Origin Of The Materials Of Writing

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Title:     Origin Of The Materials Of Writing
Author: Isaac Disraeli [More Titles by Disraeli]

It is curious to observe the various substitutes for paper before its discovery.

Ere the invention of recording events by writing, trees were planted, rude altars were erected, or heaps of stone, to serve as memorials of past events. Hercules probably could not write when he fixed his famous pillars.

The most ancient mode of writing was on _bricks_, _tiles_, and _oyster-shells_, and on _tables of stone_; afterwards on _plates_ of various materials, on _ivory_, on _barks_ of trees, on _leaves_ of trees.[1]

Engraving memorable events on hard substances was giving, as it were, speech to rocks and metals. In the book of Job mention is made of writing on _stone_, on _rocks_, and on sheets of _lead_. On tables of _stone_ Moses received the law written by the finger of God. Hesiod's works were written on _leaden_ tables: lead was used for writing, and rolled up like a cylinder, as Pliny states. Montfaucon notices a very ancient book of eight leaden leaves, which on the back had rings fastened by a small leaden rod to keep them together. They afterwards engraved on bronze: the laws of the Cretans were on bronze tables; the Romans etched their public records on brass. The speech of Claudius, engraved on plates of bronze, is yet preserved in the town-hall of Lyons, in France.[2] Several bronze tables, with Etruscan characters, have been dug up in Tuscany. The treaties among the Romans, Spartans, and the Jews, were written on brass; and estates, for better security, were made over on this enduring metal. In many cabinets may be found the discharge of soldiers, written on copper-plates. This custom has been discovered in India: a bill of feoffment on copper, has been dug up near Bengal, dated a century before the birth of Christ.

Among these early inventions many were singularly rude, and miserable substitutes for a better material. In the shepherd state they wrote their songs with thorns and awls on straps of leather, which they wound round their crooks. The Icelanders appear to have scratched their _runes_, a kind of hieroglyphics, on walls; and Olaf, according to one of the Sagas, built a large house, on the bulks and spars of which he had engraved the history of his own and more ancient times; while another northern hero appears to have had nothing better than his own chair and bed to perpetuate his own heroic acts on. At the town-hall, in Hanover, are kept twelve wooden boards, overlaid with bees'-wax, on which are written the names of owners of houses, but not the names of streets. These _wooden manuscripts_ must have existed before 1423, when Hanover was first divided into streets. Such manuscripts may be found in public collections. These are an evidence of a rude state of _society_. The same event occurred among the ancient Arabs, who, according to the history of Mahomet, seemed to have carved on the shoulder-bones of sheep remarkable events with a knife, and tying them with a string, hung up these sheep-bone chronicles.

The laws of the twelve tables, which the Romans chiefly copied from the Grecian code, were, after they had been approved by the people, engraven on brass: they were melted by lightning, which struck the Capitol; a loss highly regretted by Augustus. This manner of writing we still retain, for inscriptions, epitaphs, and other memorials designed to reach posterity.

These early inventions led to the discovery of tables of _wood_; and as _cedar_ has an antiseptic quality from its bitterness, they chose this wood for cases or chests to preserve their most important writings. This well-known expression of the ancients, when they meant to give the highest eulogium of an excellent work, _et cedro digna locuti_, that it was worthy to be written on _cedar_, alludes to the _oil of cedar_, with which valuable MSS. of parchment were anointed, to preserve them from corruption and moths. Persius illustrates this:--

Who would not leave posterity such rhymes
As _cedar oil_ might keep to latest times!

They stained materials for writing upon, with purple, and rubbed them with exudations from the cedar. The laws of the emperors were published on _wooden tables_, painted with ceruse; to which custom Horace alludes: _Leges incidere ligno_. Such _tables_, the term now softened into _tablets_, are still used, but in general are made of other materials than wood. The same reason for which they preferred the _cedar_ to other wood induced to write on _wax_, as being incorruptible. Men generally used it to write their testaments on, the better to preserve them; thus Juvenal says, _Ceras implere capaces_. This thin paste of wax was also used on tablets of wood, that it might more easily admit of erasure, for daily use.

They wrote with an iron bodkin, as they did on the other substances we have noticed. The _stylus_ was made sharp at one end to write with, and blunt and broad at the other, to efface and correct easily: hence the phrase _vertere stylum_, to turn the stylus, was used to express blotting out. But the Romans forbad the use of this sharp instrument, from the circumstance of many persons having used them as daggers. A schoolmaster was killed by the Pugillares or table-books, and the styles of his own scholars.[3] They substituted a _stylus_ made of the bone of a bird, or other animal; so that their writings resembled engravings. When they wrote on softer materials, they employed _reeds_ and _canes_ split like our _pens_ at the points, which the orientalists still use to lay their colour or ink neater on the paper.

Naude observes, that when he was in Italy, about 1642, he saw some of those waxen tablets, called Pugillares, so called because they were held in one hand; and others composed of the barks of trees, which the ancients employed in lieu of paper.

On these tablets, or table-books Mr. Astle observes, that the Greeks and Romans continued the use of waxed table-books long after the use of the papyrus, leaves and skins became common; because they were convenient for correcting extemporaneous compositions: from these table-books they transcribed their performances correctly into parchment books, if for their own private use; but if for sale, or for the library, the _Librarii_, or Scribes, performed the office. The writing on table-books is particularly recommended by Quintilian in the third chapter of the tenth book of his Institutions; because the wax is readily effaced for any corrections: he confesses weak eyes do not see so well on paper, and observes that the frequent necessity of dipping the pen in the inkstand retards the hand, and is but ill-suited to the celerity of the mind. Some of these table-books are conjectured to have been large, and perhaps heavy, for in Plautus, a school-boy is represented breaking his master's head with his table-book. The critics, according to Cicero, were accustomed in reading their wax manuscripts to notice obscure or vicious phrases by joining a piece of red wax, as we should underline such by red ink.

Table-hooks written upon with styles were not entirely laid aside in Chaucer's time, who describes them in his Sompner's tale:--

His fellow had a staffe tipp'd with horne,
_A paire of tables all of iverie_;
And a _pointell polished_ fetouslie,
And wrote alwaies the names, as he stood,
Of all folke, that gave hem any good.[4]

By the word _pen_ in the translation of the Bible we must understand an iron _style_. Table-books of ivory are still used for memoranda, written with black-lead pencils. The Romans used ivory to write the edicts of the senate on, with a black colour; and the expression of _libri elephantini_, which some authors imagine alludes to books that for their _size_ were called _elephantine_, were most probably composed of ivory, the tusk of the elephant: among the Romans they were undoubtedly scarce.

The _pumice stone_ was a writing-material of the ancients; they used it to smoothe the roughness of the parchment, or to sharpen their reeds.

In the progress of time the art of writing consisted in _painting_ with different kinds of _ink_. This novel mode of writing occasioned them to invent other materials proper to receive their writing; the thin bark of certain _trees_ and _plants_, or _linen_; and at length, when this was found apt to become mouldy, they prepared the _skins of animals_; on the dried skins of serpents were once written the Iliad and Odyssey. The first place where they began to dress these skins was _Pergamus_, in Asia; whence the Latin name is derived of _Pergamenoe_ or _parchment_. These skins are, however, better known amongst the authors of the purest Latin under the name of _membrana_; so called from the membranes of various animals of which they were composed. The ancients had _parchments_ of three different colours, white, yellow, and purple. At Rome white parchment was disliked, because it was more subject to be soiled than the others, and dazzled the eye. They generally wrote in letters of gold and silver on purple or violet parchment. This custom continued in the early ages of the church; and copies of the evangelists of this kind are preserved in the British Museum.

When the Egyptians employed for writing the _bark_ of a _plant_ or _reed_, called _papyrus_, or paper-rush, it superseded all former modes, for its convenience. Formerly it grew in great quantities on the sides of the Nile. This plant has given its name to our _paper_, although the latter is now composed of linen and rags, and formerly had been of cotton-wool, which was but brittle and yellow; and improved by using cotton rags, which they glazed. After the eighth century the papyrus was superseded by parchment. The _Chinese_ make their _paper_ with _silk_. The use of _paper_ is of great antiquity. It is what the ancient Latinists call _charta_ or _chartae_. Before the use of _parchment_ and _paper_ passed to the Romans, they used the thin peel found between the wood and the bark of trees. This skinny substance they called _liber_, from whence the Latin word _liber_, a book, and _library_ and _librarian_ in the European languages, and the French _livre_ for book; but we of northern origin derive our _book_ from the Danish _bog_, the beech-tree, because that being the most plentiful in Denmark was used to engrave on. Anciently, instead of folding this bark, this parchment, or paper, as we fold ours, they rolled it according as they wrote on it; and the Latin name which they gave these rolls has passed into our language as well as the others. We say a _volume_, or volumes, although our books are composed of leaves bound together. The books of the ancients on the shelves of their libraries were rolled up on a pin and placed erect, titled on the outside in red letters, or rubrics, and appeared like a number of small pillars on the shelves.[5]

The ancients were as curious as ourselves in having their books richly conditioned. Propertius describes tablets with gold borders, and Ovid notices their red titles; but in later times, besides the tint of purple with which they tinged their vellum, and the liquid gold which they employed for their ink, they inlaid their covers with precious stones: and I have seen, in the library at Triers or Treves, a manuscript, the donation of some princess to a monastery, studded with heads wrought in fine cameos.[6] In the early ages of the church they painted on the outside commonly a dying Christ. In the curious library of Mr. Douce is a Psalter, supposed once to have appertained to Charlemagne; the vellum is purple, and the letters gold. The Eastern nations likewise tinged their MSS. with different colours and decorations. Astle possessed Arabian MSS. of which some leaves were of a deep yellow, and others of a lilac colour. Sir William Jones describes an oriental MS. in which the name of Mohammed was fancifully adorned with a garland of tulips and carnations, painted in the brightest colours. The favourite works of the Persians are written on fine silky paper, the ground of which is often powdered with gold or silver dust; the leaves are frequently illuminated, and the whole book is sometimes perfumed with essence of roses, or sandal wood. The Romans had several sorts of paper, for which they had as many different names; one was the _Charta Augusta_, in compliment to the emperor; another _Livinia_, named after the empress. There was a _Charta blanca_, which obtained its title from its beautiful whiteness, and which we appear to have retained by applying it to a blank sheet of paper which is only signed, _Charte Blanche_. They had also a _Charta nigra_, painted black, and the letters were in white or other colours.

Our present paper surpasses all other materials for ease and convenience of writing. The first paper-mill in England was erected at Dartford, by a German, in 1588, who was knighted by Elizabeth; but it was not before 1713 that one Thomas Watkins, a stationer, brought the art of paper-making to any perfection, and to the industry of this individual we owe the origin of our numerous paper-mills. France had hitherto supplied England and Holland.

The manufacture of paper was not much encouraged at home, even so late as in 1662; and the following observations by Fuller are curious, respecting the paper of his times:--"Paper participates in some sort of the characters of the country which makes it; the _Venetian_, being neat, subtile, and court-like; the _French_, light, slight, and slender; the _Dutch_, thick, corpulent, and gross, sucking up the ink with the sponginess thereof." He complains that the paper-manufactories were not then sufficiently encouraged, "considering the vast sums of money expended in our land for paper, out of Italy, France, and Germany, which might be lessened, were it made in our nation. To such who object that we can never equal the perfection of _Venice-paper_, I return, neither can we match the purity of Venice-glasses; and yet many _green ones_ are blown in Sussex, profitable to the makers, and convenient for the users. Our _home-spun paper_ might be found beneficial." The present German printing-paper is made so disagreeable both to printers and readers from their paper-manufacturers making many more reams of paper from one cwt. of rags than formerly. Rags are scarce, and German writers, as well as their language, are voluminous.

Mr. Astle deeply complains of the inferiority of our _inks_ to those of antiquity; an inferiority productive of the most serious consequences, and which appears to originate merely in negligence. From the important benefits arising to society from the use of ink, and the injuries individuals may suffer from the frauds of designing men, he wishes the legislature would frame some new regulations respecting it. The composition of ink is simple, but we possess none equal in beauty and colour to that used by the ancients; the Saxon MSS. written in England exceed in colour anything of the kind. The rolls and records from the fifteenth century to the end of the seventeenth, compared with those of the fifth to the twelfth centuries, show the excellence of the earlier ones, which are all in the finest preservation; while the others are so much defaced, that they are scarcely legible.

The ink of the ancients had nothing in common with ours, but the colour and gum. Gall-nuts, copperas, and gum make up the composition of our ink; whereas _soot_ or _ivory-black_ was the chief ingredient in that of the ancients.[7]

Ink has been made of various colours; we find gold and silver ink, and red, green, yellow, and blue inks; but the black is considered as the best adapted to its purpose.

 

[Footnote 1:
Specimens of most of these modes of writing may be seen at the British Museum. No. 3478, in the Sloanian library, is a Nabob's letter, on a piece of bark, about two yards long, and richly ornamented with gold. No. 3207 is a book of Mexican hieroglyphics, painted on bark. In the same collection are various species, many from the Malabar coast and the East. The latter writings are chiefly on leaves. There are several copies of Bibles written on palm leaves. The ancients, doubtless, wrote on any leaves they found adapted for the purpose. Hence, the _leaf_ of a _book_, alluding to that of a tree, seems to be derived. At the British Museum we have also Babylonian _tiles_, or _broken pots_, which the people used, and made their contracts of business on; a custom mentioned in the Scriptures.]

[Footnote 2:
This speech was made by Claudius (who was born at Lyons), when censor, A.D. 48, and was of the highest importance to the men of Lyons, inasmuch as it led to the grant of the privileges of Roman citizenship to them. This important inscription was discovered in 1528, on the heights of St. Sebastian above the town.]

[Footnote 3:
The paintings discovered at Pompeii give representations of these books and implements.]

[Footnote 4:
The use of the table-book was continued to the reign of James I. or later. Shakspeare frequently alludes to them--

"And therefore will he wipe his tables clean,
And keep no tell-tale to his memory."

They were in the form of a modern pocket-book, the leaves of asses' skin, or covered with a composition, upon which a silver or leaden style would inscribe memoranda capable of erasure.]

[Footnote 5:
A box containing such written rolls is represented in one of the pictures exhumed at Pompeii.]

[Footnote 6:
See note to Vol. I. p. 5.]

[Footnote 7:
The ink of old manuscripts is generally a thick solid substance, and sometimes stands in relief upon the paper. The red ink is generally a body-colour of great brilliancy.]

[The end]
Isaac D'Israeli's essay: Origin Of The Materials Of Writing

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