| Evidence of date. |
Evidence of date.These paper-marks in some cases afford useful evidence as to the origin and date of a manuscript or printed book; but too much reliance should not be placed on such evidence, since paper often remained for a long time in stock, and the productions of one manufactory were frequently exported for use by the scribes and printers of more than one distant country[[247]].
Paper of Oriental make has no water-mark, but the earliest linen-paper of the fourteenth century made in Christian Europe always has a water-mark of some kind, very clearly visible.
| Earliest cotton paper. |
Earliest cotton paper.The dates of paper manufacture. The earliest paper appears to have been made in China at a date even before the Christian Era. Its manufacture was next extended in Syria, and especially to Damascus[[248]]. This early paper was made of the cotton-plant, the "tree-wool" of Herodotus. Hence it was called charta bombycina or Damascena, or, from its silky texture, charta serica. Paper of this class, almost as beautiful in texture as vellum, is still made in the East and used for the fine illuminated manuscripts of India, Persia and other Moslem countries.
| Arab MSS. on paper. |
Arab MSS. on paper.Many Arab manuscripts written on cotton-paper of as early a date as the ninth century still exist. The Moslem conquerors of Spain and Sicily introduced the manufacture of this charta bombycina into western Europe, and to some small extent it was used for Greek and Latin manuscripts during the tenth and eleventh centuries. It was, however, rarely used in Christian Europe till the thirteenth century.
| Wool-paper. |
Wool-paper.At first cotton only was used in the manufacture of paper, but gradually a mixture first of wool and then of flax or linen was introduced.
Peter, who was Abbot of Cluny from 1122 to 1150, in his treatise Adversus Judaeos mentions manuscripts written on wool-paper, made "ex rasuris veterum pannorum."