The Times: Commentary

Johannes Gutenberg is thought to be born in the year of 1400, but the exact year is not known. Much of Gutenberg's life is not documented. Such holes in Johannes’ life were his childhood, teens, or young adult years. He was like a ghost throughout the 1420's and 1430's. The first detailed records of his existence as an adult were during his years as a printer.

The time period between the 12 and 15 hundreds was crucial to the birth of the modern world. During this time the world was emerging from the intellectual sleep of the dark ages to an awakening of culture. This rebirth of intellectual thought and culture was called the Renaissance. In this time people began to realize self-worth and, in turn, individual thought. The individual thought of this time broke of people and ultimately the sciences from religion. Before this time Religion was used a driving force in conformity and oppression. Due to this secular thought people began viewing the church as imperfect and corrupt.

The new view of the church as corrupt and unjust led a few key figures to try and reform the Catholic Church. This created a problem for the church since it claimed itself perfect in order to control the general population. The church declared that anyone that denies the church's purity is a heretic. By doing this the church was able to execute rebels on account of blasphemy. These almost guerilla tactics worked counter-productively since the  supposed heretics pointed out that the executions were unjust.

Another reason for the medieval time's near halt in innovation was the fact that literature was never written in vernacular. Vernacular is the language used by the masses. All books including the bible were written in Latin. This allowed for only learned and wealthy people to read. These people were the main problem in the corruptness of the church since they had power, but chose to be ignorant and allow the Church to spread propaganda and become all-powerful.