this. In the first place, the practice of erasing old manuscripts and
using the same vellum again for other works was extremely common.
Secondly, vast numbers of manuscripts in the monasteries and other
libraries of Europe were wantonly or accidentally destroyed by fire,
especially in times of war and religious fanaticism. In the third place,
the early binders, down through the sixteenth century and even later,
used sheets of vellum from old manuscripts for the linings and the
covers of printed books. Finally, after the invention of printing, as
soon as a given work had been adequately and handsomely printed in a
standard edition, all but the finest manuscripts of that book would
naturally be looked upon as of little value, and would be subject to
loss and decay if not to deliberate destruction. Owing to these and
perhaps other causes it is almost entirely the religious manuscripts
that have survived, except those preserved in royal libraries and
museums from the finer collections of the middle ages.

The invention of printing was not the work of any one man. Not only were
printed pages of text with accompanying pictures produced from woodcut
blocks in Holland a quarter of a century before Gutenberg began his work
at Mainz, but it is pretty well established that movable types were
employed by Laurence Koster, of Haarlem, as early as 1430. But Koster,
who died about 1440, did not carry his invention beyond the experimental
stages, and produced no really fine printing. Moreover, his work had no
immediate successor in Holland. Whether it be true, as sometimes
alleged, that Gutenberg first learned of the new art from one of
Koster's workmen, we have no means of knowing. At any rate, Gutenberg's
contemporaries as well as his successors gave to him the credit of the
invention. That he was not the first to conceive the idea of multiplying
impressions of type-forms by the use of a screw press is evident; but he
was the first to develop the invention to a point where it became
capable of indefinite extension. He seems to have worked in secret for
some years on the problems involved in type-founding and printing before
the year 1450, when he set up his shop in Mainz.

The capital for the new business was furnished by a wealthy goldsmith
named Johann Fust. Between 1450 and 1455 Gutenberg printed an edition of
the Latin Bible, sometimes known as the Mazarin Bible, which is
ordinarily regarded as the first printed book. It was a m