ThePrüfening dedicatory inscription (German:Prüfeninger Weiheinschrift) is ahigh medieval inscription impressed on clay which was created in 1119, over three hundred years beforeJohannes Gutenberg, by thetypographic principle.[1] The inscription plate belongs to thePrüfening Abbey, a formerBenedictine monastery, inRegensburg,Germany.
TheLatin inscription is still at its original location in Prüfening Abbey, attached to one of the main pillars of its church. It reports the consecration act of the monastery in honour ofSt. George, carried out by the two bishopsOtto of Bamberg and Hartwig of Regensburg. The inscription plate specifies the year of the act and, by implication, its own date as 1119 (•MCXVIIII•). It was made of bakedclay, painted over in an alternating, red white pattern, and is approximately 26 cm wide, 41 cm high and 3 cm thick, with a crack running through its entire breadth. The sunkletterforms are the classicalcapitalis monumentalis orRoman square capitals. Copies are at display in several German museums, including theGutenberg Museum at Mainz.[2]
The unusual sharpness of the inscription letters has long ledepigraphists to believe that they were not carved by hand into the clay.[3] The typographic character of the inscription was demonstrated in a systematic examination of the text body by the typesetter and linguistHerbert Brekle.[4] His findings confirm that the text was produced with aprinting method similar to that of thePhaistos Disc: The 17-line text was created by pressing individual, pre-formed stamps (probably made of wood) into the soft clay in a way that, for each letter which occurred more than once, the same letter stamp was re-used, thereby producing identical imprints throughout the text.[5] Thus, the essential criterion for typographic text production was met, namely the repeated use of identicaltypes for a single character.[5] In applying this technique, it is not relevant that the Prüfening inscription was made by stamping letters into the clay and not − as later practiced by Gutenberg − by printing onpaper, since neither the technical execution nor the print medium definemovable type printing, but rather the criterion oftype identity:[6]
The defining criterion which a typographic print has to fulfill is that of the type identity of the various letter forms which make up the printed text. In other words: eachletter form which appears in the text has to be shown as a particular instance ("token") of one and the same type which contains a reverse image of the printed letter.
By projecting the text letters one upon the other (e.g., all "A"s onto one another) at high magnification, the consistent type identity of the dedicatory inscription could be demonstrated beyond doubt.[5] An additional indication that its creator had worked with reusable types is the marked tendency of some letters to tilt to the right or left; in those cases the artisan apparently did not succeed in setting up the letter stamps completely parallel to the lateral borderline of the plate.[5] The evidence of the skewed letters, but most importantly the observation that the type token criterion was met throughout the text prove the "typographic character of the Prüfening dedicatory inscription with certainty."[1]
A fragment of another inscription plate found close to the monastery indicates that the Prüfening abbey inscription did not remain an isolated phenomenon, but that at least locally the typographic production method was applied more frequently.[7]
In the cathedral ofCividale del Friuli in northern Italy, the silveraltarpiece of Pellegrino II, thepatriarch of Aquileia between 1195 and 1204, was inscribed in Latin by the means of individualletter punches (instead of stamps).[8] Apart from stamping and punching, another typographic method existed which followed thescrabble principle: for decorating the paved floors of monasteries and churches,individual letter tiles were fired and then assembled so that they formedChristian inscriptions on the floor. This technique seemed to be fairly widespread, with known examples ranging from England over the Netherlands to Germany.[9]
The Latin inscription runs written out in full:[10]
+ Anno domini MCXVIIII, IIII idus mai, consecratum est hoc monasterium in honore sancti Georgii a venerabilibus episcopis Ratisponensi Hartwico Bambergensi Ottone. Continentur in prinicipali altari de ligno Domini; reliquiae sanctae Mariae; apostolorum Petri et Pauli, Andreae; Mathei, Marci, evangelistarum; Barnabae; sanctorum martyrum Stephani, protomartyris, Clementis, Dionysii, Rustici, Eleutherii, Laurentii, Vincentii, Sebastiani, Crisogoni, Pancratii; sanctorum confessorum Ermachorae, Fortunati, Salini, Albini, Fursei, Gundolfi, Drudonis, Juventii; sanctarum virginum Genofevae, Gratae, Columbae, Glodesindis.
Translated into English:
In AD 1119, on the fourth day before the Ides of May [12 May], this monastery was consecrated in honour ofSt. George by the venerable bishops Hartwig of Regensburg andOtto of Bamberg. In the main altar, relics are kept of theCross ofthe Lord, ofHoly Mary, of the apostlesPeter,Paul andAndrew, of the evangelistsMatthew andMark,Barnabas, of the holy martyrsStephen the protomartyr,Clement,Dionysius, Rusticus, Eleutherius,Laurentius, Vincentius,Sebastian,Chrisogonus,Pancratius; of the holy confessorsErmachora, Fortunatus, Salinus,Albinus,Furseus, Gundolf, Drudon,Juventinus; of the holy virginsGenoveva, Grata,Columba,Glodesindis.
With these observations and concluding remarks, the typographic character of the Prüfening dedicatory inscription has been demonstrated with certainty. It has been shown that the typographic principle, that is the representation of letter "types" − in whatever physical manifestation − in each case of necessarily the same form (type identity) on a print medium in a string of lines, had been realized in Prüfening Abbey in 1119.
Further medieval techniques
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