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XXVIII.—Specimens of Marks used by the early Manufacturers of Paper, as exhibited in Documents in the Public Archives of England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2012

Joseph Hunter
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Extract

The title which has just been read to you will shew that it is not my intention to enter into the inquiry which has been so learnedly conducted by others, into the various substances which have been used for the purposes of writing, and the times when one substance became superseded by another which was found more suitable to the purpose.

Type
Research Article
Information
Archaeologia , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , 1858 , pp. 447 - 454
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1858

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References

page 447 note a It is possible that the following early notice of paper-marks, to which my attention has been drawn by a learned member of this Society, may have escaped the observation of those who have devoted themselves to this inquiry in all its departments; nor is it quite certain that it relates to paper manufactured from linen or cotton material. The author is Bartholus, who wrote in the middle of the 14th century, and the treatise of his in which the passage is to be found was entitled by Bisshe, who published it in 1654 in the supplementary matter to his edition of Upton, “Tractatus de Insigniis et Armis.” It occurs at p. 10, and we learn from it two important facts, (1) that there was a celebrated manufactory of paper, “chartas de papyro,” in the Marches of Ancona; and (2) that the manufacturers were accustomed to use certain marks, to which a value was attached, and that these marks were subjects of conveyance with the places where they were used. The words of the author, writing perhaps about 1360, are these:—“Et hic advertendum, quandoque sunt signa quædam artificii, in quibus principaliter operatur qualitas loci. Exemplum, in Marchia Anchonitana est quoddam nobile castrum, cujus nomen Fabrianum, ubi artificium faciendi chartas de papyro principaliter viget, ibique sunt edificia multa ad hoc, et ex quibusdam artificiis meliores chartæ veniunt, licet etiam ibi faciat multùm bonitas operantis, et ut videamue hic quodlibet folium chartæ habet suum signum, per quod significatur cujus edificii est charta. Dic ergo quod isto casu apud illum remanebit signum, apud quem remanebit ædificium ipsum, in quo fit, ut sive jure proprietatis, sive jure conductionis, sive in mala fide remaneat toto tempore, quo realibus.”

page 448 note a The woodcuts in the following pages represent these marks reduced from these drawings to ½-scale, linear.