Gutenberg vor Gericht. Der Mainzer Prozess um die erste gedruckte Bibel (review)

The lawsuit brought by Johannes Fust against Johann Gutenberg at Mainz in 1455 lies at the heart of Gutenberg studies, and even today, five and a half centuries on, it still represents an intractable problem. The circumstances and the outcome are unclear, and the documentation presents many difficulties. Most of the documentary evidence relating to Gutenberg was painstakingly assembled by Karl Schorbach in his article 'Die urkundlichen Nachrichten über Johann Gutenberg' in Festschrift zum fünfhundertjährigen Geburtstage von Johann Gutenberg, edited by Otto Hartwig (Leipzig, 1900), pp. 163–319, and this was extensively discussed for the benefit of English readers by J. H. Hessels in his study 'The so-called Gutenberg Documents', in The Library, ii, 10 (1909), 152–67, 253–87, and 386–417, and again by Douglas C. McMurtrie in The Gutenberg Documents (New York, 1941), a book published to mark the quincentenary of the invention of printing. Yet even now, a century after Schorbach and Hessels, and despite a little light having meantime been shed on particular aspects of the problem by Walter Menn, Ferdinand Geldner, Severin Corsten, and Guy Bechtel, to name but a few from the phalanx of Gutenberg scholars who have investigated the matter, we are not really much further forward. It is still debated whether Fust was an honest businessman who was determined to recoup the money he had advanced to a dishonest Gutenberg, or a greedy and crafty speculator who tried to cheat the upright Gutenberg out of the fruits of his invention. Even the outcome of the case remains controversial: thus while (for example) Albert Kapr asserts 'it seems indisputable that Gutenberg lost the action Fust brought against him' (Johann Gutenberg: The Man and his Invention, trans. by Douglas Martin (Aldershot, 1996), p. 179), Hans-Michael Empell, in the book considered here, emphatically declares 'Gutenberg hat den Prozess nicht verloren' ('Gutenberg did not lose the case') (p. 147).

At root, the problem lies in the uncertainties and ambiguities surrounding the 'Helmasperger'sches Notariatsinstrument', the legal instrument drawn up by the notary Ulrich Helmasperger, of 6 November 1455. As McMurtrie observed, this document and the associated texts present knotty points 'which even the most competent philologists find exceedingly difficult to resolve' (The Gutenberg Documents, p. 15). Philological difficulties are, however, only part of the problem. The legal aspects involved are another, and these have rarely been expertly explored. (McMurtrie mentions one study of them, which, however, he almost certainly did not see himself, for he cites the title incorrectly as Rechtshändel des Johann Gutenbergs (!); this essay by the eminent legal historian Rudolf Stammler (1856–1938), actually entitled 'Die Rechtshändel des Johann Gutenberg', appeared in Festgabe der juristischen Fakultät der vereinigten Friedrichs-Universität Halle-Wittenberg für Wilhelm von Brünneck zum 8. August 1912 (Halle, 1912), and hence is not widely available.) For this reason, Empell's study of the Helmasperger document is all the more welcome. Unlike most people who have struggled to interpret it, Empell is not just a trained academic librarian, but a qualified lawyer and legal historian also.

His succinct study comprises nine chapters. The first outlines Gutenberg's biography, describes the content of the 'Notariatsinstrument' (the full original text of which is given in an appendix while quotations from it in the body of the book are also generally provided with modern German translations; an English translation can be found in Kapr's Johann Gutenberg, English edition, pp. 173–75) and summarizes divergent views on it, and adumbrates his own approach. Successive chapters clarify the precise nature of the Mainz court and its procedures and characterize the personalities involved. Next comes discussion of the nature of the points at issue in the lawsuit, Fust's claim for repayment of a loan and the question of interest thereon, and a claim respecting a further 800 Gulden. The fifth chapter...