The Most Important Invention Of The Middle Ages | The Machine that Made Us
Stephen Fry takes a look inside the story of Johannes Gutenberg, inventor of the world's first printing press in the 15th century, and an exploration of how and why the machine was invented.
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Stephen Fry makes everything entertaining and enjoyable.
Fry is a world treasure
I enjoyed this story of Guttenberg and the origins of the printing press. Last summer I was on a river cruise and visited Mainz and the Guttenberg Museum where they had a replica of the printing press which a demonstration of how the press worked. This documentary with Mr. Fry made the history more interesting.
What the BBC can do so well! THANKYOU.
This was absolutely wonderful to watch. Thank you!
I adore Stephen Fry!
Stephen Fry is a treasure.
I got one of those little printing kits when I was a kid too! Ended up with a Journalism degree.
I had one of those printing sets sometime in the late 60's.
An illumination, it was a treasure hunt …..exceptionally researched, thank you Mr. Fry❤️🧑🎨🦋
I had no idea Stephen Fry was Jeeves, of Jeeves and Wooster which I watched on pbs in the U.S. decades ago.
I would never dispute the value of the printing press, but it was the invention of papyrus that really changed the world. Prior to papyrus, writing was done on clay tablets and velum paper made from animal hides. It might require an entire flock of sheep to provide enough velum for just one book, and not all ink was well-suited for writing on the animal hides. Only the most wealthy could purchase books. When the Egyptians began producing papyrus, paper became cheap and easy to produce. It was easy to write on and could be made into books easily. Papyrus was the invention that changed the world, bringing mankind out of the Dark Ages and into the Age of Enlightenment.
Yes the history of papyrus is fascinating. Unfortunately as a plant today it’s loosing habitat.
I get your point, but at the other half of your comment you literally described the argument why the printing machine was milion times better than papyrus.
@@SiskoSvK The printing press would have had no value if it hadn't been for papyrus because prior to papyrus, books were made from animal hides. Thousands (millions perhaps) of books were written on papyrus before the printing press was invented. Paper itself transformed the world. It enabled the transfer of knowledge that brought humanity out of the Dark Ages. The printing press certainly increased the spread of knowledge greatly by making books available to the masses. I would never belittle its importance. I believe technology will one day fail us. Perhaps the printing press will again be the device that saves humanity.
That was very interesting. I liked your first piece of paper and first letter. Thank you,.
Thankyou. Thoroughly enjoyed this programme
Sue? Ong it's me Wendy H !!!!!!
The way the type spaced on my phone read - "Most important invention of the Middle Ages. *The Mac....."* 😂
Further debunking that this period is not the "dark ages".
I had read that it was due to the lack of sources during that period, but it seems to me that it was for an earlier part of the Middle Ages.
Nobody said this was the "dark ages" time. Also there was no debunking of the dark ages.
Superb!
Wow, this video brilliantly explores the significance of the most important invention of the Middle Ages.
. . . nothing like hand craftsmanship to satisfy the soul.
May or may not be Soul satisfying, but can be beautiful.
The printed Word changed the world. A blessing for good, a curse for evil, depending on what is printed.
The point of movable type is that you can quickly compose a page of type, as compared to engraving the whole page on one plate.
Really informative
That is brilliant mates.
Thanks for sharing this documentary. Movable type printing fueled literacy, which led to democratic revolutions and protestant denominations.
Unfortunately, Mine Kunf also.
When I see programs like this and hear that only 50 copies out of 150. Granted, a lot will have deteriorated through use, but how many have been lost through conflict. So many works of art have been lost due to conflict.
Quite good🙂
Tonight we're going to party like it's 1499. Very cool! I think a church I went to in the Seattle area has a single page from one of these bibles.
Huntington Library in Pasadena California has a complete copy if you find yourself in the neighborhood.
34:43 is he handling lead and near molten lead without PPE? Hardly any ventilation visible.
Guttenburg did not in vent the press! He invented movable type .
Yes. Printing existed at the time. But it was a tedious task to engrave the plate for one page. Movable type made it easier and faster.
i like this guy called fry
Actually they already printed pictures with a block used as stamp..
I didn't know Gutenberg had printed an indulgence before his bible. I can imagine the church, at least some of the church, must of had a love/hate relationship with Gutenberg. Indulgences could be mass printed but so could the bible meaning more people could read/hear what it actually said.
As long as they could read Latin, which learned people could I believe. But maybe not common people.
Were indulgences printed by Gutenberg worth as many years off Purgatory as compared to indulgences written out by hand?
And it’s ends with the mark of the year… in Roman numerals: MMVIII
Gutenberg did not invent the printing press, that was long known for etches and wood cuts. He invented the individual letters.
That was great! I am confused about one thing, though. Was the Gutenberg Bible that he was thumbing through at the end of the documentary printed on cowskin or paper?? He seemed to suggest, to me, that THAT particular one was on cow skin. I wonder when the first mechanical printing press was invented. When did printing become automated?
Fry said that the one he was looking at was cow skin (vellum), and there were 12 copies made on vellum with the other hundred on paper.
Watching this has made me more aware of questioning everything we are told .Really english texts need to be rewritten .
What did you question regarding Gutenberg?
German genius!
Lauwrence Jan's son Coster, the inventor, you mean, of Haarlem city, the Netherlands.
The man who put the ink on must have had a meticulous job to do. Yes , china may have been first and everyone credits that but , back then, east snd west were so far apart and very little contact for outsiders snd definitely no ‘info’. Credit where credits due 🙏🙏👵🇦🇺👍👍
The Silk Road existed and had been in place all the way back, some Anthropologists say to Homo Erectus in some cases. O.o; They found African stone tools in Asia and you have Denisovans, too. Homo Erectus had rafts! Those aren't even your modern humans--and you somehow think that Europeans couldn't do the same? Europe doesn't have a magical force field around it. Things like soccer, golf, business cards, reinforced paper, etc traveled as both ideas and objects along the Silk Road, which extended all the way to the Britons, into Africa and into East Asia. The Islamic empire also collected information as well by travelling along such routes, not to mention you have the freaking Mongols! (Who, BTW, gave Russia and Korea the idea of distillation from Iran.) And what happened the the Rromani in your imagination? They came from Western India to Europe. Europeans didn't invent traveling either. There were Phonecians with boats. And look up Polynesians and traveling by boat and be floored. They made it all the way to the Americas before any Europeans and then brought back sweet potatoes. Haha. My (white) Anthropology prof was making fun of European sailing habits compared to Polynesians who mastered figuring out ocean currents sometimes simply by sticking their hands in the water and then memorizing maps they were given as children. (Some New Zealanders also have tattoos as reminders.) Europe was slow to travel, but that doesn't mean things didn't go to them. And Marco Polo even traveled by foot/ horse. There's records that a Persian Queen might have been Korean too. Trade has always been defacto. It's just the amount of time, danger, and determination one has to get there that's changed. "Age of Discovery" is a damned lie.
What were their names
Who invented the alphabet with vowels and consonants?
Cool. Anyway, what's with middle aged British men that love having teenager haircuts?
40:57 - Highly recommended: "On Paper", Mark Kurlansky. A history. 48:56 - Hope you are going to somehow identify these as reproductions, so they don't end up in the hands of a crook and get passed off as original pages. 51:00 - And this was CHEAPER than the alternative!
"Down the Rhine (21 minutes) should be "Up the rhine" as the river flows to the North and Gutenberg went south!
Personally, I think it was toilet paper…. But that’s just me…..
The Chinese invented printing around 700 CE and movable type by 1051.
why is Gutenberg credited, then? Also, it's possible for a thing to be invented twice, independently.
@@naikrovekEast and West developed independently. Gutenberg made movable type printing popular, something that China had not managed to do. And he had the genius to make this type of printing economically viable, something the Chinese had also not done.
I edited Gutenberg's Wikipedia page and they kept removing his true invention over and over. What's so shameful about the adjustable type mould? They won't give credit to Uighurs or Chinese or Koreans. BTW, I posted the dates and locations to correct Stephen Fry with names. The guy that imported the invention, doesn't mean he invented it. It's like the BS with Copernicus, etc when the best they did was translate and verify Islamic texts.
@@naikrovek Racism
@@kimyoonmisurnamefirst7061The theory of heliocentrism dates back to the Greeks, not the Muslims. Not to mention the fact that Muslim scholars are not the only ones to have thought about this since that period. Nevertheless, we should thank the Arabs for having brought Indian numerals to Europe (which, in fact, dated from much earlier!).
Interesting but I always cringe when someone use the word (or term) "middle ages", while 15th century is actually the "renaissance".
Yes, but Late Medieval and Early Modern overlap in the 16th century. No specific date ends one and starts the other. Basically, the Ren actually occurs _inside_ of the Middle Ages and was concentrated into an area.
@danytalloen: the Middle Ages as a periodisation of pan-European cultural history is usually said to begin in AD 500 and end in AD 1500. In some parts of Europe, the Renaissance began towards the end of this period, in others it began later. In Scandinavia, the first few centuries of the Middle Ages are usually referred to as the Late Iron Age, whereas a case can be made for saying that the Middle Ages in parts of Southern Europe began sooner after the breakdown of the Roman empire. Hard and fast limits are really just a convenience
China comes to mind
The printing press was invented in China over a thousand years before Gutenberg.
A claim like that should be supported with names, dates, links... I meen, stamps are not considdered a printing press.
But this is a documentary about an invention of the Middle Ages, which is a term used to describe a period in European history. So thanks for playing. Off you go.
But it wasn't in Europe at that time so yes he invented his version things were more isolated
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How could the fool Gutenberg not make or the monarch at that time not order any illustrations/diagrams for his machine!!!
Maybe because it' was the very first prototype and stuff evolves..? At least we got you now these days, mankind is blessed.
actnually the printi ng press was first invented in China.
But the famous one is Gutenberg?
So? It never made it to Europe. More than one person can think up similar solutions to a problem. We've done it for a lot of things.
the Chinese invented it way before Gutenberg
The narrator cups his farts and smells his hands
To say again what has been said many times: Gutenberg DID NOT invent the printing press but "only" movable type. As far as this goes, this whole video ist nonsense.
“It would cost a fortune…but money didn’t grow on trees” shows us that if there was equal wealth, as there should be, great inventions would amaze the world! If all “venture capitalists” had said “No that’ll never work” then they could stop progress for centuries or millennia! That’s why there should be EQUAL wealth worldwide! Look at the first canned food goods were made in France 1804, and if they had been able to tell about it worldwide, think of the millions of lives that could have been saved from all famines since 1804! From now on no one should be dying from famines, and now we have perfect communication and transportation! Capitalists want the whole world to worship them as gods who have the vision of helping one poor person invent this printing press, so his name could be worshipped by all humans! What a selfish system of lies capitalism is! They think it’s right to give all the money to a few rich people, and leave billions of would-be great inventors to starve to death!
And it was made by Christian, not atheist 😃😃😃
The Babylonians, Egyptians Greeks, Armenians,Japanese ,Arabs and East Enders were all there before old Gut' n Berg. Just check your Wikipedia. Wake up mate!
Seriously? Are you obtuse?😊
"i can't even write Gutenberg but trust me bro! I know this histeria stuff supercrazy much!"
Printing is not the same as writing. You shouldn't be sharing your thoughts.
So why the world doesn't use the Chinese printing?
Maybe the same reason English, French, and Spanish are spoken in North and South America: colonialism
Exactly. Thank you finally somebody said it
Maybe it's also way easier to use about 100 Symbols than 200 billion but hey...
@@Flaschenteufel ...cause colonialism was so much more practical than letting people be free. Gutenberg is a hero of mine and the Protestant Reformation was made possible by his innovations. But i'm not fan of white supremacy which fails to take proper account of the innovations of other peoples.