Frederick W. Hamilton

“ A monopoly, sometimes called a privilege, was a grant to a certain person of the sole right to sell or to manufacture a certain thing, to trade in a certain locality, or do something of a similar nature. Monopolies survive today in certain countries, though mainly as governmental monopolies; for example, in Italy the sale of matches is a governmental monopoly. No individual is allowed to sell them except as a government agent, and the traveler is not allowed to take any across the frontier, even in his pocket. ”

“ It so happens that the peculiar conditions of the printing industry had a very marked effect in the changes which took place in the industrial world in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The attempt is made to show the working of these influences in the treatment of certain parts of the subject. The main purpose, however, throughout has been to give the young printer of today an idea of the work and life of the old printers, who were very human men, engaged, though under different conditions, in the same struggle to earn their bread and butter which occupies our attention today. ”

“ The printing industry has thus the unfortunate prominence of being the leading influence in breaking up the old unities of industry and bringing about the modern industrial system. It was the first industry in which there was developed a distinct class of masters who were not and never had been workmen, and in which the workman could become a master only under unusual circumstances. The sharp division of industry into employers and employed with antagonistic interests and divergent aims begins here. ”

“ This opposition in spirit between the masters who, by their wealth, their education, and their social position were associated with the upper classes and imbued with all of their ancient pride, and the men who, themselves educated and imbued with a spirit of progress and a desire for freedom, were attempting to rise above the condition of serfdom in which the laborers of that age were commonly held was the real root of the struggles in the medieval printing trade. ”

“ In those days printing was regarded as a profession rather than strictly a trade, and the printer was deeply impressed with the value and importance of his work, a value and importance which were not only claimed by him but recognized by his fellow citizens. It was very strongly felt that a man who made a book was engaged in a much more important piece of work than a man who made a pair of shoes or forged a sword. The more of this spirit of self respect, the more of this recognition of the importance of printing and the printed product 14we can recover today, the better off we shall be. ”

“ Hewlett, or his publisher, holds copyright on his works and must be paid for the privilege of publishing.
Another important development in thought was the growth of the idea of right as distinguished from privilege. A privilege, as the word implies, is an act of grace. It is a grant of permission to do a thing which one has no inherent right to do. ”

“ Sometimes it happened that they changed their minds about becoming printers, more often, probably, they sought short cuts into the industry. It has always been the misfortune of printing that a very imperfect knowledge of it has a comparatively higher market value than an equally imperfect knowledge of other industries, while the period of apprenticeship required for full learning of the trade is long and wearisome. The apprentices were often tempted by offers of occupation as laborers or even as journeymen in some of the poorer shops which were willing to evade regulations. ”

“ The Community of Printers An unregulated trade, conducted under conditions of absolute freedom approximating those of the present day, was not only out of place in the Middle Ages but was practically impossible. We have seen how the attempt to carry on a trade under such conditions resulted in a state of intolerable confusion in the printing industry. ”

“ While in some respects governmental control and the freedom of a well-organized system of courts did not protect the rights of the individual and insure the quality of product as effectively as the guilds had done, it was inevitable that particular regulations should give way to general regulation and that the individual should not only be taught but compelled to look to the state rather than to an association of individuals for the protection of his rights and the definition of his duties. ”

“ As we shall see, the history of printing is a history of industrial conflict throughout the whole period until 1789. Henceforth, however, the regulation of the trade, the establishment of a responsible organization, and the fixing of regulations between masters and men changed the field of strife. We hear little or nothing more of strikes. The state was recognized as the source of regulation and as the arbiter of questions which might arise between the associated employers on one hand and their partially associated employees on the other. ”

“ For example, in the absence of copyright a printer might go to the expense of getting out an edition of an important work only to have a rival buy one of his copies and throw into the market an edition at a price based on the cost of manufacture only, while it is obvious that even if the competition were based on the cost of manufacture the printer from Lyons could undersell the printer from Paris because his presses turned out 700 more sheets a day, an advantage of 25 per cent.
All this competition had a tendency to reduce selling prices and to drive down the workman’s pay. ”

“ Throughout the entire period of manuscript books it was everywhere held that any man who had possession of a book, even temporarily, had a right to copy it. That the owner of the book had any right to control its duplication, even though he had been at great expense to make a copy, was not considered worth discussion. If a man could copy a manuscript which had cost a hundred crowns to make, might he not reprint a book which cost less than one tenth of that amount? ”

“ In some cases the master workman became so prosperous that he employed a considerable number of other master workmen and devoted his time to superintendence, but whether he were in this way an ancestor of a modern captain of industry or were at the other end of the scale, an 9apprentice just under indenture, he was recognized as part and parcel of the trade guild. If he were not free of the guild he was not permitted to work at the industry excepting as an employee. As we shall see, there grew up in this way an intermediate class of hired workmen who were neither apprentices nor masters. ”

“ With the gradual change of conditions, growth of population, increase of wealth, and greater intercourse between communities there grew up on one end of the social scale groups of laborers who were not members of any guild and on the other end accumulations of capital which were either in the hands of men who were neither craftsmen nor guild members or of those who had larger accumulations than they could use in their own business. ”

“ This agreement was practically the best protection of the German book trade until the development of copyright laws at a very much later period. It appears to have been relied upon by the printers more than was the privilege. Privileges were often obtained, partly because it was desirable to keep on good terms with the local authorities and partly because of the relation of privilege to censorship, which we shall discuss later, but it is clear that printing in Germany would have suffered greatly if it had not been for the existence of the “live and let live” agreement of the German printers. ”

“ The guilds acted very honestly and conscientiously in the interests of both the public and the trade. While they monopolized the industry, restricted the number of persons engaged in it, and permitted no outside competition, they guaranteed the quality of workmanship and product. A guild member putting inferior goods upon the market or in any way detracting from the workmanlike standards of the guild was liable to severe penalties, and as a rule these penalties were conscientiously inflicted. ”

“ For a long time the manuscript book retained the esteem which is so often felt for hand work as compared with machine work. Long after the invention of printing there were many eminent collectors of books who would not have a printed book in their libraries. To this day there are a few people who live by engrossing and illuminating, although not generally by the copying of books. ”

“ If a man was paid for writing a poem in praise of his patron neither he nor his patron was supposed to control the poem; in a word, there was no conception of any kind of literary property, and the printers soon found that there must be 22property in books or printing would become impossible.
Germany, like Venice, undertook to deal with the matter by the privilege system, although German privileges seem to have been less varied and more simple than those of the Venetians and to have concerned themselves more exclusively with the printer, to the neglect of the author. ”

“ The members of the guilds, all fighting men usually serving under their own guild banners and their own leaders, were an important part of the military force of the medieval cities. Although they might and did fight on one side or the other of some civic quarrel they always stood for order in the community just as they did for honesty in production and trade. ”

“ The employers then as now were ready to hire cheap help for cheap jobs, and they were given to taking on apprentices far beyond the requirements of recruiting the industry because they could get a good deal of work out of them which otherwise must be given to higher priced men. In many cases they were willing to take on apprentices who did not understand Greek or even Latin. The result was injury to the industry itself and to the interests of the workmen, as is always the case when employers take on improperly trained apprentices who are incapable of development into the highest efficiency. ”

“ Another important social change was the development of free labor and free capital, resulting in the separation of industrial classes. Under the guild system there was no separation between labor and capital, or between the employers and the employed as classes. The guilds were associations in which labor and so much capital as there was were combined in a close organization, while there was neither labor nor capital in any particular amount outside the guild. ”

“ People did not know the laws which govern business and control prices and wages. They ignorantly supposed, as some persons still suppose, that these things may be governed by statute, being entirely unaware of the fact that they are really the product of causes for the most part beyond human control. In the early Middle Ages wages and prices were fixed on a basis of custom. ”

“ Most important inventions deprive certain workmen of their occupation. The invention of printing was no exception. It necessarily meant the economic ruin of the copyists and threatened the illuminators. By the middle of the fifteenth century the copying of books had to a considerable extent come out of the monasteries and become a regular occupation. In 1472 there were in France ten thousand of these copyists, to say nothing of the illuminators. ”

“ Venice was perhaps the most advanced state in Europe in the middle of the fifteenth century, certainly it was one of the most advanced. The intelligent business men and astute nobles trained in public affairs who made up the body of citizens of the Republic of Venice were not slow in perceiving that a condition had arisen which must be immediately attended to. ”

“ This date marks the beginning of the French Revolution when great masses of medieval statutes were swept from the statute books, including all those which regulated the trade of printing. The Community, censorship, licenses to print, and all the 78edicts regulating conditions in the industry went by the board together. The French Revolution, however, was only an incident of a change which was coming over the thinking of the whole world. A new condition had been growing up under the old forms and the time had come when the old forms had to break to make way for the new life. ”

“ This unemployment was not only a serious evil in itself, but it led to competition among workmen, who were often willing to work for less than the going rate rather than to go idle. Another tendency toward the lowering of wages was the competition in the book trade caused by literary piracy and the work of printers from the smaller towns or even outside countries who could do work cheaper than it could be done in the larger cities. ”

“ The opening of new markets and the stimulus given not only to invention but to production and communication by the intellectual movement and consequent discoveries and inventions which were going on at this time upset industrial conditions tremendously. As usual, however, the workmen were the last to feel this change. Men paid more gold for commodities because they could not get them at the same old price, but wages for a long period remained fixed by custom. ”

“ The granting of a privilege often carried with it exemption from taxation.
Conditions in France were not greatly different from those in Italy and Germany, although France dealt with the problem by means of privileges only and had her problem somewhat simplified by unified administration over a large territory. The first privilege to be issued in France was granted Antoine Verrard in 1507 for an edition of the Epistles of Paul with a French commentary. French privileges were sometimes issued to printers for a single work and sometimes for all the works which they might print. ”

“ Privileges and Monopolies The governmental regulations just described were similar to those imposed upon all trades. The product of the printing press, however, was not like that of other manufacturing establishments. The use of books is clearly different from the use of ordinary manufactured products. The modern printing press puts out a flood of material which is temporary in its nature. Much of it never gets read at all and comparatively little of it is considered as of permanent value. ”

“ Minds of men might be filled with information or misinformation, with noble or with base desires and purposes, with high thoughts or low by the products of the press. They might be roused to patriotic action or stirred to rebellion. Their religion 17might be deepened, altered, or destroyed. Immense and unimaginable influence might be and, as soon appeared, was exerted by this new agency.
These facts gave rise to certain problems peculiar to the industry. What right had the publisher to control his product and be protected against a ruinous competition from other printers? ”