Before Johannes Gutenberg's invention of movable type in the mid-15th century, books were rare and costly. Each copy had to be painstakingly transcribed by hand, a process that limited production to only a few volumes per year for a single scribe. Consequently, access to written knowledge was largely restricted to a small, wealthy elite. The printing press, however, enabled the rapid duplication of texts. This mass production capability meant that books and pamphlets could be distributed to a much broader audience for the first time.