No part of the Res Diplomatica has been more frequently discussed than the question respecting the origin of paper made from linen rags. The inquiry is interesting on account of the unspeakable importance of this material in connection with the progress of knowledge and all the means of civilization, and it also claims attention from the philologist as an aid in determining the age of manuscripts.

Wehrs refers to a document written A. D. 1308 as the oldest known specimen of linen paper; and, as the invention must have been at least a little previous to the preparation of this document, he fixes upon 1300 as its probable date[574]. Various writers on the subject, as Von Murr, Breitkopf, Schönemann, &c., concur in this opinion.

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.

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.

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.

This account coincides remarkably with what we know from various other sources. Professor Tychsen, in his learned and curious dissertation on the use of paper from Papyrus (published in the Commentationes Reg. Soc. Gottingensis Recentiores, vol. iv. A. D. 1820), has brought abundant testimonies to prove that Egypt supplied all Europe with this kind of paper until towards the end of the eleventh century. The use of it was then abandoned, cotton paper being employed instead. The Arabs in consequence of their conquests in Bucharia had learnt the art of making cotton paper about the year 704, and through them or the Saracens it was introduced into Europe in the eleventh century[579]. We may therefore consider it as in the highest degree probable, that the mode of making cotton paper was known to the paper-makers of Egypt. At the same time endless quantities of linen cloth, the best of all materials for the manufacture of paper, were to be obtained from the catacombs.

If we put together these circumstances, we cannot but perceive how they conspire to illustrate and justify the statement of Abdollatiph. We perceive the interest which the great Egyptian paper-manufacturers had in the improvement of their article, and the unrivalled facilities which they possessed for this purpose; and thus, we apprehend, the direct testimony of an eye-witness of the highest reputation for veracity and intelligence, supported as it is by collateral probabilities, clears up in a great measure the long-agitated question respecting the origin of paper such as we now commonly use for writing.

The evidence being carried thus far, we may take in connection with it the following passage from Petrus Cluniacensis:—

All the writers upon this subject, except Trombelli, suppose the Abbot of Clugny to allude in the phrase “ex rasuris veterum pannorum” to the use of woollen and cotton cloth only, and not of linen. But, as we are now authorized to carry up the invention of linen paper higher than before, and as the mention of it by Abdollatiph justifies the conclusion that it was manufactured in Egypt some time before his visit to that country in 1200, we may reasonably conjecture that Petrus Cluniacensis alluded to the same fact. The treatise above quoted is supposed to have been written A. D. 1120. The account of the materials used for making books appears to be full and accurate. The expression “scrapings of old cloths” agrees exactly with the mode of making paper from linen rags, but is not in accordance with any facts known to us respecting the use of woollen or cotton cloth. The only objection against this view of the subject is, that, as Peter of Clugny had not when he wrote this passage travelled eastward of France, we can scarcely suppose him to have been sufficiently acquainted with the manners and productions of Egypt to introduce any allusion to their newly invented mode of making paper. But we know that the Abbey of Clugny had more than 300 churches, colleges, and monasteries dependent on it, and that at least two of these were in Palestine and one at Constantinople. The intercourse which must have subsisted in this way between the Abbey of Clugny and the Levant, may account for the Abbot Peter’s acquaintance with the fact. It is therefore probable that he alludes to the manufacture of paper in Egypt from the cloth of mummies, which on this supposition had been invented early in the twelfth century[580].

Another fact, which not only coincides with all the evidence now produced, but carries the date of the invention still a little higher, is the description of the manuscript No. 787, containing an Arabic version of the Aphorisms of Hippocrates, in Casiri’s Bibliotheca Arabico-Hispana Escurialensis, tom. i. p. 235. This MS. was probably brought from Egypt, or the East. It has a date corresponding to A. D. 1100, and is of linen paper according to Casiri, who calls it “Chartaceus.”

“Codices chartacei,” i. e. MSS. on linen paper, as old as the thirteenth century, are mentioned not unfrequently in the Catalogues of the Escurial, the Nani, and other libraries. Joseph Brooks Yates, Esq. F. S. A., of West Dingle near Liverpool, is in possession of a fine MS. of some of the Homilies of Chrysostom, written in all probability not later than the thirteenth century. It is on linen paper, with the water-lines perfectly distinct in both directions. The water-mark is a tower, the size and form of which are shown in Plate IX. Fig. 18. From the appearance of this paper, it is probable that the form or mould may perhaps have been made of thin rods of cane or some other vegetable. These rods, however, may have been metallic. They were placed so close, that of the water-lines produced by them 17 may be counted in the space of an inch, the water-lines at right angles to these being one inch and a quarter apart.

The preceding facts coincide with the opinion long ago expressed by Prideaux, who concluded that linen paper was an Eastern invention, because “most of the old MSS. in Arabic and other oriental languages are written on this sort of paper,” and that it was first introduced into Europe by the Saracens of Spain[581].

A few observations, by way of concluding this part of the subject, may here be properly bestowed upon the material with which the WASP-FAMILY construct their nests.

The wasp is a paper-maker, and a most perfect and intelligent one. While mankind were arriving, by slow degrees, at the art of fabricating this valuable substance, the wasp was making it before their eyes, by very much the same process as that by which human hands now manufacture it with the best aid of chemistry and machinery. While some nations carved their records on wood, and stone, and brass, and leaden tablets,—others, more advanced, wrote with a style on wax,—others employed the inner bark of trees, and others the skins of animals rudely prepared,—the wasp was manufacturing a firm and durable paper. Even when the papyrus was rendered more fit, by a process of art, for the transmission of ideas in writing. The paper of the papyrus was formed of the leaves of the plant, dried, pressed, and polished; the wasp alone knew how to reduce vegetable fibres to a pulp, and then unite them by a size or glue, spreading the substance out into a smooth and delicate leaf. This is exactly the process of paper-making. It would seem that the wasp knows, as the modern paper-makers now know, that the fibres of rags, whether linen or cotton, are not the only materials that can be used in the formation of paper; she employs other vegetable matters, converting them into a proper consistency by her assiduous exertions. In some respects she is more skilful even than our paper-makers, for she takes care to retain her fibres of sufficient length, by which she renders her paper as strong as she requires. Many manufacturers of the present day cut their material into small bits, and thus produce a rotten article. One great distinction between good and bad paper is its toughness; and this difference is invariably produced by the fibre of which it is composed being long, and therefore tough; or short, and therefore friable.

The wasp has been laboring at her manufacture of paper, from her first creation, with precisely the same instruments and the same materials; and her success has been unvarying. Her machinery is very simple, and therefore it is never out of order. She learns nothing, and forgets nothing. Men, from time to time, lose their excellence in particular arts, and they are slow in finding out real improvements. Such improvements are often the effect of accident. Paper is now manufactured very extensively by machinery, in all its stages; and thus, instead of a single sheet being made by hand, a stream of paper is poured out, which would form a roll large enough to extend round the globe, if such a length were desirable. The first experimenters on paper machinery in England, Messrs. Fourdrinier, it is said, spent the enormous sum of 40,000l. in vain attempts to render the machine capable of determining the width of the roll; and, at last, accomplished their object at the suggestion of a bystander, by a strap revolving upon an axis, at a cost of three shillings and sixpence! Such is the difference between the workings of human knowledge and experience, and those of animal instinct. We proceed slowly and in the dark—but our course is not bounded by a narrow line, for it seems difficult to say what is the perfection of any art; animals go clearly to a given point—but they can go no further. We may, however, learn something from their perfect knowledge of what is within their range. It is not improbable that if man had attended in an earlier state of society to the labors of wasps, he would have sooner known how to make paper. We are still behind in our arts and sciences, because we have not always been observers. If we had watched the operations of insects, and the structure of insects in general, with more care, we might have been far advanced in the knowledge of many arts which are yet in their infancy, for nature has given us abundance of patterns. We have learnt to perfect some instruments of sound by examining the structure of the human ear; and the mechanism of an eye has suggested some valuable improvements in achromatic glasses.

Réaumur has given a very interesting account of the wasps of Cayenne (Chartergus nidulans), which hang their nests in trees[582]. Like the bird of Africa called the social grosbeak (Loxia socia), they fabricate a perfect house, capable of containing many hundreds of their community, and suspend it on high out of the reach of attack. But the Cayenne wasp is a more expert artist than the bird. He is a pasteboard-maker;—and the card with which he forms the exterior covering of his abode is so smooth, so strong, so uniform in its texture, and so white that the most skilful manufacturer of this substance might be proud of the work. It takes ink admirably!

The nest of the pasteboard-making wasp is impervious to water. It hangs upon the branch of a tree, and those rain-drops which penetrate through the leaves never rest upon its hard and polished surface. A small opening for the entrance of the insects terminates its funnel-shaped bottom. It is impossible to unite more perfectly the qualities of lightness and strength.

Mr. J. Rennie, speaking of wasps’ nests, gives us the following interesting account of one lately examined by him:—“The length,” says he, “is about nine inches, six stout circular platforms stretch internally across, like so many floors, and fixed all round to the walls of the nest. They are smooth above, with hexagonal cells on the under surface. These platforms are not quite flat, but rather concave above, like a watch-glass reversed; the centre of each platform is perforated for the admission of the wasps, at the extremity of a short funnel-like projection, and through this access is gained from story to story. On each platform, therefore, can the wasps walk leisurely about, attending to the pupæ secured in the cells, which, with the mouths downward, cover the ceiling above their heads—the height of the latter being just convenient for their work.”

Pendent wasps’-nests of enormous size are found in Ceylon, suspended often in the talipot-tree at the height of seventy feet. The appearance of these nests thus elevated, with the larger leaves of the tree, used by the natives as umbrellas and tents, waving over them, is very singular. Though no species of European wasp is a storer of honey, yet this rule does not apply to certain species of South America. In the “Annals and Magazine of Natural History” for June, 1841, will be found a detailed account, with a figure of the pendent nest of a species termed by Mr. A. White Myraptera scutellaris. The external case consists of stout cardboard covered with conical knobs of various sizes. The entrances are artfully protected by pent-roofs from the weather and heavy rains; and are tortuous, so as to render the ingress of a moth or other large insect difficult. Internally are fourteen combs, exclusive of a globular mass, the nucleus of several circular combs, which are succeeded by others of an arched form—that is, constituting segments of circles.

Good writing, printing and wrapping paper, may be procured from the shavings of common wood. The wood must be reduced to shavings by the ordinary jack-plain shaving size. The shavings are then placed in a cistern or boiler sufficiently large, and covered with water, which should be raised to the boiling-point. To every one hundred pounds of the wood so reduced, from twelve to eighteen pounds of alkali, either vegetable or mineral, is to be added, in proportion to its quality for strength. If salts are used they should be reduced before coming in contact with the wood. The salts may, however, be put in with the water and wood before reduction, but the first method is the most preferable. Should lime be used, there must be a sufficient, in all cases, to equal twelve pounds of pure black salts. One hundred pounds of wood will, if well attended to, make from five to seven reams of paper[583].