PAPER. – Writing material of Chinese origin; its manufacture, using rags of linen mixed with small quantities of hemp and cotton, was learned by the Arabs after their conquest of Turkestan (751). The Arabs introduced it into Europe as early as the 9th century, but it was only in the 12th century that its production began in Spain (at Xàtiva, near Valencia); Abbot Peter the Venerable of Cluny (1122–50) mentions it, saying it was made “ex rursus veterum pannorum.” In Italy, the paper mills of Fabriano were already in full development by the 13th century. In the Middle Ages the term “bambagina paper” (bambycina or bombycina) was often used, which until recent times led people to believe in the existence of paper made purely from raw cotton;
“Bambagina” instead seems to derive from Βαμβύκη, the Greek transcription of the name of the Syrian city of Mambij, now Edessa, where there was a famous paper mill (J. Karabacek, *Das arabische Papier, eine historisch-antiquarische Untersuchung*, in *Mittheilungen aus der Sammlung der Papyrus Erzherzog Rainer*, II, Vienna 1887).
In the famous cave of Dunhuang, explored by Paul Pelliot between 1906 and 1907, the oldest known paper manuscripts have been found, dating “to the 2nd century A.D., a few decades after the invention of paper” (cf. G. Messina, *Cristianesimo, buddhismo, manicheismo nell’Asia antica*, Rome 1947, p. 17).
No European codices or documents on paper are known to predate the 12th century. It is known that in Sicily, before 1145, the Norman rulers often used paper, and there exists a letter from the related Adelaide dated 1109, which is the oldest surviving European paper document; from the Genoese notary Giovanni Scriba, a register survives beginning in 1154. But in the 13th century Frederick II marked a reaction against the use of paper: in 1231 he ordered that official acts should be written on parchment and that documents on paper should not be valid as legal proof. By the 14th century the use of paper became increasingly widespread, eventually gaining definitive dominance.
A clear distinction must be made between the medieval period and modern times in relation to manufacturing methods:
paper, originally produced by hand through the spreading of a pulp of macerated rags on a frame of metal wires, is now obtained through mechanical processes from a pulp of cellulose. Handmade paper is used in modern times only for luxury copies; characteristic of paper produced by this process are the deckles or lateral fringes, the laid lines and chain lines—visible ridges caused by the reduced thickness of the pulp in correspondence with the metal wires of the frame. For watermarks V. filigrana.