In the commercial cities of the North, however, though often only after quite a struggle with the local church authorities, which throughout the Middle Ages had maintained a monopoly of all instruction as a protection to orthodoxy, different types of elementary vernacular schools had been developed to meet local commercial needs, such as writing-schools to train writers, [2] and reckoning-schools to train young men to handle accounts. [3] Reading, manners, and religion were also taught in these schools. Other city schools, largely Latin in type, but containing some vernacular instruction to meet local business needs not met by the cathedral or parish schools of the city, were also developed. Up to the time of the Protestant Revolts, however, there was almost no instruction in the vernacular outside of the commercial cities, nor was there any particular demand for such instruction elsewhere. If one wished to be a scholar, a statesman, a diplomat, a teacher, a churchman, or to join a religious brotherhood, he needed to study the learned language of the time,--Latin. With this he could be at home with people of his kind anywhere in western Europe. The vernacular he could leave to tradesmen, craftsmen, soldiers, laborers, and the servant classes. [Illustration: FIG. 92. TWO EARLY VERNACULAR SCHOOLS GERMAN (From a woodcut, printed at Nuremberg, 1505) FRENCH (After a drawing by Soquand, 1528)] These people, on the other hand, had practically no need for a written language, aside from a very small amount for business needs. Even here the sign of the cross would do. There were but few books written in the vernacular tongues, and these had to be copied by hand and, in consequence, were scarce and expensive. There were no newspapers (first newspaper, Venice, 1563) or magazines. Spectacles for reading were not known until the end of the thirteenth century, and were not common for two centuries after that. There was little knowledge that could not pass from mouth to mouth. Such little vernacular literature as did exist was transmitted orally, and no great issue which appealed to the imagination of the masses had as yet come to the front to create any strong desire for the ability to read. As a result, the education of the masses was in hand labor, the trades, and religion, and not in books, and the need for book education was scarcely felt.