The term "printer's devil" has been ascribed to the apprentices' hands and skin getting stained black with
ink when removing sheets of paper from the
tympan. In 1683, English printer
Joseph Moxon wrote that "devil" was a humorous term for boys who were covered in ink: "whence the Workmen do Jocosely call them Devils; and sometimes Spirits, and sometimes Flies." Once cast metal type was used, worn, or broken, it was thrown into a "
hellbox", after which it was the printer's devil's job to either put it back in the job case, or take it to the furnace to be melted down and recast. Many explanations have been given for the religious or supernatural connotations of the term. From the
Middle Ages onward, particularly in
Catholic countries, technological inventions such as the printing press were often regarded with suspicion, and associated with
Satan and the "
Dark Arts". Some have suggested that the term was coined as an
epithet by scribes who feared that the
printing press would make the hand-copying of manuscripts obsolete. Several theories of the term's origins are included below.
Titivillus One popular theory is linked to the fanciful belief among printers that a special demon,
Titivillus (also referred to as "the original printer's devil"), haunted every print shop, performing mischief such as inverting type, misspelling words, and removing entire lines of completed type. Titivillus was said to execute his pranks by influencing the young apprentices – or "printer's devils" – as they set up type, or by causing errors to occur during the actual casting of metal type. Often depicted as a creature with claw-like feet and horns on his head, the origins of the Titivillus legend date back to the Middle Ages, when he was said to collect "fragments of words" that were dropped or misspoken by the clergy or laiety in a sack to deliver to
Satan daily, and later, to record poorly recited prayers and gossip overheard in church with a pen on parchment, for use on
Judgement Day. Over the centuries, Titivillus was also blamed for causing monks to make mistakes while copying manuscripts by hand; meddling with block and plate printing; and eventually, playing pranks with
movable type. Fust, together with Gutenberg's son-in-law Peter Schoeffer, then set up their own printing business and published the
Mainz Psalter, a Bible which introduced colour printing, in 1457. Literary scholar Sarah Wall-Rendell argues that the association of the Doctor Faustus legend with books and printing technology reflected ongoing ambivalence among Reformation writers about the impact that books would have on an increasingly literate populace. The assistant to Manutius was a young boy of African descent who was accused of being the embodiment of Satan and dubbed the ''printer's devil''.
William Caxton Some boys claimed their names descended from an apprentice
William Caxton had in the 1470s. His name changed from , to and .
Malayalam root While the term "printer's devil" in India may stem from the European legend of Titivillus, another theory is that it might stem from the Malayalam term for "printing error" (
achadi pisaku), which is only one change of a Malayalam letter away from "printing devil" (
achadi pisachu). ==Famous devils==