names were famous in literature or in the records of the Church, the difficulty must have been enormously greater in the case of books, however distinctive in themselves, by writers who were not known to the public. There was, in fact, no adequate machinery for bringing new books to the attention of possible readers. Many years were still to elapse before anything in the shape of a periodical came into existence, and in the impossibility of reviews or of advertisements, there was no way of giving or of distributing information about new books except by word of mouth or by personal correspondence. It is to be borne in mind that I am speaking of the years immediately preceding the Reformation. The enormous public interest aroused by the writings of Luther and his associates brought about an immediate change in publishing methods and possibilities, a change which will be described in a later chapter. The books of Erasmus, which in large part preceded the Lutheran writings, must be considered as having constituted a noteworthy exception to the literary conditions of his time. Their record also will be given farther on. It remained the case, however, that with a few inconsiderable exceptions, the only moneys paid to authors by the first Koberger were for editorial service. Hase mentions that in the production of the great _Chronicle_ of Schedel, funds had to be provided only for the illustrations and for the printing, the compiler, Hartmann Schedel, and his associate, George Alt, being willing to accept their compensation in the form of sets of the work.