Printed textbooks at the University of Leuven (1474-1650)

Through the proposed project A New 'Book Archaeology' of Teaching and Printing in Early Modern Louvain, I intent to explore how the printing press influenced the practice of lecturing at the Old University of Louvain, and vice versa. This will be undertaken by constructing the new database Manuale Lovaniense within the ODIS-framework integrating printed textbooks and handwritten student notes and reconstructing the printers’, professors’ and students’ networks. This will be possible by building upon and integrating findings from the existing platforms Lovaniensia and Magister Dixit (Bijzondere Collecties) and the ongoing databases at the early modern history department, Impressae (Wyffels/Soetaert/Soen) and Impressa Catholica Cameracensia (including printed matter for the university of Douai, Soetaert/Soen/Verberckmoes). In the early modern period there was a direct relationship between the university and the presence of several printers and printing dynasties in the city of Louvain, and in some periods during the sixteenth and seventeenth century there were more than twenty individually operating print shops in Louvain along with booksellers. Academics were their principal customers, which resulted in a scholarly book culture because the printers would cater to their demands by printing textbooks, commentaries or private academic research. Because the emergence of the printing press had a significant political, religious, societal and intellectual impact it is impossible to deny the huge impact of the university on the printing press in Louvain, but what has not been studied until now, is how the printed press influenced the university. This PhD project aims to explore the impact of the printing press on the lectures of the Louvain professors of law and theology, and how this new media technology influenced the transmission of scholarly knowledge in Louvain during the sixteenth and seventeenth century.