Printing Press Impact

The invention of the printing press in the fifteenth century transformed society culturally, economically, politically and religiously. The print revolution allowed for the increased accuracy of texts to be produced, and for texts to be produced at a faster pace and to be distributed to a wider range of individuals. One of the most influential roles the invention of the printing press had, was its effect on religion, specifically Catholicism in European societies during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The invention of the printing press benefited the Catholic Church in the beginning of its use, was utilized by northern humanists to spread their ideas, contributed to the popularity of The Reformation which ultimately led to the creation

Prior to the development of the printing press, the Catholic Church was almost the exclusive producer of written text. A large majority of texts were hand-written by monks in monasteries, and therefore more likely to be inaccurate or inconsistent.1 The Catholic Church was also in complete control of what was allowed to be produced, the lack of a means of rapid production allowed the Catholic Church to easily supress anything that the church disagreed with. This was the case during the Hussite revolution, where Hus, a man who was loved by the German people was thought to bring about reform of Rome but was unable to do so because of the lack of an effective means of communication, allowing the church to easily crush his cause.2 Additionally, the Catholic church was known to supress writers and would go as far as burning books that opposed the views of the church. A case of this happening was with the poet, Dante Alighieri, who was known to produce controversial works that went against the church, one of those being his poem De Monarchia, which was about the relationship between secular and religious authority, was publicly burnt by the Catholic Church.3 The initial development of the printing press was the first dramatic impact the printing press had on the Catholic religion, since it altered the relationship the church had with

This resulted in The Counter-Reformation which was led by the Catholic church. It was no coincidence that during The Reformation, the church came up with the Index Librorum Prohibitorium, which contained a list of books that were prohibited by the Catholic church.24 The church also took action by supressing books that were already in circulation, and at a point, printing in general was banned, with the punishment of death.25 The church not only supressed the reformation, but utilized the printing press as, “the printing press became essential for the indoctrination as for fighting the enemy”.26 Propaganda was produced by the Catholic church, catechisms, sermons, and songs were printed in pamphlets and distributed to the public which all had similar themes of discrediting Martin Luther and other prominent protestants and portraying them as enemies.27 Even though it was the printing press that contributed to the break from the Catholic Church, it was also key in the church’s attempt in suppressing The