Reading in the Dark: Lost Books, Literacy, and Fifteenth-Century German Literature

While the invention of print has often been treated as a media revolution, a reconsideration of the type and page formats of early printed books suggests considerable continuity in physical makeup, and in book markets as well, between manuscript and print. This continuity in turn suggests that recent research on lost books and missing editions, which points towards a much higher number of lost fifteenth-century editions than previously believed, is also relevant for the study of late medieval manuscripts, especially for smaller vernacular works. Shifting the perspective from the books and manuscripts that survive today to those that likely once existed compels a reconsideration of late medieval literacy and the literary context for smaller works, such as the Stricker’s Pfaffe Amis, that were printed in the fifteenth century.