Printing Press Dbq

Ali Hayes

12/20/13

1B

Printing Press DBQ Essay

        The most important consequence of the printing press is the spreading of new information all throughout Europe caused conflict. The printing press was invented by Johannes Gutenberg in the 1400s, the printing press is a device that evenly prints ink onto paper. The printing press is a huge milestone in history new developments and discoveries greatly advanced human ability to exchange feelings and ideas.

        The printing press was an amazing invention it allowed religions to spread thought Europe. One of the many important consequences. From document 5 you can see that in 1500 religion was mainly catholic and in one section, but by 1560 Europe had catholic, protest, and a mixture all thru Europe. The printing press allowed religious books to spread because they were much easier to make. Like in Document 3 and 4 Martian Luther had his 95 theses but because of the Printing Press they were able to spread from Germany around Europe in just a short amount of time which changed the way people saw one religion because Luther thought you shouldn’t have to pay the church to get rid of your sins.

        One down fall of the printing press is that scribes, people who write out books before the printing press were needed less and less so they were losing jobs. But handwriting was very time consuming and took multiple people. The printing press made the process faster and was way easier. The pictures in document 1 show that. In document 2 you can see how in less than 20 years how much the printing press expanded to new towns and countries because of how great it is! In documents 8 and 9 they both show how hard it really was to get knowledge around because writers were in such high demand but it took so long to write a book and send it off. So the printing press had another important part there.