Gutenberg Bible
Original leaf from Johannes Gutenberg's 15th-century Bible which influenced book history and the religious landscape.
The unique and distinctive books and manuscripts held in Special Collections and Archives have had past lives and the story of ‘Trier II, folio 108’ – an original leaf from the Gutenberg Bible that is held in the Robinson (Philip and Marjorie) Collection at ROB. 430 is no exception.
To begin with, the book that the leaf came from is of great historic significance. The Biblia Latina was printed in the 1450s in Mainz, Germany, by Johannes Gutenberg and has come to be widely known as the Gutenberg Bible. It is also sometimes referred to as the 42-line Bible, or B42. It is an edition of the Latin Vulgate, a late-4th-century Latin translation of the Bible which came to be adopted by the Catholic Church and, as the first complete book known to have been printed in Europe using moveable metal type, marked the beginning of the age of printed books.
Gutenberg combined existing technologies (printing, the press, paper, punch-cutting, and ink) into the single process of printing with moveable type. He borrowed heavily to finance the development of his printing technique and effectively bankrupted himself in the process. Nevertheless we think he successfully printed 180 copies of a two-volume Latin Bible and thereafter, printing with moveable metal type spread to other commercial cities in Germany and thence to other European countries. The appearance of print did not mean that manuscript traditions were instantly dropped: handwritten and printed books coexisted and several manuscript conventions were used by Gutenberg, such as Gothic type, presenting the text in two columns, and the post-printing addition of red capitals.
Gutenberg was able to take advantage of an existing book market: the production of manuscript books was already rising; literacy was spreading in urban centres; new universities were being founded; and the middle class was expanding. Gutenberg’s innovation facilitated wider and cheaper availability of texts and helped to pave the way for a greater variety of texts to be circulated. Furthermore, as the Bible became more accessible, the authority of the Church could be challenged, sowing the seeds of the Protestant Reformation and the dissemination and questioning of ideas that came to characterise the Renaissance.
This leaf, folio 108, has been given a manuscript heading ‘Ezechiel’. The Book of Ezechiel describes the visions and acts of an Israelite priest. It’s an Old Testament text that includes themes such as judgement and the sovereignty of God.
The Bible that this leaf came from probably first belonged to the library of Saint Maximin’s Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in Trier, Germany but it is in the early-19th Century when it’s story really begins. In 1828, the municipal librarian in Trier, Johan Hugo Wyttenbach (1767-1848), is said to have observed students using leaves from a Bible to cover their schoolbooks. He investigated and, at a farmhouse in Olewig (a suburb in Trier), discovered the second volume of Gutenberg’s Bible. Wyttenbach claimed it for the Stadtbibliothek (i.e. city library) in Trier, which already counted volume I of a Gutenberg Bible amongst its holdings.
In 1932, the Stadtbibliothek sold it to A.S.W. Rosenbach (1876-1952), a collector and formidable dealer in rare books and manuscripts, based in Philadelphia. Rosenbach acquired it on behalf of a client, Arthur A. Houghton Jnr. (1906-1990), at one time curator of rare books at the Library of Congress. The Bible was already incomplete and, through Houghton, owners of other incomplete Gutenberg Bibles began to buy single leaves that were lacking in their copies. In 1949, Houghton purchased another copy of the Gutenberg Bible (known as the ‘Shuckburg’ copy) from Charles Scribner’s Sons and surrendered his remaining Trier II leaves to the firm as part payment.
Four years later, Scribners sold the leaves individually and ‘Trier II, folio 108’, is one of the leaves that was sold in 1953. It came into the possession of antiquarian bookseller Philip Robinson (d.1989), after whom the Philip Robinson Library, Newcastle University is named. The leaf was bequeathed to Newcastle University Library, along with medieval manuscripts, incunabula and early modern printed books, by Philips widow, Marjorie (d.1998).
With thanks to Mark Armstrong, Rare Material Research and Reference Librarian, Brown University for providing the identification and provenance information.
