Comment by Geldner:
FUST'S "REPLY" AND GUTENBERG'S "REJOINDER" (Lines 47/48)
In his transition to the verdict (Having heard address, answer, reply and rejoinder, which consisted of these and many other words) the notary public Helmasperger admits that his report on the proceedings is abridged, with drastic consequences for Gutenberg research: apart from the probability that he abbreviated Fust's complaint and Gutenberg's answer, not even giving a particularly clear rendition, he completely omitted Fust's reply and Gutenberg's rejoinder, although both must have been of considerable length (with these [words] refers to Fust's "address" and Gutenberg's "answer", [with] many other words refers to the reply and the rejoinder). The reason for this is quite clear: U. Helmasperger was completely incapable of giving any kind of meaningful summary of what Gutenberg and Fust were arguing about, since apart from the dates involved, they were dealing with the central problems of early book printing: technical errors, improvements, innovations made by others, maybe the printing of letters of indulgence, and certainly the printing of other major works the possibilities are endless. Since they didn't speak openly on these matters, using coded terms and references, Helmasperger's failure to record the details is understandable. This means subsequent generations have been deprived of the chance to hear Gutenberg's own voice, even through an imperfect medium, speaking about himself and his invention. The reason which prevented U. Helmasperger from going into detail on the reply and the rejoinder was almost certainly also responsible for the judge's decision to pass verdict on the first article of Fust's complaint only, restricting himself to financial matters. The court did not consider itself competent to rule on the second article (and any others there may have been).