Note 248 — XXI

Schaab says that there is on record in Mentz a document which proves that John Gensfleisch leased this house in October, 1443. Reasoning from the two disconnected facts, that this house was used by Gutenberg for a printing office, and that it had been leased by Gensfleisch in 1443, careless readers have assumed that John Gensfleisch was the first printer in Mentz, and that he was either the true inventor of printing, or the unfaithful workman who stole the invention of Coster or of Mentel. It is not necessary to repeat what has been written concerning the impossibility of a theft from the fictitious Coster, nor about the absurdity of representing the uncle as a printer.