belief that Fust was one of its victims. This is not certainly known, but he was dead on the thirtieth day of October, 1466, the date of the first mass instituted for him at the Church of Saint Victor at Paris, where his body was buried.[1]
After Fust's death, Peter Schœffer took his place at the head of the printing house. It seems, however, that he had a partner, one Conrad Fust, or Conrad Hanequis, who was, no doubt, the Henlif mentioned in the record of the Church of Saint Victor.[2] A book belonging to the Church of Saint Peter of Mentz contains the following record of their application for the manuscript of a book to which they wished to refer:
On Tuesday evening, January 14, 1468, the dean and the canons of the chapter being assembled in the court of Rhingrave, the discreet man, Conrad Fust, citizen of Mentz, respectfully requested of their reverences that they would be pleased to lend to him, and also to Peter, the husband of his daughter, a book from the library of our church, to be used as a copy, namely: the Saint Thomas [of Aquinas], entitled Liber super quarto sententiarum, and of which they wish to make many copies. The canons, considering that this request was just and pious, and that it would be productive of good, consented to the request, on condition, however, that he should replace this book, together with the Decretals of Boniface, and further, that he should give proper security to the canons. It was so done.[3]
- ↑ The record of this church says that the mass was instituted to John Fust, printer of books, "by Peter Scofer and Conrad Henlif," who gave to the church the Epistles of Saint Jerome, printed on parchment, and valued at 12 crowns of gold. In 1473, Schœffer established another mass for Fust and his wife Margaret, with the Dominicans at Mentz, for which he gave a copy of the Epistles of Jerome and of the Constitutions of Pope Clement v. As two books were here required, it shows that the price of books was rapidly depreciating.
- ↑ Bernard says that this Conrad was the son of John Fust, and that Christina Fust, who married Schœffer, was Conrad's daughter. The only evidence that this Christina was Conrad's daughter is the statement in the application, which is printed above. But this statement is not enough to overturn the contradictory statements of other writers of that day, who had better knowledge of the true relationship of all the parties. Wetter thinks that Conrad was another son-in-law to Fust. We know very little about him. It does not appear that he had any thing to do with printing before the death of Fust, nor did he exercise any known influence as a printer. His name is not to be found in any of Schœffer's books. It is not known when he died.
- ↑ This manuscript was returned, as had been agreed. It was probably used to collate the text of their edition of this book, a big folio of 548 double-columned pages in types on English body, which was completed by Schœffer and Conrad Fust, June 13th, 1469.
