Fust and his Friends

(The Epilogue to Parley ings .) The scene is laid “ Inside the home of Fust, Mayence, 1457 .” Johann Fust is often considered the inventor, or at least one of the inventors of printing. He was born at Mayence, in Germany, in the early part of the fifteenth century (date uncertain). The name ultimately became Faust. It has been said that Fust was a goldsmith, but there is no evidence of this. He was a money-lender or speculator, and was connected with Gutenberg, who is now considered to have been the real inventor of printing. Some however, say that Fust invented typography, and was the partner of Gutenberg, to whom he advanced the means to carry out his invention. On Fust first showing his printed books he was suspected of magic, as he appears to have concealed the method by which he turned them out. There is no proof that the monks were hostile to printing, or that they resented the new proce of multiplying books on the ground of interference with their busine as copyists. Fust and Gutenberg were on good terms with several monasteries, and the early printers often set up their pre es in religious houses of various orders. It is exceedingly probable that the whole magic story arose from the similarity between the names Fust and Faust, the pupil of the devil. Browning in this poem accepts the Fust story of the invention of printing. Fust is visited by some monks, who, having heard confused accounts of his work, have come to the conclusion that he has made a compact with Satan, and is in danger of losing his soul; they prepare to exorcise the demon, but cannot remember the proper formula, and make amusing mistakes in their repeated attempts to capture the appropriate Latin terms of the exorcism. They find the inventor melancholy and depre ed: he has not succeeded in perfecting his machinery; but while they argue with him the right proce suddenly dawns upon him, and invoking the aid of Arch i me des (thought by the monks to be a devil of some sort), he runs to his printing room, and in five minutes returns with the psalm which they could not remember accurately printed on slips of paper, one of which he hands to each of the friars. Fust then shows them the printing pre , and explains the use of the types and blocks, bursting out into a noble hymn of praise to God for having enabled him to ble mankind with his invention. The monks find it exceedingly simple, and perceive there is no miracle at all. They doubt whether the invention will prove an unmixed ble ing for the Church, and dread the trash which will come flying from Jew, Moor and Turk. Hu declared in dying that a swan would succeed the goose they were burning. Fust says he foresees such a man. ( Hu means goose in the dialect he spoke. The swan of whom he prophesied was Luther.) Notes. — Faust and Fust : these names were often confounded, when people thought printing a diabolical art. Palinodes , songs repeated a second time. “ Barn a bites and Dominican experts ”: The Barn a bites as a religious order were inferior in learning and theological attainments to the Do mini cans, who were experts in matters of heresy. Famulus , a servant, an attendant. “ Ne pulvis et ignis ”: Latin words misquoted from some monastic exorcism which the monks have half forgotten. “ As mode us inside of a Hu ite ,” the devil animating the heretic Hu ite or follower of Hu . “Pou sto,” point d’appui : Arch i me des said, “Give me pou sto (‘a place to stand on’), and I could move the world.”