The second is the so-called Coster legend. This story in its legendary form says that Lourens Janssoen Coster invented printing from the chance trifling of an idle hour. He is said to have been strolling in the woods near Haarlem one day and to have cut some pieces of birch bark in the form of letters. With some of these letters dipped in ink he made marks on parchment or paper and found that he could combine them and recombine them so as to make words and sentences. He then began experimenting in earnest. His first letters were carved out of wood, then he made them out of lead, and at last out of tin. Finding the ink used by the copyists unsatisfactory he invented an ink of more viscous kind better suited to the work in hand. The story runs that his new invention attracted much attention and that he made many books which he sold at good profit. The work grew beyond his personal capacity to do it and he took servants or apprentices. Among them was a young fellow named John. John had more brains than honesty, and one day while the family were at church John packed up the type and the matrices and left Haarlem. From Haarlem, the story goes on to say, he went to Mainz where he set up in business for himself and prospered exceedingly. It is from this act, says the story, that all the Mainz printing proceeded. In this form the story is obviously legendary. We shall examine it later in another connection when we shall see this point more clearly, some of the details being evidently introduced to fill the gaps in what may be regarded as history. The third claim is the commonly accepted Gutenberg legend. Concerning Gutenberg himself we know very little, although somewhat more than we know about Coster. What we do know of him rests almost entirely upon public registers and the records of law suits. No authentic record of his birth exists, but it is supposed to have taken place at Mainz about 1399. Mainz, like many other cities of the time, was a prey to internal disputes and as a result of some such political overturn Gutenberg’s family went to Strasburg some time before 1430. In a legal document in existence at Strasburg we find mention of John Gensfleisch, otherwise known as Gutenberg, of Mainz. His name occurs in a proclamation issued in 1430 granting political amnesty to the Mainz exiles. In the same year he negotiated with the authorities of Mainz for a pension for his mother and in 1432 he was in Mainz. He next appears in the Strasburg court records in 1439, when he was defendant in a suit brought against him by his business partners. In these records are obscure references which have been interpreted as referring to printing. In the light of the clearer reference of later law suits it is not probable that this interpretation is correct.