Popular print

Although early information as to prices is almost non-existent, it is clear from a number of sources that small woodcuts were affordable by at least the urban working-class, and much of the peasant class as well.

Another format was the chapbook, usually a single sheet cut or folded to make a small pamphlet or book.

These covered a great variety of material, including pictures, popular history, political comment or satire, news, almanacs (from c. 1470), poems and songs.

The Reformation hugely increased the market for satirical and polemical prints in all counties affected.

This has been demonstrated by analysis of the records of the London Stationers Company from 1550 onwards; some blocks were in print for over a century with no copies now surviving.

[2] During this century, books also became much cheaper and began to replace some types of popular print.

Above all, they were popular in England, where a high degree of freedom of the press meant that dedicated print-shops, often also acting as the publishers, could openly sell and display scathing images of the Royal Family and government politicians, a business that had to remain "under the counter" in much of Europe.