An immense number of schools, elementary or advanced, are known to us from these years as existing in German regions. Nine Universities were opened. Brandenburg alone lagged behind; Berlin had no printing-press until 1539. Cologne, which was Realist and Dominican, the first among older foundations, still deserved its fame; Ortuin Gratius, despite the Letters of Obscure Men, was not only a good scholar but in his own way liberal-minded. John von Dalberg, appointed in 1482 Curator of Heidelberg and Bishop of Worms, divided his time between the University and the bishopric; he helped to establish the first chair of Greek, and he began the famous Palatine library. Reuchlin came to Heidelberg in 1496; he was made librarian and in 1498 professor of Hebrew. The Palatinate was likewise the head-quarters of the Rhenish Literary Sodality, set on foot in 1491 by Conrad Celtes. At Freiburg in the Breisgau, Zasius, an exceedingly zealous Catholic, taught jurisprudence. Gabriel Biel, last of the medieval Schoolmen (though by no means of the scholastic philosophers), an admirable preacher, occupied for many years the pulpit at Tübingen (1495). At Basel resided John Heynlin, who persuaded Gering, Cranz, and Freiburger to set up a printing-press within the walls of the Sorbonne in 1470, while he was Rector of Paris University. Sebastian Brant, author of The Ship of Fools, an ardent defender of papal claims, dwelt at Basel until he settled in his native city of Strassburg. John Müller, otherwise Regio-montanus (from his birthplace Königsberg, in Thuringia), lectured on physical science in Vienna and Nürnberg, prepared the maps and calendars of which Colombo made use in crossing the Atlantic, and died Bishop of Ratisbon. He met at Rome in 1500 Copernicus, already a member of the Chapter of Frauenburg, and at the time engaged in mathematical teaching. These names, to which many might be added, will serve to indicate the union of orthodoxy with erudition, and of a devotion to science with the spirit of Christian reform. In none of these men do we perceive either dislike or opposition to the sacerdotal system, to sacraments, or to the papacy. Sebastian Brant, in particular, published his widely-read and popular poem with intent to counteract the party of rebellion which was then rising. He defended the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception; and in the height of his satire he is careful to spare the priesthood. On the whole, it appears that the German Universities flourished rather in the years which immediately preceded the Reformation than in those which followed it; and if we except Wittenberg and Erfurt, they almost all took sides with the ancient religion and the Holy See. The spirit of literature, as of science, is however, in its nature, obviously distinct from the dogmatic method cultivated by all theologians in the sixteenth century.
“In papal times,” said Luther towards the close of his life, “men gave with both hands, joyfully and with great devotion. It snowed of alms, foundations, and testaments. Our forefathers, lords and kings, princes and other folk, gave richly and compassionately, yea, to overflowing,—to churches, parishes, schools, burses, hospitals.” Examination in detail proves that this witness of Luther is true. There never had been in Germany, since the days of St Boniface, such a season of beneficence directed to the fostering of scholarship and piety. Churches, of which a long list remains, were built in towns and villages, often on a splendid scale. German architects, like German printers, invaded all countries; they were found in Spain at Barcelona and Burgos; they were called in to complete the Duomo at Milan. The Gothic style in Italy was recognised to be of German origin. But it was especially on works of benevolence or education that gifts were lavished. Endowments, no small portion of which came from the clergy, provided for universities and almshouses, for poor scholars and public preachers, for the printing of works by well-known authors, such as Wimpheling and Brant. Cloisters became the home of the press; friars themselves turned printers. Among other instances may be cited Marienthal (1468), St Ulrich in Augsburg (1472), the Benedictines in Bamberg (1474), the Austin Hermits in Nürnberg (1479), and the Minorites and Carthusians who assisted Amerbach in Basel. Typography was introduced in 1476 at Brussels by the Brethren of the Common Life and also at Rostock. They were energetic in spreading the new art; they called themselves preachers not in word but in type, rum verbo sed scripto predicantes. Their activity extended through the dioceses of Lübeck, Schleswig, and Denmark; they gave out books to be printed, which betokens a demand that they could scarcely satisfy; and in Windeshem and other houses lending-libraries were opened. In the district of Utrecht alone, wrote John Busch the reformer, more than a hundred free congregations of Sisters or Beguines had a multitude of German books for their daily reading. This was earlier than 1479.
The demand fell into five or six large categories. The public wanted grammars and aids to learning. They were eager to be told about their own history and antiquities. They welcomed every edition of a Latin classic. But above all they cried out for books of devotion and the Bible in their mother-tongue. To sum up with one of the biographers of Erasmus, the early printed books of Germany were in the main of a popular educational or a religious character.
All that is left from the immense shipwreck of libraries and literature which happened during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries bears out this statement. It may be convenient to introduce at this point a brief general survey of the first Bibles printed, whether in Latin or the vernacular, down to the eve of the Reformation. As the educated classes read and corresponded on learned topics in the language of Rome, and monasteries were great consumers of religious works in Latin, we should expect frequent publication and large editions of the Vulgate which had been from before St Jerome’s day the authorised Western version. Accordingly, Gutenberg set it up in type as his first production. It was finished by 1456; under the name of the Mazarin Bible, it still survives in several copies. The Mainz Psalter is the first printed volume with a date, 1457. The first dated Bible (fourth Latin) came out at Mainz from the office of “Fust and Schoeffer” in 1462. No book was more frequently republished than the Latin Vulgate, of which ninety-eight distinct and full editions appeared prior to 1500, besides twelve others which contained the Glossa Ordinaria or the Postils of Lyranus. From 1475, when the first Venetian issue is dated, twenty-two complete impressions have been found in the city of. St Mark alone. Half a dozen folio editions came forth before a single Latin classic had been printed. This Latin text, constantly produced or translated, was accessible to all scholars; it did not undergo a critical recension; but it might be compared with the Hebrew Psalms printed in 1477; the Pentateuch printed in 1482; the Prophets in 1485; the Old Testament in 1488, by Abraham ben Chayim at Soncino in the duchy of Milan. The Hebrew Hagiographa had come out at Naples in 1486. The Rabbinic Bible, from the Bomberg press at Venice, was edited in four parts by Felix Pratensis and dedicated to Leo X in 1517. The firm of Aldus in 1518 published the Septuagint; Erasmus had brought out the Greek New Testament in 1516. But it was first printed in 1514 in the Polyglot of Cardinal Ximenes at Alcalä (Complutum) which, however, did not appear until 1520.
The earliest Bibles printed in any modern language were in German, issued by Mentelin and Eggesteyn of Strassburg not later than 1466. In 1471 appeared at Venice two Italian translations, the first by Malermi, a Camaldulese monk who died as far back as 1421, the second by Nicholas Jenson. Buyer at Lyons is responsible for the first French New Testament in 1477; the Old Testament in Dutch came out at Delft the same year. In 1480 the Low German Bible appeared at Cologne. The entire Bible, done into French paraphrase