The free cities of mediæval Germany were continually torn asunder by petty civil wars. The nobles, who despised commerce, and the burghers, who lived by it, were always fighting for the upper hand, and the laboring people sided now with one party, and now with the other. After each uprising the victors usually banished a great number of the defeated faction from the city. So it happened that John Gutenberg, a young man of good family, who had been born in Mainz about 1400, was outlawed from his home, and went with his wife Anna to live in the city of Strasburg, which was some sixty miles distant from Mainz. He chose the trade of a lapidary, or polisher of precious stones, an art which in that age was held in almost as high esteem as that of the painter or sculptor. He had been well educated, and his skill in cutting gems, as well as his general learning and his interest in all manner of inventions, drew people of the highest standing to his little workshop, which was the front room of his dwelling house.
