value. Whatever the reason, it is certain that his partners abandoned Gutenberg and his invention. We read no more of Riffe and Heilmann in connection with typography.
There is evidence that Gutenberg was financially embarrassed after the trial. On the second day of January, 1441, Gutenberg and the knight Luthold von Ramstein gave security for the annual payment of five pounds to the Chapter of St. Thomas at Strasburg, in consideration of the present sum of one hundred pounds paid by the chapter to Gutenberg. On the fifteenth day of December, 1442, John Gutenberg and Martin Brether sold to the same corporation for the present sum of eighty pounds, an annual income of four pounds, from the revenues of the town of Mentz. Gutenberg had inherited this income from his uncle, Johan Lehheimer, secular judge of that city. The tax-book of the city shows that he was in arrear for taxes between the years 1436 and 1440. In the tax-book for 1443, it is plainly recorded that Gutenberg's tax was paid by the Ennel Gutenbergen who is supposed to have been his wife. Gutenberg had reason to be disheartened. He had spent all his money; had alienated his partners; had apparently wasted a great deal of time in fruitless experiments; had damaged his reputation as a man of business, and seemed further from success than when he revealed his plans to his partners.
It is the common belief that Gutenberg went direct from Strasburg to Mentz. Winaricky, on the contrary, says that he forsook Strasburg for the University of Prague, at which institution he took the degree of bachelor of arts in 1445, and in which city he resided, until it was besieged, and he was obliged to leave, in 1448. There is no trustworthy authority for either statement. The period in his life between 1442 and 1448 is blank, 'but it is not probable that he was idle.
