656 MATERIALS TO WRITE UPON BEFORE INVENTION OF PRINTING. 



and twenty-three years before our era, that the invention of paper is 

 due. Whether it was in consequence of cordial relations or through 

 Chinese prisoners that paper was introduced in Samarcand is of 

 iittle importance; the fact is certain that it did become known there 

 in 751. Forty-three years later paper was known at Bagdad and at 

 Damascus. Its employment and manufacture spread rapidly in 

 Syria, Arabia, Egypt. 



Doctor Karabacek had the good fortune to recover, among the 

 treasures of El Uschmunein, all the secrets of Egyptian paper 

 makers.* He even discovered bills, or receipts of imposts, dating 

 from 950 to 1036 of our era. This paper is sometimes very thin and 

 often highly glazed. 



In the twelfth century paper mills were established in Fez, Mo- 

 rocco, and in Xativa, Spain, whence they spread to Valencia and 

 other cities. 



In Italy paper mills existed at Fabriano from the thirteenth cen- 

 tury. The collection of Prof. A. Zonghi comprises several thousand 

 samples of pa|)er from that locality, dating from 1267 to 1750. He 

 even had the patience to raise the filigrees from these papers, and his 

 manuscrijDt album contains more than 20,000 designs.'' According to 

 a charter of the bishop of Lodeve, granted in 1189 to Raymond de 

 Popian, a paper mill was to be erected at that date in Herault, but 

 this document could not be found. It is only cited in the chronology 

 of the bisho])s of Lode^'e. Some reservation must therefore be made. 



This is not the case with another document found in the cartulary 

 of the monasteries of Gellone and Aniane, published b}^ Meynial and 

 the Abbe Cassan. It is beyond doubt, according to this record, that 

 paper was known in France in 1346.'' 



Its introduction into Europe seems to coincide with the exodus of 

 the Jews to Spain and the south of France after the Arabs had ex- 

 pelled them lirst from the north of Africa and later from the south of 

 Spain. 



Paper must haAe been introduced into (iermany in the second half 



o Doctor Karabacek. Das arabische Papier. Eine historische-antiquarische 

 niiter.suchiing. Wieii, 1887, gr. 40. 



& Musre retrosi)ectif de la classe 88. Fabrication du papier (Matieres premi- 

 eres, materiel, pi'ocedes et produits) a rExposition uiiiverselle Internationale de 

 inoO, a Paris. Rapport de la Conmiission, d'Installation. Saint-Cloud, s. d., 

 gr. 8", p. lo-17. 



c " L'abbe de Saint-CJuilbem donne a nouveau cens a Paul Gilles, marchand de 

 Montpelliei", originaire de yaint-Uuilbem, le tenement de Kieux Cabrie " quod 

 extenditur a quodam loco vocato los estregs des cols de Cazelas. usque ad pontem 

 vocatum Manafossa * * * jj^ q^^Q quideni tenemento consensiit dominus 

 Abbas quod idem Paulas et sui successores ; )ssint et valeant facere et reflcere 

 niolendinum et molendina, paratorum et paratoria, bladerum et bladeria, papi- 

 renni et papirea, et alia quiecumque." (Cite dans iSIusee rOtrospectif * * *, 

 p. 12.) 



