Before the beginning of the Reformation, the business of printing books, which had originated among Germans, had secured in the so-called Latin countries, Italy, France, and Spain, larger development than in the German lands. It is certainly the case that, irrespective of the facilities afforded by the printing-press, the intellectual development in Italy was, during the 15th and the first portion of the 16th century, far in advance of Germany and for that matter of the rest of Europe. If the Reformation was not in itself an important factor in the transfer of the centre of literary activity, this period certainly coincided with such transfer. After 1518, the centres of literary production and intellectual activities are to be sought rather in Germany and in Holland than in Italy or Spain. France, on the other hand, appears to have been able, while accepting a rather burdensome measure of censorship, to have retained an important intellectual position, the influence of which is, of course, most closely associated with the university of Paris. During the years immediately following the invention of printing, the Church gave to the new art a cordial welcome. The scholarly ecclesiastics were among the first to recognise the service that could be rendered by the printers in multiplying for general distribution the books of doctrine and of devotion. The Church felt secure in its hold upon the minds of the people and for three quarters of a century, at least, there was no apprehension that the people could be diverted from their allegiance to the true Faith. Many of the monasteries made space for printing-presses, while others placed funds at the disposal of printers who were needing co-operation. It was not only in the scholarly circles of the Church that the new art secured prompt recognition. The Brothers of Common Life, who for a century or more had taken upon themselves the work of teaching the people and who had utilised in this work manuscript copies of books of devotion, were among the first to make use of the printing-press in the work of education for the distribution of their books of devotion. Within eighteen years after the production of Gutenberg’s Bible, the Brothers had printing-presses at work in Deventer (Holland) and in a number of their monasteries in North Germany. In Strasburg, Magdeburg, Nuremberg, and elsewhere before 1470, the monasteries of the Carthusians had established printing-presses.