the printing press is one of the most important inventions of all time its development ended the hegemonic control of information in europe and changed history forever the printing press allowed huge amounts of information to be shared quickly and in massive quantities this eventually fostered the protestant reformation the renaissance period the scientific enlightenment and the industrial revolution before there were printing presses all writings and drawings had to be meticulously done by hand several different materials were used to transcribe books clay papyrus wax or parchment few could do this work given the great difficulty manually transcribing written works was usually done by scribes who lived and work in monasteries monasteries had a special room called the scriptorium in this place the scribe worked in silence totally devoted to his function first he would measure and trace the page layouts then he would carefully copy the text from another book during the middle ages books were usually the exclusive property of monasteries educational institutions or extremely wealthy people most books were religious in some cases a family would be lucky enough to own a copy of the holy bible the earlier technologies that allowed the invention of the printing press included paper making ink development and woodcut printing at that same time several medieval technological products and processes reached a maturity that allowed their use for printing purposes woodcut printing already existed in china during the tang dynasty in the 7th century and continued to be the most common method in east asia for printing books and other texts as well as images until the 19th century during the 1300s to 1400s people developed a rudimentary form of printing they used letters or pictures cut out of wooden blocks these blocks were dipped in ink and then used to stamp the paper near the end of the 1430s a german named johann gutenberg was desperate to find a way to make money gutenberg had previously worked in a mins and realized that if he could use letter blocks to cut inside a machine it would make the printing process faster he would be able to reproduce a text in large numbers gutenberg's new invention was about to change the world what distinguished gutenberg's press from its predecessors was the mechanization of the transfer of ink to paper he adapted the screw mechanism used in wine paper and linen presses to develop a system perfectly suited to printing his device made it possible to create an initial assembly line production for printed text this made it possible to mass produce books at a much cheaper cost than contemporary methods with the newfound ability to mass-produce books at low cost on every subject imaginable revolutionary ideas and invaluable ancient knowledge reached the hands of every literate european whose numbers doubled every century science flourished during this era for the first time scientists had a tool capable of recording their discoveries and studies in writing collaborating with each other across the european continents gutenberg did not live long enough to witness the immense impact of his invention and died poor his greatest achievement was the first printing of the bible in latin it took three years to print about 200 copies a miraculously fast achievement at a time when manuscripts were copied by hand as literacy rates were still very low in the 1490s residents gathered in bars or squares to listen to a paid reader he would tell the latest printed news which included lewd scandals or war reports printing technology spread rapidly throughout europe at a time of great religious change it played a key role in the success of the protestant reformation the leader of the reformation martin luther initially could only preach to a small number of people but the printed word spread his message to thousands of people who came to have access to the printed pamphlets luther was not the first theolyan to question the catholic church but he was the first to widely publish his new religious ideology the modern world today would be a very different place without gutenberg and his printing press this technology made printing cheaper and more accessible than ever before today the industry is already in the digital age which has given rise to online printing companies and even home printers that allow anyone to design print and send printed materials all quickly and efficiently [Music] [Music] you