The man who had invented an art which promised to renew the literature of the world, who had printed two great Bibles, a Latin Dictionary, and many minor works relating to religion, had surely rendered service to the first ecclesiastical dignitary of Germany.
Here Gutenberg's work ends. If not disqualified by the infirmities of age from the management of his printing office, his position as courtier must have compelled his attendance at the court of the archbishop. Possibly, the rules of the court required Gutenberg to withdraw from business. Whatever the reason, we see that the printing office at Eltvill passed into the hands of his relatives by marriage, the brothers Henry and Nicholas Bechtermüntz. It does not appear that these men had been formally instructed as printers in Mentz. As they acquired no rights of proprietorship in this office, as they were men of middle age, rich, of noble birth and of high civic position, it may be supposed that they took charge of the office to oblige Gutenberg and the archbishop, and, perhaps, from a pure love of the new art.
In the year 1467, this printing office at Eltvill produced a book now known as the Vocabularium ex quo, called so because these first words of the work serve to distinguish it from other vocabularies. It is an abbreviation of the Catholicon, and for that reason is described in the colophon as an opusculum, or a little work; but it is a heavy quarto of 330 pages. It is printed with the types of the Catholicon, and shows the same peculiarities of composition. The colophon says that "this little book was made, not by reed, nor pen, nor stencil plate, but by a certain new and subtile invention … by Henry Bechtermüntz, of blessed memory.[1] … Nicholas Bechtermüntz, and Wygand Spyess of Orthenburg."[2]
Gutenberg could not have abandoned his printing office with much regret. He had abundantly demonstrated the
