An immediate result of these changes and extensions was an active demand for printed texts. The Humanistic movement, itself in a measure the result of the printing-press, was a most important fact in providing business for the German printers during the earlier years of the sixteenth century. The strifes and contentions of the Reformation checked the development in the universities of the studies connected with the intellectual movement of the Renaissance and lessened the demand for the literature of these studies. The active-minded were absorbed in theological controversies, and those who could not understand the questions at issue could still shout the shibboleths of the leaders. As Erasmus put it, rather bitterly, _ubi regnat Lutheranismus, ibi interitus litterarum_. The literature of the Reformation, however, itself did much to make good for the printing-presses the lessened demand for the classics, while a few years later, the organisation of the Protestant schools and universities aroused intellectual activities in new regions, and created fresh requirements for printed books. Within half a century, in fact, of the Diet of Worms, the centre of the book-absorbing population of Germany had been transferred from the Catholic states of the south to the Protestant territories of the north, and the literary preponderance of the latter has continued to increase during the succeeding generations. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER IV. THE BOOK-TRADE IN THE MANUSCRIPT PERIOD. =Italy.=--It seems probable that the book-trade which had been introduced into Gaul from Rome still existed during the sixth century. F. J. Mone finds references to such trade in the chronicles of Cæsarius of Arles.[308] In the code of laws of the Visigoths, it is provided that copies of the volume containing the laws shall be sold at not more than six sols.[309] Wattenbach is of opinion that not only in Rome but in other Italian centres some fragments of the classic book-trade survived the fall of the Empire and the later invasions and changes of rulers, and he finds references to book-dealers in Italy as late as the sixth century.[310] He takes the ground that, notwithstanding the destruction of buildings, library collections, and in fact of whole cities, during the various contests, first with the Barbarian invaders and later between these invaders themselves, there still remained scholarly people who retained their interest in Latin literature; and he points out that, notwithstanding the many changes in the rulers of Italy between the year 476 and the beginning of the eleventh century, Latin never ceased to remain the official language and, as he maintains, the language of literature. In the _Tetralogus_ of Wipo are the following lines which have a bearing upon this belief in the continuation of some literary interests in Italy: