The Social Revolution:The New Middle Class
The Social Revolution:
The New Middle Class
The Middle Ages was witness to a massive social upheaval across much of Western Europe. The feudal system gradually crumbled, with wealth and power beginning to shift to a new merchant class. Under the feudal system, power and wealth were concentrated in the hands of a relatively small number of families. Especially during the fifteenth century, the influence of the traditional families began eroding. Control of some of the great cities of Europe slipped away from the aristocracy, and shifted to the growing number of merchants. These had made their fortunes through trading and dealing, and had little time for the old-fashioned attitudes of the traditional families. Throughout Europe, cities began to be governed by city councils dominated by the new merchant class. Traditional social structures were undermined by greater social mobility, increased wealth and spending power within the middle classes, and a surge in literacy and levels of educational achievement within the population as a whole.
This development was of immense significance in the shaping of a new Europe. The control of sections of society was slowly but surely shifting from the old patrician families to the entrepreneurs. The emerging breed of venture capitalists was looking for business opportunities. The great trade fairs of late medieval Europe—held at international crossroads, such as Geneva—became important catalysts for economic growth, encouraging trade across Europe. Investment opportunities were eagerly sought. Our story concerns one such opportunity—the invention of printing. The financial backing of the new technology of printing was quickly identified as one of the surest ways to make money. Investment in printing technology became increasingly attractive on account of a major social change—the rise in literacy. People began to read; someone had to produce the books they came to demand.
In the early Middle Ages, literacy was rare, and often limited to the clergy. It was common for the courts of Europe to employ clergy to handle their correspondence and archives. This was not because the clergy might bring some special spiritual quality or blessing to these matters, but simply because the clergy were just about the only people at the time who could read and write. But the new culture of the Italian Renaissance, which swept through much of Western Europe in the fourteenth century, saw literacy as being a social accomplishment, rather than just a useful administrative tool. Being able to read was now seen as the key to personal fulfillment; to own books was a statement of social status, sending out powerful signals concerning both the financial and intellectual standing of the household.
The Renaissance was a complex and highly dynamic movement, which had its origins in fourteenth-century Italy. At one level, it can be seen as a movement working for the renewal of culture, which based itself on the classical language, literature, and arts of Ancient Rome. Ancient Rome was seen as a fountainhead, a spring of fresh and flowing water, that could refresh and renew European culture, and liberate it from the barren and arid ideas of the Middle Ages. The Renaissance set out to promote written and spoken eloquence, and placed considerable emphasis on cultivating both reading and writing. To be literate was now more than a technical accomplishment, useful for keeping records and correspondence up to date. It was a sophisticated cultural achievement that opened the way to self-improvement and personal fulfillment—not to mention the hope of social advancement. The possession of books was now seen as a social virtue, raising the status of their owner within an increasingly literate culture.
The demand for books soared. The rise in literacy created a virtually insatiable appetite for reading material. Yet this new demand simply could not be met by existing book production techniques. These were painfully slow, and the price of books correspondingly high. Text and illustrations had to be painstakingly copied out by hand by specially trained scribes. Demand far outstripped the supply. The surge of interest in books caused many to wonder whether it was possible to develop a new way of producing them that would cut out the hugely expensive copying process. There was money waiting to be made for someone who could cut production costs, just as there was venture capital waiting to be invested in any new technology that could open the way to mass book production.
So how could books be produced cheaply? A short-term answer was found in the early part of the fifteenth century. Text and illustrations were engraved on wooden blocks, using a knife and gouge. A water-based brown ink, made from the bark of trees, was then applied to the block using an inking cushion. The block was then used to print copies of the image on single sheets of paper, which were bound together to produce a book. But it was only an interim solution. The blocks were costly to produce, and once cut to order, could not be used for any other purpose. It was ideal for short books—but for long works, such as the Bible, it was unrealistically cumbersome. A better solution had to be found. The man who found it was Johannes Gutenberg.