Copyright predates mechanical copying. However, people used to have to petition a King or similar to be granted a monopoly on a work, and the monopoly was specific to that work.

The Statue of Anne - the first recognisable copyright law in anything remotely the modern sense dates to 1709. Long after the invention of movable type. Mechanical in the sense of printing with a press using movable type, not anything highly automated.

Having to petition for monopoly rights on an individual basis is nothing like copyright, where the entire point is to avoid having to ask for exceptions by creating a right.