4. During the whole thirty years of Caxton’s residence abroad, his native country was torn to pieces by a long and bitter civil war. It has been shown that the towns suffered comparatively little from this conflict, but its effect upon the Merchant Adventurers was most certainly disastrous. Where, when all the country was covered with armies, and every great noble had to take a side, was the market for imports? Where were they to get the exports when the land was ravaged throughout its length and breadth? The Merchant Adventurers could neither sell their imports nor ship their exports. The condition of London was something like that when the Saxons overran the country on all sides; and also, like that time, the flower of the London youth were called out to fight. Of money-making there was small thought; happy the merchant who could hold his own. “I have known London,” Caxton writes, “in my young age much more wealthy, prosperous, and richer than it is at this day.” While the Red and the White Roses were tearing at each other’s throats one fears that the _Domus Angliæ_ showed empty warehouses and a deserted hall. Lastly, if there were any doubt on the subject of Caxton’s comparative poverty, it should be removed by the grateful words in which he speaks of the money given him when he entered the service of the Duchess of Burgundy; these are not the words of a prosperous man. Caxton, therefore, one may be quite sure, left Bruges as slenderly provided as regards store and treasure as when he entered the city. After this preamble, we now arrive at the invention of printing. The fifteenth century--the beginning of the Renaissance--was also remarkable for the production of beautiful and costly books. The art of the illuminator had never been finer, the writing had never been more beautiful, the demand for books had never been so great; the numbers of those engaged outside the monasteries in the production of books rapidly increased. In every town they formed themselves into Guilds; thus, at Bruges, there was the Guild of St. John, in which were enrolled booksellers, painters, scriveners and copyists, illuminators, bookbinders, curriers, makers of parchment and vellum, and engravers. And they could not produce books fast enough to meet the increased demand. Now, it is perfectly certain that if the demand for anything that is made, grown, or produced is increased from any cause, the methods of production of that thing will be reconsidered, and men’s ingenuity will devise means of making the production easier, cheaper, and more practicable. What happened with the production of books was exactly what happened with everything else. “Give us more books,” cried those who, a hundred years before, had wanted no books; “give us more books.” Those who were interested in the production pondered continually over the enormous labor and cost of copying. Could there be found any way to lessen that labor? The result was the invention of printing.