SUNDRY ARTICLES. 645 



wards. A document belonging to the same society, directing 

 an inquisition to be held in some dispute about the church 

 of Embleton in Northumberland, of which Robert de Trenge, 

 warden, is appointed arbitrator, is undated indeed, but must 

 have been issued before 1350, for Trenge died in this year of 

 the Plague. 



It must have been about or before the middle of the four- 

 teenth century that the use of paper manufactured in the 

 modern form became general. In the earlier period of this 

 manufacture it was not, I believe, made in England ; at least 

 there is no evidence, as far as I am aware, to that effect h . 



The earliest paper is about nf by 9! inches, and is very 

 tough and strong. It is frequently quoted in the accounts, but 

 the quantity is rarely given. Under the year 1355 two quires 

 (quaterna) of paper are bought in London at $d. ; and in the 

 next year one quaternum at Oxford, at the same rate. In 1361 

 ten quaterni are bought for the clerk of the works at Sheppey 

 Castle, the price in this case being is. the quire. After the 

 commencement of Richard the Second's reign paper was used 

 in accounts as frequently as parchment. 



The price of paper naturally introduces that of books. 

 These, as might be expected, are of very various values. The 

 two books of romance valued among the rest of Senekworth's 

 effects are worth only \\d. each; and in 1306 Merton College 

 buys a school-book for Berford, one of the founder's-kin, at the 



rude, appears to be a hood. The next is still more obscure, but seems to represent a 

 cross-bow ; the date of the document being 1352. A third is a unicorn, bearing the date 

 1354. A fourth paper, of uncertain date, but certainly of Edward the Third's reign, bears 

 the device of a jug or pitcher. A fifth, on a paper bearing the date 1390, is a bow and 

 arrow. These are the only specimens of the fourteenth century which I have found. The 

 common devices of the next century are the open hand, the ox, the cow's head with a 

 cross, and the lamb and flag in a nimbus, and a negro's head. A collection of such tracings 

 as I have been able to make will be found in the Bodleian Library. Of all water-marks, 

 the open hand endured the longest. 



b According to Macpherson, white paper was not made to any great extent in England 

 till the close of the seventeenth century. The same author asserts that the English paper 

 manufacture was vastly improved by the skill of French refugees after the revocation of the 

 Edict of Nantes. But it is hardly credible that it should not have been made before this 

 period. 



