Although much had been done to prepare Germany and Flanders for the reception of printing, one thing was lacking. Printing waited for a wise appreciation of the utility of paper. For centuries paper had been regarded as a plebeian writing surface, unfitted for books, but good enough for shopkeepers, mechanics, and children who had or sought a smattering of education. It was necessary that the prejudices in favor of vellum should be uprooted, and that the practical superiority of paper should be recognized by men of higher authority than card-printers or poor scholars. This change in fashion was effectually made by the rich merchants of Flanders and Germany. The paper rejected of professional book-makers was not so strong nor so attractive as parchment, but it was flexible, durable, and much cheaper. There was no legislative intermeddling with its sale[101] as there had been with parchment. [p187] Everybody was free to buy and use it at his pleasure. The consequences of this contemptuous abandonment of paper to the people, who were supposed to be almost unfit to use it, were unexpected. Those who knew how to read and write found in paper a ready means of communicating their knowledge. The number of readers grew. With this increase of readers came also an increase of self-taught copyists and of unprofessional book-makers. In the commercial cities, where copyists were not subjected to the censorship of the universities, the practice of making books became as common as it had been exclusive. Book-making became a distinct trade, and shops were established for the sale of alphabets, primers, prayer books, creeds, and elementary text books for schools, all adapted, both in price and in subject, to the very humblest readers.[102] The names of some nooks and corners in London, Paternoster Row, Creed Lane, Amen Corner, Ave Maria Lane, show that these were the places in that city where manuscripts of a religious character were largely made and sold.