Oldest printed document ... and the Abingdon connection Let me shamelessly rip this from our National Archives. This is the first item printed in England. It was made by William Caxton, who introduced printing into England. It is an indulgence - a certificate written in Latin and issued by the Church. It gave the person who received it a reduction in the time that they had to spend in Purgatory (the place where souls were thought to go after death to spend time suffering before going on to heaven). John, Abbot of Abingdon, signed this indulgence for a couple called Henry and Katherine Langley. William Caxton was born in Kent in 1421 and worked abroad as a diplomat and merchant. While in Europe, he became interested in the new technology of printing developed by Johannes Gutenberg during the early 1450s. Caxton returned to England and set up a printing shop near Westminster Abbey. He printed over 100 books before his death in 1491, including Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales'. The design of the flat bed wooden hand-press used in Caxton's printing house remained the same, except for minor changes, for over 350 years. In the printing process, ink was spread over the raised surfaces of individual metal letters held within a frame. The printer then pressed this against a sheet of paper, screwing down the press by hand. Printing presses were first invented in the Rhineland in Germany. The craftsmen there were used to building grape presses for making wine and applied the same methods to building printing presses.Printing revolutionised life in Western Europe. Previously, all manuscript books had to be copied out carefully and slowly by hand. This was very expensive. Now it was quick to make lots of copies of books. This meant that books circulated faster. People had easier access to new ideas and new views of the world. Early printing copied the look of manuscript books, which is why Caxton's indulgence looks like it has been written by hand. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/museum/item.asp?item_id=9 DW