Forty Centuries of Ink
by David Nunes Carvalho · English · Gutenberg #1483 · 603,587 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Forty Centuries of Ink
Author: David Nunes Carvalho
Release date: October 1, 1998 [eBook #1483]
Most recently updated: April 2, 2015
Language: English
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Forty Centuries of Ink by David N. Carvalho.
FORTY CENTURIES OF INK
OR
A CHRONOLOGICAL NARRATIVE CONCERNING
INK AND ITS BACKGROUNDS
INTRODUCING INCIDENTAL OBSERVATIONS AND
DEDUCTIONS, PARALLELS OF TIME AND COLOR
PHENOMENA, BIBLIOGRAPHY, CHEMISTRY,
POETICAL EFFUSIONS, CITATIONS,
ANECDOTES AND CURIOSA TOGETHER WITH
SOME EVIDENCE RESPECTING THE
EVANESCENT CHARACTER OF
MOST INKS OF TO-DAY AND
AN EPITOME OF CHEMICO-LEGAL INK.
BY
DAVID N. CARVALHO
PREFACE.
The unfortunate conditions surrounding the almost
universal use of the oddly named commercial and with
few exceptions record inks, and the so-called modern
paper, is the motive for the writing of this book.
The numerous color products of coal tar, now so
largely employed in the preparation of ink, and the
worse material utilized in the manufacture of the hard-
finished writing papers, menace the future preservation
of public and other records. Those who occupy
official position and who can help to ameliorate this
increasing evil, should begin to do so without delay.
Abroad England, Germany and France and at home
Massachusetts and Connecticut have sought to modify
these conditions by legislation and our National Treasury
Department only last year, in establishing a standard
for its ink, gives official recognition of these
truths.
There is no "History of Ink;" but of ink history
there is a wealth of material, although historians have
neglected to record information about the very substance
by which they sought to keep and transmit the
chronicles they most desired to preserve. From the
beginning of the Christian era to the present day,
"Ink" literature, exclusive of its etymology, chemical
formulas, and methods of manufacture, has been confined
to brief statements in the encyclopedias, which
but repeat each other. A half dozen original articles,
covering only some particular branch together with a
few treatises more general in their ramifications of
the subject, can also be found. Seventy lines about
"writing ink" covering its history for nearly four
thousand years is all that is said in "The Origin and
Progress of Handwriting," a revised book of hundreds
of pages of Sir Thomas Astle, London, 1876, and once
deemed the very highest authority.
The mass of ancient and comparatively modern documents
which we have inherited, chronicle nothing
about the material with which they were written.
The more valuable of them are disfigured by the
superscription of newer writings over the partially
erased earlier ones, thus rendering the work of
ascertaining their real character most difficult.
Nevertheless, patient research and advanced science have
enabled us to intelligently study and investigate, and
from the evidence thus gained, to state facts and
formulate opinions that may perhaps outlast criticism.
The bibliographical story of "Ink" is replete with
many interesting episodes, anecdotes and poetical effusions.
Its chemical history is a varied and phenomenal
one. Before the nineteenth century the ink
industry was confined to the few. Since then, it has
developed into one of magnificent proportions. The
new departure, due to the discovery and development
of the "Aniline" family of fugitive colors, is noteworthy
as being a step backward which may take years to retrace.
The criminal abuse of ink is not infrequent by evil-
disposed persons who try by secret processes to reproduce
ink phenomena on ancient and modern documents.
While it is possible to make a new ink look
old, the methods that must be employed, will of themselves
reveal to the examiner the attempted fraud, if
he but knows how to investigate.
How to accomplish this as well as to give a chronological
history on the subject of inks generally, both
as to their genesis, the effect of time and the elements,
the determination of the constituents and the constitution
of inks, their value as to lasting qualities, their
removal and restoration, is the object of this work.
There is also included many court cases where the
matter of ink was in controversy; information respecting
ancient MSS. and the implements and other accessories
of ink which have from time to time been
employed in the act of writing.
To make a comprehensive review of the past in its
relationship to ink has been my aim. In the construction
of this work recourse has been had to the so-
called original sources of information. In these, the
diversity of their incomplete statements about different
countries and epochs has offered many obstacles.
In presenting my own deductions and inferences, it is
with a desire to remove any impressions as to this
volume being a mere compilation. "Facts are the
data of all just reasoning, and the elements of all real
knowledge. It follows that he is a wise man who possesses
the greatest store of facts on a given subject.
A book, therefore, which assembles facts from their
scattered sources, may be considered as a useful and
important auxiliary to those who seek them." A prolonged
and continuous intercourse for over a quarter
of a century with ancient and modern MSS., with
books and other literature, with laymen and chemists,
with students and manufacturers, together with the
information and knowledge derived from experiment
and study of results may enable the author to make
the subject fairly clear. Effort has been made to avoid
technical words and phrases in that portion treating
of the Chemistry of Inks.
This work will no doubt be variously considered.
Criticism is expected, indeed it is gladly invited, for
thereby may follow controversy, discussion and perhaps
legislation, which will bring about results beneficial
to those who are to follow after us.
CONTENTS
I. GENESIS OF INK
II. ANTIQUITY OF INK
III. CLASSICAL INK AND ITS EXODUS
IV. CLASSICAL INK AND ITS EXODUS (Continued)
V. REVIVAL OF INK
VI. INK OF THE WEST
VII. EARLY MEDIAEVAL INK
VIII. MEDIAEVAL INK
IX. END OF MEDIAEVAL INK
X. RENAISSANCE INK
XI. ANCIENT INK TREATISES
XII. STUDY OF INK
XIII. STUDY OF INK
XIV. CLASSIFICATIONS OF INK
XV. OFFICIAL AND LEGAL INK
XVI. ENDURING INK
XVII. INK PHENOMENA
XVIII. INK CHEMISTRY
XIX. FRAUDULENT INK BACKGROUNDS
XX. FUGITIVE INK.
XXI. ANCIENT AND MODERN INK RECEIPTS
XXII. INK INDUSTRY.
XXIII. CHEMICO-LEGAL INK
XXIV. CHEMICO-LEGAL INK (Continued)
XXV. INK UTENSILS OF ANTIQUITY
XXVI. INK UTENSILS (Quill PEN v. Steel Pen)
XXVII. SUBSTITUTES FOR INK UTENSILS ("Lead" and other Pencils)
XXVIII. ANCIENT INK BACKGROUNDS (The Origin of Papyrus)
XXIX. ANCIENT INK BACKGROUNDS (Parchment and Vellum)
XXX. MODERN INK BACKGROUNDS (True Paper)
XXXI. MODERN INK BACKGROUNDS (Wood Paper and Safety Paper)
XXXII. CURIOSA (Ink and other Writing Materials)
FORTY CENTURIES OF INK
CHAPTER I.
GENESIS OF INK.
THE ORIGIN OF INK--COMPOSITION OF THE COLORED
INKS OF ANTIQUITY--ANCIENT NAMES FOR BLACK
INKS--METHODS OF THEIR MANUFACTURE--THE INVENTION
OF "INDIAN" INK--THE ART OF DYEING
HISTORICALLY CONSIDERED--THE SYMBOLIC ESTIMATION
OF COLORS--THE EMPLOYMENT OF TINCTURES
AS INKS--CONSIDERATION OF THE ANTIQUITY
OF ARTIFICIAL INKS AND THE BLACK INKS OF INTERMEDIATE
TIMES--ORIGIN OF THE COLORED PIGMENTS
OF ANTIQUITY-CITATIONS FROM HERODOTUS,
PLINY AND ARBUTHNOT--PRICES CURRENT, OF ANCIENT
INKS AND COLORS--WHY THE NATURAL INKS
FORMERLY EMPLOYED ARE NOT STILL EXTANT--THE
KIND OF INK EMPLOYED BY THE PRIESTS IN THE
TIME OF MOSES--ILLUSTRATIVE HISTORY OF THE
EGYPTIANS IN ITS RELATIONSHIP TO WRITING
IMPLEMENTS--THE USE OF BOTH RED AND BLACK INK
IN JOSEPH'S TIME--ITS OTHER HISTORY PRECEDING
THE DEPARTURE OF ISRAEL FROM EGYPT--THE
DISAPPEARANCE OF ALL BUT A FEW KINDS OF
INK--INK TRADITIONS AND THEIR VALUE--STORY
ABOUT THE ORACLES OF THE SIBYLS--HOW THE ANCIENT
HISTORIANS SOUGHT TO BE MISLEADING--ILLUSTRATIVE
ANECDOTE BY RICHARDSON:
THE origin of Ink belongs to an era following the
invention of writing. When the development of that
art had advanced beyond the age of stone inscription
or clay tablet, some material for marking with the
reed and the brush was necessary. It was not difficult
to obtain black or colored mixtures for this purpose.
With their advent, forty centuries or more ago, begins
the genesis of ink.
The colored inks of antiquity included the use of a
variety of dyes and pigmentary colors, typical of those
employed in the ancient art of dyeing, in which the
Egyptians excelled and still thought by many to be
one of the lost arts. The Bible and alleged contemporary
and later literature make frequent mention of
black and many colors of brilliant hues.
In tracing the arts of handwriting and dyeing,
some definite facts are to be predicated as to the most
remote history of ink.
The Hebrew word for ink is deyo, so called from its
blackness. As primitively prepared for ritualistic purposes
and for a continuing period of more than two
thousand years, it was a simple mixture of powdered
charcoal or soot with water, to which gum was sometimes
added.
The Arabian methods of making ink (alchiber) were
more complex. Lampblack was first made by the
burning of oil, tar or rosin, which was then commingled
with gum and honey and pressed into small wafers or
cakes, to which water could be added when wanted for
use.
About 1200 years before the Christian era, the Chinese
perfected this method and invented "Indian Ink,"
ostensibly for blackening the surface of raised hieroglyphics,
which "was obtained from the soot produced
by the smoke of pines and the oil in lamps, mixed
with the isinglass (gelatin) of asses' skin, and musk
to correct the odour of the oil." Du Halde cites the
following, as of the time of the celebrated Emperor
Wu-Wong, who flourished 1120 years before Christ:
"As the stone Me (a word signifying blackening
in the Chinese language), which is used to blacken
the engraved characters, can never become white;
so a heart blackened by vices will always retain its
blackness."
That the art of dyeing was known, valued and applied
among early nations, is abundantly clear. The
allusions to "purple and fine raiment," to "dyed garments,"
to "cloth of many colours," &c., are numerous
in the Bible. In a note to the "Pictorial Bible, after
an allusion to the antiquity of this art, and to the pre-
eminence attached by the ancients to purple beyond
every other color, it is remarked: "It is important
to understand that the word purple, in ancient writings,
does not denote one particular colour."
Many of the names of the dyestuffs have come down
to us, some of them still in use at this time and others
obsolete. They were employed sometimes as ink, and
certain color values given to them, of which the more
important were blue, red, yellow, green, white, black,
purple, gold and silver. Some colors were estimated
symbolically. White was everywhere the symbol of
purity and the emblem of innocence, and, just opposite,
black was held up as an emblem of affliction and
calamity.
Green was the emblem of freshness, vigor and prosperity.
Blue was the symbol of revelation; it was pre-eminently
the celestial color blessed among heathen
nations, and among the Hebrews it was the Jehovah
color, the symbol of the revered God. Hence, it
was the color predominant in Mosaic ceremonies.
Purple was associated as the dress of kings, with
ideas of royalty and majesty.
Crimson and scarlet, from their resemblance to
blood, became symbolical of life, and also an emblem
of that which was indelible or deeply ingrained.
Later, in Christian times, only five colors were recognized
as fitting for theological meaning or expression:
white, red, green, violet and black.
White was esteemed as being the union of all the
rays of light, and is often referred to as the symbol of
truth and spotless purity. Red was emblematic both
of fire and love, while green from its analogy to the
vegetable world, was indicative of life and hope. Violet
was considered the color of penitence and sorrow.
Blue was forbidden except as a color peculiarly appropriated
to the Virgin Mary, while black represented
universally sorrow, destruction and death.
The art of dyeing was also well understood and
practiced in Persia in the most ancient periods. The
modern Persians have chosen Christ as their patron,
and Bischoff says at present call a dyehouse Christ's
workshop, from a tradition they have that He was of
that profession, which is probably founded on the old
legend "that Christ being put apprentice to a dyer,
His master desired him to dye some pieces of cloth of
different colors; He put them all into a boiler, and
when the dyer took them out he was terribly frightened
on finding that each had its proper color."
This, or a similar legend, occurs in the apocryphal
book entitled, "The First Gospel of the Infancy of
Jesus Christ." The following is the passage:
"On a certain day also, when the Lord Jesus
was playing with the boys, and running about, He
passed by a dyer's shop whose name was Salem,
and there were in his shop many pieces of cloth
belonging to the people of that city, which they
designed to dye of several colors. Then the Lord,
Jesus, going into the dyer's shop, took all the cloths
and threw them into the furnace. When Salem
came home and saw the cloth spoiled, he began to
make a great noise and to chide the Lord Jesus,
saying: 'What hast Thou done, unto me, O thou
son of Mary? Thou hast injured both me and my
neighbors; they all desired their cloths of a proper
color, but Thou hast come and spoiled them all.'
The Lord Jesus replied: 'I will change the color
of every cloth to what color thou desirest,' and
then He presently began to take the cloths out of
the furnace; and they were all dyed of those same
colors which the dyer desired. And when the Jews
saw this surprising miracle they praised God."
The ancients used also a number of tinctures as
ink, among them a brown color, sepia, in Hebrew
tekeleth. As a natural ink its origin antedates every
other ink, artificial or otherwise, in the world. It is a
black-brown liquor, secreted by a small gland into an
oval pouch, and through a connecting duct is ejected
at will by the cuttle fish which inhabits the seas of
Europe, especially the Mediterranean. These fish
constantly employ the contents of their "ink bags"
to discolor the water, when in the presence of enemies,
in order to facilitate their escape from them.
The black broth of the Spartans was composed of
this product. The Egyptians sometimes used it for
coloring inscriptions on stone. It is the most lasting
of all natural ink substances.
So great is the antiquity of artificial ink that the
name of its inventor or date of its invention are alike
unknown. The poet Whitehead refers to it as follows:
Hard that his name it should not save,
Who first poured forth the sable wave."
The common black ink of the ancients was essentially
different in composition and less liable to fade
than those used at the present time. It was not a
stain like ours, and when Horace wrote
"And yet as ink the fairest paper stains,
So worthless verse pollutes the fairest deeds,"
he must have had in mind the vitriolic ink of his own
time.
But little information relative to black inks of the
intermediate times has come down to us, and it is conveyed
through questioned writings of authors who
flourished about the period of the life of Jesus Christ;
the Younger Pliny and Dioscorides are the most prominent
of them. They present many curious recipes.
One of these, suggested by Pliny, is that the addition
of an infusion of wormwood to ink will prevent the
destruction of MSS. by mice.
From a memoir by M. Rousset upon the pigments
and dyes used by the ancients, it would appear that
the variety was very considerable. Among the white
colors, they were acquainted with white lead; and for
the blacks, various kinds of charcoal and soot were
used. Animal skins were dyed black with gall apples
and sulphate of iron (copper). Brown pigments were
made by mixing different kinds of ochre. Under the
name of Alexander blue, the ancients--Egyptians as
well as Greeks and Romans--used a pigment containing
oxide of copper, and also one containing cobalt.
Fabrics were dyed blue by means of pastel-wood.
Yellow pigments were principally derived from weld,
saffron, and other native plants.
Vermilion, red ochre, and minium (red lead) were
known from a remote antiquity, although the artificial
preparation of vermilion was a secret possessed
only by the Chinese.
The term scarlet as employed in the Old Testament
was used to designate the blood-red color procured
from an insect somewhat resembling cochineal, found
in great quantities in Armenia and other eastern
countries. The Arabian name of the insect is Kermez
(whence crimson). It frequents the boughs of a species
of the ilex tree: on these it lays its eggs in groups,
which become covered with a sort of down, so that
they present the appearance of vegetable galls or
excrescences from the tree itself and are described as
such by Pliny XVI, 12, who also gave it the name of
granum, probably on account of its resemblance to a
grain or berry, which has been adopted by more recent
writers and is the origin of the term "ingrain color"
as now in use. The dye is procured from the female
grub alone, which, when alive is about the size of the
kernel of a cherry and of a dark red-brown color, but
when dead, shrivels up to the size of a grain of wheat
and is covered with a bluish mold. It has an agreeable
aromatic smell which it imparts to that with which
it comes into contact. It was first found in general
use in Europe in the tenth century. About 1550,
cochineal, introduced there from Mexico, was found
to be far richer in coloring matter and therefore gradually
superseded the older dyestuff.
Indigo was used in India and Egypt long before the
Christian era; and it is asserted that blue ribbons
(strips) found on Egyptian mummies 4500 years old
had been dyed with indigo. It was introduced into
Europe only in the sixteenth century.
The use of madder as a red dyestuff dates from very
early times. Pliny mentions it as being employed by
the Hindoos, Persians and Egyptians. In the middle
ages the names sandis, warantia, granza, garancia,
were applied to madder, the latter (garance) being
still retained in France. The color yielding substance
resides almost entirely in the roots.
Chilzon was the name given by the ancient Hebrews
to a blue dye procured from a species of shell-fish.
Herodotus, B. C. 443, asserts that on the shores of
the Caspian Sea lived a people who painted the forms
of animals on their garments with vegetable dyes:
"They have trees whose leaves possess a peculiar
property; they reduce them to powder, and then
strip them in water; this forms a dye or coloring
matter with which they paint on their garments the
figures of animals. The impression is such that it
cannot be washed out; it appears, indeed, to be
woven into the cloth, and wears as long as the garment
itself."
We are informed by another ancient writer that the
pagan nations were accustomed to array the images
of their gods in robes of purple. When the prophet
Ezekiel took up a lamentation for Tyre, he spoke of
the "blue and purple from the isles of Elishah" in
which the people were clothed. This reference is said
to doubtless refer to the islands of the Aegian Sea,
from whence many claim , the Tyrians obtained the
shell-fish,--the murex and papura, which produced the
dark-blue and bright-scarlet coloring materials, the
employment of which contributed so much to the fame
of ancient Tyre.
Pliny the younger confirms this statement:
"The Tyrian-purple was the juice of the Purpurea,
a shell-fish, the veins of its neck and jaws
secreting this royal color, but so little was obtained
that it was very rare and cost one thousand
Denarii (about $150.00) per pound."
A more modern writer in discussing a crimson or
ruby color says:
"By a mistaken sense the Latin word purpurus,
has been called purple, by all the English and
French writers."
Arbuthnot, London, 1727, in his book "Ancient
Coins, Weights and Measures," as the result of his
examinations of the most ancient records estimates:
"The Purple was very dear; there were two
sorts of Fishes whereof it was made, the Pelagii,
(which were those that were caught in the deep)
and the Buccini. The Pelagium per Pound was
worth 50 Nummi, (8 s. 10 3/4 d.), and the Buceinunt
double that, viz. 17 s. 8 3/4 d. (Harduin
reads a hundred Pounds at that price.) The Tyrian
double Dye per Pound could scarce be bought
for L35 9 s., 1 3/4 d."
The very ancient writers state that the most esteemed
of the Tyrian purples were those which compared
in color with "coagulated bullocks' blood."
This estimation seems to go back to the time of the
Phoenicians, who were excessively fond of the redder
shades of purple which they obtained also from several
varieties of shell-fish and comprehended under two
species; one (Buccinum) found in cliffs, and the other
(Pelagia) which was captured at sea. The first was
found on the coasts of the Mediterranean and Atlantic.
The Atlantic shells afforded the darkest color, while
those of the Phoenician coast itself yielded scarlet
shades of wonderful intensity.
Respecting the cost and durability of the Tyrian
purple, it is related that Alexander the Great found in
the treasury of the Persian monarch 5,000 quintals of
Hermione purple of great beauty, and 180 years old,
and that it was worth $125 of our money per pound
weight. The price of dyeing a pound of wool in the
time of Augustus is given by Pliny, and that price is
equal to about $160 of our money. It is probable
that his remarks refer to some particular tint or quality
of color easily distinguished, although not at all clearly
defined by Pliny. He also mentions a sort of purple,
or hyacinth, which was worth, in the time of Julius
Caesar, 100 denarii (about $15 of our money) per
pound.
The best authorities of the present day, however,
are of opinion that the celebrated Tyrian-purple was
extracted from a mollusk known as the Janthina prolongata,
a shell abundant in the Mediterranean and
very common near Narbonne, where the Tyrian purple
dye-works were in operation at least six hundred
years before Christ.
The price current of some of the inks and colors of
antiquity, as quoted by Arbuthnot, are cited herewith:
Armenian purple 30 hs.=4 s. 10 1/3 d.
India purple from one Denarius, or 7 3/4 d. to 30
Denarii, 19 s. 4 1 2 d.
Pelagium, the juice of one sort fishes that dyed
purple, 50 hs.=8 s. 0 7/8 d.
Buccinum the juice of the other fish that dyed
purple, 100 hs.=16 s. 1 3/4 d.
Cinnabar 50 hs.=8 s. 0 7/8 d.
Tarentine red purple, price not mentioned.
Melinum, a sort of colour that came from Melos,
one Nummus,=1 15/16 d.
Paretonium, a sort of colour that came from aegypt,
very lasting, 6 Denarii,=3 s. 10 1/2 d.
Myrobalanus, 2 Denarii,=1 s. 3 1/2 d.
The last-named substance is the fruit of the Termi-
nalia, a product of China and the East Indies, best
known as Myrabolams and must have been utilized
solely for the tannin they contain, which Loewe
estimates to be identical with ellago-tannic acid, later
discovered in the divi-divi, a fruit grown in South
America, and bablah which is also a fruit of a species
of Acacia, well known also for its gum.
No monuments are extant of the ancient Myrabolam ink.
Antimony and galls were used by the Egyptian
ladies to tint their eyes and lashes and (who knows)
to write with.
Many of the dyes employed as ink were those occurring
naturally as animal and vegetable products, or
which could be produced therefrom by comparatively
simple means, otherwise we would not be confronted
with the fact that no specimens of ink writing of
natural origin remain to us.
The very few specimens of ink writing which have
outlasted decay and disintegration through so many
ages, are found to be closely allied to materials like
bitumen, lampblack obtained from the smoke of oil-
torches or resins; or gold, silver, cinnabar and
minium.
Josephus asserts that the books of the ancient Hebrews
were written in gold and silver.
"Sicca dewat" (A silver ink standeth), as the ancient
Arabic proverb runs.
Rosselini asserts:
"the monumental hireoglyphics of the Egyptians
were almost invariably painted with the liveliest
tints; and when similar hireoglyphics were executed
on a reduced scale, and in a more cursive
form upon papyri or scrolls made from the leaves
of the papyrus the pages were written with both
black and colored inks."
The early mode of ink writing in biblical times
mentioned in Numbers v. 23, where It is said "the
priest shall write the curses in a book, and blot them
out with the bitter water," was with a kind of ink
prepared for the purpose, without any salts of iron or
other material which could make a permanent dye;
these maledictions were then washed into the water,
which the woman was obliged to drink, so that she
drank the very words of the execration. The ink
still used in the East is almost all of this kind; a wet
sponge will obliterate the finest of their writings.
In the book of Jeremiah, chap. xxxvi. verse 18, it
says: "Then Baruch answered, He pronounced all
these words unto me with his mouth, and I wrote
THEM with ink in the book," and in Ezek. ix. 2, 3, 11,
"Ink horn" is referred to.
Six hundred years later in the New Testament is
another mention of ink "having many things to write
unto you. I would not write with paper and Ink,"
&c.; second epistle. of John, 12, and again in his
third epistle, 13, "I had many things to write, but
I will not with pen and Ink write unto thee."
The illustrative history of the ancient Egyptians
does not point to a time before the reed was used as a
pen. The various sculptures, carvings, pottery and
paintings, exhibit the scribes at work in their avocations,
recording details about the hands and ears of
slaughtered enemies, the numbers of captives, the
baskets of wheat, the numerous animals, the tribute,
the treaties and the public records. These ancient
scribes employed a cylindrical box for ink, with writing
tablets, which were square sections of wood with
lateral grooves to hold the small reeds for writing.
During the time Joseph was Viceroy of Egypt
under Sethosis I, the first of the Pharaohs, B. C. 1717,
he employed a small army of clerks and storekeepers
throughout Egypt in his extensive grain operations.
The scribes whose duties pertained to making records
respecting this business, used both red and black inks,
contained in different receptacles in a desk, which,
when not in use, was placed in a box or trunk, with
leather handles at the sides, and in this way was
carried from place to place. As the scribe had two
colors of ink, he needed two pens (reeds) and we see
him on the monuments of Thebes, busy with one pen
at work, and the other placed in that most ancient
pen-rack, behind the ear. Such, says Mr. Knight, is
presented in a painting at Beni Hassan.
The Historical Society of New York possesses a
small bundle of these pens, with the stains of the ink
yet upon them, besides a bronze knife used for making
such pens (reeds), and which are alleged to belong to
a period not far removed from Joseph's time.
The other history of ink, long preceding the departure
of Israel from Egypt, and with few exceptions
until after the middle ages, can only be considered, as
it is intimately bound up in the chronology and story
of handwriting and writing materials. Even then it
must not be supposed that the history of ink is authentic
and continuous from the moment handwriting was
applied to the recording of events; for the earliest
records are lost to us in almost every instance. We
are therefore dependent upon later writers, who made
their records in the inks of their own time, and who
could refer to those preceding them only by the aid
of legends and traditions.
There is no independent data indicating any variation
whatever in the methods of the admixture of
black or colored inks, which differentiates them from
those used in the earliest times of the ancient
Egyptians, Hebrews or Chinese. On the contrary if we
exclude "Indian" and one of the red inks, for a period
of fourteen hundred years we find their number diminishing
until the first centuries of the Christian era.
Exaggerated tradition has described inks as well as
other things and imagination is not lacking. Some of
these legends, in later years put in writing, compel us
to depend on translations of obscure and obsolete
tongues, while the majority of them are mingled with
the errors and superstitious of the time in which they
were transcribed.
The value of such accounts depends upon a variety
of circumstances and we must proceed with the utmost
caution and discrimination in examining and weighing
the authenticity of these sources of information.
If we reason that the art of handwriting did not
become known to all the ancient nations at once, but
was gradually imparted by one to another, it follows
that records supposed to be contemporaneous, were
made in some countries at a much earlier period than
in others. It must also be observed that the Asiatic
nations and the Egyptians practiced the art of writing
many centuries before it was introduced into Europe.
Hence we are able to estimate with some degree of
certainty that ink-written accounts of some Asiatic
nations were made while Europe was in this respect
buried in utter darkness.
An interesting story which bears on this statement
is told by Kennett, in his "Antiquities of Rome,"
London, 1743, as to the discovery of ancient MSS.,
five hundred and twenty years before the Christian
era, of what even then must have been remarkable:
"A strange old woman came once to Tarquinius
Superbus with nine books, which, she said, were
the oracles of the Sybils, and proffered to sell them.
But the king making some scruple about the price,
she went away and burnt three of them; and returning
with the six, asked the same sum as before.
Tarquin only laughed at the humour; upon which
the old woman left him once more; and after she
had burnt three others, came again with them that
were left, but still kept to her old terms. The king
now began to wonder at her obstinacy, and thinking
there might be something more than ordinary
in the business, sent for the augars (soothsayers)
to consult what was to be done. They, when their
divinations were performed, soon acquainted him
what a piece of impiety he had been guilty of, by
refusing a treasure sent to him from heaven, and
commanded him to give whatever she demanded for
the books that remained. The woman received her
money, and delivered the writings; and only, charging
them by all means to keep them sacred, immediately
vanished. Two of the nobility were presently
after chosen to be the keepers of these oracles,
which were laid up with all imaginable care in the
Capitol, in a chest under ground. They could not
be consulted without a special order of the Senate,
which was never granted, unless upon the receiving
of some notable defeat; upon the rising of any
considerable mutiny, or sedition in the State; or
upon some other extraordinary occasion; several of
which we meet with in Livy."
Some of the ancient historians even sought to be
misleading respecting the events not only of their own
times, but of epochs which preceded them. Richardson,
in his "Dissertation on Ancient History and Mythology,"
published in 1778, remarks:
"The information received hitherto has been almost
entirely derived through the medium of the
Grecian writers; whose elegance of taste, harmony
of language, and fine arrangement of ideas, have
captivated the imagination, misled the judgment,
and stamped with the dignified title of history, the
amusing excursions of fanciful romance. Too
proud to consider surrounding nations, (if the Eyptians
may be excepted) in any light but that of
barbarians; they despised their records, they altered
their language, and framed too often their
details, more to the prejudices of their fellow citizens,
than to the standard of truth or probability.
We have names of Persian kings, which a Persian
could not pronounce; we have facts related they
apparently never knew; and we have customs
ascribed to them, which contradict every distinguishing
characteristic of an Eastern people. The
story of Lysimachus and one Greek historian may
indeed, with justice, be applied to many others.
This prince, in the partition of Alexander's empire,
became King of Thrace: he had been one of the
most active of that conqueror's commanders; and
was present at every event which deserved the
attention of history. A Grecian had written an
account of the Persian conquest; and be wished to
read it before the king. The monarch listened
with equal attention and wonder: 'All this is very
fine,' says he, when the historian had finished,
'but where was I when those things were performed?' "
CHAPTER II.
ANTIQUITY OF INK.
THE INVENTION OF THE ART OF WRITING--TO WHOM
IT BELONGS--ITS UTILIZATION BY NATIONS AND
INDIVIDUALS--WHEN IT IS FIRST MENTIONED IN THE
BIBLE--CITATIONS FROM THE ENCYCLOPaeDIA BRITANNICA
AND SMITHS DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE--SOME
REMARKS BY HUMPHREYS OF THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS
OF HANDWRITING--COMMENTS BY PLATO AND
THE COLLOQUY BETWEEN KING THAMUS AND THOTH,
THE EGYPTIAN GOD OF THE LIBERAL ARTS--FIRST
APPEARANCE OF INK WRITTEN ROLLS--DESTRUCTION
OF THE TEMPLES WHICH CONTAINED THEM--COMMENTS
OF THE HISTORIAN ROLLINS--DESTRUCTION
OF THE MOST ANCIENT CHINESE INK WRITTEN MSS.
THERE is a difference of opinion as to what nation
belongs the honor of the invention of the art of
handwriting. Sir Isaac Newton observes:
"There is the utmost uncertainty in the chronology
of ancient kingdoms, arising from the vanity
of each claiming the greatest antiquity, while those
pretensions were favoured by their having no exact
account of time."
Its antiquity has been exhaustively treated by many
writers; the best known are Massey, 1763, The Origin
and Progress of Letters;" Astle, 1803, "The Origin
and Progress of Writing;" Silvestre, "Universal
Palaeography," Paris, 1839-41 ; and Humphreys, 1855,
"The Origin and Progress of the Art of Writing."
They, with others, have sought to record the origin
and gradual development of the art of writing from
the Egyptian Hieroglyphics of 4000 B. C.; the Chinese
Figurative, 3000 B. C. ; Indian Alphabetic, 2000 or
more B. C. ; the Babylonian or Cuneiform, 2000
years B. C.; and the Phoenician in which they include
the Hebrew or Samaritan Alphabet, 2000 or more
B. C., down to the writings of the new or Western
world of the Christian era.
The data presented and the arguments set forth,
deserve profound respect, and though we find some
favoring the Egyptians, or the Phoenicians, the Chaldeans,
the Syrians, the Indians, the Persians or the
Arabians, it is best to accept the concensus of their
opinion, which seems to divide between the Phoenicians
and the Egyptians as being the inventors of the
foremost of all the arts. "For, in Phoenicia, had
lived Taaut or Thoth the first Hermes, its inventor,
and who later carried his art into Egypt where they
first wrote in pictures, some 2200 years B. C."
The art appears to have been first exercised in
Greece and the West about 1500 or 1800 B. C., and
like all arts, it was doubtless slow and progressive.
The Greeks refer the invention of written letters to
Cadmus, merely because he introduced them from
Phoenicia, then only sixteen in number. To these,
four more were added by Simonides. Evander brought
letters into Latium from Greece, the Latin letters being
at first nearly the same form as the Greek. The Romans
employed a device of scattering green sand upon tables,
for the teaching of arithmetic and writing, and in India
a "sand box" consisting of a surface of sand laid on a
board the finger being utilized to trace forms, was the
method followed by the natives to teach their children.
It is said that such methods still obtain even in this
age, in some rural districts of England.
After the invention of writing well-informed nations
and individuals kept scribes or chroniclers to record in
writing, historical and other events, mingled with claims
of antiquity based on popular legends.
These individuals were not always held in the highest
esteem. Among the Hebrews it was considered an
honorable vocation, while the Greeks for a long time
treated its practitioners as outcasts. It was an accomplishment
possessed by the few even down to the fifteenth
century of the Christian era. The rulers of
the different countries were deficient in the art and
depended on others to write their documents and letters
to which they appended their monogram or the
sign of the Cross against their names as an attestation.
So late as A. D. 1516 an order was made in London to
examine all persons who could write in order to discover
the authorship of a seditious document.
The art of writing is not mentioned in the Bible
prior to the time of Moses, although as before stated,
in Egypt and the countries adjacent thereto it was not
only known but practiced.
Its first mention recorded in Scripture will be found
in Exodus xvii. v. 14; "And the Lord said unto
Moses, Write this, for a memorial, in a book; and
rehearse it in the ear of Joshua; for I will utterly put
out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven."
This command was given immediately after the defeat
of the Amalekites near Horeb, and before the arrival
of the Israelites at Mount Sinai.
It is observable, that there is not the least hint to
induce us to believe that writing was then newly invented;
on the contrary, we may conclude, that Moses
understood what was meant by writing in a book;
otherwise God would have instructed him, as he had
done Noah in building the Ark; for he would not have
been commanded to write in a book, if he had been
ignorant of the art of writing; but Moses expressed
no difficulty of comprehension when he received this
command. We also find that Moses wrote all the
works and all the judgments of the Lord, contained
in the twenty-first and the two succeeding chapters of
the book of Exodus, before the two written tables of
stone were even so much as promised. The delivery
of the tables is not mentioned till the eighteenth verse
of the thirty-first chapter, after God had made an
end of communing with him upon the mount, though
the ten commandments were promulgated immediately
after his third descent.
Moses makes frequent mention of ancient books of
the Hebrews, but describes none, except the two tables
on which God wrote the ten commandments. These
he tells us, were of polished stone, engraven on both
sides and as Calmet remarks: "it is probable that
Moses would not have observed to us these two particulars
so often as he does, were it not to distinguish
them from other books, which were made of tables,
not of stone, but of wood and curiously engraven, but
on one side only."
It cannot be said that Moses uses any language
which can be construed to mean the employment of
rolls of papyrus, or barks of trees, much less of parchment.
We have therefore reason to believe that by
the term book, he always means table-books, made of
small thin boards or plates.
The edicts, as well as the letters of kings, were written
upon tablets and sent to the various provinces,
sealed with their signets. Scripture plainly alludes
to the custom of sealing up letters, edicts and the tablets
on which the prophets wrote their visions.
The practice of writing upon rolls made of the barks
of trees is very ancient. It is alluded to in the Book
of Job: "Oh! that mine adversary had written a book;
surely I would take it upon my shoulders, and bind
it as a crown to me." (Old version.) The new one
runs: "And that I had the indictment which mine
adversary hath written!" The rolls, or volumes,
generally speaking, were written upon one side only.
This is intimated by Ezekiel who observes that he
saw one of in extraordinary form written on both
sides: "And when I looked, behold, an Hand was sent
unto me, and lo! a roll of a book was therein; and he
spread it before me, and it was written within and
without."
To have been able to write on dry tablets of wood
or barks of trees with the reed or brush, the then only
ink-writing instruments in vogue would have necessitated
the employment of lampblack suspended in a
vehicle of thick gum, or in the form of a paint. Both
of these maybe termed pigmentary inks. The use of
thin inks would have caused spreading or blotting and
thus rendered the writing illegible.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica generalizes its remarks
on this subject:--
"The earliest writings were purely monumental
and accordingly those materials were chosen which
were supposed to last the longest. The same idea
of perpetuity which in architecture finds its most
striking exposition in the pyramids was repeated,
in the case of literary records, in the two columns
mentioned by Josephus, the one of stone and the
other of brick, on which the children of Seth wrote
their inventions and astronomical discoveries; in
the pillars in Crete on which, according to Porphyry,
the ceremonies of the Corybantes were inscribed;
in the leaden tablets containinlu the works of Hesiod,
deposited in the temple of the Muses, in Boeotia;
in the ten commandments on stone delivered by
Moses; and in the laws of Solon, inscribed on planks
of wood. The notion of a literary production surviving
the destruction of the materials on which it
was first written--the 'momentum, aere perennius'
of Horace's ambition--was unknown before the discovery
of substances for systematic transcription.
"Tablets of ivory or metal were in common use
among the Greeks and Romans. When made of
wood--sometimes of citron, but usually of beech or
fir--their inner sides were coated with wax, on
which the letters were traced with a pointed pen or
stiletto (stylus), one end of which was used for
erasure. It was with his stylus that Caesar stabbed
Casca in the arm when attacked by his murderers.
Wax tablets of this kind continued in partial use in
Europe during the middle ages; the oldest extant
specimen, now in the museum at Florence, belongs
to the year 1301."
Later the Hebrew Scriptures were written in ink or
paint upon the skins of ceremonially clean animals or
even birds. These were rolled upon sticks and fastened
with a cord, the ends of which were sealed when
security was an object. They were written in columns,
and usually upon one side, only. The writing was
from right to left; the upper margin was three fingers
broad, the lower one four fingers; a breadth of two
fingers separated the columns. The columns ran across
the width of the sheet, the rolled ends of which were
held vertically in the respective hands. When one
column was read, another was exposed to view by unrolling
it from the end in the left hand, while the
former was hidden from view by rolling up the end
grasped by the right band. The pen was a reed, the
ink black, carried in a bottle suspended from the girdle.
The Samaritan Pentateuch is very ancient, as is
proved by the criticisms of Talmudic writers. A copy
of it was acquired in 1616 by Pietro della Valle, one
of the first discoverers of the cuneiform inscriptions.
It was thus introduced to the notice of Europe. It is
claimed by the Samaritans of Nablus that their copy
was written by Abisha, the great-grandson of Aaron,
in the thirteenth year of the settlement of the land of
Canaan by the children of Israel. The copies of it
brought to Europe are all written in black ink on vellum
or "cotton" paper, and vary from 12mo to
folio. The scroll used by the Samaritans is written in
gold letters. (See Smith's "Dictionary of the Bible,"
vol. III, pp. 1106-1118.) Its claims to great antiquity
are not admitted by scholars.
The enumeration of some of the modes of writing
may be interesting:
The Mexican writing is in vertical columns, beginning
at the bottom.
The Chinese and Japanese write in vertical columns,
beginning at the top and passing from left to right.
The Egyptian hieroglyphics are written invertical
columns or horizontal lines according to the shape and
position of the tablet. It is said that with the horizontal
writing the direction is indifferent, but that the
figures of men and animals face the beginning of the
line. With figures, the units stand on the left.
The Egyptians also wrote from right to left in the
hieratic and demotic and enchorial styles. The Palasgians
did the same, and were followed by the Etruscans.
In the demotic character, Dr. Brugsch remarks
that though the general direction of the writing was
usually from right to left, yet the individual letters were
formed from left to right, as is evident from the unfinished
ends of horizontal letters when the ink failed
in the pen.
In writing numbers in the hieratic and enchorial
the units were placed to the left. The Arabs write
from right to left, but received their numerals from
India, whence they call them "Hindee," and there the
arrangement of their numerals is like our own, units
to the right.
The following noteworthy passage is taken from
Humphreys' work "On the Origin and Progress of the
Art of Writing:"
"Nearly all the principal methods of ancient
writing may be divided into square capitals, rounded
capitals, and cursive letters; the square capitals
being termed simply capitals, the rounded capitals
uncials, and the small letters, or such as had
changed their form during the creation of a running
hand, minuscule. Capitals are, strictly speaking,
such letters as retain the earliest settled form of
an alphabet; being generally of such angular
shapes as could conveniently be carved on wood or
stone, or engraved in metal, to be stamped on
coins. The earliest Latin MSS. known are written
entirely in capitals like inscriptions in metal or
marble.
* * * * *
The uncial letters, as they are termed, appear
to have arisen as writing on papyrus or vellum became
common, when many of the straight lines of
the capitals, in that kind of writing, gradually acquired
a curved form, to facilitate their more rapid
execution. However this may be, from the sixth
to the eighth, or even 10th century, these uncials
or partly rounded capitals prevail.
"The modern minuscule, differing from the ancient
cursive character, appears to have arisen in
the following manner: During the 6th and 7th
centuries, a kind of transition style prevailed in
Italy and some other parts of Europe, the letters
composing which have been termed semi-uncials,
which, in a further transition, became more like
those of the old Roman cursive. This manner,
when definitely formed, became what is now termed
the minuscule manner; it began to prevail over
uncials in a certain class of MSS. about the 8th
century, and towards the 10th its general use was,
with few exceptions, established. It is said to
have been occasionally used as early as the 5th
century; but I am unable to cite an authentic existing
monument. The Psalter of Alfred the Great,
written in the 9th century, is in a small Roman
cursive hand, which has induced Casley to consider
it the work of some Italian ecclesiastic."
The learned who have made a life study of the history
of the most ancient manuscripts, mention them
specifically in great number and of different countries,
which would seem to indicate that the art of handwriting
had made great strides in the very olden
times; many nations had adopted it, and B. C. 650 "it
had spread itself over the (then known) greater part
of the civilized world."
We can well believe this to be true in reading about
the ancient libraries, notwithstanding that some rulers
had sought to prohibit its exercise.
Plato, who lived B. C. 350, expresses his views of
the importance of writing in his imaginary colloquy
between Thamus, king of Egypt, and Thoth, the god
of the liberal arts of the Egyptians; he acquaints us:
"That the discourse turned upon letters. Thoth
maintained the value of Writing, as capable of making
the People wiser, increasing the powers of
Memory; to this the king dissented, and expressed
his opinion that by the exercise of this Art the multitude
would appear to be knowing of those things
of which they were really ignorant, possessing only
an idea of Wisdom, instead of Wisdom itself."
Pythagoras, B. C. 532, we are informed by Astle:
"Went into Egypt where he resided twenty-two
years; he was initiated into the sacerdotal order,
and, from his spirit of inquiry, he has been justly
said to have acquired a great deal of Egyptian
learning, which he afterwards introduced into Italy.
The Pythagorean schools which he established in
Italy when writing was taught, were destroyed
when the Platonic or new philosophy prevailed over
the former. Polybius (lib. ii. p. 175) and Jamblichus
(in vita Pythag.) mention many circumstances,
relative to these facts, quoted from authors now
lost; as doth Porphyry, in his life of Pythagoras."
For the hundred years or more following, however,
the dissemination of learning and the transcription of
events was not to be denied. We find ink-written
volumes (rolls) relating to diverse subjects being loaned
to one another; correspondence by letter to and from
distant lands of frequent occurrence, and the art of
handwriting regularly taught in the schools of learning.
Its progress was to be interrupted by the wars
of the Persians. Mr. Astle in calling attention to
events which have contributed to deprive us of the
literary treasures of antiquity thus refers to them:
"A very fatal blow was given to literature, by
the destruction of the Phoenician temples, and of
the Egyptian colleges, when those kingdoms, and
the countries adjacent, were conquered by the Persians,
about three hundred and fifty years before
Christ. Ochus, the Persian general, ravaged these
countries without mercy, and forty thousand Sidonians
burnt themselves with their families and riches
in their own houses. The conqueror then drove
Nectanebus out of Egypt, and committed the like
ravages in that country; afterwards he marched
into Judea, where he took Jericho, and sent a great
number of Jews into captivity. The Persians had
a great dislike to the religion of the Phoenicians and
the Egyptians; this was one reason for destroying
their books, of which Eusebius (De Preparat.
Evang.) says, they had a great number."
These losses, apparently, did not interfere with the
progress of the art in more western countries. Professor
Rollin in his "Ancient History," 1823, remarks:
"Ptolemy Soter, King of Egypt B. C. 285, had
been careful to improve himself in public literature,
as was evident by his compiling the life of
Alexander, which was greatly esteemed by the ancients,
but is now entirely lost. In order to encourage
the cultivation of the sciences, which he
much admired, he founded an academy at Alexandria,
called the Museum, where a society of learned
men devoted themselves to philosophic studies, and
the improvement of all other sciences, almost in the
same manner as those of London and Paris. For
this purpose, he began by giving them a library,
which was prodigiously increased by his successors.
"His son Philadelphus left a hundred thousand
volumes in it at the time of his death, and the succeeding
princes of that race enlarged it still more, till at
last it consisted of seven hundred thousand volumes.
"This library was formed by the following
method: All the Greek and other books that were
brought into Egypt were seized, and sent to the
Museum, where they were transcribed by persons
employed for that purpose. The copies were then
delivered to the proprietors, and the originals were
deposited in the library.
"As the Museum was at first in that quarter of
the city which was called Bruchion, and near the
royal palace, the library was founded in the same
place, and it soon drew vast numbers thither; but
when it was so much augmented, as to contain four
hundred thousand volumes, they began to deposit
the additional books in the Serapion. This last
library was a supplement to the former, for which
reason it received the appellation of its Daughter,
and in process of time had in it three hundred thousand
volumes.
"In Caesar's war with the inhabitants of Alexandria,
a fire, occasioned by those hostilities, consumed
the library of Bruchion, with its four hundred
thousand volumes. Seneca seems to me to be
out of humour, when, speaking of the conflagration,
he bestows his censures both on the library itself,
and the eulogium made on it by Livy, who styles
it an illustrious monument of the opulence of the
Egyptian kings, and of their judicious attention to
the improvement of the sciences. Seneca, instead
of allowing it to be such, would have it considered
only as a work resulting from the pride and vanity
of those monarchs, who had amassed such a number
of books, not for their own use, but merely for
pomp and ostentation. This reflection, however,
seems to discover very little sagacity; for is it not
evident beyond contradiction, that none but kings
are capable of founding these magnificent libraries,
which become a necessary treasure to the learned,
and do infinite honour to those states in which they
are established?
"The library of Serapion, did not sustain any
damage, and it was undoubtedly there that Cleopatra
deposited those two hundred thousand volumes
from that of Pergamus, which was presented
to her by Antony. This addition, with other enlargements
that were made from time to time, rendered
the new library of Alexandria more numerous
and considerable than the first; and though it
was ransacked more than once, during the troubles
and revolutions which happened in the Roman empire,
it always retrieved its losses, and recovered
its number of volumes. In this condition it subsisted
for many ages, displaying its treasures to the
learned and curious, till the seventh century, when
it suffered the same fate with its parent, and was
burnt by the Saracens, when they took that city in
the year of our Lord 642. The manner by which
this misfortune happened is too singular to be passed
over in silence.
"John, surnamed the Grammarian, a famous
follower of Aristotle, happened to be at Alexandria,
when the city was taken; and as he was much esteemed
by Amri Ebnol As, the general of the Saracen
troops, he entreated that commander to bestow
upon him the Alexandrian library. Amri replied,
that it was not in his power to grant such a request;
but that he would write to the Khalif, or emperor
of the Saracens, for his orders on that head, without
which he could not presume to dispose of the
library. He accordingly wrote to Omar, the then
Khalif, whose answer was, that if those books contained
the same doctrine with the Koran, they could
not be of any use, because the Koran was sufficient
in itself, and comprehended all necessary truths;
but if they contained any particulars contrary to
that book, they ought to be destroyed. In consequence
to this answer, they were all condemned to
the flames, without any further examination; and,
for that purpose, were distributed among the public
baths; where, for the space of six months, they
were used for fuel instead of wood. We may from
hence form a just idea of the prodigious number of
books contained in that library; and thus was this
inestimable treasure of learning destroyed!
The Museum of Bruchion was not burnt with
the library which was attached to it. Strabo acquaints
us, in his description of it, that it was a
very large structure near the palace, and fronting
the port; and that it was surrounded with a portico,
in which the philosophers walked. He adds, that
the members of this society were governed by a
president, whose station was so honourable and important,
that, in the time of the Ptolemies, he was
always chosen by the king himself, and afterwards
by the Roman emperor; and that they had a hall
where the whole society ate together at the expense
of the public, by whom they were supported in a
very plentiful manner."
Among the other events contributing to the deplorable
losses which mankind has sustained in this respect,
a sad one was when the most ancient ink writings of the
Chinese were ordered to be destroyed by their emperor
Chee-Whange-Tee, in the third century before
Christ, with the avowed purpose that everything
should begin anew as from his reign. The small portion
of them which escaped destruction were recovered
and preserved by his successors.
CHAPTER III.
CLASSICAL INK AND ITS EXODUS.
THE MATERIALS AND METHODS EMPLOYED IN PREPARING
THE INK MSS. OF ANTIQUITY--THE INTRODUCTION
OF PARCHMENT AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR
PAPYRUS--MODE OF WRITING ON PARCHMENT--HOW
SEPARATE PIECES WERE FIRST JOINED INTO BOOK
FORM--EVIDENCE OF THE CHARACTER OF WRITING
UTENSILS TO BE FOUND IN ANCIENT PICTURES--SOME
FORMULAS BY THE YOUNGER PLINY AND HIS CONTEMPORARY
DIOSCORIDES--HOW THE GREEKS AND
ROMANS KEPT THEIR PAPYRI FROM BREAKING--WHEN
BLACK INK BEGAN TO FALL INTO DISUSE AND ITS
CAUSE--THE ADOPTION OF THE STYLUS AND ITS ACCOMPANYING
SHEETS OF LEAD, IVORY, METAL AND
WOOD COATED WITH WAX--THE EFFORTS MADE TO
RESUME THE USE OF SOME INK WHICH WOULD BIND
TO PARCHMENT--WHY THERE ARE NO ORIGINAL MSS.
EXTANT BELONGING TO THE TIME OF CHRIST--THE
INVENTION OF THE VITRIOLIC INKS--HUMPHREY'S
BLUNDER IN LOCATING DATES OF EARLY GREEK
MSS.--THE DESTRUCTION OF THE CITIES OF HERCULANEUM
AND POMPEII--AWAKENING OF INTEREST
AGAIN ABOUT THE EMPLOYMENT OF INKS--REDISCOVERIES
OF SOME OF THE MORE REMOTE ANCIENT
RECIPES--THE WRITERS IN GOLD AND SILVER--RECORDED
INSTANCES OF ILLUMINATED MSS.--PASSAGE
FROM THE BOOK OF JOB WRITTEN BY ST.
JEROME--DENIAL OF THE EMPLOYMENT OF TANNO-
GALLATE OF IRON INK IN THE FOURTH CENTURY--
DESTRUCTION OF THE INSPIRED WRITINGS BY ORDER
OF THE ROMAN SENATE--THE ECLIPSE OF CLASSICAL
LITERATURE AND DISMEMBERMENT OF THE
ROMAN EMPIRE--POEM ON THE THOUSAND YEARS
KNOWN AS THE DARK AGES WHICH FOLLOWED.
THEOPHRASTUS says that the papyrus books of the ancients
were no other than rolls prepared in the following
manner: Two leaves of the rush were plastered together,
usually with the mud of the Nile, in such a
fashion that the fibres of one leaf should cross the fibres
of the other at right angles; the ends of each being
then cut off, a square leaf was obtained, equally capable
of resisting fracture when pulled or taken hold of
in any direction. In this form the papyri were exported
in great quantities. In order to form these
single leaves into the "scapi," or rolls of the ancients,
about twenty were glued together end to end. The
writing was then executed in parallel columns a few
inches wide, running transversely to the length of the
scroll. To each end of the scrolls were attached round
staves similar to those we use for maps. To these
staves, strings, known as "umbilici," were attached,
to the ends of which bullae or weights were fixed.
The books when rolled up, were bound up with these
umbilici, and were generally kept in cylindrical boxes
or capsae, a term from which the Mediaeval "capsula,"
or book-cover was derived. "The mode in which the
students held the rolls in order to read from them is
well shown in a painting in the house of a surgeon at
Pompeii. One of the staves, with the papyrus rolled
round it, was held in each hand, at a distance apart
equal to the width of one or more of the transverse
columns of writing. As soon as the eye was carried
down to the bottom of a column, one hand rolled up
and the other unrolled sufficient of the papyrus to
bring a fresh column opposite to the reader's eye, and
so on until the whole was wound round one of the
staves, when, of course, the student had arrived at the
end of his book."
Eumenes, king of Pergamus, being unable to procure
the Egyptian papyrus, through the jealousy of
one of the Ptolemies, who occupied himself in forming
a rival library to the one which subsequently
became so celebrated at Pergamus, introduced the
use of Parchment properly "dressed" for taking
ink and pigments and hence the derivation of the
word "pergamena" as applied to parchment or vellum,
the former substance being the prepared skin
of sheep, and the latter of calves.
The sheets of parchment were joined end to end, as
the sheets of papyrus had been, and when written
upon, on one side only, and in narrow columns across
the breadth of the scroll, were rolled up around staves
and bound with strings, to which seals of wax were
occasionally attached, in place of the more common
leaden bullae.
The custom of dividing wax, ivory, wood and metal
MSS. into pages and in this way into book form is said
by Suetonius to have been introduced by Julius Caesar,
whose letters to the Senate were so made up, and
after whose time the practice became usual for all
documents either addressed to, or issuing from that
body, or to or from the Emperors. As that form subsequently
crept into general use, the books were known
as "codices;" and hence the ordinary term as applied
to manuscript volumes.
All classes of "books," the reeds for writing in
them, the inkstands, and the "capsae" or "scrinia,"
the boxes in which the "scapi" or rolls were kept,
are minutely portrayed in ancient wall-paintings and
ivory diptychs (double tablets), and which may belong
to a period near the beginning of the Christian era.
Pliny and Dioscorides have given the formulas for
the writing inks used by the Greek and Roman scribes
immediately before and during their time. Pliny declares
that the ink of the bookmakers was made of
soot, charcoal and gum, although he does not state
what fluid was employed to commingle them. He does,
however, mention to an occasional use of some acid
(vinegar) to give the ink a binding property on the
papyrus.
Dioscorides, however, specifies the proportions of
this "soot" ink. Another formula alluded to by the
same author calls for a half ounce each of copperas
(blue) and ox-glue, with half pound of smoke black
made from burned resin. He adds, "is a good application
in cases of gangrene and is useful in scalds, if a
little thickened and employed as a salve." De Vinne
speaks of this as a "crude" receipt which will enable
one to form a correct opinion of the quality of
scientific knowledge then applied to medicine and the
mechanical arts; also that these mixtures which are
more like shoe blacking than writing fluid were used
with immaterial modifications by the scribes of the
dark ages.
The old Greeks and Romans had no substitute for
the papyrus, which was so brittle that it could not be
folded or creased. It could not be bound up in books,
nor could it be rolled up unsupported. It was secure
only when it had been wound around a wooden or
metal roller.
After the wholesale destruction of the libraries of
ink-written MSS., the black inks began to fall into disuse;
their value in respect to quality gradually deteriorated,
caused by the displacement of gummy
vehicles, and a consequent absence of any chance of
union between the parchment or papyrus and the dry
black particles, which could be "blown" or washed
off. To employ any other kind of ink except one of
natural origin like the juice of berries which soon
disappeared, was forbidden by prevailing religious
customs. Such conditions naturally merged into
others, in the shape of "ink" substitutes for writing;
the stylus, with its accompanying sheets or tablets
of ivory, wood, metal and wax came into popular
vogue and so continued for many centuries, even after
the employment of ink for writing purposes had been
resumed.
Ovid, in his story of Caunus and Byblis, illustrates
the use of the tables (tablets), and he lived at the time
of the birth of Christ, thus translated:
"Then fits her trembling hands to Write:
One holds the Wax, the Style the other guides,
Begins, doubts, writes, and at the Table chides;
Notes, razes, changes oft, dislikes, approves,
Throws all aside, resumes what she removes.
* * * * * * * *
"The Wax thus filled with her successless wit,
She Verses in the utmost margin writ."
He also makes reference to inks, in the passage
taken from his first elegy, "Ad Librum:"
"Nec te purpureo velent vaccinia succo;
Non est conveniens luctibus ille color.
Nec titulus minio, nec cedro charta notetur.
Candida nec nigra cornua fronte geras."
which Davids translates as follows:
"TO HIS BOOK.
"Nor shall huckleberries stain (literally veil) thee with purple
juice:
That color is not becoming to lamentations.
Nor shall title (or head-letter) be marked with vermillion, or
paper with cedar,
Thou shalt carry neither white nor black horns on thy forehead
(or front, or frontispiece)."
The traditions handed down as of this era relating
to the efforts to find some substitute for "Indian"
ink which would not only "bind" to parchment and
vellum but also would be satisfactory to the priests,
are more or less confirmed by the younger Pliny, and
makes it safe to assume that several were invented
and employed in writing, though possessing but little
lasting qualities. Their use and natural disappearance
is perhaps the real cause of the fact that there are no
original MSS. extant dating as of or belonging to the
time immediately preceding or following the birth of
Christ, or indeed until long after his death.
There is some authority though for the statement
that at this time two vitriolic substances were used in
the preparation of black ink,--a slime or sediment
(Salsugo) and a yellow vitriolic earth (Misy). This
last-named mineral, is unquestionably the same natural
chemical mentioned by writers, which about the end
of the first century was designated "kalkanthum" or
"chalkanthum" and possessed not only the appearance
of, but the virtues of what we know as blue
copperas or sulphate of copper. It continued in use
as long as men were unacquainted with the art of
lixiviating salt, or, in other words, as long as they had
no vitriol manufactories. Commingled with lampblack,
bitumen or like black substances in gummy
water, it was acceptable to the priests for ritualistic
writings and was in general vogue for several centuries
thereafter under the name of (blue) "vitriolic"
ink, notwithstanding the fact that there could not be
any lasting chemical union between such materials.
It was the so-called "vitriolic" ink, which is said
to have "corroded the delicate leaves of the papyrus
and to have eaten through both parchment and
vellum."
These deductions, however, do not agree with some
of the historians and scholars like Noel Humphreys,
author of the "Origin and Progress of the Art of
Writing," London, 1855, a recognized authority on the
subject of ancient MSS., who but repeats in part the
text of earlier writers, when he says, p. 101:
"Examples of early Greek MSS. of the last century
previous to the Christian era are not confined
to Egyptian sources; the buried city of Herculaneum,
in Italy, partially destroyed about seventy-
nine years before the Christian era, and injured by
subsequeut eruptions, till totally destroyed by the
most violent eruption of Vesuvius on record, that
of the year 471 A. D. having yielded several
specimens."
The MSS. examples mentioned in the citation, must
of necessity refer to specimens of writing made with
"vitriolic" and even more ancient inks. They are to
be considered in conjunction with the historical fact
that these cities were buried for more than sixteen
hundred years, counting from the first eruption, before
they were brought to light (Herculaneum was discovered
A. D. 1713 and Pompeii, forty years later);
also that they must have been subjected to intense
heat and a long period of decay which could only operate
to rob them of all traces of natural ink phenomena.
Furthermore, the information Mr. Humphreys
seeks to convey, dates contemporaneously with the first
eruption of Vesuvius, which occurred seventy-nine
years AFTER the Christian era and not seventy-nine
years BEFORE it.
This stupendous blunder involves a period of one
hundred and fifty-eight years; if it is rectified, the
"early Greek MSS." are shown to emanate from the
second half of the first century following the birth of
Christ and confirming to some extent the deductions
hereinbefore made, although the probabilities are that
they belong to later periods, included in the third and
fourth centuries.
It is affirmed that the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius
A. D. 79, did not entirely destroy the cities of Herculaneum
and Pompeii, and that they emerged from their
ruins in the reign of the Emperor Titus. They are
also mentioned as inhabited cities in the chart of
Peutinger, which is of the date of Constantine.
The next eruption, A. D. 471, was probably the most
frightful on record if we exclude the volcanic eruption
of Mt. Pelee, which occurred in Martinique, West
Indies, in 1902, destroying thirty thousand human
beings in fifteen minutes and devastating nearly the
entire island. From Marcellinus we learn that the
ashes of the Vesuvius volcano were vomited over a
great portion of Europe, reaching to Constantinople,
where a festival was instituted in commemoration of
the strange phenomenon. After this, we hear no
more of these cities, but the portion of the inhabitants
who escaped built or occupied suburbs at Nola in
Campania and at Naples. In the latter city, the Regio
Herculanensium, or Quarter of the Herculaneans, an
inscription marked on several lapidary monuments,
indicates the part devoted to the population driven
from the doomed city.
The ancient inkstand found at Herculaneum, said
to contain a substance resembling a thick oil or paint
characteristic of a material which it is alleged, "some
of the manuscripts have been written in a sort of
relievo, visible in the letters when a 'leaf' is held to
the light in a horizontal direction," it is not impossible,
indeed it is quite probable, belonged to an era centuries
later than the period to which it has been assigned.
"No perfect papyri, but only fragments, have been
found at Pompeii. At Herculaneum, up to the year
1825, 1,756 had been obtained, besides many others
destroyed by the workmen, who imagined them to be
mere sticks of charcoal. Most of them were found
in a suburban villa, in a room of small dimensions,
ranged in presses round the sides of the room, in the
center of which stood a sort of rectangular bookcase.
"Sir Humphry Davy, after investigating their
chemical nature, arrived at the conclusion that they
had not been carbonized by heat, but changed by the
long action of air and moisture; and he visited Naples
in hopes of rendering the resources of chemistry
available towards deciphering these long-lost literary
treasures. His expectations, however, were not fully
crowned with success, although the partial efficacy of
his methods was established; and he relinquished the
pursuit at the end of six months, partly from disappointment,
partly from a belief that vexatious obstacles
were thrown in his way by the jealousy of the
persons to whom the task of unrolling had been intrusted.
About five hundred volumes have been well
and neatly unrolled. It is rather remarkable that, as
far as can be learned, no manuscript of any known
standard work has been found, nor, indeed, any production
of any of the great luminaries of the ancient
world. The most celebrated person of whom any
work has been found is Epicurus, whose treatise, De
Natura, has been successfully unrolled. This and a
few other treatises have been published. The library
in which this was found appears to have been rich in
treatises on the Epicurean philosophy. The only
Latin work which it contained was a poem, attributed
to Rabirius, on the war of Caesar and Antony."
Beginning with A. D. 200, the employment of inks
became more and more constant and popular. Rediscoveries
of ancient formulas belonging to a more
remote antiquity multiplied in number. Silver ink
was again quite common in most countries. Red ink
made of vermilion (a composition of mercury, sulphur
and potash) and cinnabar (native mercuric sulphide)
were employed in the writing of the titles as was blue
ink made of indigo, cobalt or oxide of copper. Tyrian
purple was used for coloring the parchment or vellum.
The "Indian" inks made by the Chinese were imported
and used in preference to those of similar
character manufactured at home. The stylus and
waxed tablets though still used, in a measure gave way
to the reawakened interest in ink and ink writings.
A greater facility in writing, due to the gradual
reduction in size of the uncial (inch) letters was
thereby attained.
There were "writers in gold" and "writers in
silver" who travelled from the East into Greece and
who bad found their way before the third century
into the very heart of Rome. Their business was to
embellish the manuscript writings of those times. It
was considered en regale for authors to "illuminate"
their MSS. and those who failed to do so suffered in
popularity.
These authors frequently allude to their use of red,
black and secret inks.
Martial in his first epistle points out the bookseller's
shop opposite the Julian Forum where his works may
be obtained "smoothed with pumice stone and decorated
with purple." Seneca mentions books ornamented
"cum imaginabus." Varro is related by the
younger Pliny to have illustrated his works by pictures
of more than seven hundred illustrious persons.
Martial dwells on the edition of Virgil, with his
portrait as a frontispiece.
The earliest recorded instance of the richer adornments
of golden lettering on purple or rose-stained
vellum is given by Julius Capitolinus in his life of the
Emperor Maximinus the younger. He therein mentions
that the mother of the emperor presented to him
on his return to his tutor (early in the third century),
a copy of the works of Homer, written in gold upon
purple vellum.
The fugitive character, as before stated, of a great
many of the colored inks, and indeed most of the
black ones which were undoubtedly employed, is the
principal reason why so few specimens of them remain
to us. Those which have proved themselves so lasting
in character as to be still extant, bear evidence
of extreme care in the preparation of both the inks
and the materials on which the writings appear. Perhaps
one of the finest illustrations of this practice is
to be found in a book of the Four Gospels of Italian
origin, discovered in the tenth century (a work of the
fourth century) and deposited in the Harlein Library.
This book is written in "Indian" ink and possesses
magnificently embellished and illuminated letters at
the beginning of each Gospel, which are on vellum
stained in different colors.
St. Jerome calls attention to this class of books in
a well-known passage of his preface to the Book of
Job, also written in the fourth century, where he explains
as translated:
"Let those who will have old books written in
gold and silver on purple parchment, or, as they
are commonly called, in uncial-letters,--rather ponderous
loads than books,--so long as they permit
me and mine to have copies, and rather correct than
beautiful books."
It has been said that the Tanno-gallate of Iron Inks
(iron salts, nut-galls and gum) were first used in the
fourth century. There is positively no credible authority
for such a statement, nor is there a single
monument in the shape of a documentary specimen
of ink writing of that one or an earlier century made
with such an ink in any public or private library and
as far as known in existence.
About A. D. 390 the inspired writings (often termed
pagan) of the classical countries, or at least the copies
or extracts of them, upon a special search made by order
of the Roman Senate, including those already mentioned
as of the time of Tarquin (some nine hundred
years earlier), were gathered up in Greece, Italy and
other parts and destroyed, because, as we are informed,
this Roman Senate had embraced the Christian
faith and furthermore "such vanities began to grow
out of fashion; till at last Stilicho burnt them all
under Honorius (a son of Theodosius the Great), for
which he is so severely censured by the noble poet
Rutilius, in his ingenious itinerary."
Not only Roman Arms the Wretch betrayed
To barbarous Foes; before that cursed Deed,
He burnt the Writings of the sacred Maid,
We hate Althaea for the fatal Brand;
When Nisius fell, the weeping Birds complained:
More cruel he than the revengeful Fair;
More cruel heth at Nisius' Murderer.
Whose impious Hands into the Flames have thrown
The Heavenly Pledges of the Roman Crown,
Unrav'lling all the Doom that careful Fate had spun."
The destruction of Rome by Alaric, King of the
Western Goths, A. D. 410, and the subsequent
dismemberment of the entire Roman Empire by the
barbarians of the North who followed in his wake,
announced that ancient history had come to an end.
It may be truly said as well that the ending of the
ancient history of the black and colored writing inks
which began in the obscurity of tradition between
2000 and 1800 B. C., a period of some 2200 years,
was also contemporaneous with these events.
The eclipse of ink-written literature for at least
500 of the 1000 years which followed, and known as
the Middle or "Dark" Ages, except in the Church
alone, who seem to have kept up the production of
manuscript books principally for ecclesiastical and
medical purposes was complete. Hence, any information
pertaining to those epochs about ink, writing
materials and ink writings, must be sought for in the
undestroyed records and the ink writings themselves
left by the fathers of the Church. All else is tainted
and of doubtful authority.
* * * * * * * *
"When waned the star of Greece was there no cry,
To rouse her people from their lethargy?
Was there no sentry on the Parthenon--
No watch-fire on the field of Marathon,
When science left the Athenian city's gate,
To seek protection from a nameless fate?
The sluggish sentry slept--no cry was heard
No hands the glimm'ring watch-fire's embers stirr'd.
Fair science unmolested left the land,
That she had nurtured with maternal hand;
And wandered forth some genial spot to find,
Where she might rear her altar to the mind.
"Long thro' the darken'd ages of a world,
Back to primeval chaos rudely hurled,
She journey'd on amid the gath'ring gloom,
A spectre form emerging from the tomb.
Earth had no resting place--no worshipper--
No dove returned with olive branch to her:
Her lamp burned dimly, yet its flick'ring light,
Guided the wanderer thro' the lengthen'd night.
Oft in her weary search, she paused the while,
To catch one gleam of hope--one favour'd smile;
But the dim mists of ignorance still threw,
Their blighting influence o'er the famish'd few,
Who deigned to look upon that lustrous eye,
Which pierced the ages of futurity.
"For ten long centuries she groped her way,
Through gloom, and darkness, ruin and decay;
Yet came at last the morning's rosy light,
A thousand echoes hail'd the glorious sight--
Joy thrill'd the universe--one iningled cry
Of exultation, pealed along the sky!
Science came forth in richer robes arrayed
She trod a pathway ne'er before essayed;
Up the steep mount of fame she fleetly pressed,
And hung her trophies on its gilded crest."
CHAPTER IV.
CLASSICAL INK AND ITS EXODUS (CONTINUED).
DESTRUCTION OF THE PERGAMUS LIBRARY OF ALEXANDRIA--
SOME OBSERVATIONS BY SIR THOMAS ASTLE
--COMPARISON OF HIS STATEMENTS WITH THOSE OF
PROFESSOR ANTHON RELATIVE TO FRAGMENTS OF
ANTIQUITY WHICH REMAIN--AUTHENTICITY OF
THEM NOT DISTURBED IF THEY ARE OF PROPER AGE
--TAYLOR'S VIEWS ON THIS SUBJECT.
THE storming of Alexandria and the destruction of
the Pergamus library, composed largely of ink-written
volumes, by the Saracens, A. D. 642, has already been
reverted to. Astle observes:
"Thus perished by fanatical madness, the inestimable
Alexandrian library, which is said to have
contained at that time upwards of five hundred
thousand volumes; and from this period, barbarity
and ignorance prevailed for several centuries. In
Italy and all over the west of Europe learning was
in a measure extinguished, except some small remains
which were preserved in Constantinople.
"Theodosious, the younger, was very assiduous
in augmenting this library, by whom, in the latter
end of the fourth century, it was enlarged to one
hundred thousand volumes, above one-half of
which were burnt in the fifth century by the Emperor
Leo the First, so famous for his hatred to
images.
"The inhabitants of Constantinople had not lost
their taste for literature in the beginning of the
thirteenth century, when this city was sacked by
the Crusaders, in the year 1205; the depredations
then committed are related in Mr. Harris's posthumous
works, vol. ii, p. 301, from Nicetas the
Choniate, who was present at the sacking of this
place. His account of the statues, bustos, bronzes,
manuscripts, and other exquisite remains
of antiquity, which then perished, cannot be read
by any lover of arts and learning without emotion.
"The ravages committed by the Turks who
plundered Constantinople, in the year 1453, are
related by Philelphus, who was a man of learning,
and was tutor to aeneas Sylvius (afterwards pope,
under the name of Pius the Second) and was an
eye-witness to what passed at that time. This
tutor says, that the persons of quality, especially
the women, still preserved the Greek language
uncorrupted. He observes, that though the city
had been taken before, it never suffered so much
as at that time; and adds, that, till that period,
the remembrance of ancient wisdom remained at
Constantinople, and that no one among the Latins
was deemed sufficiently learned, who had riot
studied for some time at that place; he expressed
his fear that all the works of the ancients would
be destroyed.
"Still, however, there are the remains of three
libraries at Constantinople: the first is called that
of Constantine the Great; the second is for all
ranks of people without distinction; the third is in
the palace, and is called the Ottoman library; but
a fire consumed a great part of the palace, and
almost the whole library, when as is supposed,
Livy and a great many valuable works of the ancients
perished. Father Possevius has given an
account of the libraries at Constantinople, and in
other parts of the Turkish dominions, in his excellent
work entitled, Apparatus Sacer. (He calls
attention to no less than six thousand authors.)
Many other losses of the writings of the ancients
have been attributed to the zeal of the Christians,
who at different periods made great havock
amongst the Heathen authors. Not a single copy
of the work of Celsus is now to be found, and
what we know of that work is from Origen, his
opponent. The venerable fathers, who employed
themselves in erasing the best works of the most
eminent Greek or Latin authors, in order to transcribe
the lives of saints or legendary tales upon the
obliterated vellum, possible mistook these lamentable
depredations for works of piety. The ancient
fragment of the 91st book of Livy, discovered by
Mr. Bruns, in the Vatican, in 1772, was much defaced
by the pious labours of some well-intentioned
divine. The Monks made war on books as the
Goths had done before them. Great numbers of
manuscripts have also been destroyed in this kingdom
(Great Britain) by its invaders, the Pagan
Danes, and the Normans, by the civil commotions
raised by the barons, by the bloody contests between
the houses of York and Lancaster, and especially
by the general plunder and devastations of monasteries
and religious houses in the reign of Henry
the Eighth; by the ravages committed in the civil
war in the time of Charles the First, and by the
fire that happened in the Cottonian library, October
23, 1731."
Mr. Astle's comments on the volumes or remnants
of volumes which remain to us, becomes most interesting
in the lights thrown on them by Professor
Anthon in his "Classical Dictionary," 1841, which are
quoted in part following those of Mr. Astle.
Mr. Astle remarks:
"The history of Phoenicia by Sanconiatho, who
was a contemporary with Solomon, would have
been entirely lost to us, had it not been for the
valuable fragments preserved by Eusebius."
Says Prof. Anthon:
"Sanchoniathon, a Phoenician author, who if the
fragments of his works that have reached us be
genuine, and if such a person ever existed, must
be regarded as the most ancient writer of whom we
have any knowledge after Moses. As to the period
when be flourished, all is uncertain. He is the
author of three principal works, which were written
in Phoenician. They were translated into the Greek
language by Herennius Philo, who lived in the
second century of our era. It is from this translation
which we obtain all the fragments of Sanchoniathon
that have reached our times. Philo had
divided his translation into nine books, of which
Porphyry made use in his diatribe against the Christians.
It is from the fourth book of this lost work
that Eusebius took, for an end directly opposite to
this, the passages which have come down to us.
And thus we have those documents relating to the
mythology and history of the Phoenicians from the
fourth hand."
Mr. Astle continues:
"Manetho's History of Egypt, and the History
of Chaldea, by Berosus, have nearly met with the
same fate."
From Anthon:
"Berosus; a Babylonian historian. He was a
priest of the temple of Belus in the time of Alexander.
The ancients mention three books of his
of which Josephus and Eusebius have preserved
fragments. Annius of Viterbo published a work
under the name of Berosus, which was soon discovered
to be a forgery."
By Astle:
"The Historical Library of Diodorus Siculus consisted
likewise of forty books, but only fifteen are
now extant; that is, five between the fifth and the
eleventh, and the last ten, with some fragments
collected out of Photius and others."
By Anthon:
"Diodorus, surnamed Siculus, a contemporary
of Julius Caesar and Agustus. He published a
general history in forty books, under the title
'Historical Library,' which covered a period of
1138 years. We have only a small part remaining
of this vast compilation. These rescued portions
we owe to Eusebius, to John Malala and other
writers of the lower empire, who have cited them
in the course of their works. He is the reputed
author of the famous sophism against motion. 'If
any body be moved, it is moved in the place where
it is, or in a place where it is not, for nothing can
act or suffer where it is not, and therefore there is
no such thing as motion.' "
By Astle:
"The General History of Polybius originally
contained forty books; but the first five only, with
some extracts or fragments, are transmitted to us."
By Anthon:
"Polybius, an eminent Greek historian, born
about, B. C. 203. Polybius gave to the world various
historical writings, which are entirely lost with
the exception of his General History. It embraced
a period of 53 years. Of the forty books which it
originally comprehended, time has spared only the
first five entire. Of the rest, as far as the seventeenth,
we have merely fragments though of considerable
size. Of the remaining books we have
nothing left except what is found in two merger
abridgments which the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus,
in the tenth century caused to be
made of the whole work."
From Astle:
"Dionysius Halicarnassensis wrote twenty books
of Roman antiquities, extending from the siege of
Troy, to the Punic war A. U. C. 488; but only
eleven of them are now remaining, which reach no
further than the year of Rome 312."
From Anthon:
"He was born in the first century B. C. His
principal work was 'Roman Antiquities.' It originally
consisted of twenty books, of which the first
ten remain entire. Dionysius wrote for the Greeks,
and his object was to relieve them from the mortification
which they felt at being conquered by a race
of barbarians, as they considered the Romans to be.
And this he endeavored to effect by twisting and
forging testimonies, and botching up the old legends,
so as to make out a prima facie proof of the Greek
origin of the city of Rome. Valuable additions
were made in 1816, by Mai, from an old MSS."
By Astle:
"Appian is said to have written the Roman
History in twenty-four books; but the greatest
part of the works of that author is lost."
By Anthon:
"He was the author of a Roman History in
twenty-four books which no longer exist entire;
the parts missing have been supplied but was not
written by Appian but is a mere compilation from
Plutarch's Lives of Crassus and Antony."
By Astle:
"Dion Cassius wrote eighty books of history,
but only twenty-five are remaining, with some
fragments, and an epitome of the last twenty by
Xiphilinus."
By Anthon:
"His true name was Cassius, born A. D. 155;
--we have fragments remaining of the first thirty-
six books, they comprehend a period from B. C. 65
to B. C. 10;--they were found by Mai in two Vatican
MSS., which contain a sylloge or collection
made by Maximus Planudes (who lived in the
fourteenth century. He was the first Greek that
made use of the Arabic numerals as they are
called)."
Mr. Astle further observes:
"The Emperor Tacitus ordered ten copies of the
works of his relation, the historian, to be made
every year which he sent into the different provinces
of the empire; and yet, notwithstanding his
endeavours to perpetuate these inestimable works,
they were buried in oblivion for many centuries.
Since the restoration of learning an ancient MSS.
was discovered in a monastery in Westphalia,
which contained the most valuable part of his annals;
but in this unique manuscript, part of the
fifth, seventh, ninth and tenth books are deficient,
as are part of the eleventh, and the latter part of the
sixteenth. This MSS. was procured by that great
restorer of learning Pope Leo X., under whose patronage
it was printed at Rome in 1515; he afterwards
deposited it in the Vatican library, where it
is still preserved. Thus posterity is probably indebted
to the above magnificent Pontiff, for the
most valuable part of the works of this inimitable
historian."
Accounts which differentiate in their descriptive details
of questioned ink-written fragments of antiquity
and on the genuineness or authenticity of which rests
the truth or falsity of ancient history or other literature,
serve to taint such remains with a certain degree
of suspicion and doubt. When, however, in the light
of investigation, the materials of which they are composed
are found to approach closely the age they
purport to represent, then it is that such fragments
can be said to have fairly established their own identity.
Taylor asserts:
"The remote antiquity of a manuscript is of ten
established by the peculiar circumstance of
its existing BENEATH another writing. Some invaluable
manuscripts of the Holy Scriptures, and
not a few precious fragments of classic literature,
have been thus brought to light.
"The age of a manuscript may often be ascertained
with little chance of error, by some such
indications as the following:--the quality or
appearance of the INK, the nature of the material;
that is to say, whether it be soft leather, or parchment,
or the papyrus of Egypt, or the bombycine
paper; for these materials succeeded each other, in
common use, at periods that are well known;--
the peculiar form, size, and character of the writing;
for a regular progression in the modes of writing
may be traced by abundant evidence through every
age from the remotest times;--the style of the ornaments
or illuminations, as they are termed, often
serves to indicate the age of the book which they decorate.
"From such indications as these, more or less
definite and certain, ancient manuscripts, now extant,
are assigned to various periods, extending
from the sixteenth, to the fourth century of the
Christian era; or perhaps, in one or two instances,
to the third or second. Very few can claim an antiquity
so high as the fourth century; but not a few
are safely attributed to the seventh; and a great
proportion of those extant were unquestionably
executed in the tenth; while many belong to the
following four hundred years. It is, however, to
be observed, that some manuscripts, executed at so
late a time as the thirteenth, or even the fifteenth
century, afford clear internal evidence that, by a
single remove only, the text they contain claims a
REAL antiquity, higher than that even of the oldest
existing copy of the same work. For these older
copies sometimes prove, by the peculiar nature of
the corruptions which have crept into the text, that
they have been derived through a long series of
copies; while perhaps the text of the more modern
manuscripts possesses such a degree of purity and
freedom from all the usual consequences of frequent
transcription, as to make it manifest that the copy
from which it was taken, was so ancient as not to
be far distant from the time of the first publication
of the work."
CHAPTER V.
REVIVAL OF INK.
THE DISAPPEARANCE AND PRESERVATION OF INK WRITINGS,
AS ESTIMATED BY LA CROIX--COMMENTS OF
OTHER WRITERS--DE VINNE'S INTERESTING EXPLANATIONS
OF THE STATUS QUO OF MANUSCRIPT WRITINGS
DURING THE DARK AGES WHICH PRECEDED THE INVENTION
OF PRINTING--PRICES PAID FOR BOOKS IN
ANCIENT TIMES--LIMITATIONS OF HANDWRITING AND
HANDWRITING MATERIALS AT THE BEGINNING OF
THE FIFTH CENTURY--WHO CONTROLLED THE RECORDS
ABOUT THEM--INVENTION OF THE QUILL
PEN--THE CAUSE OF INCREASED FLUIDITY OF
INKS--ORIGIN OF THE SECRETA--CHARACTER OF
INFORMATION OBTAINED FROM THEM--IMPROVEMENT
OF BLACK INKS IN THE EIGHTH CENTURY AND EMPLOYMENT
OF POMEGRANITE INK.
LA CROIX' preface to his "Science and Literature of
the Middle Ages and the Renaissance," refers to the
Dark Ages:
"In the beginning of the Middle Ages, at the
commencement of the fifth century, the Barbarians
made an inroad upon the old world; their renewed
invasions crushed out, in the course of a few years,
the Greek and Roman civilization; and everywhere
darkness succeeded to light. The religion of Jesus
Christ was alone capable of resisting this barbarian
invasion, and science and literature, together with
the arts, disappeared from the face of the earth,
taking refuge in the churches and monasteries. It
was there that they were preserved as a sacred deposit,
and it was thence that they emerged when
Christianity had renovated pagan society. But
centuries and centuries elapsed before the sum of
human knowledge was equal to what it had been at
the fall of the Roman empire. A new society,
moreover, was needed for the new efforts of human
intelligence as it resumed its rights. Schools and
universities were founded under the auspices of the
clergy and of the religious corporations, and thus
science and literature were enabled to emerge from
their tombs. Europe, amidst the tumultuous conflicts
of the policy which made and unmade kingdoms,
witnessed a general revival of the scholastic
zeal; poets, orators, novelists, and writers increased
in numbers and grew in favour; savants, philosophers,
chemists and alchemists, mathematicians
and astronomers, travellers and naturalists, were
awakened, so to speak, by the life-giving breath of
the Middle Ages; and great scientific discoveries
and admirable works on every imaginable subject
showed that the genius of modern society was not
a whit inferior to that of antiquity. Printing, was
invented, and with that brilliant discovery, the Middle
Ages, which had accomplished their work of
social renovation, made way for the Renaissance,
which scattered abroad in profusion the prolific and
brilliant creations of Art, Science, and Literature."
This author to some extent discredits himself, however,
p. 455, where he remarks:
"Long before the invasions of the Barbarians
the histories written by Greek and Latin authors
concerning the annals of the ancient peoples had
been falling into disfavor. Even the best of them
were little read, for the Christians felt but slight
interest in these pagan narratives, and that is why
works relating to the history of antiquity were already
so scarce."
Another authority writing on the same subject discusses
it from a different standpoint, remarking:
"As in the middle ages invention busied itself
with instruments of torture, and as in our days it
is taken up almost as much with the destructive engines
of war as with the productive arts of peace,
so in those early ages it applied itself to the fabrication
of idols, to the mechanism and theatrical
contrivances for mysteries and religious ceremonies.
There was then no desire to communicate
discoveries, science was a sort of freemasonry,
and silence was effectually secured by priestly
anathemas; men of science were as jealous of one
another as they were of all other classes of society.
If we wish to form a clear picture of this earliest
stage of civilization, an age which represents at
once the naivete of childhood and the suspicious
reticence of senility, we must turn our eyes to the
priest, on the one hand, claiming as his own all art
and science, and commanding respect by his contemptuous
silence; and, on the other hand, to the
mechanic plying the loom, extracting the Tyrian
dye, practising chemistry, though ignorant of its
very name, despised and oppressed, and only tolerated
when he furnished Religion with her trappings
or War with arms. Thus the growth of
chemistry was slow, and by reason of its backwardness
it was longer than any other art in ridding
itself of the leading-strings of magic and
astrology. Practical discoveries must have been
made many times without science acquiring thereby
any new fact. For to prevent a new discovery from
being lost there must be such a combination of
favorable circumstances as was rare in that age and
for many succeeding ages. There must be publicity,
and publicity is of quite recent growth; the
application of the discovery must be not only possible
but obvious, as satisfying some want. But
wants are only felt as civilization progresses. Nor
is that all; for a practical discovery to become a
scientific fact it must serve to demonstrate the error
of one hypothesis, and to suggest a new one, better
fitted for the synthesis of existing facts. But
(some) old beliefs are proverbially obstinate and
virulent in their opposition to newer and truer
theories which are destined to eject and replace
them. To sum up, even in our own day, chemistry
rests on a less sound basis than either physics, which
had the advantage of originating as late as the 17th
century, or astronomy, which dates from the time
when the Chaldean shepherd had sufficiently provided
for his daily wants to find leisure for gazing
into the starry Heavens."
The observations of a still earlier commentator are of
the same general nature. He says:
"In the first ages of Christianity, when the
fathers of the Church, the Jews, and the Heathen
philosophers were so warmly engaged in controversy,
there is reason to believe that pious frauds
were not uncommon: and that when one party suspected
forgeries, instead of an attempt at confutation,
which might have been difficult, they had
recourse perhaps to a countermine: and either invented
altogether, or eked out some obscure traditional
scraps by the embellishments of fancy.
When we consider, amongst many literary impositions
of later times, that Psalmanazar's history of
Formosa was, even in this enlightened age and
country (England, about 1735), considered by our
most learned men as unquestionably authentic, till
the confession of the author discovered the secret,
I think it is not difficult to conceive how forgeries
of remote events, before the invention of printing
and the general diffusion of knowledge might gain
an authority, and especially with the zealous, hardly
inferior to that of the most genuine history."
De Vinne, however, in his "Invention of Printing,"
New York, 1878, best explains the status quo of those
times, relative not only to book (MSS.) making, and
methods of circulation, but the causes which led up to
their eventual disappearance and the literary darkness
which ensued. His remarks are so pertinent
that they are quoted at length:
"The civilization of ancient Rome did not require
printing. If all the processes of typography
had been revealed to its scholars the art would not
have been used. The wants of readers and writers
were abundantly supplied by the pen. Papyrus
paper was cheap, and scribes were numerous; Rome
had more booksellers than it needed, and books
were made faster than they could be sold. The
professional scribes were educated slaves, who, fed
and clothed at nominal expense, and organized under
the direction of wealthy publishers, were made
so efficient in the production of books, that typography,
in an open competition, could have offered few advantages.
"Our knowledge of the Roman organization of
labor in the field of bookmaking is not as precise as
could be wished; but the frequent notices of books,
copyists and publishers, made by many authors
during the first century, teach us that books
were plentiful. Horace, the elegant and fastidious
man of letters, complained that his books were too
common, and that they were sometimes found in
the hands of vulgar snobs for whose entertainment
they were not written. Martial, the jovial man of
the world, boasted that his books of stinging epigrams
were to be found in everybody's hands or
pockets. Books were read not only in the libraries,
but at the baths, in the porticoes of houses, at
private dinners and in mixed assemblies. The
business of bookmaking was practised by too many
people, and some were incompetent. Lucian, who
had a keen perception of pretense in every form,
ridicules the publishers as ignoramuses. Strabo,
who probably wrote illegibly, says that the books
of booksellers were incorrect.
"The price of books made by slave labor was
necessarily low. Martial says that his first book of
epigrams was sold in plain binding for six sesterces,
about twenty-four cents of American money; the
same book in sumptuous binding was valued at five
denarii, about eighty cents. He subsequently complained
that his thirteenth book was sold for only
four sesterces, about sixteen cents. He frankly
admits that half of this sum was profit, but intimates,
somewhat ungraciously, that the publisher Tryphon
gave him too small a share. Of the merits of this
old disagreement between the author and publisher
we have not enough of facts to justify an opinion.
We learn that some publishers, like Tryphon and
the brothers Sosii, acquired wealth, but there are
many indications that publishing was then, as it is
now, one of the most speculative kinds of business.
One writer chuckles over the unkind fate that sent
so many of the unsold books of rival authors from
the warehouses of the publisher, to the shops of
grocers and bakers, where they were used to wrap
up pastry and spices; another writer says that the
unsold stock of a bookseller was sometimes bought
by butchers and trunk makers.
"The Romans not only had plenty of books but
they had a manuscript daily newspaper, the Acta
Diurna, which seems to have been a record of the
proceedings of the senate. We do not know how
it was written, nor how it was published, but it
was frequently mentioned by contemporary writers
as the regular official medium for transmitting
intelligence. It was sent to subscribers in distant
cities, and was, sometimes, read to an assembled
army. Cicero mentions the Acta as a sheet in
which he expected to find the city news and gossip
about marriages and divorces.
"With the decline of power in the Roman empire
came the decline of literature throughout the
world. In the sixth century the business of bookmaking
had fallen into hopeless decay. The books
that had been written were seldom read, and the
number of readers diminished with every succeeding
generation. Ignorance pervaded in all ranks of
society. The Emperor Justin I, who reigned between
the years 518 and 527, could not write, and
was obliged to sign state papers with the form of
stencil plate that had been recommended by Quintilian.
Respect for literature was dead. In the
year, 476, Zeno, the Isaurian, burned 120,000 volumes
in the city of Constantinople. During the
year 640, Amrou, the Saracen, fed the baths of
Alexandria for six months with the 500,000 books
that had been accumulating for centuries in its
famous library of the Serapion. Yet books were
so scarce in Rome at the close of the seventh century
that Pope Martin requested one of his bishops
to supply them, if possible, from Germany. The
ignorance of ecclesiastics in high station was
alarming. During this century, and for centuries
afterward, there were many bishops and archbishops
of the church who could not sign their names. It
was asserted at a council of the church held in the
year 992, that scarcely a single person was to be
found in Rome itself who knew the first elements of
letters. Hallam says, 'To sum up the account of
ignorance in a word, it was rare for a layman of
any rank to know bow to sign his name.' He repeats
the statements that Charlemagne could not
write, and Frederic Barbarossa could not read.
John, king of Bohemia, and Philip, the Hardy, king
of France, were ignorant of both accomplishments.
The graces of literature were tolerated only in the
ranks of the clergy; the layman who preferred letters
to arms was regarded as a man of mean spirit.
When the Crusaders took Constantinople, in 1204,
they exposed to public ridicule the pens and inkstands
that they found in the conquered city as the
ignoble arms of a contemptible race of students.
"During this period of intellectual darkness,
which lasted from the fifth until the fifteenth century,
a period sometimes described, and not improperly,
as the dark ages, there was no need for
any improvement in the old method of making
books. The world was not then ready for typography.
The invention waited for readers more than
it did for types; the multitude of book buyers
upon which its success depended had to be created.
Books were needed as well as readers. The treatises
of the old Roman sophists and rhetoricians, the
dialectics of Aristotle and the schoolmen, and the
commentaries on ecclesiastical law of the fathers of
the church, were the works which engrossed the
attention of men of letters for many centuries before
the invention of typography. Useful as these books
may have been to the small class of readers for
whose benefit they were written, they were of no
use to a people who needed the elements of knowledge."
In the more ancient times, however, when MSS. books
(rolls) were not quite so plentiful there was seemingly
no difficulty in obtaining large sums for them.
Aristotle, died B. C. 322, paid for a few books of
Leusippus, the philosopher, three Attick talents, which
is about $3,000. Ptolemy Philadelphus is said to have
given the Athenians fifteen talents, an exemption from
tribute and a large supply of provisions for the MSS.
of aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides written by
themselves.
Arbuthnot, discussing this subject, remarks that Cicero's
head, "which should justly come into the account
of Eloquence brought twenty-five Myriads of
Drachms, which is the equivalent of $40,000. Also,
"the prices of the magical books mentioned to be
burnt in the Acts of the Apostles is five. Myriads of
Pieces of Silver or Drachms."
Picolimini relates that the equivalent of eighty
golden crowns was demanded for a small part of the
works of Plutarch.
If we are to believe any of the accounts, the environment
of the art of handwriting and handwriting
materials at the beginning of the fifth century had
contracted within a small compass, due principally to
the general ignorance of the times.
As practiced it was pretty much under the control
of the different religious denominations and the information
obtainable about inks from these sources
is but fragmentary. What has come down to us of
this particular era is mostly found on the old written
Hebrew relics, showing that they at least had made
no innovations in respect to the use of their ritualistic
deyo.
The invention of the quill pen in the sixth century
permitted a degree of latitude in writing never before
known, the inks were made thinner and necessarily
were less durable in character. Greater attention was
given to the study and practice of medicine and
alchemy which were limited to the walls of the
cloister and secret places. The monk physicians endeavored
by oral instructions and later by written
ones to communicate their ink-making methods not
only of the black and colored, but of secret or sympathetic
inks, to their younger brethren, that they might
thus be perpetuated. All the traditional and practical
knowledge they possessed was condensed into manuscript
forms; additions from other hands which included
numerous chemical receipts for dyeing caused
them to multiply; so that as occasion required from
time to time, they were bound up together booklike
and then circulated among favored secular individuals,
under the name of "Secreta."
The more remote of such treatises which have come
down to us seem to indicate the trend of the researches
respecting what must have been in those times
unsatisfactory inks. Scattered through them appear a
variety of formulas which specify pyrites (a combination
of sulphur and metal), metals, stones and other
minerals, soot, (blue) vitriol, calxes (lime or chalk),
dye-woods, berries, plants, and animal colors, some of
which if made into ink could only have been used
with disastrous results, when permanency is considered.
The black ink formulas of the eighth century are
but few, and show marked improvement in respect to
the constituents they call for, indicating that many
of those of earlier times had been tried and found
wanting. One in particular is worthy of notice as it
names (blue) vitriol, yeast, the lees (dregs) of wine
and the rind of the pomegranate apple, which if
commingled together would give results not altogether
unlike the characteristic phenomena of "gall" ink.
Confirmation of the employment of such an ink on a
document of the reign of Charlemigne in the beginning
of the ninth century on yellow-brown Esparto
(a Spanish rush) paper, is still preserved. Specimens
of "pomegranate" ink, to which lampblack and
other pigments had been added of varying degrees of
blackness, on MSS., but lessening in number as late as
the fourteenth century, are still extant in the British
Museum and other public libraries.
CHAPTER VI.
INK OF THE WEST.
REMARKS OF ARCH-DEACON CARLISLE--WHEN READING
AND WRITING CEASED TO BE MYSTERIES--ORIGIN
OF THE WORDS CLERK AND SIGN--SCARCITY OF MANUSCRIPTS
--FOUNDING OF IRISH SCHOOLS OF LEARNING
IN THE SEVENTH CENTURY--MONKS NOT PERMITTED
TO USE ARTIFICIAL LIGHT IN PREPARING
MSS.--OBSERVATIONS OF MADAN ABOUT THE HISTORY
OF WRITING DURING THE DARK AGES--INK-
WRITTEN MSS. TREASURES.
THE ancient history of the art of writing in more
northern sections of the Western world, William
Nicolson, Arch-Deacon of Carlisle, author of "The
English Historical Library," London, 1696, tells very
quaintly:
"The Danes register'd their more considerable
transactions upon Rocks; or on parts of them,
hewen into various Shapes and Figures. On these
they engrav'd such Inscriptions as were proper for
their Heathen Alters, Triumphal Arches, Sepulchral
Monuments and Genealogical Histories of
their Ancestors. Their writings of less concern
(as Letters, Almanacks, &c.) were engraven upon
Wood: And because Beech was most plentiful in
Demnark, (tho Firr and Oak be so in Norway and
Sweden) and most commonly employ'd in these
Services, form the word Bog (which in their Language
is the Name of that sort of Wood) they and
all other Northern Nations have the Name of Book.
The poorer sort used Bark; and the Horns of Rain-
Deer and Elks were often finely polish'd and shaped
into Books of several Leaves. Many of these old
Calendars are likewise upon Bones of Beasts and
Fishes: But the Inscriptions on Tapestry, Bells,
Parchment and Paper, are of later use.
"Some other Monuments may be known to be of
a Danish Extraction, tho they carry nothing of a
Runic Inscription. Few of their Temples were
cover'd; and the largest observ'd by Wormius (at
Kialernes in Island) was 120 foot in length, and 60
in breadth.
"The next Monument of Age is their Edda
Islandorum; the meaning of which Appellation they
that publish the Book hardly pretend to understand.
As far as I can give the Reader any satisfaction,
he is to. know that Island was first inhabited (in
the year 874) by a Colony of Norwegians; who
brought hither the Traditions of their Forefathers,
in certain metrical Composures, which (as is usual
with Men transplanted into a Foreign Land) were
here more zealously and carefully preserv'd and
kept in memory than by the Men of Norway themselves.
About 240 years after this (A. D. 1114)
their History began to be written by one Saemund,
surnam'd Frode or the wise; who (in nine years'
travel through Italy, Germany and England) had
amass'd together a mighty Collection of Historical
Treatises. With these he return'd full fraught into
Island; where he also drew up an account of
the affairs of his own Country. Many of his
Works are now said to be lost: But there is still an
Edda, consisting of several Odes (whence I suspect
its Name is derived) written by many several hands,
and at different times, which bears his Name.
The Book is a Collection of Mythological Fables,
relating to the ancient State and Behaviour of the
Great Woden and his followers, in terms poetical
and adapted to the Service of those that were employ'd
in the composure of their old Rhymes and Sonnets.
"There is likewise extant a couple of Norwegian
Histories of good Authentic Credit; which explains
a great many particulars relating to the Exploits of
the Danish Kings in Great Britain, which our own
Historians have either wholly omitted or very
darkly recorded. The former of these was written
soon after the year 1130, by one Theodoric a Monk,
who acknowledges his whole Fabrick to be built
upon Tradition, and that the old Northern History
is no where now to be had save only ab Islendingorum
antiquis Carminibus.
" 'Tis a very discouraging Censure which Sir
William Temple passes upon all the Accounts given
us of the Affairs of this Island, before the Romans
came and Invaded it. The Tales (says he) we have
of what pass'd before Caesar's Time, of Brute and
his Trojans, of many Adventures and Successions,
are cover'd with the Rust of Time, or Involv'd in
the Vanity of Fables or pretended Traditions;
which seem to all Men obscure or uncertain, but to
be forged at pleasure by the Wit or Folly of their
first Authors, and not to be regarded. And again;
I know few ancient Authors upon this Subject (of
the British History) worth the pains of perusal, and
of Dividing or Refining so little Gold out of so much
course Oar, or from so much Dross. But some
other Inferiour People may think this worth their
pains; since all Men are not born to be Ambassadors:
And, accordingly, we are told of a very Eminent
Antiquary who has thought fit to give his
Labours in this kind the Title of Aurum, ex Stercore.
There's a deal of Servile Drudgery requir'd
to the Discovery of these riches, and such as every
Body will not stoop to: for few Statesmen and
Courtiers (as one is lately said to have observ'd in
his own Case) care for travelling in Ireland, or
Wales, purely to learn the Language.
"A diligent Enquirer into our old British Antiquities
would rather observe (with Industrious Leland)
that the poor Britains, being harass'd by
those Roman Conquerours with continual Wars,
could neither have leisure nor thought for the
penning of a Regular History: and that afterwards
their Back-Friends, the Saxons, were (for a good
while) an Illiterate Generation; and minded nothing
but Killing and taking Possession. So that
'tis a wonder that even so much remains of the
Story of those Times as the sorry Fragments of
Gildas; who appears to have written in such a
Consternation, that what he has left us looks more
like the Declamation of an Orator, hired to expose
the miserable Wretches, than any Historical Account
of their Sufferings."
Palgrave asserts that reading and writing were no
longer mysteries after the pagan age, but were still
acquirements almost wholly confined to the clergy.
The word "clericus" or "clerk," became synonymous
with penman, the sense in which it is still most
usually employed. If a man could write, or even
read, his knowledge was considered as proof presumptive
that he was in holy orders. If kings and great
men had occasion to authenticate any document, they
subscribed the "sign" of the cross opposite to the place
where the "clerk" had written their name. Hence
we say, to sign a deed or a letter.
Books (MSS.) were extremely rare amongst the
Scandinavian and northern nations. Before their
communication with the Latin missionaries, wood appears
to have been the material upon which their
runes were chiefly written: and the verb "write,"
which is derived from a Teutonic root, signifying to
scratch or tear, is one of the testimonies of the usage.
Their poems were graven upon small staves or rods,
one line upon each face of the rod; and the Old English
word "stave," as applied to a stanza, is probably
a relic of the practice, which, in the early ages, prevailed
in the West. Vellum or parchment afterwards
supplied the place of these materials. Real paper,
manufactured from the pellicle of the Egyptian reed
or papyras, was still used occasionally in Italy, but
it was seldom exported to the countries beyond the
Alps; and the elaborate preparation of the vellum,
upon which much greater care was bestowed than in
the modern manufacture, rendered it a costly article;
so much so, that a painstaking clerk could find it
worth his while to erase the writing of an old book,
in order to use the blank pages for another manuscript.
The books thus rewritten were called "codices rescripti,"
or "palimpsests." The evanescent traces of
the first layer of characters may occasionally be
discerned beneath the more recent text which has been
imposed upon them.
In Ireland, first known as the Isle of Saints, was
founded in the seventh century a great school of
learning which included writing and illuminating,
which passed to the English by way of the monasteries
created by Irish monks in Scotland. Their earliest
existing MSS. are said to belong to that period. In
the Irish scriptoriums (rooms or cells for writing) of
the Benedictine monasteries where they were prepared,
so particular were the monks that the scribes were
forbidden to use artificial light for fear of injuring the
manuscripts.
Most interesting and entertaining are the observations
of Falconer Madan, a modern scholar of some
repute. Of the history of writing in ink during the
"Dark Ages" he says:
"In the seventh and eighth centuries we find the
first tendency to form national hands, resulting in
the Merovingian or Frankish hand, the Lombardic
of Italy, and the Visigothic of Spain. These are
the first difficult bands which we encounter; and
when we remember that the object of writing is to
be clear and distinct, and that the test of a good
style is that it seizes on the essential points in
which letters differ, and puts aside the flourishes
and ornaments which disguise the simple form, we
shall see how much a strong influence was needed
to prevent writing from becoming obscure and degraded.
That influence was found in Charles the Great.
"In the field of writing it has been granted to no
person but Charles the Great to influence profoundly
the history of the alphabet. With rare
insight and rarer taste he discountenanced the prevalent
Merovingian hand, and substituted in eclectic
hand, known as the Carolingian Minuscule, which
way still be regarded as a model of clearness and
elegance. The chief instrument in this reform was
Alcuin of York, whom Charles placed, partly for
this purpose, at the head of the School of Tours in
A. D. 796. The selection of an Englishman for
the post naturally leads us to inquire what hands
were then used in England, and what amount of
English influence the Carolingian Minuscule, the
foundation of our modern styles, exhibits.
"If we gaze in wonder on the personal influence
of Charles the Great in reforming handwriting, we
shall be still more struck by the spectacle presented
to us by Ireland in the sixth, seventh and eighth
centuries. It is the great marvel in the history of
writing. Modern historians have at last appreciated
the blaze of life, religions, literary, and artistic,
which was kindled in the 'Isle of Saints' within
a century after St. Patrick's coming (about A. D.
450); how the enthusiasm kindled by Christianity
in the Celtic nature so far transcended the limits of
the island, and indeed of Great Britain, that Irish
missionaries and monks were soon found in the
chief religious centres of Gaul, Germany, Switzerland,
and North Italy, while foreigners found their
toilsome way to Ireland to learn Greek! But less
prominence has been given to the artistic side of
this great reflex movement from West to East than
to the other two. The simple facts attest that in
the seventh century, when our earliest existing
Irish MSS. were written, we find not only a style
of writing (or indeed two) distinctive, national,
and of a high type of excellence, but also a school
of illumination which, in the combined lines of
mechanical accuracy and intricacy, of fertile invention
of form and figure and of striking arrangements
of colour, has never been surpassed. And
this is in the seventh century--the nadir of the rest
of Europe!
"It is certain that Alcuin was trained in Hiberno-
Saxon calligraphy, so that we may be surprised to
find that the writing which, under Charles the Great,
he developed at Tours, bears hardly a trace of the
style to which he was accustomed. En revanche,
in the ornamentation and illumination of the great
Carolingian volumes which have come down to our
times, we find those constant, persistent traces of
English and Irish work which we seek for in vain
in the plainer writing.
"This minuscule superseded all others almost
throughout the empire of Charles the Great, and
during the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries
underwent very little modification. Even in the two
next centuries, though it is subject to general
modification, national differences are hardly observable,
and we can only distinguish two large divisions,
the group of Northern Europe (England, North
France, Italy, and Spain). The two exceptions
are, that Germany, both in writing and painting,
has always stood apart, and lags behind the other
nations of Western Europe in its development, and
that England retains her Hiberno-Saxon hand till
after the Conquest of 1066. It may be noted that
the twelfth century produced the finest writing ever
known--a large, free and flowing form of the minuscule
of Tours. In the next century comes in the angular
Gothic hand, the difference between which and
the twelfth century hand may be fairly understood
by a comparison of ordinary German and Roman
type. In the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth
centuries the writing of each century may be
discerned, while the general tendency is towards
complication, use of abbreviations and contractions,
and development of unessential parasitic forms of
letters.
"The Book of Kells, the chief treasure of Trinity
College, Dublin, is so-called from having been
long preserved at the Monastery of Kells, founded
by Columba himself. Stolen from thence, it eventually
passed into Archbishop Ussher's hands, and,
with other parts of his library, to Dublin. The
volume contains the Four Gospels in Latin, ornamented
with extraordinary freedom, elaboration, and
beauty. Written apparently in the seventh century,
it exhibits, both in form and colour, all the
signs of the full development and maturity of the
Irish style, and must of necessity have been preceded
by several generations of artistic workers,
who founded and improved this particular school
of art. The following words of Professor Westwood,
who first drew attention to the peculiar excellences
of this volume, will justify tile terms made
use of above: 'This copy of the Gospels, traditionally
asserted to have belonged to Columba, is
unquestionably the most elaborately executed MS.
of early art now in existence, far excelling, in the
gigantic size of the letters in the frontispieces of
the Gospel, the excessive minuteness of the ornamental
details, the number of its decorations, the
fineness of the writing, and the endless variety of
initial capital letters with which every page is
ornamented, the famous Gospels of Lindisfarne in the
Cottonian Library. But this MS. is still more valuable
on account of the various pictorial representations
of different scenes in the life of our Saviour,
delineated in a style totally unlike that of every
other school.' "
CHAPTER VII.
EARLY MEDIAEVAL INK.
CONTROVERSIES AMONG HEBREW SCHOLARS RELATING TO
RITUALISTIC INKS--THE CLASS OF INKS EMPLOYED BY
THE FRENCH AND GERMAN JEWS--CONVENTION OF
REPRESENTATIVES FROM JEWISH CENTERS--SUBMISSION
OF THEIR DIFFERENCES TO MAIMONIDES--HE DEFINES
TALMUDIC INK--SIXTH CENTURY REFERENCE TO
"GALL" INK--ASSERTION OF HOTZ-OSTERWALD THAT
EXCLUSIVE OF THE INDIAN INK, THE WRITING PIGMENTS
OF ANTIQUITY HAVE NEVER BEEN INVESTIGATED--HIS
BELIEF THAT YEAST FORMED A PORTION
OF THEM--SOME OTHER OBSERVATIONS ON THIS
SUBJECT--ANCIENT FORMULAS ABOUT THE LEES OF
WINE IN INK-MAKING--COMMENTS ON INK-MAKING BY
PLINY--ANCIENT FORMULA OF POMEGRANATE INK--
SECRETA BY THE MONK THEOPHILUS--WHAT THE,
THORN TREE HE REFERS TO REALLY IS--IDENTITY OF
THE MYROBOLAM INK OF THE MOST REMOTE ANTIQUITY
WITH THE POMEGRANATE INK OF THE MIDDLE AGES--
THE USES OF THE ACACIA TREE.
MOST of the documents of early mediaeval times
which remain to us containing ink in fairly good condition,
like charters, protocols, bulls, wills, diplomas,
and the like, were written or engrossed with "Indian"
ink, in which respect we of the present century continue
to follow such established precedent when preparing
important written instruments. It is not
remarkable, therefore, that the black inks of the
seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth centuries preserve
their blackness so much better than many belonging
to succeeding ages, including a new class of inks which
could not stand the test of time.
During the twelfth and first years of the thirteenth
centuries there were bitter controversies among Talmudic
(Hebrew) scholars, relative to the character of
the ink to be employed in the preparation of ritualistic
writings. Nice distinctions were drawn as to the
real meaning of the word deyo as understood by the
Jews of the western part of the world, and the Arabic
word alchiber, as then understood nearer Palestine
and the other eastern countries.
The French Jews were using "tusche" (typical of
the "Indian" ink), while the Germans were employing
"pomegranate" and "gall" inks. Representatives
from interested religious Jewish centers came
together and resolved to submit their differences for
final adjustment to Maimonides, born in Spain, A. D.
1130 , and died A. D. 1204--the then greatest living
Hebrew theologian and authority on biblical and
rabbinical laws. Discarding all side issues, their differences
were seemingly incorporated into three questions
and thus propounded to him:
1. Is the Talmudic deyo identical with alchiber?
2. Of what ingredient should the Talmudic deyo
consist, if it is not the same as alchiber?
3. Is alchiber to be understood as relating to the
gall-apple and chalkanthum (blue vitriol)?
To the first and third questions Maimonides declared
that deyo and alchiber were not identical;
and for the reasons that the Talmud declares deyo to
be a writing material which does not remain on the
surface on which it is placed and to be easily effaced.
On the other hand alchiber contains gum and other
things which causes it to adhere to the writing surface.
To the second question he affirmed that the Talmud
distinguishes a double kind of deyo, one containing
little or no gum and being a fluid, and the other referring
to "pulverized coal of the vine, soot from
burning olive oil, tar, rosin and honey, pressed into
plates to be dissolved in water when wanted for use."
Furthermore, while the Talmud excludes the use of
certain inks of which iron vitriol was one, it does not
exclude atramentum, (chalkanthum, copper vitriol),
because the Talmud never speaks of it. He insisted
that the Talmud requires a dry ink (deyo).
As one of the last entries made in the Talmud (a
great collection of legal decisions by the ancient
Rabbis, Hebrew traditions, etc., and believed to have
been commenced in the second century of the Christian
era) is claimed to belong to the sixth century,
mentions gall-apples and iron (copper) vitriol, it must
have referred to "gall" ink. Further investigation
discloses the fact that such galls were of Chinese origin
and as we know they do not contain the necessary
ferment which the aleppo and other galls possess for
inducing a transformation of the tannin into gallic
acid, no complete union could therefore obtain.
Hence the value of this composition was limited until
the time when yeast and other materials were introduced
to overcome its deficiencies.
Hotz-Osterwald of Zurich, antiquarian and scholar,
has asserted that with the exception of the carbon
inks employed on papyrus, the writing pigments of
antiquity and the Middle Ages have scarcely been
investigated. The dark to light-brown pigment,
hitherto a problem, universally used on parchment,
he contends upon historical, chemical and microscopic
evidence is identical with oeno-cyanin and was prepared
for the most part from yeast, and was first
employed as a pigment. Contrary to the general opinion
it contains no iron, except frequently accidental
traces, and after its appearance in Greece in the third
century, it formed almost exclusively the ink of the
ancient manuscripts, until displaced by the gallate
inks, said to have been introduced by the
Arabians. These accidental traces of iron were due
to the employment of iron vessels in the making of
the ink.
My own observations in this direction confirm and
establish the fact that it was the custom in the early
centuries of the Christian era to utilize yeast or an
analogous compound as part of the composition of ink,
to which was added sepia, or the rind of the pomegranate
apple previously dissolved by heat in alkaline
solutions.
This analogous compound was probably the material
procured from wine lees (dregs), deposited after fermentation
has commenced, and which after considerable
application of heat yields not only most of the
tannin contained in the stones and fruit stalks, but a
viscid compound characteristic of gelatine and of a
red-purple color which in course of time changes to
brown.
Bloxam says that the coloring matter of grapes and
of red wine appears to be "cyanin."
One of the methods of treating wine lees, as translated
in the eighteenth century from an old Italian
secreta, is sufficiently curious to partly quote:
"Dry the Lees (dregs) of wine with a gentle fire
and fill with them two third of a large earthen Retort,
place this retort in a reverberatory furnace, and
fitting it to a large receiver, give a small fire to it to
heat the Retort by degrees, and drive forth an insipid
phlegm; when vapours begin to rise, you must
take out the phlegm and luting carefully the junctures
of your vessels, quicken the fire little by little
until you find the receiver filled with white clouds;
continue it in this condition, and you perceive the
receiver to cool, raise the fire to the utmost extremity,
and continue it so, until there arise no more
vapours. When the vessels are cold unlute the receiver,
and shaking it to make the Volatile salt,
which sticks to it, fall to the bottom, pour it all
into a bolt-head; fit it to a Head with a small receiver;
lute well the junctures and placing it in
sand, give a little fire under it, and the volatile salt
will rise and stick to the head, and the top of the
Bolt-head; take off your head and set on another
in its place; gather your salt and stop it tip quickly,
for it easily dissolves into a liquor; continue the
fire, and take care to gather the Salt according as
you see it appear; but when there rises no more
salt, a liquor will distill, of which you must draw
about three ounces, and put out the fire," &c.
The "lees of wine," in connection with the ancient
methods of ink-making is also referred to by the
younger Pliny in his twenty-fifth book, which the
Edinburgh Review has carefully translated and
printed:
"INK (or literally) BLACKING.--Ink also may be
set down among the artificial (or compound)
drugs, although it is a mineral derived from two
sources. For, it is sometimes developed in the
form of a saline efflorescence,--or is a real mineral
of sulphureous color--chosen for this purpose.
There have been painters who dug up from graves
colored coals (CARBON). But all these are useless
and new-fangled notions. For it is made from
soot in various forms, as (for instance) of burnt
rosin or pitch. For this purpose, they have built
manufactories not emitting that smoke. The ink
of the very best quality is made from the smoke of
torches. An inferior article is made from the soot
of furnaces and bath-house chimneys. There are
some (manufacturers) also, who employ the dried
lees of wine; and they do say that if the lees so
employed were from good wine, the quality of the
ink is thereby much improved. Polygnotus and
Micon, celebrated painters at Athens, made their
black paint from burnt grape-vines; they gave it
the name of TRYGYNON. APELLES, we are told,
made HIS from burnt ivory, and called it elephantina
'ivory-black.' Indigo has been recently imported,--
a substance whose composition I have not
yet investigated. The dyers make theirs from the
dark crust that gradually accumulates on brass-kettles.
Ink is made also from torches (pine-knots),
and from charcoal pounded fine in mortars. 'The
cuttlefish' has a remarkable qualify in this respect;
but the coloring-matter which it produces is not
used in the manufacture of ink. All ink is improved
by exposure to the sun's rays. Book-writers'
ink has gum mixed with it,--weavers' ink is
made up with glue. Ink whose materials have been
liquified by the agency of an acid is erased with
great difficulty."
There are but few exceptions respecting the general
sameness of ink receipts of the succeeding centuries,
one of which is the "Pomegranate," credited
to the seventh century but really belonging to an earlier
period:
"Of the dried Pommegranite (apple) rind take
an ounce, boil it in a pint of water until 3/4 be
gone; add 1/2 pint of small beer wort and once
more boil it away so that only a 1/4 pint remain.
After you shall have strained it, boiling hot through
a linnen cloth and it comes cold, being then of a
glutinous consistence, drop in a 'bit' of Sal Alkali
and add as much warm water as will bring it to a
due fluidity and a gold brown color for writing with
a pen."
Following this formula and without any modifications,
I obtained an excellent ink of durable quality,
but of poor color, from a standpoint of blackness.
A less ancient "Secreta," signed by the Italian
monk "Theophilus," who lived about the commencement
of the eleventh century, is most interesting:
"To make ink, cut for yourself wood of the
thorn-trees in April or May, before they produce
flowers or leaves, and collecting them in small bundles,
allow them to lie in the shade for two, three,
or four weeks, until they are somewhat dry. Then
have wooden mallets, with which you beat these
thorns upon another piece of hard wood, until you
peel off the bark everywhere, put which immediately
into a barrelful of water. When you have
filled two, or three, or four, or five barrels with
bark and water, allow them so to stand for eight
days, until the waters imbibe all the sap of the bark.
Afterwards put this water into a very clean pan, or
into a cauldron, and fire being placed under it, boil
it; from time to time, also, throw into the pan some
of this bark, so that whatever sap may remain in it
may be boiled out. When you have cooked it a
little, throw it out, and again put in more; which
done, boil down the remaining water unto a third
part, and then pouring it out of this pan, put it
into one smaller, and cook it until it grows black
and begins to thicken; add one third part of pure
wine, and putting it into two or three new pots,
cook it until you see a sort of skin show itself on
the surface; then taking these pots from the fire,
place them in the sun until the black ink purifies itself
from the red dregs. Afterwards take small
bags of parchment carefully sewn, and bladders,
and pouring in the pure ink, suspend them in the
sun until all is quite dry; And when dry, take from
it as much as you wish, and temper it with wine
over the fire, and, adding a little vitriol, write.
But, if it should happen through negligence that
your ink be not black enough, take a fragment of
the thickness of a finger and putting it into the
fire, allow it to glow, and throw it directly into the
ink."
After reciting many receipts which pertain to other
arts, this good old monk concludes:
"When you shall have re-read this often, and
have committed it to your tenacious memory, you
shall thus recompense me for this care of instruction,
that, as often as you shall successfully have
made use of my work, you pray for me for the pity
of omnipotent God, who knows that I have written
these things which are here arranged, neither
through love of human approbation, nor through
desire of temporal reward, nor have I stolen anything
precious or rare through envious jealousy, nor
have I kept back anything reserved for myself
alone; but, in augmentation of the honour and
glory of His name, I have consulted the progress
and hastened to aid the necessities of many men."
The "thorn" trees which Theophilus mentions are
asserted by some writers (with whom I do not
agree) to be those commonly known as the "Norway
spruce," a species of pine of lofty proportions sometimes
rising to the height of 150 feet with a trunk
from four to five feet in diameter. It lives to a great
age believed to exceed in many instances 450 years.
The leaves (needles, thorns) are short but stand thickly
upon the branches and are of a dusky green color
shining on the upper surface; the fruit is nearly
cylindrical in form and of a purple color covered with
scales ragged at the edges. It is a native of Europe
and Northern Asia. It furnishes the material known
as Burgundy pitch which is obtained by removing the
juice which is secreted in the bark of the tree; it is
purified by a melting process and straining either
through a cloth or a layer of straw. It gives forth a
peculiar odor not unpleasant, resembling turpentine.
The Burgundy pitch or rosin is soluble in hot alcohol
(spirits of wine).
An ink prepared after the method laid down by this
monk, assuming that he referred to the spruce-pine,
while troublesome to write with, would be almost as
lasting as "Indian" ink and would be most difficult
to erase from parchment into which it would be absorbed
due to its alcoholic qualities.
"The ink," remarks Montfaucon, "which we see in
the most ancient Greek manuscripts, has evidently
lost much of its pristine blackness; yet neither has it
become altogether yellow or faint, but is rather tawny
or deep red, and often not far from a vermillion."
While there are some monuments of this kind of ink
in fair condition of the fourth and succeeding centuries,
they aggregate but a very small proportion of
the vast number of principally Indian ink specimens
which remain to us of those epochs. As exemplars,
however, of a forgotten class of inks belonging to a still
more remote antiquity, careful research adduces certain
proof of their existence more than nine hundred
years before the Christian era commenced.
Reference has earlier been made to the ancient
Myrobolam ink, which was characteristically the same
in color phenomena as those which Montfaucon mentions.
These "tawny" colored inks I estimate were
products obtained from the "thorn" trees spoken of
by the monk Theophilus. The thorn trees were of
two species. The pomegranate, anciently called the
"Punic apple," because it was largely employed by
the Carthagenians for the purposes of dyeing and
tanning; and the acacia, known in Egyptian times
as the lotus. The former was held in such high esteem
that the Arabians and Egyptians made it an emblem
to designate one of their dieties and termed it
raman.
The products of these thorn, trees were collectively
used together as ink, most of the tannin being obtained
from the pomegranate, and the gum from the acacia.
CHAPTER VIII.
MEDIAEVAL INK.
INK SECRETAS OF THE TWELFTH CENTURY COMPARED WITH
EARLIER ONES--APPEARANCE OF TANNO-GALLATE OF
IRON INK IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY--ITS INTRODUCTION
LOCATES THE EPOCH WHEN THE MODERN INK OF
TO-DAY FIRST CAME INTO VOGUE--ITS APPROVAL AND
ADOPTION BY THE FATHERS OF THE CHURCH--THE
INVENTION NOT ITALIAN BUT ASIATIC--ITS ARRIVAL
FROM ASIA FROM THE WEST AND NOT THE EAST--APPEARANCE
ABOUT THE SAME TIME OF LINEN OR MODERN
PAPER--SETTLEMENT OF OLD CONTROVERSIES ABOUT
ANCIENT SO-CALLED COTTON PAPER-DE VINNE'S COMMENT
ABOUT PAPER AND PAPER-MAKING--CURIOUS
CONTRACT OF THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
THE "Secretas" of the twelfth century, in so far as
they relate to methods of making ink, indicate many
departures from those contained in the more ancient
ones. Frequent mention is made of sour galls, aleppo
galls, green and blue vitriol, the lees of wine, black
amber, sugar, fish-glue and a host of unimportant materials
as being employed in the admixture of black
inks. Combinations of some of these materials are
expressed in formulas, the most important one of
which details with great particularity the commingling
together of an infusion of nut-galls, green vitriol (sulphate
of iron) and fish-glue (isinglass); the two first
(tanno-gallate of iron) when used alone, forms the sole
base of all unadulterated "gall" inks.
Dates are appended to some of these ink and other
formulas. The "tanno-gallate of iron" one has, however,
no date. But as it appears closely following
a date of A. D. 1126, it must have been written about
that time.
Documents, public and private, bearing dates nearly
contemporary with that era, written in ink of like
type, are still extant, confirming in a remarkable
degree the "Secreta" formula, and establishing the
fact that the first half of the twelfth century marks
the epoch in which the "gall" or modern ink of today
came into vogue.
Its adoption by the priests stamped it with the
seal of the Church and the arrival from the West
about the same period of flax or linen paper with the
added fact that these assimilated so well together,
later placed them both on the popular basis which
has continued to the present time.
While the Secreta which contains the "gall" ink
formula is of Italian origin, the invention of this ink
belongs solely to an Asiatic country, from whence in
gradual stages by way of Arabia, Spain and France,
it finally reached Rome. Thence, through the Church,
information about it was conveyed to wherever civilization
existed.
We are not confined in our investigations of ancient
MSS. to any particular locality or date, as the twelfth,
thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries are prolific
of "gall" ink monuments covering an immense
territory. Such inks when used unadulterated, remain
in an almost pristine color condition; while the
other inks to which some pigment or color had been
added, probably to make them more agreeable in appearance
and more free-flowing, with a mistaken idea
of improving them, are much discolored and in every
instance present but slight indications of their original
condition.
The question of the character of the paper employed
during these eras, composed of different kinds
of fibrous vegetable substances, possesses some importance
when discussing its relationship to inks. Many
authors certify to the manufacture and use of "cotton"
in the eleventh, twelfth and later centuries.
Madan, however, in treating this subject, makes the
following comments which are in line with my own
observations:
"Paper has for long been the common substance
for miscellaneous purposes of ordinary writing, and
has at all times been formed exclusively from rags
(chiefly of linen) reduced to pull), poured out on a
frame in a thin watery sheet, and gradually dried
and given consistence by the action of heat. It
has been a popular belief, found in every book till
1886 (now entirely disproved, but probably destined
to die hard), that the common yellowish thick
paper, with rough fibrous edge, found especially in
Greek MSS. till the fifteenth century, was paper of
quite another sort, and made of cotton (charta
bombycna, bombyx being usually silk, but also
used of any fine fibre such as cotton). The microscope
has at last conclusively shown that these two
papers are simply two different kinds of ordinary
linen-rag paper."
De Vinne speaking, of paper and paper-making says:
"The gradual development of paper-making in
Europe is but imperfectly presented through these
fragmentary facts. Paper may have been made for
many years before it found chroniclers who thought
the manufacture worthy of notice. The Spanish
paper-mills of Toledo which were at work in the
year 1085, and an ancient family of paper-makers
which was honored with marked favor by the king
of Sicily in the year 1102, are carelessly mentioned
by contemporary writers as if paper-making was an
old and established business. It does not appear
that paper was a novelty at a much earlier period.
The bulls of the popes of the eighth and ninth centuries
were written on cotton card or cotton paper,
but no writer called attention to this card, or described
it as a new material. It has been supposed
that this paper was made in Asia, but it could
have been made in Europe. A paper-like fabric,
made from the barks of trees, was used for writing
by the Longobards in the seventh century, and a
coarse imitation of the Egyptian papyrus, in the
form of a strong brown paper, had been made by
the Romans as early as the third century. The
art of compacting in a web the macerated fibres of
plants seems to have been known and practised to
some extent in Southern Europe long before the
establishment of Moorish paper-mills.
"The Moors brought to Spain and Sicily not an
entirely new invention, but an improved method of
making paper, and what was more important, a culture
and civilization that kept this method in constant
exercise. It was chiefly for the lack of ability
and lack of disposition to put paper to proper use
that the earlier European knowledge of paper-
making was so barren of results. The art of book-
making as it was then practised was made subservient
to the spirit of luxury more than to the desire
for knowledge. Vellum was regarded by the copyist
as the only substance fit for writing on, even
when it was so scarce that it could be used only for
the most expensive books. The card-like cotton
paper once made by the Saracens was certainly
known in Europe for many years before its utility
was recognized. Hallam says that the use of this
cotton paper was by no means general or frequent,
except in Spain or Italy, and perhaps in the south
of France, until the end of the fourteenth century.
Nor was it much used in Italy for books.
"Paper came before its time and had to wait for
recognition. It was sorely needed. The Egyptian
manufacture of papyrus, which was in a state of
decay in the seventh century, ceased entirely in the
ninth or tenth. Not many books were written during
this period, but there was then, and for at least
three centuries afterwards, an unsatisfied demand
for something to write upon. Parchment was so
scarce that reckless copyists frequently resorted to
the desperate expedient of effacing the writing on
old and lightly esteemed manuscripts. It was not
a difficult task. The writing ink then used was
usually made of lamp-black, gum and vinegar; it
it had but a feeble encaustic property, and it did
not bite in or penetrate the parchment. The work
of effacing this ink was accomplished by moistening
the parchment with a weak alkaline solution and
by rubbing it with pumice stone. This treatment
did not entirely obliterate the writing, but made it
so indistinct that the parchment could be written
over the second time. Manuscripts so treated are
now known as palimpsests. All the large European
public libraries have copies of palimpsests, which are
melancholy illustrations of the literary tastes of
many writers or bookmakers during the Middle
Ages. More convincingly than by argument they
show the utility of paper. Manuscripts of the
Gospels, of the Iliad, and of works of the highest
merit, often of great beauty and accuracy, are
dimly seen underneath stupid sermons, and theological
writings of a nature so paltry that no man
living cares to read them. In Some instances the
first writing has been so thoroughly scrubbed out
that its meaning is irretrievably lost.
"Much as paper was needed, it was not at all popular
with copyists; their prejudice was not altogether
unreasonable, for it was thick, coarse, knotty, and
in every way unfitted for the display or ornamental
penmanship or illumination. The cheaper quality,
then known as cotton paper, was especially objectionable.
It seems to have been so badly made as
to need governmental interference. Frederick II,
of Germany, in the year 1221, foreseeing evils
that might arise from bad paper, made a decree by
which he made invalid all public documents that
should be put on cotton paper, and ordered them
within two years to be transcribed upon parchment.
Peter II, of Spain, in the year 1338, publicly
commanded the paper-makers of Valencia and
Xativa to make their paper of a better quality and
equal to that of an earlier period.
"The better quality of paper, now known as
linen paper, had the merits of strength, flexibility,
and durability in a high degree, but it was set aside
by the copyists because the fabric was too thick
and the surface was too rough. The art of calendering
or polishing papers until they were of a
smooth, glossy surface, which was then practised
by the Persians, was unknown to, or at least
unpractised by, the early European makers. The
changes or fashion in the selection of writing papers
are worthy of passing notice. The rough
hand-made papers so heartily despised by the
copyists of the thirteenth century are now preferred
by neat penmen and skilled draughtsmen.
The imitations of mediaeval paper, thick, harsh,
and dingy, and showing the marks of the wires
upon which the fabric was couched, are preferred
by men of letters for books and for correspondence,
while highly polished modern plate papers, with
surfaces much more glossy than any preparation of
vellum, are now rejected by them as finical and effeminate.
"There is a popular notion that the so-called inventions
of paper and xylographic printing were
gladly welcomed by men of letters, and that the
new fabric and the new art were immediately
pressed into service. The facts about to be presented
in succeeding chapters will lead to a different
conclusion. We shall see that the makers of
playing cards and of image prints were the men
who first made extended use of printing, and that
self-taught and unprofessional copyists were the
men who gave encouragement to the manufacture
of paper. The more liberal use of paper at the
beginning of the fifteenth century by this newly-
created class of readers and book-buyers marks the
period of transition and of mental and mechanical
development for which the crude arts of paper-
making and of black printing had been waiting for
centuries. We shall also see that if paper had been
ever so cheap and common during the Middle Ages,
it would have worked no changes in education or
literature; it could not have been used by the people,
for they were too illiterate; it would not have
been used by the professional copyists, for they
preferred vellum and despised the substitute.
"The scarcity of vellum in one century, and its
abundance in another, are indicated by the size
of written papers during the same periods. Before
the sixth century, legal documents were generally
written upon one side only; in the tenth century
the practice of writing upon both sides of the vellum
became common. During the thirteenth century
valuable documents were often written upon strips
two inches wide and but three and a half inches
long. At the end of the fourteenth century these
strips went out of fashion. The more general use
of paper had diminished the demand for vellum and
increased the supply. In the fifteenth century,
legal documents on rolls of sewed vellum twenty
feet in length were not uncommon. All the valuable
books of the fourteenth century were written on
vellum. In the library of the Louvre the manuscripts
on paper, compared to those on vellum, were
as one to twenty-eight; in the library of the Dukes
of Burgundy, one-fifth of the books were of paper.
The increase in the proportion of paper books is a
fair indication of the increasing popularity of paper;
but it is obvious that vellum was even then considered
as the more suitable substance for a book of value."
The curious contract belonging to the fourteenth
century which follows, is a literal copy of the original.
It does not seem to specify whether the book is to be
made of vellum or paper. In other respects the minute
details no doubt prevented any misunderstanding between
the contracting parties.
"August 26th, 1346--There appeared Robert
Brekeling, scribe, and swore that he would observe
the contract made between him and Sir John Forber,
viz., that the said Robert would write one Psalter
with the Kalender for the work of the said Sir
John for 5 s. and 6 d.; and in the same Psalter, in
the same character, a Placebo and a Dirige, with a
Hymnal and Collectary, for 4 s. and 3 d. And
the said Robert will illuminate ('luminabet') all
the Psalms with great gilded letters laid in with
colours; and all the large letters of the Hymnal
and Collectary will he illuminate with gold and
vermillion, except the great letters of double feasts,
which shall be as the large gilt letters are in the Psalter.
And all the letters at the commencement of the
verses shall be illuminated with good azure and vermillion;
and all the letters at the beginning of the
Nocturns shall be great uncial (unciales) letters, containing
V. lines, but the Beatus Vir and Dixit Dominus
shall contain VI. or VII. lines; and for the
aforesaid illumination and for colours he [John]
will give 5 s. 6 d., and for gold he will give 18 d.,
and 2 s. for a cloak and fur trimming. Item one
robe--one coverlet, one sheet, and one pillow."
CHAPTER IX.
END OF MEDIAEVAL INK.
THE SECRETAS PRECEDE ALCHEMY AND CHEMISTRY--EFFORT
TO IMPROVE GALL INKS--VARIATIONS IN INK
COLORS--THE USE OF RED INK IN THE NINTH AND
TENTH CENTURIES--COLOR COMPARISONS BETWEEN INK
WRITINGS OF ITALY, GERMANY, FRANCE, ENGLAND AND
SPAIN--HOW TO DETERMINE THE ANTIQUITY OF
MSS.--PRACTICES WHICH OBTAINED IN MONASTIC LIBRARIES
OF VARIOUS COUNTRIES---KINDS OF INK EMPLOYED
IN LITURGICAL WRITINGS--THE PUBLIC SCRIBES
AND THEIR EMPLOYMENTS--EFFORTS TO COUNTERFEIT
OLD SCRIPT IN EARLY PRINTED BOOKS--WHEN THEY
WERE ABANDONED.
IT is well known that alchemy preceded chemistry
and hence the Secreta came first. When the formula
for making a real "gall" ink had ceased to be a secret,
chemistry was then but little understood. It is not a
matter for wonder, therefore, to learn that "gall" ink
of the first half of the twelfth century was low in
grade and poor in quality. It was a muddy fluid
easily precipitated and it deteriorated quickly. A
century or more of experimenting was needed to
modify or overcome defects, as well as to gain
information about the chemical value of the different
tannins, the relative proportions of each constituent
and the correct methods in its admixture.
There is no written account of this ink being manufactured
as an industry until over three hundred years
later. Hence, as it appears so frequently of varying
degrees of color on documents of the intervening
centuries, we are compelled to assume that it was
compounded by individuals who had neither chemical
knowledge, nor who had made a study or a business
of ink-making. Notwithstanding which, its progress
seems to have been comparatively rapid and like the
same ink of the present day was to be obtained of any
quality or kind, whether unadulterated or containing
some added color.
Intense black or a black tinged with red-brown
characterizes the color of the inks found on the very
earliest MSS. Their lasting color phenomena, due to
the employment of lampblack and kindred substances
even after a lapse of so many ages, is at this late day
of no particular moment as they but prove the virtues
of the different types of "Indian" inks.
A different set of facts are evident in the inks of
mediaeval times which are found to greatly vary according
to their ages and locality. But few black
inks of the ninth and tenth centuries remain to us.
In the MSS. of those centuries a red ink was the prevailing
one even to the extent of entire volumes being
written with it. In Italy and many other portions of
Southern Europe specimens now extant, when compared
with those belonging to Germany and other
more northern countries, are seen to be blacker and
this is also true when those of France and England
are compared, the blacker inks belonging to France.
With the gradual disappearance of the so-called
"Dark Ages," the ink found on Spanish written MSS.
of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, are notedly
of intense blackness while those of some of the other
countries appear of a rather faded gray color, and in
the sixteenth century, this gray color effect prevailed
all over the Christian world.
To revert again to the ink phenomena of the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries which are of Italian
origin. In no section of that country or of Europe
during those centuries do ink creations possess, in so
marked a degree, the variety of color qualities that
are seen on those of the city of Florence. Indeed it
may be truly said that during those periods more ink
written MSS. were produced in that place than all the
rest of Europe. These productions of MSS. were not
confined to simple ink writings. The heads of religious
orders and rulers of the country liked to have
artists near them to illuminate their missals and sacred
books, besides the decorating of walls in their churches
and palaces.
Through this art of illuminating and the painting of
miniatures in MSS. books, "oil" painting took root and
the day for mere symbols and hieroglyphics was over.
In that city of scholars and wealth it was a fashion
and later the custom to acquire Greek, Latin and
Oriental MSS. and copy them for circulation and sale.
The prices offered were sufficient to stimulate the
search and zeal for them. We learn that in the year
1400 "on the square of the Duoma a spacciatore
was established whose business was to sell manuscripts
often full of mistakes and blunders." Nicholas V,
before he became Pope, was nicknamed "Tommaso the
Copyist." He is said to have presented to the Vatican
library as a gift five thousand volumes of his own
creation.
The information of these increasing demands for ancient
documents of any kind spread over Europe and
portions of Asia, bringing into Florence a great
quantity of them, as well as many scholars and copyists.
Shiploads of the works of the Byzantine historians
arrived from the Golden Horn, and the city
became a vast manufactory for duplicating or forging
ancient MSS. Parchment and vellum were too costly
to employ very much, so most of them were of paper.
Vespaciano, one of the many engaged in this business
and who lived in 1464, found it necessary in order to
reduce the cost of production, to become a paper merchant.
In writing to a friend he says:
"I engaged forty-five copyists and in twenty-
two months had completed two hundred volumes,
which included some Greek and Latin as well as
many Oriental writings."
The reading and judging of manuscripts are now
known as the science of diplomatics. To determine
their antiquity or genuineness requires the nicest distinctions
and care, irrespective of alleged dates (whether
exhibited by Roman numbers or the Arabic one which
we continue to employ, and which first made their
appearance near the commencement of the twelfth
century). The inks as already mentioned and used
on them, as we shall see, serve fully as much in estimating
authenticity or genuineness as does combined
together,--the style of the writing, the miniatures,
vignettes and arabesques (if any), the colors, covers,
materials, ornamentation and the character of their
contents.
With the re-establishment of learning in the fifteenth
century and the creation of alleged stable governments,
who may perhaps have realized the necessity
for an ink of enduring good commercial and record
qualities, so-called "gall" inks were chosen as best
possessing them, and were made and employed with
varying results even more than the ancient "Indian"
inks.
Mediaeval practices in relation to ink and other
writing materials as well as the monastic libraries of
which England, France, Germany and Italy possessed
many during the thirteenth, fourteenth, and more
particularly the fifteenth centuries, were governed by
established rules.
The libraries of such institutions were placed by the
abbot under the sole charge of the "armarian," an
officer who was made responsible for the preservation
of the volumes under his care; be was expected frequently
to examine them, lest damp or insects should
injure them; he was to cover them with wooden
covers to preserve them and carefully to mend and
restore any damage which time or accident might
cause; he was to make a note of any book borrowed
from the library, with the name of the borrower;
but this last rule applied only to the less valuable
portion of it, as the "great and precious books"
could only be lent by the permission of the abbot
himself. It was also the duty of the armarian
to have all the books in his charge marked with their
correct titles, and to keep a perfect list of the whole.
Some of these catalogues are still in existence and are
curious and interesting in their exemplification of the
kinds of ink employed and as indicative of the state
of literature in the Middle Ages, besides presenting
the names of many authors whose works have never
reached us. It was also the duty of the armarian,
under the orders of his superior, to provide the transcribers
of manuscripts with the writings which they
were to copy, as well as all the materials necessary
for their labors, to make bargains as to payment, and
to superintend the work during their progress.
These transcribers, Mr. Maitland in his "Dark
Ages" tells us, were monks and their clerks, some of
whom were so skilled that they could perform all the
different branches. They were exhorted by the rules
of their order to learn writing, and to persevere in
the work of copying manuscripts as being one most
acceptable to God; those who could not write were
recommended to bind books. This was in line with
the behest of the famous monk Alciun who lived in
the eighth century and who entreated all to employ
themselves in copying books, saying:
"It is a most meritorious work, more useful to
the health than working in the fields, which profits
only a man's body, while the labour of a copyist
profits his soul."
When black ink was used in liturgical writings, the
title page and heads of chapters were written in
red ink; whence comes the term rubric. Green,
purple, blue and yellow inks were sometimes used
for words, but chiefly for ornamenting capital
letters.
A large room was in most monasteries set apart for
such labors and here the general transcribers pursued
their avocations; in addition, small rooms or cells,
known also as scriptoria, occupied by such monks as
were considered, from their piety and learning, to be
entitled to the indulgence, and used by them for their
private devotions, as well as for the purpose of transcribing
works for the use of the church or library.
The scriptoria were frequently enriched by donations
and bequests from those who knew the value of the
works carried on in them, and large estates were often
devoted to their support.
"Meanwhile along the cloister's painted side,
The monks--each bending low upon his book
With head on hand reclined--their studies plied;
Forbid to parley, or in front to look,
Lengthways their regulated seats they took:
The strutting prior gazed with pompous mien,
And wakeful tongue, prepared with prompt rebuke,
If monk asleep in sheltering hood was seen;
He wary often peeped beneath that russet screen.
"Hard by, against the window's adverse light,
Where desks were wont in length of row to stand,
The gowned artificers inclined to write;
The pen of silver glistened in the hand
Some of their fingers rhyming Latin scanned;
Some textile gold from halls unwinding drew,
And on strained velvet stately portraits planned;
Here arms, there faces shown in embryo view,
At last to glittering life the total figures grew."
--FOSBROOKE.
The public scribes of those days were employed
mostly by secular individuals, although subject to be
called upon at any moment by the fathers of the
church. They worked in their homes except when
any valuable work was to be copied, then in that of
their employer, who boarded and lodged them during
the time of their engagement.
To differentiate the character of the class of pigments
or materials then employed in making colored
inks, from those of the more ancient times is difficult;
because we not only find many of like character but of
larger variety. These were used more for purposes of
illuminating and embellishing than for regular writing.
Even when printing had been invented spaces were
frequently left, both in the block books and in the
earliest movable type, for the illumination by hand,
of initial letters so as to deceive purchasers into the
belief that the printed type which was patterned
closely after the forms of letters employed in MSS.
writings was the real thing. The learned soon discovered
such frauds and thereafter these practices
were abandoned.
CHAPTER X.
RENAISSANCE INK.
INK OF GRAY COLOR BELONGING TO THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
AND ITS CAUSES--INFLUENCE OF THE FATHERS OF
THE CHURCH RESPECTING INK DURING THE DARK
AGES--THE REFORMATION AND HOW IT AFFECTED MEDIAEVAL
MSS.--REMARKS OF BALE ABOUT THEIR DESTRUCTION--
QUAINT INK RECEIPT OF 1602--SELECTION
FROM THE TWELFTH NIGHT RELATING TO PEN AND
INK--GENERAL CONDITIONS WHICH OBTAINED UNTIL
1626--THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT AWARDS AN INK
CONTRACT IN THAT YEAR--OTHER GOVERNMENTS ADOPT
THE FRENCH FORMULA--INKS OF THE SEVENTEENTH
CENTURY ALMOST PERFECT IN THEIR COLOR PHENOMENA--
NO ADDED COLOR EMPLOYED IN THEIR MANUFACTURE.
THE gray color of most of the inks found on documents
written in the sixteenth century is a noteworthy
fact. Whence its cause is a matter for considerable
speculation. The majority of these inks
unquestionably belong to the "gall" class and if prepared
after the formulas utilized in preceding centuries
should indicate like color phenomena. As
these same peculiarities exist on both paper, vellum
and parchment, it cannot be attributed to their use.
Investigations in many instances of the writings indicate
the exercise of a more rapid pen movement
and a consequent employment of inks of greater
fluidity than those of an earlier history. Such fluidity
could only be obtained by a reduction of the quantity
of gummy vehicles together with an increase of ink
acidity. The acids which had theretofore been more
or less introduced into inks, except oxalic acid, could
not effect such results. Consequently, as the monuments
of this gray ink phenomena are to be found
belonging to all the portions of the Christian world,
with a uniformity that is certainly remarkable, it becomes
a fair deduction to assume that the making of
inks bad passed into the hands of regular manufacturers
who adulterated them with "added" color.
We can well believe that the influences which the
fathers of the Church exerted during the thousand
years known as the "Dark Ages," in respect to ink
and kindred subjects, must have been very great.
That they endeavored to perpetuate for the benefit of
succeeding generations in book and other forms, this
kind of information, which they distributed throughout
the world we know to be true. Most of these
sources of ink information, however, gradually disappeared
as constituting a series of sad events in the unhappy
war which followed their preparation.
The Reformation began in Germany in the first
quarter of the sixteenth century, and with it the
eighty years of continual religious warfare which
followed. During this period the priceless MSS. books
of information, historical, literary and otherwise, contained
in the monastic libraries outside of Italy were
burnt.
We are told:
"In England cupidity and intolerance destroyed
recklessly. Thus, after the dissolution of monastic
establishments, persons were appointed to search
out all missals, books of legends, and such 'superstitious
books' and to destroy or sell them for
waste paper; reserving only their bindings, when,
as was frequently the case, they were ornamented
with massive gold and silver, curiously chased, and
often further enriched with precious stones; and so
industriously had these men done their work, destroying
all books in which they considered popish
tendencies to be shown by illumination, the use of
red letters, or of the Cross, or even by the--to them
--mysterious diagrams of mathematical problems--
that when, some years later, Leland was appointed
to examine the monastic libraries, with a view to
the preservation of what was valuable in them, he
found that those who had preceded him had left
little to reward his search."
Bale, himself an advocate for the dissolution of
monasteries, says:
"Never had we bene offended for the losse of
our lybraryes beyng so many in nombre and in so
desolute places for the moste parte, yf the chief
monuments and moste notable workes of our excellent
wryters had bene reserved, yf there had bene
in every shyre of Englande but one solemyne lybrary
for the preservacyon of those noble workes, and
preferrments of good learnyuges in our posteryte it
had bene yet somewhat. But to destroye all without
consyderacyon is and wyll be unto Englande for
ever a most horryble infamy amonge the grave
senyours of other natyons. A grete nombre of
them wych purchased of those superstycyose mansyons
reserved of those lybrarye bokes, some to
serve theyr jaks, some to scoure theyr candelstyckes,
and some to rubb theyr bootes . some they solde to
the grossers and sope sellers, and some they sent
over see to the bokebynders, not in small nombre,
but at tymes whole shippesful. I knowa merchant
man, whyche shall at thys tyme be namelesse, that
boughte the content-, of two noble lybraryes for xl
shyllyngs pryce, a shame it is to be spoken. Thys
stuffe hathe he occupyed in the stide of greve paper
for the space of more than these ten years, and yet
hathe store ynough for as many years to come. A
prodyguous example is thys, and to be abhorred of
all men who love theyr n atyon as they shoulde do."
Passing to later epochs, A. D. 1602, the following
quaint receipt proves interesting as showing that the
"gall" inks were well known at that time:
"To make common Ink, of Wine take a quart,
Two ounces of Gumme, let that be a part;
Five ounces of Galls, of Cop'res take three,
Long standing doth make it the better to be;
If Wine ye do want, raine water is best,
And then as much stuffe as above at the least,
If the Ink be too thick, put Vinegar in,
For water doth make the colour more dimme."
Shakespeare in his Twelfth Night III, 2, has also
referred to them in the following amusing strain:
"Go write it in a martial hand; be curst and brief;
it is no matter how witty, so it be eloquent, and
full of invention; taunt him with the license of
ink; if thou thou'st him thrice, it shall nor be
amiss; and as many lies as will lie on a sheet of
paper, although the sheet were big enough for
the bed of Ware in England, set 'em down; go,
about it. Let there be gall enough in thy ink,
though thou write with a goose pen, no matter:
about it."
The general black ink conditions for a period of at
least three hundred years, if we exclude the sixteenth
century, had been but repetitions of each other.
They so remained until the year 1626, when the
French government concluded an arrangement with a
chemist by the name of Guyot, for the manufacture
of a "gall" ink WITHOUT added color and which thereby
guaranteed and insured more sameness in respect to
desirable ink qualities. That government with a few
modifications relative to the proportions of ingredients
continued its employment, which was followed by the
contemporaneous writers. Other governments later
partially adopted the French formulas while some of
them gave the matter no attention, although their
records and those of the cities or towns not only of
Europe but early America, the United States and
Canada are found in most instances to have been written
with an ink of this character.
Where prior to 1850, inks containing a different
base (with the single exception of indigo) were used,
they have either disappeared or nearly so and it is not
an infrequent occurrence among those who are accustomed
to examine old records to find that signatures
or dates to valuable instruments, pages of writings and
indeed sometimes the writings in an entire book are
more or less obliterated.
The black inks of a large portion of the seventeenth
century, on documents of every kind, are found to be
nearly perfect as to color conditions, which is evidence
of the extreme care used in their preparation and the
exclusion of "added" color in ink manufacture.
CHAPTER XI.
ANCIENT INK TREATISES.
INK TREATISES OF THE FIFTEENTH, SIXTEENTH AND
SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES--JOHN BAPTISTA PORTA
AUTHOR OF THE FIRST--SECRET INKS---NERI, CANEPARIUS,
BOREL, MERRET, KUNCKEL AND OTHER AUTHORS
WHO REFER TO INK MANUFACTURE--PROGRESS OF THE
ART OF HANDWRITING ILLUSTRATED IN THE NAMES OF
OVER A HUNDRED CALLIGRAPHERS CHRONOLOGICALLY
ARRANGED.
THE literature of the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries on the subject of black and colored
ink formulas, secret inks, etc., is both diversified and
of considerable importance. The following authors
and citations are deemed the most noteworthy:
John Baptista Porta, of Naples, born A. D. 1445
and died A. D. 1515, is best known as the inventor
of the "camera obscuro;" was also the author of many
MSS. books compiled; he says,
"As the results of discussions of long years held
at my own house which is known as de Secreti,
and into which none can enter unless he claim to be
an inventor of new discoveries."
Two of these treatises which were extant in the
first half of the seventeenth century, dated respectively
1481 and 1483, dwell at great length on SECRET
inks and specifically mention as translated into the
English of the time "sowre galls in white wine," and
"vitriol;" repeating Italian formulas pertaining to
the "Secreta" of the twelfth century.
About secret ink he tells us:
"There are many and almost infinite ways to
write things of necessity, that the Characters shall
not be seen, unless you dip them into waters, or
put them near the fire, or rub them with dust, or
smeer them over.
* * * * * * * *
"Let Vitriol soak in Boyling water: when it is
dissolved, strain it so long till the water grow clear:
with that liquor write upon paper: when they are
dry they are not seen. Moreover, grinde burnt
straw and Vinegar: and what you will write in the
spaces between the former lines, describe at large.
Then boyl sowre Galls in white Wine, wet a spunge
in the liquor: and when you have need, wipe it
upon the paper gently, and wet the letters so long
until the native black colour disappear, but the
former colour, that was not seen, will be made
apparent. Now I will show in what liquors paper
must be soaked to make letters to be seen. As I
said, Dissolve Vitriol in water: then powder Galls
finely, and soak them in water: let them stay there
twenty-four hours: filtre them through a linen
cloth, or something else, that may make the water
clear, and make letters upon the paper that you
desire to have concealed: send it to your Friend
absent: when you would have them appear, dip
them in the first liquor, and the letters will presently
be seen.
* * * * * * * *
If you write with the juice of Citrons, Oranges,
Onyons, or almost any sharp things, if you make
it hot at the fire, their acrimony is presently discovered:
for they are undigested juices, whereas they
are detected by the heat of the fire, and then they
show forth those colours that they would show if
they were ripe. If you write with a sowre Grape
that would be black, or with Cervices; when you
hold them to the fire they are concocted, and will
give the same colour they would in due time give
upon the tree, when they were ripe. Juice of Cherries,
added to Calamus, will make a green: to sow-
bread a red: so divers juices of Fruits will show
divers colours by the fire. By these means Maids
sending and receiving love-letters, escape from
those that have charge of them. There is also a
kind of Salt called Ammoniac: this powdered and
mingled with water, will write white letters, and
can hardly be distinguished from the paper, but
hold them to the fire, and they will shew black."
With respect to the preparation of black and colored
inks and also colors: Antonio Neri, an Italian author
and chemist who lived in the sixteenth century, in his
treatise seems not only to have laid the foundation
for most of the receipts called attention to by later
writers during the two hundred years which followed,
but to have been the very first to specify a proper
"gall" ink and its formula, as the most worthy of
notice.
Pietro Caneparius, a physician and writer of Venice,
A. D. 1612, in his work De Atrametis, gives a more
extensive view about the preparation and composition
of inks and adopts all that Neri had given, though he
never quotes his name, and adds--"hitherto published
by no one." He does however mention many valuable
particulars which were omitted by Neri. Most
of his receipts are about gold, silver and nondescript
inks, with directions for making a great variety for
secret writing and defacing. This book revised and
enlarged was republished in London, 1660.
In 1653 Peter Borel, who was physician to Louis
XIV, King, of France published his "Bibliotheca
Chemica," which contains a large number of ink receipts,
two of which may be characterized as "iron
and gall" ones. They possess value on account of
the relative proportions indicated between the two
chemicals. The colored ones, including gold, silver
and sympathetic inks are mostly repetitions of those
of Neri and Caneparius. The French writers, though,
speak of his researches in chemistry as "somewhat
credulous."
Christopher Merret, an English physician and naturalist,
born A. D. 1614, translated Neri into our
language in 1654, with many notes of his own about
him; his observations have added nothing of value to
the chemistry of inks.
Johann Kunckel, a noted German chemist and
writer in 1657, republished in the German language
Neri's work with Merret's notes, and his own observations
on both. He also inserted many other processes
as the result of considerable research and seems to
have been thoroughly conversant with the chemistry
of inks, advocating especially the value and employment
of a tanno-gallate of iron ink for record purposes.
Salmon, A. D. 1665, in his Polygraphics, proceeds
to give instructions relative to inks which notwithstanding
their merit are confounded with so many absurdities
as to lessen their value for those who were
unable to separate truth from falsehood; but he
nevertheless dwells on the virtues of the "gall" inks.
Jacques Lemort, a Dutch chemist of some note,
issued a treatise, A. D. 1669, on "Ink Formulas and
Colors," seemingly selected from the books of those
who had preceded him. He expresses the opinion
that the "gall" inks if properly compounded would
give beneficial results.
Formulas for making inks are found tucked away
in some of the very old literature treating of "curious"
things. One of them which appeared in 1669 directs:
"to strain out the best quality of iron employ old and
rusty nails;" another one says, that the ink when
made is to remain in an open vessel "for thirty days
and thirty nights, before putting it in a parchment
bag."
An English compendium of ink formulas, published
in 1693, calls attention to many formulas for black
inks as well as gold, silver, and the colored ones; no
comment, however, is made in respect to any particular
one being better than another as to permanency,
and these conditions would seem to have continued for
nearly a century later, though the art of handwriting
was making giant strides.
It is a remarkable fact that notwithstanding the numerous
devotees to that art which included many of
the gentler sex, reproductions of whose skill in "Indian"
ink are to be found engraved in magnificent
publications, both in book and other forms, there is no
mention in them or in any others included within this
period about the necessity of using any other DURABLE
ink for record or commercial purposes.
As indicative in some degree of the progress of the
art of handwriting and handwriting materials, commencing
A. D. 1525 and ending A. D. 1814, I present
herewith a compilation of the names of over one hundred
of the best known calligraphers and authors of
the world, and not to be found as a whole in any public
or private library. It is arranged in chronological
order.
1525.
The first English essay on the subject of
"Curious Calligraphy" was by a woman who
from all accounts possessed most remarkable
facility in the use of the pen as well as a
knowledge of languages. Her name was Elizabeth
Lucar; as she was born in London in
1510 and died 1537, her work must have
been accomplished when only fifteen years of
age.
1540.
Roger Ascham, best known as the tutor of
Queen Elizabeth.
1570.
Peter Bales, author of many works, "The
Writing Schoolmaster," which he published in
three parts, being the best known. He was
also a microscopic writer. His rooms were at
the sign of "The Hand and Golden Pen,"
London.
1571.
John de Beauchesne, teacher of the Princess
Elizabeth, daughter of King James I. Author
of many copy books.
1588.
John Mellis, "Merchants Accounts," etc.
1600.
Elizabeth Jane Weston, of London and Prague,
wrote many poems in old Latin.
1600.
Hester Inglis, "The Psalms of David."
1601.
John Davies, "The Writing Schoolmaster, or
Anatomy of Fair Writing."
1616.
Richard Gething, "The Hand and Pen;
1645, "Chirographia" and many others.
1618.
Martin Billingsley, "The Writing Schoolmaster,
or the Anatomie of Fair Writing." This
author was writing master to King Charles I.
1622.
David Brown, who was scribe to King James I.
"Calligraphia."
1622.
William Comley, "Copy-Book of all the most
usual English Hands," etc.
1646.
Josiah Ricrafte, "The Peculiar Character of
the Oriental Languages."
1650.
Louis Hughes, "Plain and Easy Directions to
Fair Writing."
1650.
John Johnson, "The Usual Practices of Fair
and Speedy Writing."
1651.
John Clithers, "The Pens Paradise," dedicated
to Prince Charles.
1652.
James Seamer, "A Compendium of All the
Usual Hands Written in England."
1657.
Edward Cocker, penman and engraver, famous
in his time for the number and variety of his
productions. Author of "The Pen's Triumph,"
"The Artist's Glory," "England's Penman,"
and many more.
1659.
James Hodder, "The Penman's Recreation,"
etc.
1660.
John Fisher, "The Pen's Treasury."
1663.
Richard Daniel, "A Compendium of many
hands of Various Countries."
1669.
Peter Story or Stent, "Fair Writing of Several
Hands in Use."
1678.
William Raven, "An Exact Copy of the Court
Hand."
1680.
Peter Ivers, famous for his engrossing and
drawings.
1680.
Thomas Watson, "Copy-Book of Alphabets."
1681.
John Pardie, "An Essay on the German Text
and Old Print Alphabets."
1681.
Thomas Weston, "Ancilla Calligraphiae."
1681.
Peter Gery, "Copy book of all the Hands in
use, Performed according to the Natural Freeness
of the Pen."
1681.
William Elder, "Copy-book of the most useful
and necessary Hands now used in England."
1683.
John Ayers, "Tutor to Penmanship," and
many others.
1684.
Caleb Williams, "Nuncius Oris," written and
engraved by himself.
1693.
Charles Snell, "The Penman's Treasury
Opened;" 1712, "Art of Writing in Theory
and Practice;" 1714, "Standard Rules," etc.
1695.
Richard Alleine, writing master.
1695.
Eleazer Wigin, "The Hand and Pen."
1695.
John Sedden, "The Penman's Paradise."
1696.
John Eade, writing master.
1699.
Joseph Alleine, published several books about
writing and accounts.
1699.
Robert More, "The Writing Masters Assistant."
1725. "The General Penman."
1700.
John Beckham, father of the celebrated George
Beckham, wrote and engraved several pieces
for "The Universal Penman."
1700.
Edward Smith, "The Mysteries of the Pen in
fifteen Hands, Unfolded," etc.
1700.
Henry Legg, "Writing and Arithmetic."
1702.
William Banson, "The Merchants Penman."
1703.
John Dundas, microscopic writer.
1705.
George Shelley, "The Penmans Magazine."
In 1730 he wrote several pages for "Bickman's
Universal Penman."
1708.
John Clark, "The Penmans Diversion."
1709.
James Heacock, writing master.
1709.
George Shelley, "Natural writing in all
hands."
1711.
George Bickham, one of the most famous of
writers of his time, born 1684, died 1758, author
of "The Universal Penman." He published
many works. 1711, "The British Penman;"
1731, "Penmanship in its utmost
Beauty and Extent" and "The Universal Penman"
are the best known.
1709.
John Rayner, "Paul's Scholars Copy-Book."
1711.
Humphrey Johnson, "Youth's Recreation: a
Copy-Book of Writing done by Command of
Hand."
1712.
William Webster, writing and mathematics.
1730, wrote several pages for "The Universal
Penman."
1713.
Thomas Ollyffe, "The Hand and Pen." 1714,
"The Practical Penman."
1717.
William Brooks, "Delightful Recreation for
the Industrious." Contributor to "The Universal
Penman."
1717.
Abraham Nicholas, "Various Examples of Penmanship."
1722, "The Compleat Writing
Master." Wrote also for "The Universal Penman."
1719.
Ralph Snow, "Youths Introduction to Handwriting."
1720.
William Richards, "The Complete Penman."
1723.
John Jarman, "A System of Court Hands."
1724.
Henry Lune, "Round Hand Complete."
1725.
John Shortland, writing master and contributor
to "The Universal Penman."
1725.
Edward Dawson, writing master and contributor
to "The Universal Penman."
1726.
Moses Gratwick, writing master and contributor
to "The Universal Penman."
1727.
John Langton, "The Italien Hand."
1728.
John Day, writing master and contributor to
"The Universal Penman."
1729.
Gabriel Brooks, writing master and contributor
to, "The Universal Penman."
1730.
William Keppax, writing master and contributor
to "The Universal Penman."
1730.
John Bland, "Essay in Writing." Also contributor
to "The Universal Penman."
1730.
Solomon Cook, "The Modish Round Hand."
1730.
William Leckey, "A Discourse on the Use of
the Pen." Contributor to "The Universal Penman."
1730.
Peter Norman, writing master and contributor
to "The Universal Penman."
1730.
Wellington Clark, writing master and contributor
to "The Universal Penman."
1730.
Zachary Chambers, "Vive la Plume." Contributor
to "The Universal Penman."
1733.
Bright Whilton, writing master and contributor
to "The Universal Penman."
1734.
Timothy Treadway, writing master and contributor
to "The Universal Penman."
1738.
George J. Bickham, writing master; also wrote
for "Bickham's Universal Penman."
1739.
Emanuel Austin, writing master; he wrote 22
pages in "The Universal Penman."
1739.
Samuel Vaux, writing master and contributor
to "The Universal Penman."
1740.
Jeremiah Andrews, writing master and tutor
to King George III.
1740.
Nathaniel Dove, "The Progress of Time," and
contributor to "The Universal Penman."
1741.
John Blande, "Essay in Writing; 1730, contributor
to "The Universal Penman."
1741.
Richard Morris, writing master and contributor
to "The Universal Penman."
1747.
Mary Johns, microscopic writer and author.
1749.
Charles Woodham, "A Specimen of Writing,
in the most Useful Hands now Practised in England."
1750.
John Oldfield, "Honesty." He wrote one piece
in "The Universal Penman."
1750.
Joseph Champion, "The Parallel or Comparative
Penmanship." 1762, "The Living Hands."
1751.
Edward Lloyd, "Young Merchants Assistant."
1758.
Richard Clark, "Practical and Ornamental Penmanship."
1760.
Benjamin Webb, writer of copy books, etc.
1762.
William Chinnery, "The Compendious Emblematist."
1763.
William Massey, "The Origin and Progress of
Letters," containing valuable information
about the art.
1769.
John Gardner, "Introduction to the Counting
House."
1780.
Edward Powell, writing master and designer.
1784.
E. Butterworth, "The Universal Penman" in
two parts, published in Edinburgh.
1795.
William Milns, "The Penman's Repository."
1799.
William G. Wheatcroft, "The Modern Penman."
1814.
John Carstairs, "Tachygraphy, or the Flying
Pen." 2. "Writing made easy, etc."
Illustrated works on the subject of penmanship of
contemporaneous times and not of English origin are
but few. The best known are:
1543.
Luduvico Vicentino, "A Copy book" published
in Rome, seems to have been the first.
1570.
Il perfetto Scrittore (The Perfect Writer) by
Francesco Cresci, published in Rome.
1605.
Spieghel der Schrijkfkonste (or Mirror of
Penmanship) written by Van den Velde, published
in Amsterdam.
1612.
"Writing and Ink Recipes," by Peter Caniparius,
Venice and London.
1700.
Der Getreue Schreibemeister (or True Writing
Master), by Johann Friedr Vicum, published
in Dresden.
From 1602 to 1709 many "Indian" ink specimens
were extant and are still of the different schools of
penmanship. The productions of Phrysius, Materot and
Barbedor illustrating the French style, Vignon, Sellery
and others, for the Italian hand, and Overbique and
Smythers for the German text, and Ambrosius Perlengh
and Hugo, with a few more, complete the list.
CHAPTER XII.
STUDY OF INK.
LACK OF INTEREST AS TO THE COMPOSITION OF INK DURING
PART OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY--THE CONDITIONS
WHICH THEN PREVAILED NEARLY THE SAME AS
THE PRESENT TIME--CHEMISTRY OF INK NOT UNDERSTOOD--
THIS LACK OF INFORMATION NOT CONFINED TO
ANY PARTICULAR COUNTRY--LEWIS, IN 1765, BEGINS
A SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION ON THE SUBJECT OF INKS
--THE RESULTS AND HIS CONCLUSIONS PUBLISHED IN
1797--THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ENGLAND IN 1787 RECEIVES
COMPLAINTS ABOUT THE INFERIORITY OF INKS
--ITS SECRETARY READS A PAPER THE SAME YEAR--THE
PAPER CITED IN FULL--DR. BOSTOCK IN 1830 COMMUNICATES
TO THE SOCIETY OF ARTS WHAT HE ESTIMATES
TO BE THE CAUSES OF IMPERFECTIONS IN INK--
ACTION OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES--
COMPLICATIONS SURROUNDING THE MANUFACTURE OF INK
ONLY THIRTY-FIVE YEARS AGO.
THE increasing demands for ink, and the lack of interest
as to its composition during the eighteenth
century, if viewed in the same lights which prevail in
our own times, permitted the general manufacture of
cheap grades of ink which possessed no very lasting
qualities. The chemistry of Inks was not fully understood,
indeed we find Professer Turner of the College
of Edinburgh declaring in 1827:
"Gallic acid was discovered by Scheele in 1786,
and exists ready formed in the bark of many trees,
and in gall-nuts. It is always associated with
tannin, a substance to which it is allied in a manner
hitherto unexplained. It is distinguished from
tannin by causing no precipitate in a solution of
gelatine. With a salt of iron it forms a dark blue
coloured compound, which is the basis of ink. The
finest colour is procured when the peroxide and
protoxide of iron are mixed together. This character
distinguishes gallic acid from every other substance
excepting tannin."
The general lack of information or knowledge respecting
ink chemistry or its time-phenomena was not
confined to any particular country, and it does not
appear that any general or specific attention was
scientifically directed to it until 1765, when William
Lewis, F. R. S., an English chemist, publicly announced
that he proposed to investigate the subject.
His experimentations covered a period of many years
and their results and his theories as to the phenomena
of inks were published in 1797. The most valuable
of his conclusions were that an excess of iron salt in
the ink is detrimental to color permanence (such ink
becoming brown on exposure) and also that acetic
acid in the menstruum provides an ink of greater
body and blackness than sulphuric acid does (a circumstance
due to the smaller resistance of acetic acid
to the formation of iron gallo-tannate). Many of his
other observations were later shown to have been
erroneous. Dr. Lewis was the first to advocate log-
wood as a tinctorial agent in connection with iron and
gall compositions.
Ribaucourt, a French ink maker, in 1798 determined
that an excess of galls is quite as injurious to
the permanence of ink as an excess of iron.
Pending the completion of the researches of Lewis,
the Royal Society of England, affected by complaints
from all quarters relative to the inferiority of inks as
compared with those of earlier times, brought the
subject to the attention of many of its members for
discussion and advice. Its secretary, Charles Blagden,
M. D., read a paper before the society, June 28, 1787,
which was published in the "Philosophical Transactions"
and widely circulated. It is so interesting that
copious extracts are given:
"In a conversation some time ago with my friend
Thomas Astle, Esq., F. R. S. and A. S., relative
to the legibility of ancient MSS. a question arose,
whether the inks in use eight or ten centuries ago,
which are often found to have preserved their colour
remarkably well, were made of different materials
from those employed in later times, of which many
are already become so pale as scarcely to be read.
With a view to the decision of this question, Mr.
Astle obligingly furnished me with several MSS.,
on parchment and vellum, from the ninth to the
fifteenth centuries inclusively, some of which were
still black, and others of different shades of colour,
from a deep yellowish brown to a very pale yellow,
in some parts so faint as to be scarcely visible. On
all of these I made experiments with the chemical
re-agents which appeared to me best adapted to
the purpose, namely, alkalis both simple and phlogisticated,
the mineral acids, and infusions of galls.
"It would be tedious and superfluous to enter into
a detail of the particular experiments, as all of
them, one instance only excepted, agreed in the
general result, to shew that the ink employed
anciently, as far as the above-mentioned MSS.
extended, was of the same nature as the present;
for the letters turned of a reddish or yellow brown
with alkalis, became pale, and were at length
obliterated, with the dilute mineral acids, and the
drop of acid liquor which had extracted a letter,
changed to a deep blue or green on the addition of
a drop of phlogisticated alkali; moreover, the letters
acquired a deeper tinge with the infusion of
galls, in some cases more, in others less. Hence
it is evident, that one of the ingredients was iron,
which there is no reason to doubt was joined with
the vitriolic acid; and the colour of the more perfect
MSS. which in some was deep black, and in others
purplish black, together with the restitution of that
colour, in those which had lost it, by the infusion
of galls, sufficiently proved that another of the ingredients
was a stringent matter, which from history
appears to be that of galls. No trace of a black
pigment of any sort was discovered, the drop of
acid which had completely extracted a letter, appearing
of an uniform pale ferrugineous color, without
an atom of black powder, or other extraneous
matter, floating in it.
"As to the durability of the more ancient inks,
it seemed, from what occurred to me in these experiments,
to depend very much on a better preparation
of the material upon which the writing was
made, namely, the parchment or vellum; the blackest
letters being those which had sunk into it
deepest. Some degree of effervescence was commonly
to be perceived when the acids came into
contact with the surface of these old vellums. I
was led, however, to suspect, that the more modern;
for in general the tinge of colour, produced by the
phlogisticated alkali in the acid laid upon them,
seemed less deep; which, however, might depend
in part upon the length of time they have been
kept: and perhaps more gum was used in them,
or possible they were washed over with some kind
of varnish, though not such as gave gloss.
"One of the specimens sent me by Mr. Astle,
of the fifteenth century, and the letters were those
of an engrossing hand, angular, without any FINE
strokes, broad and very black. On this none of
the above-mentioned re-agents produced any considerable
effect; most of them seemed to make the
letters blacker, probably by cleaning the surface;
and the acids, after having been rubbed strongly on
the letters, did not strike any deeper tinge with the
phlogisticated alkali. Nothing had a sensible effect
toward obliterating these letters but what took off
part of the surface of the vellum, when small rolls,
as of a dirty matter, were to be perceived. It is
therefore unquestionable, that no iron was used in
this ink; and from its resistance to the chemical
solvents, as well as a certain clotted appearance in
the letters when examined closely, and in some
places a slight degree of gloss, I have little doubt
but they were formed with a composition of a black,
sooty or carbonaceous powder and oil, probably
something like our present printer's ink, and am not
without suspicion that they were actually printed
(a subsequent examination of a larger portion of
this supposed MSS. has shown that it is really a part
of a very ancient printed book).
"Wh
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