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In the years 1454 and 1455 there was a large demand for these Indulgences, and seven editions were issued. These may be divided into two sets, the one containing thirty-one lines, the other thirty lines; the first dated example belonging to the former.

These two sets are unmistakably the work of two different printers, one of whom may well have been Peter Schœffer, since we find the initial letters which are used in the thirty-line editions used again in an Indulgence of 1489 certainly printed by him. Who, then, was the printer of the other set? He is generally stated to have been John Gutenberg; and though we have no proof of this, or indeed of Gutenberg’s having printed any book at all, there is a strong weight of circumstantial evidence in his favour.

What do we know about John Gutenberg, the presumed printer of the first dated specimen of printing? The earliest information comes from the record of a lawsuit brought against him at Strasburg in 1439 by George Dritzehn, for money advanced.