Religion and the Printing Press
"Beginning in 1517 in Germany, the Protestant Reformation unleashed a tremedous surge in printing."(26) When the Protestant Reformation began, it was important for the leaders of the different sects to get their beliefs out to the masses. For them to be able to do this they were going to have to print many pamphlets to spread their beliefs. It was important that each sect get their pamphlets printed because with Christianity splitting up the way that it was, there were many Christian sects trying to get followers. Without the Catholic Church upsetting so many people, the surge in printing would not have happened for a long time, but with the Protestant Reformation came mass printing in amounts that had never been thought possible before this time.
posted by n_rivera @ 2:25 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
As both Graff and Starr demonstrate, the Protestant Reformation is a key social movement that used printing as a way of spreading religious ideas to a much bigger group of readers.
The pamphlet and the broadside were more important than books in this campaign of religious propaganda. Protestantism also encouraged literacy which enlarged the reading public making for a bigger market and more profits for printers.
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