[574] Vom Papier, p. 309, 343.
Gotthelf Fischer, in his Essay on Paper-marks[575], cites an extract from an account written in 1301 on linen paper. In this specimen the mark is a circle surmounted by a sprig, at the end of which is a star. The paper is thick, firm, and well grained; and its water-lines and water-marks (vergures et pontuseaux) may readily be distinguished.
[575] This Essay, translated into French, is published by Jansen, in his Essai sur l’origine de la gravure en bois et en taille-douce, Paris 1808, tome i. p. 357-385.
The date was carried considerably higher by Schwandner, Principal Keeper of the Imperial Library at Vienna, who found among the charters of the Monastery of Göss in Upper Stiria one in a state of decay, only seven inches long and three wide. So highly did he estimate the value of this curious relic as to publish in 1788 a full account of his discovery in a thin quarto volume, which bears the following title, “Chartam linteam antiquissimam, omnia hactenus producta specimina ætate suâ superantem, ex cimelüs Bibliothecæ Augustæ Vindobonensis exponit Jo. Ge. Schwandner,” &c. The document is a mandate of Frederick II. Emperor of the Romans, entrusting to the Archbishop of Saltzburg and the Duke of Austria the determination of a dispute between the Duke of Carinthia and the Monastery of Göss respecting the property of the latter in Carinthia. Schwandner proves the date of it to be 1243. He does not say whether it has any lines or water-mark, but is quite satisfied from its flexibility and other qualities, that it is linen. Although on the first discovery of this document some doubt was expressed as to its genuineness, it appears to have risen in estimation with succeeding writers; and we apprehend it is rather from inadvertence than from any deficiency in the evidence, that it is not noticed at all by Schönemann, Ebert, Delandine, or by Horne. Due attention is, however, bestowed upon it by August Friedrich Pfeiffer Uber Bücher-Handschriften, Erlangen 1810, p. 39, 40.
With regard to the circumstances which led to the invention of the paper now in common use, or the country in which it took place, we find in the writers on the subject from Polydore Virgil to the present day nothing but conjectures or confessions of ignorance. Wehrs supposes, and others follow him, that in making paper linen rags were either by accident or through design at first mixed with cotton rags, so as to produce a paper, which was partly linen and partly cotton, and that this led by degrees to the manufacture of paper from linen only[576]. Wehrs also endeavors to claim the honor of the invention for Germany, his own country; but Schönemann gives that distinction to Italy, because there, in the district of Ancona, a considerable manufacture of cotton paper was carried on before the fourteenth century[577]. All however admit, that they have no satisfactory evidence on the subject.
[576] Vom Papier, p. 183.
[577] Diplomatik, vol. i. p. 494.
A clear light is thrown upon these questions by a remark of the Arabian physician, Abdollatiph, who visited Egypt A. D. 1200. He informs us[578], “that the cloth found in the catacombs, and used to envelope the mummies, was made into garments, or sold to the scribes to make paper for shop-keepers.” Having shown (See Part IV. [Chapter I.]) that this cloth was linen, the passage of Abdollatiph, therefore, may be considered as a decisive proof, which, however, has never been produced as such, of the manufacture of linen paper as early as the year 1200.
[578] Chapter iv. p. 188 of Silvestre de Sacy’s French translation, p. 221 of Wahl’s German translation. This interesting passage was translated as follows by Edward Pococke, the younger:—“Et qui ex Arabibus, incolisve Rifæ, aliisve, has arcas indagant, hæc integumenta diripiunt, quodque in iis rapiendum invenitur; et conficiunt sibi vestes, aut ea chartarüs vendunt ad conficiendam chartam emporeaticam.”
Silvestre de Sacy (Notice, &c.), animadverting on White’s version which is entirely different, expresses his approbation of Pococke’s, from which Wahl’s does not materially differ.