The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous ... - Cd3wd.com

LINEN AND COTTON PAPER. 407
into Europe in the eleventh century*. We may therefore con-
sider it as in the liighest degree prol)able, that the mode of
making cotton paper was known to the paper-makers of Egypt.
At the same time endless quantities of Unen 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 per-
ceive how tliey conspire to illustrate and justify the statement
of AbdoUatiph. 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 intel-
ligence, supported as it is by collateral probabiUties, 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 connec-
tion with it the following passage from Petrus Cluniacensis :
Sed cojusmodi librum? Si talem quales quotidie in usu legend! habemus, uti-
que ex pellibus arietum, hircorum, vel vitulorum, sive ex biblis, vel juneis orien-
talium paludum, aut ex rasuris veterum pannonim, seu ex qualibet alia forte vili-
ore materia compactos, et pcnnis avium vel calamis palustrium locorum, qualibet
tiuctura infectis descriptos.
Patrurn, torn. xxii. p. 1014.
—
—
Tractatus adv. Judccos, c. v. in Max. Bihl. vet.
All the writers upon this subject, except TrombeUi, 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 Unen. But, as we are now authorized to carry up
the invention of Unen paper higher than before, and as the
mention of it by AbdoUatiph 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 Cluniacen-
treatise above quoted is
sis aUuded to the same fact. . The
supposed to have been written A. D. 1120. The account of
the materials used for making books appears to be fuU and ac-
* Wehrs vom Papier, p. 131, 144, Note. Breitkopf, p. 81.