Preview

What was the most important consequence of the printing press?

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
443 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
What was the most important consequence of the printing press?
There were many consequences to the printing press; including the spread of the protestant reformation and the growth of more accurate maps. However, the most important of them would be the creation of affordable books.
When the printing press spread through Europe, Martin Luther heard about it, and when he did he got a hold of one of them and printed the 95 theses which was a document used to place on the church and argued and exposed the flaw of the catholic church. After this happened, many people stopped going to catholic churches. Every country in Europe was mainly catholic, but in the 1560’s, half of the countries were either mainly protestant or mixed catholic and protestant which was a rapid change.
Maps were another example of a rapid change. Nearly 500 years ago people did not have the correct technology to find out how the earth is really shaped. Though there were really erroneous maps, the printing press gave people copies of the current and up to date maps and through the years of measuring, observing, and calculating the land’s proportions, maps have become a little more accurate with each year. Thanks to the printing press, many could receive a map of their own and could contribute to the map evolution.
Another result of the printing press was that it was able to create copies of books. Before the printing press was made, books were very scarce and expensive and it took about a year to right just one. Only the rich were able to afford them, and if the rich weren’t able to read then what was the purpose of purchasing them? If we didn’t have many books then how cold we gain knowledge? If we didn’t have knowledge of our own language then how would they be able to write the books for them to be more produced so we can have more knowledge available?
When Gutenberg invented the printing press in Germany, he uses the movable types to print the first printed Bible. He made 180 Bibles and the printing press spread to many other European countries like

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    The printing press helped individualism because the separation of church allowed social mobility. Individualism allowed people to hold jobs such as well the obvious one printer. Other jobs it allowed were librarians and later news papers. Individualism help fight against the wealthy because of the social hierarchy always worked out for the rich. Individualism was the worth of man and allowed a wider perspective for all who experienced the…

    • 70 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    As André Gide once said, “Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” During the 15th century the printing press was invented by Johannes Gutenberg. It had a massive effect on the world at the time. One of the most important effects was exploration. The printing press started a revolution because it made it easier to print more maps, and explore new routes. Without the printing press, Christopher Columbus would not have been able to share the news about discovering current day America. The printing press has made amazing changes to the world.…

    • 435 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The information presented in this paper will illustrate how the printing press, more specifically Gutenberg’s press, acted as an “agent of change” in the proliferation of knowledge throughout Europe and global society in general.…

    • 1558 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Printing Press

    • 1368 Words
    • 6 Pages

    It is argued that the printing press is one of the most significant inventions of all time ranked alongside the wheel and the plow (Johannes Gutenberg and, 2009). The man credited with its invention is Johannes Gutenberg, born of Mainz, Germany around 1400 (Childress, 2008). Johannes began his work with the printing press around 1430 and developed his first prototype somewhere around the mid-15th century. As with most inventions, Gutenberg’s press had precedents in history, especially in Asia where the Chinese had carved texts into wooden blocks (Johannes Gutenberg and, 2009). In the Netherlands, a man by the name of Laurens Janszoon produced a predecessor by using carved blocks of type that could be cut into letters (Johannes Gutenberg and, 2009). Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press was a result of combining three different technologies already in existence; paper, the winepress, and oil-based ink into a single moveable type (Bantwal, 2011). Rather than using wooden letters, Gutenberg used his metal working background and replaced them with letters made of brass or bronze, he then adapted a version of a wine press where the top was used to align and press the letters against the paper that was then lined up and locked into a frame below (Johannes Gutenberg and, 2009). The first samples of paper arrived from China, and at the time paper was not durable enough for hand copied versions of books, instead vellum a much thicker medium was used (Johannes Gutenberg and, 2009). However, Gutenberg soon found out that the thinner less expensive paper worked very well in his press. Finally, Gutenberg found that the use of oil based ink did not smear like the commonly used egg-based tempera. Merging these technologies into one, Gutenberg made modern printing possible and economical.…

    • 1368 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    While continuously more Christians of Europe were beginning to lose their faith in the church’s leadership and were developing a feeling of doubt or mistrust, it was the Reformation and Martin Luther who came in and gave the people a sense of direction and feeling of hope. This new Protestant tradition at the time lifted this overwhelming cloud of misused power over the Christian community and provided a time for change with new opportunities. The Protestant reformation ended the religious unity of Europe and the church and furthermore started a new era in the history of western…

    • 679 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The effects that it had on learning helped make a way for English translations of the Bible because people began to have a desire to learn to read. Before this time, most all books, including the Bible, were written in either Latin or Greek, therefore the common people couldn't read them. Also, the very few books that were in English were handwritten and very costly so they were inaccessible to the common man. In 1475, the introduction of movable type brought in this new era. Now books could be printed and were not as costly. This brought about more books being translated and written in English. There was now a new emphasis on education and the availability of books had grown tremendously. Soon, more and more people were getting an education. Now, most of the people, including the common man, were become literate rather then illiterate. Education began to blossom into a necessity that would change the world for the better.…

    • 500 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Death of Print

    • 1761 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Daniel Okrent has been in the publishing industry his whole career. He is a published author and has served as an editor for Time, Life, and the New York Times. In a 1999 lecture to students attending Columbia University’s School of Journalism, Okrent predicts, “I believe they (news papers, magazines, and books), and all forms of print are dead” (Okrent 578). A little harsh, wouldn’t you agree? But fear not, he then goes on to describe how even though the death of print is inevitable, it really doesn’t make a difference because it is the words, sentences, and paragraphs in those forms of print that are important. Now, the majority of the reading I take in comes from online sources. I probably manage to read an average of about one book every two years. This amount is hardly anything to brag about. However, I do find myself viewing specialized topics online that I would probably have had to read a book to gain knowledge on if the online sources weren’t so easily accessible. I also subscribe to a few print magazines that I have interest in. Looking at the literature landscape today, Okrent’s predictions on the future of the print industry seem to be eerily accurate. However, a bit of wishful thinking seems to come through in his claims that “ . . . the words and pictures and ideas and images and notions and substance that we produce is what matters – and not the vessel they arrive in” (Okrent 580). Do the vessels matter? Can quality writing and accurate information find its way through the unfiltered sewage of unchecked claims, shock bloggers, and desperately aggressive advertising?…

    • 1761 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    There have been people who have influenced every person in the world yet a seldom few know their contributions let alone their names. Of these people was a man named Johannes Gutenberg; the man who invented the printing press. The printing press is one of those inventions that most people take for granted and do not realize their importance. Without the press we would still be handwriting every single copy of any book every written and so the question is what were the main consequences of the printing press? That is, what happened as a result of the invention of the printing press? The answer is that it marked the transition from script to printing and it allowed the mass production of information, which in turn allowed ideas to spread quicker. The ability to have a mass production of information has transformed almost all aspects life and all fields of study. Two of these topics include religion and geography and exploration. This essay will first explain the importance of the transition from script to printing and then will go on to explain the impact the press had on literature and geography and exploration in order to elaborate on the latter consequence listed above.…

    • 1176 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Under the control of Fust, the press would go on to produce books unlike anything that had been seen before. Now that there was less effort involved in simply the print, artisans could focus on decorations in the books. The first…

    • 981 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Printing Press Essay

    • 420 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Before the invention of printing press, multiple copies of a manuscript had to be made by hand. Hand written books took months or years to hand print. This made books very expensive. Printing press made it possible to produce more copies in a few weeks than formerly could have been produced in a lifetime by hand. This made books cheaper. With the printing press they could do thousands copies of books. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, by 1500 the presses of Europe produced some six million books.…

    • 420 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Without the invention of the printing press, education for the masses would have been unavailable to the common man. Prior to the Renaissance period, literacy was only offered to noblemen who were preparing themselves for a career in the church. The spread of the renaissance culture lead to more schools and created a high demand for mass reproduction of the written word. In our lecture we discussed progression where these technological innovations are developed to meet consumer demands to improve quality of life (Jackson, 2012). With the introduction of the printing press to the public more people were being educated, improving their quality of life and making way for the huge advancements for print to come.…

    • 250 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The next revolution for books came with the 15th-century invention of printing with changeable type. The invention is attributed to German metal smith Johannes Gutenberg, who cast type in molds using a melted metal alloy and constructed a wooden-screw printing press to transfer the image onto paper. Gutenberg's invention made mass production of texts possible for the first time.…

    • 404 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    This article is written by an Ehow Contributor, does not have the name for the writer. This article was taken up from Ehow. The writer had researched about the disadvantages of an education with print media. It is just a one page article which simply provides us the main short comings with the education of print media.…

    • 1139 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Technology Friend

    • 1298 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Considering the printer first, disregarding my course and interests, the printer as a whole has allowed life, particularly in western culture, to move at a much faster pace. Consider the expense and availability of books be it printers were removed. Disregard the time it takes for a person to write the original text, a book can now be printed within 48 hours [1] with little expense incurred. Assuming professional writers were to be employed; writing on average 60 words p/minute. An average book consists of approximately 90000 words; (90000wrds/ 60wrds p/m= 25hrs) so 25 hours of labour. £4.98(National Minimum wage 2012)*25 = £124.50 for each employee with at least 3 days to write, not taking into account the cost of paper, ink, binding and distribution. So on average, in order for publishers to make a profit, each book with cost approximately £200. £200 that I would not be able to pay for each of my course books, and I assume not many other students would either. So now university is retreating back to the older days where only the middle – higher class would be able to afford the additional fee’s that are incurred. Not to mention that a lot of the working class would not be able to afford books, reading would become a privileged skill that only the higher classes…

    • 1298 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Wonders of Science

    • 328 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The invention of the printing press has brought education in the form of books and newspapers to the doorsteps of every common man.…

    • 328 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays