1 00:00:06,710 --> 00:00:11,900 Printing was first practised not by Yohannes Gutenberg or by any other European intellect, but in the Orient. 2 00:00:12,380 --> 00:00:18,440 Printing from Woodblocks existed in China by the third century. Ad and movable types were in use there by the 11th century. 3 00:00:19,220 --> 00:00:26,390 It is sometimes been suggested that Gutenberg and other European prototypes golfers learn their skills directly or indirectly from Oriental models. 4 00:00:26,780 --> 00:00:33,650 However, the inspiration for the earliest European printers and indeed the precise technology they employ to make type and print remain uncertain. 5 00:00:34,720 --> 00:00:42,190 Woodcuts were printed in Europe before the invention of a method of making movable type, which came about between around 1440 and 1450. 6 00:00:42,640 --> 00:00:47,890 Within a decade or two, printers had developed a practical means of casting individual pieces of metal type, 7 00:00:48,190 --> 00:00:53,830 using a steel punch cut by a skilled artisan, a copper matrix and a metal mould. 8 00:00:54,730 --> 00:00:59,560 Although pieces of type or sorts cast by this method were theoretically identical to one another, 9 00:00:59,950 --> 00:01:07,150 variations in the casting and printing processes mean that characters printed from two different sorts of the same letter whenever precisely the same. 10 00:01:07,420 --> 00:01:11,500 Although they were usually very similar. The earliest types were black letter. 11 00:01:11,590 --> 00:01:14,950 That is to say they were gothic in style and a copy of the Gothic manuscript. 12 00:01:14,950 --> 00:01:18,400 Hans being practised in manuscript toria of the mid 15th century. 13 00:01:18,940 --> 00:01:26,800 During the next 50 years or so. However, other type styles developed, what we now call Roman type was not a direct copy of any manuscript style, 14 00:01:27,040 --> 00:01:31,630 but a princess confection in which the minuscule eyes were derived from Carolingian manuscript hands, 15 00:01:31,930 --> 00:01:36,460 while the major skills were based on Roman capitals of the sort seen in classical inscriptions. 16 00:01:37,470 --> 00:01:44,200 Italic types were also devised based initially on Chancery and similar styles of writing as printing developed and spread. 17 00:01:44,220 --> 00:01:46,560 These different styles of type were used in different ways, 18 00:01:46,560 --> 00:01:52,830 with Germanic countries continuing to use black letter and Italy and France generally adopting the Roman and italic phases. 19 00:01:53,760 --> 00:01:59,520 Once a fund of type has been cast, it has to be arranged in two cases so that it can be easily composed into lines of text. 20 00:02:00,180 --> 00:02:06,239 The earliest cases were large and contained many compartments with the different characters, then numerous variants, accents and so forth, 21 00:02:06,240 --> 00:02:13,140 arranged in a more or less alphabetical sequence, as can be seen in this woodcut of 1499 showing death coming for a compositor. 22 00:02:14,190 --> 00:02:17,700 In later centuries, a two case system developed which was more efficient. 23 00:02:17,970 --> 00:02:25,200 It had the many skills, punctuation and spacing in the lowercase and the capitals, numerals and other less commonly used characters in the upper case. 24 00:02:25,500 --> 00:02:29,970 And this is where the terms upper and lower case for many skills and major skills derives. 25 00:02:30,570 --> 00:02:34,200 Once you have your type arranged into cases, you can start setting your text. 26 00:02:34,740 --> 00:02:38,370 The compositor would hold a composing stick made of wood. This is a metal one, 27 00:02:38,370 --> 00:02:45,750 but the principle is exactly the same and would start by picking up the first character and placing it into the composing stick upside down. 28 00:02:45,870 --> 00:02:54,120 But he would work in the right order. So if he was setting the word the he would start with a capital T and then put in a lowercase H 29 00:02:54,870 --> 00:03:00,810 and locate E like that and so on with spaces between the words until he reached the end of line. 30 00:03:01,440 --> 00:03:07,740 The amount of spacing or in some cases the characters themselves will be adjusted until the line fitted the stick to perfection. 31 00:03:08,700 --> 00:03:12,090 When the stick is full of lines of type, it is emptied into a wooden galley. 32 00:03:12,750 --> 00:03:16,290 By this means pages are made up and when enough pages have been composed, 33 00:03:16,290 --> 00:03:20,100 they are laid out in the correct sequence and orientation to make up a printing form. 34 00:03:20,850 --> 00:03:25,110 This process of arranging the pages to produce a form is known as imposition. 35 00:03:25,710 --> 00:03:31,290 Here is a simple octavo form. It consists of a wooden or iron chase into which eight pages are placed, 36 00:03:31,320 --> 00:03:36,630 spaced and held in position by pieces of wood known as furniture and wooden wedges called coins. 37 00:03:37,230 --> 00:03:41,640 In this form, the wooden wedges have been replaced with more modern metal ones, which expand with a key. 38 00:03:41,850 --> 00:03:47,760 But the principle is much the same. This form is then placed onto the bed of a printing press and the first proof is taken. 39 00:03:48,420 --> 00:03:54,750 The type is inked with leather, inking balls or dabbers. Rollers were not used until rubber was discovered in the 19th century. 40 00:03:55,110 --> 00:03:59,819 The ink, which consists of a varnish traditionally made from linseed oil and a pigment black, 41 00:03:59,820 --> 00:04:07,170 usually being generated by burning organic matter to produce carbon, was worked with the dabbers to give it a consistent texture and viscosity. 42 00:04:07,380 --> 00:04:14,430 It was then applied to the type and the sheet of paper would be pinned or otherwise affixed to the timber. 43 00:04:18,650 --> 00:04:23,390 Then this frame covered with paper or parchment known as the frisk, it was folded down over it. 44 00:04:24,290 --> 00:04:30,439 Of course, at this date all paper would have been handmade paper, and it was necessary usually to dump the paper in order that it print. 45 00:04:30,440 --> 00:04:37,970 Well, the sandwich containing the paper with the frisk and tip one on the outside was then folded down onto the type. 46 00:04:40,160 --> 00:04:43,160 Then the carriage assembly was advanced onto the platen, 47 00:04:43,610 --> 00:04:54,110 which is the part that does the printing by turning this crank called around and the printer would pull on the bar like this, 48 00:04:55,100 --> 00:05:06,829 and the screw mechanism here would apply the pressure. A wooden press like this could only apply a fairly limited amount of pressure. 49 00:05:06,830 --> 00:05:11,210 And so for printing a full size form like this, it had to be done in two operations in two halves. 50 00:05:15,690 --> 00:05:17,040 So that's printing the second half. 51 00:05:22,480 --> 00:05:31,960 Then the route is turned again to bring the carriage out from under the platen, the temple and frisk it, folded up, 52 00:05:33,580 --> 00:05:42,550 frisk it, fold it away from the temple and the sheet of paper bearing the printed image is removed and placed into a pile. 53 00:05:44,470 --> 00:05:47,710 Proofreading was usually done by a responsible member of printing house staff. 54 00:05:47,860 --> 00:05:52,959 Often the owner or master printer of the office proofs was sometimes compared with a manuscript copy 55 00:05:52,960 --> 00:05:57,400 by one person reading aloud the manuscript and another reading the proof and marking any mistakes. 56 00:05:58,420 --> 00:06:01,150 Minor errors could be corrected with the form still on the press. 57 00:06:01,630 --> 00:06:05,830 It was unusual for authors to correct their own proofs in early European printing houses. 58 00:06:06,340 --> 00:06:10,629 Often they were only sent a proof copy of the book on completion and could then supply a list 59 00:06:10,630 --> 00:06:14,440 of corrigendum to be printed at the end of the book or sometimes corrected in manuscript. 60 00:06:15,250 --> 00:06:19,600 If such corrections were extensive or important, leaves of the book might have to be cancelled. 61 00:06:19,600 --> 00:06:24,520 That is cut out and reprinted or printed corrections slips pasted over the erroneous texts. 62 00:06:25,720 --> 00:06:27,730 If an author wished to have oversight of the printing, 63 00:06:27,730 --> 00:06:32,830 it was usually necessary for him to lodge at or near the printing house in order to correct proofs as they came from the press. 64 00:06:33,460 --> 00:06:36,550 There is evidence that Erasmus spent eight months of his life dwelling with 65 00:06:36,550 --> 00:06:39,940 a printer in order to be on hand to correct the proofs of one of his books. 66 00:06:40,750 --> 00:06:44,020 Once the proofs have been corrected, the printing proper can begin. 67 00:06:44,710 --> 00:06:47,920 This process normally involved two men, a beta and a pula. 68 00:06:48,580 --> 00:06:54,850 The beta worked the ink to keep it viscous and applied it to the tape while the puller placed the damp paper on the press, 69 00:06:54,850 --> 00:06:57,010 made the impression and then removed the printed sheet. 70 00:06:57,640 --> 00:07:02,410 The beat his hands will become ink while the pulleys were clean, thus preserving the paper from ink fingerprints. 71 00:07:03,190 --> 00:07:05,860 The printed sheets were placed on top of each other to form a pile. 72 00:07:06,820 --> 00:07:15,550 A beta and pull of working together were expected to work a token, that is to say, a number of sheets, often 250 to be printed in each hour. 73 00:07:16,210 --> 00:07:19,540 At that rate, each sheet had to be printed in about 14 seconds. 74 00:07:20,170 --> 00:07:24,340 Foster rates were sometimes required, although there would be a concomitant drop in quality. 75 00:07:24,460 --> 00:07:27,790 And it should be remembered that printing was a business in which time was money 76 00:07:27,790 --> 00:07:30,850 and the process would be carried on as quickly as possible to maximise profits. 77 00:07:31,810 --> 00:07:35,380 Printing house workers usually worked a 12 hour day at a six day week. 78 00:07:35,770 --> 00:07:41,440 However, compared with artisans working in most other professions, printers were relatively well paid and well respected. 79 00:07:43,050 --> 00:07:48,090 The beater and puller would often print a set number of tokens, then swap roles in order to vary the work. 80 00:07:49,220 --> 00:07:54,440 Once the appropriate number of sheets have been printed, and that might be anything from 100 to several thousand copies, 81 00:07:54,830 --> 00:07:57,830 the form was removed from the press and handed back to the compositor. 82 00:07:58,370 --> 00:07:59,870 He would clean and deconstruct it, 83 00:07:59,990 --> 00:08:06,590 removing the type which he would distribute back into the cases so that it could be reused if further sheets were to be printed. 84 00:08:06,890 --> 00:08:11,150 He would often keep the furniture beside the chase, plus any elements which might need to be repeated, 85 00:08:11,150 --> 00:08:14,870 such as headlines and direction lines, and use these to make up the next form. 86 00:08:15,080 --> 00:08:16,550 Once the main text had been set. 87 00:08:18,260 --> 00:08:24,530 Meanwhile, another form will be put on to the press and the other side of the sheet printed, thus completing or perfecting the sheet. 88 00:08:25,100 --> 00:08:27,890 This was usually done on the same press on the same day, 89 00:08:28,070 --> 00:08:32,360 so that the pile of paper did not have time to dry out too much between printing one side and the other. 90 00:08:32,900 --> 00:08:35,000 If the sheet had to be redeemed during printing, 91 00:08:35,000 --> 00:08:40,370 it would expand and aligning or registering the pages on the two sides of the sheet would become more difficult. 92 00:08:42,760 --> 00:08:48,100 Sometimes the other side of the sheet will be printed on a second press, which could be run in parallel with the first. 93 00:08:48,550 --> 00:08:53,920 It was usual for printing houses to possess more than one press and even the smallest commonly had two or three. 94 00:08:54,460 --> 00:08:59,080 A large printing office might be equipped with a dozen or more presses at any one time. 95 00:08:59,080 --> 00:09:02,709 They would usually be more than one job on hand so that as many of the presses 96 00:09:02,710 --> 00:09:06,190 as possible could be kept busy and generating income for the master printer. 97 00:09:07,120 --> 00:09:12,640 After a sheet have been perfected, it will be hung up to dry on a washing line, which was often strung up above the presses. 98 00:09:13,030 --> 00:09:16,870 Once dry, the sheets would be sorted and stored against the day the book would be completed. 99 00:09:18,180 --> 00:09:22,770 A short book or pamphlet might just be a single sheet, but most books have more than one sheet. 100 00:09:22,770 --> 00:09:25,560 And if we imagine, say, an octavo edition of the New Testament, 101 00:09:25,770 --> 00:09:31,590 that might have had as many as 50 sheets because most printing offices only had a limited supply of type. 102 00:09:31,860 --> 00:09:38,520 They would set proof, correct print and distribute each sheet separately before setting the next one. 103 00:09:38,790 --> 00:09:45,510 And so it would be quite a long process to set a book. If you imagine an edition of a thousand copies of this imaginary New Testament, 104 00:09:45,750 --> 00:09:52,590 it would take about 800 man hours to hand compose the text and about 400 man hours to print the pages. 105 00:09:53,310 --> 00:09:59,430 Of course, this is if one person was working on it. If a single compositor was working on the book, it would be about nine and a half weeks work. 106 00:09:59,730 --> 00:10:02,970 But of course, most presses had more than one compositor. 107 00:10:03,210 --> 00:10:09,420 So that what is amazing really is not so much how slow printing was as how quick it was our imaginary New Testament. 108 00:10:09,510 --> 00:10:13,110 A thousand copies could have been printed by an efficient printing house in little more than a month. 109 00:10:14,300 --> 00:10:17,150 Once the entire book was printed and any corrections have been made. 110 00:10:17,150 --> 00:10:21,410 Following the reading of the edition by its author, the sheets were passed to the vendor or publisher. 111 00:10:21,980 --> 00:10:25,850 In the early decades, many printers were also booksellers who sold the books they printed. 112 00:10:26,240 --> 00:10:30,620 But division between printers who made books? Publishers who funded the books. 113 00:10:30,620 --> 00:10:34,790 And booksellers who sold books in shops developed quickly as printing spread across Europe. 114 00:10:36,230 --> 00:10:41,690 So far we have considered only texts, but a great many books were illustrated and some such as blog books, 115 00:10:41,690 --> 00:10:44,660 consisted wholly or largely of images rather than words. 116 00:10:45,170 --> 00:10:49,760 For much of the 15th century, the only way of making a printed picture was to use a hand cut relief block. 117 00:10:50,390 --> 00:10:57,650 In Europe, as in the Orient, woodcuts existed before movable type and represented a simpler technology, at least in the process of making them. 118 00:10:58,430 --> 00:11:02,420 Woodcut is made by cutting from a plank of wood, all the planks of the design, 119 00:11:02,600 --> 00:11:06,560 and leaving standing proud all the lines and areas which the designer wants to print. 120 00:11:07,250 --> 00:11:13,340 A similar method of making a relief surface was to cut the image into a block of soft metal like type of metal rather than in wood. 121 00:11:14,060 --> 00:11:20,960 Cuts made in wood and metal have the great advantage that they can be printed in exactly the same way as type and can be combined with type in a form. 122 00:11:21,710 --> 00:11:26,930 From around 1470, engraved and later etched illustrations began to be used in books. 123 00:11:27,290 --> 00:11:31,609 These were made and printed by a quite different process and used a different sort of press so that, 124 00:11:31,610 --> 00:11:36,410 including what are called intaglio prints in books, was a great deal more expensive than using woodcuts. 125 00:11:36,920 --> 00:11:41,479 However, Intaglio prints were often used where a particular fineness of detail was required as, 126 00:11:41,480 --> 00:11:47,389 for example, in anatomical and other scientific books and in maps for three centuries and more. 127 00:11:47,390 --> 00:11:51,860 These were the only two methods of illustrating books from relief blocks cutting wood or metal, 128 00:11:52,100 --> 00:11:56,420 or from intaglio plates produced by some form or combination of etching and engraving. 129 00:11:57,200 --> 00:11:58,970 In the latter part of the 18th century, 130 00:11:59,000 --> 00:12:04,100 wood engraving and lithography we invented and iron printing presses were introduced in the early 19th century. 131 00:12:04,580 --> 00:12:08,930 By around 1840, the production of books and other reading matter was an industrial process. 132 00:12:09,680 --> 00:12:14,750 What is known as the hand press period lasted between the 15th and the latter part of the 18th centuries. 133 00:12:15,260 --> 00:12:16,909 Throughout these three and a half centuries, 134 00:12:16,910 --> 00:12:23,630 the methods of producing type and illustrative printing surfaces of using them to print books and ephemera of all kinds remained essentially, 135 00:12:23,720 --> 00:12:24,920 as we demonstrated here.