Why did early German printers use black-letter type?

Early German printers used black-letter type primarily because it was the dominant manuscript style of the time. When movable metal type was invented in the mid-15th century, early printers sought to replicate the appearance of contemporary handwritten books to satisfy a conservative public that expected printed works to resemble the work of manuscript copyists.1234

Black-letter, which evolved from the Carolingian minuscule script, was the standard for formal texts in medieval Germany. Because early printing was intended to replace the work of scribes, printers naturally adopted the existing, familiar calligraphic models. While printers in Italy eventually moved toward roman type—which was favored by Humanist scholars for its perceived clarity—black-letter remained the standard in Germany for centuries. It persisted there as a national typeface until the 20th century, largely due to the cultural influence of the Reformation, which acted as a counter-impulse to the Humanist movement that had popularized roman type elsewhere in Europe.123