburg. Luther created the book-trade in Northern Germany, and made the little town of Wittenberg one of the principal bookmarts, and a successful rival of neighboring Leipzig as long as this remained Catholic. In the year 1523 more than fourfifths of all the books published were on the side of the Reformation, while only about twenty books were decidedly Roman Catholic. Erasmus, hitherto the undisputed monarch in the realm of letters, complained that the people would read and buy no other books than Luther’s. He prevailed upon Froben not to publish any more of them. “ Here in Basel,” he wrote to King Henry VIII., “ nobody dares to print a word against Luther, but you may write as much as you please against the pope.” Romish authors, as we learn from Cochlaius and Wizel, could scarcely find a publisher, except at their own expense; and the Leipzig publishers complained that their books were unsalable.
The strongest impulse was given to the book trade by Luther’s German New Testament. Of the first edition, Sept. 22, 1522, five thousand copies were printed and sold before December of the same year, at the high price of one guilder and a half per copy (about twenty-five marks of the present value). Hans Luft printed a hundred thousand
1 For these figures and several facts in this paragraph I am indebted to the instructive work of Friedrich Kapp, Geschichte des deutschen Buchhandels (published by the ‘* Bérsenverein der deutschen Buchhandler,”’ Leipzig, 1886), vol. I. 407 sq. The statistics of Ranke (II. 56) are taken from Panzer’s Annalen der dlteren deutschen Literatur (1788 and 1802) and are superseded by the more recent and fuller investigations of Weller, Kuczynski, and Kapp.
562 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 TO 1530,
copies on his press in Wittenberg. Adam Petri in Basel published seven editions between 1522 and 1525; Thomas Wolf of the same city, five editions between 1523 and 1525. Duke George commanded that all copies should be delivered up at cost, but few were returned. The precious little volume, which contains the wisdom of the whole world, made its way with lightning speed into the palaces of princes, the castles of knights, the convents of monks, the studies of priests, the houses of citizens, the huts of peasants. Mechanics, peasants, and women carried the New Testament in their pockets, and dared to dispute with priests and dcectors of theology about the gospel.!
As there was no copyright at that time, the works of the Reformers were multiplied by reprints in Nurnberg, Augsburg, Strassburg, Basel. Republication was considered a legitimate and honorable business. Luther complained, not of the business itself, but of the reckless and scandalous character of many reprints of his books, which were so full of blunders that he could hardly recognize them.2 Sometimes the printers stole his manuscript, and published it elsewhere. He was not hindered by any censorship, except that he received occasionally a gentle warning from the Elector when he did not spare the-princes. He took no honorarium for his books, and was satisfied with a number of free copies for friends. Authors were usually supported by a professorship, and considered it beneath their dignity, or as ungentlemanlike, to receive a royalty, but were indirectly rewarded by free copies or other presents of the publishers or rich patrons, in return for dedications, which were originally, as they are now, nothing more than public testimonies of regard or gratitude, though often used, especially during the seven-
1 This was the complaint of Cochleus, see p. 350. Luther called him Kochloffel and Rotzléffel (cochlear=spoon).
2 He called such printers thieves and highway robbers, and their work “ Bubenstiick, den gemeinen Mann zu betriigen”’ (September, 1525).