The Spread of Papermaking in Europe

From Samarkand, papermaking spread to Baghdad in the 8th century AD and into Damascus, Egypt, and Morocco by the 10th century. Many Chinese materials were not available to Middle Eastern papermakers, who instead used flax and other substitute fibers, as well as a human-powered triphammer to prepare the pulp.

It took nearly 500 years for papermaking to reach Europe from Samarkand. Although the export of paper from the Middle East to Byzantium and other parts of Europe began in the 10th and 11th centuries, the craft was apparently not established in Spain and Italy until the 12th century. Early paper was at first disfavored by the Christian world as a manifestation of Moslem culture, and a 1221 decree from Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II declared all official documents written on paper to be invalid. (The interests of wealthy European landowners in sheep and cattle for parchment and vellum may also have exerted some influence.) The rise of the printing press in the mid 1400's, however, soon changed European attitudes toward paper.

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