Edinburgh Napier University

  Paper presented during the 'Incunabula: people, places, products and their relationships' conference, held at the National Library of Scotland, 24 October 2018.

Abstract:
During the latter half of the fifteenth century, the city of Deventer occupied a singular position within the northern Low Countries. A thriving riverside centre of commercial, ecclesiastical, and scholarly endeavour, it attracted merchants, missionaries, and various other travellers from across the region and further afield. Due to its prominent position, the town likewise played host to a flourishing literary culture, supported by a pronounced population of authors and artisans. Building on a rich local tradition of manuscript production, the city’s earliest printers were able to produce a wide variety of religious, moralistic, and – with increasing regularity – worldly texts. Whereas more extensively-studied urban communities in nearby Utrecht and more distant Paris had already begun printing books well before the establishment of Deventer’s first press in 1477, the city would soon increase its productivity to rival with some of Europe’s most industrious contemporary printing houses, including those of Germany and Italy. This paper will trace the development of early printing in Deventer, examining in detail the influence of the city as an important but often underexposed centre of early book production and consumption. By means of a comparison with nearby Utrecht, it aims to demonstrate how this relatively small city was able to dominate early book markets both at home and further afield.