Moveable type led to the demise of illuminated manuscripts because of economic advantages.

1. “But Father,
I’m Gold-
Leafing as
Fast as I
Can!”
@sarahokeefe #lavacon

2. @sarahokeefe #lavacon

3. @sarahokeefe #lavacon

4. Velocity
@sarahokeefe #lavacon

5. Publication time, years
@sarahokeefe #lavacon
Copy 1
Copy 2
Copy 3
Copy 4

6. Velocity
wins over
artistic
merit.
@sarahokeefe #lavacon

7. Cost
❖ Manual labor (scribes, illuminators)
❖ Materials (goldleaf, pigments)
❖ Vellum
@sarahokeefe #lavacon

8. Before the
printing
press, books
were a luxury
item.
@sarahokeefe #lavacon

9. Cost containment
@sarahokeefe #lavacon

10. Cost containment
❖ Less manual labor
❖ Fewer costly materials
❖ Paper
@sarahokeefe #lavacon

11. And, of course…movable type!
@sarahokeefe #lavacon

12. Personalization
@sarahokeefe #lavacon
Luttrell Psalter
Sir Geoffrey Luttrell,
wife Agnes Sutton, and
daughter-in-law

13. A book without
personalization?
Ridiculous.
@sarahokeefe #lavacon

14. @sarahokeefe #lavacon

15. Books in
Europe
@sarahokeefe #lavacon
http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/educator/modules/gutenberg/books/legacy/

16. @sarahokeefe #lavacon
By Tentotwo - Own workData from: Buringh, Eltjo; van Zanden, Jan Luiten: "Charting the “Rise of the West”: Manuscripts and Printed Books in Europe,A Long-Term Perspective
from the Sixth through Eighteenth Centuries",The Journal of Economic History,Vol. 69, No. 2 (2009), pp. 409–445 (416–417, tables 1&2), CC BY-SA 3.0, https://
commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17678764
That’s a logarithmic
scale!

17. Better
@sarahokeefe #lavacon

18. Winners after Gutenberg
❖ Printers
❖ Literacy
❖ Information dissemination
❖ Newspapers
(150 years later)
@sarahokeefe #lavacon

19. Artistic
merit loses
out…
@sarahokeefe #lavacon

20. @sarahokeefe #lavacon

21. @sarahokeefe #lavacon

22. @sarahokeefe #lavacon

23. @sarahokeefe #lavacon