Why were many early German single prints difficult to identify by place of origin?

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Mary Cassatt: Woman Bathing — Printmaking *Woman Bathing*, color aquatint with drypoint by Mary Cassatt, 1890–91; in the Art Institute of Chicago.

In the early 15th century, many German single prints were difficult to identify by their place of origin primarily because they were neither signed nor dated by their creators.1

Furthermore, these prints often featured religious imagery and were frequently carried by pilgrims as they traveled from one location to another, which makes it nearly impossible to establish their specific point of origin with any certainty. Because of these factors, art historians must rely almost exclusively on the stylistic characteristics of the works to infer where they may have been produced.1