Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/28

16 HISTORY OF THE GERMAN PEOPLE of Bamberg ; in 1475, one in Blauberan ; in 1478, one by the Premonstratentian monks ; in 1479, still others by the Augustinian hermits of Nuremberg and the Benedictines of St. Peter in Erfurt. 1 The Carthusians and the Minorites were the most active assistants of John Amerbach in Basle. The great German scholastic, Johannes Heynlin of Stein, in the bishopric of Spire, brought the first printers, called the ' Allimanic brothers,' to Paris, and gave them every assistance in their work. 2 A professor of theology, Andreas Prisner, was the first printer in Leipsic ; and it was owing to Paul Scriptoris, lecturer in the Franciscan convent at Tubingen, that in the year 1478 Johann Otmar esta- blished the first press in that city. In Italy the German printers, Conrad Scheynhein and Arnold Pannartz, found their first home in the Benedictine convent of Subiaco ; 1 See the accurate work by Falk, Drnckkunst, pp. 3-9, on the printing in the convents of Germany. See also Van der Linde, pp. 95-97. The literary activity of the monks was awakened to new life towards the middle of the fifteenth century — that is, at the time of the invention of typography, and coincidently with the efforts for reform that were con- nected with the Council of Basle. No wonder, then, that the monks quickly availed themselves of the new means for multiplying books, and, under the guidance of wise abbots, erected presses within their monas- teries. The friendly relations which existed between the clergy and the printers made this the easier. Thus also, as Schafarik has pointed out, we owe all the old Slavonic, especially the Cyrillic, printed works to Serbian, or Bulgarian monks and priests. At Cettinje, in Montenegro, there was a monastic printing-press in 1493. Works have been preserved from the con- vent of St. Bridget in Wadstena, Sweden, bearing the date of 1491. At the convent of the Dominican sisters in Florence more than eighty-six works were published between 1476 and 1484. " Vischer, p. 161. Johannes Heynlin attested the date of his birth. See Jul. Phillipe, Orifjine de V Imprimerie a Paris d'apres des Documents inrdits (Paris, 1885), p. 14. Concerning Ulrich Gering, the first German printer in Paris, see Aebi, Die Buchdruckcrcl in Beromiinster, pp. 32-36.