TWELFTH CENTURY.
57
ceotuiy, preserved in the libranr of Antony Capello, a senator of Florence. It is a judg- ment given at Reate, about guardianship. The parties contending are either Goths, or, as b more likely, Lombards ; the judges are Romans. It is remarkable, that the date was. originally inserted in it ; but has been defaced by a mouse gnawing it, as it lay rolled up ; it is, however, one of the first charters in which the Christian computation has been used.
Tnc Egyptian papyrus was applied to the purpose of writing upon, before the preparation of {larchment, and its application to the same use was known. The common opinion, derived from the authority of Varro and Pliny, that the preparation of parchment from skins, owes its origin to a dispute between Eumenes, King of Pergamus, and one of the Ptolemies, concern- ing their respective libraries, in consequence of which the Egyptian King prohibited the ex- portation of papyrus, and Eumenes inventing parchment, is certainly unfounded. Its manu- lactore and use, are mentioned by Josephus, Diodoros Siculus, and other authors, as having been known long before the age of the Ptolemies : the name g^ven to it by the ancients, however, Charta Pergamena (paper of Pergamus) renders it highly probable that its mode of preparation vas improved, or its manufacture and use, was more general there, than in other places.
It is not known when the papyrus was first manu&ctured into paper, but were were cer- tainly, at a very early period, at least 30() years before the time of Alexander, manufactories of it at Memphis. It was highly useful to the ancient Egyptians on many accounts, besides that of sappljing them witn paper, from the pith, they extracted a sweet nutritive juice; from the harder, and lower parts, they formed cups, staves, and ribs of boats; firom the upper, and more flexible parts ^cre manufactured icloth, sails, ropes, shoe:, wicks for lamps, &c. Pliny says, that the leaves of the papyrus were suBered to dry in the son, and afterwards distributed according to their Afferent qualities fit for different kinds of paper; scarce more than twenty strips could be separated from each stalk : and Bruce, who succeeded in mating it, both in Abyssinia and Egypt, has offered several very curious observations on the natma* history of the papyrus, in the seventh wlmne of his Travels, 8vo edition, page 117, 8tc. In one point, be diS°ers from the account given by Phny, of the mo4c of manufacturing paper mm it
The internal parts of the bark of this plant me made into paper; and the manner of the nanofactnre was as follows : — Strips, or leaves of ever}' length that could be obtained, being hud upon a table, other strips were placed acros.s, and pasted to them by the means of water and a press; so that this paper was a texture of several strips ; and, it even appears that, in the time of the Emperor Claudius, the Romans made paper of three lays.
The paper of the Romans never exceeded thir- teen fingeis-breadth, and this was the finest and
most beautiful, as that of Fannius. In order to be deemed perfect, it was to be thin, compact, white, and smooth ; which is much the name with what we require in our rag paper. It was sleeked with a tooth or shell ; and this kept it from soaking the ink, and made it glisten. The Roman paper received an agglutination as well as ours ; which was prepared with flour of wheat, diluted with boiling water, on which were thrown some drops of vinegar ; or with crumbs of leavened bread, diluted with boiling water, and passed through a bolting cloth. Being afterwards beaten with a hammer, it was sized a second time, put to the press, and extended with the hammer. This ac- count of Pliny is confirmed by Cassiodorus, who, speaking of the leaves of the Papynis used, in his time, says, that they were white as snow, and com- posed of a great number of small pieces Vvithout any junction appearing in them, which seems to suppose necessanly the i;.se of size. The Egvptian papyrus seems even to have been known in tlie time of Homer ; but it was not, according to the testimony of Varro, until about the time of the conquest of Alexandria, that it began to be manu- factured with that perfection, which art always adds to nature.
For a fuller account of the early use of paper, see Massey,upon the Origin of Writing; Robert- son's Hiitory of Charlet V. in the notes to vol. 2, and Reet's Encyclopedia, article paper.
1 154. Another Anglo-Saxon record, which in national importance may almost claim an equa- lity with the Doomsday Book, is the celebrated Saxon Chronicle, or, as it might !« more properly denominated, from the extensive nature of its contents, the Saxon Annals, is an original and authentic record of the most important transac- tions of our Saxon ancestors, from their first arrival in Britain down to the year 1 1 54 ; but the register commences with an introduction, con- taining a memoranda of the great events and periods, from a. d. I. compiled from various sources.
The names of the writers of these Annals can be little more than conjectured: but Professor Ingram appears to imagine that the Kent and Wessex Chronicles, might have been commenced under the direction of the archbishops of Can- terbury, or perhaps beneath the supenntendance of archbishop Plegmund, until his decease in 923; whilst he also seems to conceive it not impo-ssible that King Alfred himself might have written the genealogy of the West-Saxon Kings, and a separate chronicle of Wessex. From their time, he considers, until a few years subsequent to the Norman Invasion, the Saxon Annals were carried on by various hands under the patronage of such characters as archbishops Dunstar, S.linc, he. down to the election of William dj Waltville to be abbot of Peterborough, in a. d. 1154. There are several authentic manuscript copies of the Saxon Chronicle, which are pre- served in the British Museum, the Bodleian, and the Dublin Libraries, and one of great authority, written about the eighth or ninth century, which is kept at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge,
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