- Born 1370 in Haarlem in Netherlands.
- He had a large list of job titles; Candle maker, innkeeper, Sheriff, treasurer, officer of the city guard and most importantly the position of what was referred to in dutch as Koster meaning the warden of the great church of Haarlem.
- Around the year 1423 (though some versions of events date it as 1428 or 1430) Koster was walking through the a nearby wood with his grandchildren. To keep them amused he carved some letters into the bark of a tree, when the letters fell to the sand, he noticed the impression they left which gave him the idea that the same could happen on paper to make books. That one moment later became the what many believe to be the invention in Europe of printing with movable type. This would make it an innovation that came a dozen years before Gutenberg printed his 42-line bible.
-Hadrianus Junius, has the noble reputation of the most learned man in Netherlands after Erasmus was the first person to give a full account of the Koster in "Batavia" published 1568 (this seems to me to be a reliable source of information so good for getting a feel for the argument that Gutenberg did not invent movable type, however the fact that he is from the Netherlands like Koster must be taken into account as he may be biased)
- He mentions in his findings as well as the above story that Koster went on to then experiment with block printing and to improve the quality of the ink as he found that used by scribes tended to run when used by a press.
- His son in law Thomas pieter helped him to produce the book 'Speculum Humanae Salvationis'
-He then continued to improve the methods with different types of wood, followed by lead and then mixtures of lead and tin.
- As his business blossomed and grew he hired a number of assistants, including Johannes Fust.
- If the myth is to believed it was Johannes Fust who broke into his masters print workshop in 1441 and stole all of his types and equipment before fleeing to Amsterdam, onto Cologne and finally onto Mainz.
-Could this be true? - There are no books in existence bearing Koster's name as a printer but neither are there any which have Gutenbergs name so it does not give evidence in Gutenberg's favour either.
- Although Koster is not mentioned specifically until Junius' Batavia in 1568 the suggestion of Haarlem being the birthplace of printing had arisen quite a while earlier in Jan Van Zuyren's work on the 'Invention of Typography' he wrote in relation to the cities claim "...at this day fresh in the remembrance of our fathers, to whom, so to express myself, they have transmitted from hand to hand from their ancestors."
-Another supporter of this appeal is Dirck Volckertszoon Coornhert in his preface to a translation of Cicero which he printed himself in 1561 where he states refering to Koster and Haarlem that "....the faithful testimonies of men alike respectable from their age and authority, who not only have often told me of the family of the inventor, and of his name and surname, but have even described to me the rude manner of printing first used, and pointed out to me with their fingers the abode of the first printer."
-Despite this story today the most wide spread thought and teaching is directed towards the idea that printing was invented in Mainz Germany around 1452 by Johann Gutenberg.
- Even modern scholarly texts on the topic admit that this theory is possible and that Gutenberg was maybe not the first.
- Warren Chappell's 'A Short History of the Printed World' which was published in 1970 states that the "quality of the early Dutch type-making and printing still extant is so markedly inferior to Gutenberg's that the possibility of a few years' priority is less important than Gutenberg's results."
- he then goes on to defend this not wholly neutral position with the justification that the "Chief value of establishing earlier experiments lies in their helping to explain the extraordinary quality of the great 42-line Bible [of Gutenberg]"
- In Summary Warren feels that Gutenberg should be recognised as the principle inventor of movable type for aesthetic purposes more than any reason to do with historical accuracy or fact.
- Dispite the wide belief in Gutenberg as the inventor for hundreds of years believers in the story of Koster have stood by him and also believe that he also printed the 'Biblia Pauperum', the 'Ars Moriendi' and the 'Donatus' as well as the 'Speculum.'
- Among those believers are said to have been scholars equally as eminent and qualified as those who support the case of Gutenberg inventing movable type.
- There are holidays, celebrations and centenaries all help in Haarlem and all over the Netherlands as well as countless tributes in the form of books, paintings, sculpture, coins, medals and memorial statues all created in his honour. Dutch school children are taught all about their fellow countryman's great achievement.
-I guess we are left with never truly knowing which of the two candidates really was the inventor of movable type in Europe.
- Whether it is a myth or fact the story of Laurens Janszoon Koster is certainly the stuff of legend.
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