into Europe in the eleventh century[1]. We may therefore consider it as in the highest degree probable, that the mode of making cotton paper was known to the paper-makers of Egypt. At the same time endless quantities of linen cloth, the best of all materials for the manufacture of paper, were to be obtained from the catacombs.
If we put together these circumstances, we cannot but perceive how they conspire to illustrate and justify the statement of Abdollatiph. We perceive the interest which the great Egyptian paper-manufacturers had in the improvement of their article, and the unrivalled facilities which they possessed for this purpose; and thus, we apprehend, the direct testimony of an eye-witness of the highest reputation for veracity and intelligence, supported as it is by collateral probabilities, clears up in a great measure the long-agitated question respecting the origin of paper such as we now commonly use for writing.
The evidence being carried thus far, we may take in connection with it the following passage from Petrus Cluniacensis:—
Sed cojusmodi librum? Si talem quales quotidie in usu legendi habemus, utique
ex pellibus arietum, hircorum, vel vitulorum, sive ex biblis, vel juncis orientalium
paludum, aut ex rasuris veterum pannorum, seu ex qualibet alia forte viliore
materia compactos, et pennis avium vel calamis palustrium locorum, qualibet
tinctura infectis descriptos.—Tractatus adv. Judæos, c. v. in Max. Bibl. vet.
Patrum, tom. xxii. p. 1014.
All the writers upon this subject, except Trombelli, suppose
the Abbot of Clugny to allude in the phrase "ex rasuris veterum
pannorum" to the use of woollen and cotton cloth only,
and not of linen. But, as we are now authorized to carry up
the invention of linen paper higher than before, and as the
mention of it by Abdollatiph justifies the conclusion that it was
manufactured in Egypt some time before his visit to that country
in 1200, we may reasonably conjecture that Petrus Cluniacensis
alluded to the same fact. The treatise above quoted is
supposed to have been written A. D. 1120. The account of
the materials used for making books appears to be full and ac-*
- ↑ Wehrs vom Papier, p. 131, 144, Note. Breitkopf, p. 81.
