We have, unfortunately, no direct evidence as to the printer. We know that the books were printed at Mainz, for it is directly so stated in the Schœffer catalogue and in the colophon of the _Catholicon_. Now we know of no printers at Mainz in 1460 except Schœffer and Gutenberg, and Schœffer was certainly not the printer of these books. On the other hand, there are no books except these three that could have been printed by Gutenberg; and if these three are to be ascribed to any one else, Gutenberg is left in the position of a known printer who printed nothing. It has been shown above that it is very improbable that the books were printed by Bechtermuntze; and the fact that in 1470 the remaining copies were in the hands of a man who did not print them, points to their real printer having died or given up business. Though from these various facts we can prove nothing as regards the identity of the printer, we have some show of probability for imagining that he must have been Gutenberg. There is no doubt whatever that the _Catholicon_ type appears at Eltvil in the hands of the two brothers Bechtermuntze in 1467, for in the _Vocabularius ex quo_ there is a clear colophon stating that the book was commenced by Henry Bechtermuntze and finished by Nicholas Bechtermuntze and Wygand Spyess of Orthenberg on the 4th of November 1467. There has been a great deal of argument on the question how these types came into the hands of the Eltvil printers while Gutenberg was alive. We know that Gutenberg became a pensioner of Adolph II. in 1465, and would therefore presumably give up printing in that year. The types and printing materials which he had been using belonged to a certain Dr. Homery, and were reclaimed by him in 1468. The distance from Eltvil to Mainz is only some five or six miles, and the Rhine afforded easy means of communication between the two places, so that the difficulty of the transference of type backwards and forwards seems, as a rule, very much overstated. Although we have no evidence of printing at Eltvil before 1467, still it will be best to give an account of the press in this chapter, since it was so intimately connected with the early press at Mainz.