Did You Know...Fascinating Printing Facts

Rag paper was a real bargain compared to the hundreds of calfskins and sheepskins it took to make one copy of the Bible—which was the staple text being produced.

Did you know... The deaths of hundreds of monks in Western European monasteries marked a milestone, leading to the invention of the printing press? After many of the monks (who copied Bibles) had succumbed to the Black Death, there was a massive void of bookmakers, which drastically increased the cost of copying Bibles. At the same time, the cost of rag paper was continually decreasing. Ultimately, the mass production of cheap paper, combined with an absence of bookmakers, became incentives to create a better printing process. PI