Around 1454–1455, Johannes Gutenberg of Mainz produced the first printed Bible using his revolutionary system of movable metal type and oil-based ink — a technology that transformed the production and dissemination of texts throughout the Western world. Gutenberg's press dramatically reduced the cost and time required to reproduce books, breaking the manuscript monopoly of monastic scriptoria and university stationers. Within decades, printing had spread to every major European city, making books available to a vastly expanded readership. The Gutenberg Revolution is widely regarded as one of the most consequential technological transformations in human history.

The printing press made poetry commercially reproducible for the first time, enabling poets from Petrarch's heirs to the broadside balladeers of Tudor England to reach audiences of thousands rather than dozens. Chaucer, Lydgate, and Malory were among the first English authors to appear in print, fixing vernacular literary texts in ways that shaped the emerging canon. The press also democratized access to classical learning, fueling the humanist recovery of Greek and Latin poetry that underpinned the Renaissance literary revolution — a transformation impossible to imagine without Gutenberg's innovation.