Gunpowder and the Printing Press: The History and Legacy of the Inventions that Modernized Europe

In addition to the wheelbarrow, the seismograph, the waterwheel, deep drilling, suspension bridges, and ship rudders, among countless other life-changing contraptions, the Chinese developed what were later dubbed the “Four Great Inventions of China.” Two of those were gunpowder and printing, which both spread through South Asia and the Middle East before making it to Europe.

For a time, gunpowder was a mere curiosity, but its destructive power and military potential would be realized quickly. The first record of a cannon in Europe comes from a manuscript written in 1326, which has an illustration showing an armored man with what looks like a slow match lighting a vase-shaped object. This crude cannon was called a pot de fer in French and vasi in Italian. While medieval engineers developed new types of cannons and explosives capable of destroying walls and castles, others were making the first handguns possible. European sources first mentioned the widespread use of handgonnes, as they were often called, in the late 14th century, precisely the time when gunpowder became cheaper. These were short metal barrels stuck on the end of wooden hafts that could be tucked under the arm, the powder being lit through a touchhole with the free hand. While they were not terribly accurate and had a shorter range and slower rate of fire than longbows or crossbows, they had the advantage of being better able to punch through armor than longbows and crossbows, and they were simple to make and use. By the late 15th century, handgonners had become a major part of the leading armies, and weapons that relied on gunpowder would remain a staple of warfare throughout the 19th century, paying deadly homage to one of history’s most important inventions.

The history of printing was for ancient Asia an advancement in culture and communication, but for Europe in the 15th century, it was much more, plunging the continent into a new paradigm and aligning it for the modern world. Its importance is often overlooked, but the timeliness of the printing machine was equivalent to the invention of alphabets in antiquity and ranks up there with the digital revolution and the introduction of the internet. Put simply, it made the Renaissance possible and led to the modernization of Europe.

Long before the emergence of the modern world, paper was unknown in the West, and all documents were transcribed by hand onto clay, papyrus, and parchment. More importantly, few were allowed to express themselves through written media. Writing was for the most part theological in nature, reserved for scribes mostly living and working in monasteries. There, they sat in special rooms called “scriptoriums.” At some point in the process, illuminators took over, adding designs and embellishments. Books in the Middle Ages were owned almost exclusively by monasteries and educational institutions, and with reading material being such a rarity, content remained narrow and difficult to access.

Based on earlier Asian principles, Johannes Gutenberg’s movable type printing press propelled an industry that led to the education of the West and ultimately removed the tight grip of the Vatican from daily European life. Within less than a century of Gutenberg’s device appearing on the scene, printing presses had churned out tens of millions of copies of books of all types, and as more people became educated, lower classes became wealthier while revolutionary principles spread across borders like wildfire. In addition to ushering in the Renaissance, the printing press also made the Reformation possible, and just as gunpowder was revolutionizing medieval warfare, the printing press led to battles over ideas and the rise of nationalism. For better and worse, after Gutenberg’s printing press became available, the world would never be the same.