Impact of printing on religion
Welcome!
We are going to learn together about History of the Media here!
Let's enjoy!
Today, I am going to introduce relationship between the first media "printing" and religion.
Today, I am going to introduce relationship between the first media "printing" and religion.
The Reformation with printing
Johannes Gutenberg's invention of the printing press around 1448 had a significant impact on the spread of ideas in Europe and beyond. Printing technology was spread quickly throughout Europe and, at a time of great religious change, played a key role in the success of the Protestant Reformation.
Sixteenth-century pamphlets covered a wide variety of subjects, from cookery and books of trades to astrology and works of traditional theology and devotion. But in the 1520s, the vast bulk of pamphlets was religious in character and related to the growing demand of reform of the Church.
The message of the pamphlets was not conveyed by words alone. Many pamphlets and most broadsheets were enlivened by wood cut illustrations. These were sometimes no more than title-page decoration to a publisher's standard design, complete with playful putti in irrelevant (and often irreverent) poses.But sometimes, as with the broadsheets, woodcuts could be related to the text in a more appropriate way. The precise relationship between text and omagem and the effectiveness of this relation ship in the context of a largely illiterate society, is still the subject of debate. During the 15th century, woodcuts of the saints, usually associated with pilgrimage sites, circulated widely both before and after the advent of the printing press.
The commercial success of the Reformation pamphlet was due to a number of factors: it was relatively cheap, it was a handy size, it could be produced quickly and in large numbers, and (above all) its subject matter was what the public wanted to read. But it did not appear overnight to satisfy the demands of religious controversy and persuasion. The cheap, small format book had been a familiar feature of life in France, Germany, and the Low Countries for many decades. Even before the invention of movable metal type, saints' lives, devotional guides for dying well, and picture bibles (bibla pauperum praedicatorum) had been printed from woodcuts. These continued to be produced in Volume even after letterpresses became common, and of course, the woodcut remained the cheapest and most convenient means of illustrating books for two hundred years.
In the same way that our definition of 16th-century literacy is perhaps too restrictive, so our estimates of literacy may be too conservative. Edwards has argued that the very large number of pamphlets produced in the early 1520s—some six million copies for a total population of only twelve million, or twenty copies for each literate person—suggests that we have seriously underestimated the extent of literacy in the Holy Roman Empire. The ready availability of worthwhile reading material would itself have been an incentive to greater literacy: Reformation publishing created a market, as well as catering for one. Evidence of extensive book ownership, and we assume of literacy, crops up in unlikely places.
from: Printing, Propaganda, and Martin Luther—Mark U. Edwards Jr.
What a amazing impact! Printing was one of missionaries!
Sixteenth-century pamphlets covered a wide variety of subjects, from cookery and books of trades to astrology and works of traditional theology and devotion. But in the 1520s, the vast bulk of pamphlets was religious in character and related to the growing demand of reform of the Church.
The commercial success of the Reformation pamphlet was due to a number of factors: it was relatively cheap, it was a handy size, it could be produced quickly and in large numbers, and (above all) its subject matter was what the public wanted to read. But it did not appear overnight to satisfy the demands of religious controversy and persuasion. The cheap, small format book had been a familiar feature of life in France, Germany, and the Low Countries for many decades. Even before the invention of movable metal type, saints' lives, devotional guides for dying well, and picture bibles (bibla pauperum praedicatorum) had been printed from woodcuts. These continued to be produced in Volume even after letterpresses became common, and of course, the woodcut remained the cheapest and most convenient means of illustrating books for two hundred years.
In the same way that our definition of 16th-century literacy is perhaps too restrictive, so our estimates of literacy may be too conservative. Edwards has argued that the very large number of pamphlets produced in the early 1520s—some six million copies for a total population of only twelve million, or twenty copies for each literate person—suggests that we have seriously underestimated the extent of literacy in the Holy Roman Empire. The ready availability of worthwhile reading material would itself have been an incentive to greater literacy: Reformation publishing created a market, as well as catering for one. Evidence of extensive book ownership, and we assume of literacy, crops up in unlikely places.from: Printing, Propaganda, and Martin Luther—Mark U. Edwards Jr.
What a amazing impact! Printing was one of missionaries!
Comments