Page:EB1911 - Volume 27.djvu/536

HISTORY]

Here we encounter another peculiarity of the above-mentioned “system,” which treats the three different types detected in these twenty-one works not as different, but as “phases” or “developments” of one and the same type, while the differences between them, and the absence or presence of certain forms of letters, are taken as guides for approximately dating the books, and for subdividing the type, hitherto known as the 36-line Bible or Gutenberg type, into three or more varieties. For instance, Schwenke (Centralbl., 1908, p. 74) explains that “the types b, c, i, s, t enable us to distinguish the earliest from the later elements in the Donatus type; the ‘Weltgericht’ shows, at least of i and s, the old forms still unmixed. But in the Paris Donatus, the new forms appear by the side of the old forms, though the latter are already to a great extent superseded. The new (Heiligenstadt) Donatus comes between these two works; it has chiefly the old b, which begins to a great extent to be absent in the Paris Donatus.”

As we cannot regard types which differ in form as “developments” of one type, we must deal with three types in column A, that is (1) the so-called Donatus type; (2) the Kalendar type; (3) the 36-line Bible type, besides the two employed for the Indulgence31. Gutenberg’s career, and the straightened circumstances in which he appears to have lived, so far as they are known to us, make it difficult to ascribe them all to him.

More than thirty documents have come to light which enable us to trace Johan Gutenberg from 1420 to 1468. Dr Carl Schorbach has published nearly all their texts, with elaborate explanations, in the ''Festschrift zum 500 jähr. Geburtstage von'' J. Gutenberg (suppl. to Centralbl. f. Biblioth., 1900, p. 163 sqq.), and they are further explained by Hessels (Gutenberg, was he the Inventor of Printing? 1886; idem, The so-called Gutenberg Documents, 1911).

As to the notarial instrument of 1455, Bockenheimer suggests that as it contains absurdities which are contradictory to all the legal usages of the time, it may be a forgery of the Faust family, perhaps of Joh. Fr. Faust von Aschaffenburg (who pretended to descend from Joh. Fust, whom he called “Faust”), who appears to have possessed, in or about 1600, an “original” of the instrument. From this “original” are derived all the texts published before 1741. In that year, however, J. D. Köhler (Ehren-Rettung Joh. Guttenberg’s, Leipzig) printed the text again from an “original” which is now in the Göttingen University Library (republished by Dziatzko, Beiträge, Berlin, 1889), and is perhaps identical with Faust von Aschaffenburg’s “original.” Though an analysis of the text brings out various incongruities as to the business relations between Fust and Gutenberg, it is difficult to look upon the Göttingen document as a forgery, and we deal with it here as genuine.

It is dated the 6th of November 1455, and records some of the proceedings in the lawsuit between (q.v.) and Gutenberg, which had taken place on that day in the convent of the Barefooted Friars at Mainz, whereby the former sought to recover from Gutenberg 2026 guilders in repayment of 1600 guilders which he had advanced to him (800 about August 1450, and another 800 about December 1452), with the interest thereon. The document first relates that, on some previous day (not stated), Fust had testified (1) that by a written agreement between them, Gutenberg was to “finish the work” (line 24) with the 800 guilders to be advanced to him at 6%; Fust being unconcerned whether it cost more or less. (2) Gutenberg had not been content with these 800 guilders, and Fust, wishing to please him, advanced him another 800 guilders at 6%. (3) He had himself borrowed this money, and as Gutenberg had never paid any interest, the principal sum and the interest thereon amounted to 2026 guilders (＝between 15,000 and 16,000 marks), which he now demanded from him.